Positively Filipino | Online Magazine for Filipinos in the Diaspora – The Magazine

Ube or Not Ube: The Philippines’ Next Big Export?

Rene Astudillo — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 16:40:37 +0000

Ube (Photo by Elmer Centeno Guevarra/Wikimedia)

Who would have thought that one of the Philippines’ most humble crops could become one of its most exciting export opportunities?

Ube.

For generations, Filipinos have eaten it in halaya (curd), ice cream, cakes, pastries and countless other desserts. We never thought much about it. It was simply ube.

But the rest of the world is beginning to discover what Filipinos have known all along.

Ube Halaya (Source: Wikimedia)

Ube is becoming fashionable.

Walk into cafés and bakeries in the United States, Europe, Australia, Japan or South Korea and you are increasingly likely to find ube lattes, ube croissants, ube doughnuts, ube cheesecakes and ube ice cream.

Social media has helped turn it into something of a global food phenomenon. But this is beginning to look like more than just another Instagram or TikTok food craze.

Following the Purple

The money is starting to follow the purple.

Philippine ube and ube-based exports reached about US$3.06 million in 2025. That is still tiny compared with the country’s traditional agricultural exports, but it is significant because it shows that international interest in ube is becoming a genuine commercial opportunity rather than merely a cultural trend.

And unlike many food fads that disappear as quickly as they arrive, ube has something going for it that could give it staying power.

It is different.

For one thing, there is that color. Ube is not just purple. It can be an almost startlingly deep purple. And that is both its biggest selling point and, potentially, its biggest problem.

People who have never encountered ube before can be hesitant when they see it. Is that color natural? Is it food coloring? What does a purple yam actually taste like?

We are accustomed to food looking a certain way. Strawberries are red. Bananas are yellow. Carrots are orange. Potatoes are brown or white.

Then along comes ube, looking like somebody dropped a bottle of purple dye into a yam. But that is precisely what the Philippines should capitalize on.

Sell the Purple

In a world where restaurants and food companies are constantly looking for something visually different, ube has a built-in advantage. Put an ube pastry beside an ordinary chocolate pastry and guess which one people are more likely to photograph and post on social media.

But color alone will not create a lasting international market. The taste has to deliver. And ube does.

It has a distinctive sweetness and aroma, with a flavor that many describe as nutty, creamy and almost vanilla-like. Certain varieties, particularly Bohol’s prized ubi kinampay, are valued for their exceptionally fragrant character.

Ubi kinampay (Source: Lunti PH/Facebook)

That makes ube much more than a purple food coloring. It is a flavor. And that distinction is important.

The Philippines should not simply export ube. It should build “Philippine Ube” into a brand. Think about what Japan has done with matcha. Or what Canada has done with maple syrup. The Philippines has an opportunity to do something similar with ube.

And there are already signs that the government is beginning to recognize its potential.

The Department of Agriculture has recently distributed about ₱2.6 million worth of ube planting materials to farmers in Leyte and Bohol, helping expand production of a crop whose international demand is growing.

That may sound like a small investment compared with the billions generated by the country’s traditional agricultural exports. But every major industry has to start somewhere. And ube is particularly interesting because we don’t have to limit ourselves to exporting the raw crop.

We can export ube powder. Ube puree. Ube extract. Frozen ube. Ube fillings. Ube beverage ingredients.

Ube Flavouring (Source: Reddit)

Ube products that can be shipped around the world and used by food manufacturers, pastry chefs, restaurants and beverage companies.

That is where the real money could be.

Instead of remaining simply a supplier of raw agricultural products, the Philippines can become a supplier of higher-value, uniquely Filipino ingredients.

But there is a warning here.

We should not allow ube to become another Philippine agricultural product where foreign companies make the big money while Filipino farmers remain at the bottom of the value chain.

If ube becomes a global phenomenon, Filipino farmers should be among its biggest beneficiaries.

That means better planting materials, technical assistance, reliable markets, processing facilities, quality standards and a supply chain capable of meeting international demand.

It also means protecting the identity of Philippine ube and, eventually, developing premium products around distinctive local varieties.

The opportunity is there. The world is curious about ube.

The deep purple may initially make some people hesitate. But curiosity is exactly what gets people to try something new.

And once they try it, the purple suddenly doesn’t look so strange. It looks delicious.

The Philippines should not simply export ube. It should build “Philippine Ube” into a brand. Think about what Japan has done with matcha.

That is the opportunity the Philippines should seize.
We have spent decades exporting bananas, coconuts, pineapples and other agricultural commodities.
Perhaps our next big agricultural export won’t be yellow, green or brown.
Perhaps it will be purple. Ube could be the Philippines’ next great export.
And for once, the world is already asking us for it.

Rene Astudillo is a writer, book author and blogger and has recently retired from more than two decades of nonprofit community work in the Bay Area. He spends his time between California and the Philippines.

More articles from Rene Astudillo

Little Manila: Filipinos Bite a Piece of the Big Apple

Sophie Festejo — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 16:40:31 +0000

A block of Little Manila, filled with Filipino business establishments (Photo by littlemanilapark.com)

Amid the bustling streets of Jackson Heights and Woodside, Queens, lies New York City’s very own piece of the Philippines.
Along an eight-block stretch of Roosevelt Avenue, the aromas of traditional Filipino dishes linger from Kabayan restaurant. Customers gather at Phil-Am Food Mart, converse with employees in Tagalog, and leave with bags of Filipino staples. This area, packed with Filipino culture, is known as “Little Manila.”
Little Manila is more than a street filled with businesses and restaurants. For many Filipino immigrants and Filipino Americans, it not only cures homesickness and strengthens cultural connections, it also is a community. With a population of over 50,000 Filipinos in surrounding neighborhoods, it makes New York City feel a little more like home.
The community dates back to the 1970s, when New York City hospitals recruited nurses from the Philippines, who brought their families and their culture with them. Many Filipinos resided in parts of Queens and quickly surrounded the streets with pieces of their culture. The street was officially recognized as Little Manila Avenue in 2021, with street signs solidifying the name in 2022.

Little Manila Avenue official street sign that was established in 2022 (Photo by Rose Anne Cox-Peralta/1010wins)

“Once you come here, it’s like pure gold,” said 24-year-old Ken Gurdien who co-runs Amazing Grace Grocery convenience store in Little Manila. “The restaurants smell like the carinderias in the Philippines,” he said, referring to food stalls commonly found lining the streets of the Philippines.
Gurdien’s family immigrated to the U.S. in 2022, while Gurdien stayed behind in the Philippines. “I had my own dreams, and I wanted to stay in the Philippines to continue pursuing my band,” he said. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Gurdien to change his plans. He then joined his family in the U.S. and soon after started his store in 2024 with his pastor, who wanted to connect Filipino communities through the business.
Today, they have reached not only Filipinos from different areas, but also customers from other ethnicities. “They really like the vibes and people here,” said Gurdien.
Kabayan, a nearby restaurant, serves mostly regulars, along with a growing number of people from other backgrounds. “We get mostly Filipino customers but also a lot of Spanish because they really like our bulalo–a soup with beef and bone marrow,” said Bea Manuel, a server at Kabayan, her mom and aunt’s restaurant. The restaurant has only been open for three to four years but is already well established in the community.

Diners at Kabayan restaurant in Little Manila (Photo by Sophie Festejo)

“When customers come in, I already know them,” said Manuel, “We know them by name, by face, and they know us by name.”
Little Manila has grown into a tight-knit community. “It really is a small world,” Gurdien said. “If you come and see this guy here, and then you go somewhere else, you’re going to see that guy again.”
Often, customers casually ask for items in Tagalog in convenience stores, and restaurant servers already know their usual orders, as if they were back home in the Philippines. Lani, whose last name was not shared, lives in Maspeth, Queens, and travels often to Little Manila for her groceries and the restaurants.
Most of the businesses are family-owned, and their owners hope to preserve Philippine culture in Little Manila for generations. Ida Castillo, 76, and her husband Emmanuel Castillo, 77, have run Phil-Am Food Mart together, a common spot for Filipino groceries, for 51 years. Mr. Castillo quit studying engineering to run the store and took over the family business. “Hopefully our son will take over when we retire,” said Mrs. Castillo.

Phil-Am Food Mart on Roosevelt Avenue, beside the Little Manila Avenue street sign (Photo by Sophie Festejo)

The store was initially located between 69th and 70th streets and moved to its current location in 1980, when the owner of the building asked whether the Castillos wanted to buy it. “He assumed the mortgage because I said we do not have money yet,” said Mrs. Castillo.
Since then, the couple has built a special store where customers are surrounded by Philippine culture. They offer a variety of authentic products–in fact, the couple estimates that 95 percent are supplied from the Philippines–and homemade prepared foods.
Phil-Am Food Mart also has an all-Filipino staff and maintains a close-knit work environment, as some have worked there for as long as 40 years. “We are like a family,” said Mrs. Castillo.

Shelves stocked with Filipino snacks and ingredients at Phil-Am Food Mart (Photo by Sophie Festejo)

Little Manila is the ideal location for Filipino businesses such as Phil-Am Food Mart, Mr. Castillo said, because “there are many Filipinos in Elmhurst, Jackson Heights.”
Many Filipino locals and business owners travel across regions to come to Little Manila. Gurdien commutes daily from Jersey City, a trip that can reach up to two hours, to run his convenience store. Meanwhile, the Castillos travel from Bayside, Queens. Imelda Cabinlan, a Filipino local, comes once a week for groceries and to eat Filipino food with her loved ones.

This area, alongside the diverse Jackson Heights, is home to many Filipino business establishments and residents, preserving Philippine culture and traditions in New York City.

Filipinos across the tri-state area regularly come to Little Manila when they are feeling homesick. It's not just an area with Filipino establishments, but a deeply tied community where traditions, language, and familiarity come together to preserve Philippine culture. Business owners hope to spread Filipino hospitality and community through their stores on Little Manila Avenue for generations to come.
“Working here really brings me back to the Philippines,” said Gurdien, smiling.

Sophie Festejo is a junior at Summit High School, based in New Jersey, and staff writer for The Verve, Summit High School’s newspaper. She enjoys writing feature articles centered around community, culture, and people’s everyday experiences.

Our First Date

Mona Lisa Yuchengco — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 16:40:22 +0000

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

I loved him the first time I saw him. I couldn’t believe that God sent me such a beautiful gift. I waited for the right time to be with him. In the meantime, I watched him from afar and near, at different hours of the day, at any place I could see him and be near him.
It took twelve years before he asked me out on a date. Like a love-struck teen, I anxiously waited for the day, going through several scenarios for how I could make our date memorable for him so he would ask me out again.
When we parked the car, he opened my door and held my hand as he led me into the restaurant. Such a gentleman! It was his favorite Japanese restaurant. We ordered so much food that the waitress had to repeat the order to make sure she heard it right. We ate everything.
Our conversations were simple but meaningful. He talked about his family, his friends, his favorite movies, his dreams, and golf. He was not shy at all. I learned so much about him that I didn’t know these past twelve years. I also shared some stories about my childhood. This was our first time to be by ourselves, alone, without the prying eyes of other people. I found myself seeing the world through his eyes.
When the meal ended, my grandson, Xavier, said, “I am paying for this, Nana.”
“Where did you get the money?” I asked.
“It’s my birthday money,” he replied. “I have $160 in my wallet.”
The bill turned out to be a little less than $100. He handed me the $100 bill and said, “Great. I still have $60 left.”
I didn’t know whether to cry or beam with pride. I chose to do the latter.

