This weekend, Girlie, Ayen, and I are in Lucena City for a gathering of the Villariba clan. We are celebrating the 60th wedding anniversary of Cesar Viilariba and Flotilda Collantes - Tatay Iba and Nanay Nene.
The 60 years of loving partnership has produced 13 children (Girlie is the second child, the first girl), and as [...]
It’s past midnight. Girlie and I have just walked back to our place from the Claret chapel where we attended the wake of Lota Encio.
Tonight was the first time I knew that her baptismal name is Lota. I have known her only as “Elma” of Sarilaya, an organization of grassroots and activist women.
There were other [...]
Just got back from a too-short visit to Sorsogon. Oyen Dorotan invited me to speak at a strategic planning workshop of VCI - the Veritas College of Irosin; we were joined at the airport by a young lawyer who was with the team that had done “due diligence” - legal, financial, and operational.
When our plane [...]
Today I wished I had the gift of bilocation.
It was a day when I needed to, but couldn’t, attend activities that were happening at the same time in different places. I was reminded of what a Brazilian activist said at the 2007 World Social Forum in Nairobi, after repeatedly hearing delegates complain about not having [...]
It’s Sunday afternoon and I am at an internet cafe in Calapan City, taking a short break from the hospital, where my mother has been confined at the ICU since early morning of Wednesday. At first I thought only of checking my e-mails, but decided to post some thoughts that occupied my mind these past [...]
Last Tuesday evening, Girlie and I had dinner with Beth and Tony de Castro at their new place near Tierra Pura. They invited us to meet their visitors from Laos - Sombath Somphone, the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay awardee for community leadership, and his wife Shui Ming whom Beth met during her work in Unicef.
Beth wanted [...]
The weekend of April 5 and 6, I had two occasions to think back to my prison years.
The first occasion was while feeding my mother at the MMG Hospital in Lucena. Inay was referred to the hospital by Dr. Oabel to prepare her for a second major debridement of her gangrenous right foot.
The debridement was [...]
Girlie and I have just come back from Toledo City in Cebu. We both spoke at the annual conference of 144 electric coop engineers, held at the People’s Development Academy which is located in the compound of CEBECO 3.
I have been going to various training workshops at the PDA, but this was special. It’s the [...]
Tonight, from 8:00 to 9:00, lights will go out in many places in the Philippines. It is our participation in Earth Hour, a global event that seeks to create awareness on climate change.
I copied this backgrounder from the WWF Earth Hour site:
“On March 31 2007, for one hour, Sydney made a powerful statement about the [...]
Yesterday, I took the morning bus from Gisgis where I had visited Inay, to get back to Quezon City before 4 pm. Girlie had scheduled me for a healing session with Raul Nava, a Pinoy from Lucena who is here on a short visit from Israel.
Girlie picked me up at home and brought me to [...]
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