July 20, 2010 was a significant date because it marked my 20th year of living in Davao City. Almost half of my life has been spent in a land that adopted me as its own; Davao has been good to me even though I, like many other Manileños, had pretty bad preconceptions about it. In [...]
His father was assigned to Davao City in 1983, heading the 3rd Marine Brigade until 1986. He himself spent little time in the city, coming here only for short visits, but Ruffy Biazon, currently congressman of Muntinlupa City but gunning for a seat in the Senate under the Liberal Party (LP) slate, has hit upon [...]
“Pray.” This was the simple but serious advice of National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) Regional Corporate Executive Ed Calabio to Mindanaoans who are currently faced with a power crisis of epic proportions. We’ve seen worse, of course, but this current crisis is threatening to be the mother of all power crises because of [...]
How would a Noynoy presidency tackle Mindanao? I was able to field this question directly to Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino during an early morning press conference last Friday (February 5) at a restaurant in Davao City. His mother, the late former President Corazon C.Aquino, was the one who restarted the peace initiatives in the island, [...]
On July 8, 2009, Buluan, Maguindanao Vice Mayor Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu was called to a meeting with then-Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro in Manila to discuss the former’s decision to run for governor. More precisely, the two talked about a complaint by Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr. that Mangudadatu was “hard-headed” (matigas ang ulo) and would not [...]
“Tatay” Rene Lumawag, Davao City’s most respected photojournalist, handed me this blast from the past: a photo of me with renowned artist Mauro Malang Santos (who was, believe it or not, conferred the National Artist Award only early this year) during an exhibit at The Royal Mandaya Hotel. I can’t remember what year this was [...]
The Philippines isn’t exactly known for good hamburgers, and Davao City even less so. If you’re a Davaoeño with a hankering for beef patties in a bun, all that’s been available to you are fast food types that don’t really hit the spot. Even the few specialty stores here always seem to come up short [...]
Maybe it’s because the end of the school year is nearing — it’s certainly not because I’m particularly popular — but these days I’ve been getting interviewed by students more and more often for their theses and senior projects. One such interview I wrote about here, and then the other day a media colleague who’s taking her master’s degree in journalism asked me to help her by way of sharing my thoughts on some issues that affect me as a journalist.
Massacre, martial law, beheading, kidnapping, hostage-taking. Not to mention not one but two multi-million-peso drug busts and, just the other day, a jailbreak that left two people dead. In my Facebook status the other day, I said, “Don’t you think you’re overdoing it?”
I had wanted jambayan to be a fairly light site, but the recent events in Maguindanao have forced me to post rather serious articles. While that, of course, is needed, I also realize that I may be adding to the misperception of Mindanao as a “war-torn” and “lawless” island. The truth is just the opposite: [...]
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