ONE of the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Award recipients I was able to interview recently was Ahmad Syafii Maarif of Indonesia. He received the award in the Peace and International Understanding category.
The banner headline last Monday was “Fighting continues as Ramadan begins.” Just below it was my article with the title “Terrorists hijack God, says RM […]

OVER these past many years, I have been privileged to meet, get to know and write about some of the great men and women of Asia (or GMWA, as we have come to call them).
“Great Men and Women of Asia” is also the title of five volumes of easy-reading books (there’s more to come) that […]

I WAS in Davao City last week for the soft opening of the Heritage Museum of the Pamulaan Center of Indigenous People’s Education and to attend the opening of the 2nd National Conference of Indigenous Peoples Higher Education in the Philippines.
While the members of the University of Southeastern Philippines’ Pangkat Silayan Theater Collective, gloriously clad […]

IN LITERATURE, you have the boy who ate stars (two different works and authors from different continents but the same title) and in tabloid journalism, the boy who had a fish for a twin. In the recent news, we had the boy who ate MSG.
More than a week ago, there was a news story from […]

“MUSIC is a holy place, a cathedral so majestic that we can sense the magnificence of the universe, and also a hovel so simple and private that none of us can plumb its deepest secrets… It is the sounds of earth and sky, of tides and storms… From the first cry of life to that […]

FOR several years now, Korean children have been coming to the Philippines to attend English camps. On board my flight from Seoul last week, I counted about 100 Korean children all wearing blue T-shirts and with ID cards hanging from their necks. One teacher was carrying all their passports. I took photos while they were […]

When you are poor you think of yourself as vulnerable, you consider changes in the landscape of your life that is not of your doing as threatening. Will the changes mean being thrown about again like flotsam and jetsam on one’s native shores? Where to move, where to live and where to find livelihood? Will […]

SAY “four, double six, six, four” and remember.
That number—46664—was Nelson Mandela’s prison number when he was in prison for 27 years on Robben Island, off Cape Town in South Africa. He was prisoner number 466, imprisoned in 1964. Like other prisoners, he was referred to not by his name but by his prison number. Mandela […]

WOMEN working and living in the so-called NGO capital of the Philippines are up in arms because of the rampant criminality in the area.
Quezon City’s Teacher’s Village East and West, Barangay Central, Barangay Pinyahan and neighboring areas, home to dozens of national and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), is a prime spot for criminals who prey mostly […]

I THOUGHT about this over and over.
I would probably be excoriated for saying this, but I wish the zeal and over-eagerness of the nuns, priests and brothers who were falling over themselves to support, surround and sustain (for weeks and months) NBN-ZTE whistleblower Rodolfo Lozada Jr. were also seen in the aftermath of the recent […]