DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/21 March) -- It happened ten years ago.

The Battle of Matanog came about with the launching of Operation Dominance on 29 April to 3 June 2000. The operational plan was intended to assert government control over the Narciso Ramos Highway in Central Mindanao. In In assertion of sovereignty: The peace process, military researchers Pobre and Quilop write that in that battle, government troops met heavy resistance made more difficult by the presence of “heavily fortified MILF bunkers which provided the MILF easily defensible and well-entrenched positions.” 

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/18 March) -- “…77, 78,” the teller at the bank called out as the person transacting at her window moved to leave.

I was number 90 and peering over the shoulder of a waiting client to read the headlines on the day’s major daily. It said “General hurt over bypass” and the accompanying article talked not about a botched cardiac operation but about 77 and 78. As in, years graduated from the Philippine Military Academy.

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/16 March) -- As a gesture of its sovereignty on the 73^rd Araw ng Davao, the city government paid tribute to the late great Larry Ilagan by posthumously conferring upon him the Datu Bago Award. This is the highest award Davao City bestows upon any among its citizens who have performed a great service to the people. Nine years after his death, Davao City remembers Larry Ilagan, the former City Legal Officer who died at 55 on 15 November 2001.

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/28 January) -- Supergirl is back. Traveling seemingly at the speed of light, I wrote my dissertation in five weeks.

My paper is the first study on combat stress among active troops in the Philippines. Beginning late August, I started executing a protocol I designed to 1)assess the psychological readiness of troops belonging to the largest, most engaged combat division of the Philippine Army; 2)evaluate the psychological impact and sequelae of the participation of these troops to the 2008 pursuit operations; 3)identify soldiers at risk of developing full blown posttraumatic stress disorder from index trauma events in their cumulative combat exposure; 4)design, pilot and evaluate the effectiveness of an abbreviated narrative therapy module as early intervention; and 5)design and recommend a pre-deployment combat stress inoculation module.

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/7 Jan) -- On the first working day of the year, I sat down in front of the computer and started to write my dissertation. I was several hours into it and was just beginning to get bleary-eyed when Carol Arguillas called to ask if I was in town. She said she had Ed Lingao of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) with her and they were coming to Davao to pick up the threads of the Ampatuan story, and that maybe this time I can tag along on this last leg of their quest.