SYDNEY—Up till boarding time at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, I continued to receive calls and text messages from friends wanting to know if I was proceeding with my trip. My departure for my nth visit to my daughter Giselle in Sydney would have been uneventful if not for the concern roused by news about...
Category: Health
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For Fiat, the reward is seeing that others are helped
In 1995, a group of 15 women professionals decided that it was time to give back and be of service to their fellow Filipinos. They knew they had the capability to make a difference and that it would mean a missed opportunity if they could not make use of what they could share. They came up...
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Coming home to Manila in the pandemic: inward journeys
SYDNEY—“This is your captain speaking. We shall soon commence our descent into Melbourne …” I felt a lump in my throat. Every year when I visit my daughter here, I make a side trip to Victoria’s capital to see a dear friend from college. The pandemic paused the practice, and now, after three years, I...
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Dengue epidemic: how to protect your family
The number of dengue cases is soaring all over the Philippines. An epidemic is now reported in 15 out of 17 regions nationwide. With the certificate of the dengue vaccine Dengvaxia permanently revoked in the country, the Department of Health (DOH) is urgently campaigning for every citizen to take a proactive role in their home...
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Covid-19 politics in Southeast Asia
The political situation in Southeast Asia in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic can be contextualized by the level of freedom in each country. The 2021 Freedom House survey of 210 countries worldwide rates “peoples’ access to political rights and civil liberties, including individual freedoms ranging from the right to vote to freedom of expression...
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Asean’s divisive responses to the Covid-19 pandemic
The responses of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) as a regional grouping to Covid-19 have been divisive, unclear, nonconsultative, impromptu, and driven by divergent policies, leading its member-states to control the pandemic individually and independently of each other. These are the assessments of observers among think tanks, media outfits, and independent researchers. A...
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Banishing anxiety and fear: a fitness journey
I knew I needed to get back to my exercise routine when the doctor didn’t hesitate to prescribe Xanax. It was the remedy for what he diagnosed as anxiety attacks after listening earnestly to my tale of feeling hopeless every day. His assistant handed me the tablets on my way out, and a new wave...
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Monkeypox spread? No cause for alarm—yet
As if Covid-19 were not enough to worry about, now comes monkeypox. For pandemic-fatigued Filipinos, it comes across as another point of concern, especially because it causes flu-like symptoms as well as horrendous-looking rashes that can spread across the body and form large blisters filled with white pus-like fluid. It does looks biblical, like something...
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Little Sisters care for women in the twilight of their lives
With Covid-19 continuing to pose a threat to life and health, some kind of hush has fallen over the home run by the Little Sisters for the Abandoned Elderly in San Juan City. The community singing and merrymaking that the residents enjoyed have been put on hold as health protocols are strictly observed in the...
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Staying fit has its ups and downs, but don’t quit
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...