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All these Filipino noontime-show hosts -- from TVJ to Vice Ganda to Willie Revillame, and now Paolo Contis -- seem to have a shared script whenever they're faced with criticism: "Gusto lang namin magbigay ng saya." This boilerplate answer makes them sound like the selfless heroes that they're not, especially since "magbigay ng saya" is actually newspeak for "we want you, the masa, to watch our program and of course keep on buying those canned goods and detergent and instant noodles and 3-in-1 instant coffee and 5-in-1 herbal tea etc., and buy them from that grocery chain owned by big-time smugglers so that these products and grocery chains keep advertising with us, while we earn millions by trying to 'entertain' you, regardless of the fact that we've dumbed down our show, which is what we believe is good-enough entertainment for you, but deep down we don't think it's really entertaining -- of course not -- but hey, we've already ...

I was always drawn to the personal essay, which has -- fairly or unfairly -- been regarded as inferior to the novel, the play, or the poem, the runt of the litter in literature. The form has frequently been dismissed as an exercise in self-indulgence and navel-gazing. It is also the perfect “anti-AI” literary device. You devour essay collections by E.B. White, Philip Lopate, and David Sedaris. You enjoy nonfiction by Joyce Carol Oates, Zadie Smith, Toni Morrison, Arundhati Roy, and George Orwell. You read essays by Filipino writers Conrado De Quiros, Jessica Zafra, Butch Dalisay, Simeon Dumdum, and Kerima Polotan-Tuvera. Why? You read those writers’ essays because you want a front-row seat to their experiences; you want to know their opinions, which might -- who knows? -- shape your own. You laugh out loud at Sedaris writing about his time working as an elf at Macy’s department store; you marvel at De Quiros’s wisdom as he deconstructs in a column why Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is...