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Philippines Graphic Reader

All Fall Down

Anatalia Ayala had promised Bellisima Cua that the story and photos about her winning the Volzhacker Prize would appear in the newspaper’s online lifestyle section this week. These had not seen print in any of the inner pages of the main broadsheet’s news...

Eight Legs Is All

It’s unfair. With small bodies, they move in all directions. Once a leg gets broken—which usually happens when they resist to be caught—they have seven more to spare. No difference. They still move like they used to. Kuya Ping is one of the tikri...

The King who Had Nothing

“What makes a man a king?” A young pauper asked as he sat on his father’s lap. They sat meekly on the side of an alleyway near the town square, under the shadow of a hill where a majestic castle stood. Amidst the...

The News of You

Briefly, just after college, I left my parents’ house, thinking independence was a priceless thing. It was worth it, I liked to remind myself, especially on idle Saturday mornings with their slowness, the bread warm and inviting, to be chewed with an amorous relish....

THE FIREFLIES

This tale is for Mark Brownrigg It had been a strange week in this village on top of the Antipolo hills. The days were cool, and night hid itself beneath a thick, blanket of wool. But I liked this change in the weather, so different...

Don’t Follow Me, I Don’t Even Know Where I’m Going

“The past is not the past. The future doesn’t exist. It’s a made-up idea. Every mapping what we do of the future is a fabrication of our imagination.” – Patrick Somerville Marielle Gaston—fourth square on the third of many rows of faces staring back...

Random Pickings

Making Believe

How long to carry on this pretense That, yes, I am now fine Making believe that you are just away on another Of your many leavings But how...

The Room Next Door

FICTION — I never really knew Eric. He was the kind of neighbor you saw often but never truly saw—a blur of dark shirts and headphone wires, slipping down the stairs with his phone in one hand and a plastic bag of instant noodles or soda in the other. Always alone.

Three Poems Before 2025

2024 What do you want to say to a year yet to explain itself? The days are heaving, the hours a diary made meaningful with our ghosts: gray, tenuous, prone...

Damages

Republic of the PhilippinesRegional Trial CourtBranch 17Davao City Ms. Diana Lynn Balagtas, PlaintiffAccompanied by her Attorney-in-Fact Civil Case No. 6282014for: Damages vs. Ms. M , Defendantx-----x COMPLAINT 1. COMES NOW,...