Archive - Arts & Culture

By YOLANDA L. PUNSALAN JUANA Change, the heavyweight anti-corruption advocate, has changed. Huge change. From an overwhelming size of 275 lbs., she is now down to a manageable 192 lbs. At her heaviest, Paner needed an extension of an airplane seatbelt to strap her three layers of tummy whenever she flew.  She became alarmed by

Text, photos and video by VINCENT GO VARIOUS activist groups commemorated Women’s Day Friday with an assembly and a program at Plaza Salamanca off Taft Avenue in Manila, before marching to the United States Embassy. The groups called for the scrapping of the Visiting Forces Agreement and demanded the release of two of their companions

Text and photos by NORMAN SISON IT does not have the ambiance of a coffee shop. It has no barista nor brewed coffee. There is no one to serve you because there is nobody around at all — and that’s why it’s a regular stop for tourists.

By ERIN EMOCLING Photos from LUISA MANUEL MANY of today’s famous photographers, like American Terry Richardson, started their photographic pilgrimage early in life. But others take longer to discover their penchant for photography, like Julia Margaret Cameron, a famous British portraitist in the 1800s who began taking sepia-toned Victorian portraits in her late 40s. Twenty-two-year-old

  Text and photos by NORMAN SISON WHEN you touch down in Basco, the provincial capital of the Batanes Islands, the feeling of you being in the northernmost corner of the Philippines is immediate. It’s so quiet. The airport runway is good for small aircraft only. Its terminal, designed to look like a hut, would

  By ELIZABETH LOLARGA Photos by ANNA LEAH SARABIA CHAMBER music that is movingly, and thus successfully, played in a small setting has much to do with subduing the ego. The musician’s instrument engages in friendly banter with the others so they rise together to touch the sublime. Wednesday’s “Turning Point: A Chamber Music Evening”

  By ERIN EMOCLING TWO years ago on March 11, 2011, a magnitude-9 earthquake followed by a deadly tsunami hit Japan, claiming thousands of lives and destroying homes and other properties. Most affected by the megadisaster  was the Tohoku region in the north-eastern portion of Japan’s largest island of Honshu. The catastrophe caused widespread destruction

By PABLO A. TARIMAN  A glimpse of the glorious past of Catanduanes  is unraveled in the barely two year-old Catanduanes Museum in the old capitol building, one of the historic landmarks of the 12th largest island in the country. On exhibit are the 1895 window panel from the ancestral house of  Don Ariston Sarmiento, including

By ELIZABETH LOLARGA Photos by KIMI FERNANDEZ NEWBIE author Baboo Mondoñedo has reason to meet each morning with a full smile on her face these days.  She has lived a colorful, challenging life long enough to see a dream nurtured in her youth realized: the publication by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House of

  By PABLO A. TARIMAN  BEING classical musicians in a country — where noontime shows have more following than decent concerts — is always a struggle. Violinist Gina Medina, for one, isn’t just concertmaster of the Manila Symphony Orchestra. On top of her season orchestral schedule, she has to teach as well and coach young

  By PABLO A. TARIMAN MANILA is extremely lucky with excellent cellists as it is with great artists performing in its leading temple of the arts. In the 70s, Manila’s music lovers heard  the great French cellist Pierre Fournier, the “aristocrat of the cellists”; in the  early 80s, it had the great Russian cello icon

 By ERIN EMOCLING Photos from PUNCHDRUNK PANDA NOWADAYS, a wide range of products are readily available to consumers through the Internet. The real challenge in having an online business is how to make one’s products stand out from the competition. Punchdrunk Panda (PdP), a company engaged in online selling, offers unique and functional “world-class” Pinoy