As more Filipinos grow older, families need to address an issue that falls somewhere between looking after a parent themselves and hiring professional caregivers. A newly launched Metro Manila companionship service offers a glimpse of the possibilities, and the questions that come with them. Maria Lourdes Malipol, 27, began caring for her mother, Eleanor, after...
Author: Hannah L. Tabunda
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Filipino teachers do give more than they receive
World Teachers Day on Oct. 5 brought the usual tributes. But teacher organizations say respect is better measured in salaries, working hours, staffing, and whether rights written into law 60 years ago are actually felt in schools. “You give more than you receive,” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told thousands of teachers gathered at Smart Araneta...
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What Mary Jane Veloso’s pardon really means
Presidential clemency ended the sentence Mary Jane Veloso was serving in the Philippines. It did not overturn the Indonesian drug conviction, and it did not end the separate prosecution of the people she says recruited and trafficked her. When Veloso happily held up a copy of her absolute pardon at the Correctional Institution for Women...
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What was ‘Edjop’ running for?
There is a cruel irony at the center of Katski Flores’ “Edjop.” Joyette Jopson, portrayed by Jodi Sta. Maria, spends much of the film trying to understand a father she barely knew, a man who had become, in her own formulation, more concept than parent. The film sets out to reverse that distance: to pull...
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Local roasteries and global brews converge in Coffee Plz! Festival
Beans, beats and matcha blended in San Juan City’s The Corner House last July 12-13 to celebrate a unique twist in Metro Manila’s café culture: a phase in urban life yet to be fully relished beyond a simple fix of joe. The Coffee Plz! Festival brought enthusiasts and brewers to a movement aimed at supporting...