Month: March 2013

Saving Sanity: A Guide to Quick Getaways

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The curse of the busy life is that those who need to get away the most have the least time to do it. All too familiar with this irony, I’ve rounded up four easy escapes that will keep you sane and sound. The Inn at Cliffhouse, Tagaytay 24 hours of: Nantucket-inspired romance on a ridge. True, the view of Taal Volcano can get old, but try gazing at the  world’s smallest active volcano while you’re half-submerged in a warm whirlpool of your favorite bath salts, the Jacuzzi massaging your sore back. How’s that for a change in perspective? Run by a frequent traveler and fan of New England bed-and-breakfasts, The Inn at Cliffhouse doesn’t just provide a respite from the rat race, it transports you to a nerve-calming world of lighthouses and boats and blue seas. “If you want to decompress, this is your safe harbor,” says owner and manager Jennifer Dee, whose love for nautical elegance is visible in the details of the room: a three-bladed boat propeller keychain, clam lamps, shell curtain tassels, …

Why Walk with Carlos Celdran

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If you’re a foreigner or balikbayan, then I get why you would join Carlos Celdran’s “If These Walls Could Talk” tour. TIME has mentioned a few good reasons, so did the Asian Wall Street Journal. Plus you’re probably a little sentimental about your roots. But if like me, you live and breathe the smog of Manila more often than you’d like, you might be more skeptical about forking over Php1,100 for a tour of Intramuros, that “Walled City” that could not even hold off vandals, vendors, jeepney barkers, and a growing number of informal settlers. The not-so-friendly fee stings a little more when, again, like me, you actually already did a solo walking tour of Intramuros not too long ago (and in fact, even wrote about it). So why would you, a Pinoy familiar familiar with Manila, spend Php1,100 and three hours with Carlos Celdran? Well, after the tour, I got 10 very good reasons: You think Manila has more filth than history. Surprisingly, that is not true. You tell people that Rizal Park is the original Kilometer Zero. Again, …

The Battlefield of Dreams – Part 2

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This is the continuation of a story I did in 2008 while I was a Yuchengo media fellow at the University of San Francisco-Center for the Pacific Rim. Some information may have already been superseded by more recent data. But hey, read on. After the two-month boot camp, enlistees with a college diploma are elevated to a rank three steps higher than the lowest. But sweeter than the rank is the bonus. Dancel and Edmilao, now both stationed at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, received a $12,000 bonus when they got out of training. Edmilao is also using his tuition assistance privilege to study environmental management at the University of Maryland. He already has an economics degree from the De La Salle University in Manila, but the educational benefit available to military personnel was too good to pass up. “I plan to be an officer,” says Edmilao, 28, who wants to maximize all the military benefits here but retire in the Philippines. George Barreto, a retired Marine, has also recently obtained a master’s degree …

The Battlefield of Dreams – Part 1

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I did this story in 2008 while I was a Yuchengo media fellow at the University of San Francisco-Center for the Pacific Rim. Some information may have already been superseded by more recent happenings. But it’s still a good read, methinks. San Francisco – They were told, sometime during their entry into the U.S. Navy, that a corpsman’s life in the battlefield lasted only about 10 seconds during World Wars I and II, and the Vietnam War. Navy corpsmen, the equivalent of the Army’s medic, were often the first targets of the enemy because in their hands lay the fate of wounded troops. “During a gunfight, there would always be two men standing guard with the corpsman. We are not allowed to fire our weapons unless in defense,” says Joshua Dancel, a Filipino-American who has completed a seven-month tour of duty in Fallujah, Iraq, one of the most chaotic cities when the U.S. troops first advanced into Saddam Hussein’s turf. “Our work is to stabilize patients until their medical evacuation to the shock-trauma platoon. The …

Time and Tide, and Other Pieces of Pamilacan

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“They’re usually this big,” Dadong says in Tagalog, tapping the boat he’s perched on. ”When we’re hungry, we would just go out to sea and catch some dolphins. It was just like catching chickens,” he adds so matter-of-factly that I could only stare at him and nod, half-fascinated, half-disturbed.By the time he compared the texture of whales and dolphins when cooked, I was speechless. He had me at adobo. It was a sunny Saturday when my husband and I landed on Pamilacan, whose waters are renowned in the Visayas as the “playground of dolphins.” The Boholanos weren’t kidding. During the 45-minute boat trip from Baclayon to Pamilacan, we were escorted by at least 20 spinner dolphins at any one time. They were so cute and friendly and… alive, it didn’t occur to me what they’d look like in a frying pan. Then again, we were merely visitors to the island, strangers to a culture whose children, at age 10, were taught that cetaceans are food. Now in their 40s, they are learning differently and struggling to survive the consequences of doing …

Jessica Cox: Without Arms, Without Limits

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It’s only right that my first post here should be about someone unforgettable. This woman is A.MAZ.ING. Made me feel like I can do anything. I mean, if she can fly a plane armless, why can’t I drive a car (without hitting a tricycle)? Or learn Photoshop and InDesign? I have both arms, flabs and all! I really should try to do more (And then I hear Yoda in my head: “No. Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.” ) Ladies and gentlemen, meet Jessica Cox. She has no arms but she can fly. Born armless to a Filipino mother and an American father, Jessica Cox never had anything easy. But she didn’t think anything was too hard either. At 14, she stopped using her artificial arms and decided to rely solely on her feet. But they must be an incredibly awesome pair because Jessica has since earned a black belt in taekwondo, learned to drive a car and fly a plane, completed a degree in Psychology from the University of Arizona …