The millions of overseas Filipino workers in the Middle East are constantly suspended between hope and anxiety. Today, as geopolitical tensions escalate into a regional crisis, that anxiety has shifted from a low-grade hum to sharp clinical distress. Whether you are a nurse in Riyadh, an engineer in Dubai, or a household service worker in...
Category: People
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What a life my friend Norma Japitana led
I can’t remember exactly when or how I got to meet THE Norma Japitana. What I know is that our friendship progressed at the speed of a Formula 1 race car — going from 0 to 100 miles in no time. I recall that we started hanging out with Norma when we were young journalists...
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Filipino fire victims get windfall cash aid but still reel from trauma
HONG KONG – Filipino migrant workers who were among those who survived the tragic fire in Tai Po that killed 159 people have received a cash bonanza, mainly from the Philippine government, of at least P70,000. Of this, P50,000 came from the Aksyon Fund (Agarang Kalinga at Saklolo para sa mga OFW na Nangangailangan), a...
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Filipinos in Hong Kong hold memorial services for fire victims
HONG KONG—There was a huge outpouring of grief and sympathy for the victims of the massive fire in Tai Po that based on the latest figures has claimed the lives of 146 people, as Filipinos gathered on Sunday to hold two separate memorial services for them. In the first event organized by FilAction (Filipinos Against...
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Pablo Tariman kept the music playing
At Gallery MiraNila in Quezon City on Oct. 1, the hardbound volume “Encounters in the Arts” was available for sale at the registration corner for “Cecile Licad Up Close.” But the man behind both the book of reportage and the piano concert was elsewhere—quite out of character, being hands-on if not OC at each endeavor...
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Dante C. Simbulan, 1930-2024: From military officer to scholar-activist
Long before Dante C. Simbulan’s path-breaking study on the Philippine elite, “The Modern Principalia: The Historical Evolution of the Philippine Ruling Oligarchy,” was published by the University of the Philippines Press in 2005, it had become “the much-quoted thesis on the socioeconomic elite in the Philippines,” according to Mark Turner, writing on the History of...
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Like a bridge over troubled water: The life journey of Luis Jalandoni
The melody of the ballad “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” played on a piano, welcomed a large crowd to the Asian Center auditorium at the University of the Philippines Diliman for a tribute to Luis Jalandoni, the ex-priest and former chief peace negotiator for communist rebels who died in exile in the Netherlands on June 7....
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Singer Hajji Alejandro: the ‘Kilabot’ with the signature sweet smile
The singer Hajji Alejandro died of colon cancer early this week but in the snapshots posted by his daughter Rachel Alejandro on Instagram, he does not at all project the image of an ailing man before and after his diagnosis. In photos of concerts last December, in which he appeared as her special guest and...
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Francis’ papacy, defined by mercy and compassion, was neither rigorist nor laxist
Within weeks of his 2013 election, Pope Francis shocked many by washing the feet of two girls—one of them a Muslim—during the Maundy Thursday liturgy at a juvenile detention center in Rome. This break from liturgical tradition signaled a papacy that would emphasize reform, pastoral openness, and, to some, a controversial departure from established norms....
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Reading the mystery of Nora Aunor, Superstar
The words posted by Ricky Lee, National Artist for Film and Broadcast, honoring his friend and fellow National Artist, speak volumes: “Kung wala na ang lahat, kung kalansay na lang ako, ang matitira na lang ay ang sinasabi mong sining” (When everything is gone, when I am but bones, the only thing that will be...