News Briefs: Dec. 16, 2018

CebuPac starts daily flights to new airport

Cebu Pacific Air, the country’s biggest budget airline, announced the start of daily flights between Clark International Airport in Pampanga and the recently opened Bohol-Panglao International Airport.

Cebu Pacific said the new route was part of its expansion plans for its Clark hub to cater to the “catchment areas in Northern and Central Luzon.”

Cebu Pacific started commercial flights out of the Clark airport in 2006 and it has served as its North and Central Luzon hub for the past 10 years.

The carrier has increased the frequency of its flights out of its Clark hub by 75 percent this year.

Cebu Pacific has also been operating in Bohol since 2004 from the then Tagbilaran Airport. —Miguel R. Camus

DA eyes egg market in Singapore

The Philippines could bite into the egg market in Singapore after Singapore’s main egg supplier, Malaysia, announced that it would scale down its egg exports.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said on his Facebook page that his department was looking to set up a meeting with Singapore Ambassador to the Philippines Kok Li Peng before the end of the year to discuss the matter.

“This is a window of opportunity for our egg producers, who have been complaining of low egg prices and oversupply,” he said.

Malaysia supplies almost two-thirds of Singapore’s egg requirements.

Other countries that supplied eggs to Singapore were Thailand, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. —Karl R. Ocampo

Cebu City police seize P5-M ‘shabu’

The Cebu City police on Thursday seized some P5 million worth of “shabu,” or crystal meth, from a dance instructor and another suspect in a buy-bust in the village of Sambag 2, Cebu City.

Chief Insp. Randy Caballes, head of the Mambaling police precinct, said policemen set up the buy-bust after confirming that Dennis Narvasa, alias Badin, 40, and dance instructor, was one of the dealers of shabu in the city.

An alleged accomplice, Wynnel Estriba, 34, was also arrested.

Narvasa told reporters he was forced to engage in the drug trade to fund his daughter’s medical treatment.

He did not specify his daughter’s illness. —Benjie Talisic

Cotabato police nab 3 in drug buy-bust

Police in Cotabato City arrested three people, two of them women, for alleged drug pushing in the village of Rosary Heights 3 on Friday.

Chief Supt. Eliseo Tam Rasco, regional police director, said Alma Akmad and couple Vilma and Basir Tantong were arrested in a buy-bust.

Senior Supt. Rolly Octavio, Cotabato City police director, said the suspects were high-value targets.

Recovered from the three were five sachets of shabu, or crystal meth, worth about P1 million and P1,000 in marked money. —Edwin Fernandez

Sandiganbayan convicts Vizcaya mayor of graft

The Sandiganbayan has found a town mayor in Nueva Vizcaya province guilty of graft and malversation for the purchase of a P1.35-million secondhand Nissan Patrol for his personal use, without public bidding.

In an 18-page decision, the antigraft court’s Fifth Division meted Mayor Jerry Pasigian of Alfonso Castañeda town a maximum of 15 years in prison and ordered him to pay a fine of at least P453,000.

Pasigian was also perpetually barred from public office. —Melvin Gascon