It’s not every day you see an inebriated Lolita Carbon onstage with Cooky Chua and Bayang Barrios, singing their cover of Tropical Depression’s “Kapayapaan.” They sway, each voice husky, standing close together on what little space could be stood on in the slice of platform strewn with wires, mic stands, and effects pedals. In fact,...
Category: Featured Stories
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Filipino fishers continue to struggle amid China’s intensifying aggression
SAN SALVADOR ISLAND—With a piece of chalk, Christopher de Vera Sr. marked the sketch of a triangle-shaped Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal on the board, labeling the entrance in the east and pointing out where Chinese vessels are often seen on patrol. Laughter filled the venue of the meeting, a classroom of San Salvador High School in...
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My island of Marinduque is a bleeding heart
I grew up on an island whose tale begins with love and ends with death. Scientists would scoff and tell a completely different story. How could they believe an island would rise above the tides as a memorial to the forbidden love of a princess and a commoner, who sailed together across unforgiving seas and...
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‘Less is more’: learning basic hair and makeup lessons from K-beauty masters
At SM Aura’s Atrium last Friday afternoon, crew members are prepping the stage for the lecture by K-beauty masters. They set up the floor standing lights at opposite ends of the stage and plug in the extension cords. They put a large metallic case of styling tools on a high chair behind the light on...
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James Taylor in my mind and live in Manila
When I told my research team of millennials at the University of the Philippines that Tesa and I were going to watch a concert by James Taylor, I was met with blank stares and polite smiles that seemed to say, “James who?” So, I asked Janus Nolasco to accompany me on guitar while I sang...
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Solidarity is also served at Palestinian Filipino food line
After attending the Veneration of the Cross at the University of the Philippines Diliman’s Parish of the Holy Sacrifice on Good Friday, I went straight to Our Little Gaza Kitchen in Don Antonio Heights, Quezon City. The event was announced online a few days earlier and shared by over 100 within hours. It was pegged...
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When you hit the road and ‘feel the wonderful wind on your face’
“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling,” the American activist Susan B. Anthony once said. “I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a...
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Smelling good (without going into debt to buy French perfume)
I used to have a keen sense of smell. It’s probably a vestigial faculty from my ancestors who, as hunter-gatherers in the wild of Panay, needed all their five senses heightened. But my nose has been dulled by age, Metro Manila’s pollution, and my own careless olfactory experiments. Once, I almost killed myself by being...
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Easy like Sunday afternoon
The woman has apparently just risen from her wheelchair and her companions seem to be urging her to take a few steps forward. But ever so gently: You feel love pervading the tight little scene as you walk past it on this Sunday afternoon at the UP Oval late In January, when the sun’s rays...
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In the highlands with the grand old lady of ‘batok’
Carpe diem! What do Apo Whang-Od and I have in common? Let me (presumptuously) try to count the ways. Apo Whang-Od, the oldest living tattoo artist—mambabatok—has become Vogue’s oldest cover star, and I have branded myself as the oldest stariray with tattooed arms in my clan. And like her, I have a following, too! My...