Lian Buan

A Crossroad in Press Freedom and a Golden Chance

I remember watching from my room in 2007 the footage of journalists handcuffed in plastic bands and shoved to a bus during their coverage of the Antonio Trillanes IV-led siege at the Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati. I was a 2nd year journalism student in UST. I think that was one of the first defining…

All The Additional Things I Need to Prove to the World Because I’m a Filipino

I have stayed off credit cards for most of my adult life, just because I don’t trust myself to be disciplined with my spending, yet I opened 2019 running paper errands because I need to open a credit account. Why? The Italian Embassy “suggested” I should submit credit card statements if I want to reapply…

The Filipino Laborer

Every May 1, the country celebrates Filipino laborers, recognizing their struggles and hardwork. Filipinos, especially the poor laborers, are NOT lazy. Through photos, we shall attempt to tell you their stories. May they inspire you, millennials, to keep a lookout for them in your travels or daily lives. Know that outside of the increasingly toxic…

Care Divas: An Important Story in These Trying Times

To celebrate their golden anniversary, the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) re-staged the award-winning musical hit “Care Divas,” a story about five gay Filipinos working as caregivers in Israel and doing drag shows as a sideline. Without divulging much of the plot, let me attempt to explain why you should watch ‘Care Divas’ and take away with it…

Christmas In London, Finally

The story starts at a high end hotel on Drury Lane in London one summer day in June of 1997. Regina ‘Regie’ Laborce, then 31 years old, was scrambling to get in contact with someone she knows in the United Kingdom. If they don’t answer their phones, she has nowhere else to go. The fancy hotel was…

If You Want to Study Abroad

International students bring in £10 billion to the United Kingdom each year, according to estimates from the British Council. I am part and parcel of that economic drive, thank you very much. It is what I remind myself everyday as an immigrant living in post-Brexit UK. I feel a sense of pride for five minutes…

“I Will Not Interfere”

“Kayo lang po ang pag-asa ko (You are my only hope),” an emotional Mary Jane Veloso pleads to newly elected President Rodrigo Duterte. Under the Noynoy Aquino administration, Veloso received a temporary reprieve from execution last April 29, 2015 — the only one to be spared among drug convicts that included leaders of the Bali Nine, an infamous group…

In Defense of the Cursed Child

Warning! Spoilers ahead. It’s been almost a decade since the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and five years since the screening of the last film, effectively ending 19 years of book-reader relationship, which to most Harry Potter fans cover much of their lives. It’s a literary and movie success that transcended race and age and…

Chexit: The West Philippine Sea Is Ours but Now What?

China calls it a “farce.” The Philippine government filed the case before an international arbitral tribunal back in January 2013, seeking to quash the validity of China’s historic claims — an imaginary nine-dash line that impedes on our exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and effectively declares most of our seas as theirs. Their reason? Because they…

From Duterte to Brexit

I stepped out of our house in Hertfordshire at 8 o’clock in the evening to buy a bottle of softdrinks. It was still very bright out and usually a walk in any part of Hertfordshire is a welcome break. Except that there were around ten rowdy teenagers spread on both sides of the alley and I had…

3.5 Degrees of Connection in Mt. Pulag

Here was the theory before from Frigyes Karinthy in 1929: any two people in the world can meet together through six steps with the help of a friend of a friend. It’s the six degrees of separation. Citing research data from virtual friendships, Facebook now claims that from six, it’s down to just 3.5 degrees, making it…

There Are Places I Remember

The year 2015 began with a sharp turn in my outlook. I was a pathological skeptic, and enjoyed being on my own in my little world of doubts and questions. I was determined to change some of those things. When my high school best friend and roommate asked me to climb a mountain with his friends,…

#COP21: The Glamorous Paris Talks and the Suffering of Filipinos

This is a story of two very different people, bound by an issue that will bring together 147 world leaders in Paris, France — climate change. Paris, France Former Philippine Climate Change Commissioner Yeb Saño is in Paris now, having spent the last six months on a pilgrimage that started out in Tacloban and across…

A Tribute to Visayas and Mindanao

It was the hottest time of day inside a rickety bus last April that I think I fell in love with Visayas. My skin was dark and burnt, having spent the last four days on polar ends of Cebu, and my forehead was dripping wet with sweat as we made our way from the Remegio…

The Lumads of Mindanao Are Desperately Calling Out for Help; Who’s Listening?

Every single Filipino, or perhaps even the non-Filipinos in and out of the country, knew what happened last week until Monday: that members of the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) staged a large demonstration in EDSA to condemn what they say was the meddling of the Department of Justice with their internal affairs. But what many…

Let’s Fall in Love and Build a Nation

The road snaking through the heart of the town of Jagna was decorated with colorful banderitas that day. It was my first time in Bohol, and I had not come to see the tarsiers or the chocolate hills. I came to see something more wondrous: Love. And it wasn’t just any kind of love. It was a…

Go Places, Fall In Love

On May 25, 2012, Che Gurrobat, the blogger behind Backpacking Pilipinas, wrote: The world will not stop for a girl with a broken heart. Tomorrow the sun will continue to rise and shine, rock stars will continue staging sold-out concerts, football superstars will continue striking goals, verdict will be cast on to the Chief Justice…

This Victory Matters

The news was broken to us around 7:30 pm last night, Thursday, June 25. My head writer at State of the Nation with Jessica Soho, and one of the officers of Talents Association of GMA, Edma Remillano, whispered to me while we were writing our scripts: “Nanalo tayo sa NLRC (We won at NLRC).” We were told that our…

I’m Quitting Tinder

“The New York Times makes a big deal out of Tinder,” reads my own Tinder profile. After much egging from my friends, it was the New York Times that convinced me to download the app. It published Op-Eds, Modern Love columns, and Feature articles on the increasingly popular dating app, offering perspectives that ranged from…

Bantayan Island Will Never Be Paradise Lost

On November 8, 2013, Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) made its fourth landfall on Bantayan Island, the northernmost tip of Cebu. For days, the remote island had no communication to the world beyond the sea. The storm destroyed 90% of houses, including resorts and other establishments that sustained tourism in the island. In the days that…