Just Some Write-Ups

This work of fiction was originally anthologized in Hulagway: Empire & Emporia, published and launched jointly by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the Ateneo de Zamboanga – Mindanao Institute on March 9, 2024, with printed copies subsequently distributed the following month. * * * 1 There is this story that is a favorite among priests, preachers, and gurus of these islands. It tells of a young man who ventures into the desert alone. 2 His reasons are not given, but the solo journey into a desolate place signals to the listeners that this is a man intent on discovering something about himself that can only be unearthed after a long and arduous trek. 3 As he walks across the barren landscape, the young man encounters an older man tossing seeds into the dry earth. 4 His curiosity is aroused, and his longing for a conversation after several days on his own compels him to approach the old man and ask him what exactly he is up to.   5 “I am planting seeds,”...

  My wife and I had just dropped my aunty at a hospital hostel where she is staying and where a good number of floors are closed because of a lack of staff. The same is true for several other hospitals and healthcare facilities where I’m from. The puzzling thing is, over ten years ago, when the vast majority of us millennials were still in college, a good number of our generation majored in nursing and other medical programs. In our own college alma mater alone, nursing block sections would reach well past Z and into the double letters, going all the way to blocks AA, AB, etc. Fast forward to the present decade, and the high number of enrollees nursing programs enjoyed in the late 2000s and early 2010s should have translated into adequately staffed hospitals or even a surplus of licensed medical staff. But this is far from the case. Harbison and Myers stated that “a country which is unable to develop the skills and knowledge of its people and to utilize them effectively will be u...

This short article was originally read as part of a discussion on contemporary Philippine literature on Sari-sari: Panitikan at Kulturang Filipino ng Radyo Katipunan 87.9 (Ateneo de Manila University), held via Zoom and recorded on March 4, 2021. * * * When I was first asked by CB [Christian Benitez] to participate in this discussion on contemporary Philippine literature, I figured this would be a great opportunity to highlight the work of a fellow millennial writer from the province of Cebu, but one who, in some ways, subverts certain expectations or assumptions many of us may have upon hearing the term “Cebuano literature.” At first, said term may seem pretty easy to pin down. In his essay “Ang Sugboanon: The Cebuano,” scholar Resil Mojares states that the most obvious hallmarks of a Cebuano include “language, local residence, or orientation to Cebu province as a cultural or sentimental ‘homeland’” (266). To add to this, the average Cebuano also tends to be trilingual, with Cebuano s...

This paper was originally presented at NaturaLit: Being in Nature, Living with Literature, a conference held via Zoom on November 11, 2021. It was eventually published in the second volume of Tugkad: A Literary and Cultural Studies Journal (August 2022). * * * I. Introduction: Ciudad, Seafront City, and the Nation-State’s Drive to Develop Motorists who frequently traverse Gov. M. Cuenco Avenue are all too familiar with a squat one-story house-like structure designed in a style one can only describe as a hybrid mix of upper-class colonial meets modern-day bungalow: white coral stone facade, red Spanish roof tiles, capiz shell windows, all layered over a refurbished trailer. The structure sits somewhat aloofly on what is perhaps one of only a few remaining unpaved plots of land along the major thoroughfare, and it’s a rather curious, if peculiar, sight overshadowed by the IT Park high-rises looming behind it. A brief dig into the online news archives will reveal that both structure and ...