GOOD news for the tobacco industry: A French paper manufacturer is keenly interested in buying tobacco pulp from the Philippines to sustain its annual requirements for paper-making.

No less than National Tobacco Administrator Carlitos S. Encarnacion made the announcement. Schweitzer-Mauduit International, Inc., a paper company based in Quimperle, France is negotiating for importation of tobacco pulp from Manila after their sample tests showed that NTA’s tobacco pulp is of good quality.

NTA has been producing pulp from tobacco stalks as main component in its research and development program on other uses of the tobaco pulp. Now it seems its modest efforts have paid off and Philippine tobacco has been noticed — definitely a ray of sunshine once again on what some have labelled (because of the scientific warnings on health risks in smoking) a sunset industry.

With the French buying our tobacco pulp, more jobs and investment oportunities are there for the grabbing. Here’s hoping the deal is a done one. Schweitze-Mauduit is known as a “diversified producer of premium specialty paper” and is also among the world’s largest supplier of fine paper.  

RATHER quite late for Valentine’s but certainly not for this Season of Love and Sacrifice, we lifted this one from a post at a site we (pardon us dear blogger, please holler if you read this piece of yours here to be acknowledged) failed to mark.

So simply written, so greaty conveyed was the message. we thought we’d share you this one — maybe not consumer issue-related but just to ponder on as we go thru life. The blogger is some kind of doctor.

It was a busy morning, approximately 8.30am, when an elderly gentleman, in his 80’s, arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He stated that he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9am. I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound. On examination, it was well healed, so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove his sutures and redressed his wound. Read more

YOU are either an hermit living in the urban jungle or totally sightless not to notice the mushrooming of various second-hand or surplus computer stores in many parts of the country today. 

Mostly owned or operated by Koreans, Indians and some Chinese, the presence of these ”surplus stores”  shows the big glut in computer production worldwide, such that actual marketing has reached the dime-a-dozen point. Why, in these retail outlets, a Pentium 3 fetches for just P11-thou or P12-thou — really a clear bargain!

This is a development that should, barring some legal issues on  licensing and distribution, prove a boon to the country’s  aspirations for  higher computer literacy among its young people.

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