American arrested in Surigao City

November 18, 2009
by: striker_jem (Published with permission)

Butuan –Authorities arrested an American National for estafa and large scale illegal recruitment on November 15 at 12:35 afternoon at Gateway Hotel, Kilometer 2, Brgy Luna, Surigao City.

PNP elements of Surigao City Police Station apprehended the suspect Michael David Hollomon, 46 yrs old, married of Indiana, U.S.A. and his wife identified as Armin Degrano Hollomon, alias Fe Lipao, 30 years old, both residing in Bantayan Island, Cebu.

Surigao police apprehended the couple after receiving complaints from several victims who claimed they were lured with their illegal activities.

Police identified the alleged victims as Ellan Joy Cortes Camporedondo, Genevieve Guerra Camporedondo, both of legal age and businessmen, Ederio Sulapas Rendon, Gerlie Ablos Puyales, Frechie Catin Sendiong, Charisse Mae Gesta Gerona, private employees and all residents of Surigao City.

Police reports further revealed that Armin Hollomon has three standing warrant of arrests.

One was issued by MTC Branch 2, Surigao City for estafa with recommended bail bond amounting to 6,000 pesos issued in the year 2000, another warrant of arrest was issued by MTCC Branch 145, Makati City for illegal recruitment with no bail bond recommended dated May 21, 2001.

A third warrant was issued by MTCC Branch 66, Makati City for estafa, with recommended bail bond amounting to 80,000 pesos.

After the arrest, a case for violation of paragraph 6 of R.A. 8042 otherwise known as Large Scale Illegal Recruitment was filed against Michael David Hollomon and his wife Armin Degrano Hollomon at Surigao City Prosecutor’s Office.

Suspects now detained at Surigao City Police Station and requested for preliminary investigation assisted by Atty. Jose Begil.

Upon further verification conducted by Surigao City Police Station, it was learned that said American National has standing Warrant of Arrest at Madison County, USA.

Now you can read me in the SunStar!

Just a quick announcement, everybody.  Effective today, I have a weekly column in the SunStar Davao Newspaper.  SunStar, I believe, is Davao’s largest circulation newspaper, and I am happy to be featured there.

My column is called “Mindanao Bob’s Journal” and will appear every Friday in the SunStar Davao edition.  For this week’s column, it is basically just an introduction of who I am and how I got here.  We’ll get down to more serious issues next week.

Unfortunately, this first column is not included in the Online edition of  SunStar, but perhaps future columns will be.

Are you a Philippine News Junkie?

Are you a Philippine News Junkie like me? Always have to know what is going on in the Philippines?

Well, if you are, Feyma and I have three new sites that might interest you!

First, we have a new site called the “Luzon Magazine” which features news and current events on the Island of Luzon!  We started this site a couple of weeks ago, and it is starting to build up a nice list of current news and events on the Island of Luzon.  Give it a visit and see what you think!

Secondly, we have another new site called “Visayas Magazine” which is much like the Luzon Magazine, but this one covers the Visayas Region of the Philippines!  This site has also been online for a couple of weeks now, and you can find a variety of stories and news from the Visayas!

As most of you know, I also have a site called the “Mindanao Magazine” which features news and events on the Island of Mindanao.  This is my oldest site by far, dating back to 1996!  That site continues.

Rounding out our three new sites is the Balitang Pilipinas site, which ties together the three News Magazines, tying them all into a single outlet for Philippine News and Events.  The Balitang Pilipinas site does not feature stories in itself, but will show all the latest headlines from the three News Magazine sites that we offer!

So, if you are a Philippine News Junkie, I hope that you will follow these three new sites, and enjoy them.  Any feedback that you have to offer would be most appreciated too!

Philippine Transportation Strike

Protesters persuade drivers to join picket line during the nationwide transport strike in Davao City on Monday, July 13, 2009. However, the supposed transport strike failed to paralyze the transportation in the city as only few drivers joined the strike. Transport groups in the country have been calling for the rollback of fuel prices as well as the scrapping of the Oil Deregulation Law. Keith Bacongco / AKP Images

Forget the nipa hut.. check this

Forget about the Nipa Hut, guys.  I want one of these:

I’ve never seen one of these before, but from what I can see, it appears to be a Nipa Car!  Wow, very cool, in my opinion.

Want to read about these, and see a picture of a Nipa Truck?  Read here.

Mindanao under fire!

What is going on in Mindanao?

Over the past weekend, there was a bombing leaving 5 people dead and more than 30 wounded.

This morning, a bomb exploded in Jolo, Sulu.

Just about 2 hours ago, a bomb killed 7 people in Iligan City.

Two of these places I have been to, Cotabato City and Iligan.  I have spent considerable time in Iligan and have been there many, many times.  I have a number of close friends who live in Iligan, including one of my very best friends.

It really sickens me to see this rash of violence.  What is going on?  It can’t really be said for sure yet.  There is speculation that the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) is behind this.  Others are even speculating that Government forces are behind this.  I know nothing about who is behind it, and I personally do not want to speculate.

Mindanao is a place that is dear to my heart, I love Mindanao, and I love Mindanaoans.  I hope that there can be some kind of resolution of the violence on the Island.

First Philippine H1N1 death

Today, the Philippines experienced it’s first death associated with H1N1 Swine Flu.  Like in so many other H1N1 deaths, this victim also suffered from other ailments, heart disease in this case.

The victim is a 49 year old woman was not one of the 400 or so Philippine H1N1 diagnosed cases, as she had not gone to the hospital, instead self medicating at home.  However, tests confirmed that H1N1 was the woman was H1N1 positive. The Department of Health, on the other hand, could not confirm that H1N1 caused the death, only that she died, and was H1N1 positive at the tim of death.

Read more here.

Ring of fire

If you plan to live in the Philippines, you are moving to the (in)famous Pacific Ring of Fire!  The Philippines sits right atop the ring of active seismic activity.  There are volcanoes here, earthquakes and all that you would expect.

Here in Davao, yesterday we had a 6.1 magnitude earthquake.  This morning was a 5.3 aftershock.  Things are kind of active on the Philippine part of the Ring of Fire right now!

That’s not bad, though.  On January 1, 2002, I lived in General Santos when we were hit with a 7.3 magnitude quake.  It shook us out of bed at about 5am or so that New Year’s day.  I honestly thought that I was going to die that day, he quake was so strong!

LiP approaching another milestone!

[Davao City] (News Release) – The Live in the Philippines Web Magazine, a website for Expats Living in the Philippines, affectionately known as “LiP” by it’s readers, is approaching another milestone in it’s young life!  At the time of writing, the website has in excess of 39,900 comments on it’s articles.

LiP, started it’s life in August 2006 and is approaching it’s 3rd Anniversary of publication.  Imagine 40,000 comments in less than 3 years!  An amazing feat by the LiP Community, for sure.

The LiP website features more than 1,500 articles on the site, for an average of more than 26 comments on each article.  However, articles over the past year have garnered a much larger number of comments, so the per article average should continue to grow.

Read LiP today!  Leave a comment or two!  Maybe you will submit comment #40,000!

American tax dollars at work!

According to my friend Norodin Alonto Lucman on Facebook:

Ocular inspection with US troops in Lanao yielded one discovery: the multi-million dollar Butig circumferential road funded by US Aid was not implemented by GRP and Manila contractors. It was fully paid by US tax-payer’s money. Where did the money go?

Indeed, where did the road go?  We paid for it, somebody has the money, who is it?

Shame, shame….

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