“Cattle Country of the Philippines” Masbate with Rodeo Festival

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Masbate celebrates the Rodeo Masbateno Festival April 9-14. This annual event is a chance for the locals and spectators to showcase their skills in livestock handling just like how the cowboys do.

Former Las Piñas Congresswoman and Team PNoy senatorial aspirant Misis Cynthia Villar 'Misis Hanepbuhay' graces Masbateños on their yearly Rodeo Festival. Riding in a kalesa, Mrs. Villar, who was the guest of honor, paraded around the city with Masbate Gov. Rizalina “Dayan” Lanete.

Rodeo Masbateño Festival, an annual event that showcases skills in livestock handling. Rodeo games include cattle wrestling, casting, carambola, lassoing, and bull-riding. One of the highlights of this year’s celebration is the first ever bull- riding event in the country for women. Fair and exhibitions, and trade of cattle and horses are also part of the festivity. 

The province of Masbate started the festival way back in the summer of 1993. At present, Masbate is considered as the “Cattle Country of the Philippines.”

Villar Leads Manila Bay Clean-up

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In consonance with the forthcoming Earth Day celebration, Team PNoy senatorial candidate Cynthia Villar yesterday led the clean-up drive at Manila Bay in the Las Pinas-Paranaque Critical Habitat & Eco-Tourism (LPPCHEA), which was recently included in the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance, an intergovernmental treaty on the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.

“We have to care and protect our environment. We have to repay Mother Earth for providing us all the necessary materials we need to survive,” stressed Villar.

The clean-up activity at Manila Bay which started 7 am yesterday, Villar said, is their simple way of saying “thank you,” and “demonstrating our love to Mother Earth.” However, she stressed that “caring and loving” our environment should not only be done during the Earth Day celebration.

“Everyday of our lives, we should all strive to protect Mother Earth,’ said Villar who has earned the moniker “Misis HanepBuhay” for giving jobs to Filipinos.

Villar was joined by students and volunteers from various sectors in last Friday’s clean-up activity, which was followed by a tour along the stretch of LPPCHEA aboard a banca around 7:30 a.m. The activity ended with a boodle fight, also led by Villar. The three-term Las Pinas congresswoman said she feels happy with the improvement at the LPPCHEA since there are lesser garbage being collected.

“We can attribute this to our consistent clean-up efforts,” said Villar. The Villar Foundation, where she sits as Managing Director, together with students and other volunteers, also conduct weekly cleanups. “The more partners we work with, the better it will be for the environment,” she said.

The Villar Foundation had earlier inked a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with Manila Broadcasting Company (MBC) represented by radio station DZRH in its Manila Bay Cleanup drive.

“The Villar Foundation and DZRH agree that this is not only a joint cooperative undertaking, but more importantly, it is a major public service activity that would help contribute to the promotion of a livable, healthier and ecological sustainable Manila Bay,” read the MoA.

Villar noted there is more reason to protect the 175-hectare LPPCHEA area after it was listed in Ramsar along with the world-renowned Tubbataha Reefs National Marine Park and the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park (Underground River), both found in the Philippines.

"Ramsar has recognized LPPCHEA’s global importance to biodiversity and the need to give it special protection from various threats,” said Villar, adding that LPPCHEA is the so-called 'last bastion' in Metro Manila.

Based on Proclamation No. 1412, LPPCHEA is a critical habitat because to its global importance to biodiversity. It is a habitat for the survival of threatened, restricted-range and congregatory species.

But despite being a critical habitat, Villar lamented it faces threats of being reclaimed. In opposing the planned reclamation, Villar, a strong environmental advocate, noted that taking care of our environment will save us from disasters and calamities.

She maintains calamities would further burden the already poor Filipinos who are facing various problems due to difficult times.

Disasters like flooding, Villar said, can make one poorer if his properties are destroyed.

To avoid worst scenarios, Villar, who has earned the moniker “Misis Hanep Buhay” for giving jobs to Filipinos, underscored the need to clean our rivers, our creeks and other bodies of water especially Manila Bay.

“We can simply help protect the environment by not throwing our garbage into the sea, the rivers, the creeks. If we resort to indiscriminate throwing of garbages, these wastes will return to us during floodings. The garbages that we throw also caused massive floods,” warned Villar.

Villar Receives Honoris Causa from Bataan Peninsula State University Urges graduates to be job creators rather than jobseekers

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Bataan Peninsula State University is the first and only state university in the province of Bataan of the Philippines. For BPSU, a life without challenges to conquer would be futile as the university always stretches the limit to adapt to the changes and to turn trials into opportunities.

A university of excellence acknowledged in the country and the Asia-Pacific Region for quality graduates and knowledge responsive to socio-economic needs, provides quality and relevant education that will develop highly qualified and competitive human resources responsive to national and regional development.

A Commencement Exercises was held at the BPSU main and former Las Piñas Representative and Team PNoy senatorial candidate Cynthia Villar was guest of honor and speaker.  BPSU, during its recent commencement exercise, she received an Honoris Causa in Doctor in Humanities from the Bataan Peninsula State University with officials led by its President Delfin Magpantay conferred on Villar the honorary degree Doctor of Humanities, Honoris Causa.

In her acceptance speech, Villar said the recognition is ‘extra special’ since it was given by a state university in Bataan, the home province of Senator Manny Villar’s mother, Curita Bamba Villar or Nanay Curing, who hailed from Orani.

