Pinoy Kasi
Post-op
By Michael L. TanIn Wednesday’s column I wrote about preparing for a surgery of a family member or friend, drawing from my own experience with my daughter, who had her second open heart operation last week.
In Wednesday’s column I wrote about preparing for a surgery of a family member or friend, drawing from my own experience with my daughter, who had her second open heart operation last week.
My daughter just went through her second open heart surgery last week, a successful repair of the mitral valve which her surgeon, Dr. Karl Michael Reyes, said could last a lifetime.
Tuesday’s International Herald Tribune had a front-page photograph of an elderly woman voting in Manila and holding up the ballot. Apart from noting the woman, the caption read: “More than 52 million Filipinos registered to choose 18,000 officials, from local leaders to national lawmakers. Familiar names, like Imelda Marcos and Manny Pacquiao, were on the ballots. The election was seen as a referendum on the presidency of Benigno S. Aquino III.”
I just realized the other day I hadn’t done a column on elections, so I’m going to make up today with two election-related topics. One is a lighthearted search for the origins of the word “halalan,” which will then allow me to take off into the topic of wise voting.
Recently I wrote about how two Filipino women working overseas had gotten into trouble for fondling the genitals of children. (“No touch,” Inquirer, 3/5/13). One was a nanny and was arrested and jailed for touching and kissing her ward’s genitals while giving him a bath. The other lost custody of her daughter after a divorce, when her non-Filipino husband claimed she was “abusing” the child through touching.
Last Sunday, Sen. Edgardo Angara was the commencement speaker at the University of the Philippines Diliman. His challenge to the graduates was to build a middle class, which he said was a potent force for the social transformation of the country. Senator Angara did express concerns that the middle class was too small, maybe even “vanishing.”
Last weekend was a particularly hectic and emotional one for many people, with college recognition rites and general commencement exercises at the University of the Philippines Diliman. I thought I’d share more of the spirit of the weekend with a two-in-one column, first about graduation gifts in terms of legacies and bridging of generations, and second about a different kind of graduation gift I had for an inaapo (explanations later about this term).
Let me start off on a light note: The sunflowers have bloomed at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, and we’re ready for the next few days’ individual college recognition rites and general commencement exercises. This is a pitch to attend graduation ceremonies, whether at UP or not. Think of Kevin Villanueva, the info [...]
I’m sharing some of the reflections I gave in a keynote speech last week at the Philippine Nephrology Society’s annual convention, where I spoke of the challenges that nephrologists face from a medical anthropologist’s perspective.
Last Wednesday, I had to give a talk at the annual convention of the Philippine Pediatrics Society. My talk was part of a session called “Dr. Perla Santos Ocampo Memorial Lectures,” which included a tribute to her. “PSO,” as Dr. Santos-Ocampo was called by people who worked with her, died last year leaving many legacies [...]
For more than 30 years, I looked at the filing of income tax returns as part of Holy Week penitence, from filling out the forms (which seem to be getting more and more unfriendly with each new version) to the crowds and queues at Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) offices.
The results of the recent Social Weather Stations survey on Roman Catholic (I’ll use “Catholic” from here on, for convenience) belief and practice in the Philippines have caused a stir, particularly the figure of 9 percent of respondents agreeing with the statement “Sometimes I think I might leave the Church” and another showing regular (meaning weekly) Mass attendance dropping from 66 percent in 1991 to 43 percent in 2013. (See sws.org.ph for the full report.)
