I COULD only dream of an apple that fell far from the tree: a perfect news professional who is God’s little pencil. I would have taught her to begin each work by having real and passionate curiosity about how people behave in the infinitely various situations they find themselves in. I would have made her…
“If you want to civilize a man, begin with his grandmother.” -Victor Hugo SO, one moment you’re just a mother, and before you can blink and think you can relax and take it easy, having escaped the ties of children, their troubles and their demands, you feel a little tug. In the next moment, you’re…
YOU see them with a grateful heart as they walk on hands, and do somersaults with a patient’s extreme despair, suffering life-altering trauma, joys, rage and despair. Ordinary people have such experiences only a few times during their entire lifetimes. Through a daily basis of witness and involvement in death, birth and celebration, nurses sign…
ON this big production called Mother’s Day, a whole nation of sons and daughters paused to remember their mothers. My first knowledge of the world about life came to me through my senses, in so far as they were directed by my mother. She was the first one I saw, the first thing I felt,…
As one famous author said: “The ability to spin cocoons of language out of nothing.” It redefines news, the way it is reported, published and read. I MEASURE my life through sentences pressed out, line by line, according to what poured from it — cascading, elastic, susceptible — into an inexact heart. My heart hopes,…
SPRING has sprung. It is upon us in a scent that grows deeper, dizzying, and improbable. It is too heady and too provocative to be diminished. Seeping through open windows, under doors, as you slip out of a doorway or slide out of a car. There it is—a scent that dominates the air, your bed…
IN some ways, getting older is an odd blessing because we have already faced some of our biggest fears and discovered that we’re actually bigger than our fears. Looking back, we see them knocked over and silent on the battle of life. But have we really? As we head for tomorrow, we’re confined to our…
I don’t know the answers to the big questions of life. But everything is relative, everything has a story. Yes, I’ve met amazing souls, and the lights fill me. These flattering lights shine in my face and I confront myself in the mirror to take a deep howling look into the troubles that have lined…
LENT is a season of Christ’s teachings, which are presented in a thousand pulpits across the nation — self- righteously, mournfully, nasally, coldly, feebly, flamboyantly, blandly, and violently. If I were asked about the rationale of my faith, I’d say: First, I believe in a grand universal order and meaning and in a power that…
I COVERED the presidential term sailing through its choppy waters chronicling Philippine President Fidel V. Ramos’ (FVR) wavy patterns of success and glory, laughter and grief, loss and devastation, troubles and genuine delights. Through the oppressive summers, we fluttered around him, hot and heaving, sticky and dusty marinated in different astringents, alcohol and talcum. The…
FOR such a monumental thing to be accomplished in seconds defies logic. In fact, it was almost insulting, but there it was. It happened in less time than it took her to draw a breath. Anybody can become a widow. There were no special qualifications. It did not require planning to become a wife or…
Letting the tides of forgiveness wash away old pains during the first year of married life was the most reliable approach in all the marriage encounters we’ve listened to. So, we basically reintroduced ourselves, shook hands and began again. But the only hits in starting over within the relationship was this: what do we do…
ASK anyone about love and they’ll give you an opinion, that is beyond reason. Some say God is love, others say love is God. I’d say love is a spiritual root canal, a little taste of always and a big taste of nothing. At its full blossoming, it is verdant in full greenery; as it…
SANTA CLARITA – It was a unique dance party that intermingled all the facility residents and their caregivers together into one big family. The center’s low building and the winding street look like a college campus. It is vast and sheltering, increasingly heartwarming. One did not expect a special party, even for the special people,…
ALL my life I’ve dealt with words. I live in a world of stories, which are not replicable because our lives are unique and give us value and meaning. Yet, as each story is told, we also learn about what makes us similar, what connects us all, and what helps us transcend that isolation authors…
LAS VEGAS — Come hell or high waters, people flock here to untie the knot. Here, divorce is simply about the villain and the victim. It is who got cheated, who got left behind and the agony of the dumped. It will always be a conundrum, how dramatically love can go into a turnaround. In…
THIS week marked the 36th year since their father left us. He left me a houseful of very young and adorable daughters with the world on their side. In the face of adversity, we are not permitted to ask “why me?” You can ask but you won’t get an answer. Through the years, I’ve learned…
The old year has passed and we commemorate it while invoking the illumination of the year’s days of authentic indulgence, simplicities, celebration and closure. As we welcome the new year, we need to put the old years unfinished business — mistakes, regrets, shortcomings and disappointment behind us, bad memories as well. We will make some…
THE gift of the yuletide comes to us wrapped, not in tissues and ribbon but in cherished events of ceremony, celebration, connections and parties that constellate about the holiday season. Guests troop in all sizes and shapes, of race, color and creed in effulgence that intoxicates, sizzles and electrifies the holiday revelers. It could be…
I thought I have forgotten what the real Christmases were like, but, I remembered. Christmas comes but once a year, made up of equal parts of love, good cheers, gentleness and humor. The Yuletide feast that descends with the full gamut of holiday moods — from tender reminiscences to rollicking jollity, to new thrills of…
IN both fiction and reportage, I’ve always made known that the winding down of autumn and ushering of winter puts me in a heavy and philosophical mood. I’m thinking about the deep and very private personal needs of people. A need that when met, gives us a sense of well being, one of them the…
HOW could it have happened? Pearl Harbor and its awful treachery and death, is one of the worst defeat ever suffered by the U.S. It is a tragic story of how courage and ingenuity move upon the smoldering wreckage of towering explosion, monstrous ships moaning as they died, young sailors trapped in steel hulks. On…
PICTURE a man across the hall. He carries his everyday business suit like they were black tie and tails, and his demeanor gave the impression that he had been born with a gold watch and chain instead of an umbilical cord. One would remember with clarity the gentleman’s grace, his good manner, his capacity to…
THIS great holiday of thanks and giving is not a date on a calendar, but a state of the mind. In a kind of thought about our capacity to realize things, we can sometimes only imagine and remember that no matter how difficult life’s tests are for each of us, there are always others feeling…
ROMEO Balboa’s photos are unrelated to stories that make an antidote to the unhappy news of the day. He sets as an example to the rest of his colleagues just to simply enjoy the fun of pictures: taking what recaptures the fun of photography and the enthusiasm that led one to become photographers to begin…
CALL it the sickness pompous, the spell that hushed the household with desert-like stillness felt through its innermost chambers; one in a world unto herself — her own theater. A swerve fit of indisposition under the name of a fall from dignity (or careless demeanor) amounting to a deposition that made me a prisoner of…
THIRTY-FIVE years ago, my husband left me. He died, leaving a house full of daughters; young, adorable and innocent, with the world on their side. In the face of adversity, we were not permitted to ask, “why me?” You can ask, but you won’t get an answer. Through the years, I’ve learned the hard way. …
IT is time for the bad news. I think of the bad news as a huge bird, an albatross with wings of a crow, the face of Hydra, rancid teeth and a wrinkling frown; sailing around the world under cover of darkness pleased to be the bearer of ill tidings. Carrying a basket of rotten eggs,…
THEY met in Las Vegas. From all over the world, they came and gave three days of their lives to be with each other. It was in the Philippines Normal University Global Alumni Association (PNUGAA) gala where former classmates, mostly seniors now; gathered, danced, broke bread, wined and caught up with their lives. Their stories…
LIKE a compass through the storms of art and other noteworthy human endeavors, the awards culture, that human obsession for recognition and accolade; is here to stay — at its own price. It is not just the celebrity allure. It’s the cut above all. It is the public acclaim, the attention, the limelight. Every time you turn…
