tourist guide

My wife called up one afternoon of November, 2009, to tell me about a trip to their province, Agbanawag, Nueva Excija. I reluctantly approved.

So that Friday night we went to Parkway Village in Quezon City to spend the night at the church parsonage. The old, sometimes spooky parsonage was near my wife's sister's home, so it was convenient to spend the night there, especially when we were to leave for Agbanawag early next morning, Saturday.

So, Saturday morning we were...

I was then 25 or 26 when Cory Aquino, widow of assassinated Senator Ninoy Aquino, challenged then Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos to a snap election. It was believed that Marcos was losing popular support, thus, the perceived need for a snap election.

I enlisted as a LABAN team member. “Laban” or “fight” vowed to stop all means of cheating from any electoral party. So we were trained to spot electoral cheating at a glance and studied the omnibus election code. We conducted house...

You want to befriend a Filipino or Filipina, or at least get along well with one? Here are surefire tips:

1. Learn our culture well, especially how we value old-fashioned human relationships. When we hear locals and foreigners say "po" or "opo," we're so impressed!

2. We believe so much in "Do unto others as you want others to do to you." Hey, that's what Confucius said, some may say. No, that's what Christ said. The Philippines is, for...

Back in the 1700s when Quezon city was totally unheard of, there grew up a rustic girl who would later be a great leader in Philippine History, particularly in the Katipunan movement back in the 1800s. She grew up in that portion of the low hills now known as Project 8 in Quezon City. Later, when she was old, she became the grand old lady of the revolution, known to Katipuneros as "Tandang Sora."

Her life was totaly dedicated to seeing the Philippines free and soveriegn....

It used to be a public market with a public high school on top when I was a kid. We called it UP or University of Palengke. After it burned down and re-built in the early 1980s, it's been officially called Super Palengke.

It's super alright--because some TV afternoon soap opera episodes were shot there. It's a village market within an environ of makeshift market stalls or "talipapa." All around the market are side-street fruit stalls, so it has a bright, colorful surroundings....