Surviving Heaven

I received a very honest letter from a friend a couple of weeks ago. It was a short letter, barely two lines long. I guess she wanted to keep it simple, since her life must be getting quite complicated nowadays. You see, she just lost someone she loved, and we all know that when that [...]

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Unraveling the Nescafe Ad: Para Kanino Ka Bumabangon? (Who Do You Wake Up For?) by Charlotte Aninion-de Guzman

The new Nescafe commercial really bothered me. It started out with a feel-good vibe focusing on the young mom and wife supposedly fulfilling a whole load of social roles (that are all happening within the domestic sphere by the way), and finally ending with a tagline that made me slap my forehead in dismay: “Ang pangarap [...]

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The Miracle Herb Against Dengue

My daughter, Raine, was recently hospitalized in Cardinal Santos for five days because of dengue. I was worried, especially after reading how the virus attacks blood cells causing them to leak even through the patient’s skin. The thought horrified me and I wished that I was the one afflicted with the virus instead. When the [...]

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Nightfall by Charlotte Aninion-De Guzman

And night descended upon the city …. like a silken cord it silently wrapped itself around silent concrete sentinels of man’s modern jungle. It came unbidden, crawling across every street, every corner, and snugly embraced the night guards in their sleep. It sang to them, an elusive lullaby of distant sirens and muffled car horns, [...]

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Something about Moonlight (a Homage to Something about Sunlight by Marne Kilates)

Something about sunlight – Slanting behind trees Streaming into windows Glancing on walls Dappling the peeling paint Glinting on the steel railings Gilding the new buildings Dancing the dust eddies As if calling out the name Of everything it touches – Reminds me Of some childhood afternoon When I was alone.- by Marne Kilates There [...]

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Bring it On!

                              What do you do when the world is spinning out of your control? When things are simply not going your way?                Let’s face it, despite all the pep talk that “experts” are giving out there about how you could always be in control of your space and your life — there will [...]

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The Blessing of Age

          I was munching on some Oreos while watching t.v. the other day when I saw this ad, featuring a well-known actress smiling like an angel onscreen for a lotion commercial, then she said the star-powered tagline, “I don’t want to grow old.”           My Lord, I nearly fell off my chair when I heard it. What [...]

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Rewinding Time on A Broken String

               I’ve seen them so many times and I wonder if other people see them? A pitcher standing by a windowsill, a bridge bathed in the golden glow of sunset, a child dancing happily in the rain, or a single leaf falling ever so gently and so slowly to the ground. I call them steal [...]

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Can Life Ever be Simple?

          It was a typical afternoon when I was hunting through the shelves of my school library for something to read and as luck would have it, I chanced upon The Fellowship of the Ring, a book that would later on enthrall and excite me. I browsed through the first few pages and pretty soon the [...]

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