TOTGA

THE FISH THAT GOT AWAY WAS THIS BIG. 

Proverbial, as well as -- in the case of flood control anomalies -- real. 

Yo, Vince, we are not convinced. 

 

Marcos: P120-B elevated road at NLEX, Pampanga bizmen’s advocacy validated

 

PBBM at the Section 1A of the NLEX Segment 8.2 in Valenzuela City with Transportation Secretary Vince Dizon, Public Works Secretary, Public Works Secretary Giovanni Lopez, and NLEX President Luis Reñon, Oct. 29, 2026. Photo: Noel Pabalate/The Philippine STAR

“SA ATIN ngayon lang, medyo surprise, pero magandang balita. Ang MVP Group ay maglalagay sila ng investment na may halaga na P120 billion… Maglalagay sila ng elevated na daan mula Balintawak hanggang Bocaue. Hanggang Bocaue ang aabutin.”

So, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. disclosed during the opening of NLEX-C5 Northlink Segment 8.2 Section 1A in Valenzuela City on Oct. 29.  

He said the MVP Group would undertake the P120-billion project linking Balintawak in Quezon City to Bocaue, Bulacan in coordination with the SMC Group, following his call for the two business groups to collaborate to expand the country’s road network, provide commuters with alternative routes, and improve travel conditions.

“Pinakiusapan ko sila na magtulungan sila para madagdagan naman natin yung dinaadaanan. At iba ang magiging karanasan, ang experience, na na-experience para sa mga commuters. Napakalaking investment na gagawin ng MVP Group. At siyempre, kasama nila ang SMC Group dahil kailangan nilang mag-coordinate,” Marcos Jr. furthered.

The president called the P120-billion investment as good news for commuters, emphasizing that the elevated road would provide an alternative route alongside the existing highway.

“Very good news ito para sa ating continuing construction para mapaganda ang daloy ng traffic sa atin, pagpapabilis at pagbaba ng transport cost, at magiging mas maginhawa ang paglalakbay ng ating mga workers,” enthused Marcos Jr.  

Then-PamCham chairman Rene G. Romero discussing the “imperative” of a Balintawak-Bocaue skyway at the time of the closure of some lanes at NLEX due to the heavy damage on Marilao Bridge, March 21, 2025. Screengrab: CLTV36 News

The president’s good news of the Balintawak-to-Bocaue elevated road validates the longstanding advocacy of Pampanga business leaders – notably Rene G. Romero from his time as chairman of the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry and private sector representative at the Regional Development Council-Central Luzon, to now senior fellow of the Pampanga Business Circle -- for the extension of the Metro Manila Skyway System up to Bocaue at the North Luzon Expressway. 

The president’s enthusiasm for the proposed elevated road mirrors Romero’s zeal for a skyway to eliminate recurring traffic gridlocks especially near the Meycauayan and Marilao stretch, and occasionally at the Philippine Area of NLEX. A skyway will lower logistics costs, cut travel time, and provide smoother transit for commuters and cargo moving between Metro Manila and Central and Northern Luzon.

That skyway, Romero called on the NLEX in March 2025, had become more “imperative” in the wake of the “monstrous traffic gridlock” caused by the closure of some lanes in the wake of the heavy damage to the Marilao Bridge caused by a trailer truck earlier that month.

Serendipitously, Romero’s call was addressed during the Discuss Wid Us forum of the Central Luzon Media Association-Pampanga at the Prism Lounge of Hotel Widus on March 27, 2025. 

NLEX senior traffic manager Robin Ignacio at Discuss Wid Us media forum of CLMA-Pampanga, March 27, 2025. Photos: Nelson Gonzales

Asked if NLEX operator Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. was taking “serious consideration” on the advocacy of business groups led by Romero, NLEX senior traffic manager Robin Ignacio disclosed that a 19-kilometer skyway extension under study extending the Metro Manila Skyway to the Tambubong, Bocaue Exit of the North Luzon Expressway was “nearing its stage of completion.” 

One year and seven months after, Marcos Jr. makes the concrete affirmation. To the Pampanga business groups advocacy’s validation.

Comes now the waiting for the skyway’s actualization.  

