The National Mango Research Development Center will conduct a mango survey in the Visayas starting next month, its chief Hernani Golez said.

The survey seeks to determine the quality of mango produce in the region - whether these are free of mango pulp and seed weevil, a requirement for Philippine mangoes to penetrate the United States market.

Golez urged all Visayan mango growers to cooperate in the survey, which will cover five percent of the entire number of mango fruit bearing trees to be identified.

Neg.Occ. piggeries safe
from hog cholera - Lim

Hogs in Negros Occidental are safe from the cholera and swine flu outbreak that hit piggeries in Bulacan this week, Albert R.T. Lim, president of the Negros Occidental Hog Raisers Association, said yesterday.

"There's no danger (that) Negros Occidental will be affected," he said, especially now that the Bureau of Animal Industry has imposed quarantine measures in the affected areas in Luzon. Lim, who is also president of the National Federation of Hog Farmers Inc., said that swines in Bacolod and Negros Occidental are primarily vaccinated against hog cholera, which is described as an "acute, highly infectious viral disease, also called swine fever."

He said that during his meeting with BAI Director Divino Catbagan yesterday, he was informed that the cholera and flu cases were only monitored in backyard piggeries, not in commercial hog farms.

'Bacolod wants to
share call centers jobs'

Bacolod City needs people from other areas to meet the demand for workers in call centers in the city, Mayor Evelio Leonardia said yesterday.

Leonardia, who spoke before members of the Negros Occidental Teachers Federation Inc., said that when Bacolod started in 2004, it was not even in the Information Technology map of the Philippines. Then the city government created an IT Focus Team in 2005, he said, and aggressively campaigned to make Bacolod the IT capital of Western Visayas.

"I'm glad to report to you that our efforts paid off," he told the teachers.

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