Xavier , first day of school, as a 7th grader. (Photo courtesy of Mona Lisa Yuchengco)

After lunch we went to my house to watch E.T., the movie, one of my favorites. He had not yet seen it (he wasn’t born yet when the movie was made) and I wanted to re-experience the movie with him. This time, I couldn’t hold back my tears as E.T. said goodbye to Elliot and his family. Xavier and I bonded with an alien who just wanted to go home.
For dinner, I brought him to Le Petit Chef, an immersive culinary show presented in 3D cinema directly on the plate. I brought my husband to this show for his birthday last May, and Xavier heard me talking about it, so he wanted to see it. Xavier was mesmerized by the whole experience. That’s when he told me he wanted to be a content creator when he grew up.
During the dinner break, he escorted me to the restroom, again holding my hand, and waited to bring me back to the restaurant. So thoughtful!
Our special date was nearing its end and I couldn’t help but wonder: will Xavier remember this day as much as I will – every bit of the shared memory – the laughter, the stories, the meals, the photos, the touches and hugs, and how deeply I love him? Children grow up faster than we expect and opportunities to create lasting memories are precious. With my sons and grandchildren, I have learned to build relationships one moment at a time.

It took twelve years before he asked me out on a date. Like a love-struck teen, I anxiously waited for the day.

My first date with my grandson, a full eight hours, is a reminder that love grows strongest when we spend time together. Xavier promised during our date that no matter how old he becomes, he would spend time with me. That’s all I can ask for.
P.S. I received this text from my son, Xavier’s father. “Thank you, Mom. Xavier had a great time. He is telling us all about it now and is so excited.”

My Grandmother’s Love

Phoebe Gwynn Francisco — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 16:40:13 +0000
We all carry stories about our lolas. Some are funny, some are bittersweet, and some become the stories we tell over and over because they remind us of where love first lived.
I grew up without memories of my maternal grandparents. They both died when I was still very young, and I don't have a single memory that I can truly call my own about them.
But my grandparents on my father's side were different. I remember them vividly, especially my lola.
There was a time when my lola became the primary caregiver of my youngest brother because both of my parents were working. My mama was a teacher, while my papa was self-employed as the cook and owner of our little karinderya (food stall).

Our karinderya

Because of that, I spent a lot of time with my lola. Together with her, I also became the designated watcher of my youngest brother. My lola was a really nice person, someone I deeply admired.

An old digital camera photo of me and my younger siblings

She was also the one who taught me how to wash my own clothes. She was the kind of woman who seemed capable of doing every task around the house. As a child, I simply thought that was normal. As an adult, I now realize how much work she carried every day.
Some of my favorite memories are the smallest ones. We would sit outside our house while she patiently searched through my hair for lice, teaching me how to find them with my own hands. Strange as it sounds, it remains one of the most precious memories of my childhood. Love often hides in the ordinary.
During my birthdays, she would secretly hand me money as if she were giving me something illegal. It was such a classic Filipino lola thing to do.
She also had an unmistakable sense of style. I don't remember ever seeing her in a plain T-shirt. She was always dressed in her floral terno (traditional dress) wearing different colors depending on the day, with one of her many decorative comb clips carefully tucked into her hair. As a child, I simply thought she dressed beautifully. Now I realize she carried herself with elegance that needed no special occasion.

My lola (right) wearing her colorful top

When my youngest brother was still in my mother's womb, we stayed for a while at my grandparents' house while Mama was preparing to give birth. Every visit there made us feel deeply loved.
Every time we visited, my lola would immediately tell my lolo to bring out the foam mattress so we could comfortably lie down. It was one of those little things that made us feel loved without her ever saying it.
My parents also made it a point to visit them often. I always thought it was because my papa was my lolo's favorite among all of his children.
Sometimes my lola would stay overnight in our house and sleep in our room. She was a devout Catholic who would always pray the rosary before sleeping, still wearing her floral terno.

My younger sister, and my lola at the back wearing colorful top.

Years later, when I came out, my lola never questioned me. She never made me feel different. She never needed grand speeches to show acceptance.
I never felt judged by her. I felt accepted for the person that I am. Some relatives would always tell me that I resembled her. Now that I think about it, I believe they were right.
Then came the day we lost her. It was during our barangay fiesta.
The house was full of people eating, drinking and celebrating. My papa was busy preparing food for everyone. My lola loved cooking, so she would often go near him just to talk while he worked. Every now and then, she would also check on my lolo, who struggled with alcoholism.
As the night went on, everyone became tired. My lolo had already passed out because he was drunk, while my papa had fallen asleep after all the preparations.
My lola asked one of my cousins for a glass of water, but the water never came. Perhaps everyone else had become caught up in the celebration. Then she called for me.
She told me she was feeling pain in her chest and asked me to call my mother.
Mama and my great-aunt immediately decided to bring her to the hospital. They boarded a jeepney together, hoping they would make it in time.
My lola took her last breath somewhere around the second bridge. She passed away before they reached the hospital.
Not long after, my cousin returned to our house crying, telling us that my lola was gone.
The hardest part was finding the words to tell my lolo when he finally woke up.
That night, I cried until I fell asleep. I remember listening to music while crying. I even woke up my brother, who had also passed out because he was drunk, just to tell him that our lola had died.
The days that followed were filled with sorrow. For the first time in my life, I saw my father cry. My father was never someone who openly showed emotion, but losing his mother broke something inside him. He told me not to cry, perhaps because he wanted to be strong for all of us. But neither of us could stop.

My father, always wearing a hat, with my younger brothers

Looking back now, I realize my lola taught me many things. She taught me that being vulnerable is never something to be ashamed of. I remember how she openly cried during the funeral of her own brother. She taught me that loving deeply also means grieving deeply.
She taught me to be sentimental. She taught me to be kind.

I think that is what Filipino grandmothers leave behind. Even when they have very little, they always find something to give.

I think that is what Filipino grandmothers leave behind. Even when they have very little, they always find something to give. Whether it is food, birthday money secretly slipped into our hands, prayers before bedtime, or simply making sure there is a mattress waiting for us whenever we visit.
To lose your grandmother is to carry a hole that never really closes.
I may not have always expressed my affection and love for my lola while she was still alive. But she never failed to express hers. And for that, I will always be grateful.
I will never forget you, Lola.

Phoebe Gwynn Francisco is a psychometrician and writer based in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu. Her essays on mental health, early adulthood, and love have appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer and other outlets.

Filipino Americans Sound Off on the Toboso Tragedy

James Sobredo — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 19:18:13 +0000

Aldrich Limpin Sabac (left) and Lyle Prijoles (right) during their college years at San Francisco State University, where they both double-majored in Asian American Studies. Prijoles was a talented spoken word poet, and Sabac, to this day, still carries in his phone a recording of Prijoles’s poem (Photo courtesy of Aldrich Limpin Sabac)

In the early morning hours of Wednesday, 19 April 2026, an armed confrontation occurred between the soldiers of the 79th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army and the Northern Negros Front of the New People’s Army (NPA) at Sitio Sinugmawan, Barangay Salamanca, Toboso, in the northern region of Negros Occidental. The gun battle, which, according to news reports, started at approximately 4 a.m., was the second encounter that month between the Army and the NPA. It was reported to have lasted 12 hours.
The armed confrontation occurred while the Army was conducting operations in search of NPA members operating in the Toboso area; in particular they were looking to apprehend the area commander of the NPA.

By the end of Wednesday’s armed confrontation, news reports state that 19 people lost their lives, including six civilians: UP Diliman student council leader Alyssa Alano and another UP student Maureen Keil Santuyo, journalist RJ Nicole Ledesma who reported on human rights and local stories from Bacolod, and community researcher Errol Wendel who was conducting research on “sugar plantation workers.”

Also among the six civilian casualties were two Filipino Americans: Lyle Prijoles, a 40-year-old resident from the San Francisco Bay Area and Kai Dana-Rene Sorem, a 26-year-old resident from the Seattle metropolitan area. They were both community activists in their respective Filipino American communities, who felt that it was important to also come to the Philippines and help poor Filipino communities.

Flyer for Kai Sorem (Source: International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines/facebook)

One member of the Philippine Army suffered wounds to both arms in the attack and was treated at a Bacolod hospital.
The Army’s official statement is that all 19 casualties were not innocent civilians but were “combatants.” The Army also claimed that the Toboso encounter was a “legitimate military operation.”
In contrast, the NPA stated that the six slain civilians were not NPA members. They do acknowledge that ten of the combatants were members of the NPA, including Roger "Ka Tapang" Fabillar, the local commander of the NPA and the target of the Philippine Army military operation.
The Commission on Human Rights in the Philippines notes that these conflicting reports call for a thorough independent investigation, which they started.
Reactions and Perspectives
It is within this context that I asked the opinions of Filipino Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Seattle metropolitan area.
“The massacre was a horrific travesty,” said Teresita Cataag Bautista, a well-known East Bay, San Francisco Bay Area activist. “What a shameful waste of human lives. The deaths of Lyle Prijoles and Kai Sorem are particularly heinous and shocking to Filipinos in the U.S.”
Bautista, who recently turned 80 years old, is a graduate of UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University (SFSU) and spent her life advocating for social justice and human rights. Like many Filipino Americans who lean left politically, she places responsibility on the Army: “The AFP must be held accountable for the deaths of innocent civilians.”
Adrich Limpin Sabac, a close college friend of Prijoles, also does not believe that Lyle was armed during the Toboso encounter. Sabac is an administrator in the Stockton Unified School District in charge of Ethnic Studies classes, an innovative program advocated for by educational and community leaders. Through these classes, students can learn about the history of Filipinos in America and other ethnic groups.

Adrich Limpin Sabac is an administrator in the Stockton Unified School District in charge of Ethnic Studies classes. Sabac also has an MA from UCLA and is currently in the PhD program at the University of the Pacific. A close friend of Lyle Prijoles, they were both double-majors in Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University (Photo by James Sobredo, Stockton, CA: Marina)

“I didn’t believe it,” Sabac explained when asked about whether Prijoles was armed in the Toboso encounter. “Not at all. He was never that kind of person. I could never see him bearing arms and being an aggressor of any kind. That was not him. He wrote poetry. He did photography, he was a storyteller. Those were his weapons. He was not the kind of person who would take up arms.”