 

Bawi o Laban: Ombudsman vs. Cong Dong, et al

ON OCTOBER 16, mainstream media had a field day reporting the Office of the Ombudsman filing with the Sandiganbayan three counts of graft against former House Senior Deputy Speaker and Pampanga 3^rd District Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales Jr. over his alleged links to construction firms that secured public works contracts worth P611 million while he was in office.

The cases, as reported, stemmed from two separate complaints filed in July and August 2026 over three contracts awarded by the Department of Public Works and Highways Regional 3 to A.D. Gonzales Jr. (ADG) Construction and Trading Co. Inc. 

The contracts in question were for flood mitigation projects in the City of San Fernando and Bacolor town worth over P252 million, and two flood control projects in Mexico town worth some P265 million and P94 million.

In its joint resolution, the Ombudsman reportedly found prima facie evidence against Gonzales for having a prohibited financial interest in ADG Construction during his term as a congressman. 

In a post-filing presser on the same day, Ombudsman Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla alleged that Gonzales violated the conflict-of-interest provision of RA 3019 (Anti-Graft Corrupt Practices Act).

“Usual story. There’s divestment, but (the money) still goes back to him. There’s no real divestment… Payment made to the construction companies where he supposedly divested still goes to his private bank accounts,” Remulla claimed.

Overstressing the point: “So, there was really no real divestment, right?”

Right, going by Section 3(h) of RA 3019 prohibits public officials from having a direct or indirect financial or pecuniary interest in a business, contract or transaction in which they intervene or take part in their official capacity.

Remulla clarified that the case filed was not plunder, a non-bailable offense, but graft, with bail set at P90,000 for the accused’s provisional liberty.

Which, by some contemporary coincidence, makes it intriguing, Remulla’s clarification, that is.

The feeding frenzy attendant to the Ombudsman filing graft cases against Gonzales apparently starved reportage on the same Ombudsman dismissing plunder, malversation, and other criminal complaints against the same Gonzales, et al but a day before. 

Absent in the mainstream media, even in other online publications, is a PR story posted on Oct. 16 on the Pampanga-based Balitang-Balita online news platform titled: Ombudsman dismisses plunder, malversation complaints against ex-Rep. Dong Gonzales, co-respondents for second time.

The story underscored that the dismissal marked the second time the Ombudsman “has thrown out substantially similar allegations filed by Terrence Napao, a barangay chairperson from Mexico, Pampanga.” 

“In a Joint Resolution covering cases OMB-C-C-JUL-26-0085 (FIO v. Gonzales Jr.) and OMB-C-C-AUG-26-0096 (Napao v. Gonzales Jr., et al.), the Ombudsman found insufficient evidence to support claims of conspiracy among the respondents, emphasizing that conspiracy cannot be presumed and must be established through specific factual allegations and proof of concerted action.” The press release said with attached pages from the resolution date stamped: Oct. 15, 2026. 

It furthered that the Ombudsman also dismissed “for lack of evidence” complaints involving alleged violations of Articles 216 and 217 of the Revised Penal Code, Section 3(e) of RA 3019, RA 6713 (Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees), and RA 7080 (Anti-Plunder Act).

“[D]ocumentary evidence, including completion inspection reports, certificates of completion, technical evaluation reports, technical inspection reports, and updated geotagged photographs,” the press release emphasized as bases for the dismissal of the complaints, albeit no specifics were cited.

Closing with: “The latest ruling reinforces the Ombudsman's earlier dismissal of a similar complaint filed in 2023, further narrowing the controversy to the remaining conflict of interest case.”

Ombudsman dismisses plunder case vs. Gonzales, et al in 2023.

Ombudsman dismisses plunder case vs. Gonzales, et al Oct. 15, 2026.  

Ombudsman files three graft cases vs. Gonzales, et al Oct. 16, 2026.

Bawi. Bawi. Laban. If we go by the cobrador’s degla.

If not for anything else, the timing is telling.  

Comes now the betting: Sa pula kay Boying, sa puti kay Dong. Logro diez, larga!

Sirang plakang paikot-ikot, tugtog ay sintunadong tunog

MISTULANG HILONG-TALILONG, tila baga sirang plakang paikot-ikot sa pagtugtog ng sintunadong tunog, ‘yan wari si Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon.

Sa tuwi-tuwina ng paglagapak ng mga flood control na palpak, sumisirit sa pag-aalburuto ito na ngang si Init-Ulo.

