On making a good confession
IT’S Lent, a season of repentance, a longing to go to Confession to prepare for Easter. So, during this penitential season, a Facebook friend sent me a message to ask…
Category: Lifestyle Columnists
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Chin Gomez resurges passion and reclaims stage status
Just when you thought you’ve had enough of those mediocre stage entertainers and (trying hard) copycats with the notion that there’s really a deliberate shortage of local-based talents and that…
Brain youth
One of the powerful attributes that we admire (or even marvel at) among many elderly, age 80, 90, and older, is the “youthfulness” of their mind. Unfortunately, not every one…
What does a woman want?
The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is “What…
The journey of Friends
THEY say that friends is the difference between a lonely life and lively one. What are friends for? What can you count on them? How much weight can a friendship…
Zeal for the House of God
AT times, I’m amazed seeing the zeal of some of our seminarians in their vocation. Take for example, this 24-year-old first-year theology student who is disciplined in most areas of…
Angel Ram: the sultry chanteuse spills her plaintive woes
Joan “Angel” Dacayana Ramchand, more popularly known in the entertainment field as Angel Ram, stands vulnerably incapable despite being equipped with communication gadgets that couldn’t be used to communicate with…
Treacherous heart attack
What is a heart attack? Heart Attack, medically termed Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI), is a condition where the heart suffers from lack of blood supply as a result of blockage…
If I were a man
IT is difficult to be a woman. You could get raped in a dark street. You have to make use of a pretty face to be accepted at first glance,…
The camera never blinks
IT is hard to find words to describe photographers. They work long and hard on their photos, which tell a story and accompany their dreams of becoming good press photographers, of…
Those ‘wow moments’ with God
Every Thursday evening the priests and parishioners of Sacred Heart Church in Rancho Cucamonga, California gather in their church to spend Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament. At least three…
Melanoma: Deadly skin cancer
It is a common misconception that skin cancer is nothing to worry about because it is curable. Not so, not for any of the 3 types of skin cancers. All…
Elma De Villa Castillo, MD: Success is being passionately compassionate!
The rapidly evolving medical scene proffers a roller coaster of practitioners with peculiar traits and skills amid emerging changes in their particular field of specialization. Despite skepticisms of the perils…
Once upon a press club
There was once a press club in the heart of a city where everyone lived in harmony with each other and their surroundings. Photographers and writers, they were affable and…
A daughter’s wedding
CALL it another rite of aging. But one of the rewards of getting older is to be able to gather friends for a happy time and look at the faces…
Lent: a time of promises
WE make promises: a promise to be faithful to one’s spouse; a promise to take care of a family member; a promise to be with a friend in times of…
Valentine’s Day postscripts and afterthoughts
An avalanche of pompously conceptualized and planned Valentine’s Day events that nippy Saturday, February 14, successfully pushed through with neither being hampered nor hindered by the prevalence of the inclement…
Medical data update
Can sweat transmit Hepatitis B? Hepatitis B virus was found in the sweat of 13 percent (9) infected athletes, according to a new study on 70 male Olympic wrestlers, which…
The perfect ‘newshen’
THE apple that fell far from the tree, one I could only dream of—a perfect newshen, God’s little pencil. If only she was mine, the daughter I could not have….
Valentine combustion
Perhaps the heart is not just a sort of Valentine, nor just a beating thing in our chest that sustains life. It is also the wellspring of faith, hope and…
An interfaith week reflection
I HAVE never attended a Jewish service in my entire life until last summer when my friend Armando invited me to a Shabbat while spending a week-long of vacation in…
2015 WHM battle cry: Fortifying women empowerment
In just a couple of weeks, the world will once again commemorate the triumphant symbolism of its female populace in connection with the international celebration of Women’s History Month. And…
Lovemaking and health
Why is lovemaking good for us? Scientific evidence suggests that clean sex is good for us in more ways than one. Here are some of the dozen reasons why it…
A story of three loves
Love in any form manifests itself into various ways and this narrative is about the myriad colors of passion. To see a battered woman. It is like nothing you can…
Songs that my mother taught me
My first knowledge of the world and about life came to me through my senses. They were directed by my mother. She was the first one I saw, felt and…
On homilies
THE Church sees the homily as an opportunity to address a “people hungry, sometime desperately so, for meaning in their lives.” The homily attends to feeding that particular hunger. In…
Horrifying literary works on stage, theater, et al…
Noticeably there is a paucity of horror literary pieces being adapted for stage presentation and theater performances as compared to musical, comedy, romance, and even merely documentary-style that are universally…
High blood pressure: The silent killer
What is High Blood Pressure? High Blood Pressure, or Hypertension, is a condition where the person’s blood pressure is persistently elevated beyond what is medically considered normal level. Normal blood…
Not guns, but bullets that kill
THEY consist of running bits of metals through the flesh of men—large, small, pointed, square, round and splintered bits that tear and kill. It is not the metal in its…
Mary Jean Lastimosa: True beauty that’s skin-deep
Out of the millions of ladies, one who hails from Mindanao’s war-torn provinces—North Cotabato, gained the right to have represented the Philippines at the 63rd Miss Universe Pageant. Among the…