REGIONS BRIEFS: Kalinga solon is Mt. Province caretaker

BAGUIO CITY—Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez has designated Kalinga Rep. Allen Jesse Mangaoang as the legislative caretaker of Mountain Province. Mangaoang replaced Mountain Province Rep. Maximo Dalog Sr., 70, who died from an illness on June 3. This was not the first time that a Kalinga lawmaker became a caretaker of Mt. Province. In April 2009, then Speaker Prospero Nograles appointed Kalinga Rep. Manuel Agyao as the caretaker representative of Mountain Province following the death of Victor Dominguez in 2008. —KIMBERLIE QUITASOL

DOJ affirms dismissal of raps vs school execs

BAYAMBANG, PANGASINAN—The controversy involving Bayambang Central School (BCS) persists with the Department of Justice affirming the dismissal of falsification and perjury charges filed by the former town mayor against the former president of the school’s parents-teachers’ association (PTA). Former Bayambang Mayor Ricardo Camacho accused former BCS PTA president, Filipinas Alcantara, of falsifying the signatures of five people, one of them already dead, in a signature campaign document that the PTA had included in an administrative complaint against him. But in a review resolution released in May, Quezon City Prosecutor Donald Lee dismissed the case, citing “lack of probable cause” since there was no evidence that showed that the “subject document was falsified by another person nor it was adjudged to be such.” The signature campaign was against the transfer of a 3.1-hectare parcel from the old campus of the 100-year-old BCS in Poblacion here to a 2.2-ha property of a businessman in Barangay Bical Norte. —YOLANDA SOTELO

Creation of PH water department pushed

BACOLOR, PAMPANGA—Proposals to create a department of water and a water regulatory commission have been pushed in a forum organized here recently by a government steering committee that is drafting a comprehensive national plan for water security. “Participants are keen about having a water department or something like a water body as well as a stronger, unified and focused regulatory body,” Ernesto Ordoñez, secretary general of the steering committee, said on the sidelines of a gathering that tackled the water needs and issues of households and urban areas. About 160 people attended the forum here, part of consultations on water security that were also held in Davao and Bohol provinces. The steering committee was formed by President Duterte and chaired by Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu. —TONETTE OREJAS