Joel Fagsao, who blogs at Mountain Life and who maintains the mountainprovince.net website has a sad letter about a truck driver who died when boulders fell on his truck while driving on the Halsema Road. Some excerpts from Joel’s letter:
On September 14, 2007 at about 9:00 PM, Winston Sili Pawid, a native of Lesseb, Bauko was driving home towards Bontoc. He is a truck driver of Ranee Enterprises, the San Miguel Beer products dealer here in Mountain Province owned by Mrs. Eugenia Manao. When his truck passed by within the vicinity of Lukib, boulders and all fell down on his truck. The landslide carried with it his truck down below. It was only in the morning of September 15, 2007 that the incident was discovered. Winston leaves behind 1.6 year old son and his wife, Geraldine Cabiadan Pawid who is my employee.
NOTE: We are re-printing this statement by Vicky Tauli-Corpuz on the rights of indigenous peoples; it’s a bit long but is a very interesting read.
Statement of Victoria Tauli-Corpus, Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on the Occasion of the Adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Let’s continue our By the Numbers series which we first started with Benguet. This time, here are some interesting statistical figures from Mt. Province.
87%: Current literacy rate of Mt. Province, it dropped by five-percentage points from the 92.44% literacy rate recorded in the 1990s.
Congratulations to those who brought up the issue of the sub-standard/defective construction of the ongoing Halsema Road concreting project. Highways Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane has directed “the removal and replacement of defective projects at the expense of the contractors.”
Let’s continue to keep our eyes open to make sure that the “removal and replacement” will come about and that the concreting of the rest of the road will proceed according to project specifications.
