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If you are 39 years old and above…

If you are 39 years old and above...

If you happen to :

be at least 39 years old at the time you are reading this
have gone to school in the Philippines, whether in public or private school
have worn white Spartan canvass rubber shoes when you were a kid

I would like you to play the video and then close your eyes. You don’t need [...]

Sowing the seeds

Sowing the seeds

Back when I was in grade school there was a program that the government launched called the Green Revolution. Simply put, the Green Revolution encouraged everyone—whether they were city dwellers or those who lived in the suburbs and provinces—who had a plot of land to plant vegetables. Schools were especially enjoined to do so, as [...]

Nabosesan by Bienvenido Lumbera

Nabosesan by Bienvenido Lumbera

I first met Professor Bienvenido Lumbera in 1985, when I attended the UP Writers Workshop in the summer of that year. That was 23 years ago. As with most well-loved teachers, Prof. Lumbera possesses the rare gift of wearing the years well. He looks exactly the same in this video as I remember him then.

In lieu of flowers

In lieu of flowers

Charlton Heston, 84

I first knew him as Moses, then as Ben Hur and El Cid, and as Astronaut George Taylor in Planet of the Apes (the original one, not the one with Mark Whalberg, although he did play a cameo on that one didn’t he).
As a kid all I knew of him was that he [...]

Fiction

A long time ago, in a province far far away, an eighteen year old girl decided to leave her family home and strike out for herself. She did this for several reasons: she thought it was time she broke free from her parents’ authority and pursue a vocation in writing; she wanted to experience the [...]