Guv bats for status quo
in UNA line up for 2013
Alvarez noncommittal, meets with Danding
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. yesterday said a status quo in the United Negros Alliance line up for the 2013 election is likely, but Vice Governor Genaro Alvarez Jr. was noncommittal, saying he would just wait for the decision of the top leadership of UNA next month.

Marañon and Alvarez held a closed-door meeting at the governor’s office at the Capitol in Bacolod City yesterday morning, a day after the vice governor met with former Ambassador Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco, UNA founder in Manila.

Alvarez, who admitted that he had lunch with Cojuangco on Wednesday, however, would not say who the ambassador’s preference was for governor.

A concerted government and private sector effort is needed to put a stop to child labor in Western Visayas, which has the third highest number in the Philippines, a Department of Interior and Local Government official said yesterday.

“The existence of child labor in the sugarcane industry is still a very big challenge in Western Visayas,” Margie Biligan, DILG assistant regional director for Region 6, said at the opening of the two-day "Children of the Canes III” national conference for the protection and development of children in the sugar industry at L'Fisher Hotel in Bacolod City.

Biligan said the 2011 Survey on Children conducted by the National Statistics Office shows that about 18.9 percent out of more than 29 million Filipino children aged 5 to 17 are already working.

The Department of Labor and Employment facilitated the return this week of four child laborers found working at excavation sites at the highway in Barangay Calumangan, Bago City, to Leyte, DOLE regional director Ponciano Ligutom, said yesterday.

Ligutom said the minors, whose ages range from 16 to 17 years old, were working for R.S. Developer Co. Inc., a job contractor of SMART Communications Inc.

He said the rescue of the children was made after he received a report from people in the area last week on the presence of children working at the project site where excavation is underway for the ground setting of fiber optic cables of SMART.