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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

Rogelio ‘Roger’ Mangahas: Poet on the stalk of life

Philippine literature has lost a precious gem. In the morning of July 4, multi-awarded poet Rogelio ‘Roger’ Mangahas died after suffering a massive stroke....

Miranda bombing: Beyond the scars

Fifty years ago, on the night of Aug. 21, 1971, two grenades were lobbed at a Liberal Party rally at Manila’s iconic Plaza Miranda,...

Marvin Jeffrey P. Tiu Lim: Of millennial savvy, COVID-19 & looking ahead

At 25, Marvin Jeffrey P. Tiu Lim, the youngest child of Mega Global Corp founder and CEO William Tiu Lim, was well into successfully...

Susan Roces: 80 years of a life & memories of a movie icon

A few hours before deadline, I am watching FPJ’s Ang Probinsyano where Susan Roces was known as Lola Flora, the barangay captain.  For close to...