It was a sunny Easter Sunday in LA . Four of Tony’s old friends welcomed him with a sumptuous lunch and raucous reminiscences of shared yo...

It was definitely going to be a beautiful day in New York, never mind the weather forecast of an unbearably cold 30 degrees and rain showers...

A slow writer and a slow reader—that’s how I’d describe me. When I write, I agonize over every word. When I read, I romance every sentence. ...

My friend Lucy facetiously says that Tony and I are on the run.  In a way we are: Four major US cities in one month, not including the other...

Our drive to the Sacramento airport (with daughter-in-law G on the wheel and grandson Adrian on a kiddie car seat), the check-in and securit...

All too soon, our four-day stay in Cupertino ended with a three-hour drive (the GPS estimated it to be one hour and five minutes only) to S...

Making decisions in America is a mind-boggling, brain-twisting, and synapse-altering experience. We go into a burger shop and reading the ...

“Cupertino? Where is that?” people asked when I told them I’d be going there to visit my older brother. Even if it is a big chunk of the fam...

It took about three years before I finally mustered enough courage to travel to the US again. Our second son, who lives here with his family...

Fatigued, spent, and disoriented from the long flight and the even longer queue at the Immigration that required some picture taking, some ...

Twelve hours sitting in one place, hearing only the droning airplane, and seeing my legs swell into logs—no matter how you look at it—is a l...

Two days before Tony and I flew to the US to visit our grandson, my siblings and their spouses came to our home to send us off. Over dinner,...

“What?!” I heard my usually unperturbed husband exclaim on the phone. From his tone of voice, I knew right away it was bad news. Or was it...

Two of our church friends, a young couple, were shot at close range. Hit by one bullet each, the wife died on the spot; the husband had some...

I deal with many 18-year-olds every week of my life as a part-time college teacher. These are millennials who grew up in the digital age, wh...

What has digital messaging done to spelling? Massacred it, leaving only carcass that looks so grossly mangled, it is nothing like the orig...

Three crosses cast a shadow upon Calvary over 2,000 years ago.    The middle cross was Christ's. On each side were two robbers. One thie...

Among all the punctuation marks, the hyphen is what I leave for last in my English classes. It is the hardest to understand because it is ...

Have we been remiss? Have we not told our children enough about the evils of Martial law? Have we taken for granted that they will learn a...

(I wrote this column five years ago for a magazine, but the incident almost happened again, so it feels like I just wrote it yesterday.)    ...

Ching’s lovely voice wafted inside the hushed church. As one of our Praise and Worship team leaders, she sometimes sings solo, with lyrics t...

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting lif...

It happened again. I turned into a pig on Chinese New Year’s eve. There were endless choices of food in possibly the biggest buffet array ...

What were the most encouraging words someone ever said that pushed you into doing what you love doing now? The words that keep ringing in ...

Yesterday, the first day of the so-called love month, I did nothing but teach my college editorial staff how to do interesting newsletter la...

My friend, Vee, a ballet teacher, sent me a photo (below) with this message: "I asked two early birds to read the January 21 entry of...

Many things in my lifetime have changed. This makes me often ask, “Why did that happen?” Diary, for instance. In my day, we kept our diary...

My books take me to different places, where I get to experience something new every single time. “Meet and Greet the Author” is how my boo...

It’s only the beginning of 2016 and already, the past year seems ancient. Since we refer to 2015 as last year, what happened last month soun...

Creativity can happen any time, anywhere, on anything. I am always fascinated by how people can create something extraordinary out of the or...

Every so often, the Lord wakes me up to a joyful surprise. One early morning, when I opened my Facebook page, this photo uploaded by my fr...

The second book in the Happy Home series, “That First Sunday,” got off the press too close to Christmas day. It was supposed to have been l...

The year 2016 is crucial for the Philippines. We will have our presidential elections in May, five months from now. Personally, I have bee...

Over 2,000 years ago, the Lord revealed to prophet Habakkuk that sinful Judah would be invaded by the evil Chaldeans. Habakkuk, therefore,...

Nothing is predictable. One minute everything seems normal, then bang! The next minute, chaos. Life is a series of “Where did that come from...

Our family being small, we make time to celebrate the Holy Birth together, continuing a tradition started over 20 years ago. Nothing overly...