Illegal drugs slipping past the Bureau of Customs, illicit affairs and hidden wealth, basketball players as intelligence officers, corrupt bank official absconding with bank money. Scandal after scandal have been bombarding our sensibilities. Yet, society appears so blasé about them, in the same manner it seems to have become numbed to the continued extrajudicial killings […]
Senior citizen Wellington Yao finished his 100th marathon on July 30. That’s more than one race for each year of his life. With a little help from his friends, Yao, 67, crossed the finish line of a 42.195-kilometer race at the 41st Milo Marathon’s National Capital Region elimination leg at Mall of Asia grounds in […]
For the first time since the galleon trade ended two centuries ago, a Mexican navy ship made its way to Manila on Aug. 4. The tall ship ARM Cuauhtemoc docked at Pier 15 of the South Harbor for a four-day goodwill visit. It was open to the public until Aug. 7. Since its voyage began […]
A life-size replica of an 18th-century galleon that plied the Manila-Acapulco trade route will be built for a new maritime museum at the SM Mall of Asia Complex in Pasay City. The plans were announced as delegates of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations marked the organization’s 50 anniversary last month. The replica of the […]
In Chinese culture, the 15th day of the seventh month (七月半) in the lunar calendar is Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月). During this period, it is believed that the gates of hell are opened to allow the spirits in hell, or ghosts from its lowest […]
A s part of their homework, my granddaughters, ages 9 and 7, were instructed to watch President Duterte’s second State of the Nation Address on television. The SONA would be discussed in class, they were told. The two girls asked me to sit with them so we could listen to it together. For the first […]
Alleged members of a loan shark syndicate were cleared of charges for the kidnapping and serious illegal detention of Singaporean national Wu Yan, 48. Of the 44 foreign nationals– Chinese and Malaysians – charged, 30 were cleared when the Department of Justice ruled on July 20 that there was no probable cause against them. They […]
The Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL, or The Writers Union of the Philippines) celebrated National Literature Month on April 29. The theme of the congress, “Ang Panitikan sa Panahon ng Tokhang (Literature During the Bloody War on Drugs),” featured a keynote lecture by Dr. Jose “Butch” Dalisay Jr., a professor of creative writing […]
Former Philippine Economic Zone Authority director-general Lilia de Lima and Philippine Educational Theater Association are two of six awardees of this year’s prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award. As PEZA’s first director-general, De Lima was tasked to promote and regulate foreign investments in the country’s economic zones in 1995. De Lima was recognized for “her unstinting, sustained […]
Not too many know Arturo “Art” Valdez, but they should. He organized the first all-Filipino team that climbed Mount Everest and then sailed around the Philippines and Southeast Asia in a reconstructed ancient balangay. He’s planning to take the same balangays to China on a voyage similar to that undertaken by Sultan Paduka Batara 600 […]