“Don’t panic. This too, shall pass.”

Three Unexpected Years 

Known for writing the first modern Philippine short story in English entitled “Dead Stars” in the year 1925, Paz Marquez-Benitez was a writer, editor, and teacher. She had her 129th birth anniversary and Google Doodle didn’t fail to remind the Philippines.

Google Doodle Celebrates A Quezonin

I am past fifty, two years shy of being a Senior Citizen. At my age today, there is one subject in the elementary and high school that I fondly remember: Home Economics or H.E. Not because it was my favorite subject because it was not, but because of its benefits and learnings that I have not forgotten until now.

Unforgettable Home Economics

Time doesn’t heal all wounds. Nine years have passed and I still carry this burden in my heart.

Volunteerism Blues

How do we celebrate planet earth? Cleaning is always good. Cleaning the rivers and the seas, the mountains and the plains. It’s been 53 years since the first Earth Day in 1970. But what has transpired since then?

Earth Day

Ignoring heritage is tantamount to not recognizing one’s identity. It is ignoring one's qualities. Preserving heritage is carrying identity from the roots letting it reach the present and future generations. Take your pick! Erase and get lost, or stand tall to tell and retell your heritage stories and identity. Well, you cannot be proud of something that you know nothing about. The first step got to be awareness and recognition of the fact that heritage is part us as a person, and vice versa.

Celebrating Heritage

I was able to join the very first bookstore tour in celebration of National Literature Month (NLM) in 2016. It had been a lot of fun and learning! From Manila to Baguio, we had interesting lectures and appreciation of the bookstores that displayed Filipino authors on their windows. Now, it’s April once again, and there are exciting activities lined up to celebrate Philippine literature.

Can Literature Unite Society?

In a world run by capitalism, individual lives are worth reflecting. Do we really need all the material things that we have, or has it become wiser now to live in a minimalist fashion?

A Minimalist Lifestyle

I was a cultural worker doing my research in 2001 when I encountered June 30, 1857 as the day our town Talolong (now popularly known as Lopez) in Quezon was founded. Further research confirmed that for the longest time, we have been celebrating it on April 30, 1856, even in the 1950s! So where did we get it and when did we begin celebrating it on the wrong day? Was it because of the war in the 1940s that our local history got lost in translation? Or has it been wrong from the beginning because we just believed what we were told, and later what we read in our local history book which bears the April 30 and other data that need to be validated?

April 30, 1856 is the wrong Foundation Day for Lopez

Do we define ourselves geographically or do we consider all parts of the country part of us, since we are all Filipinos, anyway? In beauty pageants, we usually ask the candidates where they are from or which places they represent. When you were born in say, Lopez, and you have lived your entire life in Manila, does that qualify you to join Miss Lopez? When you were born in Gumaca, and you were educated and raised in Lopez, where do you classify yourself? Gumacahin or Lopezin? The same conflict usually arises in searches for outstanding individuals. There’s always that question of hometowns.

WALANG GURI

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