I am ordering the PNP to conduct a thorough probe on the killing of Maximo Pamilian and his 15-year old daughter.

The governor of the ARMM should also take a direct hand in the investigation as this case may have something to do with governance.

If the auditor was murdered in connection with the performance of duty, there could have been corruptors involved and this doubles the gravity of the crime.

I also want to know if there are any other government auditors whose lives are similarly under threat, so that they can be extended protection by the authorities.

The NAKTF should get to the bottom of this incident.

There could be deeper motives involved than ransom, considering that the victims’ husbands were involved in the illegal drug trade.

The President has attended El Shaddai prayer rallies since a long time ago and it is unfair to paint politics into it.

The President sees these events not only as a way of sharing faith, but as a way of reconciling and uniting the country in the midst of tragedy and division.

Intel Corporation is investing up to $100 million more in the Philippines to upgrade its chip-assembly plant in Cavite, making it the company’s biggest facility in the world for assembly and final testing of flash-memory and microprocessor chips.

The upgrading of its plant in Cavite will support the assembly of the firm’s new Pentium 4 line.

The additional funding will bring the California-based firm’s total investment in the Philippines to $1.3 billion. Intel has been operating in the country for 27 years.

The computer chip manufacturer currently employs 6,000 people in the country and more jobs will be generated as a result of the additional investment.

The new investments of Intel signals the return of investors’ confidence in the Philippine economy under the leadership of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

President Macapagal-Arroyo said, "We welcome Intel’s additional investment in the Philippines because this marks the return of investor confidence to the country."

Intel has been the Philippines’ largest exporter of microchips and semi-conductors for the past five years. The company’s move to expand its operations quells concerns that Southeast Asia, in particular, the Philippines is lagging in the race to attract foreign investments from multinational corporations.

Intel Philippines includes two facilities: Intel Cavite manufacturing facility, which is the first semiconductor company in the Philippines with a world-class assembly and testing facility; and Intel Manila, which is the sales and marketing office that addresses the growing PC market in Asia.

The company’s sales and marketing office in Manila opened in February 1997 to serve the growing demand for PC technology in the Philippines.

Aside from being the nation’s leading exporter of computer-related products for five consecutive years, Intel Philippines has also won many awards, including being named the top sectoral performer and the number one Philippine company.

Intel’s manufacturing site in Cavite provides customers with integrated circuits known as "flash" memory cards, as well as microprocessors and chipsets that are marketed worldwide.

Flash memory is widely known for its application in cellular phones, and is also an important component in computer manufacturing, automotive control units, digital cameras, photocopiers, games, and other household applications.

Some 1.47-million indigent families or 7.39 million individuals have already benefited from the health care insurance system of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration under the Department of Health-Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PHIC) program.

In terms of individuals, Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said the number of indigents enrolled in the PHIC program has increased almost two fold to 7.39 for the period from January to August, compared to 4.7 million last year.

This was expected to go past the 8 million before the end of the year, Dayrit said.

The PHIC granted indigent members a 67-percent increase in benefit ceilings for room and board for primary hospitals. The PHIC also accorded an increase in benefit ceilings of 36 percent for secondary hospitals and 16 percent for tertiary hospitals

Dayrit also noted that the "GMA 50 Program of the DOH" addresses the need for affordable, quality medicines through four initiatives. These are:

• making efficacious household remedies available to more people at the rolling stores of the National Food Authority (NFA).

He said many poor Filipinos benefited when the President approved the importation of low-priced but high-quality medicines to other countries like India.

In fact, Dayrit said, the low-cost, high-quality generic medicines are already accessible to the public through 76 hospital pharmacies of the DOH and 112 pharmacies of the local government units. Some P25 million worth of drugs were sold at 75 percent discount.

The DOH also provided 112 LGU hospitals and health centers, five government agencies and two NGOs some P85.13 million worth of imported drugs by September.

To date, there are now 42 popular and essential drug preparations being imported by the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PTIC) and distributed through government hospitals, and district and regional hospitals nationwide.

The low-cost medicines are also available to some 284 Botika ng Barangay outlets. Another 200 outlets are expected to open before the end of the year.

Dayrit noted that aside from the broadening health insurance coverage for indigents and low-cost medicines for the poor, the DOH got its exemplary performance when they successfully contained the spread of endemic diseases such as dengue and measles, and the new global disease threat posed by the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

The successful campaign of the government against SARS was caused by the vigilance and astuteness of the country’s health personnel and the perseverance of epidemiologists in tracing possible suspects and contacts of the dreaded disease.

