His father, Venancio Jakosalem Fernandez, was always a bit of a poet. In the course of his son’s artistic career the good son was always asked who among his ancestors was an artist. He always answered, none. And yet, if he were asked now where he got his artistic genes, his best most honest answer would be, my father!
Of course it is a fact. If we judge by the current quality of most of our leaders we can conclude: There is no hope for the country. We can even go farther and say: There was never any hope. And we might hark back somewhat nostalgic to the old days when we had people like Ninoy, Salonga, Ambrosio Padilla, Roxas, Diokno, Manglapus, even Marcos, the original one, at the country’s national legislature as a small group of us did last night.
Independence Day is the best time to remember Leon Kilat and the heroes of the revolution. Not just the more famous of them but especially those who fell as ordinary combatants with hardly anything now that would remember them by their names, they who fell in the field of battle and then away from the [...]
After all these years he still lookd at school from the perspective of a student. He is by now a university professor. He dishes out the lessons rather than receives them as he once did many years ago. And yet, come these times, he still feels the mix both of dread and expectation. He misses [...]
Pope Francis makes us think. What is the bigger universe? What contains what? Does the concept God contain the concept religion? Or is it religion which contains the concept God. If God is the bigger universe, it could certainly contain more religions than one. It might even contain the idea of no god.
He is still trying to fully make up his mind over the issue. But thus far thinking about it, he wonders if its high time liberals cleaned up house. Sure, the conservatives have a lot to do to pull themselves out of the morass of the George W. Bush years. But there’s also a lot that needs to be done where the cause of liberalism is concerned.
The merry month of May” has a nice poetic ring to it. Paintings, poetry, songs, even a novel have been written around the phrase or having the phrase for a title. And always these have reference to love, love lost, and oh yes, flowers.
In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God” is how begins the gospel of St. John, the beloved of the disciples. And it may well be that Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” depicts that precise moment when Jesus whispers to John the name of the disciple who would betray him even before that fateful act was done. Which tells that Christ and the truth of him transcends even time itself.
He wonders. How does a woman look at the world? He is only a man and so he cannot really look at her from up close. Or as up-close as he sometimes desires. He might as well be content to be able to look at her from a short distance. Only a woman can look as a woman at herself. And so he warns himself his view of her will always be clouded by distractions inevitably related to lust and love. And oh yes, also friendship.
He found himself a table at a popular watering hole. It has been over a year since he was here. And he wondered why it felt almost as if he was returning into a strange world. The “new” place strained to contain his store of old memories. That particular table is still there. A boat used to hang there from the ceiling. It is there no longer. He had been told there are fewer rats now. He will have to take their word for it. He found the place essentially changed though not completely so. It felt different.
In the end, it all begins with ink. Ink, which is used to blot out those little ovals on that thin cardboard of a ballot.
What does it matter? Should he or should he not say something good about Risa Hontiveros, Jun Magsaysay and Bam Aquino? Will that have any affect at all on the outcome of their bid to become senator? He is sure there will be some school of thought that will say it does and still another school of thought to say quite the opposite.
Surely, the writer has a list. But you will not read it here. You will have to talk to him personally if you wish to know who he is endorsing. This time around, he will do better than the Philippine churches who have joined the fray by endorsing their list of candidates for the coming [...]
