LA TRINIDAD, Benguet—Gustavo Montero is an Ibaloi artist and artisan who is contributing to the preservation and increased awareness of indigenous arts beyond his native province of Benguet. It all started in 2009, when Montero first became interested in Kali, the Filipino martial art that involves hand and body movements and the use of bladed weapons. He...
Author: Mari-An C. Santos (Mari-An Santos)
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Making memories: Sticky rice and unfettered bonds
Among my vivid childhood memories is making bilo-bilo. I remember the sensation of rolling between my palms a dollop of cold malagkit (sticky rice) to about an inch round until smooth, putting the ball on a plate, and repeating the process, putting the balls one beside the others on the quickly filled plate, until there...
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Authentic French breads and pastries enliven the City of Pines
BAGUIO CITY—It’s common to see the end of the queue as you enter the parking lot—long before you get to the front doors—of L’Atelier du Grain in this mountain city. “We usually sell more than 3,000 kinds of breads and pastries per day in the weekends,” says co-owner Merna Brazil. At the helm of the...
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Whatever happened to ‘fishball warrior’ Alvin Karingal?
The video was posted on Sept. 21, the day marked by huge rallies at Rizal Park, Edsa and elsewhere protesting the large-scale corruption in flood control projects and calling for the accountability of crooked contractors and state officials. It shows a man wearing a red shirt, with his right fist raised, and looking straight at...
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The Philippines’ Fr. Flavie Villanueva, a Maldivian activist, and a nonprofit in India are the 2025 Ramon Magsaysay awardees
Fr. Flaviano “Flavie” Antonio Villanueva of the Philippines, well known for his work among the survivors of the Duterte administration’s brutal war on drugs, is a recipient of the 2025 Ramon Magsaysay Awards, along with an anti-plastics activist in Maldives and a nonprofit organization in India. Recent global and local events notwithstanding, hope pervaded the...
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An Agta wedding in the Sierra Madre demonstrates the precarity of tradition
It was not yet 6 a.m. and I was bouncing on the back of a hired motorcycle (locally called habal) navigating the rocky, slippery mountain road that leads to the sitio in General Nakar, Quezon, where I was to attend an Agta wedding. I had taken a bus past midnight in Manila and arrived a...
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Recalling my bout with Covid-19 and living my ‘Laudato Si’
I am at that age when many people I know, contemporaries as well as older relatives and friends, have passed on. Death is an inevitable part of life. Some say it ends life; others, that it leads to better, eternal life. I almost lost mine to Covid-19. For two days I had fever approaching 40°C....
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Where ‘taong grasa’ are rescued from the streets with compassion and dignity
BAGUIO CITY—In 2020, Nanay Calteya was taken off the streets of the country’s summer capital, which she had been roaming for years. Through the initiative of the local chapter of the Anxiety and Depression Support Group (ADSG) led by Ricky Ducas Jr., a team of emergency service, social work, and health service personnel conducted the...
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Manila’s historic district of Pandacan, once known as ‘Little Italy,’ is in limbo
On March 10, 2015, asserting the primacy of human life and safety, the Supreme Court rejected the appeals of the “Big 3” oil companies Shell, Chevron, and Petron to its November 2014 ruling that they stop operations and relocate from the Pandacan Oil Depot in Manila. The oil companies were given six months to pull...
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K-Beauty event taps into Filipinos’ fascination with everything Korean
It comes as no surprise that among the things that make South Korea popular around the world—up there with K-Pop and K-Drama—are K-Beauty products. After all, the celebrities who endorse them mesmerize global audiences with their glass-skin, seemingly pore-less complexion. The skin care routine that takes as many steps as most of us have fingers...