Walk down to any landing wharf along the Iloilo coast before sunrise. You can see it in the posture of the men tying up their outriggers. The sea is running a fever. The bancas are coming back empty. We finally have the numbers to prove it. In 2024, Iloilo’s municipal marine fisheries production plummeted by
October 6, 2026
Every election cycle, newsrooms gear up to play whack-a-mole with lies. We screenshot, we fact-check, we publish. And we lose. Because we are hunting ghosts while the necromancers sit in air-conditioned boardrooms. Look at the Statements of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCEs) filed with the Commission on Elections. They are a masterclass in creative writing. A
October 5, 2026
The easy take on PAGASA’s latest forecast is that Iloilo’s biggest water project will arrive a year after the drought it was built for. That is half wrong and the wrong half matters. PAGASA expects rainfall at 40 percent or less of normal across all five Western Visayas provinces in December, February, and March. Its
October 3, 2026
The sky above Panay is drying up, and the people in charge are pointing at a dam that isn’t there yet. The state weather bureau has laid it out plainly: an intensifying “Super El Niño” will choke Western Visayas from December 2026 to March 2027. And what is our grand lifeline? The Jalaur River Multi-Purpose
October 2, 2026
Look at the new fare matrix taped to the dashboard of your morning ride. As of this week, climbing into a traditional jeepney costs at least PHP 14. If you want the air-conditioned privilege of a modernized unit, prepare to shell out PHP 17 just to sit down (or, in most cases, stand). No one
September 30, 2026
The Department of Energy has good reasons for scrapping its 2026 coal bidding round. But it has not given Semirara Island a clear timeline. Count the shifting promises. In February, Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said the Semirara contract would be bid out within the year. By May, the auction might resume by mid-2026. Come July,
September 29, 2026
The ink on Republic Act No. 12326 barely had time to dry before the machinery of local democracy ground to a halt. Just days before the filing of candidacies, Congress and Malacañang bypassed the ballot box, effectively handing sitting barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan officials an unearned two-year extension. Let’s not dress this up as fiscal
September 28, 2026
Manila is exhausted. We know it. The foreign investors know it. For decades, international capital treated the capital region as the only front door to the Philippines. But something shifted this week. When Australian Ambassador Marc Innes-Brown sat down in Iloilo, he wasn’t just doing the usual diplomatic rounds. He brought a directive — a
September 26, 2026
Three thousand, four hundred and eighty people caught in three months. On paper, the Iloilo City Anti-Smoking Task Force (ICAST) looks like it is winning the war on tobacco. But step back from the glowing press releases, and you realize those 3,480 apprehensions aren’t just a testament to local political will — they are a
September 25, 2026
Every month, millions of Filipinos rip open their electricity bills, glance at the total, and silently curse. Now come the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Energy Regulatory Commission, proudly waving Revenue Memorandum Circular No. 97-2026. The 12% value-added tax on allowable electricity system loss charges is officially gone. BIR Commissioner Charlito Mendoza insists that
September 23, 2026
Iloilo’s garbage has officially migrated to the cloud. Out in Passi City and Dumangas, across 20 pilot barangays, waste management teams and eco-aides have traded dog-eared, water-stained paper notebooks for a web application. Central Philippine University’s Project AGUBAY laid the technical groundwork, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) provided the administrative frame, and The Coca-Cola
September 22, 2026
Watching Katski Flores’ EdJop in a dimly lit cinema, you are struck less by the myth of Edgar Jopson than by the heavy, stubborn cost of inherited memory. In the film, his daughter Joyette – an accomplished triathlete – plunges into frigid waters and jogs across arctic snow, literally running through extremes to process an inheritance she
September 21, 2026