Biazon stirs outcry in Negros

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon might have thought he had dished out a quotable quote – “I can’t eat fuel.” But that only fanned the fires of a debate on his proposal to suspend the implementation of the Biofuels Act.

The senator suggested the temporary suspension of the Biofuels Act and for the government to instead focus on food production.

The return salvo was first fired by Senators Juan Miguel Zubiri and Francis Escudero who pointed out the need to balance food security and energy independence.

But it was Sen. Aquilino Pimentel who echoed the common observation that biofuel production will not compete with food security because the Philippines would use sugarcane and not corn in ethanol production. Coconut, he added, was being used for bio-diesel. And the most focus was on jatropha, which is supposed to be planted on non-arable slopes.

Former vice governor Romeo Gamboa, a trustee of the Confederation of Sugarcane Producers Associations Inc. (CONFED) Panay-Negros chapter, confessed that he could not understand the direction of Sen. Biazon.

He pointed out that the sugar industry is suffering from surplus sugar production, which has prompted the Sugar Regulatory Administration to assign a big amount for export to the world sugar market. This, he pointed out, is very much cheaper than domestic sugar prices.

In short, food sugar is not being sacrificed for ethanol. It is only the excess production that may be earmarked for ethanol production.

Besides, Gamboa pointed out, the San Carlos bioethanol plant is, until now, the only potentially operating plant. It has yet to take off. And it has not depleted the supply of sugarcane.

In the case of jatropha, an official of the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce stressed that they are propagating jatropha on non-arable slopes of non-productive areas.

The same explanation was cited by Federico Locsin III, Confed regional chapter president. “We have been bothered for years by surplus production of sugar. Now, although it is not yet a done deal, we may have an alternative solution to the problem with ethanol. Yet that is already being billed as threatening food security,” he said.

Actually, other than the San Carlos bioethanol plant, the First Farmers Holding Co. recently signed a contract with the Central Negros Electric Cooperative to supply the latter with power for the use of the cooperative in servicing its consumers.

Roberto Montelibano, MBCCI chairman and president of the Ceneco, hailed the contract as pioneering and vowed that the cooperative would be ready to buy additional power from First Farmers.

Rosendo Lopez, First Farmers Association president, said, “We are just using a sugar byproduct to generate electricity.”

“We have an impending food crisis, and double whammy, we have food or fuel independence and yet we find fault with the solutions proposed to counter these problems,” Zubiri pointed out.

Escudero, on the other hand, stressed that biofuel production is good for both the coconut and sugarcane industries.

He pointed out that the government must not backtrack from developing alternative fuels and renewable sources of energy because of the rising cost of oil in the world market.

“I just wonder the reason for Sen. Biazon’s comment,” declared Gamboa, former Negros Occidental vice governor.

No defense for RPA-ABB

Amid claims by the New People’s Army that he is protecting the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB), Capt. Lowen Gil Marquez, chief of the Civil Relations Unit of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, stressed that he is not protecting the RPA-ABB.

Marquez said he could not have done so since the RPA-ABB was behind the death of his father who was tortured to death.

This was Marquez’s rejoinder to the claim of Julian Paisano of the NPA’s Coronacion Waling-waling Chiva Command that both the Janiuay police and the military have been coddling the RPA-ABB, hence they have themselves to blame for the atrocities of the group.

The latest incident was the ambush by a faction of the “splitists” led by Ka Jack or Bernardo Umayao which resulted in the death of a Janiuay policeman and the wounding of two others.

Ka Jack denied participation in the ambush. He is now the subject of a police and military manhunt.

ADDENDUM. I noticed that Kit Cooper, the one who introduced the Bowen technique of therapeutic massage, has been addressing interested groups in Davao and Cebu recently. Not only that, we have also received several inquiries on where she could be contacted in Manila. Just for the record, Kit has her outfit in 1720 C’ Hotel along the waterfront of Manila. The actual address is 2090 Roxas Boulevard, Malate. The place is just beside the Admiral Hotel. I have experienced the soft and tender touch of the therapeutic massage and have been cured to a certain extent by the Bowtech method.