THE PICOP REHABILITATION PROGRAM ANOMALY (Second of Five Parts)

Picop blamed for rape of

Surigao del Sur forests

By ROGER M. BALANZA

Picop Resources Inc. (PRI) has only 1,200 workers under its employ, despite the exclusive privilege of exploiting about 200,000 hectares of Surigao del Sur forest, indicating the province has not benefited in terms of employment from the pulp-and-paper company.

Protection of the vast concession by PRI has also been a dismal failure for lack of forest guards, leading not only to environmental rape of the forest but also an outright denial for more than 100,000 residents to benefit from the natural wealth.

No concessions

Church leaders in Surigao del Sur are pushing for exclusion of grant of concession area to PRI, as part of rehabilitation program now being heard by the court as PRI reels from a P7 billion debt.

Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) filed a case at a Makati RTC Court in May this year to place PRI under a rehab program to recover its P2 billion loan exposure in the company based in Bislig City in Surigao del Sur. Much of the woes of the company—operating at a loss for 30 years---on chairman Teodoro Bernardino, according to the church leaders. He has been replaced by former congressman Prospero Pichay, who is positioning himself to be named as receiver which is being opposed by church leaders.

Decided case

In a comment submitted to the court and published in newspapers, Church leaders opposed Pichay as receiver in a six-point comment that included an appeal against renewal of timber concessions of PRI.

“The rehabilitation of PRI should not extend to the consequential grant of any concession area to PRI in whatever form of tenurial instruments from its expired Timber License Agreement (TLA) No. 43, Pulp and Timber License Agreement (PTLA) No. 47 and Integrated Forest Management Agreement (IFMA) No. 35,” said the church leaders from the Diocese of Tandag. They said the exclusion has already been affirmed by a decision of the Supreme Court in G. R. Case No. 162243 (filed by then Environment Secretary Heherzon Alvarez against PRI) denying conversion of area covered by PRI’s expired TLA 43 into IFMA.

More viable

The company could even be less expensive and viable if it does not have the vast concession that it failed to protect. “PRI will be assured of sustainable of wood and other forest products to feed its mills and plants even without timberland concessions. There are similar sawmills, veneer, plywood and paper factories in cities gainfully operating without timber concession areas,” said the group.

The group said the former PRI concession under Community-Based Management Agreements (CBFMAs) run by recognized people’s organizations in partnership with the local government units and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Community involvement

“The development, protection and utilization of forest products for the sustained wood supply to PRI, will be less expensive to the company as the people themselves side-by-side with the LGUs and the DENR can be harnessed in developing and protecting the timberland, while a big segment of the population will have the opportunity of earning livelihood without necessarily being employed by the company,” said the church leaders who have intervened in the rehabilitation program to that the people of Surigao del Sur could benefit from the PRI concession.

THE PICOP REHABILITATION ANOMALY (Part One of Five)

Picop officials rapped for

filching company equipment

By ROGER M. BALANZA

Picop Resources Inc. (PRI) officials in Bislig City in Surigao del Sur are taking advantage of a pending rehabilitation program by filching company equipment for lack of a receiver named by the court.

Catholic Church militant officials, appalled by the thievery in the company reeling from billions of pesos in debts, has called on the court to appoint the receiver at the soonest as they accused officials of the former biggest paper company in Asia of looting company equipment.

P7-billion debt

At the same time, the church officials are against a former politician and a losing senatorial candidate in the 2007 polls, known for his close alliances with PRI officials who sent the company to its present financial state, being named as receiver.

The Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) filed on May 5 this year the rehabilitation program with the Regional Trial Court 149 in Makati City, as it reels from a P7 billion debt incurred in a 30-year losing operation. LBP reportedly has a P1.8 billion loan exposure in PRI. Much of the woes have been heaped on former PRI chair Teodoro Bernardino’s mismanagement of the company.

Official thievery

The delay in the appointment of the receiver has given occasion to pilferage of millions worth of pesos of company properties in the millsites at Tabon, Bislig City, said the Catholic Church officials of the Diocese of Tandag in a comment on the PRI rehabilitation plan.

The church officials had earlier exposed the anomaly at PRI in a letter to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the Senate.

“We are not only talking of ordinary pilferages but of looting of millions of pesos of company equipment facilitated by responsible personnel of PRI,” said the group, which did not name the officials involved, in the comment signed by priests and Catholic Church lay leaders published last week in the national papers.

