A YEAR AGO or so to the 2007 elections, Iloilo, its second congressional district particularly, was jarred by a P3 million-cellphone scam with the Syjuco spouses at its center wind.
Iloilo provincial administrator Manuel “Boy” Mejorada broke it to the press.
The Nokia 1100 cellphones were “ghost” deliveries, declared Mejorada, meaning, Rep. Judy Syjuco and TESDA director-general […]

ILOILO Vice Gov. Rolex Suplico continues to shoot his own foot. And we can’t help but gape in awe at his boldness to hold his ground against all odds including sanity. The same observation applies as well to his colleagues who quickly jump to his call virtually defying the national mandate of 10 percent salary […]

SINCE the last elections, yours truly have refrained from commenting on the rift between Iloilo Gov. Niel D. Tupas, Sr. and Vice Gov. Rolex T. Suplico so as not to be misconstrued for meddling in what is openly an intra-family spat.
It is public knowledge that the two are uncle and nephew, the governor being the […]

IF Fray Butod — the quintessential symbol of the patriarchal, despotic, conservative, reactionary and backward sector of religion usurping the title “The Church” – ordered me to go forth and multiply and reject birth control practices, shall I say amen?
If Fray Butod threatened me eternal damnation in hell or excommunication in life shall I cringe?
Before answering […]

IF THROTTLING another’s neck were no crime, the longest line of people queueing to do that is at the GSIS central office or wherever its top honcho, Winston Garcia, is warming his big butt in.
The woes of GSIS members are endless and a thousand of them are created every second because the GSIS under the […]

We were correct from the very beginning: the GSIS is only pulling our legs in the aftermath of typhoon Frank. It is only out to score pogi points when it announced a window for calamity loans.
Provincial employees have countless woes to tell how GSIS duped them. One spent an entire Saturday waiting in a long […]

IN 1996, Iloilo City had its first taste of floods engulfing more than one-third of its land and dislocated 150,000 people. That was not its last. The clown Jerry Treñas, then councilor, seized the opportunity for a media blitz by forming the “anti-flood coalition” to rouse the government to action.
The coalition itself is suspect as […]

SEVEN months lapsed and PDI correspondent Nestor Burgos is yet to hear from Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierez on his query.
He asked early January this year director for Western Visayas of the Office of the Ombudsman, Virginia Santiago, on the investigation on the infamous “Capitol Siege” of January 17, 2007, the day when a pack of fully […]

BARANGAY officials together with their mayor made representation early this year to their House representative to repair a mountain road that the rains had deformed. Her honor sent them away empty handed because she had no budget for it.
Undaunted, they went to the governor and got the commitment of a “truck team“ which is a […]

ILONGGOS, history shows, has time and again rose and rebuilt from the ruins. They’ll do the same in the wake of typhoon Frank that left 136 dead and 926 injured in Iloilo alone. Eighty-two others are missing.
Funny, there is one publicity stuntman who seized the calamity to litter photo-tarpaulin posters and streamers throughout the city, […]