We are supposed to be prosperous and merry today as we have wished in the Yuletide season.
We are supposed to be assured of abundance after collecting at least 12 kinds of rounded fruits on our tables and lighting pyrotechnics for two purposes, to attract good fortune and drive away demons.
Fine and good. That’s true only [...]

DECEMBER once ushered a different weather: the wet season was over and the dry set in. December was cold and dry up to January; February was warm and windy.
In yonder years, the winds of February beckoned on farmers to thresh their palay. Threshing was done on elevated bamboo platform by foot.
Harvest season was September through [...]

FORMER City Councilor kagawad Lando Dabao went ballistic at the sight of battle-ready SWAT people tailing Kgd. Ely Estante whose additional office, the Task Force Adam’s Apple, barged in night clubs and hauled girls to jail.
Don’t get us wrong: we do agree with the PNP acting-Iloilo City director that deploying the SWAT with Estante is [...]

THIS government is unsurpassed in callousness. To its name lies the blame for the 800 victims of political killings – mostly persons identified with the opposition, left leaning activists mostly since 2001.
This government is unsurpassed in callousness. To its name lies the blame for 200 activists forcibly disappeared since 2001 by suspected state agents.
The culture [...]

WE have never been into sports writing. That venture properly belongs to our friend, Alex Vidal.
But suffice to say, something from the recesses of our subconscious rebels and refuses to die down unless we wrote it – the Pacquiao – De La Hoya match, rather, mismatch.
Pacquiao exites, all his fights fire up the country, Pinoys [...]

Travelling along Brgy. Nanga and Tuguisan, Guimbal, Iloilo, one’s attention is readily caught by how fast the sea has gone closer to the national road that connects Guimbal with Iloilo City and Antique.
The sea is now a spitting distance from the highway. During storms, the waves hit the shoulder of the road. It may only [...]

SCHOOLS, students planning to go on a field trip to Iloilo City, better think twice or go elsewhere.
Five-year olds in control of city hall now consider the city of 350,000 people a separate republic and nation, hostile to the rest of Iloilo and the outside world.
That xenophobia is summed up in a statement “Ang amon, [...]

ACE Builders Enterprises, on one hand, is in tantrums for another P26 million payment from the city government and, on the other, Mayor Jerry Treñas is acting like a frightened dog with its tail between its legs.
We smell rat here.
The contractor is not alone in that zarzuela of huff-and-bluster, threatening suits on Iloilo City government [...]

JERRY Treñas was a young man of promises when he reentered politics (he lived a private life after losing the mayoralty in 1998) gunning for his first term in 2001.
He promised a lot, among them, better education and health services for constituency especially the poor. He promised to upgrade the maternity clinic in La Paz [...]

FRANK reminds us to act locally as our contribution to stop global environmental despoliation and pollution. Global warmig knows no border. Frank happened because the world has become a giant greenhouse caused by carbon emissions, mainly from coal-fired power plants in the US, China and India. These are countries that have entered the industrial age [...]