David Haldane

Back to the barricades

The people’s convoy

Tiktoking teens

The lost boys

Who do you trust?

Embracing the new normal

“For the record, let me say that I am fully vaccinated and certainly don’t wish to get sick. If I must, however, bring on the Omicron sniffles. That would be far better, I suspect than any alternative I can think of.”

The past swept away

“Very little was saved,” says Jake Miranda, a former Navy diver and history buff whose efforts resulted in the creation of the Battle of Surigao Strait Memorial and Museum, arguably Surigao City’s most popular attraction. Many of the lost relics, in fact, came from Miranda’s personal collection.

Studying Shakespeare

And just like that, Shakespeare spoke to me: Awake, dear heart, awake. Thou hast slept well. Awake.

Omicron is good news for everyone

“Hey, wait!” my inner voice screamed almost loud enough for everyone within a five-kilometer radius to hear. This is the reason health officials ordered a new lockdown in Manila and confined unvaccinated citizens to their houses?

Thanks very big

“Salamat karadjao!” several exclaim, expressing gratitude in their native tongue.

Swept away

All of it is gone now, swept away by Typhoon Odette. And so I am left to contemplate life without those bolstering tokens of my past.

Severely damaged

We had been bracing for bad news, of course, but hoping it would be better. For several days we’d been scouring Facebook, increasingly shocked at the burgeoning slash of videos showing the utter devastation. A few hours before Jake’s post, one had especially grabbed our attention. In it, we saw a young man documenting the damage to Punta Bilar, our home barangay, when a voice in the background comments, “look at that house on the hill; it’s missing half of its roof.” “That sounds like ours, hon!” Ivy moaned as both our eyes widened in horror.