First Person 
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Living and Loving Chit Estella
By ROLAND SIMBULAN
YOU were snatched from us "as swift as the wind" as you were on your way to meet your high school batchmates that fateful evening of May 13, 2011. Your life and character, as eulogized by so many, personified you as "gentle as a forest, fierce as fire, firm as a mountain," to borrow from Sun Tzu. »Read More -
An encounter with a Nobel Prize winner
By ELIZABETH LOLARGA “And in keeping with his oft-repeated philosophical belief that novels should enhance and amplify life, not merely recount it, he has taken some liberties with history. But he quickly adds that ‘with essential facts, I have been loyal.’”–interview with Mario Vargas Llosa in January Magazine, 2002. It is a fact of literary »Read More
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Confessions of a hitman
Jesse (not his real name), a trusted henchman of the Ampatuans, narrates his role in the Nov. 23 massacre and subsequent coverup in the following account: I DID not have any opportunity to study. My family was poor and my father farmed land that was not his. I only reached grade one. I could neither »Read More
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The Cory years
By CHIT ESTELLA FOR someone who had undergone much sorrow and pain, Corazon Aquino laughed easily and well. People unaccustomed to hearing the former president laugh would quickly turn around to look for the source of the guffaw and be surprised at the woman who was known to be demure and self-effacing. But she was »Read More
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Somalian piracy: How to keep RP seafarers safe
By NICO CARTALLA WE departed the island of Seychelles in the Indian Ocean on April 6 for a 21-day trip that would bring us back to the Mediterranean port of Palma de Mallorca in Spain to get the M/Y Teleost ready for summer. The 160-foot private superyacht sails to the Mediterranean in summer and to »Read More
