According to Yoyoy Villame, the Philippines was discovered by Magellan on March 16, 1521. After “sailing day and night across the big ocean … they saw a small Limasawa island.” He is wrong on both points. The islands “discovered” Ferdinand Magellan. The fleet landed...

While Dec. 8 was not always a special nonworking holiday, it always was a school holiday for me. Growing up in the Ateneo, whose blue and white colors are a visual reference to the Virgin Mary, I always thought the Feast of the Immaculate Conception was universal. I...

I wonder when Legazpi Village, part of the Makati commercial and business district, was ever a “village.” By definition, a village is “a group of houses and associated buildings, larger than a hamlet and smaller than a town, situated in a rural area.” Despite its...

I remember a news report from 1997, when a vendor in Tutuban station was asked for the significance of the Bonifacio monument erected in the hero’s birthplace. Scratching his head, the vendor apologized, “Sorry, I don’t know. I’m not from here.” The year 1997 marked...

The Philippines has a lot of holidays. This year, we have 21 nonworking days that do not seem restful for workers like me. Would it be more efficient, and relaxing, if Filipinos were given a three-week vacation in one go, rather than having the 12 regular holidays and...

Banaue is synonymous with the iconic rice terraces that current research has proven to be younger than we want it to be. As a boy, I was taught that the rice terraces were the “eighth wonder of the world,” that these were built long before Ferdinand Magellan was...

Another item was ticked off my bucket list last week, I climbed the Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan. I have long sought to study the details on each of the 23 bronze figures crafted by Guillermo Tolentino that visually tells the story of the Philippine Revolution, but...

Amok is a word that often comes up when the parricide case of Juan Luna comes up in conversation. It is often said that Luna, who was tried for the murder of his wife and mother-in-law, was acquitted because he caught his wife having an affair with another man, that...

On the passing of Conrado de Quiros and Rina Jimenez David, someone commented that we were seeing “the end of an era.” I was tempted to reply that we already saw that when Letty Jimenez Magsanoc, the iconic Inquirer editor in chief, wrote 30 in 2015. The voices of...

Long before people reinvented the terms “intelligence fund” and “confidential fund” to mean a slush fund for items not in the approved government budget, the terms were associated with spies and anonymous informants. I grew up knowing Tiktik as the name of a sleazy...