Adopting buro By Glaiza Bernadeth Pinto It was April 1997… I still remember that month as if it was only yesterday. We arrived in the town of Alcala from Mambusao, Roxas City in the Visayas. It was summertime then but it seemed to be the beginning of the season of…

Cabinet Revamp and Transactional Politics By +Oscar V. Cruz D. D. Now it can be said without reserve and with ethical certainty. There are more than enough indications that Malacañang itself even wants it openly known and noted. The ruling administration has nonchalantly demonstrated and continues to prove that transactional…

Labor Day for OFWs, especially By Gerry Garcia LABOR Day celebrated in honor of workers is most often a holiday.  In the US it falls on the first Monday of September . . . unlike here in Pinoyland and in other countries where May 1st is the common choice. In…

All these festivals are good for nothing if . . . By Jun Velasco WE were locked in a lively exchange over how and why a modernizing city could be so crazy over a fleshy aquatic animal called bangus. Can’t you, Dagupan people, come up with something better, say, larger…

Origin of Pista’y Dayat By Gonzalo Duque THESE festivals  we are  having these days — from Lingayen to Dagupan and all the coastal towns of San Fabian, Binmaley, Labrador and  Sual  including Alaminos City — have  their  stories of  origin. Read on. Manong Resty Basa, well-known local historian and awardee…

Craving for mushroom turns into a thriving agribusiness By Sosimo Ma. Pablico Eleven years ago, a mechanical engineer in San Leonardo, Nueva Ecija craved for mushroom but was not able to buy any because no one was culturing it.  This prompted him to look for mushroom spawns instead so that…

Uprooting By Marifi Jara This time last year, I wrote a melancholy piece about celebrating the sea. This year, there is a happy note. Our barangay, Nibaliw Narvarte (though it will always be Sabangan in my heart), just celebrated its first Tuyo Festival, timed with the province-wide Pista’y Dayat. Activities…

Forgiveness without Repentance, Restitution, Repentance By +Oscar V. Cruz D. D. Forgiveness is so easy to say, to give and even to preach when the forgiving persons were not the ones ravaged and damaged, neither the individuals exploited and trampled upon, nor the ones cheated and robbed. And even supposing…

Bothersome bus terminals? By Gerry Garcia Our  fellow-Promdi province of  Pangasinan Antonio Villar Jr., seemingly always in the fore-front in the drive against corruption in the government, hit the headlines again recently when he caused the filing of charges of smuggling against 29 government officials at the Office of the…

Dagupan is Disneyland By Jun Velasco MAYOR Al Fernandez  is under siege. For crafting Dagupan City into a veritable  Disneyland — what with  the fiesta  galore,  colorful  buntings on every street , the boom-boom sound, the  lilting music  — from  the poblacion to  the outskirts, the  non-stop activities with  the…