A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for optimizing a query in a computer system, wherein the query is performed by the computer system to retrieve data from a database stored on the computer system. The optimization is performed by identifying a correlated subquery in the query that qualifies for transformation, transitively closing a local filtering predicate within the identified correlated subquery that is on a same column as a correlation join predicate within the identified correlated subquery, and pulling out or bubbling up the transitively closed predicate from the correlated subquery to a parent query block of the query.