No to Pichay

Former Surigao del Sur congressman Prospero Pichay has been recently named as chairman of the Board of Directors, amid apprehensions he is nothing but a decoy of former chair Bernardino, largely blamed for the current state of the beleaguered paper company.

Signatory to the comment Fr. Florio Falcon, Judicial Vicar and Parish Priest of St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Mangagoy, Bislig City, however, said he would oppose Pichay being named receiver by the court. He should have no role in the rehabilitation, said the activist priest. Other sources however said Pichay, a long-time ally of Bernardino, may have the influence to bag the position being close to Malacanang.

ASAP

The receiver should not be handpicked by PRI or beholden to it. Otherwise, if such receiver will simply pursue Bernardino’s style of management, PRI will never be rehabilitated successfully, said the group in the comment. The Catholic Church officials in the comment said: There is need to overemphasize the urgency of the immediate appointment of the LBP’s qualified Receiver and his assumption of duties, to stop the looting.

In the comment, the church leaders explained why they want PRI saved from its current predicament beyond the control of Bernardino and under a receiver who could bail out the embattled company.

“PRI could provide direct employment of between four to five thousand people in Bislig City and indirectly ten thousand people or more for allied economic activities related to the reactivation of PRI as a wood-based industry,” they said.

The country’s largest paper mill, Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines, is sadly now teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and collapse. Last week reports said the power of Picop’s plant in Bislig went off and its operations had stopped, laying off thousands of laborers and giving bleak future to their dependent families and to Bislig itself. The workers are now protesting for payments of their wages and the alleged mismanagement in the company.

At this writing, reports said that no negotiation has yet occurred to address the issues raised by the Picop workers while the Land Bank of the Philippines is girding for a takeover in the operations of the firm which is heavily indebted to it. Furthermore, opportunistic elements from the management are reportedly fleecing the plant of the its heavy equipment, materials and other saleables in the like manner when the National Steel Corporation in Iligan City was fleeced when it went bankrupt years ago.

Bislig since it was created out from the paper mill’s operations has never have it so good these days. Everytime its town economy revved up and went brisk it was always due to vigor of the operations of the firm. Now it is facing a herculean challenge on how thousands of resident-dependents could survive the crisis in the wake of massive layoffs and unemployment brought about by alleged mismanagement of Bernardino group and other contributory factors attendant to its present closure. That the firm could not even pay for the electric bills it incurred for its latest operations before the closure tells serious implications to its ability to pay unpaid wages and benefits due to now striking Picop workers.

The impending Picop collapse is a case in point challenging other towns dependent only to one or two propulsive industries. At its best, local economy or a town dances to the tune of the vivacity of the industry it is dependent on. At its worst, the dependent town coughs up loud and strong whenever the industry merely sneezes, or it hibernates whenever the industry is falling asleep. (Cha Monforte/Rural Urban News) http://ruralurbanews.blogspot.com

Unlock the Big Screen Experience from Small Devices

Microvision is working with business partners to enable better viewing experiences for mobile device consumers. Sharing photos, watching movies, and giving presentations using the small screens of today’s devices limits our ability to imagine, entertain, and share.

PicoP is an ultra miniature projection module capable of producing full color, high-resolution images but small enough and low power enough to be embedded directly into an accessory pico projector that connects to mobile devices.

For manufacturers who wish to bring to market next generation accessory projectors that connect to mobile devices, Microvision provides a PicoP display engine to meet OEM requirements. PicoP display engines are engineered for OEMs and made available through our supply chain partners to meet high volume production needs.

The time has come for a total new function that will upgrade our cellphones to the next level. What would you do if you got yourself one ? Yes, fun it may seem to be but imagine the cons that comes along with this technology. Just read the following from IHT.

Watching video almost anywhere you want

Tired of hearing other people's cellphone conversations? It may get worse. Soon you may have to watch their favorite television shows and YouTube videos, too, as they project them onto nearby walls or the seat-backs of commuter trains.

Small digital projectors are in the works. These devices, when plugged into cellphones and portable media players, will let consumers beam video content from their hand-held devices to the closest smooth surface - entertaining themselves, annoying their neighbors and possibly contributing to a new warning sign: "No Projectors in This Area."

The microprojectors, still in prototype stages, use light-emitting diodes, lasers or a combination of the two to cast a display in darkened spaces of up to 50 or 60 inches wide, or 130 to 150 centimeters, and perhaps even wider, and of 7 to 20 inches wide when there is ambient light.

Digital projectors were once bulky. These new models are small enough to fit into the pocket of consumers who want a big-screen experience from a small-screen device. Some of the models are expected to be on the market by the end of this year, if not sooner.

