Mark as Unread

Right around the middle of the Dallas Mavericks-Los Angeles Clippers series in the first round of the NBA playoffs, a friend, K, sent me a direct message. K said she'd started watching NBA basketball last season, and called herself "a basic Golden State Warriors fan." She said she really enjoyed how the defending champs Denver Nuggets played too, and wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the game. I looked forward to chatting about basketball with her, of course. I wouldn't call myself an expert on basketball, but I'm Filipino -- we are the biggest basketball fans outside the United States -- which means as a teen I've played a lot of backyard basketball in flip-flops during summer vacations under the scorching Philippine sun (even the power forward position despite only standing five feet five, LOL) and watched both the PBA and the NBA as early as I could remember, thanks to my basketball-crazed father. Those backyard basketball games in high school became...

Before I owned a cat (I've always been a dog person), I thought that this was common sense -- keeping cats indoors. (Unless we're talking about feral cats, though, who are exactly the ones we should be adopting and rescuing and keeping safe indoors.) I never knew that keeping cats indoors was ever a controversial take until I rescued Willow, and found out that there was this faction of cat owners who believe that cats deserve to roam the outdoors until they are tired and decide to go home on their own after a long day of hunting and/or feline fornication.  This, despite the fact that indoor cats live almost twice as long as their free-roaming counterparts. And never mind that cats, because they are still excellent hunters -- an instinct that domestication (ha!) miserably failed to completely stamp out -- are responsible for the deaths of endangered birds and small mammals. Those who support free roaming contend that indoor cats live long but boring lives, and what k...

Sa una katong nagskwela pa kog college sa USC, nag department Xmas party mi. Inato ra gud, gamay ra nga gathering. I think balay to sa isa ka classmate namo ang venue, unya nag chip in ra mi para palit og pagkaon. Naay food committee in charge sa pagpangompra ug pagluto sa pagkaon. Pag oras na sa pagpangaon, gi-target na nako ang lumpiang shanghai. Pero gibadlong ko sa isa nako ka amigo, iya ko gihunghungan: "Mark, ayaw kuha anang lumpia."  Lami kaayo tan-awon ang lumpia, bag-ong haon. Init pa, unya crispy kaayo. Ganahan gyud kaayo ko mukuha sa lumpia. Akong gipangutana akong amigo. Apil pod diay sya sa food committee. "Ang nangompra man gud ganina sa merkado kay si (anonymous). Dili diay kaayo sya swito mangompra, unya medyo na overestimate niya ang ginaling nga iyang napalit. Akong gisimhot ganina sa kusina, murag dili na man presko. Lain na gamay ang karne. Anugon pod kaayo kung ilabay, so akong gipasobraan ang asin. Gi asinan nako og maayo." Nagpasa...

Note: This piece was originally published on August 5, 2022, in PNM. Full disclosure: Although I’ve read a few of the major works of beloved Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez (“One Hundred Years of Solitude,” “The Autumn of the Patriarch” and “Love in the Time of Cholera”), I have never read his short story collection “Strange Pilgrims.” So when the Museum of Modern Art (MAM) in Mexico City invited journalists to a literary talk — titled “Gabo the Pilgrim” — on Wednesday, July 27, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the publication of “Strange Pilgrims,” I was both excited and quite unsure. Excited because I’ve always been a big Gabo fan, but unsure because I didn’t know what to expect in the talk, and I would have wanted to come prepared — I would have read the book first, so I could ask more informed questions. I discovered quickly that my doubts were unfounded: I not only discovered a great deal about the book, but also about the life of García Márquez and a ...

Many years back, when I was still living in Cebu City, there was a running craze. This running craze came on the heels of a badminton craze. I was never really a fan of badminton or running. Back then I used to lift weights. Then I switched to indoor cycling (also known as spinning). Then I dabbled in boxing. And then I discovered Freeletics, a series of bodyweight exercises that you can do anywhere -- I downloaded .pdf copies of three guides, the Strength Guide, the Cardio Guide, and the combo Cardio & Strength Guide ("Freeletics is a sport. The core of Freeletics is a set of predefined high-intensity workouts. All workouts are bodyweight only. You always do them as fast as you can. They only take between 5 and 45 mins on average.  Workout times will be used to measure performances and progress and to compare to other athletes," says the introduction to all three guides).  Fast forward many years later, and I'm still doing Freeletics, but through an app that I downlo...

I'm reminded of this every time I unfriend someone who seems to have forgotten his/her principles. The most recent case is a college friend. But then again, I keep on finding out that the former University of San Carlos Department of Sociology and Anthropology (now the Department of Anthropology, Sociology, and History) just keeps on churning out graduates who are either die-hard Dutertards or Marcos loyalists, or both. Which is a shame, really. Especially now that they're producing history graduates too. How can you study (or teach) history (or sociology/anthropology) and not know what the Marcoses did to the country?  The latest I've unfriended is someone who took up sociology, like me, and who even supported Leni Robredo -- like me. But lately this person had been sharing posts of some members of the Marcos family because, apparently, he is supporting -- and working with, (hence the cozying up) -- Ace Durano now. The same Ace Durano who was convicted of graft by the Sand...

The audacity of these scumbags fighting over the nation's coffers in the guise of "love of country" makes my skin crawl. In the North you have the Marcoses who, for many years, plundered "their" land amid the Ilocanos' indifference (or worse, amid their idolatry), and in the South you have the Dutertes who made Davao City their fiefdom and ruled unchallenged for decades (amid the Davaoeños' idolatry, of course).  We lost our chance to elect a Leni Robredo, just like we lost our chance years ago to have a Jesse Robredo as commander in chief when he died in that plane crash. Power-hungry Mar Roxas subsequently hijacked the Liberal Party and made it the most-hated political party in the Philippines, eventually giving rise to the landslide win of Rodrigo Duterte. Likewise, it was Mar who ensured the demise of the Otso Diretso senatorial slate in 2019; everything he touches dies. Makes you wonder if it was the Roxas touch that finally gave PNoy his illness th...