Pala-isip

From the Inquirer . Romeo Salvador, one of the two police negotiators in the Aug. 23, 2010, hostage drama, on Tuesday stood on the same spot where last year he was filled with hope that negotiations with the hostage-taker would succeed. “I thought I would just offer a simple prayer, walk to the site and leave. But it was very hard for me. My knees shook and I was trembling as I was walking to the spot,” Salvador said in Filipino. He approached the shrine of flowers and candles—on the exact spot where the tourist bus had stood—intending to offer a prayer and then leave, not wanting to attract the attention of the survivors and relatives of the victims who were holding a remembrance ceremony at the site. But just as Salvador feared, he was recognized by some members of the local and foreign media. A Hong Kong reporter angrily asked him: “Why haven’t you resigned?” Another foreign reporter said: “Why are you still a negotiator?” One local television reporter simply asked, “Why...

During the massive flood happening in Metro Manila that was caused by Typhoon Ondoy, there was very little updates on major news organizations like The Philippine Daily Inquirer. I found out about how bad the typhoon was from conversations with my friends through Yahoo Messenger. As I logged on to Facebook, I was getting continuous updates on friend's wall on details of the flood. I checked Inquirer.net and other sites but there was hardly any mention. There were reports of the flood, but there wasn't any photos or videos. As the situation got worst, he was telling me their parking lot is flooded and it's still rising. He had to move his car out to higher ground to save it. I asked him to take some photos because he said that it never floods in Ongpin. I couldn't believe it either since the 20 years I've been there, I've never seen it flood higher than one inch. Here he was telling me it's up to his knees. So he took some photos with his iPhone and e-mailed ...