Pero kwidaw ka bayan: pagmasdan hindi lamang ang kanyang mga kilos at galaw; bawa’t katagang namumutawi sa kanyang bibig ay pakinggan.

“Under warranty pa ito. 2024 project ito, wala pang five years. Kailangan gawin ito, ayusin ito, pero kailangang ayusin ito nang tama, katulad ng ginawa natin sa Mindoro. Nakapagtataka talaga kung bakit isang taon pa lang, bumigay na ito.”

Kanyang nasambit, matapos bumulwak ang galit sa bumigay na bahagi ng San Mateo Flood Control Project sa bayan ng Arayat, lalawigan ng Pampanga nito lamang a-nuebe ng Oktubre. 

Kanya na ngang napagdiskitihan mga sheet piles o nakabaong dikit-dikit na poste ng bakal: “Papabunot na ito, papa-check natin kung tama ang sukat ng sheet piles nito. 36 meters dapat ito. Tingnan natin kung totoo nga ito. Kung mapakita na ganoon din, ganoon din ang kasong iyon [sa Mindoro], siguradong kulong lahat ng involved dito.” 

Tunay na kung papansinin, dili kaya’y raramdamin, masasabi talaga natin: si Vivencio ay tigasin. 

Datapwa’t, subali’t, bakit? Lagi na lang naririnig salitang magkakatono, magkakahawig, sa tuwing si Vince ay nangangalaiti sa galit.  

Katulad na lamang noong Setyembre 2025, sa Barangay Candating, sa Arayat din.

Sa mismong binansagang “face of failed flood control projects” ni Senador Ping Lacson, bumulwak sa bunganga ni Vince: “Dapat naman bunutin ang sheet piles, gusto nating malaman kung talagang 36 meters. That’s practically 10-storey building. Dalawa lang ang problema…either may problema sa paggawa mo or yung design mali. Ganun lang ‘yun. So aalamin natin yan. Kailangan ito ipa-assess yung design nito kung tama ba o hindi.” 

May pagdududa pang ipinamukha kay Edgardo Sagum ng Eddmari Construction, kontratista ng palpak na proyekto: “Ikaw ba talaga ang gumagawa dito? Hindi mo ito sinubcon? Tsini-check ko yan engineer. Ikaw ba talaga ang gumagawa? Iba ang naririnig namin. Basta on record sinabi mo sa akin ikaw ang gumagawa. Malalaman at malalaman ko rin kung sino talaga ang gumagawa dito, kung pinahiram mo lang ang lisensya mo.” 

Hindi lang sa tigas, sa tapang at tikas, kay Vivencio’y walang puedeng pumalag.  

Apat na buwan ang lumipas, proyekto sa Candating ay muling pumalpak. Enero 2026, ayun, at sugod-marino sa lugar si Vivencio. 

“Unang-una, mukhang hindi talaga tama ang disenyo nung flood control sa Candating, Arayat. Kung maaalala ninyo pinilit natin yung kontratista na ayusin dahil nagigiba yung mga pundasyon. Eh, ngayon, hanggang ngayon hindi nila maayos-ayos,” kanyang panimula.

“So, kailangan na tayong magdesisyon dito na talagang panagutin yung mga dapat managot diyan. Kasama na yung mga tao ng DPWH, kasama yung kontratista, and meron naring nagre-report sa atin na may links sa mga kongresista,” kanyang pagtatapos.

At doon na nga natapos, ang usapin sa Candating. Walang sheet pile na nabunot. Walang kontratistang nanagot. Walang kongresistang naituro man lamang. Lalong walang nakulong na sinuman.

Sa ganitong kaganapan, ano’ng pagkakaiba pa’ng maaasahan mula kay Vivencio sa pagpapaayos sa nasirang flood control sa San Mateo, pati na doon sa Barangay Laquios sa bayang Arayat pa rin na ang flood control ay bumigay din?

Sa asta ay angas, sa salita ay matigas, sa gawa ay … ngawa. Optics, 'ika nga. 

 

 

Clark’s Gateway to Opportunity: Art appreciation in prose poetry

       NG Photograpy

LOVE IT. Or laugh about it.

Whichever, the Clark Welcome Art makes a conversation piece, as much inspiring as amusing.

By the freeport’s main gate, twixt shopping malls: nearer SM, farther Cityfront.

V-spikes of orange – or are they upright swept wings? – undulating, atop concrete pillars – shorter, taller; angled left, right here and there, leaning.

