On a deeper note: Why people travel
Traveling has crossed the line of being a luxury to being a necessity. To some, it is in their bucket list; but, to many, it is part of their budget…
Category: Lifestyle Columnists
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Inside Dante’s Inferno
THE memory of what is irrevocably lost is the true meaning of Hell in the Divine Comedy. Dante Alighieri is considered as the Father of Italian Poetry. The poetry of the Comedy is immortal. …
Prayer, as a way of witnessing
WHEN I see people praying ardently in church, I would remember Edith Stein (also known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) — a German Jewish philosopher, who converted to…
Mike Alvarez, a discerning case of phenomenally intellectual supremacy
If one would measure a man’s intellect mainly based from Sir Francis Bacon’s popular quotation: “Reading maketh a full man, Conference a ready man, and Writing an exact man,” easily…
Our self-healing power
In spite of all the powerful inventions of man, including the super computers and other state-of-the-art electronic devices, they have not come close to matching the amazing super human body….
Joining the bandwagon is not a sin
Sometimes, going against the grain makes us look rational, cool, superior even. However, when we veer away from the mainstream, is it because we sincerely cannot appreciate the “usual”? Or…
The serious side of comedy
Though the few good TV shows back home are applauded, it is dismaying that these small islands of quality are almost lost in the sea of mediocrity and outright vulgarity,…
When doing good hurts
THE advice of St. Peter to new converts to Christianity in the Second Reading this Sunday, 1 Peter 3:15-18, resonate with many us: “For it is better to suffer for doing…
Josephine ‘Joji’ Vilar Rafael, a quintessential paragon of beauty and motherhood
Current social dictum motivates women to burst out of their shells and land a career of their own giving rise to the ever-growing number of mothers who augustly cope with…
Hair coloring and cancer
But our genes, no matter how good their sources are, will not protect us if we abuse ourselves and allow environmental factors to hurt our body and cause disease. It is…
Learning how to fly
RIDING the airplane for the first time is perhaps the greatest luxury to enjoy. It is the time when one is not yet well-acquainted with the moment; therefore, giving a…
Looking for treasures in growing old
“Few people know how to be old.” – Francois De La Rochedfoucald THEY say that youth is wasted on the young. This is untrue. Youth is wasted on the old, if…
The sterling world of nurses
You see them with a grateful heart as they walk on their hands and do somersaults with a patient’s extreme despair and suffering. They turn trauma into joy, and rage…
On emboldening our children
“LIFE can be messy,” I told my friend the other day as we were talking about the problems and challenges of people in families, parishes, and other communities. “It’s definitely…
Flores de Mayo/Santacruzan: The Queen of Filipino festivities
If there’s but a single Philippine festival touted as the ultimate in grandiosity, magnificent in its scope, profligate in its opulence, and glamorous in its style, easily, that would be…
Vegetables Versus Lymphoma
Since man roamed the earth, vegetables have been hailed as a great health food. And even before modern science came out with the medical data proving their value, parents, especially…
San Isidro Pahiyas Festival: Of beauty and bounty
It is no doubt that thanksgiving celebrations in the Philippines are always in its grandest. In fact, Filipinos even go beyond ‘colorful and creative’ and a best example would be…
A question of choice
It is said that choice is destiny’s soulmate. You have a choice to accept or refuse, to take one turning down the crossroads to the future or another. By not…
Songs that my mother taught me
On this big production called Mother’s Day, a whole nation of sons and daughters will pause to remember their mothers. My first knowledge of the world and about life came…
Musing in Valyermo
WHILE enjoying a quiet dinner with the monks of St. Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo, California during my day-off last Thursday, Fr. Francis, the former abbot, was on the microphone reading…
A Mother’s Day retrospective: Vignettes, anecdotes & canticles for ‘Inang’
THERE is something strange about the gravitational and magnetic forces that attract a child towards his mother than how intensely it is with the father. The reason could obviously be…
Now showing: Life in 4 minutes at PNR
Funny how life happens in a fast-forward pace – so fast that we cannot see and hear it anymore. Even funnier is the irony that we can best observe life…
Inside the death chamber
IT was my first police beat assignment. We felt that we had no right to do what we were doing. The killing of a fellow human being was repulsive and…
FACLA makes everyone matter
THE sun was blasting down ferociously on the pavement in this hottest April day, brimming with heat. Historic Filipinotown was melting, heaving and breathing like a tired beast. Here on…
A reflection on training of future priests
YES, it ‘s official. Archbishop Jose H. Gomez has appointed me as a Member of St. John’s Seminary Faculty beginning the 1st of July this year. As I pray and…
Concert review: Sounds of Manila sings Cecile Azarcon
THE Sounds of Manila (SoM), a US-based all-Filipino show band aptly tagged as “Ambassadors of Philippine Music,” finally raised the bar of their decade-long musical supremacy this side of the…
Of second chances
Popoy and Basha – do they ring a bell? “Ako na lang. Ako na lang ulit.” Not yet? Shocking! A Filipino who had been in love, and eventually broken-hearted, had…
Grandmothering
“IF you want to civilize a man, begin with his grandmother.” – Victor Hugo One moment you’re a mother. Then, when your children are finally all grown up, you relax…
Is the human splendor of medicine gone?
The practice of medicine is an arduous and complex human profession. One doesn’t need training in medicine, in order to make cogent and crucial experience about what it’s like to…
The Eucharist, the priesthood and Christ’s Divine Mercy and love
WE commemorated three principal mysteries in our liturgy last Holy Week during Holy Thursday Mass: the institution of the Eucharist, the institution of the priesthood; and Christ’s commandment of fraternal…