Category Archives: General

Beyond the Balance Sheet

“Tackling climate change presents a big challenge and an even greater opportunity for Canada, one that will impact all of our lives, and those of generations to come. Our nation’s plan to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions down to ‘net-zero’ by 2050 requires the largest change to our economy in our lifetime, and one that RBC is fully… Read More »

Remembering My Tatay, A Self-taught Poet

With the remembrance of the Sept. 11, 2001 bombing of the Twin Towers in New York City next week, I cannot help but remember my father, Ka Tino. Shortly after that historic New York bombing, he penned his piece, “Trahedyan Twins Towers” –the various community papers in North America had published his article. He was a self-taught poet;… Read More »

The state of Philippine Education: revisited 

A recent commentary, ” Our Interconnected Crises,” by Cielito Habito of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, August 9, 2022, took my breath away. I thought our 2018 PISA ( Programme for International Student Assessment ), in which we placed last among 79 countries tested in reading and 78th in Math and Science, would be so tough to our national… Read More »

The Shattered House

“I didn’t think that humans could choose loneliness. That there were sometimes forces more powerful than the wish to avoid loneliness.”  Kazoo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun Laughter rang loud in the house whenever I was at home. My three young daughters liked to do that just to piss me in a playful way. Marla, the eldest at… Read More »

A Life Profiled: Pierre Trudeau

“For where is the justice in a country in which an individual has the freedom to be totally fulfilled, but where inequality denies him the means? And how can we call a society just unless it is organized in such a way as to give each his due, regardless of his state of birth, his means, or his… Read More »

Towards a lasting legacy

What do you remember about your great-grandparents?  I have talked to many, and for the most part, the answer was nothing.  It is academic to ask what one remembers about their great grandparents, other than what had been related by a grandparent.  But of course, if family history is kept, future generations can avail of the many extraordinary… Read More »

The Writer

“He had mastered the art of rendering himself insignificant, invisible.” – Elie Wiesel, Night (1972, 1985) “We are all made of nouns, live by verbs, enlarge and entertain ourselves with adjectives and adverbs.” – Anna Quindlen, Write For Your Life (2022) I am an obscure writer… a writer of no consequence. I have been at it most of… Read More »

I’m not being lazy when I read

“Antsy for adventure, I consider other ways to transport myself. I settle on a tried-and-true escape hatch, accessible to anyone with an armchair: reading.” – Melanie D.G. Kaplan, “Find your literary getaway.” Toronto Star, April 25, 2020. “Reading is…going somewhere without ever taking a train or ship, an unveiling of new, incredible worlds. It’s living a life you… Read More »

REMINISCING MY YEARS AT THE REZ

PART II Anything above zero in this part of the north is tropical.  At 52 deg. North and just below the tree line, by mid-Oct.  ice starts forming in the lakes.   By Nov., the kids are already playing hockey.  So by late December, it is hard to find open water in any of the lakes surrounding this Reserve. … Read More »

The Lament

“There are lots of things that do happen in life and lots that could, but you’re just left waiting for them. It seemed to me that more things I wanted were coming very slowly, and when they did happen it wasn’t the way I’d wanted and planned; they’d all taken too long, as if to annoy me, and… Read More »