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…
Tag: Lian Buan
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…
Butterfly Baby
This is Butterfly Baby, a documentary film produced by SubSelfie.com author Edma Remillano about the rare Butterfly Disease. Text by Lian Nami Buan Jhon Ruiz is five years old. But he looks small. At first glance you would guess maybe he’s two years old. He is also covered from head to toe with wounds. His mother Ayra…
“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…
News Hugot 1: Extra Judicial Feelings
After our series Oral Origins wherein we researched the roots of the popular curse words in the Philippines, we welcome you to News Hugot, a new segment that will provide a creative outlet for people to forget the news for a while and to focus on their feelings. Our opening salvo is the series of…
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…
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…
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…
We Are the Yayas of the World
It’s 1991 in the modest town of Moncada, Tarlac. Her husband just died. Her father followed shortly after. She’s 30 years old, a mother of two — the youngest just 6 months old. And up until that moment, she has not worked a day in her life. She could take over the family business —…
Indochina: Four Tales of Heartbreak
Love has a quota. That’s according to Ricky Lee in his masterpiece “Para kay B.” Only one in every five people who fall in love will have a happy ending. The others might love someone who will not love them back. Or love without learning. Or love hopelessly. And some might not love at all….
VFA and the Murder of Jennifer Laude
Co-written with Lian Buan One year after the death of transgender woman Jeffrey Jennifer Laude, SubSelfie.com provides an update to the case filed against the suspect L/Cpl. Joseph Scott Pemberton. Guilty Verdict December 1, 2015 — The Olongapo City Regional Trial Court Branch 74 of the Philippines ruled that US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton is “guilty…
A Nation of Broken Hearts
I think I have a broken heart, literally. I’m back at the University of Santo Tomas, my Alma Mater — not at the plaza or my old building or even the walkways I spent endless hours in college just burning time, but at the hospital. I’ve never been inside the UST Hospital before. I never…
Caught in Conflict: Golan Heights and Trapped Filipino Soldiers
Co-written with Lian Buan While Gilas Pilipinas is bravely representing the Philippines in the ongoing FIBA World Cup, we also have a different team of Filipinos who should make you feel proud. They are the 75 Filipino soldiers carrying the banner of the United Nations in the middle of a heated conflict in Golan Heights. Heightened Tension Golan Heights…
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