“You’re traveling alone?!” my friend Zeny asked, disbelief written on her face. Her tacit sub-text was, at you age?!    I have always trav...

The Philippines is not yet a book-reading country—proven in sales and in research. If a book sells 5,000 copies in a year, it is a bestselle...

Lola Cionang, my maternal grandmother, was unlettered. She had difficulty reading; she could write only a few words and sign her name. But ...

Copious, overflowing tears have been falling from the sky, submerging many parts of the country, including Metro Manila. There has been no l...

From tot-hood, Lady D, one of my six, exceptionally smart and pretty nieces (in my unbiased opinion, of course), has always been enamored wi...

There were six of us: four from OMF Literature , a storyteller, and me in a van. Our trip to San Pablo, Laguna took a hurried lunch and two ...

The all-female club I belonged to held an essay contest among high school students in all schools in Makati. I invited a writer friend, who ...

Another semester is over. My students' blazers and mine are going to the cleaners.    This leaves me two conflicting feelings as I wo...

Wherever I go these days, I seem to see more wheelchair-bound seniors literally being pushed around by able-bodied young people. Those whe...

Forgetfulness is the domain of the elderly, or so I thought. The world has believed that when one grows older, his neurons lose their agil...

(I usually blog every four days, but I am making an exception today, National Heroes Day. I had just posted a blog early this morning and no...

We have discovered a common mind and body relaxant at home on a Sunday evening before we all part ways again tomorrow, to each his own sched...

Every fraction of a millisecond, grace was palpably at work through my latest book, Grace@Work .  From the birth of the idea to the day the ...

“Beautiful” is not the adjective to describe a movie about police work that spends half of the time re-enacting and solving a grisly robbery...

Once a year, two of my sons, some friends and I pay tribute to the Philippine movie industry by watching as many indie films as we could pac...

I just read about a 72-year-old study* that began all the way back in 1937, when 268 Harvard University sophomores were asked to participate...

“Even if you don’t respect a man, respect his position,” my dad used to say, implanting good manners in me. It made no sense then as it was ...

“Saying bad words is not bad as long as you don’t mean them,” Marlon, a Christian who works in a movie production shop, said. “They are just...

Social media, particularly Facebook, has redefined the word “friend” for me. Here’s why. I have 2,000 FB friends, most of whom I have neve...

There’s one quality that separates old, published writers ( moi ) from young, unpublished ones.   Boldness. Plus all its derivatives and s...

My birthday cake, if all its candles were lit right now, could set a forest on fire.    Yes, I am celebrating another nth birthday toda...

Not since two decades ago (or more) have I had the privilege of dining by candlelight. Glenda made it all possible again yesterday.  This ti...

Sharing with you this fun infographic posted by Hiyas, my publisher, on its website today, in celebration of National Children’s Book Day. H...

The skies are weeping again. For months, we sweltered and suffered from the oppressive heat, and now, suddenly, the rains have come. In fa...

Many research studies have been conducted on what makes people happy. One result I have read said that happiness quotient is highest in th...

If you’ve been married to the same man for as long as I have (44 years today), you’d call it a feat, or even a miracle. Those cheesy, public...

Do you know someone blessed with a cheerful disposition? I do. Lorelie (not her real name) always seems to be happy, wearing what I call ...

It was business emails day in class—how electronic business letters can effectively be used in the workplace. My students are all familiar w...

Just as the fashion world is into tight-hugging trousers, my roommate went in search of baggy pants. The trouble with fashion trends is th...

A new fear or phobia, which was not even an idea in my youth, has popped up among the electronically-wired generation today. To them, our an...