As the Peñafrancia Fiesta season draws near, I decided to go back to food, dining and restaurant reviews. My first article for the series brings me to 3rd Street of Soriano Avenue at Villa Sorabella Subdivision (Naga City) in a cute but comfy place called GREEN EARTH CAFÉ. By its name, you get a hint of what it offers. But let me first describe to you the place. With the café just at the street side and corner of another street, you’ll find a small but home-styled food joint. What greets you at the entrance is a trellis-type garden of ornamental ...

In my most recent article, I mentioned about going back to featuring food and dining in a series since the Peñafrancia draws near. Fiesta is always synonymous to fun and food. Though breads and cakes may not be considered as staples for fiestas, they have already been part of the Filipino (including the Bikolanos) food list. Especially with bread which is considered to be of western origin, it has been there as either for breakfast or merienda. For breakfast alone, even if we still have our rice or fried rice, we still make it a point to have some bread on the table. Even the national government has made the pan de sal’s price as a barometer for the average Filipino’s purchasing power. Cakes, on the other hand, have always become a ..

I write this surrounded by stacks of boxes and heaps of papers. Our office, the Japanese Studies Program, is moving with the rest of the departments to this spanking elegant structure of a building. We are leaving this white building that is set up like a paradigm shift and into the clean lines of the new Social Science Building. It is as if the new home for those disciplines that do the social scientific argue for the cleansing of our minds so that new frameworks, new perspectives can be developed. For that is really the work of those who are of the social sciences, to form and forge new and different ways of looking at things, not because change is always correct but that the world is forever changing and we can cope only if we are given the portals of vision that can accommodate the changes.

NAGA CITY (Nov. 17) – In a joint public hearing of the Senate Committee on Local Government headed by Sen. Benigno 'Noynoy' Aquino III and the Senate Committee on Public Order headed by Sen. Gringo Honasan, Naga City Mayor Jesse M. Robredo as well as other local government officials from Bikol assailed OIC Regional Director Police Senior Superintendent Balluigi Agnanayon Tira's mishandling of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in the region.

OCTOBER is the month when public school students go into a week-long break ending the first semester of the school year. The break also allows their teachers to attend training arranged by their respective division or district offices. I was reminded of this after my wife, who teaches geometry at Camarines Sur National High School, was extra-busy last week – as Math club president, she had to oversee their departmental in-service training and aside from that prepare something to share to fellow math teachers.

LABIS ang kasiyahan ko matapos basahin ang keynote address ni Ricardo Ma. Nolasco, chairman ng Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) sa 2007 Nakem conference na isinagawa sa Mariano Marcos State University noong Mayo 23, 2007. It made my day, ika nga.

IN ONE OF MY CONVERSATIONS with one of the Bikol writers over a cup of coffee and pastries, I shared my opinion on language, particularly on Bikol language. I must admit that I am not in a position to speak authoritatively about Bikol language and culture. Nevertheless, I can always give my opinion based on my perception and I am open to accept contrary opinions.

We were 16 or 17 when we left this city as high school students. True, some of us never changed location but we moved on and left four years of innocence behind. Many of us went to college here. Some of us went to the big city; the others went much further, across the ocean, into cities a lot bigger than our imaginations.

Manila, 07 August 2007— The Commission on Election (Comelec) decision over the contempt charges against election supervisor Lintang Bedol provoked negative reactions from many including Church and church-based groups. Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said Bedol’s case deserves a “stronger” penalty.

DAI PA sana man nahahaloy kan pinano an column na ini nin pag-orgolyo sa naaabot kan mga Bikolanong parasurat sa mga panahon na ini. Dara idto kan panggana ni Adrian Remodo kan Sawikaan 2007 para sa saiyang ‘miskol.’ Dai pa sana nahahaloy, alagad biyo talaga gayod minakurahaw an Kabikolan sa panahon na ini na ‘kami naman!’