Sabac was glad to see that there was a subsequent investigation by an independent legal group that visited Toboso and interviewed residents in the encounter area. From that investigation and interviews, it is reported that Prijoles and Sorem were unarmed civilians who helped farmers till the land. They came to Toboso, primarily, to learn about the social and economic issues local farmers faced and to assist the farmers.
Fact-Finding
One of those independent fact-finding investigators who went to Toboso was Troy Osaki, a 33-year-old Filipino-Japanese American lawyer from Seattle and a member of the National Lawyers Guild. He traveled to Toboso, Negros, the following month after the fateful day.

Troy Osaki is an award-winning poet of Filipino and Japanese ancestry in Seattle. A lawyer and member of the National Lawyers Guild, he traveled as part of a 100-member independent fact-finding mission to Toboso, one month after the tragedy. He met Lyle Prijoles in the Philippines in 2017 at a community emersion program and they have been friends and colleagues ever since. Osaki wrote about his fact-finding mission in Seattle’s International Examiner (Photo courtesy of Troy Osaki).

Osaki knew both Lyle Prijoles and Kai Sorem. In a detailed article published in the Seattle International Examiner, Osaki recalled in our interview boarding a plane for the Philippines as part of 100-member fact-finding mission that went to Toboso, Negros, to conduct an independent investigation on the events of 19 April.
Osaki was born in Seattle to Filipino and Japanese parents. He earned an ethnic studies BA degree from the University of Washington and went on to finish a JD from Seattle University.
Osaki is a great-grandson of a Buddhist minister whose family immigrated to Hawaii from Japan as plantation workers in the late-1800s. On his Filipino side, his Filipino grandfather left Bataan and immigrated to America at age 18.
His Japanese American family was incarcerated in World War II due to Executive Order 9066. The Japanese community in America (70% of whom were born in America) were seen by the U.S. government as a possible threat to American security, were consequently rounded by police and federal troops, and sent to internment camps. It was from this trauma that caused Osaki to study law and advocate for immigration rights and poor people’s rights.
In his article, Osaki remembered meeting Kai at a community meeting. He remembered she had a “bright tattoo of saxophone keys on her left forearm.” Then she led and conducted community members in singing Bigas Hindi Bala (Rice Not Bullets), a song she just learned in Cebu in her previous visit. Kai graduated with a music degree from Central Washington University.
Music, art and poetry were constant themes used to describe the two Filipino American who lost their lives in Toboso.
Many of the Filipino Americans interviewed for this article noted that Prijoles was a talented poet and a spoken word artist. Osaki is also an award-winning poet, spoken word artist and a critically acclaimed poet.
Immersion Program

They first met in the Philippines in 2017 as part of a community immersion program. Prijoles was the team leader for that program. Osaki was integrated into a peasant farmer community in Tarlac, “That trip was really formative for me.”
Osaki went to the Philippines to “understand why Filipinos leave in the first place and then had to face harsh conditions here in America.”
Osaki explained in our interview, “The experience of Filipinos here in the States is connected back to the home country and why we (sic.) had to leave the Philippines in the first place. I went back to learn what those problems were, just like Lyle.”
Like Prijoles, Sorem, and Osaki, Sabac is also a community activist who dedicated his life serving the Filipino American community. He a was born in Stockton, California, a working-class farming community that was the first and largest Filipino American community in America.
Sabac met Lyle Prijoles when they were students at SFSU, where they double majored in Asian American Studies. Sabac remembered Lyle as a very intelligent “nerd,” a talented poet and photographer. To this day, Sabac carries in his phone a professional quality recording of Prijoles’ “Nerd Poem,” a poem about his teenage years and being unpopular with women.
“He was such a funny guy.” Sabac said, with a smile and glint of joy in his eye. “Lyle was a nerd in every sense of the word. He was into Star Wars, and he was a big reader. He cared very deeply about people, especially impoverished people in the Philippines.”
‘Not Naïve’
The Filipino Americans interviewed who knew Prijoles reject the idea that he was naïve and easily persuaded and was brainwashed to join an armed movement.
“I find that extremely offensive,” Sabac said, who is the same age as Prijoles. Sabac has an MA from UCLA and is currently working on his PhD at the University of the Pacific.
After pausing, Sabac continued, “Lyle is one of the brightest, sharpest, critical people I know, who could have used his talents and gifts to be in whatever industry and make profit. Instead, he chose to live a life in service to community and serve people who are experiencing the most extreme form of poverty.”
Professor Eugene Gambol, who is department co-chair of Ethnic Studies at Delta College in Stockton, noted that, as an undergraduate, Prijoles was intellectually far more advanced for his years.

Professor Eugene Gambol is the department co-chair of Ethnic Studies at Delta College in Stockton, the first and largest Filipino American community in the mainland United States in the 1920s to the 1960s. He met Lyle Prijoles in Sacramento in 2003 at an event organized by Professor Consorcia Apostol-Rocamora, a very well-known Tagalog instructor at Sacramento City College. A few years later, when Gambol was an MA student at SFSU, he was surprised that the teaching assistant for the Filipino American class was Priojoles, who was an undergraduate at that time (Photo by James Sobredo, Delta College, Stockton, CA, November 2023).

Gambol first met Prijoles in 2003 in Sacramento at an event organized by Professor Consorcia Apostol-Rocamora, a very well-known Tagalog instructor at Sacramento City College.
Later at graduate school in San Francisco State University, Gambol was surprised that Prijoles, who was an undergraduate, was a teaching assistant for a Filipino American Studies class, which was taught by Professor Daniel Phil Gonzales, a well-known Filipino American professor and part of The Third World Liberation Front in SFSU that went on strike and gave birth to Ethnic Studies classes in America.
“I was the graduate student. He was the smart undergrad!” Gambol recalled fondly.

‘Not Duped’
Thus, Professor Gambol also rejects the idea that Prijoles was duped into joining the armed movement. After a long and pause, Gambol explained, “That’s a narrative that often is used to describe human rights workers. They don’t think for themselves or that they are brainwashed… They get red-tagged. Or they say they are communists.”

Gambol concludes by saying, “I believe he was there for human rights advocacy work. That is why he was there.”

Osaki, who was in Toboso as part of fact-finding investigative mission, holds very strong views about Prijoles and Sorem and the type of work they were doing: “I was able to visit the community that Lyle and Kai were in… What people were saying was they knew both Kai and Lyle. And every time they saw them, they were trying to help. They were trying to participate in any kind of farming. Or they were trying to learn about the problems the community was facing. And no one reported seeing them with any kind of firearms or holding any guns.”
Memory and Legacy
Professor Gambol will always remember Prijoles’s demeanor, which is “how to relate to people on a humanistic level.” Gambol explained, “He knew the pulse of what the youth were suffering here in the Bay Area and in the Philippines. He gave voice to the next generation.”
Ironically, Gambol sees Prijoles’s life as a continuation of Rizal revolutionary views and the fight for justice. [8:00]
But it will be the memories of Lyle Prijoles the person that will remain in Gambol’s mind.

Among the six civilian casualties were two Filipino Americans: Lyle Prijoles, from the San Francisco Bay Area and Kai Dana-Rene Sorem, from the Seattle metropolitan area.

“Everyone is going to say he is a nerd and that he’s smart,” Gambol laughs, as memories of Prijoles come mind. “He was a goofy intellectual, but behind all that he had the heart and passion to connect to people.”
Sabac also remembers the precious funny moments he had with Prijoles. Sabac is an introvert while Prijoles had so many friends and enjoyed socializing: “I will never forget that when I did not feel like going out, he would just show up and say, “I’m here!” He just ignored me attempting to be introverted. He was a friend you could always count on.”
When he was an MA student at UCLA, Sabac remembers their last dinner in Los Angeles, “Lyle just called and said, ‘I’m going to be there in 5 minutes!’ … I will never forget him, and I will never stop telling his story.
Osaki spent a large part of his life working with Prijoles. He explained that Prijoles was best friends with Brandon Lee, a Chinese American journalist from SFSU who took Filipino American classes and fell in love with the Philippines and its people. Lee ended up being shot for his advocacy work in Ifugao Province and became paralyzed from the waist down. Because of his friendship with Lee, Prijoles knew the reality and risks of doing human rights work in the Philippines.
Despite this, Prijoles wanted to be in the Philippines long term and to continue working with helping poor communities.
Osaki recalled what Prijoles’s sister said, “Whatever Lyle ended up doing, he would have always ended up back in the Philippines because that is where his heart is at.”
The Filipino Americans interviewed who knew Lyle Prijoles and Kai Sorem personally are still grieving and are doing the best they can to cope with their loss. They hope that a policy solution can be found so that this tragedy will not happen again. For now, however, they hold on to the precious memories of their friendship and times together. (Reference sources available upon request.)

James Sobredo, PhD, is professor emeritus of Ethnic Studies at Sacramento State University. He splits his time living in the San Francisco Bay Area and Manila.

More articles from James Sobredo

With Feathers on Her Cap

Anthony Maddela — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 19:18:07 +0000

Romero with a Florida Scrub-Jay in the field (Archbold Biological Station, Florida. All birds handled with the proper permits (2022) Photo courtesy of Faye Romero)

A few thousand Florida Scrub Jays inhabit less than 50 square kilometers of Southeast Florida. The plight of this acorn eater on a diminishing swath of Florida oak scrub parallels the struggles of many bird species that are endemic to isolated islands of the Philippines. Lessons learned from efforts to save the Florida Scrub Jay could help arrest the decline of critically endangered species like the Palawan Cockatoo.
The Palawan Cockatoo and the Florida Scrub Jay are among the roughly 48,600 species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. Their populations dwindle as habitat becomes the ground under housing developments, orchards, and other human pursuits.
Flocks of non-migratory birds like Florida Scrub Jays don’t seek new territories. Jays are social creatures, but their declining territories allow fewer social exchanges between neighboring flocks. As opportunities to refresh the gene pool collapse, inbreeding turns from a preventable risk into an inevitable reality.

