Crosshatching While most people I know are into the latest high-tech gadgets and gizmos, I prefer to take the U-turn. For some reasons, I am more attracted to old technology, where everything works without electronics, easy to…
There’s a huge pile of assorted lumber accumulating at the back of our house. Most of these were scavenged from the construction dump of our neighborhood. It’s hard to imagine how I managed to haul them all:…
When my client, the owner of a soon-to-open downtown hotel that brands itself as both green and heritage conscious, told me that they needed something to decorate the big wall of the lobby but don’t have the…
We do not only believe, we feel the need to share our belief with others. As belief in God entails notions of good and evil and promises of heaven and hell, we become possessed with the desire…
Today marks the first Sinulog parade that is supposed to be void of street parties. That is if authorities strictly enforce the ban on the bacchanalia that customarily goes with the religious ceremonies. Let’s see how that…
It’s the start of a new year and once again we make resolutions that we promise to keep. And as in most promises, we end up breaking them. For my wife, who is a yoga teacher, it’s…
It used to be that when you wanted things to work you’d just crank them up. If you wanted to listen to music, you cranked up a gramophone. To make movies, you cranked up a film camera…
A recent online video of an SUV that seemed to have gone berserk as it speeded backward and forward, hitting cars and motorcycles in a parking lot raised concerns about the safety of today’s generation of high-tech…
Without any hesitation, I said yes to Melanie Boteros, a public school teacher in the fishing municipality of San Francisco (formerly called Anao-awon) in Surigao del Norte, when she invited me recently to conduct a workshop for…
Last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris brought back memories of that city which was home to us for a month back in 2013. With other Cebuano artists invited to exhibit there, we explored the city famous for…
They say it takes an extreme disaster, whether manmade or natural, for people to learn the importance of planning and preparedness. Trauma jolts people from their numbness and forces them into action. Supertyphoon Yolanda, which hit the…
Every Saturday, I give drawing tutorials to an American businessman who married a Filipina. During lunch right after our workshop, our conversations would easily shift from art to culture and politics. Although he’s been living here for…