Prices have yet to be announced. But Matthew Brennesholtz, an analyst at Insight Media, a marketing research firm in Norwalk, Connecticut, said he thought that the projectors would initially cost about $350, then drop quickly to less than $300.

The projectors may be particularly useful for business presentations: showing a product video to small groups, for example.

No pre-meeting coordination would be needed to arrange for a screen. Instead, a patch of wall in a cubicle or at a restaurant could serve for an impromptu presentation. In a pinch, a manila folder or even a napkin would work.

Carolina Milanesi, a research director in London for Gartner, the research firm, said she thought that the microprojectors were most likely to appeal to business travelers who, for example, could use them to beam PowerPoint shows from their smartphones.

But Milanesi is dubious about the likelihood of consumers' using them in public, because they could so easily be read by others. "I hate it even when I am on the subway and the guy next to me is reading my paper," she said.

The projectors will first appear as free-standing companion units to cellphones and other devices, Brennesholtz said, connected to them by standard cables. Later, the projector modules will be directly embedded in phones, as cameras are today. About 16 manufacturers are working on miniprojectors, he said.

Insight Media forecasts a substantial and fast-growing market for the technology. "We anticipate total sales of more than $2.5 billion by 2012 for the companion models," Brennesholtz said, and $1 billion in revenue for projector modules that are integrated into cellphones and other devices.

Cellphone service providers have been a driving force behind miniprojector development, said Jinwoo Bae, business team leader for Iljin DSP, a South Korean company that is working on a prototype.

"Revenue growth from voice service is becoming saturated," Bae said, "so telecom service providers are looking for new revenue from video content."

Iljin DSP's microprojector, which will be marketed and distributed by SK Telecom, a large wireless operator in South Korea, projects images that are 7 to 60 inches wide, depending on a room's lighting; the device's light source is a combination of lasers and LEDs. The lithium-ion battery lasts about two hours, Bae said.

The company is also building a projector engine to be incorporated in cellphones. "We need to reduce the power consumption" of the module, Bae said. "A stand-alone projector can have its own battery, but modules integrated into a mobile phone use the phone's battery," limiting the amount of power than can be drawn, he said.

A miniprojector engine is now being manufactured by 3M, the U.S. technology company. It will be sold within a stand-alone projector offered by Samsung this year, said Mike O'Keefe, marketing manager for 3M's mobile projection technology. The projector, called the Samsung MBP-100, connects to devices like MP3 players that have video output capacity.

Brennesholtz, of Insight Media, was shown a model of the Iljin DSP projector at a restaurant in New York when he met with executives from the company. "I'm not sure what the other diners thought about seeing a Korean sitcom projected on the ceiling of the restaurant," he said.

As it turned out, there was too much ambient light for the image to look good on the ceiling. "But on a napkin, or on the cover of a box," Brennesholtz said, "it looked fine."

MicroVision  dan  Motorola kini berganding bahu dalam usaha menghasilkan projektor yg sangat kecil ke dalam telefon bimbit prototaipnya. Microvision yg terlibat secara langsung dalam penyelidikan laser, paparan imej dan teknologi imbasan telah berjaya menghasilkan enjin paparan Picop yg mampu memaparkan paparan dari projektor bersaiz nano.

Dengan penghasilan projektor ini, pengguna boleh berkongsi gambar dan video rakaman dari telefon bimbit dengan lebih menarik iaitu paparan leih besar. Mungkin suatu hari nanti, anda boleh menonton perlawanan bola EPL beramai-ramai dengan hanya menggunakan telefon bimbit. Mungkin sebelum ini pun, telefon bimbit boleh digunakan untuk menonton TV, tetapi kepuasan mungkin kurang dengan skrin paparan yg agak kecil. Dengan telefon bimbit berprojektor  ini, ia adalah suatu yg mungkin dinanti-nantikan oleh pengguna seluruh dunia.

Microvision dalam penyelidikan ini, mempunyai teknologi yg terbaik sekali berbanding dengan pesaing-pesaingnya yg lain. Projek projektor ini tidak hanya tertumpu pada telefon bimbit, tetapi juga peranti lain seperti iPod, dan permainan Wii. Dan selain dari penghasilan teknologi pada telefon bimbit, Microvision juga terlibat dalam  penyelidikan lain iaitu paparan pada kenderaan, paparan boleh-pakai dan pengimbas Barkod.

Sumber lain.

The Uber-Review

The Mobile Weblog

Info: SCI FI Tech
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