Pet Melliza

 ILOILO CITY — Saturday night, preparatory to the Resurrection, Pinoys perform rituals consisting of removal of signs of sorrow  inside churches — of purple cloths draping statues  including the Crucified One. There is no mass yet as this celebration is reserved for the following day after the official time of the Resurrection comes. For the time being, the minister blesses essentials used at home like water, salt and oil and seeds  that worshippers bring —rice, corn, beans, fruit trees and what-not.  All vehicles lined up on the street are blessed, streets to be more precise as the volume of vehicles rose every hour — either public or private carriers. (In this regard, to cut short the time spent on blessing the vehicles with engines on, the officiating priests asks his lay ministers to assist in spreading the blessings,  Easter, our tradition tells us, ushers-in not only the Resurrected One but the whole new life itself — the seeds for abundant harvests a...

YRONG-YRONG CITY -- Iloilo farmers rallied here today decrying depressed farm produce especially palay. They rile against government trade liberalization policy that renders them helpless at the mercy of importers in complicity with smugglers.  Rice farmers today are at the receiving end of the onslaught of giant rice importers led by a certain Cynthia Villar, a senator who authored the controversial Rice Tariffication Act, and smugglers who enjoy government connection. Farm inputs like urea have shot up beyond outer space, above P3,000 per bag. Though its price leveled down at P2,800 today, that is still way higher than its price last year at P800/bag. Costs of production --transport, fuel for machineries--have shot up but rice farm gate price is still pegged below P14/kilo. A certain tenant of Malacañang promised during the campaign for the May 2022 election to lower milled rice down to P20/kilo. Today, the cheapest rice sells at 40/kilo. “Binlod” or broken rice bits, sold to fee...

Construction activities slowdown traffic flow but that is not an excuse for traffic gridlocks that this blighted land called Yrong-Yrong must bear. This kingdomn is just cursed with that. On weekends travel is smooth, the road is clear though the volume of vehicles and commuters is more or less the same, or a less a bit.  The gridlocks recursr on the work week, starting Monday until Friday. The bottleneck starts an hour or so to the opening bell of the work day which is 8 a.m. Contractors operate like banks. Works starts at 8 a.m. and closes at 5 p.m.If you noticed, construction companies observe rest on weekends and holidays. The rest of the week, their crew and heavy equipment hum like bank clerks. Go anywhere in Yrong-Yrong and you can see that trend. That’s why projects done overnight in other countries takes months to finish here. Other countries can erect flyovers on road junctions in one or two months. Here in Yrong-Yrong both city and province, it stretches to years. Constr...

Yours truly can only gape at the political incantations of La Nuestra Señora de Patigayon and Datu Saripada Agwak branding the appointing of Mi-soo New York to the law faculty of West Vsayas State U “apolitical”. These two titans of the dark political firmament of this blighted land of Yrong-Yrong, graciously pledge support to the SD card president who happens to be spouse of Mi-so New York. Let’s move on, they sang in duet sweeping under the rug that what they have just done or spoken is a political act. What? These twins has done a political act: they preach submission to denizens of their kingdom. They ask for meekness of their constituents enraged by the history of Filipinos in the hands of the family and cronies of the SD card president whose records of plunder and human rights crimes are confirmed in history let alone by court convictions in the country and the US. Non-political Mi-so New York being admitted to the WVSU faculty to teach criminal law?  Datu Saripada Agwak and ...

 YRONG-YRONG (June 29, 2022) —Iloilo Province and City must sit down together  to harmonize their respective local public transport route plans (LPTRPs), suggests Atty. Salvador Altura, legal counsel of the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) in Region 6. There are “route gaps” to be filled since Yrong-Yrong City led by Datu Sarip Agwak enforced its version of LPTRP June 12, 2022, added Altura in answer  to queries raised by Aksyon Radyo  anchor John Paul Tia this morning . This city is the first in the country to devise and enforce its LPTRP but problems cropped up in its aftermath. The new routes hatched by the Datu Sarip Agwak and company has commuters, businesses in the Old Downtown, PUJ operators and drivers grumbling as sales slumped and travel costs doubled let alone the stretching of travel time.  “Being the first is a two-edge issue, it may mean honor or notoriety,” he explains. Altura agrees with Tia who’s needling the butts o...

Yrong-Yrong City and Province, the whole country, for that matter, still limps from the blows of Covid-19, particularly, the harsh and long lockdown that was over done in 2020-2021. We can’t keep tab how many Filipinos lost their savings, if not loved ones; many lost means to earn a living. A lot are deep in debt. Recovering from losses, standing back again on our own feet, is still the main pre-occupation for many. Many are still at a loss where to get their next meals. Which should also be the concern of our public servants, supposedly, leaders. Many public officials show awareness of that like those in Iloilo Province where in early 2021, they already enacted an ordinance granting emergency livelihood loans to displaced OFWs, those forced to repatriate and were prevented by the lockdown from returning to oversea work. There is one exception though, at least, from our immediate experience. And that exception is the city’s number one public servant, yes, public servant supposedly but ...

History has twists and turns that can transform Judas Iscariot, maligned in Christian salvific juncture, to a character more worthy of respect than a slew of humans like today’s dramatis personae behind the stage show titled Local Public Transport Route Plan.   JI at the end is remorseful for betraying Jesus. His seared conscience no longer permits him to walk in public in the company of the Disciples. He commits sepuko . Better die with honor, goes the samurai code. The LPTRP achieved all things except the ultimate goal of public carriage that is, making public commuting safe, convenient, efficient (least costly but speedier). Through the LPTRP, Datu Sari Agwak and his caboodle (better still, “ka budol”) in the Yrong-Yrong Anti-Business Club whose members don’t commute, and the Public Safety and Transport Mismanagement Office, have attained the opposite which is to make travel costlier, inconvenient and longer. They hurt not only provincial PUJ operators and commuters; they hurt t...