“Inspired by Clark’s brand promise – Clark. It Works. Like a Dream.”

Thus, was engraved in the marker at its spectacular unveiling. 

                             CDC photo

From the iconic A in the Clark logo drawing; progress and the possibilities ahead, its soaring forms evoking. 

Photo: Bap Mark

By day, strength and precision conveying; by night, a beacon of movement, energy, and aspiration becoming. 

         CDC photo

More than marker a gateway identifying; verily, Clark’s continuing evolution embodying: haven for innovation and high-value industries, technology including; aviation and tourism complementing; whence ideas, enterprise, opportunity converging.

Summed up to: “It works like a dream.” The US imperialist past and Mount Pinatubo’s havoc contextualized, Clark from the ashes, phoenix-like soaring.

So sublime, the artist’s impression sears the soul. Art for art’s sake, the end of it all.

But, in the eye of the beholder art is also defined: from the most sublime to the downright ludicrous, Clark Welcome Art also becomes --  

         FB screengrab

A Jurassic find: Stegosaurus fossil, upright back plates and spiked tails intact. TOTGA from T-Rex celebrated as fact.

        FB screengrab

A kitchen leftover: What remains of the fish after dinner, not even a starving cat will bother, but enough nutrient for a Kapampangan quatrain:

“megisan ne ing asan.

pati buntuc ampon iqui,

mesimut qng niaman.

dui na rugu ing mitagan.” 

(The fish is finished. Even the head and tail entirely eaten. Only the bones remain).

Symbols, meaning abound. All for inspiration and for fun. Make it last, make it run.

So long as into Cayetano’s P50-M kaldero at the New Clark City Athletic Stadium, the Clark Welcome Art does not turn. 

CDC photo

Knocking on Katoks’ Door

FIRST, thank you for the honor to stand before you here today.

Second, my apologies for my inability to write and share with you something most appropriate for this occasion, age already beclouding memory, plus the invitation passed on to me only last Tuesday.

Under these circumstances, I deemed it best to dig through my files and so fortunate to cobble one good piece for today’s celebration out of two very short essays in the chapter, fittingly titled ““Knocking on Katoks’ Door,” in my book Of the Press published in 1999. 

The first: On Katoks’ Recollections, first published in long defunct local newspaper in 1985.  

Tatang 

Katoks is a chronicler, a historian. His stories are straightforward and therefore easily comprehensible. His style reveals the innate journalist in him. He writes to express and be understood. Never to be impressive.

He shows no air of civilized hypocrisy, of pretensions to intellectualism. As he himself said in one of his pieces in the book, he would rather that high school students understood him well than cater to the elite literati levels. It is perhaps this conscious attempt at understanding, so paramount in his writings, that endeared him as an author through the gamut of social brackets.

His accounts of his various travels can be likened to the brush strokes of a Chinese landscape painter. They are the direct antithesis to the gee-whizz, instamatic blur – in today’s lingo, selfie shot – of the usual travelogues. Picturesque makes an anemic term to describe his stories of his travels as he delved into the ethos of the people he met and the places he visited.

When he wants to be amusing, Tatang Katoks does it with finesse – a reflection of the old buena familia breeding – but nonetheless evokes a chuckle if not a full laugh from the reader. Farting is such sweet sorrow is one story that I shall most certainly re-read whenever I needed a lift. The story has the same efficacy as Aspirin over a throbbing head.

But what strikes me most among his essays is The Vanishing Kapampangan Nation. For one, Tatang Katoks righted a long-held historical wrong impacted upon the people of Macabebe since the capture of Aguinaldo by American forces in the hinterlands of Palanan. Tatang Katos piece is Macabebe’s definitive vindication.

The Vanishing Kapampangan Nation also tugs at the very heart of every Kapampangan reader. It renews the swell of pride for his culture, for his very race, dignifiedly distinct from any other. It likewise awakens him to the reality of its dying.

Was I ashamed to realize that I myself did contribute much to the waning of the Kapampangan culture in so many ways. I talk to my children in English and Tagalog. I cannot write in my own Kapampangan language. I do not read Kapampangan books and periodicals. Not even prayer books. 

If only for that realization, I already elevate Recollections and Digressions to my personal pantheon of great books. And Tatang Katoks to my choicest authors.

