TUGUEGARAO CITY (December 16)—A light airplane crashed off Itbayat island airport’s runway after it swerved while landing on Wednesday morning, Cagayan Valley police said on Thursday.

The plane’s five passengers, including a two-year-old girl and an infant, were safe, according to LtCol. Saturnino Soriano, Cagayan Valley regional police information chief.

On board were two-year-old Agatha Garcia; baby Alison Garcia; nurse Fhaye Garcia, 32; municipal employee Kathleen Garcia, 26; and seaman Rendel Niño, 26. They came from the Basco Airport.

Fhaye accompanied Kathleen, who gave birth to newborn Alison at the Batanes Provincial Hospital in Basco.

Airport probers said the plane with tail number RPC-1801 owned and operated by Fliteline Airways was descending at 8:01 a.m. when pilot Capt. Adrian Jether Aquino and co-pilot Carlo Cariño lost control of its left side brakes.

The plane later veered right and rolled off runway 36 of the Jose Abad Airport, Cpl. John Dale Nobleza of Basco police reported after inspecting the accident site.

The plane’s nose and front wheel were busted when it stopped at the 700-meter mark of the 1,000-meter runway.

BY CHRISTINE BARBOSA-DARBIN, PIA

BASCO, Batanes (August 10)—With the help of the Office of the Civil Defense, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Field Office 2 has started the delivery of family food packs (FFPs) here through the Philippine Air Force (PAF).

This is in response to Governor Marilou Cayco’s request to DSWD Secretary Erwin Tulfo to preposition FFPs in preparation for the upcoming typhoon season.

A total of 2,422 food packs have been delivered from August 4 to 7 and stored at the Provincial Logistics Hub managed by the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office with the help of the Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office and DSWD-Social Welfare and Development in Batanes.

Some 2,578 more are expected to arrive after the DSWD confirmed that 5,000 food packs have been allocated to the province, according to Secretary Tulfo’s order.

Meanwhile, the local government is very grateful to the leadership of the DSWD for ensuring that Batanes will not be neglected especially during calamities.

BATANES (April 8)—This province is taking seriously the removal of illegally placed campaign materials on trees, the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (Penro) here said.

The Penro’s Victoria Baliuag on Thursday said they continuously monitor under “Operation Baklas” the removal of such illegally posted campaign posters and materials, particularly those posted on trees.

Baliuag added that the activity complies with an order of Secretary Jim Sampulna of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to intensify the promotion of an environmentally conscious national campaign leading to the May 9, 2022 elections.

Citing Commission on Elections (Comelec) Resolution 10730 or the “Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act 9006,” Sampulna said it is prohibited to post campaign materials on trees, plants and shrubs located along public roads and in plazas, parks, school premises or any public ground.

“We are conducting the operation with DENR, Comelec, Department of Public Works and Highways, and Philippine National Police,” Baliuag said.

She added that they already collected more than a hundred pieces of campaign materials in the towns of Basco, Mahatao, Ivana and Uyugan.

“We are happy that our partner agencies are supportive of this cause. We agreed to conduct the operation regularly,” Baliuag said. LCD

A TEAM from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Department of Health (DOH) in Batanes province has collected expired food items from stores in Uyugan town’s villages.

According to Mary Jane Abuso of the DTI Negosyo Center Uyugan, the collaboration between the DTI and DOH goes beyond Covid–19 matters.

Abuso said food items that had expired were collected, and store owners were reminded to verify the expiration dates of food items in their inventory to guarantee the safety of their customers and tourists visiting the island town.

She said the monitoring of business enterprises (BEs) by the Uyugan DTI-DOH team is a regular activity that takes place every quarter of the year.

The DTI Negosyo Center Uyugan teamed up with the Rural Health Office to inspect the business BEs in the barangays of Kayvaluganan and Kayuganan for compliance with health procedures.

The crew also reviewed the BEs’ business permits and the basic needs and premier commodities expiration dates.

On February 7, the DTI-DOH team inspected ten retail stores and two food service establishments in Kayvaluganan and Kayuganan while on February 8, the team also visited nine retail stores in Itbud and Imnajbu villages.

Uyugan is located on the island of Batan comprising the villages of Itbud, Imnajbu, Kayvaluganan and Kayuganan with a total land area of 16.28 square kilometers with a population of 1,380 people.

It is the smallest town in the entire Philippines in terms of land area and the second in terms of population.

TUGUEGARAO CITY (August 31)—The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Region 2 now covers 171 barangay (villages) in the provinces of Batanes, Cagayan, Isabela, Quirino and Nueva Vizcaya, providing 13,203 information kits as well as livelihood kits to 385 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Lea Pulido Ocampo, DTI-Region 2 director, said this was done under the DTI’s Livelihood Seeding Program-Negosyo Serbisyo sa Barangay, which aims to help MSMEs cope with the effects of the pandemic by providing livelihood kits worth P5,000 to P8,000 to enable them to restart or continue with their business operations.

Ocampo said livelihood and business starter kits vary according to the needs of the identified beneficiaries, namely sari-sari (variety) stores, woodwork shops, beauty parlors and barbershops.

DTI-Region 2 partners with local government units in implementing the DTI program, Ocampo said, adding that with 171 villages now covered, the department exceeded its target of 167 for the year.

TUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan (August 7)—The Regional Task Force-Corona Virus Disease 2019 (RTF-Covid-19) in Cagayan Valley is contemplating the establishment of a testing laboratory in the island province of Batanes.

Civil Defense regional director Dante Balao, Region 2 Covid-19 Task Force chair, urged health officials in Batanes to submit their application to the Department of Health to enable their acquisition of funds for the establishment of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) testing center.

Balao stressed that Batanes needs the laboratory more than any other province in the region considering its geographical distance to the mainland of Cagayan Valley.

“Accessibility remains to be a challenge in the island province, especially now that commercial flights are irregular yet,” Balao said.

He also said if the two laboratories of Cagayan will shut down, it would be easier to resolve as there are other laboratories in the neighboring regions where specimen may be tested.

“If the number of specimens to be collected in Batanes surges, it would be very difficult and expensive on the government side as we will be sending the specimen samples daily via commercial flights or government air assets,” Balao stressed.

Batanes remains to not have any Covid-19 positive case as of press time but Batanes Ignacio acting Governor Villa said they already have some persons under monitoring and suspected cases.

“We have five suspected cases. We collected specimen samples from them already and we sent it to a laboratory in Manila for confirmation,” Villa said during the Network Briefing program hosted by Secretary Martin Andanar.

Villa also added that they continue to accept locally stranded individuals and returning overseas Filipinos in compliance with the Inter-Agency Task Force order. PIA