“I am honored and happy to receive the honoris causa from Bataan Peninsula State University and to be invited as their commencement speaker. I always look forward to interacting with the youth and in my own way, give them inspiration and guidance as they start a new phase in their lives,” said Villar.

Villar, in her commencement speech, urged the more than 1,200 graduates of the Bataan Peninsula State University not to be discouraged by the unemployment and underemployment problems in the country but rather consider entrepreneurship as an option to merely seeking employment after graduation.

“There is always the option to go into entrepreneurship—to be an entrepreneur, to employ people instead of getting employed. In fact, I hope, many of you will aim to go the entrepreneurial way,” Villar told the graduates from the main campus of BPSU in Balanga City and branches in the towns of Abucay, Dinalupihan and Orani.

As an active advocate of entrepreneurship, Villar narrated to the graduates the success story of her family’s real estate business, which started as a small gravel and sand company. She cited that capital is not everything in business.

She added that entrepreneurship as a way out of poverty. “When (Senator) Manny and I started our business in the 1970s, we only had P10,000. So we had to borrow P70,000 from a bank to buy two second-hand trucks that we used in delivering sand and gravel to construction companies. Then, Manny saw the potential of building small houses. We pursued our dream with hard work and persistence.”

Villar was awarded by Go Negosyo as among the ‘The Women Entrepreneur Icons and Filipina Entrepreneurs of 2013’ during the 5th Filipina Entrepreneurship Summit last month. As a congresswoman, Villar led the passage of bills that benefited entrepreneurs, among which was the Magna Carta of Micro-Enterprises and Republic Act 9178 or the Barangay Micro Business Enterprises (BMBEs) Act. 

Misis Cynthia Villar on Supreme Court's RH Law TRO

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Nacionalista Party-Team PNoy senatorial candidate Cynthia Villar on Tuesday called on everybody to observe sobriety with the Supreme Court’s decision to temporarily put on hold the implementation of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 or RA 10354. 

“We should respect the decision of the Supreme Court, being the highest court of the land. We should strictly adhere to the stay order on the RH law,” said Villar.

While the former congresswomen opposes the RH law, she, however, reminded the public that as law-abiding citizens, we should all follow the ruling of the High Court. 

“Our justices have already spoken about the highly contentious law that divided our the nation and our people,” she said. 

“Let us just wait for the final decision of the High Court since this is just a temporary ruling,” she further said. 

Voting 10-5, the High Court issued a status quo ante order for 120 days or four months on the implementation of RH law. 

The Department of Health (DOH) had signed last Friday the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) for the RH law. 

Villar Vows to Pursue Husband's Anti No Exam No Permit Bill

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The former congresswoman, Las Pinas Rep. Cynthia Villar on has vowed to pursue the proposed measure filed by her husband, outgoing Senator Manny Villar, which prohibits colleges and universities from preventing students to take examinations over unpaid tuition and other school fees. 

Villar, who is running for senator under the Nacionalista Party-Team PNoy, said this will among her priorities in case she wins a senate seat in the coming May elections. 

Sen. Villar belongs to the so-called “graduating senators” whose term of office ends in June 2013 filed the bill to keep higher educational institutions from implementing “no permit, no exam” policies, saying it amounts to depriving students the right to take examinations.

The bill, however, allows schools to withhold grades and clearances of students and keep them from enrolling again until they settle their accounts. Villar’s bill, however, allows schools to withhold grades and clearances of students, and keep them from enrolling again until they settle their accounts. But Villar’s bill was not passed in the Senate although it was referred to the Senate committee on education chaired by Senator Edgardo Angara. It’s counterpart bill was approved on third reading in the House of Representatives. 

The proposal seeks to allow students with dues, unpaid tuition and other school fees to take the midterm or final examination. Students should not be required to secure from school authorities a permit before being allowed to take the midterm or final examination.

The proposal also prevents schools from requiring the payment, upon enrollment, of a down payment or first installment of more than 30 percent of the total amount of the tuition and other school fees for the entire semester or duration of the course.

Villar said he ask his wife Cynthia to pursue the passage of the measure if she wins her senatorial bid this May. 

As the senator’s wife, widely-known as “Misis Hanep Buhay,” said it is lamentable this ‘unfortunate’ incident happened to a young “Iskolar ng Bayan” at UP Manila, who could be the ‘key’ to take out of poverty her parents and four younger siblings. 

“Another life was wasted due to poverty,” said Villar who has also been advocating jobs for everybody to lead a comfortable life. 

To avoid another case of Kristel Tejada, who committed suicide after she was forced to file a leave of absence (LOA) due to unpaid tuition fees, former Rep. Villar also underscored the need to revisit and review the policies of our State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) to which UP Manila belongs, and the other educational institutions in the country. 

“What happened to Kristel is very regrettable especially since she was enrolled in a government-subsidized institution mandated to provide high quality education to “poor but deserving” students. Just like other SUCs, UP has a regular annual appropriations from the national government. So it is necessary to look into the need to expand the government’s study and scholarship programs in SUCs. Do we need to give them additional budget so that students like Kristel would no longer be burdened to cough up money for her tuition fees?” said she said. Kristel, considered a “Iskolar ng Bayan,” being a student of UP, a state university, killed herself as she has no money to pay her tuitions fees. It’s indeed sad and a total dismay,” she added.

She said there should also be a review of the SUCs policies for non-payment of tuition fees. 

“Perhaps, it’s about time to review these policies,” she further stated. She said Tejada’s suicide also showed the lack of access to education in the country.