Walking as Medicine: The New Neighborhood Travel
A 20‑minute walk can fix what a 2‑hour meeting ruined. Walking slows you down, clears your mind, and reconnects you with the place you call home — and with yourself.
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WHAT ILLNESS TEACHES US ABOUT LIVING
Illness rearranges your priorities and reveals what truly matters. These gentle, honest lessons from sickness show how to live with intention, compassion, and clarity.
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Living Slowly, Living Fully
Not long ago, my niece and I met up for dinner in the middle of bustling Manila. We talked about her future, her dreams, and what it means to build a life. I haven’t heard from her after. I learned later she flew back home to Iloilo City, picked up her newly purchased car, and…
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Moonlit Bougainvilleas: Returning to Paluan After a Year
Almost exactly a year later, I found myself once again beneath the bougainvilleas of Paluan — only this time, the flowers were no longer basking under the familiar warmth of the Occidental Mindoro sun. They glowed beneath a full moon. And somehow, that changed everything. At Casa Mayor, the night unfolded quietly. The sky was…
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The Loudest Welcome: Bougainvilleas in Paluan, Mindoro
They say that flowers, like stories, travel. They root, they climb, and they bloom where they are loved. When I first walked into this charming hilltop villa in Barangay Harrison, Paluan, Occidental Mindoro back in 2024, the abundant bougainvilleas climbing every nook and cranny of the wooden balcony gave me a sudden, sharp pang of…
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A Month of Flowers, Faith, and the Quiet Ways We Remember
Every May, the Philippines bursts into color with Flores de Mayo, a beloved tradition honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is a festival of flowers, devotion, and community — one that shaped my childhood in ways I only fully understood much later in life. I was born in May, and when I was growing up,…
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Calle Real, where memory walks beside you
A third of my life was spent wandering this culturally rich stretch in Iloilo. Known to many as Calle Real, it is, officially, J.M. Basa Street—a name that marks its place in history, yet somehow feels distant from memory. For those of us who grew up here, it will always be Calle Real. The old…
