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Text and photos by YVONNE T. CHUA AT 10:30 a.m., the hotel emergency alarm went off, signaling the start of Thursday’s “Shake Drill” designed to prepare Metro Manilans for a 7.2 magnitude earthquake or the “Big One.” Many of the 30 or so guests meeting at the hotel’s fifth-floor function room quickly stood up and

By JAKE SORIANO BARANGAY TUKANALIPAO, Mamasapano, Maguindanao — The skeleton of a new bridge, concrete, now stands close to the old wood one made iconic by the bloody incident six months ago. A sign of further development is a poster, next to the new bridge, announcing a P50 million irrigation system project. The old wood

By YVONNE T. CHUA WHEN he delivers his sixth and final State of the Nation Address on Monday, President Benigno S. Aquino III will predictably present a glowing report of his accomplishments, what with only a year left of his presidency. To be fair, Aquino has delivered on a number of his promises.  To name

By RONN BAUTISTA and KRIXIA SUBINGSUBING (Conclusion) IN the Philippines, sign language insets in free-to-air television channels are almost unheard of. Out of Metro Manila’s 18 channels, only one features a sign language interpreter alongside its news programs. Citing logistical and aesthetic concerns, most private TV networks hesitate to include insets in their newscasts despite

By RONN BAUTISTA and KRIXIA SUBINGSUBING (First of two parts) SUPPERTIME in the Philippines is often accompanied by the start of local primetime newscasts in Filipino homes. At 6:30 p.m., media networks ABS-CBN, GMA-7 and TV-5 begin broadcasting their flagship news programs. While the rest of the country follows the rundown of the day’s newsworthy events, a

By VJ BACUNGAN and DANICA UY A BEVY of red tricycles hurtle down Bonifacio Avenue, a four-lane national highway cutting through Cainta town in Rizal, their buzzy two-stroke engines leaving plumes of blue smoke in their wake. They overtake another tricycle which, even from afar, stands out from the rest. At six feet tall, this tricycle towers over

Text and photos by LUCIA P. TANGI (Conclusion) A week before she was about to leave the country for her first job on a cruise liner, Mary Valdez (not her real name) received a text message from her crewing agency. She was instructed to return to the clinic where she had completed her medical examination

Text and photos by LUCIA P. TANGI (First of two parts) The image of an olive-skinned man or a “barako” who has “a girl in every port” usually comes to mind when one mentions the word seafarer. The stereotype stems from the dominance of men in the maritime industry since the country started its massive

Text and photos by MARIA FEONA IMPERIAL and YVETTE B. MORALES WHEN she walked into her first day of teaching back in 2007, Leah Reyes was rendered speechless. It was not because all eyes were on her as the new substitute teacher. Rather, not all of the students in the classroom could see. Reyes had

  By FERDIE C. MARCELO WHEN Yolanda lashed Samar and Leyte in November 2013, feet tripped on feet to contain the damage. The statistics that surfaced five months after were terrifying: 6,300 dead, 4.1 million displaced, and 1.1 million houses damaged or destroyed. To this day the effects are still being felt by the villagers,

  By ELLEN T. TORDESILLAS GOVERNMENT agencies and private companies are reactivating their emergency drills with the release by Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of its latest findings about the West Valley Fault. Phivolcs Director Renato U. Solidum, Jr. warned that based on the movement pattern (every 400 or so years) of the West

By YVONNE T. CHUA The combined net worth of the 290 members of the House of Representatives for 2014 has surpassed P17 billion, an increase of more than 10 percent from their declarations for 2013. The increase has raised the average net worth of the representatives in the 16th Congress by more  than P6 million.   Released days ago, the summary