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IV. At eight years old, my task was to read to my Lola, then blinded by cataract and cancer. Articles from the two newspapers and the monthly Newsweek Magazine that Lolo subscribed to were already chosen early in the morning, long before I was due back from school at noon. Lolo, having read some of these articles by the time I arrive for my task, would doze off as I read to Lola. Meanwhile, Lola would be attentive to my… Continue reading »
thank yous are in order, and while Angela and i always difficult to go all me! me! me! or I! I! I! on our blogs, almost two months into 2013, it would seem wrong to not fall back on that i, if only so i can talk to a you and articulate gratefulness. the year kicked off with being offered a regular Opinion column over at The Manila Times. i had hoped i could get away with putting a logo instead of… Continue reading »
Making Lemonade There is a romance that we like to imagine about writing, and especially the writing of a book. And while my rebellious self would like to tell you that this was not the case for Of Love and Other Lemons, that would be a lie. Certainly it came from a personal history of love and loss and sadness, complete with the high – if not OA – drama of buckets of tears. But the writing of this book… Continue reading »
don’t know about the depths of non-fiction ha. baka the narrative lang that surrounds our notions of depth. see you UP Baguio!
Ricky de Ungria: ”<…> perhaps because we have not shaken off our feudal cast of mind and psyche that inhibits us from critiquing the ideas of the “elder statesmen” in our fields as a result of a kind misplaced measure of deference or respect for elders, and that allows us to accept conveniently their word as “law” so we don’t have to bother with it anymore as we go on quietly with our own desperate lives?”
from “on criticism” by eli guieb: Criticism shatters. It shatters the shibboleths of our silenced lives, the deep silences about the wrongs of society. To challenge those silences has often come to mean courting tragedy. Criticism challenges those silences. It breaks silence free from its silence. It proffers breakthroughs that break down debilitating silences, and, in the process, rejoices in the breakdown of unwanted silence.
what is being brought to light too, i find, is that while Lito Zulueta’s biases are questioned precisely because of the place he occupies in the Philippine Daily Inquirer vis a vis UST, his engagement with this issue has not happened in the broadsheet he works for. whereas Luis Teodoro’s attacks on him have happened in a regular Business World column. the discussion, thankfully, continues.
Tito Jorge would’ve laughed out loud, would’ve teased that this 35-year old was bawling like his widow under the watchful eye of Mother Teresa and an oven called Serenity. The 68-year old man had taught humor well. Irony, too. It seems it took him long enough. In 1994, Tito Jorge was working at the UP Film Center and on the last day for submission of UPCAT applications, arrived in the rain carrying with him – rolled up under his shirt… Continue reading »
or let’s begin 2012 by talking about oppression, shall we? My issue with self-help books is that they are mostly American. And anyone who lives off of the Philippines’ contradictions and silences, crises and sadnesses would know that not much of American self-help applies to the every Pinay. The 11 stupid things women do by Veronica Pulumbarit, based on the book by Dr. Laura Schlessinger Ten Stupid Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives among other sources, reeks of a… Continue reading »
i’m one to dish it out and so i know to take it, too. and i will apologize, i will admit to my own faults, as i already have in this case. but Mr. Jeremy Baer has not only attacked me twice, refusing to accept my apology; Dra. Margarita Holmes has also moved the discussion from her and my private Facebook pages to her Facebook fanpage. and so it seems about right to take this one on with as much… Continue reading »
TEDx Talks are independently organized TED talks across the world, which is about “riveting talks by remarkable people.” TEDx Diliman was my first. This is a review of each of the TED talks that were part of it, done in 18 minutes or less, because that’s the time limit of a TED Talk. Read more about TED here, and check out this really good video on TEDx here. Glecy Atienza on Buhay: Theater for Life what Ma’am Glecy had going for her TEDx… Continue reading »
it’s been quiet here, which isn’t to say that it’s been quiet where i’m at. been finishing up an MA thesis that’s gone on for too long, and is more about closure to a life lived in the academe more than anything else. while that’s happening, i’ve had more interesting conversations than usual, including conversations about art and the state of things in this country, ones that are kept off the record, unspoken of. sometimes it’s limited to Facebook, other times… Continue reading »
By circumstance, and with a lot of luck, I grew up in homes where grandfathers were fixtures. Today Lolo Ding turns 100. He died in 1989. I was 13. I used to tell my writing students, I tell the ones who have become my friends: talk to your elders, ask them about their stories, talk to them about their lives. Know that they all lived — parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles — long before we did, separate from who we… Continue reading »
is victory avenue, quezon city. where a big house still is, owned by family but barely, a space i haven’t seen in years, a street i haven’t even gone into in as long. but on that street where i grew up, my notion(s) of the world began to be formed. between the padlocked gate, and the poverty beyond it; the old beetle that we played around and not within, and the huge garden that Lola loved; between the death of a… Continue reading »
cheaper safer healthier bras please. and cheaper, less painful breast exams (please naman, no more scary and expensive old school mammograms)! here’s my friend Anina, with what is fit for the Breast Cancer Awareness Month that is October.
It is rare to meet a woman you would trust with your life, but here was Cheche Lazaro, telling me about why she was retiring, what it is she’s most proud of, and where she will go from here—it was difficult not to be overwhelmed. After all, Cheche’s Probe Productions has so many awards tucked under its belt, and even more achievements that are invisible and non-material. One such intangible honor is this: for my generation (I was born in… Continue reading »
a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 26 2009. Kawayan de Guia is clear about his art. It’s his way of talking to the world, engaging it in dialogue, transcending its limits. It’s his upbringing, his lifeblood, his provincial context that is Baguio. It’s his grounding in history, his way of telling stories, his political stance. Speaking this concretely and categorically about his art, Kawayan just might be the more uncompromising of our contemporary young… Continue reading »
a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Arts and Books section, October 26 2009. She was obviously overwhelmed silly by the fact that she was chosen as one of ten most exciting young artists. Which is no surprise really. Dina Gadia is the youngest of the group at 23, and just might have more going for her other than her age: she has a clear sense of what it is that interests her, where her art… Continue reading »
a version of this was published in The Philippine Daily Inquirer on 13 April 2009. Over lunch, the foursome more famous as the AngFourgettables talks about their nickname, Charice Pempengco, Arnel Pineda, the all-OPM concert month, and everything else in between. They haven’t disbanded, if that’s what you’re thinking. In fact they insist on two things here: one, that all they’ve done is lie low as a group which allowed their individual careers to flourish, and two, that they’d really rather… Continue reading »
*a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on March 5 2009.* It is difficult not to like these guys who make up Red Jumpsuit Apparatus even when they have easily been dismissed as just another emo band. Because in truth, Ronnie Winter (lead vocals), Duke Kitchens (guitar, piano), Joey Westwood (bass), Jon Wilkes (drums) and Matt Carter (guitar), will not presume you like them. They won’t even assume that you know them from Adam. Instead they… Continue reading »