MANGKOKOLUM!

AT the peak of the tropic dry season, Tuguegarao City in Cagayan province in Northern Luzon simmers, then seethes and sizzles beyond human body heat, even convulsing at fevers over 45 degrees Celsius that can, in ordinary humans, shrivel gray matter. “Man is,” as natural historian Loren Eiseley would have it, “an expression of his landscape”—as hillsides and mountain slopes girding the city and its fringe towns are now as tempting as the fashionably smooth-shaven pubic mound of a maiden of modern times. Not a whit of decent stand of trees, just shriveled-dry chokes of cogon grass for foraging of cattle, goats, sheep or such livestock. Findings show that it takes a stand of 100 trees to lower ambient temperature by one degree. It’s likely that the locals would rather get the hots; better than catch colds. Or maybe even wrest a measure of relief from the dry season’s blast furnace breath; even increase available oxygen in the environs for the breathless, the aged, the infants and infirm...

Hype Shares   W ITH a whit of editing (and a few snippets of bon mot), I got this Agence France-Presse story laid down pat in 2014 as a story for the page I was putting to bed, ah,  it keeps its cogency and urgency to this day. Whew, a broadsheet page entails grappling with 3,000 words, and for four years, I grappled with 6,000 words six days a week; that really had my head swimming and giddy and groggy: "EVERYONE can sense what’s between the thighs; too few have sense between their ears. "Homely ones oozing a sense of humor appear to get the better over their good-looking but dull peers in the Philippines' dating game, according to a pre-Valentine's Day survey published on Thursday. "Given a choice, nine in 10 adult Filipinos told survey group Social Weather Stations they would pick 'a man/woman who has a sense of humor.' "Ten percent want 'a man/woman who is good-looking but has no sense of humor.' "It's more intere...

WALANG 10 sandali nang kinalas saka muling binuo ang .45 sa paanan ng napangangang lalaki, laylay ang tiyan—pero sa ulunan sa halip na sa sikmura mahigpit na nakabigkis ang lapad ng panyong pula, tila may bahid ng regla. “Baka po kasi walang firing pin , hindi po puputok ‘to kahit mapudpod pa kapipi- finger sa gatilyo. Saka anim na lang po ang karga ng magazine , ipinutok na po ang isa, mainit-init pa po ang nguso nito. Talaga bang sa ‘kin na po ‘to?” ungkat ng binatilyo, sunod-sunod ang pangungusap na parang walang patlang na putok ng semi-automatic , nakatarak ang tingin sa kaharap na lalaki—na nagpukol ng hudyat na sulyap sa tatlong kasama niya, ikinanlong sa sabwatan ng dilim at andap na diklap ng naghihingalong ilaw sa poste. “Sa ‘yo na nga. Suwerte ka. Hollow point, cyanide-tipped ang bala. Kahit daplis lang ang tatamaan, tigok. Sige, takbo na! Baka magbago pa isip namin.” “’Ala pong bawian, ha? Akin na talaga!” Hapyaw na winalis ng tanaw ang binatily...