‘Shrimp industry hurting,
needs boost from gov’t’
BY CARLA GOMEZ

The increase in fuel prices and the stronger peso is hurting the Philippine shrimp industry, which urgently  needs government help to boost its export market, Roberto Gatuslao, president of  PhilShrimp Inc., said yesterday.

Gatuslao said the increase in fuel and power prices has caused the industry’s production costs to increase by 15 percent, and its export earnings have dropped with the strengthening of the peso.

The shrimp industry earned an estimated $34 million last year with the export of about 40 percent of its production, but this could be further increased, he said.

MANILA – Nine bodies, all of them shot in the head, were found in a bank in Laguna province yesterday in an apparent armed robbery, police said.

Bank clients alerted police when they found a bloodied body at the door of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. branch in Cabuyao, Laguna.

Police found the  bodies inside the bank, while one was in critical condition at a nearby hospital with a gunshot wound to the head, national police spokesman Nicanor Bartolome said in a statement.

President Gloria Arroyo is expected in Negros Thursday*

Top Army and police officials will be in Bacolod City May 21 and 22 for the Western Visayas peace and security assembly at Planta Centro Bacolod Hotel in Bacolod City, Gov. Isidro Zayco said yesterday.

The assembly is a multi-sectoral undertaking  aimed at strengthening local mechanisms to address peace and security problems through workshops wherein their consolidated outputs will be submitted to President Gloria Arroyo on the second day, he said.

Zayco said the president will be at the Bacolod Assembly in the afternoon of May 22.