Now comes, my second piece: Back to Katok’s Sinners published in the now-defunct  The Angeles Sun in 1988. 

Reading Katok’s Tayag’s twin volume The Angeles Story and The Sinners of Angeles roused multiple emotions in me, ranging from utter disappointment and disbelief, to delirium and déjà vu.

Normally, I grapple intellectually with the author of any book I read. With Tatang Katoks however, I readily submitted to his every word. Having had the chance of a personal think-feel interaction for at least three times with the man when he was still around. Now I feel empty and sorry for not having had the greater opportunity of more conversations with him.

So many years ago after they were published, the concise tomes are as timely as now. One gets the feeling that one reads contemporary news when one reads the books.

The demands for a cleaner market; proper garbage disposal; strict enforcement of sanitary, criminal and traffic laws; elimination of gambling, prostitution, and other vices; honesty in government; and public works improvements are all as real today as when the same were asked by the 1953 Angeles Jaycees of then Mayor Apung Maneng Abad Santos, referred to now as the better of the Abad Santos mayors of the city.

Past and present parallelisms of politics in Angeles cover also newspapers and mediamen. Tatang Katoks’ exposés found print in Don Tomas San Pedro’s Luzon Courier. Current exposés of irregularities germinate from the pages of local papers then as now, and of course, in social media too. Proof positive once more that mediapersons make a community’s conscience, of which Tatang Kakots is pre-eminent.

The aforementioned discussion is but a sampling of the back-to-the-future or past-present mix scenarios in the two books. There are a host of others.

The “abduction” of the image of Apung Mamacalulu during the Good Friday procession of 1928 had a direct bearing to the simmering Apo land ownership controversy. (During a talk with Apung Feleng Lazatin, The Sinners of Angeles cropped up when the intercession of the Grand Old Man on the Apu case was sought).

At the start of this piece, I said I felt disappointed upon reading the books. The feeling came when The Sinners of Angeles blasted to smithereens a myth of sainthood for one I put on a pedestal during my formative years at the seminary.  

I have excised that portion of this story now, in deference to good friend Abong, who, after this was first published, requested me to let the past be buried in peace. Suffice it to say now, that Tatang Katok’s account of what he called “the philosophy of self” was an Epiphany for me. Intrigue, who and what that story was all about? Find a copy of The Sinners of Angeles and learn of the only two sins one can commit in the city: first against God, the second against … My mouth shall remain shut, lest I disturb dear Abong in his peaceful rest.   

It is said that the past teaches us lessons to practice in the present so that we will not fail in the future. One pundit even went on to say that – I quote: “there is no present, there is no future, only the past happening over and over.” If only for this, Tatang Katoks’ books should be made required reading for every Angeleno or anyone straying into the city. For a greater knowledge of Angeles’ past and deeper understanding of the Angeleno’s present.

Postscript: My thanks to Abong Tayag for the books. They indeed make up not only a collector’s item but an enriching nourishment to the Kapampangan soul.

Though non-fictionist, Tatang Katoks approximates the works of the great historical novelists like Gore Vidal in Burr and Empire and E.L. Doctorow in Ragtime. He so imbued the reader with the atmosphere of even long gone times that he – the reader – felt and breathed the same air, saw the same sights, and heard the same sounds as the book characters did.

His chronicles about his beloved Base Town, Asia – that is Angeles City for the uninitiated – and his retrospective on Bataan are comparable to Gay Talese’s back-to-my-roots account in his Unto the Sons.

Like Talese, another journalist who made his mark in literature, Tatang Katoks had that critical eye for detail and keen sense for drama that brought the broadest spectrum of color and the full range of emotions to his works. 

This is most evident in his accounts of his China visits (At Home & Abroad). In 1964 at the dawn of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, capturing the rising revolutionary zeal of the young cadres that subsequently served as the vanguard of that upheaval; and in 1982 at the start of Deng Xiao-ping’s revolutionary experimentation of a hitherto damned market economy that ultimately led to China as a key actor in the world economic stage.

­Tatang Katoks’ perfectly summed up the great chasm of a difference in those visits with: “In 1964 we met ideologues and politicians; in 1982 our hosts were bankers and men of finance.”

Prophetic too was Tatang Katoks’ vision of a Pax Americana in Southeast Asia. Notwithstanding the expulsion of the US bases from Subic and Clark in 1992. Rebranded to the now controversial Pax Silica.

