10 months after landing a job in my dream city in Europe, I packed up and moved back to Manila. I have no regrets.
A personal essay about moving back home to the Philippines, published on Business Insider.
Ann & Billie Dumaliang (on the cover of Vogue PH)
Conservation may be a tireless job, but Ann and Billie Dumaliang are going to do it forever.
Rare Endemic Wildlife is Thriving in Masungi Georeserve
In a restored forest in the province of Rizal, rare animals and plants have found a home. Tactic hornbills eat fruits and greet visitors at the foot of the trail, while the long-tailed macaque waits; sometimes blessing passersby with a sighting as they lounge on canopies. This is Masungi Georeserve: an award-winning geotourism site.
Let the Children Play
Museo Pambata may have been built by grownups, but the place is what it is because of the kids. From their energy to their ideas, their visions and hopes, the museum’s president Bambi Mañosa is creating new spaces for kids and she’s letting them take the lead.
History Lessons
Time leaves its mark everywhere. In places with deep history, these marks need to be tended to with skill, expertise, and appreciation. Meet the men behind the Escuela Taller Foundation, an organization that is restoring heritage sites, like the 400-year-old San Agustin Church, all around Manila.
Nature's Path is Winding
We've all asked it at one point or another: What is the meaning of life? For Dave Albao, the question turned into a journey; one he started walking down when he was just 15 years old. Since then, he's traveled to the Buddhist temples in Cebu, almost graduating from the monastic tradition in the temples of Taiwan—before he found himself wanting to return to his hometown of Negros.
Back to Anilao: Our First Trip This Year
Since the early 1980s, Anilao has marketed itself as a premier dive destination. Now tourism employs roughly 2,000 residents, providing a sustainable source of living and full-time wages to former fishermen. After a year of lockdowns and shuttered doors, a team from GRID takes a trip down to Anilao to see how they are doing. But do we still remember how to travel?
The New Essentials: How to Farm at Home
Given enough time, you can save yourself trips to the grocery store and learn how to grow some much-needed fruits and vegetables from home. According to Nicolo Aberasturi from DownToEarth, urban farming can be as simple as potting the right cuttings and waiting for the fruits (no pun intended) of your labor to grow.
The Good Parts
As the food scene in Manila becomes more and more playful, it opens up a conversation about Filipino food and its dynamic roots.
Can We Rely on Bayanihan Spirit Alone to Keep Donations Going?
As COVID-19 travels throughout the world, many people are stuck at home; more than ever, they rely on their government to guide them through. But in the Philippines, there is a struggle—not only to keep COVID-19 in check but to provide basic necessities to areas that need it the most.
Aya's Garden
Once Aya Cabauatan ceremoniously lays down the cloth on her kitchen table, she knows her hands are going to stretch out for the camera. The first time she did it in the past few months, after a month-long slump, she was convinced by the color of the mangoes (“they’re always in season!” she exclaims).
In Between the Tides
Time passes differently in Siargao. Mornings and afternoons craftily turn into weeks, and then months, in a fog of sandy beach air and never-ending waves. Sunrises on the pier pass like seconds. Siargao is the kind of island that people move for. Camille Robiou du Pont did.
Portraits of a Chef
The mind of a chef requires a proper unpacking. I sit down with six of the Philippines' top chefs to talk about their obsessions, ambitions, and what keeps them up at night.
What Happens to an Ecotourism Town When the Wildlife Doesn’t Show?
Since the mid-1990s, the town of Donsol in the Philippines has based its economy around tourists viewing whale sharks. While they showed up in reliable numbers during the first decade of Donsol’s venture into shark tourism, their numbers have become highly unpredictable in the past decade for reasons still unknown.
Archeologist Thomas Ingicco and the 700,000 Year-Old Rhino Mystery
Dr. Ingicco is the leader of the archaeological team that unearthed a find in Kalinga that may prove that humans were in the Philippines ten times longer than previously believed.
It Takes a Village
Bahay Kalipay in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, is home to Pi Villaraza, the creator of innerdance and "energy school." A week in this artist's community produces a craving for coconuts but not a lot of answers. In the attempt to pin down what innerdance really is, a journey of healing, and all its quirks, begins.
The Wrestling Revolution
It began as a group of regular guys, risking their limbs in a wooden ring for the dream of doing it for an audience. Today they perform on their own stage. A story about how a generation of hardcore wrestling fans brought the wrestling fandom back to the Philippines.
Whang-od Loves Coco Martin
In Kalinga, ink was earned and not freely given. But culture changes, and now the community hinges the evolution of the meaning of a hand-tapped tattoo. A story about "The Last Mambabatok," the other mambabatok, and the lost meaning of a crooked centipede.
The Purpose-Driven Wardrobe
Monica Vivar, on the way we treat our clothes and what it says about how we treat everything else.
Getting Into Malasimbo
The Malasimbo Music & Arts Festival is a music-lover's dream, sculpted on both beach and mountain. But for the newcomer, it's also one big lost and found.
Parks and Preservation
In 2015, a 300-hectare area that had been rehabilitated from decades of illegal logging, quarrying and deforestation opened to trekkers and adventurers from Manila and beyond.
Off The Beaten Path
Some people have been waiting a near decade for the slow, sleepy town of San Vicente to catch up. Mayi Picazo, and his Urals, aren’t waiting any longer.
Design By Nature
Past Mt. Mayon, the patient province of Sorsogon steps into the spotlight and out of its neighbors’ shadow.
The Mayor's City
Davaoeños speak of their city like a myth—with both awe and secrecy, as though you might never understand if you haven't lived it. But every myth has its roots. With all eyes on President Duterte and his home, the country asks: What is so great about Davao?
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