ISABELA BUSINESSMAN DROWNED IN MAGAT RIVER

A massive search and rescue operations has been launched for Isabela businessman Angelo Petines, 40, who drowned yesterday in a river in San Juan, Potia, Ifugao. Petines, son of Linda Petines, president of the San Mateo Rural Bank in San Mateo, Isabela were with three companions, hunting for papas (wild ducks) in the river, a tributary of the Magat River, according to Susan Gagarin, SMRB employee. She was quoting one of the companions of Angelo, saying that the businessman, in full hunting gear, boots and all, was crossing the swollen river when the accident happen. The river is one of several creeks and rivers that pour water to the Magat Hydroelectric Plant in Aguinaldo, Ramon, Isabela.

Magat HIgh Dam

IN THE TIME OF THE HOLOCAUST

The blogger as actor in a drama presentation of the Grim Reaper in elementary grades

for Laarni Julian Suela Comabig and the Mangyan Maiden

(after reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy)

go to another country where the moon
     is a meandering river
the sun a flight of birds in a sky of utmost blue
it is a season when papayas are in bloom
but the tree is a barren woman in the spring
     of her life--gone are the stars in her eyes
it's a season of harvest but the farmer is rueing--
     his carabao has long crossed the divide.

an old man is walking on the beach
     strewn with ashes and dead fish.
it is sunset, but the voices of urchins are muffled
and death is alive in the silence where once
     stood the great forest and mansions of rocks.

go to another country where the sun rises
in the west and th moon weeps
                                           at sunrise.

and we? we shall search the ruined cathedrals
comb the mountain city that perished in cries
      and flames
and finding none, we shall descend into the canyons
     of memories.

PHILIPPINE MAYOR AND FAMILY GET LION'S SHARE OF TOWN'S ANNUAL BUDGET

     This mayor and his gang want to assume their respective posts again by running in the May 13, 2013 polls. His political rival said that the town executive gets a monthly compensation of P53,000 while his wife, whom he appointed as his executive assistant, receives P26,000 a month practically doing nothing in her office. A son and a daughter receives P16, 000 each in monthly salaries.
 The incumbent mayor also owns expensive houses in the villages and in the poblacion, allegedly constructed out of the town's coffers and using the town's employees and facilities like trucks making deliveries of gravel and sands.

       

 

How are you doing, Lai?

How are you faring in the world, Lai? I hope you are all okey. Please give the blogger your correct address and cellphone number.

View from apartment in the Serangoon area in Sngapore

Guests in main sala of  house in Oscariz

WRITERS DEATHS DURING THE MONTH

Reynaldo Duque, the Palanca multi-awardee writer, and educator Crispina Balderas Bragado have gone to their Creator this month. Crispina, from Bauang, La Union was the wife of Jose Asia Bragado, the nobelista. We did not know the cause of Crispina's death, but Rey died of kidney failure, according to Prescy Bermudez. Some writers who have gone to the great beyond: Jimmy Lucas, Art Padua, Greg Laconsay, Pel Alcantara, Meliton Brillantes, William Alvarado, Bagnos Cudiamat, Juan Quimba, Lina Lorenzo. They died of a ripe old age except Bagnos.

8-KM WALK-RUN TO SEE TIP OF MALAYSIA

Marina Bay Sands view from Marina Square--blogger's cellphone shot while taking lunch at a "Food Republic" eatery.

Palawan beach with an islet dubbed as the southernmost tip of Continental Asia which is 164 kilometers north of the equator.

     February 24, Saturday. It was past 9:00 in the morning when we (Cristoffer, the youngest Julian sibling)  walked from the apartment to the jogging route at Buangkong Crescent to what would be a walk-run to the northernmost part of Singapore in Punggol.

     "We can see a tip of Malaysia( Johor Baruh) when we reach the end of this route," Christoffer said.
     Johor Baruh is Malay for New Johor--baruh is the Iluko work baro (new). Two weeks earlier, we traveled to the place--a developing province like that of Clark with malls, industrial parks and high rise buildings.

     After a few minutes, we went under a bridge where we met a group of Singaporean joggers with their shirts off, their chests glistening in the sun. Just like the others, they just go on, none of those greetings acknowledging your presence in the scene, unlike in Amarillo, Texas, where a white lady in jogging pants greeted me with a smile and hollering, "How are you doing?".

     The jogging route practically starts off the Hougang highway along the canal--actually a tributary of the Sengkang river that runs north to Punggol. There is a road going south where cars pass; we turned right and followed the main jogging route  (nicely paved and cemented where no motorized vehicle can pass) and started jogging.
     The route runs parallel to the tributary, which has a lot of vegetation and trees characteristic of a watershed, that is well-maintained. At this hour which should be hot part of the day as in the Philippines  there were still a lot of joggers and bikers ( a group of at least 6 Tagalog speaking members complete with gears passed us ). No leaves littered the pavement, but these could have been sucked off the previous afternoon by a fire-truck looking vehicle, the way the blogger saw it done in the Changi area three years ago.  

to be continued

MARINA BAY SANDS, SINGAPORE FEB 2013

Singapore at night with the world's second  biggest casino, the Marina Bay Sands, in the background

MARINA BAY SANDS
Singapore, February 15, 2013 

Diamante iti rusod ti sabangan
Pateg nga arigengen ti utek
Wenno gabsuon ti pirak ken kinasirib
Ti Lumaud? Ti Dumaya?

Ania ti pampanunotek, St. Henrick,
Iti rimatrimat dagiti eskaparate

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