Florida Scrub-Jays at Archbold Biological Station. You can see the colored bands around their legs, which helps us identify each bird individually (Photo by Reed Bowman)

Chronic Decline
“That is a chronic problem in species that are declining on the wild,” states Faye Romero, doctoral candidate in Evolution, Ecology, Genetics and Genomics at University of Rochester in New York. “As populations get smaller and are confined to an area, then they’re going to interact with each other.”
“Some commonly overlooked effects of about inbreeding start with reduced hatching success, lower birth weights of nestlings, and a smaller total number of offspring that each bird ends up having. In our field,” says Romero, “we call it the Extinction Vortex when individual animals show these negative consequences. It just keeps snowballing until they’re gone.”
Though her dissertation project involves birds in the wild, Romero performs all her computational work indoors. “I do genetics work at a computer.” She elaborates, “The way I describe it to folks is that I’m basically 23 and Me and Ancestry.com for wild populations of animals. A central goal of conservation genetics is to develop models, techniques and tools to diagnose the health of a population.”
Genetics research can deliver accurate predictions of whether a species will flourish or languish. “We can look at the genetics of a species and see whether it’s in trouble. They may seem to be doing okay numbers wise today, but the genetics are telling us that maybe in fifteen, twenty years, they might be doing worse,” Romero exclaims.
Ray of Hope

Field work (All birds handled with the proper permits (2022) Photo courtesy of Faye Romero)

Romero offers a ray of hope. “While we’re seeing their numbers continue to go down, I’m not pessimistic about the Florida Scrub Jay because we have lots of good scientists thinking about them.” People are naturally motivated to protect these birds that pack a high charm quotient. “They’re very charismatic and unique, and they’re one in only a handful of birds that are endemic to the U.S.”
Florida Scrub Jay are cousins of the American Crow in the Corvidae family. Like crows, these intelligent passerines or perching birds have sophisticated family structures. “They’re able to reproduce at one year old, but they are cooperative breeders. When they first reach maturity, they hang around the territory of their parents. They may do this for one or two years so their parents can raise successive generations.”
She will finish her PhD in a year. Her insights add to over 40 years of research by a long line of friends of the Florida Scrub Jay. Genomic work with this affable species will not end when Dr. Romero leaves Rochester, but hope abounds that her research will keep inspiring the public to take initiative in protecting bird habitat. Adults and youth have embarked on citizen science projects that complement Romero’s genomic work and may lead to solutions we cannot yet imagine.
From Nature Lover to Birder to Scientist
Romero earned a B.S. in Molecular Environmental Biology from University of California at Berkeley before moving to Rochester, NY for graduate school. Asked her age, she answers, “late 20s.” She and younger sibling George were born to Art and Gena Romero after the couple immigrated from Batangas to Houston. Her husband, Nate, is an engineer she met while indulging in swing dancing, her No. 1 non-scientific passion.
She developed an interest in wildlife in middle school when her family left Houston to live beachside in Perth, Australia. While her life list spans 480 bird species, her interest in nature started as a generalist.
“I was generally interested in the outdoors and nature. Because all the birds in Australia are so unique and different, it’s kind of ironic that I only got into studying birds as an undergrad at UC Berkeley.”
A preternatural curiosity about birds led to hikes with birdwatching groups, banding at Braddock Bay Bird Observatory in Ontario, Canada, a visit to Costa Rica and its over 930 species of birds including her favorite, the Resplendent Quetzel, and a nonstop vigil of alerts on her phone’s eBird app of sightings of the rare Kirtland’s Warbler.
A lifer bird is a rare species that a birder expects to see only once in her lifetime. In May 2024 while on a family visit to the Palawan Islands, Romero saw two lifer birds. “The coolest thing I ever saw was either the Palawan Hornbill or the Stork-billed Kingfisher,” she gushes. “They are these amazingly unique birds.”
While she cannot name a “spark bird” that ignited her fascination with birds, the signature study where the former Berkeley undergraduate made her earliest mark in wildlife science involved hummingbirds—the world’s tiniest birds.
A Pioneering Hummingbird Study

A single male Anna’s Hummingbird museum specimen from a side-on perspective. This particular specimen was collected in October 2006 from the UC Berkeley campus in Berkeley, California (see the metadata on the specimen tag!). This specimen is from UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

In 2019, Berkeley graduate student Nicholas Alexander embarked on his landmark study to examine whether the beaks of Anna’s Hummingbirds changed after 1940 when residents of Southern California and Baja California began hanging birdfeeders, which offered sugar dissolved in water as a new food source other than the plant nectar hummingbirds consumed in nature.
Around the beginning of his research, Alexander added Romero to his team. “He happened to be a teaching assistant in a biology course I was in. He noticed that I was passionate about the class and that I liked to participate,” remembers Romero. “He told me I have this question you can help me answer by using museum specimens.” She was more than just intrigued.
Alexander posited that by comparing the beaks of Anna’s Hummingbird specimens (known as study skins) from mid-1800s to1940 with those that lived after that year, they would observe structural (taxonomical) changes to more easily access the tiny holes of backyard hummingbird feeders.
While assisting Alexander in comparing pre-1940 study skins with post-1940 ones, she observed distinct differences in bill taxonomy. These adaptations became commonplace among Anna’s Hummingbirds. “We still see birds that lived in higher density of feeders had bills that are longer and more tapered than those that didn’t.”

Thermal image of a perched Anna’s Hummingbird. This shows the bird releasing heat through its bill while perched (note the Celsius temperature scale on the right-hand side… the warmer the color, the hotter the temperature). This image is from Don Powers’ lab at George Fox University.

Natural Selection
Filipino Darwinists will note similarities between the Alexander study and the natural selection theory of their hero. Charles Darwin made comparisons of the beaks of a single species of finch that branched out into four distinct species over the course of two million years after its migration from South America to isolated islands of the Galapagos.

A simple schematic displaying one of the results from our hummingbird study (Alexandre, Romero, & Simon et al. 2025, Global Change Biology). We found that Anna’s Hummingbird bills were thinner and more tapered in locations with more artificial feeders.

It is myopic to dismiss Alexander and Romero’s work as a modern replication of 19th century findings. Their accomplishment has nothing to do with an existing body of knowledge but advances the new field of Urban Evolution, which focuses on survival of species under human-imposed stress.
Romero would love to conduct similar studies in the Philippines. “With seven thousand plus islands, the Philippines must be one of the top countries with the most endemic species on Earth,” she declares. “There are amazing opportunities for scientists to learn about evolution and conservation.”
And Romero has good news if you worry that your neighborhood hummingbirds are suffering from a steady diet of nutrition-free sugar water from your feeder. “I like to remind people that regardless of how frequently hummingbirds visit a bird feeder, a majority of their diet is still flower nectar.” She adds, “There are studies that show that if given an abundance of flowers or a feeder, the hummingbird will go for the flowers.”

Lessons learned from efforts to save the Florida Scrub Jay could help arrest the decline of critically endangered species like the Palawan Cockatoo.

Faye Romero has coding talent and patience to decipher genome sequences longer than a small intestine (which is four times longer than your large intestine). And she swing dances! As to whether evolution endowed her with the one talent that unites Filipinos everywhere, she proclaims, “Yes, I like to sing.”
When she’s handed the karaoke mic, “You know who I’m obsessed with right now? Olivia Rodrigo. Her music is great and she has great karaoke songs that are fun to sing. Driver’s License is a classic.”

Anthony Maddela is a staff correspondent of Positively Filipino and a member of the Board of Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society.

More articles from Anthony Maddela

The Manong Who Never Loses

John Rey — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 19:17:17 +0000

FilipinoDama.com

Every Filipino plaza has one. In Romblon, Romblon, ours held court on a wooden bench outside the barbershop: a square of plywood balanced across his knees, its grid drawn with a ball pen that had long gone dry, then traced over again with a carpenter’s pencil. The pieces were tansan—bottle caps—with “Coke” facing up for one side and “Royal” facing down for the other. He was the manong who never loses, and every town has him, the way every town has a church bell.
I learned the game from my neighbors and cousins when I was seven, maybe eight. The first thing you learn about dama (native checkers) is not how to make a move. It’s that the game punishes politeness. In Filipino dama, captures are not optional. If a jump is on the board, you must take it — and not just any jump, but the longest one available, the line that eats the most pieces. Hesitate, play the safe move instead, and the manong will reach across the board, make your capture for you, and shake his head like you had tried to pay for gasoline with prayer.
That rule — mandatory capture, maximum capture — is where all the arguments come from, and the arguments are half the game.
Is a line of three men worth more than a line of two if one of the two is a dama? Someone's uncle insists the count is in pieces; someone else swears his own uncle, a jeepney dispatcher of great integrity, counted quality over quantity.
Voices rise. Bystanders are consulted. A tricycle driver who has not played in years delivers a ruling like a Supreme Court justice. Then the caps go back on the board and the game continues. The rules of dama were never written anywhere. They lived in the manongs, passed down by argument, the way a dialect survives by being spoken.
Old Game

The traditional Dama game (Source: Memories of Old Manila Facebook/Beatriz Manansala)

The game itself is older than any of us knew. Dama descended from the Spanish damas, brought over in the colonial era, and when the American anthropologist Stewart Culin surveyed Philippine games in 1900, a form of dama was already there among them — played then on boards of drawn lines and intersections.
Over a century it shifted, the way spoken things do: onto the 8x8 checkered board, onto plywood and bottle caps, into the plazas and barberias. Filipino dama grew its own distinct body of rules — men that capture backward as well as forward, the crowned piece becoming a "flying" dama that slides the whole diagonal like a bishop with a grudge. It became ours. And still, nobody wrote it down.
My own dama years came in two waves, and the first is still vivid to me: a knot of cousins and neighborhood kids crowded around one board, winner-stays, everyone else loudly coaching whoever was losing. That was how the rules reached me — not from a book but from children barely older than I was, who had them from children barely older than them.
The second wave came in high school, when the games had already thinned to occasional ones, a match here and there when a board turned up. And then, they went quiet altogether. Nobody decided to stop playing. I did not even notice at the time that anything was being lost.
Undocumented
Undocumented games do not die loudly. There is no funeral for a board game. The bench empties one player at a time, the kids drift a few meters away into their phones, and one day the plywood board is just gone — used to patch a fence, maybe. When a manong dies, his openings die with him, his traps, his rulings on the quality-versus-quantity question. What is lost is not entertainment. It is a whole afternoon culture: the teasing in Tagalog, the lessons about patience and consequence, the etiquette of losing to your elders until the day, unthinkable and inevitable, when you finally beat them.
So I decided to write it down. All of it. I documented the Filipino rules move by move, in English and in Tagalog, and then I went one step further and rebuilt the game itself as a free browser game at FilipinoDama.com — no downloads, nothing to buy — so that it runs on the same phones that pulled the kids off the bench in the first place.
There was a certain justice in that, I felt. Building it forced a strange reckoning: a computer cannot shout, so every argument the plaza settled by volume, I had to settle by decision. Encoding the rules taught me that the arguments were never a flaw in the game. They were the way the game was remembered.
Across Distances
What I keep thinking about now is distance. There are millions of us scattered from Daly City to Dubai to Doha, and a plywood board does not travel — but a link does. A kid in California can now play the exact game her lolo played outside a barbershop in Romblon, flying dama and all, and when she visits home she will not need anyone to go easy on her.

The writer decided to write down all the unwritten rules of the Filipino board game dama, move by move, in English and in Tagalog, and rebuilt the native checkers as a free browser game at FilipinoDama.com.

