If Only We Knew How to Save a Life

Anthony I wish I could say that I was a hardcore fan of Anthony Bourdain. That chef with lovely lines on his face, sinewy arms covered in tattoos, and a wild crown of silver hair. I wish I could say I had read his Kitchen Confidential and watched every episode of Parts Unknown. But sadly, […]

End of Facebook Deactivation and Some Questions That Baffle the Mind

Yesterday was Facebook reactivation day, and what a day it is to see the newsfeed again. Congress has voted to give the Commission on Human Rights Php1,000 or USD20 for its next year’s budget. Obviously this is because the CHR has been vocal against the extra-judicial killings of drug addicts, including so-called collateral damage, under […]

The level of anxiety one derives from social media

Sometimes one has to disconnect from social media to regain trust on oneself in times when the erosion of trust on institutions such as journalistic  organizations or the academe has been more palpable than before. These times are challenging. Self-doubt is a cousin of anxiety.

America

A week before US President Donald Trump took over the White House in January, I arrived in America. I was flying from Milan with connecting flights in Lisbon and New York, and I just finished writing the 10-page exam that sealed my first semester at Aarhus University in Denmark. I remember, all I wanted to do when I landed in my […]

Blow by blow

Since the super typhoon made a landfall in the Visayas islands, I’ve been looking for a detailed narrative of what happened at ground zero because reportage on Day 1 was crippled by busted power and satellite signals. Here, thanks to a contact of friend Izah Morales, I found a harrowing account of a person who […]

Back from El Nido

A trip to El Nido, Palawan is supposed to be a respite from the world’s madness, until super typhoon Yolanda came from Visayas barreling to Northern Palawan. Since we were cut off from social media for a while, Mike and I received our daily news of the Visayas tragedy from TV broadcasts, while we got […]

Chocolate memories crumbling down

How to Plagiarize

“Today I’ll teach you how to plagiarize,” I told my students one semester at the University. That must’ve been enough to catch their attention for the rest of the lecture. First, I told them, don’t cite your sources. I was teaching English 2 (that’s Comm 2 for us, older UP alumni) and the library research […]

Hocus Bogus

I took to social media the war against the Philippines’ biggest corruption scam, and almost forgot this blog as an equally powerful platform. Here’s one status I shared: You know, one of the things that irk me in this issue is how some people can easily register dummy corporations and foundations. Three years ago, when […]

Crossing fingers for heaps of good news

It’s a shame that the world is crazy over news on Boston bombing while ignoring or ignorant of that bombed Afghan wedding where casualties were ten times more than the marathon tragedy. This is not to say that little attention should also be given to Boston, but that equally big, caring social media space be […]

The so many questions after her death

There have always been those who have filled their bellies because they had no sense of shame, but we, who have nothing, apart from this last shred of undeserved dignity, let us at least show that we are still capable of fighting for what is rightfully ours. -Saramago’s Blindness The University of the Philippines freshman student […]

World’s 2013 ‘best’ universities

I did a rewrite of a breaking news on the world’s top universities ranked according to reputation. As you might have guessed, the elite “super-brand” universities from the US and UK were on top. In Asia-Pacific, Australian universities are gaining recognition among scholars. The well-known  2013 Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings was based on invitation-only […]

Sweet home, Tubbataha

Rage, rage

From which hole did this idiot crawl? said Mike Jackson (former IRRI scientist who’s now back in UK) in his Facebook the other day. Curious me checked out the link attached. It’s an article about US congressman Todd Akin, who was quoted saying:  “If it’s a legitimate rape, the  female body has ways to try to […]

Wet and dry flip-flop

Typing this as I saw sad news and photos of what’s going on in inundated Philippines–Be safe, friends and family Weather news is a must-watch for those who stay tuned to economic matters. Commodity markets, for one, depend on good weather for production and transportation. In India, now is the time when farmers expect a […]

Will never fly AirAsia again ever (a rant)

Coincidences, or not.

During our editorial summit break last week in Manila, my officemate and I were talking about the car that my sister and I bought for our father, and she said something like they must be lucky to have us as daughters, and I didn’t know how to respond to that so I just said with […]

Philippine gov’t explains why there’s no need to increase minimum wage

What an ugly, mortifying news this is: THE country’s daily minimum wage is one of the highest in the region, based on the amount of rice, the staple food of Filipinos, it can buy. The National Statistics Coordination Board’s newly released “Sexy Statistics” showed that last year, the daily minimum wages in the Philippines and […]

Philippine gov't explains why there's no need to increase minimum wage

What an ugly, mortifying news this is: THE country’s daily minimum wage is one of the highest in the region, based on the amount of rice, the staple food of Filipinos, it can buy. The National Statistics Coordination Board’s newly released “Sexy Statistics” showed that last year, the daily minimum wages in the Philippines and […]

Rest in beautiful peace, Tin

A day after a friend passed away and about a month after a former student was murdered, another former student of mine died yesterday. It was accident, they say, a death nonetheless. In one creative writing class, I wrote a story where many people related to the character are dead. The grandmother is dead, the […]

Friday snapshot: RIP Brother John, our former news editor and friend

Given

harassment

The thing about public transportation is tolerance. You got no car, you take the PUV (public utility vehicle), and you expose yourself to all sort of challenges to your sense of civility. Civility. It’s sharing social space with strangers. On my way to Laguna, I had the unfortunate chance of sitting between the driver who was […]

what?! this is dakota fanning?

She was a cute little girl screaming like an angel last time I saw her in movies! My ged. How old am I?

hackers, hackers go away

TODAY I was hacked. My last post (and front page) was deleted and was replaced by this: which was embedded in this darkness:

cesar

Today, a young friend from UPLB Department of Humanities died. And how else can the weather cooperate more than by dark clouds and rainfall. I usually do not write about something that I have just experienced or thought about. I let the safe distance of time