Solidaridad has been a special part of my life in Manila for more than two decades. Its presence is very unassuming and I was witness to all the changes to the establishments around it, but the bookstore stayed the same. I’m proud to have brought my friends there, and also former foreign co-workers who wanted… Read More Solidaridad: A Soliloquy
What author doesn’t dream of writing a book that inspires a movie, now available to stream on Netflix? F.H. Batacan’s SMALLER AND SMALLER CIRCLES (written 26 years ago) not only pioneered a genre (crime fiction) and won the Palanca and the National Book Award, but also got picked up by Soho Press for international publication.… Read More Rage Against the Machine: F.H. Batacan Shows How One Can Merge Anger with Grace
Christmas means many things to different people. For some, it’s as every bit as postcard perfect as Hallmark romcoms: merry and bright, days full of lunches and dinners with our nearest and dearest. For others, it’s a little bit more lonely, with the absence of a family member due to this darn flu everyone seems… Read More Ex Libris Philippines’ December Reads
Podium Mall’s usually quiet hallways echoed with screams of tired trick-or-treating children that Saturday (be honest; if we were dolled up as zombies, painted head to toe in corpse-white make-up to boot, and compelled to traipse up and down five floors asking store owners for candy, we’d probably be whining our heads off as well).… Read More Haunted Reads: Filipino Horror Writers Speak About Facing Our Fears
Every beginning of November, Filipinos reenact the ancient tradition of going home to one’s province, to the land that birthed us, to the cemeteries that still house the fleshly remains of our ancestors. This story begins, and ends, in such a graveyard. Books and plays inspired by them are always two different art forms, yet… Read More Balete / Tree : F. Sionil Jose’s Word Made Flesh by Tanghalang Pilipino
Author/podcaster/editor Lio Mangubat doesn’t make a habit of throwing things away, not old VHS tapes from his childhood, and certainly not the contents of his personal library. There is rhyme and reason behind his hoarding. Some of the author of Silk, Silver, Spices, Slaves‘ prized possessions include a 1988 issue of National Geographic with a… Read More Connecting the Philippines with the World: Lio Mangubat’s Love for History Shines Through in ‘Silk, Silver, Spices, Slaves’
If public libraries are the standard with which to judge the quality of life in a city, then the readers of Baguio are to be envied indeed! While local government units are mandated by law (R.A. 7743) to establish their own public library, not every city has one as nice as Baguio’s. It begins with… Read More Baguio City Library is the public library of our childhood dreams
One never forgets one’s first. Especially when one is eighteen and one meets the fair maiden, already engaged to another. Thus began the story of the first love of our national hero, Jose Rizal, and his doomed yet serious affair of the heart with Segunda Katigbak. She later married Manuel Luz, and died in 1943.… Read More Where First Love Lived : Casa de Segunda and Rizal
In a nation rich with artists and artistry (the pantheon of National Artists that students study number eighty-six as of today), we have lost one of our best. There are many of us who claimed, within his lifetime, that Floy Quintos (director, playwright, and above all, a wonderful human being) is/ was well deserving of… Read More An Artist for the Nation : Floy Quintos
Binondo, the oldest Chinatown in the world, prides itself as being a center of our nation’s colorful history. Established in 1594, it is, as one would expect, steeped in legend and stories. That day’s walking tour (Jose Rizal’s Binondo) led by the country’s popular and social media-savvy historian, Ambeth R. Ocampo, explored what is not… Read More Ambeth Ocampo, Binondo, and A Walk with Heroes
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