BusinessWeek M I N DA N A O CREDIBLE
Volume XI, No. 147
AS OF 6:00 PM MAY 27, 2021 (THURSDAY)
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Briefly Quo vadis, Fr. Jun C O TA B AT O C i t y – Prominent Mindanao peace advocate Fr. Eliseo Mercado, Jr. of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) who recently died of cardiac arrest will be laid to rest on Saturday, his congregation said. His remains now lie in state at the Archbishop Mongeau chapel inside the Notre Dame University here. Wa ke m a s s e s a r e exclusive for the family of Mercado and the Oblates but it is live streamed through the NDU Facebook page at 7 p.m. nightly.
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By FROILAN GALLARDO, MindaNews
C
AGAYAN de Oro City would likely revert to general community quarantine (GCQ) following a spike in COVID-19 cases that has threatened to overwhelm local hospitals.
Mayor Oscar Moreno said he wrote to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases to raise the city’s quarantine status to GCQ. “I have no choice but to ask the IATF to raise the quarantine level following the recent increase of COVID-19 cases here,” Moreno told reporters during the daily press briefing here. He said he expects the IATF to grant his GCQ/PAGE 9
SUNRISE. Sunrise in Buenavista, Agusan del Norte.
mindanews photo by h . marcos c . mordeno
DOE to issue RE capacity auction rules next month
Hydro plant IN line with its investment shift to renewable energy, Alcantara-led Alsons Consolidated Resources I n c . ( A C R) s a i d t h e commercial operation of its first 14.5-megawatt Siguil hydropower project is on track. During the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting on May 20, ACR Executive Vice President Tirso G. Santillan noted that “work is ongoing…and Siguil hydro is on-track to commence commercial operations in early 2022 to provide a source of renewable, reliable and affordable power to key areas of Mindanao.” The run-of-river Siguil hydropower plant in Sarangani is the company’s first foray in that technology development space. The c apit al out lay for t he project had been pegged at P4.5 billion.
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Oca wants GCQ after rise in Covid-19 cases Fri-Sat|May 28-29, 2021
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Philippine Press Institute Civic Journalism Community Press awardee for the following: 2013 Best in Business and Economic Reporting 2014 Best in Environmental Reporting 2017 Best in Business and Economic Reporting 2018 Best in Business and Economic Reporting
By MYRNA M. VELASCO, Contributor
FEWER CATCH. Tamban (sardines) abound in Buenavista, Agusan del Norte. Fisherfolk, however, say their catch has declined in recent years forcing some of them to fish in the waters of neighboring towns. photo by h . marcos c . mordeno / mindanews
THE rules for the targeted g reen energ y auct ion program (GEAP) will be laid down next month, according to the Department of Energy (DOE), but the actual bidding for renewable energy (RE) capacity installations will likely be undertaken second half of the year yet.
Energy Assistant Secretary Redentor E. Delola said the rules on the RE auction is still up for approval by Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi – primarily on the definitive schedule for the bidding and the volume to be offered in the auction process. AUCTION/PAGE 9
Smoking risks due to combustion – expert To address the confusion over the difference between smoking and nicotine consumption, a London professor and smoking cessation expert said combustion or the process of burning tobacco, not nicotine, is what causes smokingrelated diseases and death. “Practically all risks to health from smoking are due to combustion products that are released from burning tobacco,” Peter Hajek,
professor of clinical psychology and director of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine’s Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at Queen Mary University of London. Studies have found that tar and carcinogens found in tobacco smoke cause the death and disease associated with smoking, and not nicotine. “Outside pregnancy and some rare vascular diseases, using nicotine
on its own does not pose much risks to physical health. If smokers switch from smoking to using nicotine on its own, they avoid practically all risks of smoking,” he said. Hajek said by eliminating combustion from nicotine consumption, such as using products like e-cigarette, health risks will be significantly reduced. E-cigarettes or vapes, heated tobacco products and snus are among the non-combustible
alternatives to smoking. There is a mounting scientific evidence from around the world confirming that smoke-free nicotine products are significantly less harmful than traditional cigarettes. Public Health England, an operationally autonomous executive agency of the UK Department of Health, said that e-cigarettes are at least 95-percent less harmful to humans than RISKS/PAGE 9
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