By Rex Catubig   WE are witnessing how, in record time and biblical proportion, dikes and rivers overflowed, copious rains fell within a short period, and lo and behold, the country drowned in flood water and unending hearings. Yet these occurrences could not have been generated by ignominious corruption alone…

By Rex Catubig   WHEN the anomalous flood control projects exploded a Pandora’s box of associative demons—SOP, payola, insertions, twenty-five percent, proponent, and other euphemistic turns of phrase, one exacerbating factor got somewhat overshadowed. Yet, it is a key player in all this. Beyond the dikes, the embankments, rip rap…

By Rex Catubig   NOWADAYS, when Puto (local rice muffin, not the gay Mexican variant) is mentioned, it comes with the descriptive prefix Calasiao. Just like the fish Bangus, which is irrevocably identified with Dagupan, Puto and the township of Calasiao are mentioned in the same breath and have become…

By Rex Catubig   (in observance of the National Elderly Filipino Week: Embracing Age–Living a life with Dignity and Purpose) It is said that the last sense to go as one approaches the final round is the sense of hearing. While the body may have given up the fight, it…

By Rex Catubig   THE Franklin prevailed despite the predicaments that plagued its reincarnation. Despite its travails of survival, yet another daybreak came, and a silver lining appeared when the visionary Belen T Fernandez was elected Mayor. She had envisioned the Franklin as part of the grandiose plan to develop…

By Rex Catubig   THE groundbreaking and construction of the new bridge that will span across the Calmay River, linking the city to its island barrios and becoming the modern gateway to the Western towns, has suddenly drawn flak and been subjected to defamatory innuendos. Yet, this project that no…

By Rex Catubig   Note: Please allow me to indulge in some rumination to start my birthday month and await my upcoming birthday week. I am inspired by the AI photos created by my friends, Adams Ryan and Archimedes Fronda. Struck by the blurry image of hanging laundry in the…

By Rex Catubig   THEY are the calamity and crises staple. Once referred to as “Relief”, they have since mutated  into various aid acronyms,–AICS, Tupad, 4P’s, etc., but are collectively popularly known as “Ayuda”, the palliative, temporary support in emergency situations, financial or in kind. During typhoons, flooding and other…

By Rex Catubig   IN Biblical times, God directed the Israelites to smear the doors of their houses with the blood of a lamb as a sign to set them apart so that the Angel of Death would pass them over and spare them from imminent harm. Today, the blood mark…

By Rex Catubig   WITH the onrush of high tide, storm surge, and floods that have engulfed the consciousness, that have made life miserable, and have dragged along monumental debris of scandal, I am drawn to haunting memories of catastrophes in the past, similarly destructive and horrific. Yet I was never in…