Before I retired from government service, I was a regular taxi rider. And when you ride a cab to and from work (as I used to), you get to meet all kinds of drivers. There are those who give unsolicited advice. One cabbie “suggested” that I buy a car because my office is far from my home. My aversion to unsolicited advice tempted me to lash out at the guy for his effrontery, but prudence dictated that I just bite my tongue.
One of the assignments in my course on “Food in Philippine Culture” in Sophia University, Tokyo was for the students to sample Philippine food sold outside St. Ignatius Church on Sundays. I was surprised that some students sought out hidden Filipino “restaurants” around Tokyo, while a few followed YouTube recipes for adobo, cooking them at home and later reporting that Filipino food was greasy, brown and generally unhealthy by their standards. I raised my hands in surrender and explained that not all our food is that bad. I mean balut is quite nutritious despite its notoriety as one of the world’s most disgusting foods.
I was in a hotel elevator with another man, probably involved in maintenance. The elevator door opened and a bellboy stepped in, giving a side glance to the maintenance person. The elevator moved a few floors up, and when it opened, the bellboy, used a rolled newspaper that he had been holding to tap the other guy’s crotch—a bit like a monarch knighting someone except on the wrong part of the body—then stepped out.
High on the altar of American values lies the “macho” culture. Part and parcel of this “culture” is its revered symbol—the golden gun.
We write in response to Ambassador Juan Jose P. Rocha’s letter which was published in the Inquirer last Jan. 28.
Much has been claimed about Filipinos being resilient, able to bounce back rapidly after personal and collective trauma, sometimes to the point of saying we don’t have serious problems with post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, where a person’s memory of traumatic incidents keeps coming back, causing all kinds of problems ranging from insomnia to thoughts [...]
It was with a sense of relief, yet with some sadness, that I watched the last episode of “Lee San” (Wind in the Palace), the Korean telenovela I have been addicted to for months.
From the window of her apartment along Roxas Boulevard, artist Betsy Westendorp would spend many hours looking out on the view of Manila Bay, contemplating the sunset, and sometimes sketching what she saw.
It doesn’t really matter that Brillante Mendoza’s “Thy Womb” didn’t make it big at the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) box office. The mere fact that it was accepted as an entry at the MMFF was triumph enough.
A country’s cinema should encompass the aspirations and experiences of its people. And to be truly representative, a country’s cinema needs to be sufficiently geographically diverse. This is still to be desired in the Philippines, where the theaters, when they aren’t saturated by Hollywood blockbusters, are by and large dominated by the products of monolithic Metro Manila studios. To be sure, independent filmmakers are making a dent, and their works, long or short, fictional or documentary, have reached an impressive level of quality. Still, when one considers the major film events, by CineManila, Cinemalaya, Cinema One Originals, or the tellingly named Metro Manila Film Festival, it becomes obvious that the Philippines’ filmic output remains largely Manila-centric.
Teaching A course on food in Philippine culture to Japanese students has opened my eyes to what we eat, why we eat, and what our cuisine reflects about our history, leading to ideas on what we think we are as a people.
The problem is not just that a dynasty-steeped Congress is not likely to pass, or even table, an anti-dynasty law. Though that is a huge problem already. Of course it won’t, the House of Representatives in particular. Why should the representatives agree to a law that forbids, or militates against, their spouses, children, brothers and sisters, cousins, and relatives to whatever degree of consanguinity from holding elective public offices too? That is shooting themselves in the head.