In 1990, during my incumbency as PPC president, I established the Renato “Katoks” Tayag Award of Excellence in High School Journalism and the Jose Luna Castro Award of Excellence in College Journalism to propagate the Kapampangan journalistic heritage among the young generation of writers.

At the awarding ceremonies, the honorees’ widows – Adoracion Suarez-Tayag and Rosalinda Icban-Castro were the guests of honor and speakers.

The winner of the first Katoks Tayag Award was The Pampangan, official publication of the Pampanga High School, Tatang Katoks’ alma mater from where he graduated valedictorian in 1933. He also served as editor of The Pampangan.   

A full circle of greatness there, if I may say. Sharing, even but a bit, in Tatang Katoks’ reflected glory, having had my first printed byline in The Pampangan, as a freshman reporter in 1966.  

Truly an honor to be her today, under the shadow of the great Katoks Tayag.

Thank you.        

(Honoring the life, legacy, and enduring contribution of the late Renato “Katoks” D. Tayag on his 111^th birth anniversary, Angeles City Library and Information Center, 9 Oct. 2026)

Candating template persisting: Arayat truly makes the face of failed control projects

 

WAY PAST habagat and under the sweltering heat of the October sun, sections of two flood control structures in Arayat collapsed over the weekend, raising anew the spectre of the forever collapsing Candating flood control system in the mind of the terrified folk.

Mid-September’s torrential rains and the raging waters of the Pampanga River battering the flood control project in Barangay San Mateo are said to have caused erosion of the embankment and the partial collapse of its sheet piles on a rainless, floodless, dry and humid Oct. 2. 

Barangay San Mateo flood control project. CLMA-Pampanga

Arayat Mayor Jeffrey Luriz promptly calling the Department of Public Works and Highways for urgent action as no less than 20 houses were in danger of collapse too if no immediate intervention is implemented.

 
Barangay Lacquios flood control project. CLMA-Pampanga

The following as-dry and sunny day, a section of the flood control system in Barangay Lacquios caved in with its sheet piles tilted riverway.

The skewed sheet piles unraveling; the story of Candating there rehappening. Recapped, thus:

Collapsed in August 2024, its rehabilitation far from completed when inundated – at the point of complete collapse – by the monsoons in July-August 2025.

Named by Sen. Ping Lacson as the “face of failed flood control projects” immediately before the Senate investigations.

 
Secretary Dizon surveying damages at Candating flood control. Pampanga PIO

Jointly investigated in September 2025 by the Independent Commission for Infrastructure and Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon, who did not contain his anger over “the patently substandard” construction and extracted from the project contractor, Edgardo Sagum, proprietor of Eddmari Construction and Trading Corp., the vow to repair the damage soonest and ablest –

Only to collapse again on Jan. 23, 2026, damaging at least 16 homes and endangering more along the downstream of Pampanga River.  

Indeed, those sheet piles:

Dizon confronting Sagum. Contributed photo 

“Dapat naman (bunutin ang sheet piles), gusto nating malaman kung talagang 36 meters. That’s practically 10-storey building,” Dizon, at Candating September last year, in an early show of his now- patented “init-ulo” mode berating Sagum. “Dalawa lang ang problema…either may problema sa paggawa mo or yung design mali. Ganun lang ‘yun. So aalamin natin yan. Kailangan ito ipa-assess yung design nito kung tama ba o hindi.”

 
Crane failing to pull out sheet piles. Pampanga Newsweek

No, the sheet piles were never pulled out. After some media-covered perfunctory extraction tries, Eddmari Construction – sans any reported design re-assessment – just went on with its way of “repairing” the damage to “completion ahead” of its promised last-week-of-November-2025.

Rehabilitation completed ahead of schedule, Eddmari claims. GNN-44

And that was that. Eddmari going off media radar; Dizon’s thermal temper channeled to myriad infra failures across the archipelago. 

Still, impacted in its very image, the “face of failed flood control projects” – no thanks to Lacson, the senator – Eddmari Construction shall bear to its eternal shame. 

To be fair, the damaged flood-mitigating projects at issue have different contractors: a Royal Crown Monarch Construction in Laquios, according to the barangay folk; Sto. Cristo Construction & Trading in San Mateo, if we go by the informational tarpaulin of the DPWH at the site.   

