Angeli Marijopaz has the face of Gong Li, that leading Chinese actress famous for her unusual appeal. She was appropriately dressed in a red silk cheongsam for the special occasion. It was her fourth birthday party. The venue was a fastfood restaurant with a party package that saved lots of headaches for adult party-givers and was [...]

It’s not every day, or every night, that the young and old can let their hair down in the same place and time.  But Pabibo may happen only once. As in all good things, a repeat next year may mean a repeat of the activity only but the ambience, the surprises or the collective vitality [...]

Pairing timelessness and pop may sound like an oxymoron, yet most of that evening’s repertoire was timeless pop music just the same; timeless, because those pop greats of yesteryears have withstood the test of decades. Dubbed ‘As Time Goes By,’ the night’s musical numbers were offered by a veritable who’s who in the country’s music [...]

Their day was set aside for shoots of some swell sites and places in the city and nearby towns that can be featured in lifestyleBohol. Come along, Sonya (my chosen nickname with the Russian spelling for Sonieta L., the editor) offered. I imagined the team’s energy and my backache and how the twain shall never [...]

No, I didn’t learn the truth at seventeen, but ten years later, when I found three long-stemmed red roses on my table one Valentine’s Day.  There was no sender’s name. A few tables away were similar bunches for two officemates, two of my three close friends. At lunch with the group, we got to talk about [...]

Defining Terms Being against Zionism and Semitism has evolved into being against the existence of Israel. At its most basic definition, anti-Zionism is the “opposition to the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state.”  There are various shades of anti-Zionism as oppositions go.  Muslim anti-Zionism, the most problem-laden opposition, looks at the state of [...]

The Trouble with Colonizers While the crux of the Israeli-Palestinian animosity is a fight for the right to a homeland, geopolitics involving powerful countries has played a crucial role in this conflict. It is of note that at the beginning of the modern Jewish immigration to Palestine, the Arab world was either under the Otttoman Empire or [...]

Holy Land Conquests Because it is identified with Jesus and the Old Testament, Christians use the term Holy Land for Israel. Within the Holy Land is the contested city of Jerusalem. It was occupied by Muslim Arabs after their conquest in AD 322. By 1099, the Christian Crusaders from Europe wrested the Holy Land and slaughtered Jews [...]

Israel and Palestine If the Middle East were a tinderbox, Israel and Palestine would be the fuse.  Their protracted hostility as we know today has been there for more than fifty years.  One can glean though that their ancient history renders their hostility to be just as ancient.  Who, then, are the Israelis and Palestinians, and [...]

Aaahhh, ubiquitous germs.  In peace they’re used for research and made as basis for vaccines that ensure human immunity to their ravages.  In war they are used as weapons of mass destruction. Biological warfare is not new.  It can be traced back to ancient times, in Europe where the first use of biological weapons was recorded [...]

The first tape I held was in Grade 6 Home Economics sewing class.  It was that long, calibrated flexible device for measuring sizes and lengths called a tape measure. Magnetic tapes that became more common years later were for a different human activity apart from sewing.  Out of its protective plastic shell magnetic tapes are even [...]

Names of revolutions of centuries past lack fizzle.  The French, American, Russian, and Philippine Revolutions, though colored red with blood, are names that seem bland now that more recent revolts are called with symbols or colors. The series of revolutions in Eastern Europe in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s started with the 1989 Velvet Revolution [...]

Standards are a blend of place and time and a people’s culture. Religion also bears heavily on standards. And there’s tradition. A bikini-clad woman pushing a shopping cart in a beachside supermarket in Honolulu isn’t a strange sight.  Transport that sight to our local malls, or for that matter to New York’s Madison Avenue, and it [...]

They are on the rise, these women.  Hillary Clinton is on the frontline as a presidential contender in the next US elections.  Angela Merkel is the sitting Chancellor, the first woman to be so in Germany, while Segolene Royal had just given newly elected French president Nicolas Sarkozy a serious runoff in an election with [...]

Fabled Kashmir, dominated by the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges, is the more than half a century-old contentious issue between India and Pakistan. Kashmir, with Srinagar as its capital, is a favored vacation sojourn of South Asian rulers of centuries past.  It has a population of around 12 million, more than the population of the provinces [...]

The history of man, it is said, can be read as a series of metropolises risen and fallen. Sure, Athens and Rome are still there with their legacy of grandeur and glory.  Yet there are more great cities throughout history that are difficult to find on the map now.  Either their names have been changed, which [...]

One doesn’t take an evening walk in Dubai by the light of the silvery moon.  Dubai has a golden moon that lords it over the city’s skyline on evenings.  I still have to see a single star and think it a phenomenon. Which is to say that my country is a lucky one.  Most of our [...]

For one reason or another, what could have been a mere spat between the husband and I turned into a full-blown running battle of words and nerves that went on for a full week, each one aiming for the other’s jugular. The husband suggested that we both needed a change of scene, somewhere we’ve never been [...]

On the water’s edge of Lake Geneva in western Switzerland, in the town of Montreux in the canton, or state, of Vaud, is the medieval castle of Chillon (pronounced she-yo), or the Chateau de Chillon, about an hour’s drive from the city of Geneva.  One side of the lordly castle facing the ancient road to [...]