Follow Us
-
Apr
19
Australia’s Most Wanted Man arrested in his Ayala Alabang Village home
Filed Under Muntinlupa, News | Leave a Comment
From philstar.com:
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine immigration and police agents have arrested Australia’s most-wanted man in his home in a posh area of southern Manila.
Police Chief Supt. Benito Estipona said Monday that officers arrested Brett Ronald Maston in Muntinlupa City’s Ayala Alabang subdivision. He had apparently hid in the Philippines for years.
The 45-year-old was allegedly involved in a string of bank robberies in his country.
Estipona said Australian authorities had sought Maston’s arrest. The immigration bureau issued a deportation warrant and after receiving information of his whereabouts, arrested him Friday.
Estipona says Maston was earlier reported to be armed, but he did not resist arrest and no guns were immediately found in his possession.
Mar
1
Muntinlupa leads Metro Manila cities in fight vs Styrofoam
Filed Under Muntinlupa, News | Leave a Comment
By Carmela Lapena
From gmanetwork.com:
For banning business establishments from using plastic and non-biodegradable materials, Muntinlupa City has become a model for the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority’s campaign against environmental degradation.
In what MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino described as a “bold move for the sake of environment,” Muntinlupa City started implementing Tuesday last week Ordinance No. 10-109, which prohibits the use of plastic bags on dry goods and regulates its utilization on wet goods, and totally prohibits the use of Styrofoam.
To remind the public of the ban, several posters had been placed in highly visible places within the city. In convenience stores, drugstores and public markets, brown paper or cloth bags are used instead of plastic bags.
At Super Mightee Mart, items are wrapped in recycled paper bags. If necessary, wet items like tube ice are packaged using oxo-biodegradable plastic.
At the newly-opened Muntinlupa Save More Supermarket, not a plastic bag is in sight. Groceries are instead placed in brown paper bags or in green cloth bags.
Mixed reactions
Apart from business owners, consumers are also pleased with the ordinance. A large tarpaulin bears signatures and encouraging messages from people supporting the effort.
“Maganda po ito!!! Para po sa kinabukasan naming mga bata at mga susunod pang mga bata (This is good, especially because the next generation will benefit from this),” wrote one Karlo.
A scribbler, however, pointed out the ordinance is not as environment-friendly as everyone thinks it is since the paper bags used as replacements for plastics are made from trees.
And then there are those who refuse to cooperate.
“Marami pa rin ang hindi sumusunod (Many still do not cooperate),” says Aling Lisa, a public market vendor. She says although they had been informed of the ordinance since December last year, some vendors still package their goods using plastic.
“Sayang din kasi yung mga plastic na nabili na (They don’t want the plastics that they have bought to be wasted),” she says.
Many violators, she says, had been caught and fined.
Violators are fined and given a warning, and business establishments found violating the ordinance may have their licenses to operate suspended for up to one year.
Model city
Muntinlupa is the first city in Metro Manila to ban the use of plastic bags for wet and dry goods and Styrofoam as food containers. While the city government admits that successfully implementing the ordinance is no easy feat, they expect the intervention will deter the rampant use and disposal of non-biodegradable materials into the environment.
The Muntinlupa City Council noted that disposed plastic bags and other non-biodegradable containers are the major causes of flash floods in the city during heavy rains as it clogged canals, three creeks, 11 rivers and other waterways that all drain into the nearby Laguna Lake.
Tolentino, meanwhile, lauded city for the ordinance and encouraged other local government units in Metro Manila to do the same.
“The MMDA strongly encourages local government units to adopt similar strong measures such as these to combat the dangerous effects of environmental degradation which leads to massive flooding and climate change,” Tolentino said in an article posted Friday on the MMDA website.
Tolentino said he would push for the adoption of this measure as a model ordinance to be adopted by the 15 other cities and one town comprising Metropolitan Manila.
Hazardous waste
Styrofoams are made of polystyrene, a petroleum-based plastic with insulation properties and is used in all types of products such as beverage cups and food containers.
A 1986 US Environmental Protection Agency report on solid waste named the polystyrene manufacturing process as the fifth largest creator of hazardous waste. The process of making polystyrene is reported to pollute the air and create large amounts of solid and liquid waste. On the other hand, toxic chemicals leach out of these products into the food that they contain, especially when heated in a microwave. These chemicals threaten human health and reproductive systems. Polystyrene foam is often dumped into the environment as litter which breaks up into pieces that choke animals and clog their digestive systems.
Cities and counties such as Taiwan, Portland (USA) and Orange County, CA have outlawed polystyrene foam. - KBK, GMANews.TV
Feb
23
Gambling dens inside Ayala Alabang?
Filed Under Muntinlupa, News | Leave a Comment
From Inquirer.net:
By Miko Morelos
Authorities are verifying reports that several multimillion-peso houses in the exclusive Ayala Alabang Village in Muntinlupa City—where narcotics agents have raided three medium-scale drug laboratories in the past two weeks—are being used as gambling dens.
Senior Superintendent Ramiro Bauza, Muntinlupa police chief, said that he had been tasked by Mayor Aldrin San Pedro to coordinate with local officials to review the subdivision’s security measures following the discovery of laboratories involved in the manufacture of methamphetamine hydrochloride, or shabu, in the area.
