Restless in the dust! By Jing Villamil TEN years and thirteen days ago, 58 men and women, 32 of whom were journalists and stringers, were massacred in Sitio Masalay, in Ampatuan, Maguindanao. Their mangled bullet-drilled bodies were buried in wide shallow graves beside their cars equally mangled. The journalists were to cover the filing of […]
Feelings
Feelings
The One By Jing Villamil AS regular as clockwork, at six on weekday mornings, she would be quietly tiptoeing down the stairs in her flannel pajamas and bare feet. Then she would be running to her secret place, hopping on cold, wet flagstones and even colder dew-wet grass. She would be wheezing before she can […]
Feelings
No secret anymore! By Jing Villamil SO went our favorite old-maid aunt’s theme song – “once I had a secret love . . .” And it became not a secret anymore because, in one brief weak moment . . . she told! But I write not about secret loves; I write of all secrets that […]
Feelings
In the eyes of a child! (monosyllabic) By Jing Villamil WHEN she leaves our home for a long, long time, my Mom brings the two girls and I and Gran with her. I wish my Dad would come, too. But he would not. And they would not tell us why. We take the big black […]
Feelings
High spirits! (A continuation of Hi, spirits!) By Jing Villamil BELIEVE or not, it is generally accepted that 3 to 10% of us have had had an experience or more of seeing, hearing or feeling something that others have not. And sometimes, the percentage goes up to 75% if only we were not in a […]
Feelings
Hi, spirits! By Jing Villamil SHE grew up, with “them” not only as a sometime but as a constant presence. But these childhood companions were almost always the good (mabait), the rowdy (magulo), the mischievous (pilyo). Seldom the bad (salbahe) or the vengeful (mapag-higanti), as the knowing claimed or warned they were or might be. […]
Feelings
Recalling the past By Jing Villamil HAVE you gone through an experience of so many years ago and suddenly something you did today simply attaches itself right unto that particular past? Like the dot to your i or j or the cross to your t? The monosyllabic IF YOU HAD CALLED by Emmanuelle, written and […]
Feelings
Quakes! By Jing Villamil THIS talks not of the gooey chocolatey fudge which one rams whole and fast into one’s mouth in heavenly but sinful decadence. Rather, this talks of quakes that grumbled, rumbled and crumbled rocks unto uncovered heads, crushing skulls and bodies and homes and workplaces. Once upon an ancient time, it was […]
Feelings
Storytelling By Jing Villamil DO you still read, or share from your own stocked knowledge, a bedtime story to your child to prepare him or her to sleep? Sadly, in a research made by technology developer TomTom last February, covering 1000 parents with children ages 3 to 10 as subjects, only a third of the […]
Feelings
Commatose (A comma overdose) By Jing Villamil DENGUE, leptospirosis, polio, diphtheria, meningococcemia, measles, pneumonia, malaria, tuberculosis, rabies, HIV, the big C for-all-ages, dialysis for too many failed kidneys, too-sweet diabetics, bones young and old weakened, cracked or crushed, Road accidents along SLEX, NLEX, and other EXes and widened roads, doctors and medicines too expensive or […]