Add Abra governor Maria Jocelyn Bernos to your list of accomplished leaders and
someone to look forward to in the country’s national political scene.
La Sallian Joy, which is how she prefers to be called, comes from a distinguished family of public servants. Before the age of 20, she became president of the Sangguniang Kabataan Federation, thereafter representing Abra in the country’s 15th and 16th Congress.
Fellow Abrenos elected widow Joy governor in May 2016. Her husband Marc Ysrael Bernos, deceased, served as mayor of La Paz where she and her daughter Mary Sandrine and sons Joaquin and Miguel now reside.
Among the accomplishments of Joy are the Educational Assistance Program (EAP) that gave cash incentives to some 4,000 indigent students. This in addition to distributing free school bags and supplies to school children.
She also had a medical assistance program for various hospitals, as well as distributing medical apparatus to accredited Barangay Health Workers in each Abra barangay. She also gave cash incentives to these health workers, as well as free over-the-counter medicines.
As for infrastructure, Joy has constructed a school building, multi-covered courts, gyms, access roads, national roads, bridges and water sanitation facilities. At barely 40 years or age, she’s truly a joy to Abra.
THE ABRA THAT JOY LOVES. Abra boasts of numerous majestic waterfalls that numerous tourists trek their way through, enjoying the sight and serenity. Developments are being done to make the travel to these falls comfortable and easier.
Abra offers adventurers, nature lovers and culture aficionados a wealth of memorable tourist destinations. There are seven caves, seven cold and hot spring resorts, centuries-old earthquake baroque Spanish churches and five spectacular waterfalls.
In addition to a burgeoning loom-weaving industry based on the colorful Abel Abra whose shawls are now favored by celebrities including Sen. Loren Legarda, Abra has a well-established bamboo-centered industry that should soon reach world markets.
Located in a fertile valley in the north, Abra is rich in forests and plantations. The bamboo industry in particular has more than doubled the number of people it employs - from 1,041 in 2013 to close to 2,500 in 2015 —and the employment figures keep on increasing.
The industry has given Abra’s indigenous tribes plenty of work opportunities, too. Indefatigable Joy is making sure that Abra is competitive enough to face the challenges it faces regionally or nationally and all the support has been handed down to ensure its sustainability.
It is not just in the traditional sector of arts and handicrafts that Abra’s entrepreneurs are actively involved — they also manufacture strong, flattened and engineered bamboos that are now used in many buildings in the region and as far as Cebu. Bamboo is the 21st century’s architectural material of choice, and Abra shows the way forward.
As for the loom-weaving industry, it has also become an employment engine, with sales and investments on the up and up. Like bamboo, Abra stands pliant with the lead of Gov. Joy Bernos.
RENEWAL COMES TO 2017 MMFF. As mandated by the law that created the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF), members of the Executive Committee are considered resigned after their annual tenure and they are automatically changed.
The decrease in last year’s gross earnings was caused by the separation of mainstream and indie films. If The Super Parental Guardians, Enteng Kabisote 10 and the Abangers and Mano Po 8: Tsinoy were screened at the 2016 MMFF, they could have collectively exceeded the earnings of the 2015 MMFF. But because of the bias exercised against them by the 2015 MMFF Execom, the inevitable decline of gross income took place.
Metro Manila Development Authority head Tim Orbos, who signaled the launching of the 2017 MMFF, announced that the 2017 Execom is made up of Sen. Grace Poe-Llamanzares; Batangas Rep. Vilma Santos-Recto; Taguig City Mayor Laarni Cayetano, Police Director Oscar Albayalde, chief of the Philippine National Police-National Capital Region; Rachel Arenas, Movie And Television Review And Classification Board chairman, and Liza Diño, Film Development Council of the Philippines chairman.
The rest are stakeholders: Wilson Tieng, Movie Producers and Distributors Association of the Philippines president; Jun Romana of Bureau of Broadcast Services; Jesse Ejercito of the Philippine Motion Picture Producers Association, Marichu Maceda, chairperson of the Mowelfund; actress Boots Anson-Rodrigo; Victor Villegas, a film distributor; Edgar Tejerero, president of the SM Lifestyle Inc.; and lawyer Rolando Duenas, assistant general manager of the Ayala Cinemas.
There is a clear diminishing of independent filmmakers widely believed as the cause of the mediocre performance of last year’s edition.
It has yet to be determined, however, if the festival is retaining the finished film submission requirement that was adopted last year. This must be carefully studied as it had its own disadvantages. While it has the clear advantage of viewing finished entries, it also caused a lot of film productions that eventually turned unprofitable.
This is not good business practice as film production is an economic undertaking. It is uncertain that even its top grossers — Die Beautiful, Seklusyon and Vince and Kath and James — turned in profits.
But Sen. Tito Sotto’s proposed law to create a film festival for indie films timed during school vacation must be pursued.
PREPPING 2017 MMFF. IndieGo Pictures’ Blood Hunters: Rise of the Hybrids is being entered in the 2017 Metro Manila Film Festival. Since only the film’s principal photography has been accomplished after three months, the post-production work may even take longer to ensure a high technical quality.
The length of time needed to get the film actually ready for screening must be the reason few details were shared with the media during the huddle, particularly on the details of the storyline. Everyone must have been instructed just to be nice and sweet and chatty and proud about the film without giving out specifics.
But, oh, boy, everything must be top secret in that oh-so-isolated, oh-so-far away set in Morong, Bataan that took all of nine hours to cover. Well, that media huddle may just be meant to be a teaser for the grand things Blood Hunters will be screened, hopefully, nine months still and without assurance it will be accepted.
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Joy Bernos, Abra’s double joy and pride
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