Two memorandums of agreement were inked in China yesterday in the presence of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo that will pave the way for the building of two ethanol plants in Negros Occidental estimated to cost $65 million (P3.237 billion) and are expected to create thousands of jobs, Rep. Ignacio Arroyo (Neg. Occ., 5th district) said.

Final contracts are expected to be signed in December 2006 after detailed procedures are discussed, he said.

Arroyo, who had worked for the signing of the MOAs, said the they were signed by Luo Yan, president of China's CAMC Engineering Co. Ltd, and Aurelio Lacson representing the Negros Southern Integrated Biofuels Company, Arroyo told the DAILY STAR.

Dacongcogon worker
dies as mill stays closed
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Dancongcogon Sugar Central in Barangay Tabugon, Kabankalan, has failed to begin milling because of financial troubles, leaving about 300 employees without salaries for more than three months with the amount reaching about P4 million, its officials said yesterday.

In fact, stress has taken its toll on the people at Dacongcogon causing mill worker Harry Jomen to die of a stroke yesterday, said Rolando Parpa, a director of the Dacongcogon Sugar Producers Cooperative Marketing Association, that owns the mill.

Many children have also been unable to go to school because of this problem, he said.

Jella praying to learn
more about parents
BY CARLA GOMEZ

"I am praying that I will know the identity of my real mom very soon and I will see her pictures and, hopefully, that of my father's."

This was the wish yesterday of Jella, a web designer working in California, who is searching for her birth mother in Bacolod City.

She said she was thankful for the information given by DAILY STAR reader Penuel Tanio of Barangay Tangub, Bacolod City, who had known her mother 29 years ago. "I believe Mr. Tanio's story since he gave some details that were quite similar to what my adoptive dad and my relatives told me," she said.