The browser version was never meant to replace the bench. It is a bridge back to it. The real dream is smaller and more stubborn: that somewhere, a father who half-remembers the rules looks them up, draws a grid on a pizza box, raids the refrigerator for bottle caps, and sits down across from his daughter.
The manong who never loses is not really a person, I have come to think. He is an office, like barangay captain’s — vacated and filled, generation after generation, for as long as there is a board and someone willing to be beaten at it until they learn.
Someday, if I am lucky and stubborn enough, the office will fall to me: some plaza, some bench, some kid across the board hesitating over a capture. I already know what I will do. I will reach over, make the move for them, and shake my head — because that is how the game is taught, and the game, salamat sa Diyos, is still being taught.

John Rey grew up in Romblon, Romblon, an island province in the central Philippines, and is the builder of FilipinoDama.com, a free browser version of Filipino dama with illustrated rules in English and Tagalog. He built the site so that the game his cousins and neighbors taught him would stay within reach of the next generation, wherever in the world it grows up.

Growing Up Tough in Sta. Ana, Manila

Ben Gaetos — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 19:17:07 +0000
"Mabuhay, Welcome Home,” read the sign at Ninoy Aquino International Airport. It is always an uplifting feeling to be back in your homeland.
I was born the youngest of nine children. Two siblings came before me, but they passed away before my birth. Mom later adopted two of her younger brother’s children.

My parents: Alejandro and Florentina Gaetos (Photo courtesy of Ben Gaetos)

Both my parents were from the province of La Union. I was born and raised in Sta. Ana, Manila. Dad was a delivery driver for Dangwa Tranco, which operated from Manila to Baguio City and the mountain provinces. He picked up and delivered transited packages from the bus terminal.
My mom was a housewife and seamstress. She made dresses and wedding gowns. Her claim to fame was making dresses for the famous actress—and across‑the‑street neighbor—Miss Rita Gomez in the ’60s.
As I looked out from the roof deck of our house, I began to ponder my childhood memories. Most of the houses have been rebuilt into multilevel structures, including ours. Distant high‑rise condominiums can now be seen from our deck. Holy Family Chapel remains and is undergoing renovations.
Our family had limited resources. We did not own a television set or luxury items. On Friday nights, I watched Combat and Saturday morning cartoons through a neighbor’s window. It took years before we owned a television. My eldest sister, Tessa, shipped one from the U.S. She was a nurse anesthetist in Canada and the U.S. All my brothers and sisters went to public schools. I was fortunate to study at Paco Catholic School.

My sixth-grade graduation at Paco Catholic School (Photo courtesy of Ben Gaetos)

Our street has grown more densely populated, resulting in heavier traffic and increased noise. Hearing karaoke late at night has become commonplace.
In the past, our street transformed into a playground with traditional Philippine games such as tumbang preso (players knock down a tin can with one of their slippers and avoid being tagged by the “it” person); patintero (a team tries to cross lines drawn on the ground or pavement and avoid being tagged by the opposing team); and taguan (hide-and-seek).
I also played other street games such as piko (hopscotch), sipa (“kick”), jolens (marbles), teks/pitik (snapping cards or rubber bands with fingers), giyerahan (war games using wood rattler guns or sticks), trumpo (spinning top), and even invented our own, such as boat racing on street gutters. My late eldest brother, Guillermo, made me a wooden scooter so I could race with the other kids.
To earn a little money, I recycled newspapers and glass bottles. I secretly tried peddling rice cakes and egg rolls. That was short‑lived because my mother disapproved. I really enjoyed calling out “bi‑bing‑ka,” “u‑beh,” or “lum‑piaa” while ringing a bell in the looban (interior alley). I earned two pesos per tray sold in the late ’60s to buy myself toys. Mom eventually decided to make and sell ice candy at home.
My dream of becoming a runner developed from watching track and field. I would race my friends for about two blocks. However, running drew little interest, as basketball—then and now—remains the premier sport. Every open space had a basketball court. Our house was also next to a billiard parlor. I learned how to hustle money on the wooden pool table. In addition, my dad and brother Guillermo always took me to the racetrack. I knew horseracing at an early age. If I did not take an afternoon nap or was playing outside, my older brother, Alex, took me to the movies. My other brother, Sen, and sisters Lydia and Remedios looked after me every time. True, I had fun, but I never neglected my studies. There were no electronic gadgets, cell phones, or computers then. Learning to take care of myself, I stood my ground against bullying kids.
During summer, Mom and I visited Apong Iling (Grandma Aquilina) in San Gabriel, La Union. Mom and her siblings owned a small farmland. Before sunset, I would pick up the carabao from the field and take it to the nearby waterfall. My cousin Rene and I also checked his quail traps. We walked a little farther to the now‑popular Tangadan Falls. Apong loved me so much. One time, she asked my Uncle Felipe to slaughter one of the hogs just for me. She passed away at 100 years old.

This is what our street in Sta. Ana looks like at night now (Photo courtesy of Ben Gaetos)

One of my childhood best friends and sidekicks was Ramon, aka “Pi‑pe.” He was deaf and about my age. Somehow, we communicated with improvised sign language. He waited for me when I got off from school and carried my bag. He also assisted me in scrubbing our wooden floor and accompanied me when I did errands. His family later moved away.

Only a handful of my childhood friends still live in the neighborhood. Some achieved success while others did not.

My dad succumbed to heart failure when I was in junior high school. My mother opened a clothing store at Sta. Ana Public Market. I opened and closed the store on school days off. I was starstruck when the superstar actress Amalia Fuentes bought a blouse from me. Mom arrived at the store after morning Masses or after shopping for merchandise. Before going home in the morning, I would buy palabok noodles at the market. We sold our store when we immigrated to the United States. Whenever I visit Manila, I order palabok from the same place.

I still visit the same palabok joint from my childhood (Photo courtesy of Ben Gaetos)

Only a handful of my childhood friends still live in the neighborhood. Some achieved success while others did not. I remain in contact with my close friends and classmates. The street kid in me helped me manage demanding situations later in life. It made me tough as a brick. Times change, but the memory remains.
The author extends gratitude to Dexjordi Lyle Sison for his assistance with the photos.

Ben Gaetos traded blueprints for finish lines. A proud University of Santo Tomas architecture graduate and former project‑managing architect for Los Angeles Recreation and Parks, he surprised even himself by outrunning his own dreams. He became the first Filipino to conquer the notorious Badwater 135 — Death Valley’s blistering, soul‑melting ultramarathon. And because epic feats deserve epic storytelling, he penned two books about the journey: I Dreamed, I Ran, I Conquered and Dream, Great Things Are Coming Again.

More from Ben Gaetos

Finding the Philippines and Its Economic Future Far from Home

Cesar Polvorosa Jr. — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:39:49 +0000

Oscar San Pedro (right) and Mark Harder run the gasoline station at Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. (Photo by Mona Lisa Yuchengco)

The last places I expected to encounter the Philippines were in a farmer’s market in a Canadian Atlantic coast city and along the rugged coastline of Nova Scotia.
My family and I had traveled to Peggy's Cove, one of Canada's most iconic destinations, famous for its lighthouse perched on granite rocks overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Yet even in this windswept remote corner of the country, there were reminders of a familiar presence. Filipinos were there. It turned out to be just a preview.
The following day, we visited Hall's Harbour along the Bay of Fundy in western Nova Scotia, known for having some of the world's highest tides. At the lobster restaurant overlooking the harbor, I noticed and spoke with Filipino staff. After a long drive over meandering roads through picturesque farms and woodlands who do we find at the journey’s end? Filipinos.
On our final day in Halifax, we stumbled upon the Farmers' Market. What surprised me most was discovering three Filipino food stalls. Above the noon time din of a crowded market, we spoke with one owner in Tagalog. She was so glad to have Filipino customers she gave us one free order of bihon (rice noodles)

Farmer's Market in Halifax, Nova Scotia with Filipino owned food stall (photo credit to author)

They had become part of the broader community, introducing Philippine flavors and entrepreneurship to Canadian customers.
Three encounters in as many days.
A lobster restaurant. A farmers' market. A tourist destination.
They seemed like ordinary observations from a family trip. Yet they were reminders that Filipinos have become woven into the economic and social fabric of societies around the world.
The Filipino diaspora is no longer simply a story of migration. It is a story about global economic and cultural participation. And increasingly, it is a story about the future of the Philippine economy.
The Invisible Visible Minority
Years ago, in a chapter I wrote on Filipino entrepreneurship for a University of Toronto Press volume on “Filipinos in Canada,” I described Filipinos as the "Invisible Visible Minority." I used it again in my short story, Moving Furniture published in the Akdaan Anthology.
The phrase captured a fascinating paradox.
Filipinos are among the fastest-growing immigrant communities in Canada and one of the world's largest diasporas. They are present in hospitals, universities, corporations, restaurants, small businesses, and public institutions. Yet despite their numbers and contributions, they often remain less visible in national conversations about immigration, entrepreneurship, the cultural discourse, and economic and political influence.
They are visible everywhere and yet frequently, overlooked and never demanding attention.
This paradox is not unique to Canada. It can be observed in communities across the world.
During my graduate studies in Japan, I encountered Filipinos in many different settings. I even spent one New Year’s Day at the Tokyo apartment of a UP professor. At the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. my wife and I were pleasantly surprised when the staff giving the tickets greeted us in Tagalog as she overheard us conversing. We had a short but animated chat.
A few years ago, while traveling in Europe, my family and I encountered Filipino workers in another global environment—the tourism industry. On a cruise ship sailing through the shimmering Mediterranean Sea, Filipino crew members were quite cheerful to see us Filipino Canadians. In a trademark of Filipino hospitality some of them came by and brought a bottle of champagne to the cabin of our sons.
These experiences reinforced a simple observation:
Wherever globalization creates opportunities, Filipinos are often present. They not only worked in industries traditionally associated with overseas employment, but many others were professionals, caregivers, educators and entrepreneurs. But their importance goes beyond their ability to adapt.
Their presence represents a global network of skills, relationships, and trust.

