CAGAYAN DE ORO (MindaNews/4 March) – Cagayan de Oro, capital of one of the most economically vibrant regions in the country, Northern Mindanao, is an important arena in elections, with 280,025 voters.

If elections were held tomorrow, it would be Manny Villar edging forgiven plunderer Erap Estrada.

YANGON, Myanmar (MindaNews/11 Feb) – By the time my editors will see this in their inbox, I may be flying home already or breathing diesel air in Manila. I am leaving what had become my “home” in the last 10 months without saying “goodbyes,” only “thank yous.”

One of my last activities in Myanmar was to give a four-day development communication training to a group of peace and development workers. In that training, I divided them into three groups and asked them to tell a story of struggle and transformation from their respective fields. I then asked them to tell their story in different forms (e.g. verbally, in written form and in role playing which was shot on video). With the help of my Indonesian co-worker (Hardin, who was very good in non-linear / digital video editing), they were taught to produce their act, with them playing the role of actor, videographer, director and scriptwriter.

Last year floods greeted Cagayan de Oro City and the greater part of Misamis Oriental including the component City of Gingoog.

As waters came rampaging from the barren mountains of Northern Mindanao washing away anything in its path, it wasn’t difficult to blame decades old deforestation as the aggravating factor of the destructive floods.

The aftermath of the Copenhagen Climate Change summit left the hand of a Venezuelan representative bloodied, Sudan shouting holocaust, and island and low-lying nations given a choice to either swim or sink. It also exposed environmentalists throughout the world in the cold, frantically looking for words to describe the monumental failure.