By Herman M. Lagon A teacher finishes checking 47 notebooks, answers three messages from parents, prepares tomorrow’s slides, and finally gets home. At 9:17 p.m., she opens Facebook and writes that the flooding in her barangay has become unbearable. Someone comments, “Ma’am, teacher ka pa naman. Huwag kang magreklamo.” Another tells her that teachers should
August 26, 2026
A mother is waiting for the rice to cook when she opens Facebook. She scrolls past a birthday greeting, a funny video, somebody selling ukay-ukay, and a friend’s vacation photos. Then a woman appears on her feed warning parents not to have their children vaccinated against measles. The vaccine, the woman
August 25, 2026
A Grade 7 student reads a paragraph from his Science textbook. Then he reads it again. And once more. “Do you understand it?” the teacher asks. The student gives a small, uncertain smile. He knows how to read the words. What he cannot quite do is make sense of them. And
August 24, 2026
At first glance, the numbers sound reassuring. Nine out of 10 beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) come from the poorest half of Filipino households. That is not a small achievement. In a country where targeting the “right” poor has always been contested, this suggests that the program is,
August 22, 2026
There are statements that are technically defensible and still badly need to be said again, only better. Palace Press Officer Undersecretary Claire Castro gave us one this week. Asked in the aftermath of the deadly shooting at Ateneo de Zamboanga University, she spoke about young people needing guidance from parents and
August 21, 2026
At 7:31 on an ordinary school morning, a communications office may be arguing over a caption, resizing a poster, or checking somebody’s middle initial. At 7:52, someone runs in and says there are gunshots on campus. Phones ring. Parents call. Reporters start asking questions. A shaky video reaches Messenger before the
August 20, 2026
Show a Grade 6 pupil in Iloilo a map, and Boracay may be easy to find. Panatag Shoal, Ayungin Shoal, or Pag-asa Island may take a little longer. No surprise there. They are far from home. Yet what happens in those waters is not far from our lives. It can affect
August 19, 2026
Spoiler alert: If you haven’t watched With Love, Bridgit, you may want to see it before reading further. You can still visit Brgy. Inday at the UP Visayas Cinematheque. So, fair warning: some barangay secrets are about to escape. And since the narrator happens to be a dog who goes practically
August 18, 2026
Fifty gets the balloons. Fifty-one gets your laboratory results. That may be the first thing I have learned about being on this side of half a century. When I turned 50 last year, the number felt important enough to deserve reflection. Half a century. Five decades. Fifty years of mistakes, second
August 16, 2026
Imagine telling your students that the final examination is on Friday. They prepare, rearrange schedules, finish requirements, and show up ready. Then on Thursday afternoon, you announce that the exam will be next year. Later, perhaps two years from now. No emergency has closed the school. The room is ready. The
August 15, 2026
Filipinos know drama. We grew up with teleseryes where one missing birth certificate can sustain 73 episodes, two kidnappings, a secret twin, and a family reunion in the rain. We know when the background music is about to rise. We know when somebody is preparing to slap somebody. And we know
August 14, 2026
There is a particular kind of relief teachers know well. It comes when somebody finally says, “You do not have to do it that way anymore.” For years, many Filipino Science and Mathematics teachers worked within spiral progression: teach a little Biology, move to Chemistry, turn to Physics, squeeze in Earth
August 13, 2026