View of Hall's Harbour from the Lobster Restaurant at the Bay of Fundy. Note the difference in the tide levels. At low tide the boats are literally stuck in the mud (Photo credit to author)

From Remittances to Filipino Diasporic Capital
For decades, the economic contribution of overseas Filipinos has been measured primarily through one indicator: remittances.
And rightly so.
The Filipino diaspora counts more than 13 million Filipinos which is one of the largest communities in the world. Their financial contributions have become a pillar of the Philippine economy. Annual remittances exceeding US$40 billion have helped support millions of Filipino families, strengthened household consumption, financed education and healthcare, and provided a stable source of foreign exchange.
Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) have rightly been called modern-day heroes of the republic.
Their sacrifices have transformed lives by lifting families out of poverty and some were able to send their children to western schools. One of my Filipino students in the Canadian university I teach was financed by her mother working in Dubai. An excellent student, she is an exemplar of the next generation of the diaspora.
But the story cannot end there. Remittances represent only the most visible contribution of the diaspora.
They do not fully capture the knowledge, expertise, networks, and opportunities created by Filipinos living abroad.
This article develops the concept of Filipino Diasporic Capital to describe the combined human, knowledge, entrepreneurial, social, financial, and reputational resources embodied in the global Filipino diaspora and their potential contribution to Philippine development.
These contributions may never appear in official remittance statistics. Yet they represent economic value.
Human Networks Behind Globalization
Globalization is often discussed in terms of trade agreements, multinational corporations, supply chains, and financial markets. But globalization is also a human phenomenon because behind every international connection is a person.
Every Filipino abroad represents a potential bridge between the Philippines and another economy. Markets can connect buyers and sellers. But the matrix of relationships creates confidence and long-term beneficial economic and social ties based on trust. Diaspora communities possess precisely this advantage.
Immigrants situated between two worlds understand both their country of origin and their adopted societies. They possess cultural knowledge, personal networks, and familiarity with international standards. They can reduce the uncertainties and disadvantages that often dissuade firms from entering new markets.
Countries that have successfully leveraged their diasporas demonstrate the potential of this approach to transnational business.
India's global technology community helped strengthen connections between Silicon Valley and Indian innovation centers.
Taiwan benefited from overseas engineers and entrepreneurs who established knowledge networks particularly based on electronics linking global expertise with domestic industries.
Israel has long recognized the strategic importance of its worldwide Jewish diaspora in supporting innovation and investment.
The Philippines possesses a similar opportunity. Its diaspora may be one of the country's greatest strategic assets in the twenty-first century.

The iconic lighthouse at Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia (Photo credit to author)

A World That Continues to Connect
Some observers argue that globalization is sputtering into a period of terminal decline.
The past decade has certainly challenged the assumptions of an increasingly borderless world. Trade tensions, geopolitical rivalries, and supply chain disruptions have encouraged countries to reconsider their dependence on global markets. It often feels that the world is at the precipice of a major upheaval. But history suggests a more complex and deeply layered picture.
For millennia, human communities evolved from tribes into larger political and economic systems. Villages became cities. Cities became kingdoms. Kingdoms became nation-states. Societies became connected through global trade, technology, and migration. This process was never smooth or linear. History does not proceed in a mechanistic fashion.
Wars, pandemics, political conflicts, and economic crises repeatedly disrupted periods of integration. We may be at a disruptive moment in history, yet the long-term trajectory has been unmistakable: societies evolved to expand their networks of exchange and cooperation.
The current period of geopolitical uncertainty may therefore signal another calibration that may linger for years rather than herald the demise of globalization.
Technology alone makes a return to complete isolation impossible. The advent of low-cost airlines, digital communication, global supply chains, international education, and professional networks continue to connect people across borders.
Wide scale immigration over the past several decades have created robust communities and vast and enduring people-to-people connections and interconnected diasporas.
In such a world, countries with vibrant global communities possess an advantage.
The Philippines already has one of the world's most extensive networks of citizens and descendants living abroad. The question is whether the country can fully recognize and mobilize that advantage.

Picturesque Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia (Photo credit to author)

An Underappreciated Strategic Advantage
The challenge for the Philippines is therefore mobilizing the full range of resources already embedded in its global community — including the skills, networks, entrepreneurial capacity, and international experience of Filipinos abroad.
Countries compete through multiple forms of advantage: abundant natural resources, advanced technology, and manufacturing capacity.
The Philippines possesses something distinctive: a globally distributed population embedded in the world's major economies.
A more ambitious and visionary goal is to transcend the development stage of exporting workers to building global partnerships.
The same Filipino nurse who provides essential healthcare services in Canada can also help strengthen healthcare innovation in the Philippines.
The same Filipino engineer who works in an international company can also connect Philippine firms to new opportunities.
The same Filipino entrepreneur who succeeds abroad can become a bridge for investment and knowledge transfer.
Remittances should only be the tip of the iceberg of the diaspora. This likewise addresses the criticism of a country sending its most productive citizens to work abroad resulting to brain drain— a valid but limiting analysis.
The recognition of overseas Filipinos as heroes of the republic remains deeply deserved. The next chapter of the diaspora story however requires a broader, deeper understanding and imagining and for Philippine institutional policies to encourage diaspora investment, research, educational and business partnerships. This is the evolution from remittance dependence and its transformation to diasporic capital.
Universities can build stronger academic networks with Filipino scholars abroad. Startups can connect with Filipino professionals overseas. Businesses can develop international partnerships through diaspora communities.
Government agencies can move beyond facilitating labor mobility toward facilitating knowledge mobility. Good governance is therefore key.
The goal is to ensure that Filipinos anywhere in the world can enhance their roles in national development.
A Global Filipino Identity
Perhaps one of the clearest expressions of this global Filipino identity can be seen through figures who unite Filipinos across borders.
In recent years, few individuals have captured this spirit more than tennis player Alex Eala.
When I wrote about her journey in Positively Filipino (May 27, 2026) I was struck not only by her achievements on the international tennis stage but also by the emotional connection she created among Filipinos worldwide.
Her victories were celebrated by Filipinos worldwide. For a diaspora spread across continents, she became a reminder of shared identity.
Alex Eala's significance extends beyond tennis. She represents a generation of Filipinos who compete confidently on the global stage while maintaining a strong connection to their roots.
Her story reflects the larger story of the Filipino diaspora itself. The Philippines is no longer a country whose influence is limited by its physical borders. Sports, like culture and entrepreneurship, can become a bridge connecting communities separated by geographies.

Every Filipino abroad represents a potential bridge between the Philippines and another economy.

Recognizing the Value We Already Possess
Returning to my experience in Nova Scotia in early July, I realized that those encounters were not isolated moments.
The Filipinos I met at Peggy's Cove, Hall's Harbour, and the Halifax Farmers' Market were part of a much larger, dynamic and growing narrative. They represented a global community that has quietly built connections across societies.
This is why the phrase "Invisible Visible Minority" remains relevant because the full significance of their contribution remains insufficiently recognized.
The future requires measuring it also through what it connects: ideas, opportunities, expertise, and relationships–which far transcend remittances. That is the essence of Filipino diasporic capital.
The Philippines' greatest resource has always been its people. In the twenty-first century, that resource extends far beyond its shores.
The challenge now is not whether Filipinos around the world can contribute to the nation's future. They already are.
The challenge is whether the Philippines can fully recognize, engage, and harness the extraordinary network and energy it has already created. The invisible has always been visible.
The various locales where I met Filipinos abroad are no longer the last places I expect to encounter the Philippines. They are simply the latest reminders that the Philippines has quietly become a global nation, sustained not only by the sacrifices of its people abroad, but also by what I have called Filipino diasporic capital.
Perhaps without fully recognizing it, the Philippines has already begun to build a distinctive development pathway rooted in the strengths of its global diaspora.

Cesar Polvorosa Jr. is a professor of International Business and Economics at a Canadian university whose research and writing examine development strategies, globalization, and institutions. He has written on Filipino diaspora and a book chapter on Filipino entrepreneurship in Canada published by the University of Toronto Press. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in Poetry, and his poetry and short stories have appeared in Asian and North American anthologies. He is an occasional contributor on economics, geopolitics, and international affairs to BusinessWorld, Interaksyon, and Philstar.

FilAms Among The Remarkable And Famous, Part 81

Mona Lisa Yuchengco — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:39:43 +0000

Filipinos have been in the United States since the 16th century, yet many of their stories remain untold. For the past years, Positively Filipino has been running a series on notable Filipino Americans who have made their marks in this country. There are hundreds, or maybe even thousands more, that need to be added to this story, and we need your help. If you know of a Filipino American who deserves to be included in this line-up, please send us their names and any supporting documents you may have to pfpublisher@yahoo.com. For now, we are including only those who are currently active and visible in the media and the community, regardless of their religious, sexual or political orientation. Thank you.
Steven B. McLaughlin, Brigadier General

Brig. Gen. Steven McLaughlin (Photo by Minerva Amistoso)

McLaughlin assumed command of the 100th Training division (Leader Development) at Fort Knox, Kentucky on November 1, 2019. A native of Hillsborough, California, he obtained his commission as a second lieutenant in 1994, through the Reserve Officer Training Corps from Santa Clara University, California. He has been deployed to Germany, Hungary, Kuwait among other places. His awards include: The Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (3OLC), Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal (1 Silver OLC), Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, National Defense Medal (2), Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Armed Forces Service Medal, Army Overseas Ribbon (3), Army Service Ribbon, NATO Medal, Army Superior Unit Award, and the German Army Truppendienst (Bronze).
Brigadier General McLaughlin’s military schools include the Transportation Officer Basic Course and Advanced Courses, Combined Armed Service and Staff School, Intermediate Level Education (ILE) Common Core, Army War College, Joint Combined Warfighter School, BN/BDE Pre Command Course, the Force Management How the Army Runs Course (HTARC) and the Anti-Terrorism Officer Course (Level 2 and Level 4).
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History with a minor in Political Science from Santa Clara University and a master’s in Strategic Studies from the US Army War College. He is the grandson of Maria Avenido and Vitalino Balitaan who survived the civilian massacres in Laguna, Philippines during WWII.
Myrna Lynne Willkom Chai, Retired Nurse

Myrna Lynne Willkom Chai (Photo by Mona Lisa Yuchengco)

Chai, a retired Filipino nurse from Los Angeles flies to Lourdes, a small French town in the Pyrenees every spring and pushes wheelchairs for a week. She does not get paid. She pays her own airfare. She buys her own meals.
Born in Cagayan de Oro, Mindanao, the second of seven children in a Catholic household, she emigrated to the United States in the late 1970s on a nursing visa, the way thousands of Filipino women emigrated in those years — through a hospital that needed bedside nurses and was willing to sponsor the paperwork. She spent the next four decades on hospital floors in Los Angeles County. ER nights. ICU rotations. Oncology days. Hospice in the final years. She raised two children on those shifts and put them through college on those shifts and buried her husband on those shifts. By the time she retired, she had been a registered nurse for 41 years.
At 68 years old, she signed up to be a volunteer to help the sick and the aged who visit the grotto and basins of Lourdes in the hope of a miracle. Later on, she trained the new American volunteers in the basin protocols — how to position a paralyzed body in the cold spring water, how to time the lift with the breath, how to speak quietly to a woman who has not been touched in a year. She does it in English and in Tagalog and in the kitchen Spanish she picked up on Los Angeles oncology floors. She has gone back every year since.
Flomy Javier Diza, Immigration Lawyer

Flomy Javier Diza (Source: LinkedIn)

