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It’s safe, or, depending on who you ask, safer now; you can end your self-imposed self-quarantine and start traveling, and get back to your usual routine in life and work … without worrying about hungry ghosts. I’m…
During Rodrigo Duterte’s last month in office, we had a bit of good news with our Supreme Court ruling in the case of Ona vs. the Philippine Tobacco Institute, Inc. that tobacco products are health products and…
It’s been two years since the COVID-19 pandemic and there’s a growing dangerous sense of complacency, spread in part by a word that’s taken on magical meanings: endemicity. It doesn’t help that the word ends with, well,…
More than 40 summers ago, I was sent off with a volunteer group to one of the most remote areas in the Philippines, so remote that I read about a concrete road to that town just completed…
I received a hilarious TikTok from someone playing out a scene between a Chinese man and his niece, who was probably around five years old. “Uncle, happy new year,” the toddler chirps, with her hands outstretched holding…
Gomburza. A blurred image is probably becoming clearer in your mind, of three priests, one seated, two standing, all young. The seated priest is José Burgos, who is the one usually remembered because there are streets and…
Entrepreneurs get rich peddling information and calendars and almanacs built around Chinese astrology, offering all kinds of predictions and advice. From a social scientist’s perspective, astrology — whatever culture it comes from — uses familiar metaphors like…
Here’s another angle to the ongoing conference on the climate emergency: food waste. Many of us grew up with the mantra, “Don’t waste your food. There are hungry people out in the streets.” In Western countries, parents…
Even before COVID-19, many Filipino families have been visiting the dead on days other than the week of Nov. 1 to avoid traffic congestion and crowds. I’m hoping though we will set aside family time during the…
Resign” generally has negative connotations, as when we call on a head of state or a company executive to resign. It can also mean passive acceptance of one’s situation, even when it is negative. Finally, among work-oriented…
Two weeks ago I wrote about rapid antigen (lateral flow) tests that can detect if you have been infected with COVID-19 by testing for the protein fragments of the virus in saliva, or nose and throat swabs.…
There’s something about commemorative dates that reduce wars to a flash attack, quick and brutal. Think of the US atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima (Aug. 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9, 1945). The Japanese attack on Pearl…
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