To date, Dayrit said over 655,000 incoming airline passengers from various countries have been screened, yielding 92 suspected cases. Over 900 contacts of SARS suspected cases were traced and subjected to clinical examination.

From SARS-free to kidnap-free to casualty-free.

No matter how the list of challenges appears to be growing, the government looks like it is winning them all.

This morning, in the wake of tropical depression "Zigzag," which threatened to inflict more casualty to tragedy-struck areas in the Visayas and Mindanao over the weekend, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo appeared relieved and proud to declare that the disaster preparedness measures the government initiated have been a complete success.

"We have achieved zero casualty on this typhoon Zigzag," the President said as she thanked government agencies under the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) and members of the media for helping achieve the objective.

"It really helped a lot that people responded to my call for evacuation and the media’s role was so valuable in disseminating the information. For this, I would like to thank you all," the President said.

The Chief Executive herself, over the weekend, took charge of manning the Command Center she set up at the Palace Guest House for the massive evacuation of residents in sloped and mountainous areas in Eastern Visayas, Northern Mindanao and Western Mindanao, directly under the path of tropical depression Zigzag.

The President and the NDCC were trying to avert a repeat of the landslides and flooding that killed hundreds of people in Southern Leyte and the CARAGA region in Mindanao.

This morning, the NDCC met again to prepare for another inter-tropical convergence zone that could develop into a typhoon and endanger the lives of people in the affected areas in the Visayas and Mindanao.

But the President exuded optimism that this, too, could be hurdled successfully. She is set to visit the PAG-ASA later this afternoon to get an update.

"If we do the same template as we did, we can continue using this disaster preparedness measures which I can compare in success to our SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) management. Although it’s a different kind of threat, we use the same response," she said.

Aside from the disaster preparedness measures, the President mobilized the Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to encourage the community, including schoolchildren, to plant trees, raise their environmental awareness and avoid a repeat of the Leyte and CARAGA tragedies.

As part of the rehabilitation measures, the President also instructed the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) to build new homes for the victims of the landslides with supplies coming from confiscated logs and manpower from the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

An area in San Francisco, Southern Leyte, which she said is geologically appropriate, has been identified.

The government will build some 140 houses for the disaster victims in Southern Leyte province who lost their homes to the massive landslides that swept their communities last week.

This was announced today by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who said the expertise of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) would be tapped to draw up a low-cost housing project for the victims.

In a press briefing following a meeting of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) held this morning in Malacanang, the President said the project would be funded by the NDCC, while military’s engineering brigade would provide the manpower.

She estimated that it would cost the NDCC a little over P1 million to implement the project, using mostly bamboo and confiscated logs to save on expenses.

"We’re going to use the same model that we have in Baseco—we built houses in Baseco, (Tondo, Manila) and they’re very pretty houses, they’re made of bamboo," the President said, adding that the houses cost only P15,000 each.

The President noted that the displaced villagers were eager to return to their respective communities despite the imminent danger.

Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo said the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has already identified an ideal housing site in San Francisco town, one of the hardest hit areas in Southern Leyte. "That is geologically appropriate, but it belongs to a private owner," she said.

In the same briefing, the President said the DENR would launch shortly a vigorous reforestation program in the disaster areas considering that they have a hilly terrain.

The Macapagal-Arroyo administration is set to launch next month a massive tree-planting and forest rehabilitation program involving virtually all sectors of society in a bid to prevent killer landslides and flash floods.

In a press briefing at the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) office in Quezon City this afternoon, the President said the program would be simultaneously launched on January 16 in identified priority areas across the country, specifically in Regions 3, 4, 8 and the CARAGA Region in Mindanao.

The briefing was held following Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo’s meeting with officials of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC).

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said high school and college students would be mobilized for the tree-planting and reforestation program meant to save lives and preserve the environmental balance. Involvement of the students would be carried out through the National Service Training Program.

Ranking officials who attended the conference at the PAGASA Compound were DENR Secretary Elisea Gozun, DOST Secretary Estrella Alabastro, NDCC Executive Director Melchor Rosales, and DOST Undersecretary Florentino Tesoro who is also officer-in-charge of the PAGASA.

The initial phase of the program involved identification of "at-risk settlements" and consultation meetings with landowners, and municipal and barangay officials pertaining improved land-use management and map delineation of streambank buffer zones.

Consultations would also be held with local government units to draw up work and financial planning for disaster prevention.

Under the program, efforts by civil society and other government agencies on upland development would be harmonized with identified priority areas for tree planting.