Diza is a Filipino American immigration attorney, community leader, and advocate whose journey began as the son of a farmer in the Philippines. A lawyer in both the Philippines and the United States, he is now a Senior Partner at Reeves Immigration Law Group, where he manages the firm’s San Francisco and Concord offices. He is a Certified Specialist in Immigration and Nationality Law by the State Bar of California and has spent over two decades guiding immigrants and families through complex legal pathways before USCIS, immigration courts, and U.S. consulates worldwide.
Diza has uplifted the Filipino community through education and advocacy. He initiated Talakayan, a series of public forums in partnership with the Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco, creating accessible spaces for dialogue on immigration and community issues. He also co-hosts the widely followed radio program, Immigration Law On Your Side, where he delivers timely and practical legal guidance to the Filipino diaspora.
His work has earned both international and community recognition. He was named one of The 2025 Outstanding Filipinos in America (TOFA) and received the Best Regular Radio Program award at the Migration Advocacy and Media Awards by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas. In recognition of his direct assistance to Filipino nationals detained during heightened immigration enforcement, he was awarded a Plaque of Commendation by the Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco. He was also honored as an Outstanding Advocate for Immigrant Justice by the Amerika Prestige Awards. -Submitted by Ben Loveman
Shawn Felipe, Comedian

Shawn Felipe (Source: Facebook)

Felipe’s victory at the prestigious 2025 San Francisco International Comedy Competition underscores his exceptional talent and dedication to his craft. The Breaking the Mold tour alongside Jo Koy provided invaluable experience and exposure, further honing his comedic skills. In reality television, his win on The Great Food Truck Race with Team Aloha Plate, shows his diverse skill set and competitive spirit. He has performed at over 200 colleges and universities, for U.S. military personnel, at major cruise lines, and Day Bar Comedy.
As a multi-ethnic, stand-up comedian, Shawn Felipe believes that comedy is derived from real life. Shawn always tries to find humor in various situations, even the toughest of struggles he has encountered so far in life. He believes God has blessed him, so that, regardless of the problems or challenges he faces, he can laugh at them and help others see the humor in them as well.
Shawn was born in Victorville, California but raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. He attended the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in Theatrical Arts and TV production. Shawn's stand-up comedy acts have been featured on various networks, including Worldasia TV, AZN TV,IA TV,The Filipino Channel,Sprint Comedy-Time Network, and National Lampoon Comedy Radio.
Bea Millan-Windorski, Beauty Queen

Bea Millan-Windorski (Source: Wikipedia)

Millan-Windorski is the Philippines’ new queen at the Miss Universe Philippines 2026. Born on August 15, 2002 to a family of immigrants, she traces her maternal roots to San Juan, La Union, where her grandparents, Alfredo and Marcela Millan, lived before moving to Nueva Vizcaya, and later deciding to emigrate to the United States in search of better opportunities. In the U.S., her mother met her American father, who comes from a family of Polish-German immigrants. Growing up in a predominantly white area of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Bea initially struggled with identity and belonging, but eventually found a sense of responsibility to discover and introduce her Philippine heritage to the community.
The 23-year-old beauty queen earned a double degree in International Studies and History “with comprehensive honors” at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, focusing on Southeast Asian Studies, where she learned the Filipino language and completed a thesis on Filipinos in the U.S. Navy. She was also awarded a fellowship with the Embassy of the Republic of the Philippines in the U.S. and got an internship at the East-West Center in Washington, DC, which paved a path for her to learn more about U.S.-ASEAN relations, as well as hone her Filipino language literacy. Beyond her strong academic background, the 5-foot-11 stunner excels in the performing arts, as she was also a high school varsity dance team member and a ballet dancer in the Milwaukee Ballet School.
Mark Philip Valerio Santos, Owner, Valerio’s Bakeshop

Mark Philip Valerio Santos (Source: Instagram)

Mark Philip Valerio Santos was recently recognized as one of the 100 Global Entrepreneurs for his contributions to business leadership, community engagement, and the continued global presence of Filipino entrepreneurship in the United States. As a Filipino American entrepreneur based in San Diego, he represents the next generation of leadership built on heritage, innovation, and community impact.
Santos is the third-generation owner and operator of Valerio’s Bakeshop, the family-owned bakery established by his grandparents, Victor and Milagros Valerio. Under his leadership, the company has continued to grow while preserving the traditions and Filipino identity that shaped the brand through generations.
Valerio’s Bakeshop received national recognition after winning at the 2025 World Bread Awards USA during IBIE Las Vegas, one of the world’s largest baking expos. Beyond the family business, Mark also serves as a Board Director for the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, National City Chamber of Commerce.
Andi Therese Sycip, Lab Researcher

Andi Therese Sycip (Source: Upenn.edu)

SyCip, a biology major at the University of Pennsylvania, conducted research on how minor genetic alterations to estrogen-relation receptor binding sites impact heart functions. She was mentored by Dr. Daniel Kelly (Department of Medicine). She graduated Magna Cum Laude. SyCip, a pre-med student, was offered a Fulbright 2026-27 to conduct field-based research in Leyte, Philippines, evaluating the effectiveness of mass drug administration programs for schistosomiasis to inform targeted, culturally responsive care.
SyCip studied at the International School Manila. She also did research and report writing at the Philippine Daily Inquirer Editorial Department.
Nacho Tambunting, Actor

Nacho Tambunting (Source: Facebook)

Tambunting is a New York–based actor working across television, film, and theater. Born and raised in Manila and trained at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, he is drawn to emotionally layered stories of identity, family, power, and belonging.
On screen, Nacho has recurred on NBC’s Rise and Apple TV+’s Dickinson, with guest appearances on Netflix’s Ashley Garcia: Genius in Love and BET+’s First Wives Club. His film credits include Asian Persuasion and Come Into My Arms, and he can be heard in the iHeartRadio scripted series Does This Murder Make Me Look Gay?
Nacho made his Off-Broadway debut originating the title role in Felix Starro with Ma-Yi Theater Company. His theater work includes Trilogy and The Play You Want at Two River Theater, the world premiere of Everything Beautiful Happens at Night at Capital Stage, and most recently, Melchior in Sandbox Collective’s Spring Awakening in Manila.
In addition to acting, Nacho develops new work for stage and screen. He is currently producing Mercury Makes the Skin Glow with playwright Gaven D. Trinidad following sold-out readings in both Manila and New York.
Rear Admiral Victorino Mercado, U.S. Navy

Rear Admiral Victorino Mercado (Source: AUSA)

Rear Adm. Victorino Mercado is a native of Virginia and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in May 1983 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics/Computer Science. Mercado holds a master’s degree in systems technology in Joint Command, Control, and Communications from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, completed Air Command and Staff College and is a graduate and a Commandant’s Writing Award winner from the Joint/Combined Warfighting Senior School at Joint Forces Staff College.
He was confirmed by the Senate in 2019 as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities. He was responsible for advising the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy on national security and defense strategy; the forces, contingency plans, and associated posture necessary to implement the defense strategy; nuclear deterrence and missile defense policy; and security cooperation plans and policies. Mercado ensured that the Department's program and budget decisions support and advance senior DoD leaders' strategic direction, especially as articulated in defense planning guidance.
Mercado graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in May 1983 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Computer Science, and he holds a master's degree in systems technology in Joint Command, Control, and Communications from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. His decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal (three awards), the Legion of Merit Medal (four awards) and various individual and unit campaign awards. He is also a former Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet Shiphandler of the Year award winner.
Marie Husa, Relations Director

Marie Husa (Source: Muni.org)

Born in Manila, Philippines, Husa has been an Alaskan since 1984. She was an investigator for the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission for 17 years, probing discrimination complaints. Currently she is the Constituent Relations Director where she ensures Anchorage residents of all backgrounds have a direct line of communication with the Mayor’s office.
She holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology from Alaska Pacific University and is a licensed professional career and life coach. She is a past president and board member of the Alaska Federation of Filipino Americans. She lives in Anchorage with her husband of 26 years; they have two daughters, one attending law school in Seattle University and the other studying Business and Psychology at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
J Rey Soul, Singer

J Rey Soul (Source: Facebook)

Jessica Joy Seria Reynoso aka J Rey Soul, is a Filipino American singer known for participating in the first season of The Voice of the Philippines and collaborating and touring with the Black Eyed Peas since 2018.
Starting her musical career at an early age, she appeared on the first season of The Voice of the Philippines and joined coach apl.de.ap's team, becoming a finalist on the show. After a couple of released singles and a collaboration with apl.de.ap, Reynoso joined the Black Eyed Peas, replacing Fergie as their singer in 2018.
Reynoso was born in Hong Kong to an African American father and a Filipino mother. Having been abandoned at some point by her parents, she would later be adopted and raised in, San Pedro, Laguna, Philippines by her adoptive parents who exposed her to music at a young age. In 2007, she joined the competition show Popstar Kids at age 10. In a later interview, she says that she didn't get much attention due to her skin color. She completed her contract with the GMA Network, which produced the show, in 2012. She attended PATTS College of Aeronautics taking Air Freight Operations.
In 2021, she signed with Epic Records and released the single Pull Up with will.i.am featuring Nile Rodgers, which was used for the Mercedes-Benz AMG campaign. That same year, she sang the national anthem of the Philippines at the professional boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Yordenis Ugás.

Rising from the Ashes in Maui

Yiming Fu — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:39:30 +0000

This is the first in a series by AsAmNews of stories examining the rebuilding of homes and businesses in Lahaina as residents mark the third anniversary of the massive 2023 wildfire that devastated the historic community.
Originally published by AsAmNews: https://asamnews.com/2026/08/07/lahaina-recovery-rebuild-progress-2026/
LAHAINA, Maui — Krizhna Bayudan wakes up at the same address she’s known all her life. But the bed is different, the room is different, even the house is different. And her neighbors are not there.
Before the 2023 fire, Bayudan’s cousins lived next door. If her family needed eggs, they would walk over and knock. If her cousins needed rice, her family would return the favor.
The fire turned all that upside down. The fast-moving flames burned Lahaina’s entire historic downtown on Aug. 8, 2023, wiping out more than 2,200 structures, causing $5.5 billion in damages, displacing thousands of residents, and killing 102 people. The official death toll puts Lahaina as the deadliest U.S. wildfire in the last 100 years. It burned Bayudan’s neighborhood and family home to the ground.
Finally, earlier this year, the Bayudan family moved back into their rebuilt home in the Wahikuli neighborhood, more than two years after the fire moved through. They were the second on their street to return.
“I think it’s still shocking that we’re back,” Bayudan said.