Sto. Cristo Construction. At once, alarm bells ring; red flags, instantaneously rising.

Per https://sumbongsapangulo.ph/, Sto. Cristo Construction & Trading is the top contractor of flood control projects in Pampanga with a total of P1.713 billion. But a miniscule is the Arayat-Phase 2 San Mateo project at P91.095 million.  

In Candaba alone, Sto Cristo Construction wangled P1.157 billion for projects at the Malasik River, and another P341.678 million for Maasim River.

Former Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo takes flood control woes to NBI. Philstar

Only last month, former Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo and a legal counsel representing Candaba residents filed with the National Bureau of Investigation’s Organized and Transnational Crimes Division a formal complaint over alleged irregular spending and substandard construction works tied to Sto. Cristo Construction & Trading and Globalcrete Builders, Inc. in alleged collusion with Candaba Mayor Rene Maglanque and former officers of the DPWH.

With the damaged embankment in Laquios, especially in San Mateo, connecting the dots may show an even bigger face of failed flood control projects beyond Arayat.

 

 

Into whatever media may evolve, Truth shall ever be

To see is to believe.

That truism has never been truer than at this moment – this old fossil standing before you assigned to talk about the “evolution of media.”

A fair warning to you then, old school as I am, I may have to bore or even disappoint you, as my talk will be completely absent any power point visual aid. It may even come way below your expectations as this is no scholarly disquisition, not even an edifying lecture.

It is nothing more than a simple narrative of my journalistic journey of over 50 years, from the printing press to AI, and interesting things in between. Now, that is something indeed evolutionary. So, let’s go back to the future.

Before I even started in mainstream journalism, I already had some working exposure in the print medium as editor of our official school publication at the then-Assumption College in the City of San Fernando. 

Part of our senior staff’s duties was some sort of apprenticeship at the printing press where we “put the paper to bed.” Literally, in the sense that the bed is a flat surface inside the mechanical printing press where the metal type is locked into place before rolling, a process called newspaper typesetting.

 

A newspaper’s bed

In the old printing technique of Letterpress, individual metal letters referred to as slugs are picked by hand to compose lines of sentences and placed into a composting stick then laid on a bed representing the page which is then inked and pressed directly into paper.

 

Composting stick

For photographs, the image is imprinted in magnesium plate, commonly known in printing parlance as “cliché” which is laid out on the bed with its corresponding story or text. 

Proofreading

Before going into mass printing, each page had to be proofread, of course. And this is the hard part. With the sample page as guide, the proofreader will correct typo errors by pulling out the wrong letters with tweezers. (tina-tyani mo bawat maling letra mula sa kahon and replacing them with the correct slugs). You have no clue how tedious a task is this. 

Linotype machine

So, it was no mere evolution but a veritable revolution when the printing presses had their own Linotype machine where the operator typed entire lines of slugs from molten lead. (hindi na per letter ang laban, per line na). But still the bed stayed.

                      Offset printing

 Highly revolutionary yet was Offset printing.  Lead lines of text and photos are assembled on physical boards using hot wax before photographing the page to make a printing plate from where the image is transferred to rollers and then onto paper. The Heidelberger Druckmaschinen lorded all over printed media of this period.

 Heidelberg press

And then of course, into your era, Digital printing. Here, I cede knowledge to you.

So, that was how the news was printed. Now, how did it get to be written and transmitted? This was how it was well into the ‘90s.

Ballpen, paper. Basic tools of the reporter. Add a DLSR film camera for the photo-journalist. And not much later, a tape recorder – starting with the open reel and then the cartridge, and the cassette – for the broadcast journo.

At the editorial desks, the telephone and the typewriter.

We start with the usual field coverage of all aspects of life – for the provincial correspondent – from politics to business, from crime to commerce, from sports to beauty pageants, religious events to calamities, and the insurgency, as the provincial journalist is all-beat-in-one.

Once the news story is penned, we look for the nearest telephone, landline of course, the cellular phone came in much, much later.

No direct calls. You dial 0 for the operator, say you want a press collect call to Manila, identify yourself, name the receiving party and the phone number. The operator connects to the party on the other line, asks if he accepts collect call from the sending party, if yes, you get connected and start reading your story to him. 

Trouble comes when the connection weakens or starts getting garbled. We start going into phonetic alphabet, a standardized spelling system used to communicate letters clearly over the phone or radio – Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo… Pity the poor desk editor, stiff neck and all from cradling that phone on his neck while typing the story dictated over the line.

