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Immaculate Conception Cathedral Batangas City, Batangas Built-in 1851- photo was taken in 2000. As a child, growing up in Batangas, Batangas; it was not yet a city in the l950's, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, was an integral part of my childhood memories, just as it was for my ancestors from the time it was built. I was baptized in 1948. I am no longer a churchgoer, but the memories of this church seem to form a base in my core, and the essence is instilled within my soul. I was baptized beyond the doors in the back of the narrow, winding staircase in 1948. Every time I entered the cathedral I felt peaceful. I loved beautiful paintings, tall ceiling, and statues of all saints. I felt a reverence and desire to always keep the images alive within me. When I was about 8 years old, I even had dreams of becoming a nun. I watched every saint or biblical movie I could. I always preferred to go into the church when there was no mass. I liked being alon...

This is a late post, but El Nido always seems to be in the news of late and I haven't been back. We actually went to Corong-Corong, El Nido, a beach just before the town itself in January of 2015. It was blustery and not still and quiet waters like you seen in the postcards. I never did get to swim as the waves made it uncomfortable on my bad back but it was truly beautiful. We did try to drive into El Nido town in our truck, but the roads are too narrow to accommodate it so we stuck to Corong, Corong where we were able to park on the lot of a friend's friend. The town of El Nido as of this writing is very congested. The water in Bacuit bay has coliform bacteria due to raw sewage running into it. But people still throng there and once you get out of town on the tours to the various coves, all seems well. Personally, I am more of a forest elf, but I do upon occasion, enjoy the beach. I do like going out to snorkel in the sea on our banca, which is much different that sitting...

I was in Manila for  two weeks getting overhauled in a hospital for a week, and staying with good friends there afterwards. It was nice seeing friends I never get to see and strangely. I saw more friends from Palawan there that I never see in town. Odd to run into more of them in Manila than where I live. It's always wonderful to get back home after seeing nothing but sky scrappers, except for the verdant garden at the friend's house I was staying at. But for that little oasis, I might have gone nuts. It was nice to go for a walk down the road I live in and see not one concrete structure, but the road. Here is what I like to see, not much of anything but green and verdant valleys. It help me remember why I love Palawan. I have been so upset over the approval of a coal fired electric plant and the  Ocean Park  in a marine sanctuary, I almost forgot why I live here. Mangingisda Road. This is walking back towards my house from the Mangingisda Pier. A very common...

We moved to Palawan after searching other islands for our retirement base. I liked Palawan because it was so pristine compared to other cities. I also loved the fact that earthquakes don't happen here, nor the ferocious winds of the Typhoons that strike Luzon and other islands. In 2009,when we moved here, it was a laid back town. Not much of anywhere to shop for groceries except for NCCC and the public markets. I hated NCCC because they constantly blared Christian music so loud I couldn't even think straight, much less remember what to buy. I don't have anything against Christian music in general, except I didn't expect to have it blasted in my ears at a Supermarket!!! I think that should be left to churches. If I wanted to listen to that type of music...I definitely would have gone to church to hear it. To make matters worse, at checkout, they would stop the process to pray!!! This drove me crazy and I actually had to force them to stop praying and continue to check ...

by Vince Naso 1971 It was 1971, and I was 21 when I met a lovely man many years my senior, named Vince Naso. I think he was about 36 at that time. We hit it off right away and we were literally inseparable. Not long after, much to the chagrin of my conservative parents, we bought a house together and proceeded to set up house and home. I had been raised in the Philippines with household staff and ridiculously unaware of anything as mundane as putting things away etc. It was never asked of me to do one stitch of household work or any of the cooking. In fact, it never dawned on me to even consider it. Simply oblivious. When we moved in together, I pretty much winged it.  I always was fairly precocious, if not experienced, but here is one incident that backfired on me. One day he asked if I did laundry. Thinking, Hell everyone in America does laundry, they have washing machines. I mean how hard can it be?  I was pretty smug. In the Philippines, we had laundry people, and my...

Last week my husband and I were driving along the highway heading to town and in the middle of the road, on the yellow painted divider I saw something tiny moving....after we zipped past it, I realized it was a kitten! I begged my husband to go back, we already have so many rescued animals he wasn't too thrilled about it, but I knew if we came home and I saw it as a splattered ink spot, I would feel guilty all my life about it. So he relented and took me back. There were cars zipping and weaving as we approached it and I thought for sure it was a goner! This is the poor lil guy after I grabbed him from the highway! However we managed to safely pull over about 15 feet away and I ran over to it. The poor thing was so scrawny and thin, it could hardly move! I called to it and it began to stagger over to me! However it wasn't moving fast enough so I ran over to it and picked it up and brought it back to the truck. I had to de-f;ea the lil guy, clean his ears of mites, p...