“And what is this writing, anyway, as a human activity or as a vocation, or as a profession, or as a hack job, or perhaps even as an art, and why do so many people feel compelled to do it?” Margaret Atwood, Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing (2002). Unless you are being paid to… Read More »
I take this opportunity to share my feelings on today’s concerns and the many developments in recent memory. The COVID pandemic has focused many life issues front and centre. It broke open people’s feelings about Science, Politics, and Religion. It is as if the pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns, work-at-home arrangements, school disruptions, and a general curtailment of normalcy brought… Read More »
By Hermione Cabie Santos On August 23, 2021, the Food and Drug Administration finally granted its first approval of a COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer-BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine, under the proprietary name COMIRNATY, reached a significant milestone in the pandemic’s history. Less than a year after the issuance of emergency use authorization (EUA) to COVID-19 vaccines from pharmaceutical giants, approximately 33… Read More »
by Cress Vasquez When Toronto Mayor John Tory spoke at the inauguration of the Filipino Centre Toronto’s (FCT) new office in Scarborough, August 2019, little did he suspect that he was in the company of individuals behind the omission of large liabilities, payables, and taxable salaries in FCT’s financial statements, and the hiring of lawyers for reasons unknown. … Read More »
“This place was part of him, and would always be. A rough place, a stern place, where it was monumental task just to survive. And it had given him some of its strength.” Max Braithwaite, All the Way Home (1986). By Rey Moreno “Don’t judge me until you learn the facts and circumstances of my life. Don’t take… Read More »
PART III, The Final Chapter I arrived in Newfoundland with little skill outside of my chosen profession. I did not have the savvy and skillfulness that allows you to get into projects that ordinarily require a pro. And yet, by the time I left, 25 years later, I learned skills that would otherwise be left unlearned had I stayed in an… Read More »
“When the plane was taking off…I will start everything again elsewhere…I was simply looking for a haven.” Ying Chen, “On the Verge of Disappearance”. The plane took off on schedule. I was at the window seat and looked out one last time, reflecting on the glaring but fading lights of the Philippine International Airport and its surrounding areas.… Read More »
“When you do something best in life, you don’t really want to give that up – and for me it’s tennis.” – Roger Federer The literal translation of the French words in the above title is “game of the palm.” The game of tennis then started as a handball game, and whenever the French would serve, they would… Read More »
PART II BY: EDWIN DE LEON Newfoundland was far from the consciousness of the world community until John Cabot, in the late 1400s, declared: “fish ( cod ) was thick by the shore that we hardly have been able to row a boat through them.” Thus began the waves of Southern Europeans, chiefly migratory fishers from Spain and Portugal took… Read More »
“But I have learned that kindness and love can pay for pain and suffering.” Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country (1948). Wedding day is one of life’s important milestones for a woman. Being the centre of attention once in a while is a reaffirming moment to an elevated status that is hard to come by. That was on… Read More »