Bohol Maribojoc and Jagna have just institutionalized their municipal emergency medical service (EMS) teams to respond to disaster and accident victim recovery.

On the other hand, Tagbilaran has its Tagbilaran City Emergency Medical and Rescue Operations Team, which does the same function as the EMS.

Llorca raised the issue upon seeing that most towns here have not put up properly trained EMS responders that many motor vehicle accident survivors have died instead for improper handling by untrained rescue personnel.

He also added that the EMS team, which Maribojoc has, is given appropriate training and equipment support.

We may be able to save lives and avert more disaster casualties if we prepare, Llorca stressed. (PIABohol)

An announcement from the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation website said the Bernido couple are being recognized for “their purposeful commitment to both science and nation, ensuring innovative, low-cost, and effective basic education even under Philippine conditions of great scarcity and daunting poverty.”

Other awardees are Tadatoshi Akiba from Hiroshima, Japan who led a campaign for nuclear disarmament; environmentalists Huo Daishan, Pan Yue and Fu Qiping from China; and AHM Noman Khan from Bangladesh.

They will each receive a certificate, a medallion bearing the likeness of the late President, and a cash prize. They will be formally conferred the Magsaysay Award on August 31, 2010 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

The Filipino winners, the Bernido couple, won the Gawad Haydee Yorac last year: “Their partnership to build a stronger nation through science, research and a new method of teaching founded on excellence and values won the judges’ approval over nominations received from different parts of the country.”

Established in 1957 as a tribute to the Philippines’ third president, the Ramon Magsaysay Award is given every year to individuals or organizations in Asia who manifest the same sense of selfless service that ruled the life of the late and beloved Filipino leader. (PIA-Bohol)

Mayor Roberto Salinas however stressed that it is the unrelenting effort to dispense better service to the people that should an, but winning the provincial feat may come as a huge bonus.

Ranked only second to modern public market in Ubay in 2006, Catigbian pulled one ace off its sleeves when it edged the provincial winner in the regional competitions of that same year.

Bagging the region’s 3rd best market after Bayawan City in Negros and Pardo in Cebu, Catigbian now hopes their public market can finally be recognized as Bohol’s best, a huge feat for a public market that was constructed a few years after the war.

The provincial plum is a version of the Pambansang Pamilihan Search conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in Bohol this year.

It is set to motivate public and private run markets to comply with trade rules including price tags, weights and measurements regulations and safety and quality standards, said DTI’s Concordia Erano, in a phone interview recently.

This year, the Bohol search only includes 11 markets, DTI sources said.

Evaluated together with Catigbian in this year’s search for Bohol’s best public markets were Jagna, Guindulman, Ubay, Talibon, Carmen, Inabanga, Tubigon, Loon, Antequera and Tagbilaran City, Erano enumerated.

In Catigbian, market Administrator and assistant municipal treasurer Cresilda Rulida said the town has not ceased innovating its public market since they earned the regional award in 2006.

The administration under Mayor Roberto Salinas has put in the market a better drainage system and revamped the market’s drainage culverts to assure the efficient and unimpeded flow of liquid wastes, further eliminating foul odor, Rulida shared.

The market gathered as much asP1.7M in revenues in 2006 and P1.4 M in 2007, despite the fact that the town livestock income was separately computed in 2007 following its independent operations, municipal records revealed.

In 2007, the town livestock center also netted about P.5M, Information officer Ardissa Estavilla said. (PIA/rachiu)

The empowerment envisioned by local authorities with a benevolent partner roots in health, social, cultural and economic education for sectors here through a wide field of information sharing.

Jagna Mayor Exuperio Lloren, in his inaugural message beamed live over Jagna’s DyJP FM said the new communications facility would become the town’s voice and allows the people a channel to air their concerns.

Operating on a temporary broadcast permit issued by the National Telecommunications Commission, Mayor Lloren said such is because the town still is processing the papers to comply with the broadcast requirements.

Not mincing words to praise Forrest Malakoff and Philos Health for putting up state of the art broadcast equipment, the mayor who also heads the Bohol mayors’ league vocalized his appreciation for the group’s unequalled concern for Filipinos and Jagnaanons.

Philos Health, a benefactor group headed by Malakoff is a San Francisco based health service provider. It first came to Jagna to offer a medical mission in the spirit of social responsibility.

The US based provider graduated from an outsider medical mission group into one that is genuinely with the local government in its health concerns for the people.

Everything else that happened later because Mayor LLoren was always a “yes we can do that“ man, Malakoff admitted in his message.

After its medical missions series, Philos has left a brand new vehicle, set up Jagna’s second rural health unit in Mayana and put up the communications equipment for the community radio, Mayor Lloren said.

The communications facility was initially proposed to bridge the divide between patients who need to continue getting their follow-up treatments at the clinic and health providers incapacity to put up a sustainable health education. This is to hit the prevention side of health care, shared Nimfa Lloren, DyJP FM station manager.

Rural health unit authorities have seen problems as patients seldom continue their treatment due to distance from treatment centers and financial constraints in coming to and from stations, she added.

The Jagna first lady, who also doubles as an active leader and women power motivator admitted they initially thought the community radio would be a real solution for the gap.

In the long process of planning, it was Malakoff who later hinted that other than political purposes, the community radio could be used for the town’s socio, religious and economic concerns, Lloren said.

Taking its share, the local government trained community broadcasters and ensured sustainable community radio operations by institutionalizing the community radio council (CRC), which was presented during the radio launch.

Also presented were broadcasters tasked to deliberate on the air educational topics ranging from the mundane children’s concerns, community policing, education, health, agriculture and still a gamut of issues important to Jagna-anons.

Philippine Information Agency’s Yvette Matabalan stressed in her solidarity message that the town leadership has indeed seen the critical value of information as a tool for empowerment and progress.

Over this, she vowed she would help the town by putting up technical support to assure sustainability of operations. (PIA/rachiu)

AIRING topics ranging from health to economic and social concerns, Jagna Community Radio, Bohol’s first community broadcast initiative by a town went on air Wednesday with Philos Health benefactor Forrest Malakoff detailing how the partnership with his company and the town started. (PIA)