midterm article

Troops seize land mines found in truck in Compostela Valley

Philippine Daily Inquirer

TAGUM CITY—Soldiers and policemen manning a checkpoint in Pantukan, Compostela Valley, intercepted a dump truck loaded with 12 land mines late Wednesday, military and police officials said Thursday.

The driver of the white Fuso dump truck (RLG-737) identified as Oliver Bulosan, 35, was immediately detained and was being questioned at the Pantukan municipal police station, said Major Jacob Obligado, 10th civil military operations commander.

Senior Inspector Gretchin Cinco, spokesperson of the Southern Mindanao police command based in Davao City, said by text message that members of the Pantukan police and soldiers from the 71st IB were at a checkpoint in Barangay (village) Kingking when they intercepted the dump truck, registered under a Bonito Pido of Camarin, Caloocan City, past 10 p.m. on Wednesday.

She said the driver was fidgety when asked what the dump truck’s cargo was.

“So the policemen and the soldiers started inspecting the vehicle. It turned out he had an illegal cargo,” said Captain Janaloden Sanggacala, 71st IB spokesperson.

Sanggacala said the vehicle came from Davao Oriental.

Cinco said bomb disposal experts from the Compostela Valley police disabled the land mines. Frinston Lim with a report from Orlando Dinoy, Inquirer Mindanao

Reflection

One of the best things to ensure economic growth is to secure its resources such as the 7 M’s namely manpower, materials, market, money, and so forth. In lieu with this, we all know that Philippine economic progress relies on those investors who want to established business in our various localities. In the case pertaining of bombing mineral resources, it affects both aspects of Philippine economic growth. How? The mechanism is simple. Normally, some mining sites are properties of government, so safe to say that its product should be given to them to serves as additional finances to support government’s project. This certain project could be related to beautification process of a certain tourist spot that enhances tourism in our country. With these tourists, we can possibly attract foreign investors and propose them to invest a sort of business that can allow Filipino to work for them. So it basically means that with an increasing number of working establishments, unemployment can probably resolve. Bear in mind that a productive citizen can really makes our country progressive. To ascertain that we convinced those investors, we should secure them. How? We can simply provide it by ensuring proper safety for everyone. As I’ve noticed, a safe community makes them stay here in Philippines.

Focusing on the case, it merely depicted that our main source of budget has been stole by some “troops” for personal gains only. This problem is comparable to stealing the people’s funds which makes it hard for government to disseminate money to various projects. It is clear that graft and corruption still occur. Moreover, since there are presence of “troops” that can possible “hijack” the investor’s source of income, there are possibilities that entrepreneurs risk their safety. With this, their trust over our government capability to handle a security problem may loss. As end result, there are only few investors who will dare to invest here in Philippines, hence economic growth will surely become stagnant.

To resolve this problem, it is better if we remove malice regarding stealing in people’s fund from our mind and think of the continuous poverty that other poor Filipino family experiencing. Moreover, a strong collaboration from law enforcers and right authorities regarding implementing safety precaution before, during and after mining is crucial to ensure everyone’s security.

Article Topic: Pinoy Pandesal Price to Drop by Php 1.00 Next Week

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Baking Industry Group, Inc. on Tuesday said it would reduce the price of Pinoy Pandesal by P1 on April 10 as bakeries turn to the cheaper Indonesian flour to make the breakfast staple.

“The 4-percent price reduction of Pinoy Pandesal is made possible with the use of imported Indonesian flour currently priced at P840/bag, which is 8 percent lower than the prevailing price of locally-milled flour at P910/bag,” Simplicio Umali Jr., Philbaking president, said.

The current price of a 10-piece pack Pinoy Pandesal is P25. 

Umali said that Indonesian flour millers used US wheat in their production of their premium hard bread flour. Bakeries now mostly use Indonesian Flour to make pandesal.

Pinoy Tasty, on the other hand, is made using locally-milled premium hard flour, which has only gone down by P10.00/25kg bag this year.

This P10-reduction in local flour, however, is not enough to bring down the cost of Pinoy Tasty since the prices of other raw ingredients like refined sugar increased.

Based on the US Wheat weekly price report, wheat is now being sold for $364/metric ton (MT), 28 percent less than the March 2011 price of $504/MT. 

World wheat production is also up by 6 percent from 652 million MT (MMT) last year to 694/MMT. 

Given the positive global wheat scenario, bakers anticipate that local flour prices will decrease in the coming months.

“Should the local flour millers be able to reduce their flour by P40.00/bag, then we can expect some downward adjustment to the retail price of Pinoy Tasty,” Walter Co, PhilBaking director, said.

Bakers assured Filipino consumers that should local flour prices go down, Pinoy Tasty and Pinoy Pandesal prices will be adjusted accordingly.


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        Aside from fuel industry, food and beverage manufacturer is also experiencing global crisis especially those which are located here in Philippines. In fact, if we are going to analyze the current situation specifically in baking industry, there is a current problem in continuous increasing prices of raw materials needed to create pan – de – sal. What are these raw ingredients? These are oils, flour, sugar and so forth. Like what other say, we should appreciate first our country’s own product. This is the reason why lots of local bakeries depend on the raw materials that can be supplied on various local products. However, due to scarcity, a problem occurs when it comes to pricing. There is a small supply for a large population’s demand. To compensate, raw products has been forcedly increased their prices and this became a source of problem. Moreover, tariff was now implemented for large company who wanted to import their product at other countries. There reason of implementing this is to give way for small business to have an access in trading system. The problem is, because of tariffs, international business were no longer able to supply enough demand due to the payment of products. With this, a consistent depression in economic status has visibly observed. 
The news stated that our country has capability to reduced Pandesal price up to Php 1.00. This can somehow beneficial to those people 
 who really love to eat bread during breakfast. But analyzing the situation, even though they decrease the price, it cannot be afford by people who has low socioeconomic status. Imagine this, my family is hungry, why should I buy a 10 pesos worth of pan – de – sal which contains only 5 or 10 pieces? Will it satisfy my family? Obviously, even though the price of bread decreases, as an average citizen, I will choose to purchase noodles which is also made of flour, yet can satisfied the hungriness of my whole family. 
For baking industry, since there are lots of potential substitutes to bread that may be adopted by average citizens, it is better if we became wiser in budgeting expenses so they can purchase more affordable raw materials, yet with quality. Sometimes, we must not expect our business to gain high profits, rather, it is better to open our hearts and understand to those who are in needs. Remember that healthy individuals can become country’s manpower and manpower itself is a key to economic success.