Rain has a strange way of sharpening a crowd. During the last Iloilo march, the skies surrendered just as the chants reached their peak. In seconds, everyone was soaked — jackets clinging like cold towels, shoes filling with brown water. Yet not one student behind me stopped chanting. If anything, the
November 29, 2025
There is a moment in every oath-taking ceremony when the room falls into a different kind of quiet—not because the program says so, but because someone says something that lands straight in the gut. At the recent induction of newly minted doctors at SMX, that moment came when the speaker said,
November 28, 2025
The first thing I often notice when I meet young campus journalists is how they hold their notebooks, sketchpads, ipads, or phones. Some press them close like shields. Others clutch them lightly, as if the “pages” can lift them. A few flip them open even before the workshop begins, already searching
November 27, 2025
There are days when you think the biggest surprise will be the capping snacks at the hotel, and then a friend across the secretariat table casually says she might need a TAHBSO—“tabsu,” as she called it. It was said half in jest, half in exhausted honesty, and suddenly all of us
November 26, 2025
There are gatherings you expect to be routine, and then there are moments that quietly remind you why local work matters. The Policy Forum on the Localization of Women’s and Children’s Policies at Richmonde Hotel, Iloilo City, November 20, was one of those moments. I arrived with my slides and notes,
November 25, 2025
Bugsay starts with a sound you feel before you hear: wood against water. A paddle slicing through the tide. A stroke, then another. Slow. Steady. Certain. That is how the film enters the room. No fanfare. No exclamation points. Just a quiet insistence: “This is a story you already know, but
November 24, 2025
There is a particular silence that fills a room when people who have carried too much finally sit down to learn how to help others carry their own pain. That was the silence at the PGCA–Iloilo Convention in Iloilo Grand Hotel early this month when Dr. Ana Panganiban, one of the
November 23, 2025
Numbers help us spot patterns. But they rarely tell the whole story. Behind every percentage point is a real person—someone with struggles, dreams, and a story that raw data alone cannot explain. This is where qualitative research comes in. It adds depth to issues that are often reduced to faceless figures.
November 22, 2025
There was something disarming about the way Philippine Guidance and Counseling Association (PGCA) National President Christopher P. Hernandez opened his talk at the PGCA-Iloilo Seminar-Workshop. It wasn’t a grand declaration or a sharp critique. It was the way he named, with
November 21, 2025
Somewhere between memorizing the multiplication table and being told to “show your solution,” millions of students believe math is out to get them. It is that dreaded subject most will proudly confess they failed once or almost failed. You can hear it even from titos at reunions – “Ay, ‘di ko
November 18, 2025
There are moments when a word meant to uplift begins to sting. I felt that recently at the PGCA–Iloilo 2025 seminar at Iloilo Grand Hotel as Philippine Mental Health Association Executive Director Dr. Carolina Uno-Rayco walked us through the tender architecture of mental health—the stress we carry, the stories we hide,
November 15, 2025
