This is not just about traffic. This is about fairness, dignity, and the kind of life that every Ilonggo deserves. Every morning, as early as 4:30, our students are already up. Not because they want to, but because they have to. By 5:30, many are already by the roadside, hoping
August 12, 2025
After two months of hitting the gym regularly and surviving on a diet of mostly green things, I found myself unexpectedly thinking about something from my childhood: Bahay Kubo. Yes, that song. The one we all sang in kindergarten with matching hand gestures, pretending to pull vegetables from an imaginary
August 6, 2025
I’m Angry at Piolo. When the credits of Antoinette Jadaone’s Sunshine finally faded, I realized my fists were clenched. Maris Racal doesn’t simply perform, she detonates, tearing open every polite curtain I’ve ever drawn around sex and shame. Yes, the film shows premarital sex, teenage pregnancy, abortion. But reducing it
August 5, 2025
Every July, brightly colored banners hang across public schools and barangay halls, announcing Nutrition Month. Children chant rhymes about vegetables. Parents are urged to feed their kids with “go, grow, and glow” foods. Government officials deliver speeches about health and well-being. And this 2025, the celebration continues with its hopeful
July 29, 2025
This is the question that kept running through my mind as I walked out of the Art for Everyone exhibit at a big mall here in Iloilo City. I couldn’t help but ask myself, does the public really understand us? Do they get what we, as artists, cultural workers, and advocates, are trying
July 24, 2025
In recent months, I’ve had the privilege of serving as a judge in two of the country’s well-respected literary competitions, The Gawad Teodora Alonzo, organized by the Department of Education, and Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera, under the NCCA. Both of these contests exist to uphold something deeply rooted in our culture,
July 23, 2025
A remarkable addition to contemporary Philippine children’s literature has emerged in Nagmalitong Yawa: A Modern Retelling of an Ancient Story of a Fierce Filipina Heroine (Certeza & Sons CHMG Publishing Corporation, 2024), written by Kat Gomez-Limchoc and illustrated by Karen Francisco. Though the book saw publication in the previous year, it only recently found its
July 22, 2025
