VIEWPOINTS

I have seen war through the eyes of my classmates—people who come from countries that are currently in conflict. They don’t always talk about it directly. Sometimes it’s a silence that arrives when the conversation turns to “home,” or a pause when someone’s phone lights up with a message they’re afraid to open. Sometimes it’s the way they carry ordinary moments with a kind of quiet alertness, as if their bodies learned a different definition of normal long before they ever wa

Peace is the word we reach for when something breaks. We say it at podiums, stitch it onto banners, whisper it at hospital bedsides and graves. But most days we treat peace like a background setting—like it will simply remain on if we don’t touch the controls. That is the first mistake. Peace isn’t a default. Peace is a construction project, and it needs constant maintenance.

If you want to understand inequality in Manila, don’t begin with income statistics. Don’t begin with GDP growth or ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Begin with a wheelchair.

A city does not end at sunset.

There is a particular electricity in an unexpected encounter. You turn a corner and see an old friend you haven’t thought about in years. You duck into a café to escape the rain and overhear a conversation that shifts your thinking. You sit on a public bench and find yourself talking to someone whose life seems entirely unlike yours—until it isn’t. These moments feel accidental. But they are rarely random. They are made possible by the environments we build.

If you want to know whether a city is truly working, don’t start by asking the happiest commuters or the residents with the most options. Start with the people the city fails first: those with the least money, the least power, the least time, the least safety, and the fewest ways to “just make it work.” Design a city for them, and you don’t just build a kinder place—you build a city that functions better for everyone.

The newest assessment snapshots should end the era of excuses. Filipino learners are not mastering foundational skills early, and gaps widen with every grade. If we read the data honestly, one reform rises to the top in a multilingual country—teach children first in the language they use at home.

In a multi-party democracy like ours, the math of governance is never simple. In the House of Representatives, more than 300 legislators bring with them different parties, loyalties, regions, advocacies—and, inevitably, different ambitions. Majorities can be built, yes, but they can also be brittle: loud on opening day, fractured by the next crisis.

There’s a particular relief that arrives the moment you open a notebook. Not the productivity kind—the “look at me, I’m organized” kind—but the quieter relief of doing something the human way: paper, ink, and the privacy of your own pace. It’s a breath of fresh air in a world that wants every thought formatted, uploaded, synced, searchable, and—if we’re honest—slightly performative.

Fear of failure didn’t announce itself as fear. It called itself discipline. Ambition. “Wanting it badly enough.” It looked responsible from the outside. I was the person who stayed late, double-checked everything, said yes before I had time to think. What I didn’t understand then was that I wasn’t chasing success—I was running from the humiliation of falling short.

In the Philippines, dignity is treated like a personality trait. If you can endure the commute—squeeze into a jeep, climb footbridges, dodge broken sidewalks, and thread through traffic—you are called “madiskarte.” We celebrate resilience because we have to.

As a young student, seeing my name in the Manila Bulletin for the first time felt like being handed a microphone in a room full of grown-ups—and being told not to waste anyone’s time. The thrill came with pressure: to earn the space, to prove I wasn’t there by accident, to write a sentence sturdy enough to sit beside voices I’d been reading long before I ever dreamed of joining them. I drafted and redrafted with nervous energy, learning quickly that in MB you weren’t “a stude

Imagine two ordinary freedoms that many Filipinos still can’t rely on.

I am writing this column because I know what fear can do to young people. I have watched it bend their posture before it bends their future, teaching them to shrink long before anyone tells them to. Fear does not announce itself as danger at first. It often arrives disguised as caution, responsibility, or realism. By the time you realize it has taken hold, it has already begun editing your life.

I write this in the first week of January, for the first time reflecting on the year that was while sitting by a fireplace. The warmth reaches my hands first, then settles slowly into my shoulders. It is a temperature that feels almost unfamiliar—despite years spent abroad, or perhaps because of them. I notice how my body responds before my mind does, how comfort can feel surprising when you haven’t realized how long you’ve been without it.

Originally published in Manila Bulletin It’s January 2026, and the quiet in my morning feels almost suspicious. Not the empty quiet of avoidance—the kind I used to chase. This is the quiet that shows up when I’m actually present. When my phone isn’t the first thing I touch. When last night didn’t end in “just one more.” When my body isn’t negotiating with my choices. I lace up my shoes and step outside. The air is cold enough to sting, and for a moment my mind tries to barga

We don’t talk enough about crying. Not the cinematic kind—one perfect tear sliding down a cheek—but the real, messy kind that leaves your eyes swollen and your breath unsteady. The kind that comes from frustration so deep it feels like a knot in the chest. The kind that arrives in the middle of learning something difficult, or failing at something you thought you should already understand.

Eight years ago, in 2017, my dad and I had our last conversation—and I didn’t know it would be the last. His death was sudden. There were no prior goodbyes, no long talks that eased us into the idea of life without him. One day he was there, and then he wasn’t. The kind of loss that doesn’t arrive with warning doesn’t just break your heart; it rearranges your world.

In a world that rewards speaking—publishing, posting, persuading—it is easy to forget the quiet, transformative power of listening. Not the performative type of listening where one waits impatiently for a turn to speak, but the kind that requires presence, humility, and a willingness to be changed. I have been thinking about this often, especially since joining the Indigenous Council of One Young World. It is one of the rare spaces in my life where listening is not just encou

Whenever I am asked what children should be taught to survive in this age of artificial intelligence, people expect me to list technical skills: coding, robotics, algorithmic thinking. But my answer is always the same, and it always surprises them.