Our condolences to the family of Mt. Province Congressman Victor Dominguez (leftmost in above photo) who succumbed to cardiac arrest this afternoon. Here’s an Inquirer report by Frank Cimatu:

Representative Victor S. Dominguez of the lone district of Mountain Province succumbed Friday to cardiac arrest and complications from diabetes at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City. He was 72.

Mountain Province Governor Maximo Dalog said Dominguez had been sick for sometime. “The province is deeply mourning his death and his provincemates would like to pay their last respects,” said Dalog.

Dominguez served as Mountain Province representative from 1987 to 1998 and from 2004 to present. He was replaced by his wife, Josephine, in 1998.

He ran but lost to Roy Pilando in the 1998 elections. Pilando died before finishing his term.

Dominguez belonged to an influential family in the Cordillera. His father, Alejandro, was a former mayor of Sabangan, the family hometown, while his older brother, Honorio, served as mayor of Tadian town.

A civil engineering graduate of Saint Louis University here, Dominguez started as a gravel-and-sand dealer and contractor.

Meanwhile, we learn from bibaknets that the Congressman will be at the Batasan on Tuesday, February 12. The following day, February 13, he will be transported to Baguio for interment.

INFO SOURCE: Inquirer. PHOTO CREDIT: PIA

Miriam Coronel Ferrer has an article on Igorotness which you might find interesting. You can read it here. But here’s a quote:

… those who proudly self-identify as Igorots are generating more and more “Igorot” cultural resources to reproduce, enrich and somehow transform Igorot identity. Jimmy Fong’s presentation featured photos of children wearing t-shirts emblazoned with “Igorotak” (“I am Igorot”) followed by a dictionary-like entry that goes “n.Bibakese* – a statement asserting ethnic identity.” Fong also sampled exchanges in blogs among Igorots about Igorots. A hot topic were pop stars Paolo of Starstruck and Marky Cielo, both of Igorot descent, and their “Igorotness.” Or, in the case of Paolo, his shameful disowning of his identity ala the infamous quip, “My parents are Igorot but I am not.”

I’m not quite sure whether Paolo really did disown his identity. He was hesitant to reveal that he is part Igorot but there have been no reports of him expressly stating “na parents lang niya ang Igorot”. Maybe he did, maybe not. Pero may mga PaKoLI (parents ko lang Igorots) sa Quezon City (sa may E. Rod hehe). Hah, we coined PaKoLI ha. You read it here first.

Anyway, let’s go back to Coronel’s piece.
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Congratulations to Ryan Mina Benaoe of St. Louis University for topping the Architecture Board Exam held last month.

From the Philippine Star:
A graduate of the Saint Louis University (SLU) here topped the licensure examinations for architects, the third in the school’s history.

“Actually, it is hard to expect even to pass, much more making it to the top,” said 24-year-old topnotcher Ryan Mina Benaoe. Benaoe duplicated the feat of SLU graduates Joel Manzano and Rodel Rosario in the 1983 and 1995 licensure exams, respectively.

For the list of board passers, click here.

130,200

A total of 130,200 fully grown marijuana plants worth P23,640,000 were reportedly uprooted in the town of Bakun by the Benguet police. Source here. It would be interesting to know how they came up with that figure. Can you imagine them counting “one thousand and one….. five thousand and four… one hundred thirty thousand two hundred”?

“

If you compare the vegetables from China and the ones we produce in the Philippines, the ones from China are bigger, greener and packaged well. [Many] Chinese farmers do not use fertilizers but they produce so much and we want to find out how they do it without using fertilizers.

”

– Dr. Charles Cheng, a chapter member of the Association for Philippine-China Understanding.

Cheng said his group had asked the [Benguet] provincial government to help it send at least 10 farmers to China to learn new vegetable farming technology. More at the Inquirer.

We agree. We can keep on ranting about the government’s failure to effectively control vegetable importation but farmers also need to improve their produce if they are to be competitive in the market.