Government of Maribojoc: Travel, Business and News

The Philippine Information Agency (PIA) presented on Monday the Presidential Library and Memorabilia Project that aims to provide a comprehensive source of materials on the Philippine Presidency.

The project, which was initiated in 2007 by outgoing Secretary and PIA Director-General Conrado A. Limcaoco Jr., was intended to create a central repository, in digital domain, of multi-media materials and documents on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s major official activities for preservation purposes.

International cataloging standards for archival description and digitalization of documents of various formats were used in the project.

Project Director Belina SB. Capul said that the compilations include photos, audio, videos, publications, print and other special media materials that were produced by the different partner agencies under the government’s information sector.

The project partner offices are the PIA, Office of the Press Secretary (OPS), Radio-Television Malacañang (RTVM), Bureau of Communication Services (BCS), Philippines News Agency (PNA), Bureau of Broadcast Services (BCS), National Broadcasting Network-4 (NBN-4), the National Library and the Presidential Close-in Photographers Office (PCPO).

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today (Wednesday March 11, 2009) signed Republic Act 9522 or the Philippine Archipelagic Baseline Law that will ensure international recognition of the country’s baselines or boundaries.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said RA 9522 reaffirms the Philippines’ claims to its territorial waters, including its extended continental shelf, economic zones, and the contested Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) off Palawan province and the Scarborough shoal in the country’s western seaboard.

Ermita said the Philippine government is asserting its sovereignty over the country’s territorial area and economic zones because that’s the right thing to do.

RA 9522 was enacted in time to meet the deadline of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) for countries and archipelagic states to submit their respective claims to their extended continental shelf, set on May 13 this year.

Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Director Henry Bensurto said the law is a “clinical and technical adjustment” of the existing baseline law as required by the UNCLOS.

The adjustment, Bensurto said, is in compliance with the UNCLOS which lays down the technical requirements by which archipelagos can draw their baselines. “It is imperative for us to make the technical adjustment in compliance with the UNCLOS,” he added.

The DFA official explained that UNCLOS did not exist yet when the old law, RA 3046, which defined the country’s baselines was signed. UNCLOS came about only in 1994.

Under the new law (RA 9522), the disputed KIG and Scarborough Shoal remain part of Philippine territory but under a “regime of islands” category which is defined by Article 121 of the UNCLOS as islands or naturally formed areas of land surrounded by water that remain above water during high tide. – PNA

The city’s 180 barangays today received some P240,000 worth of carpentry tools and other equipment from the Rotary Club (RC) of Iloilo City and its sister clubs from Metro Manila.

RC-Iloilo City president Joe Totenco said the equipment aimed to aid them in the rehabilitation and reconstruction works after Typhoon Frank.

The set of equipment include submersible pump, bolo, hammer, saw, crew bar, nylon rope, grass cutter, rake, lawn mower, wheel borrow, among others.

Totenco said each barangay was given a set of tools depending on their request that was submitted to Barangay Captain Roberto Divinagracia, president of the Association of Barangay Captains at the City Proper district.

Barangays in Lapuz district received P14,540 worth of equipment; Mandurriao, P24,390; Arevalo, P17,080; Lapaz, P33,500; Molo, P31,500; Jaro, P48,320 and City Proper, P70,594.

Totenco said barangay residents can coordinate with their barangay captains if they want to borrow some of the equipment.