Two dioceses join Bacolod’s Day of Mourning

All is set for the Day of Mourning and Protest on June 12 in Bacolod City. But Fr. Mao Buenafe, head of the Social Action Center, stressed that the protest on Independence Day will not call for the ouster of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Nor is it part of the destabilization plot against the government, he added.

Instead, Buenafe stressed, it will only serve as a "wake-up call for the President and other government officials to use their political will to appease the mounting economic problems of the country."

The San Carlos Diocese has sent word that it will participate in the Day of Mourning. The Kabankalan Diocese is also poised to join today’s march from the four corners of Bacolod City that will converge at the Bacolod Plaza.

Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra will lead the concelebrated Mass after the march.

Navarra has called on all churches in the Bacolod Diocese to heed the call of three bishops of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines to take part in the Day of Mourning.

The three prelates are Bishops Antonio Tobias, Julio Labayen and Yniguez of the Makabansang Ekonomiya. They are calling for an economic change to address the pressing problems besetting the country.

But Buenafe’s statement was also pregnant with meaning. He said the Philippines has to "listen and act on it (the protest) because if not, the Church worries that the people would not be controlled anymore."

Some 40,000 to 50,000 Negrenses are expected to join the silent protest.

Church leaders also appealed to parishioners to wear black ribbons as a sign of mourning over the sad state of our country today "when our government cannot address and solve especially poverty, (the) increasing prices of basic commodities, high criminality rates and corruption."

PNP Bacolod chief Vicente Ponteras directed the police force to maintain a low profile and to exert maximum restraint. The protest, because it is Church-led, is not expected to stir trouble.

For the moment, the Arroyo administration need not lose sleep over the Sunday protest action. But it must be able to do something fast to defuse the build-up of public disenchantment.

Puzzling twists

Even in the provinces, people no longer close their eyes to the developments in the jueteng payola scandal currently being investigated by the Senate.

And, like the rest, I found myself jarred when Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye came up Tuesday with two tapes — the original and the spliced — of the alleged conversation between President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and unidentified parties.

What struck me was Bunye’s admission that one of the tapes was original and the other, the dubious duplicate.

And naturally, there was the resulting confusion. Bunye reported that the original had been sent to the National Bureau of Investigation together with the suspected duplicate for verification.

Worse was the admission of Bunye that the female voice on the tape was that of President Arroyo.

That admission placed the Press Secretary in the vortex of a legal debate. Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales tried to defend Bunye during his interview with ANC’s Ces Drilon by pointing out that the Press Secretary could not be charged with a violation of the wiretapping law "if both parties to the conversation had agreed to have him release it."

Now, that put Bunye on the defensive. By saying that the voice of the President was on the tape, he must now secure the agreement of the second or third parties to the taped conversation. The situation became roiled when Gonzales added that Bunye was not "an expert witness" so that his identification of the voice as that of the President cannot stand in court.

Rep. Francis Escudero, the opposition spokesman and the House minority floor leader, was poker-faced as he tossed some rather startling rejoinders such as the need to focus on the contents of the conversation to determine whether there were violations of the Election Code or not.

Former Defense Secretary Fortunato Abat added fuel to the fire by reviving his call for a revolution and the need to ease out the Arroyo administration.

His statement — "I am taking over, I would like to provide the leadership" — appeared like there was already a growing momentum for a change in the national leadership.

Of course, all these did not contribute to solving the problems of the country nor relieve the public unease over the developing situation.

Then came the blockbuster. The National Bureau of Investigation’s technical analysis of the voices in the two compact discs threw doubts on one of the voices as that of the President. In short, Bunye erred in identifying it as that of Mrs. Arroyo. But Bunye sounded definite when he made the announcement.

Gonzales may not be a voice expert that he would want us to believe, but anybody who had listened to that tape formed the impression that it was really the President who was talking.

But then nobody seems to have been paying attention when Atty. Alan Paguia, former President Joseph Estrada’s defense counsel, told the ANC viewers that there is a "third tape" in his possession.

So, there you are. The country is getting confused with all these revelations and counter-revelations. And it seems that the situation is getting murkier each day. Worse, it does not help the credibility of the administration which seems to have too many voices pitching into the fray without proper coordination and a single strategy of clearing the confusion.

The public impression: the administration seems to be on the verge of panic. The PNP chief added further to the state of unease with his statement about an impending coup. Of course, he gave assurances that the police and the AFP are still behind the President. But he just confirmed talk about destabilization. It’s strange that the government has not taken steps to arrest those responsible for the alleged coup plot — if there is really one.

Breakthrough in distillery slop

But let us put aside all this swirling talk about what may happen to the country and the continuing brickbats in the Senate and media. There are also other concerns that should catch our interest.

Last week, I tossed to Gerardo Tan Tee, VP for operations of the Center for Alcohol Research and Development Foundation (CARD), a poser that former administrator Arsenio Yulo presented during a conference of the board of trustees of the Confed Negros-Panay Chapter.

This was the question on how to dispose of the waste materials, or slops, of an alcohol distillery. In short, Yulo, former head of the Sugar Regulatory Administration, said the disposal of distillery slops could pose a major headache to the San Carlos Bioethanol Corp. and other ethanol plants later.

Thus, when I met Tee and sugar consultant Frank Eala, this was a question that I presented to them. I, myself, have not found answers to that issue. I just wanted to find out what are the latest advances in controlling slops.

Tee later told me about the distilleries of Absolut Chemicals in Batangas and the Consolidated Distillers of the Far East (CONDIS) which the DENR ordered closed for polluting the Bag-bag and Palico Rivers in Liam and Nasugbu, Batangas.

Instead of pushing through with the closure, then DENR Secretary Antonio Cerilles met with the distillers, the stakeholders and the researchers from the National Institute of Molecular Biology of the University of the Philippines Los Baños.

The team presented the idea that the distillery effluent can be converted into fertilizer as had been shown by previous studies.

A project was started in 1998 for the "Utilization of Distillery Effluent as Fertilizer for Sugarcane and Environmental Monitoring of its Large-Scale Use."

It is a fact that for every liter of alcohol produced, 10 to 15 liters of slops are generated. These are highly organic, and free of heavy metals and other toxins.

But because of its high biological oxygen demand (BOD), the effluent can cause considerably depletion of oxygen in bodies of water.

Anyway, the slops were later placed in anaerobic disgesters devoid of oxygen that reduced the organic content and also produced methane gas that was used as an alternative fuel by the distillery.

The treated distillery slops, now biodigested effluent, are diverted to a lagoon or lagoons.

Now, these are being used in 700 hectares of sugarcane plantations in Batangas and Pampanga. The Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority found out that these slops enabled sugarcane plants to produce wider and greener leaves and sturdier stalks.

Some of the tests showed that it can substitute for chemical fertilizers and increase sugarcane yield by as much as 65 to 70 percent.

In short, Tee gleefully told me: "All the slops along the Guimaras Strait are pure waste of organic fertilizer." He was referring to the Distileria de Bago’s lengthy slick seen from the air by any airline passenger landing in Bacolod.

So far, according to Tee, the Batangas and Pampanga sugarcane farmers are enjoying the benefits of the distillery slops under the project. So, perhaps, ethanol could bring with it additional sources of organic fertilizer as well as address the problem of how to control the effluents that used to be considered as noxious wastes.

The Center for Alcohol Research and Development Foundation can very well help solve the problem of Negrense farmers if it can share its expertise in converting slops into fertilizer considering the escalating cost of chemical fertilizers.