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Essay

Is Rizal still relevant?

A hundred-and-twenty-two years is a fairly long time. Only very few live that long. For the youth, much too vague. Too murky that some are even asking: Is Rizal still relevant today? Here’s a better question. To die the way Rizal did: what was...

Unhidden markers of Kilometer Zero

This was my daughter Janna’s idea; I never wanted to go to Rizal Park at midmorning, when the sun’s rays piercing the skin without mercy. Yes, I woke up early so we wouldn’t get stuck in the hell of Manila traffic. I was...

Hoops, we did it again

Settle down, people, but the battle of Katipunan between Ateneo de Manila and the University of the Philippines happens every year and not necessarily on the basketball court. In fact, if you ask a certain defined group, the yearly rivalry between UP and...

The subject was Filipino

Among the first columns I wrote for this magazine, one stands out in my memory as one of my favorites.  It dealt with Filipino as our official language and the role of the Supreme Court in fostering its use.  I argued that the...

Go, girl

Apparently, Melania did not get along with one of her husband’s hires, a woman named Mira Ricardel, a deputy national security adviser who is a top aide of John Bolton, the head of the National Security Council. The Office of the First Lady...

A poetics of the literary work

Let me begin with a general perspective on the mind, language, and the literary work, and end on our country’s literature. MIND The human person is the only being on earth that seeks truth in knowledge. Truth-seeking then is our essence or nature as...

Random Pickings

Those haunted places

Creepy, ghostly, and notorious spots.” That is how the Life magazine described “the world’s most haunted places.” Life has come up with a book filled with blood-curdling photos...

And the award for best sound effects goes to…

It must have been a dark and stormy night when a classmate of ours from law school, identity undetermined and gender unknown, sat down...

The crown

Is she rueing the day she deigned to accept the offer to be Chief Justice? Does she lie awake at night thinking about what...

When semester ends in Ilocos

From a terror professor to a perfectionist boss. From a thrilling thesis oral defense to unending weekly reports. From lively classrooms to silent offices....