THE MOUNT BALATUCAN MONITOR

First, Manolo Quezon cited this blog on the issue of the sudden withdrawal of Hanjin of its shipyard project in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental.

The Mount Balutacan Monitor points to a report that the provincial government in Misamis Oriental is in shock because a massive shipyard project has croaked.

The citation is timely because its really an issue that has shaken the province if not the whole Northern Mindanao region considering the enormity of the employment opportunities lost.

Then Manolo comment on the criteria of the search of the Top Ten Emerging Blogs in 2008 which cited the Mount Balatucan blog as one of the blogs he is reading. Although the citation is not an endorsement, nonetheless it was a great source of honor, joy and inspiration to be read by him and I thank him profusely for that. Here’s the excerpt of that entry.

“Often, in an arbitrary manner. For The Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs in 2008, a thorough effort to define criteria’s been undertaken by Can Talk Tech but what is a solid criteria for him may differ from the way other people approach the same task.

Let me weigh in with my list. Let me begin with a caveat: there are quite a few blogs I’ve added to my reading list over the past year, but they’re not new enough (cut-off is a blog birthday after July 1, 2007) to qualify for the list. These blogs are in no particular order. They represent my biases as to what I consider significant and these choices aren’t necessarily endorsements of these blogs, their advocacies, etc. Though for many of these blogs, I do heartily sympathize with them, which is why I follow them -but not all.

1. Writer’s Block which is a fine example of intellectual efforts by a writer online.

2. The Mount Balatucan Monitor one of the regional blogs that makes inter-regional cross-pollination possible.

3. scaRRed_cat sadly not often updated, but a good example of a veteran journalist trying to adapt to sharing articles online.

4. Mon Casiple’s Weblog on Philippine Politics. The finest example of an old school pundit settling in on the interweb.

5. Brian Gorrell’s The Not So Talented Mr. Montano? If Malou Fernandez was the Affair of the Diamond Necklace (complete with a mystery: she flew coach), then the birth of this blog was the Bastille moment of the Philippine blogosphere.

6. New Philippine Revolution, an intriguing blog and one that I think has a covert following among the politically-inclined. Also, an example of how anonymous blogging can be effective.

7. Vera Files. Had a discussion on Twitter if this counts as a blog or not, but Juned Sonido opined it does. If so, it marks the emergence of what could comprise the Big Three in independent journalism online.

8. Ateneans ACT, which has become a forum for advocacy and debate among the alumni of one school, but which serves as a model for advocacy and inter-generational debate. This site marks the evolution and, to my mind, coming of age of the political advocacy blog.

9. Team RP, particularly because it’s on Multiply and there seems to be a lingering bias of sorts I can’t quite pin down, but it seems to be there, against Multiply/Friendster etc. blogs. This blog is significant because it’s wedded to an advocacy site, and it’s an advocacy led by, and targeted at, the youth, which conventional wisdom tagged as apathetic -but who proved the pundits wrong after NBN-ZTE broke. The kids were just waiting for an issue that really engrossed them.

10. I’m not sure if FilipinoVoices.com counts, because it’s composed of veteran bloggers and commenters, but, well, it’s new and is making ripples, if not waves.”

While Manolo Quezon III cites this blog, I have no illusions whatsoever of being chosen as one of the emerging influential blogs of this country. Aside from a number of really good and better blogs out there, Balatucan cannot qualify in the first place because of its anonymity. I chose to remain that way. Its not the messenger that is important, but the message.

Despite its anonymity though, Balatucan strives to adhere as humanly possible to the tenets of responsible blogging.

Emano                                      Uy

“This is my stand and I am sending a message that we mean business in our place. What they enjoy is only a privilege extended to them and they have no right to trample on our rights. I have always been supporting them but they didn’t respect us.”

Oloy says he ordered Hanjin to stop operations

Susan Palmes

Tagoloan Mayor Paulino Emano has owned the responsibility of ordering Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Corp. from stopping its operations in the Misamis Oriental town due to alleged violations. The Mayor also lashed out at Hanjin for allegedly disrespecting Tagoloanons. But the brother of Cagayan de Oro Vice Mayor Vicente Emano denied his men threw blows at a hanjin driver identified as Baz Arturo Pabelic during a confrontation at a construction site last Saturday.

“What happened was that my men and some police officers went to the construction site to serve my order. Hanjin did not comply with our agreement.”

said Emano. He said he earlier gave Hanjin the green light to start construction in his town provided that it secured a building permit and secure an environmental compliance certificate.

While the mayor’s men were serving the stop order, Emano said, Pabelic arrived and started taking pictures of people who were camped outside the construction site. “Yes, it is true that my men took his camera because he took pictures of innocent people,” said Emano. He said it was Pabelic who provoked the villagers. Emano said Roger Achas , a former president of Tagoloan’s Association of Barangay Councils, merely advised Pabelic to leave and avoid further confrontation. Pabelic, he said, passed the group at least four times. “Wasn’t that a provocation?”

Emano said he was forced to order hanjin to stop its operations because it was “insulting the people of Tagoloan by not complying with the law.”

The Mayor said, “This is my stand and I am sending a message that we mean business in our place. What they enjoy is only a privilege extended to them and they have no right to trample on our rights. I have always been supporting them but they didn’t respect us.”

“A Time of Misfortune”

Joe Pallugna

The month of April brought ot only bad news but the worst news, a story of woe. The sad news is that Hanjin, the company that was supposed to build a 400 hectare shipyard at Villanueva, Misamis Oriental has withdrawn from the project. Last Saturday, all the Koreans left and brought with them all their equipment and loaded on barges and bid their mega project in our province goodbye. And so the 40,000 jobs for welders and carpenters and masons and drivers and crane operators and engineers are gone.

The reasons for the withdrawal are reportedly complicated and insurmountable. One is that Hanjin allegedly failed to obtain a Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC). The problem arose when the Philippine company which worked for the documentation of the Hanjin project failed to forewarn Hanjin of the basic requirement for an ECC, of a social impact study, and of the need to relocate present occupants to acceptable sites for human resettlement.

Another problem arose out of the issue of the supply of electricity from Napocor and Steag coal-fired power plant. Hanjin wanted to pay only for electricity it actually consumes but Napocor reportedly wanted to peg a minimum consumption rate. The issue involves millions of pesos a year in terms of actual electricity payments. With this thorn in the project, Hanjin decided to withdraw.

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