February 10, 2014
Here are some Malapascua Island photos: Snobbery is an unlikely character of a traveler. But sometimes I cannot help but label islands either too touristy or superficial and tend to avoid traveling to these places I—who prided herself a traveler—reduced to tourist consumption. It did not help that Malapascua has […]
January 27, 2014
Here are some southern Cebu photos: Dry coughing. Feverish. A rather painful lower back. That’s me today. But yesterday. Yesterday was awesome. Perhaps it was insanity for me to cure insomnia with a bus ride. At two, I fed my litter, left my small place, bought sikwate and puto from […]
January 22, 2014
Walkers are ‘practitioners of the city,’ for the city is made to be walked. A city is a language, a repository of possibilities, and walking is the act of speaking that language, of selecting from those possibilities. Just as language limits what can be said, architecture limits where one can […]
January 20, 2014
I asked Chad to write about our trip to Kinatarcan, knowing it was a crazy trip. I just told him to write with sincerity and honesty. But he was way too honest! But I actually loved it and laughed so hard while reading. So here is his recounting of our […]
January 16, 2014
Sun Xi Beach Club Alegria Photos Staying a night at Kawasan was the original plan. But my muse remains a snob—and it is better that way—to Internet and phones. So we had to scout a place where I could finish some work and where Chad could check his sports. We […]
January 15, 2014
Inside the tunnel-like tent, it was hot. So Nanay in her 70s chased the shade running scarce in the treeless lot at Cebu South Road Properties. She sat on a kid’s stool in the tent’s shade with her sunglasses on. The younger ones huddled at the big tent in the […]
January 12, 2014
It is a personal pilgrimage. To visit my muse, that is. Despite my countless visits, Kawasan’s vigor strikes me as exciting as the first time I set eyes on her. We were supposed to visit this place on New Year’s Day to lead off the year with rush, flow, exuberance. […]
January 5, 2014
Somewhere mid-2013, I embarked on a photography project I named “Images from the Bus Window.” Instead of randomly shooting subjects from the bus window, this project now comes with a theme. Let me start with the theme yellow. For Hannah Reyes, a very young and hot photographer I admired a […]
January 1, 2014
Yesterday, we visited the Tent City at Cebu South Road Properties where some of the survivors of the Super Typhoon Yolanda took refuge. Temporarily, I hope. Chad and I personally selected the toys at Carbon, the biggest and cheapest market in Cebu. We argued, deliberated, and finally agreed on the […]
December 17, 2013
Last Sunday, I headed to Bantayan Island, located in northern Cebu, at three in the morning to give the P32, 000 cash donations and little gifts for the kids I would surely meet along the way. Bantayan Island is the first site of our modest Project Rebuild, an initiative to […]
December 8, 2013
In one of the rooms at Palompon Elementary School, these words were framed: Nobyembre Paglilingkod | Pagmamalasakit Ang pagmamalasakit at paglilingkod ay kusang pagbibigay ng ating sariling kakayahan na maaaring material, moral, at ispiritwal sa ating kapwa lalo na sa mga kapus-palad at nangangailangan.