BY the closing decades of the 1800s, the town of Iloilo had emerged as the commercial center and cultural capital of Western Visayas. This was due to the premier role that it played in the sugar industry as its nerve center and life vein serving as transhipment point and storage. Its status was raised to a city by the Spanish crown on October 5, 1899 and on February 7, 1890, its ayuntamiento or city government was established.

With Iloilo becoming a city, its physical appearance further underwent significant changes. New public and commercial buildings, besides residential ones, were constructed. The city, thus, expanded to provide all the supporting facilities and institutions which included retail and wholesale houses, banks, warehouses, machine shops, commercial firms, printing presses, newspapers, educational institutions, foreign consulates, social clubs, theaters, bars and nightclubs, and even gambling houses.

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RADIANT joy is what we wish and pray for all of the world—the radiance springing from a deep sense of Faith, Hope, and Love — St. Paul’s credo that encompasses all religions, or no religion, too, as the Beatles would have it.

The radiant joy we experienced in the last gasps of 2008 is spilling over to 2009. How else could I describe the feeling, but exuberant Faith, Hope, and Love as we applauded in standing ovation the cast of Moscow Ballet’s The Nutcracker Suite in its South Carolina’s performance, Dec. 26. Faith, Hope, and Love, ingredients that bring about that Lightness of Being we felt with every suspended pose of the ballet dancer up high, her lithe figure on tiptoe on her partner’s shoulder.

Beauty of form, grace, and music that one sees only on film comes to life in flesh that was so near to the touch. We were seated on Row A of the North Charleston Center for the Performing Arts. At $60/ticket, we got the closest seats for this show long dreamed of by our granddaughter Danika.

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BACOLOD CITY — In this country, reputed to be the most corrupt in Asia, searching for an honest man is, to use an idiom, like looking for a needle in a haystack. We got the needle.

And we have found that man now, a former Marine officer, Major Ferdinand Marcelino, head of the Special Enforcement Service of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency who effected the arrest and the busting of a drug syndicate of three scions of rich families of Alabang, whom media has dubbed the “Alabang Boys.”

President Arroyo will earn points in her campaign against corruption if she puts Marcelino up on a pedestal to be emulated, honored, and revered by our young people of what a true Filipino should be, standing firmly on what is right and trampling what is wrong, and not wavering a bit.

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IF there is anything that triggers a spontaneous combustion of public outrage, it is the arrogance of officials in positions of authority who behave as if they were above the law in their encounters with private citizens.

This arrogance of power was amply demonstrated most recently in the Dec. 26 alleged manhandling of businessman Delfin de la Paz and his 14-year-old son, Bino, by two sons of Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman and their armed bodyguards at the Valley Golf Club. Two weeks after the episode, the incident continues to inflame public opinion and refuses to be extinguished, because the Pangandamans have barricaded themselves inside their official positions, leaving the perception that they are untouchable and enjoy certain official entitlements not available to the civilian victims of their assault.

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POLITICS aside, it is in the best interest of the Ilonggos to know the real score at the Iloilo Provincial Government. How their governor, the dispenser of local government largesse, treats and spends taxpayers money is certainly an issue imbued with public interest.

Politics aside, it is in the best interest of Governor Niel Tupas Sr. to clear himself of the serious allegations about his integrity as a public official and as a person. He owes it to his God, the people he serves, and his own family.

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BACOLOD CITY — Money is illusive. And elusive.

You run after it, it runs away. You show you don’t need it, it runs after you.

The other day, I got a text message asking me if I wanted cash. If so, I was asked to get in touch with a bank with its telephone number in Manila for a personal loan of up to P2 million. No collateral or co-maker with an interest of “as low as 1.28 percent a month, subject to approval.” I had this kind of texts before.

If interested, I was asked to call the telephone number and a name to talk to.

I texted back I was honored by the offer but I didn’t have a need for it now. I believe many others received this text too.

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THE Supreme Court has spoken. And so it will hopefully come to pass that the famed but severely polluted Manila Bay will once again come to life, be restored to its former pristine glory and become a shimmering beauty to behold. People will once again taste its pure saltiness and bathe in its azure waters without fear, with only the sense of wonder and awe and the certainty that something, at last, is right.

The Court’s ruling is a dream come true, a hard-earned one that meant waiting and the never-give-up spirit of true patriotic Filipinos. Like environmental lawyer Antonio Oposa who did his quixotic part to use the law as a weapon to save that historic watery gateway to the heart of the Philippines.

Shortly before Christmas last month, the Court issued a ruling (penned by Justice Presbitero J. Velasco Jr.) that upheld the previous rulings of the lower courts on the 1999 petition of a group of citizens to compel government agencies and local governments to clean up Manila Bay and restore it to its healthy state. Among the petitioners were Oposa’s students in the UP College of Law and his youngest son, who was then a little boy. Include the “talaba” [oysters], “tahong” [mussels] and all suffocating marine life of the bay. Oposa acted as counsel, spent time, money and energy to pursue the case even after the petitioners had graduated.

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BACOLOD CITY — Every New Year we are always bombarded by fortune-telling.

And in places like Quiapo in Manila, fortune tellers line up to tell the fortune of people, for a fee. And people come back again and again to listen to their “good fortune.”

A few days ago I was listening over Action Radio where Toto Willy Tortosa was predicting what lies ahead for 2009. It became more interesting when he was asked to foretell the result of the 2010 election.

He predicted for the mayorship Mayor Bing Leonardia will beat Congressman Monico Puentevella. I was not able to hear his prediction for the Congressman.

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THE blog community went up in arms on the side of the De la Paz family shortly after the Dec. 26 mauling of its members at the Valley Golf Club allegedly by two sons of Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman over a breach of golf etiquette.

Businessman Delfin de la Paz, 56, and his son Bino, 14, both private citizens and powerless, filed charges of light physical injuries and child abuse with the Antipolo City public prosecutor on Monday against Hussein Pangandaman, 30, and Nasser Jr., 27, who is mayor of Masiut town in the southern province of Lanao del Sur. The Pangandamans are members of a powerful and influential political clan in Lanao del Sur.

The De la Paz family members accused the Pangandamans and their bodyguards of assaulting them in a violent fracas that marred the day after Christmas, a brawl that reverberated all over the country. It was the latest manifestation of the enduring power of provincial/regional warlords in post-modern Philippine political history. The ugly face of warlord culture returned with a vengeance in the supposedly civilized ambience of golf fairways where gorillas are not expected to be seen cavorting on the manicured green.

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BACOLOD CITY — My friend, Enrique Dy, gifted me a book, a small 256-page book “Extraordinary – Stories For Aspiring Leaders,” published by the Management Association of the Philippines.

Among the stories was “Management In Uncertain Times” by Stephanie O. Dychiu, niece of Enrique, being the daughter of his brother Quintin and also niece of Enrique’s sister Carmen and Albert Lim.

Other stories, aside from Stephanie’s, were all good.

I like Stephanie’s style that contained poetic allusions, including the song of Bob Dylan in the 60s.

And also because, knowing her uncles are involved in media, she discussed the struggles and successes of two media outlets, “The Philippine Daily Inquirer” and “GMA 7.” Her uncle Albert is one of the founders of DAILY STAR and Enrique is incumbent member of the board of directors of both DAILY STAR and Sunshine Channel TV 14.

Stephanie finished her studies at the Ateneo.

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