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The Prince of Tagurabong

I lived in a big house with my widowed mother, a grandmother and an unmarried aunt. My mother, Sofia Villasin Peñaranda, was a schoolteacher. We would walk to school together. But after class, I would walk home with my classmates who would linger...

Moves like Brocka

The Philippines Graphic shares with its readers the life, conviction, and passion of this much venerated, singularly gifted, and internationally-acclaimed film director whose best works spanned one of the most difficult junctures in our nation’s history. Written by multi-awarded poet, screenwriter, editor, and...

A gentle woman (our Yaya Taling)

“How did Taling end up in our household, Mommy?”  I have turned my curiosity during the pandemic to our family history and my question to my Mom must have sent the neurons in her 90-year-old brain firing. But she did recall Taling’s story...

Marra comes back to Philippines Graphic

She was there when Philippines Graphic was born in June 1990. In those early days, Marra PL Lanot and her husband Jose “Pete” Lacaba were protégés of the late National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin, then the Editor-in-Chief of the Graphic.             Marra was...

Love of my life

The corridor was circular, lined with curved benches along the wall. Behind the benches were glass windows that overlooked the street below.    As you sat on those benches, you faced another glass window of a room with closed blinds to ensure the privacy...

Covering the essential Blas F. Ople

A journalist remembers how the former labor and foreign affairs secretary and Senate President remained a lifelong newspaperman at heart The opportunity to cover Blas Fajardo Ople, the late labor and foreign affairs secretary and lifelong newsman, when he became a senator, was a...

Random Pickings

A Memoir of World War II

Before the Japanese attacked the American naval base in Hawaii on December 8, 1941, their invasion of the Philippines was expected. By then, the...

Rhymes from revolution

Even during the revolutionary period, poems played a significant role in protest and revolution. Poetry is also a powerful answer to actions inimical to...

Much ado over media regulation

Media should not—ever—be regulated by government. That would defeat the democratic principle of a free and independent press, one of the best benchmarks for...

The Day Tradition Died

Salubong is a Tagalog word I have always associated with St. James, the Apostle, better known as Santiago Apostol to Plarideleños—the people of my...