By Celeste Faith Dela Cruz

TODAY�S celebration of the feast of Pe�afrancia at the Our Lady of Sacred Heart Church Parish in Cebu is one way of bringing the patroness closer to the Cebuanos.

�This is our way of introducing the Our Lady of Pe�afrancia to non-Bicolanos for we are aware that she is not as popular as the others,� said Menchi Ybud, past president of Bicol Association of Cebu Inc., the organizing body of Pe�afrancia feast in Cebu.

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By Candeze R. Mongaya   

WHAT do you need most in this world? “Pangadji ra gyud (just prayers),” Manang Rocca answered.

Rocca Malolo-oy, a 50-year-old mother of six, has spent two months now in the psychiatric ward of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Hospital to look after her two daughters confined there.

She left behind the other four with her husband, Rolando, a construction worker living in a relocation site in Talamban.

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By Myke U. Obenieta

To see or hear no evil, ask the monkeys.
Not the dark and the flap of its feathers
between the ears. Nor silence igniting cotyledon
of consciousness. It explodes like petals out of lips
shaping the last breath. As it did when a whole village
suddenly saw, in the wake of a mudslide, the deepest
secret of roots. Or when old women stumbled
in a stampede to the game-show tune
of an instant million and heard in one fell
swoop the rumba of their bones so intimate
with the weight of mountains. It looms no less
ominous than smoke and water rising past
the breakdown of ice caps while the cold sprawls
its continents of blood from bombs reaping its
bumper harvest of ash. It is the taste of stain
from newspaper ink. It smudges some leaders’ smile
on the front page from where shrieks a forest
of monkeys. It’s when heaving a sigh of rage
gets too tricky for either Braille or sign language.

(Sun.Star Cebu Weekend)

back to home

By Quennie Rose P. Olaño

THE dress code implemented by the Archdiocese of Manila for Roman Catholic faithful attending masses has raised reactions from churchgoers, mostly from female teenagers. For many teenagers, the choice of what to wear belongs to the churchgoers and that the church needs not to take part in it.

Crischellyn Abayon, 18, says, “A person should not be stripped of his right to receive God just because of the way he dresses.”

“God looks through the soul. I feel that the church is supposed to emphasize that,” Iris Cornito, 17, shares.

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By Mae J. Mañacap<br>The Diva Wears Nada

WHEN it comes to directions, I’m Jack Sparrow’s compass: broken, north-challenged, pathetic.

I’ve resigned to this conclusion after my 14th interstate trip with a group of road trip junkies while on a nearly three-month stint miles from home. Never out on the road without a travel “bible” (read: Map Quest), we often appeared armed and ready like a bunch of cookie-peddling girl scouts each time we march out for a road adventure. And yet, we still find ourselves naturally lost somewhere at some point.

Perhaps the most lingering experience was when we headed for King’s Island, a popular theme park at Ohio. Unable to stick to the convoy plan, we ended up somewhere but near the amusement park–maneuvering barren fields, stopping over a secluded park by the lake, and circling roads that looked too familiar after the 8th U-turn.

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