From the desk editor, the story is sent to the news editor for disposition – to the wastebasket, or the layout.  

For the provincial photo journalist – after taking photos, he goes to a commercial photo studio to have his film developed into negatives. He would choose the best shot and mark it in the negative, write some caption about it, seal it in an envelope with the name and address of the publication plus the name and number of the photo editor or chief of photographers. He goes then to the bus terminal, pay freight cost, note the bus number and time of departure and phone the desk with this info, so a copyboy can retrieve the envelope once the bus arrives. 

 

                                   Fax machine

Much relief to the desk editors was the coming of the fax machine where the news story gets scanned, transmitted to the desk and printed over a telephone line. It made things easy too for the field reporter – type your story, fax it, then just wait for its publication or airing. A drawback though to this otherwise convenient development was what it spawned – the uniformity of news stories obtaining in some beats, read: duplicate copies, at worst plagiarized.  

Press releases were routinely topped with headings that indicate the recipient’s name, the sender’s name, the date of transmission, and the news slug (what the story is about in 10 words at most). Only different in headings, the same press release was sent to different publications.

Even enterprise stories fell to this modus. All it took was a correction fluid and retyping of the heading, the addressee, and the sender. We had a word for this – Snopake journalism.

Correction fluid

An essential part of the newsroom – the nucleus of publications and broadcasts – is the teletype machine that printed wire service news feeds from agencies like the AP, UPI, AFP, Reuters, Agencia EFE, Kyodo.

 

                  Teletype machine

At every office across the country of the PNA, our own wire service agency, the teletype machine not only received news from its own network and foreign wires, but also transmitted news by combining a typewriter keyboard with electro-mechanical printing and a 5-bit binary electrical pulse system sent over wires. Amid the constant clatter of the machine, built-in bells would ring for urgent priorities like a flash report or breaking news that would interrupt ongoing transmissions.

The dot.com era rendered the teletype machine obsolete and opened the internet floodgates – email, online publications, social media, blogs and vlogs, Facebook, meta, tiktok, AI, and all that they entailed. Yours is this media era most manifest today. Ours has long passed.

Even memory now is hard-pressed recalling how it was with local media, even if only dating to the foundation of the Central Luzon Media Association in 1978. Those clearly remembered, in print:

In Pampanga: Pampanga Newsweek and The Voice, and immediately thereafter Pampanga Times, Luzon Herald Tribune, Pampanga Journal, Town Crier, onto Central Luzon Times and The Angeles Sun.

In Bulacan: The Reflector, the first broadsheet paper in CL, and Mabuhay.

In Tarlac: Tarlac Star

In Zambales: Olongapo News

In Nueva Ecija: Monday Mail and Dahong Palay

In Bataan: The Freeport Mail

For radio stations: DZYA and DZAP in Angeles City; DZTC and DZXT in Tarlac City; DWNE in Cabanatuan City; and DZYZ, DZOR, and DWGO in Olongapo City. Note that the broadcast media was city-centered.

The good old days, as I remember them.  

An old curmudgeon, most definitely, I am. But a Luddite – one opposed to new technology – thoroughly I am not.

It has surprised a lot of young journalists to know that old school as I am, I still get to use AI. It is not how it is defined though as artificial intelligence. All me is AI: Ako Ito.

That is what has remained constant through the evolution in media that I have been most fortunate to live through, adhering to what I have embraced since high school as my very own article of faith as a journalist. First uttered in 1644 – at the time the monarchies possessed and exercised divine rights -- but it speaks as true, and with even greater resonance, in this age of AI – this is Areopagitica, John Milton’s impassioned philosophical defence of the principle of the right to freedom of speech and expression, thus:

“Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?

… For who knows not that Truth is strong next to the Almighty; she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licencings to make her victorious, those are the shifts and the defences that Error uses against her power: give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps, for then she speaks not true…” 

Into whatever media may evolve, may we always speak Truth. 

(From the author’s talk: The Evolution of Media, SBMA-CLMA-CLMCC Media Training Seminar on "Cyberspace and Artificial Intelligence: Media Ethics and Accountability," 30 Sept. 2026, Subic Bay Freeport. All photos grabbed from the web. CTTO. No copyright infringement intended.)