Rain cannot be the only plan
CLOUD seeding may bring rain. It cannot manufacture water security.
This should frame Iloilo’s response as northern towns approach dry-spell conditions after nearly three months...
When 55% do not survive
ILOILO Province has planted nearly eight million trees in six years, as reported by this paper yesterday. That is an impressive number. But another...
A house is better than an evacuation center
EVERY time floodwaters rise, government follows a familiar script: evacuate families, open evacuation centers, distribute food packs, wait for the water to recede, send...
Stop the garbage before it reaches the sea
THERE IS something unsettling about celebrating the removal of nearly four metric tons of garbage from a coastline.
The coastal cleanup in Oton, Iloilo over...
Power security is economic security
ILOILO city and province cannot aspire to become major investment and business centers while wondering from one day to the next whether there will...
Prepare for El Niño before wells run dry
THE WARNING could hardly be clearer: a “very strong” El Niño may be approaching, and waiting until faucets run dry, farms wither and reservoirs...
Zero co-pay: Make it real, make it widespread
FIVE PRIVATE hospitals in Western Visayas have committed 64 ward beds to PhilHealth’s no co-payment program, allowing qualified members to receive covered essential healthcare...
Powering growth cannot wait
WESTERN Visayas cannot build a 21st-century economy on an electricity system that keeps blinking on and off.
That is the unpleasant truth behind the Regional...
Power shortages are failures of planning
THE VISAYAS has been given an uncomfortable timetable: endure.
Energy Secretary Sharon Garin says recurring yellow and red alerts may begin easing next month, but...
A hiring boom is not enough
ILOILO may be Western Visayas’ employment powerhouse, but before celebrating the thousands of vacancies being advertised, government should look beyond the headline numbers.
What kind...