A Filipino composer-lyricist is among 16 musical theater writers of new musicals chosen for residencies at the prestigious Rhinebeck Writers Retreat in New York this summer. A total of 145 applications representing 290 musical theater writers went through two rounds of review by noted composers in the United States. Paulo K. Tirol of Manila was...
Christine Ang-Buban and Ni Kadek Eta will never watch “All of Us Are Dead” (AOUAD) or any other zombie show(K-dramas). Ang-Buban’s love for Emma Stone didn’t move her to watch “Zombieland” (2009), and Eta tried but couldn’t get past Episode One of AOUAD. They’re the opposite of sister-entrepreneurs Anna Clarissa and Angela Javier, who’ve included...
Much-heralded actor-director-production designer Miguel Faustmann, whose versatile performances had long been witnessed by audiences onstage, in local and foreign movies, and in TV series and commercials since the mid-1970s, died in his sleep on May 15 at the age of 67. A favorite choice of directors and producers for his ability to perform in English,...
We wouldn’t have minded the Philippines’ fourth-place finish in the medal tally of the 31st Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Hanoi, Vietnam. Even a fifth place would have been acceptable, as the Philippines was in that rank two days before the last set of matches were played on May 22. What was heart-breaking was the...
Days before the May 18 proclamation of the senators-elect, comeback kid JV Ejercito, No. 10 in the Senate’s “Magic 12,” noted a prickly point: the continuing detention of Sen. Leila de Lima on charges of taking drug money to fund her senatorial campaign in the 2016 elections. “Hopefully,” Ejercito was quoted as saying in CNN...
BL (boy’s love) became a familiar genre to us Filipinos during the pandemic. Confined to our homes, we looked to the internet for things to get us through the uncertainties. BLs provided a mental health break. Two years later, the pandemic is still with us. And thanks to recent political events, some of us may...
Marcosian martial law made us Humpty Dumpty and we will never be put back together again. It broke us in ways so deep and permanent no amount of talk about reconciliation and unity will ever make us whole. But we can cope with it in a very Filipino way. We have always been described as...
For someone who has been battling obesity, type 2 diabetes, liver disease and depression for years, trying to stay fit is a constant challenge made more difficult as I grow older—and simply because I love to eat. Being overweight isn’t the same as being obese. The World Health Organization defines both overweight and obesity as...
Host country advantage: This explains why Vietnam, the host of this year’s 31st Southeast Asian Games (SEAG) is well ahead of its rivals in the medal standing. At this writing, Vietnam has bagged 99 gold, 65 silver and 64 bronze medals, or a total of 228. Thailand is at No. 2 with 43 gold, 44...
Our political party system is flabby, almost irrelevant. -Elections 2022 – Political parties are a mere supplement to the fluid alliances of dynastic families serving as the main political machine for churning out votes in national elections 2022. At the local level, the clan of the moment can secure for the family the posts of governor,...
