CHED CHIDED FOR DUMPING SOME COURSES

THE College Editors Guild of the Philippines ( CEGP) on Wednesday chided the Commission on Higher Education ( CHED) for issuing a memorandum disclosing the closure of some college courses which would take effect next school year. Among the college courses that CHED will close included nursing, teacher education, Hotel and Restaurant Management and Information Technology. The closure order was due to the alarming number of graduates from these courses that usually ended up unemployed. “Obviously, the problem is not the graduates but the lack of job opportunities in the country, which the government, again obviously, failed to address.” The CEGP said. Earlier, CEGP members together with student journalists staged a protest action showing their strong disapproval of Deped’s K to 12 program, as well as CHED’S order of closure of college courses.

RANDOM DRUG TEST FOR AFP

‘SUICIDE BOMBING’ EYED IN QUIAPO INN FIRE

“SUICIDE bombing” stands out as a plausible angle in the Wednesday dawn fire at a Quiapo lodging house that killed at least two people, the Manila Police District said. Police Officer 3 Amelito Lopez, investigator of Mpd-homicide Section, said the first fatality Grace Mendoza, 33, lived on the building, while the male victim was burned beyond recognition. Lopez recounted that at about midnight, the unidentified male victim arrived alone at Red Apple Lodging House located on the building’s second floor and a few hours after he checked in, inn employees heard two consecutive explosion inside the victim’s room and saw smoke coming out of that room. Inn employees forcibly opened the room and saw the guest on bed and on fire. The investigator said that they looking at the suicide angle in which the male guest blew himself up. The police said that the female victim tried to save her belongings but she was trapped on the stairs and succumbed to smoke inhalation. Meanwhile, investigation added the fire which caused an estimated damage of P500,000, started at about 5:25 a.m., reached the third alarm and was placed under control past 6 a.m. THE Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has ordered the conduct of mandatory drug-testing on its officers, soldiers and military civilian employees engaged in intelligence and counter-intelligence works. The AFP spokesman, Col. Arnulfo Burgos, Jr., said Tuesday that the random drug test would be carried out by Task Force Jacob, a newly created unit under the Intelligence Service of the Armed Force of the Philippines (ISAFP), the intelligence arm of the AFP. Last Monday, all 387 officers, men and civilian employees of the ISAF, including its chief Brig. Gen. Caesar Ronnie Ordoyo,were subjected to said test but all turned out negative. The same, Burgos said, would be conducted in all other units at the general headquarters and unified command in all the three major commands of the AFP – Army, Air Force and Navy – by ISAFP agents assigned at the said commands. Burgos explained that the ISAFP men were chosen first so as to set the example and give them the “moral ascendancy” since they were the military lead intelligence unit task, among others, to conduct intelligence and counter-intelligence operations against military personnel that maybe into narcotics abuse and engaged in drug trafficking.