NEWS BRIEFS
Court excludes 21 from Sambag 1 SK voters list
A court ruled for the delisting of 21 minors from the list of registered voters for the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) in barangay Sambag 1, Cebu City.
Acting on a complaint filed by Lea May Caballero, 15, Judge Monolila Tecson of the Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC) branch 1 ordered the delisting of 18 minors as SK voters for being below 15 years old and three because they are not residents of barangay Sambag 1.
Fifteen year old Lea May Caballero was surprised to see some of her 14-year-old and younger friends in the list of registered Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) voters of barangay Sambag 1, Cebu City.
Marchel Sarno, election officer of Cebu City’s north district, said they’re waiting for the finality of the court order that mandated them to exclude at least 21 voters.
“We will wait for the decision to be final. If we will receive the finality of the ruling, then we will delete them from the voters list,” Sarno told CDN over the phone.
Since the ruling was made by the MTCC, the Regional Trial Court will still review the decision.
“Any decision of the RTC, in these exclusion cases, will be deemed final and executory,” Sarno added./Jose Santino Bunachita and Ador Vincent Mayol
Oil recovery starts, death toll now 116
ANOTHER body was retrieved by the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) from the ill-fated MV St. Thomas Aquinas yesterday bringing the total number casualties to 116 with 21 still missing.
The body of the male adult surfaced in the water as siphoning of the fuel from the ill-fated vessel started yesterday.
PCG Cebu Station chief Commander Weniel Azcuna said diving operations were suspended yesterday to pave way for the siphoning operations.
“Siphoning has already started (yesterday). But we haven’t officially terminated retrieval operations. We just suspended it to give way to the siphoning of the oil,” Azcuna said.
Meanwhile, Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes and the management of 2GO finally got the blessing of the Cebu City government to bury 47 unidentified victims in the Carreta Public Cemetery. The cadavers will be labeled so that they can be released to their respective families once the DNA cross-matching on the unidentified victims and relatives are complete./Correspondent Jose Santino Bunachita
Toledo, Aloguinsan, Pinamungajan in the dark
TOLEDO City, Aloguinsan and Pinamungajan in southwestern Cebu suffered power outages after an aging power transformer of the Cebu Electric Cooperative’s (Cebeco III) conked out Thursday dawn.
Cebeco III General Manager Virgilio Fortich Jr. said the 10 mega-volt ampere (MVA) transformer in their substation in Toledo City exploded resulting in the power outage.
Businesses and government offices are almost paralyzed and residents are complaining because aside from the power outage, water supply to homes was also cut off as water pumping stations rely on Cebeco III. Landline telephones are also dead.
PO3 Eugene Macapas of Aloguinsan Police Station said they had to go to another town to update the Cebu Provincial Police Station of cases they are handling.
Toledo City Mayor John Henry “Sonny” Osmeña said power in some areas had been restored yesterday afternoon.
In January 2011, Cebeco III applied with the Energy Regulatory Commission for additional capital expenditure to upgrade their transformer to 20 MVA to cope with increasing power load in Toledo City, Pinamungajan, Aloguinsan and Balamban towns.
But the ERC only approved the application last July.
Had there been no delays in the ERC approval, the power outage could have been prevented. Power may be restored in parts of Aloguinsan and Pinamungajan today.
“We foresaw that the old transformer could conk out anytime, and it did even before we weredone installing the new and bigger equipment,” Fortich said.
He said that Cebeco III may have to implement rotating power outages until October, when the installation of new transformers has been accomplished. /Correspondent Christine Emily L. Pantaleon
