WHAT a noble trade, being a street sweeper. It’s about sweeping the filth we produce, of making our existence less infected. Mindless and ungrateful are those who use the word…

IT was bigger than California, bigger than America.  It was Hollywood’s finest moment. Celebrating the Academy Awards (nicknamed Oscar) is as old as a man’s knowledge of entertainment — music, laughter…

SANTA CLARITA, CA – It was a unique dance party that intermingled all the facility residents and their caregivers together into one big family…and dancing gaiety. The center’s low building…

“It is a commitment, as each day we each rediscover who we are and how much love our love is capable of giving.” PERHAPS the heart is not just something…

THEY spoke of a time, a place, voices in language of love gone wrong.  Of frightful things that manifest itself in various ways of secrets, deceptions, obsession and violence, swathed in…

THE last image of Mommy Lucing was on distant mid-afternoon when her guiding hand led my wheelchair to a waiting ride. Against the gate of Bahay Kubo, her lips pursed a trifle,…

LAS VEGAS — Everything about this city is preposterous — the smell and the hustle inside MGM Grand, included. From the weigh-in, it gives you a heady feeling of being…

Little girls grow up, marry and change their names. It was one of those Beverly Hills weddings — the groom sneaked unnoticed at the ultra-conservative church of The Good Shepherd but…

IN every wish there will be glimpses of kind virtues, to encourage and console. It could be something modest or even mundane, something fantastic or utterly practical.  It can take…

NEW Year’s Day – that arbitrary date in the calendar that compels us to take stock of ourselves and evaluate whether our loves, lives and careers are progressing in the…

  THIS piece began as an act of friendship.  It was conversation-interview supposed to draw a portrait of Dr. Linda Grey without physical features. Everyone knows this already:  to describe…

I sympathize with her lonely soul. She ruminates. She dreams. She remembers.  The true essential self is ageless, even if the body and its surroundings wail that you’re old. She…

BOXING is real life, but perhaps a little bigger and a little gaudier than the movies or strict fact.   All the literary themes of money, power and sex get…

WAR is just a filthy tragedy. But it has always been like that, whether it was the violent age that was Renaissance, the Roman Empire, or the Golden Age in…

I can never quell a stir of fascination, dread and longing, when the house lights dim and the curtain parts in every Filipino American Symphony Orchestra (FASO)’s gentle riot. It…

IT’S not just the celebrity allure.  It’s the cut above all.  It’s the public acclaim, the attention, and the limelight. Every time you turn around, someone’s winning an award for…

IN private homes, we learn yet of another world — of quiet angels with gentle hearts that back home used to be teachers, bank tellers, office workers, civil engineers, registered…

FUNDRAISING is not a game, nor is it a social commentary or a religious revelation.  It is not the breeding ground for the trite and the shallow. Those who say…

THEY are daughters of dramatic journeys and fantastic tales, carrying their stories like treasures, proud of their heritage they came to America amid colonial romance, hope, despair, misfortune but are…

THE year-round oasis is timeless in the Fil-Am community, motivated by independent women that pursue common goals and interests, with their paths frequently intersecting, overlapping  — socializing with many of…

SUMMONED by invitation from the cultural office of the Philippine Consulate, out of ink-the news world trooped to the Community Hall to witness the launching of PNP Global Community Relations…

WHEN a person is old, he or she has only one’s soul for company. There are times when you feel it crying, but you do not ask why. Your eyes…

PEERLESS on its grace and splendor with changes subtle and grand, noble and patriotic, this unending testimony of class, tradition and old-world elegance has left even the most eloquent of…