“We are looking into the report, particularly into this new information on gambling dens,” Bauza told the Inquirer in a phone interview Sunday. “As of now, we are in the process of reviewing the security protocol of the village.”
Earlier, San Pedro expressed alarm over the series of raids conducted by Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) agents in the area, considering the stringent security measures being enforced in the exclusive subdivision. According to the mayor, the measures may have been used by drug lords to their advantage.
San Pedro’s spokesman and city information chief, Omar Acosta, told the Inquirer that the mayor had also heard reports about the alleged operations of gambling dens in the area, prompting the latter to order the police to conduct an investigation.
“But initially, the mayor wants to have the security measures at Ayala Alabang placed under review, because obviously, the criminals are using this in their favor,” Acosta said.
Several residents—who spoke to the Inquirer on the condition of anonymity due to safety concerns—claimed that some houses in Ayala Alabang that had been rented out to foreigners seem devoid of any sign of life during daytime.
At night, however, these houses suddenly become beehives of activity.
Another odd thing about those houses was the type of garbage they produced.
“The garbage of one house consisted of cigarette butts, bottles of beer and alcoholic beverage and even junk food wrappers,” the resident said. “What kind of family lives on that diet?”
This suspicion was backed up by several other residents.
Bauza, who was informed by the Inquirer of the residents’ statements, said that he would bring the matter up when he meets officials of the barangay and village association.
The recent drug raids, on the other hand, did not come as a surprise to some residents who said that these merely confirmed the suspicions they had held since last year.
One told the Inquirer about smelling “a noxious odor, as if something was burning” during the wee hours of the morning.
When the resident asked the security personnel of the village to verify the information, the latter said that everything was all right.
In the first raid conducted by PDEA agents on January 6, five Chinese nationals were arrested in a house at 504 Acacia Avenue. Seized during the operation were P15 million worth of drugs.
Two more raids conducted on January 13 at 119 Kanlaon St. and 536 Country Club Drive resulted in the seizure of more drugs and laboratory equipment but there were no arrests since the houses had been abandoned.
Authorities said that the houses were medium-sized drug laboratories that could produce P500 million worth of shabu within two to three days.
Feb
23
From Manila Standard:
THE Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency formally filed charges against responsible officers of the Fuerte Holdings Inc. and property administrators in relation to the dismantling of a clandestine laboratory used in the manufacture of shabu on Acacia Drive, Ayala Alabang Village in Muntinlupa City.
PDEA chief Undersecretary Jose Gutierrez Jr. said the agency’s Legal and Prosecution Service is convinced that officers of the firm and the estate administrators of the properties of the late Consuelo Madrigal may be held liable for violation of certain provisions of Republic Act 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
He said an investigation conducted by PDEA after a clandestine laboratory was dismantled at 504 Acacia Drive, Ayala , Alabang in Muntinlupa City last Jan. 6 showed that the property, as registered in the Securities and Exchange Commission, is owned by Fuerte Holdings.
“Said property is under the management of property administrators. It was also discovered that the one-hectare property is under the management of estate administrators of the late Consuelo Madrigal,” Gutierrez said.
“As officers of Fuerte [Holdings Inc] and estate administrators, they are primarily responsible [for] ensuring that the property under their administration or management is not being utilized for illegal purposes. The negligence on their part to inspect the said property tolerated the commission of the crime, in this case the manufacture of shabu,” Gutierrez added. Florante S. Solmerin
Jan
6
Shabu lab discovered inside Ayala Alabang
Filed Under Muntinlupa, News | Leave a Comment
Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director General Jose Gutierrez Jr. identified the suspects as Ken Ming Chao, 49, alias Lam Tse Kin; his brother Lam Ka Chun, 51; Kowk Chi Keung, 42; and twins Choi Yiu Kit and Choi Yiu Chun, both 33.
Gutierrez said the five were arrested inside the drug lab in a gated and high-walled compound on Acacia Avenue, Ayala Alabang.
PDEA Public Information Chief Evangeline Almenario said some of the suspects tried to escape but were caught by the agents.
Inside the lab were grams of shabu, controlled precursors, essential chemicals, and lab equipment.
Gutierrez said the lab that can produce 10 kilograms of shabu per cycle. Almenario explained that one production cycle usually takes two to three days.
Almenario said intelligence reports indicated that the drug syndicate to which the suspects belong had been moving around until Ken Ming Chao rented the compound in July.
She said that the compound includes a main house, two storehouses and a swimming pool.
Almenario said the syndicate pays around P260,000 per month as rent for the property.
Almenario withheld the identity of the property owner while agents find out if he knew what was going on there.
Following the raid in Ayala-Alabang, the Muntinlupa city government is studying an ordinance that will provide the police easy access to exclusive subdivisions in the city after a search warrant is issued by a court.
Mayor Aldrin San Pedro said he has instructed the Office of the City Attorney to come up with a proposed ordinance to immediately implement any search warrant.
He said the implementation of a search warrant is being delayed because security guards in exclusive villages and subdivisions prevent the police or any security force of the city from getting in.
He said any security officer that will prevent law enforcement officers from entering the subdivision to carry out the search warrant will result in the cancellation of the permit of the security agency concerned.
Police Senior Supt. Ramiro Bausa, Muntinlupa police chief, echoed the mayor’s sentiment regarding the restricted access of the police to exclusive villages
