Police warn of more rebel attacks before Philippines vote

Philippine police warned Saturday that Maoist rebels would step up violent attacks ahead of the May 10 general elections, with politicians and isolated police posts seen as prime targets.

Police chief Jesus Verzosa said the New People's Army (NPA) sought to derail the democratic process as well as raise funds by extorting money from candidates who are threatened with harm if they refused to pay up.

"The recent atrocities committed by (the NPA) against candidates, civilians and the public in general indicate their deliberate effort to exploit (police and military) focus on election duties," he said in a statement.

"In this connection, all commanders are directed to increase the alert level of police stations, camps, outposts ... and other vital installations."

A running police tally said more than 30 people have been killed so far in more than 70 "election-related incidents" since campaigning kicked off on February 9.

Aside from NPA rebels, hired guns employed by rival politicians were also suspected in other attacks.

In the latest reported incident, three household staff of a southern Philippines municipal mayor were injured late Friday when his house was fired on by unknown gunmen.

Police guarding Mayor Teodoro Sinaca of the southern town of Malimono fired back and the official was unharmed, a police report said. The suspects escaped.

The NPA has been waging a 41-year insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives.

In March the military said the 5,000-member NPA was charging up to 20 million pesos (435,000 dollars) in so-called "permit-to-campaign" fees for candidates running for posts from municipal councillor to president.

A World Heritage Site of Palawan Underground River

The world’s longest navigable underground river is found in Palawan, Philippines. One of the tourist attractions of Palawan, this underground Palawan River has gained worldwide recognition for being a world heritage site. Formerly known to be St. Paul’s Cave by the ancient people, this underground Palawan River was handed down to generations has revolved to be named as St. Paul’s Underground River National Park. Until March 26, 1971 by virtue of a Proclamation No. 835 the underground Palawan River was officially named Puerto Princessa Subterranean River National Park.

Strategically located 8.1 kilometers away from the city proper of Puerto Princessa, the underground Palawan River is located at Bahile town of Puerto Princesa, Palawan. The enchanting place of the underground Palawan River can be reached in two ways either through a pump boat ride or trekking through a monkey trail. An alternative route can be taken to reach Bahile town via a pump boat ride from the Bahile wharf. After the pump boat ride, about 2.1 kilometer trek is needed to reach the river entrance.

The pump boat ride on the way to the underground Palawan River is also an entertaining sight of the Palawan coasts. The monkey trail however could be more fun when you desire to see loose naughty monkeys throughout the trail. Along the trail leading to the underground Palawan River are monitor lizards locally known as “bayawak” are usually seen as running, climbing trees or simply resting along the trail side. Traveling on the way to the famous underground Palawan River is an exciting experience already.

Philippines dragon-sized lizard is a new species

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A dragon-sized, fruit-eating lizard that lives in the trees on the northern Philippines island of Luzon has been confirmed as a new species, scientists reported on Tuesday.

Hunted for its tasty flesh, the brightly colored forest monitor lizard can grow to more than six feet in length but weighs only about 22 pounds (10 kg), said Rafe Brown of the University of Kansas, whose team confirmed the find.

"It lives up in trees, so it can't get as massive as the Komodo dragon, a huge thing that eats large amounts of fresh meat," Brown said by telephone. "This thing is a fruit-eater and it's only the third fruit-eating lizard in the world."

Discovering such a large vertebrate species is extremely rare, Brown said. The lizard, a new species of the genus Varanus, is skittish and able to hide from humans, its primary predators, which could explain why it has gone undetected by scientists for so long.

Biologists first saw photographs of the big, skinny lizard in 2001, when those surveying the area passed hunters carrying the lizards' colorful carcasses, but the species at that point had never been given a scientific identification.

In the next few years, Brown said, ethnobiologists kept hearing stories "about these two kinds of lizard that everyone liked to eat because their flesh tasted better than the ones that lived on the ground; this thing was described as bigger and more brightly colored."

The two kinds of lizard described by the local people were two names for the same animal, Brown said.

CLAW SCRATCHES ON TREES

In 2009, graduate students at the end of a two-month expedition kept seeing signs of the big lizard. There were claw-scratches on trees and clumps of pandanus trees, whose fruit the lizard prefers.

The clumps indicated that the lizards had eaten pandanus fruit and then excreted the seeds in clusters.

"It was literally in the last couple days of the expedition, we were running out of money and food and this was the payoff: they finally got this gigantic animal," Brown said.

Hunters who had heard of the team's interest brought a barely-alive adult male lizard to their camp. The team euthanized the animal and did genetic tests that confirmed it as a unique species, Brown said.

DNA analysis showed there was a deep genetic divergence between the new lizard and its closest relative, Gray's monitor lizard, which is also a fruit-eater but lives on the southern end of Luzon, rather than the northern end where the forest monitor lizard lives.

"They are extremely secretive," Brown said of the new species. "I think that centuries of humans hunting them have made the existing populations ... very skittish and wary and we never see them. They see and hear us before we have a chance to see them, they scamper up trees before we have a chance to come around."

These findings were published in the Royal Society Journal Biology Letters, with additional work by scientists in the Philippines and the Netherlands.

Agusan del Norte - amazing adventures!

“Human and nature...making amazing adventures.”

Agusan del Norte is one of the five province of Caraga Region (others are Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, and the newly created province – Dinagat Island, which was part of Surigao del Norte before). It is bounded on the north by Butuan Bay and Surigao del Norte, on the east by Surigao del Sur, on the south by Agusan del Sur, and on the west by Misamis Oriental. One of the country's leading producer of rice for being dominantly agricultural province.