Jose Rizal advocated embracing one’s own mother tongue and culture. Though the “One who does not treasure his own language is worse than a beast or a putrid fish” quote may be misattributed, respect for the native language—as a form of patriotic allegiance—has been ingrained in the consciousness of students in their primary years of…
Author: Danielle Arcon
Scroll down into the bottomless pit of posts and status updates reflected beneath the glossy surface of your phone and you’re faced with the loud and ringing reminder: Don’t pause. Curated Instagram grids highlight the bright smiles overcoming marathons, the toned physique, the glistening sweat that silhouettes a post-workout glow. It’s easy to resent a…
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Julie muttered to herself as she anxiously looked around the sea of people she was silently drowning in. She’d hated crowds for as long as she could remember—especially noisy, restless, and sweaty ones. Though her eyes darted from left to right, rabidly searching for a way out kind of…
Twirling gracefully in a pool of silk, ribbons, and tulle, Odette is every inch a vision in white. The Prince notices the maiden, instantly struck with the kind of emotion people crossed oceans for, the kind of romance people wrote novels about. It only takes a glance, a few steps closer and then the star-crossed…
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The leading women of our history
Coy, timid, and reserved, she fans herself gently with a wooden hand fan, speaking softly without meeting your eyes. An image that represents the Filipina virtue is often summarized with a single iconic name: Maria Clara. Her attributes are deeply embedded into our culture; the ideal woman should be dutiful, responsible, and most importantly, the…
A doctor’s workday consists of a busy line of people looking for answers: How long does it take to heal? What treatment would you recommend? Would you please have a look at this X-ray? But across various tropes in popular culture and proclamations televised on screen, more often than not, the four walls of a…
It is an era that is vividly remembered as a wound that hasn’t completely healed. A memory that refuses to dissolve into faded decades and a turbulent part of Philippine history, the mention of martial law sparks an outcry of different contradictions. It was a grim era smeared with shades of scarlet insurgence—a period of…
There are a lot of things that clamor for your attention. There’s that most recent notification, that friend request, and that red icon on top of your unread messages. There are posts from your friends’ recent hangouts, and then, sandwiched between the selfies and inspiration quotes that line down your newsfeed are ‘news’ that…
This is what we think we know: we’ve heard enough sides to know the truth. It is a primetime narrative summarized as incidents fueled by entwined destinies of noble intention and bloody execution. But the headlines and three-minute reports rarely ever tell us much. Besides somber faces caught on camera and the families whose lives…
It’s easy to notice the leads. They’re the faces you see along billboards, the names you often read about, and, if it strikes your fancy, they’re the same faces you root for in the movies. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets her back—they’re the ones who live the theater-filling happily-ever-after. The credits roll,…