First Person Archives

Like a post-apocalyptic Hollywood movie

Nov 17, 2013 9:01 AM

Text and photos by LUIS LIWANAG NATURAL disasters and extreme weather phenomena have become so routine lately that to hear the impending landfall of another supertyphoon failed to whet my appetite for another adrenaline-charged news coverage. Spending time with family and keeping my word on commitments to friends were at the top of my list […]

Cebu, Haiyan, Luis Liwanag, Ormoc, Tacloban, typhoon Yolanda

First Person Top Stories

One of Us – James Yap

Apr 02, 2013 4:30 PM

By JB BAYLON LAST Easter Sunday I watched PBA games live, sitting for the first time in the venue called The Arena at the Mall of Asia. I was transfixed – it was as if I had been transported to a city in the United States, or China even, as the venue was truly […]

James Yap

Chit's Desk First Person Focus The Chit Estella Road Safety Page (old) Top Stories

Living and Loving Chit Estella

Jun 21, 2011 11:17 PM

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.

chit estella

Arts & Culture First Person

An encounter with a Nobel Prize winner

Oct 11, 2010 10:58 AM

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 […]

Mario Vargas Llosa

First Person Top Stories

Confessions of a hitman

Mar 09, 2010 7:15 PM

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 […]

Chit's Desk First Person The Chit Estella Road Safety Page (old)

The Cory years

Aug 01, 2009 12:28 PM

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 […]

corazon aquino

First Person

Somalian piracy: How to keep RP seafarers safe

Apr 25, 2009 5:55 AM

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 […]