This post completes my trilogy on the Manila International Book Fair (MIBF). From the opening day to closing time, I tried to be there. L...

It takes more than one blog post to write all about the grace that inundated the Book Fair . So here's another one. Day 3: OMFLit bo...

This was the experience of the Early Church:  "And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. An...

Is there a place in this life where nothing hurts?  Even if you stumble or slip, you won't feel any pain? There is. I was there with A...

What can the first three verses of the Shepherd Psalm mean but this? This is being made to lie down in green pastures.  This is being le...

Finding a needle in a haystack is easier than shopping for the bag (purse) I like. This nugget of wisdom came to me on the 2nd hour inside...

“Cambodia is beautiful!” my son JR gushed after a four-day tour of the country's sights. I was in Phnom Penh in 2007 and stayed doubl...

Adrian came home to a rousing welcome by two sets of families (his dad's and mom's), with a midnight snack and a Captain America ca...

Life is a quick succession of bad news and good news. It doesn't take brain surgery to figure this out. One simply has to wake up in ...

It's been a year since our little seven-year-old twins stepped inside a school for the first time in their lives. Then they had zero kn...

This superhero—together with Green Lantern, Spiderman, Iron man, and Batman—is coming to Las Pinas on the 30th of August! Our whole hous...

In a coffee shop sometime ago, I overheard two teenagers chatting:   Girl 1: “My mom is sooo old, she'll never understand what I am ...

My friend ALB (whom I love dearly) and I enjoy the same things—especially the arts, crafts, music, and exotic places.  We both gush and droo...

One print ad that I helped write was published this morning. To my horror, it has two missing semi-colons!  In their places, I had erroneous...

One of the things that charmed me most (and which I now miss) about advertising was brainstorming. Looking for a big idea, two to six peop...

Among friends and students, I remain the only one with a Jurassic mobile phone. It's four years old, and I have no plans of buying a new...

Over an early lunch, I said good-bye to a client of many years, one who has become a dear friend in the process. Rosy and her husband, plu...

That sounds like a horrible word.  It even rhymes with the equally horrid tetanus.   Tinnitus IS horrible.  It comes from the Latin word t...

I made it to the cover of TraveLife Magazine , July 20 special edition!  How many copies in circulation? One.   It didn't go on maga...

I am running amok with superlatives; I am raving over the indie movie, Amok . Now showing at the 7Cinemalaya 2011 , Amok was one of three...

Carl Sagan, et. al., and most writers of extra-terrestrial intelligence, have written about our interconnectedness, how the cosmos is within...

After my three sons' seventh or eight birthday parties, the rituals of our small family have always been spartan, if not austere. This...

Video calls are uninspiring.  Please don't think I am whining.  We have enough whiners (and bellyachers) in this country.  When I sp...

It's a Saturday, the only day of the week when I allow myself to loll in bed and contemplate nothing. There are no scheduled appointment...

This idiom has not surfaced in my consciousness for years, till yesterday. My friend G and I were having lunch in a Japanese restaurant a...

At right, in this photo taken a month ago, is my Manang Nieves. She's three years my senior and she's been my friend since forev...

This school year has begun. On my way to class, I double-checked my big tote bag to make sure I had everything—flash drive, check; syllabu...

Budik is a new father. And Ygo is his son. On Father's Day in church last Sunday, Budik made a testimony so moving it left almost ever...

Vacation is a word I rarely use. It's because I never allowed myself to have one—I mean, a real one.   Except for the occasional weeke...

Disappointment, or even frustration, comes when you try to do something for others with the best of intentions, and you get criticized—or ca...

One of my favorite parables of Jesus is “The Prodigal Son,” which many call instead,  “The Forgiving Father.”  This story shows the depth of...

These days we use a Taglish phrase to stress urgency, Now na ! Translation: right this minute! This is the phrase I use when people who de...

The story of Moses' two mothers intrigued me when I first heard it in Sunday school.  May I re-tell it?     When Moses was born, the P...

He's missing this year and we're missing him. Adrian turned four last May 5, and for the first time, he did not fly home to the Ph...

When I came to Umingan, my dear little hometown, on Easter for my mother's 8th death anniversary, I thought that would be it. I had not ...

Waiting in line for a doctor, which takes forever, is reading time, writing time, or when the clinic is in a mall, window-shopping time. S...

Two of my most respected writers, Chitang Nakpil ( "Mother's Day is for sissies." ) and Rina Jimenez-David ( "Unless my c...

This morning I threw away a can of pineapple juice and a bottle of Ventolin Expectorant.  They're both way past their shelf life or ...

This site's server took down all posts of all bloggers from May 11 to May 13 for maintenance work. My last blog, "Angie's Sil...

Angie, portly at 36, lives in the slums, and is a workaholic. She is in perpetual motion, sometimes forgetting to breathe, but never forgett...

“Where are you going?” he asks. “To Makati,” I reply. “Where in Makati?” he pushes. “Greenbelt.” "What will you do there?” he p...

In my youth I was in love with David, the young, handsome shepherd who slew Goliath, the much-feared giant warrior. Michelangelo’s sculpture...

A house is just a shell, I know.  A structure isn't a home.  So why should anyone weep over rotting wood, and leaking roof? Yeah, wh...

Twice a day I visit my FB account and while there, I greet birthday celebrators, click “like” on some messages, and type one-liners on other...

On Easter (last year), my email in-box got clogged with so many messages and commentaries.  The most eloquent for me came from the mouth o...

The upside to living with three men (two sons and a husband) is you don't do groceries, nor drive. The downside is, you never get to c...

We attended another wedding again today.  I was expecting the vows to be unique, since this seems to be a trend.  Young people in this digit...

I am speaking for myself as a college teacher—a tiny part of me that dwells in a heart that is largely occupied by writing and book talking....

My friend Louie texted me this frantic message about her husband, “Hi, all! Please help us storm heaven with prayers.  Rey admitted to hospi...

At the height of  the ruckus caused by six-year-old Jan-Jan* on Willling Willie , my friend Rose sent me a refreshing note on FB, reminding ...