ETCETERA; Thoughts between the lines

Sunday is our date day. Usually, my wife and I leave the house around 3 p.m. without much of a plan. We simply decide on a direction—sometimes Molito, sometimes Alabang Town Center, or another spot south of Manila we haven’t explored yet. We walk around, check out the shops, and do a bit of shopping—or, more often than not, just window shopping. By 5 p.m., the main event arrives as we ask the essential question: Where are we going to eat? Today, we found ourselves at Molito, where a large poster of laksa on the glass window of Thomson Bistro caught my eye. I thought, why not? I’ve eaten laksa during past trips to Singapore and Malaysia, but I honestly couldn't recall the exact taste. So, in we went. Jack, our waiter, welcomed us and handed over the menus. We decided on the laksa and siomai. The restaurant presents itself as Singaporean, though I couldn't help noticing the A5 Wagyu prominently displayed in a glass case. Whenever I see A5 Wagyu, my immediate thought is: this is ...

  Pampanga Floods: Can the Arguing Stop? Time to Work Together. A day ago, I was YouTube channel-surfing when I came across a segment titled, “PBBM, Pampanga officials debate on proposed Candaba impound system as flood solution.” Thinking it was current news, I watched it attentively. Then I realized something that surprised me. The debate was actually from 2023—three years ago! In the discussion, they considered using 200 hectares of the 2,000-hectare Candaba Swamp as a water-impounding area. Pampanga officials strongly opposed the idea and preferred dredging the rivers. President Marcos was not convinced that dredging alone would solve the problem. He argued that heavy rains bring not only enormous amounts of water from the highlands but also silt, which can eventually fill the rivers again. I am no engineer, so I cannot say who is right. But three years have passed, and Pampanga is still suffering from serious flooding. So I began wondering: What happened during those three year...

When the habagat drops enough water to submerge normally dry zones and choke major expressways for ten hours, it humbles everyone. Even regions known for advanced engineering, like Hokkaido in Japan, find themselves overwhelmed by sudden deluges. It reminds us that no place on earth is entirely immune to a changing climate. A professor friend of mine from Mapua captured this enduring reality by comparing lower Pampanga to Venice: high water is a permanent visitor, and fighting it with pure reaction every single year is exhausting. Naturally, people look to the national government for answers, and officials are quick to brandish massive, sweeping solutions. Right now, two major approaches dominate the conversation: building a massive floodway system from Nueva Ecija down to the bay, and launching massive, continuous dredging operations across the entire Pampanga River basin. For communities watching their livelihoods go under, hearing these plans sparks a flicker of hope. But a heavy do...