Three die,
24 injured in mishaps 
BY GILBERT BAYORAN

Three persons died, and 24 injured in vehicular and traffic accidents in Pulupandan town and Kabankalan City, in Negros Occidental, police said yesterday.

This brought to five the number of fatalities and to 54 those injured in vehicular and traffic accidents, within a week in Negros Occidental.

Pedestrians Anselmo Gayano, 46, and Elezer Gongob, 18, were killed yesterday when they were hit by a wayward passenger mini-bus in Brgy. Tapi, Kabankalan City.

Bacolod City has been rated the number one “most livable city” in the Philippines today, Bacolod Vice Mayor Jude Thaddeus Sayson said yesterday.

Sayson cited the March-April 2008 edition of MoneySense, a magazine for international release that ranked Bacolod Number One among the top 20 most livable cities in the country.

Sayson announced this Saturday during the induction of the new officers of the Negros Press Club at the L’Fisher Hotel in Bacolod City.

Sugar Regulatory Administrator Rafael Coscolluela yesterday said he is hoping that the production of ethanol by sugar producing countries will reduce a surplus of highly-subsidized   cheap sugar in the world market   by 2010.

This will cushion the dire effects of the ASEAN Free Trade Area’s lifting of tariffs on sugar imported into the Philippines two years from now, he said.

There is currently a 38 percent tariff on ASEAN sugar imported into the Philippines, that will be reduced to 28 percent next year and to zero in 2010, he said.