His fascination with earthquakes started during his teenage years, and may have been spurred by the challenging question that his professor in structural engineering had once asked: “Can you design buildings for earthquakes?”
The minimum objective, according to quake engineer Dr. Benny Pacheco, is to prevent damage to, or the collapse of, brittle structures during an earthquake and its aftershocks.
A generation ago, back in the early 1970s, he was known as the “Kilabot ng Kolehiyala” (scourge of coeds) because his singing seemed to have that uncanny power to turn demure young women from exclusive schools into a pack of shrieking banshees. The coeds swooned over him and filled up the cavernous Folk Arts Theater during his concerts, making Hajji Alejandro a certified campus heartthrob.
Everything becomes a story for Noreen Capili. Everything. The thirtysomething writer has lived an eventful life that’s been transmuted into funny, insightful stories—and that’s just as Noringai, the nom de plume she uses in her popular blog and best-selling collection of essays, “Parang Kayo Pero Hindi.”
Excerpts from Noreen Capili’s “Parang Kayo Pero Hindi”: “Parang Kayo Pero Hindi”
I felt the earth move. “Are we on a ship?” I joked, fascinated in spite of needing to find my bearings. Then I looked out the glass walls and saw the Metro’s skyline and stars. “Is this the Love Boat?”
Some time in the late ’70s, while on an office junket to Zamboanga City, I purchased a shoe box-sized Panasonic radio cassette player—a “ghetto blaster”—from the barter trade market. It wasn’t for me, but was on a friend’s shopping list.
The question might stump most of us for whom teaching has become a non-career, as overworked and underpaid professionals in this field quickly junk their degrees for domestic work abroad to earn more decent wages.
Don’t tell Madame Imelda Marcos, but there’s a family secret that Senators Grace Poe and Ferdinand “Bongbong Marcos, Jr. would rather keep from her, though half the country must have heard about it.
The past year would probably be remembered most for the profligate ways of businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles whose unwise handling of government funds had led to her downfall and that of several prominent lawmakers.
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