Lahaina’s Wahikuli neighborhood, shown here on Aug. 26, 2023, was devastated in the wildfires that moved through the community just days earlier on Aug. 8, 2023. (Photo by Matthew Thayer/Special to AsAmNews)

Krizhna Bayudan sits near the front door outside her family’s new home on July 23, 2026, in the Wahikuli neighborhood in Lahaina. The family finally returned to their rebuilt home, more than two years after the Aug. 8, 2023, fires ravaged Lahaina. (Photo by Matthew Thayer/Special to AsAmNews)

Recovery has been a long and painful process for Lahaina. With the third anniversary of the fire approaching, AsAmNews obtained more than 3,000 building permits from Aug. 8, 2023, through July 15, 2026, through a public records request, and analyzed nearly 1,000 disaster recovery permits.
The analysis found that about 25% of the single family homes destroyed in the fire have been rebuilt, largely in inland neighborhoods like Wahikuli. Homes closer to the ocean are even less likely to have been completed, in part because of additional environmental and erosion concerns.
Rebuilding Lahaina
Three years after wildfires swept through the Lahaina community on the island of Maui in 2023, about one-fourth of the homes and about 6 percent of nonresidential properties had been rebuilt as of July 15, 2026. AsAmNews analyzed disaster recovery building permits filed with Maui County from the day the fires started on Aug. 8, 2023, through July 15, 2026. The residential numbers do not include large multi-family units, which were included within the nonresidential units at the time the data was released. Click on the dots to see more details.
“We understand why some people feel the recovery is moving too slowly,” Maui Mayor Richard Bissen said in a written statement to AsAmNews. “For families who are still displaced or working through the rebuilding process, every day can feel too long. Everyone’s experience is different, and perspectives often depend on where someone is in their own recovery journey.”

Details on multi-family projects became available on July 31, after Maui County revised its method of calculating residential rebuilding in response to questions from AsAmNews. The county’s recovery dashboard now includes apartments, townhomes and condominiums along with single-family homes being rebuilt.
“This will provide a more accurate picture of how many families have been able to return to Lahaina,” Maui County’s communications office said in a written statement emailed to AsAmNews.
The new numbers show that 38% of multi-family construction permits have been completed, with 313 individual housing units built since the fire. Of those, however, 200 units are in one long-planned development, Kaiāulu O Kūkuʻia, which broke ground before the fire but is considered a “new build,” according to Maui County officials.
Even as work continues, Lahaina may not be fully rebuilt for another four years, according to Jennifer Gray Thompson, founding director of After The Fire, a California-based nonprofit that helps communities recover from fires.
“[Lahaina] could have been rebuilt in two years, for sure,” Gray Thompson said. “But here’s the thing: who would it be rebuilt for, and what would those rebuilds look like? Because you could have had all of Lahaina town be white rectangle boxes, because those are inexpensive.”
A tight-knit, oceanside community where a grocery-store run can turn into an hours-long storytelling session, Lahaina has been a community defined by its people. But when Bayudan wakes up every morning, the view around her is empty. The homes are still gone.
“It’s like … where are you?” Bayudan said.
The slow rebuilding process has magnified concerns among residents about the changes underway in their community: Will Lahaina remain Lahaina?
Building back

Three years after fires swept through Lahaina on Maui, residents are returning to the Wahikuli neighborhood, shown here on July 23, 2026. (Photo by Matthew Thayer/Special to AsAmNews)

The widespread devastation from the fire has complicated projects that would have faced logistical problems under the best of circumstances.
As a small island in the Pacific Ocean, Maui must rely on building materials such as wood, roofing and sheetrock shipped in by boat, and it has a limited number of skilled construction workers and contractors.
Kekai Keahi, a Lahaina farmer who grows kalo, or taro, is a water rights activist and construction manager. He said it takes about the same time to build a house now as it did before the fire. A 1,700-square-foot home can be put up in three to five months with a team of five, Keahi said, but the complexity of the project, individual teammates and team synergy also influence how long any construction will take.
When homeowners applied for permits in the first year after the fire, many faced delays because they ordered materials such as cement from the same suppliers, Keahi said.
“Everybody [tried to] buy the same stuff,” Keahi said. “Stockpile wasn’t ready.”
Now, Keahi said, there’s enough to go around.
A change in the permitting process has made the biggest difference in speeding up the time it takes to rebuild, Keahi said. Maui County partnered with a private firm, 4LEAF, after the fire to create an expedited permit system for disaster recovery projects. The new disaster recovery permit combines electrical, plumbing, grading and building requirements into a single application.
Before the fire, owners could wait more than a year to get a permit, Keahi said, but they now can get a permit within two months under the new system.
Not all permits move that fast. County Councilmember Tamara Paltin, who represents Lahaina and who chairs the disaster recovery, international affairs and planning committee, said some shoreline permits are stuck because they have special problems. Some properties are being threatened by rising sea levels, while others fall into a Special Management Area, known as an SMA, with tighter restrictions to protect against coastal erosion and reef damage.
Rebuilds in Lahaina’s historic districts also face additional challenges. Historic properties have specific design guidelines to match the plantation and whaling-era architecture of old Lahaina town, and they may require cultural surveys to ensure the construction will not disturb Hawaiian remains.
Keahi’s family goes back nine generations in Lahaina, and his family’s property on Mala waterfront is Kuleana Land, he said. That means King Kamehameha III granted Keahi’s family the property when the Hawaiian Kingdom transitioned from public to private land ownership.
Keahi’s home was burned in the fire, but the property still remains vacant despite having a permit because it’s in an area threatened by rising sea levels. Neither the state nor county has yet said whether construction can begin.
“Are they going to give us new land somewhere else?” Keahi said.
Paltin, however, is generally happy with the pace of recovery, highlighting how Maui County worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to haul the fire debris out of Lahaina to a temporary site in Olowalu, a small town about six miles away, before moving it to a permanent disposal site in central Maui about 25 miles away. AsAmNews’ data analysis showed the debris removal is virtually completed, with more than 99 % of the 1,515 debris removal permits done as of July 15.
Cleaning up after the fires
The removal of debris left behind by the wildfires that swept through the Lahaina community in Maui in 2023 is virtually finished. Of the 1,515 permits for debris removal since the fires first erupted in August 2023, more than 99 percent had been completed as of July 15, 2026. AsAmNews analyzed debris removal permits filed with Maui County from Aug. 8, 2023 through July 15, 2026.
Rebuilds are also proceeding more quickly, Paltin said, on Lahaina’s mauka, or inland, side of Honoapiilani Highway, which divides properties with ocean access and those closer to the mountains.
Bayudan’s situation was unique. Her father worked as an owner/builder, meaning he oversaw the entire rebuild of the family home. He was able to hire people he’d worked with over the years doing building and renovation side jobs in Lahaina.
While the family lived in a Lahaina rental, Bayudan’s father worked on the house every day for 10 months with no breaks, Bayudan said. Today, six months after they moved back home, the family is still finishing up details such as closets and door stops, and buying furniture.
They weren’t spared the complications, however, of shipping times, sourcing materials and correcting mistakes, which can lead to long delays for typical rebuilds. The Bayudans, for example, had to wait an extra month for correctly sized roof trusses — and that’s with her family checking in frequently and assertively to make sure the materials were coming.
The Bayudan family largely built back what they had before, but they made everything a little bigger —bigger rooms, bigger bathrooms, a bigger communal space to host family parties. She lives with her parents, who bought the home in 1992, and her three siblings.
A changing town
Lahaina is the historic capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom and deeply sacred to Native Hawaiians. Throughout most of the 1800s, Hawaiian royalty ruled over the islands from their lush town of wetlands, freshwater ponds and waterways.
The first missionaries arrived in Lahaina in the 1820s, docking boats and transforming the Hawaiian Kingdom into a whaling town.
Sugar companies took over in the 1860s, diverting the town’s streams to create sugarcane plantations. Sugar companies recruited laborers from around the world, including from China, Japan and the Philippines.
After the sugar industry died down, tourism took over in the 1960s and remains Lahaina’s dominant industry. The Hawaii Tourism Authority reports over 11,000 units such as hotel rooms and other rental units for tourists in Lahaina in 2025, an increase after a drop of a few hundred units after the fire.
Lahaina soon became a hot spot for property investment, known for its bustling commercial oceanfront street, Front Street, which generated over $70 million in revenue each month. By 2020, before the fires, Lahaina had a population of 12,702.
The University of Hawaii reported 32% of Maui property owners are from the mainland U.S. or another country, more than for any other Hawaiian island. In Lahaina, over half of the property owners are not residents of Hawaii.
Today, Lahaina is a melting pot of cultures. Nearly one in three Lahaina residents is Filipino, and there are also strong Mexican and Micronesian communities.
Only about 5% of Lahaina’s population identifies exclusively as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, but about one in four people in Lahaina is multiracial. About 40% are Asian, and 25.9% are White, according to U.S. Census data from July 2025. Less than 1% are Black alone.
Future generations

Lehua Iʻi sits on the gazebo on June 4, 2026, on the property where her home burned during the wildfires that swept through Lahaina, Maui, on Aug. 8, 2023. (Photo by Yiming Fu/AsAmNews)

For decades, Lehua Iʻi has watched Lahaina change.
Born and raised on Maui, Iʻi, now 66, has lived on the island all her life except for two years when she attended school on Oahu. She grew up on the oceanfront with Baby Beach as her backyard. Her kids could surf any time they wanted.
Iʻi lost her Fleming Road home in the fire, where up to 12 family members had lived. Of Iʻi’s three daughters, one still lives on Maui, one lives in Las Vegas and the other lives in Oregon. I’i moved eight times after the fire, eventually landing at the Ka La‘i Ola state housing, which provides wildfire survivors a place to stay until 2029.
After the fire, Iʻi wasn’t sure if she should even try to rebuild. But the response from her children was an overwhelming yes. Even if they didn’t live in Lahaina anymore, they wanted a place they could come home to.
When asked how often she hears of people moving away, she said, “More than I ever did.”
She likes to go to special events and parties for kupuna, or seniors, where she hears of her friends moving to Wailuku on the other side of the island, or upcountry, because it’s closer to the store or hospital. She also sees people announcing their moves on social media.
Finding a home in Lahaina ranges from expensive to impossible. And wages lag behind high rent, electricity, groceries and gas prices. The median Lahaina home cost was about $1.7 million around the time of the fire. In 2025, Lahaina’s median household income was about $88,000 a year.
The other day, Iʻi drove past a “For Sale” sign on her way to the post office.
“I don’t like to see for sale signs, because you don’t know who is going to get it,” Iʻi said. “Outsiders? Or people from here? I don’t know.”

The data analyzed for AsAmNews found that 212 properties in Lahaina’s burn zone changed hands as of July 2026.
Of the properties, 43, or about 20%, were sold to an owner who listed an address outside the State of Hawaii, including seven sold to out-of-state corporations.
Will neighbors return?
Lahaina has always been a close community. Keahi said residents often say they’re from the “Island of Lahaina” because Lahaina is its own special place with its own special rhythm. Everyone goes to the same school, and the town is connected to the rest of Maui through a winding, one-lane highway.
Ask someone from Maui to name their favorite NFL team, and they might say the San Francisco 49ers, Keahi said. Ask someone from Lahaina to name their favorite NFL team, and they’ll likely say the Lahainaluna High School Lunas.
Bayudan knew all her neighbors on her street. Their moms would talk, and kids in the same age group would play together.
“Half of the street is my relative,” Bayudan said.
Bayudan estimates about 20% of her neighbors have returned. Most are working on their rebuilds, though the lot behind her home remains empty with no signs of progress.
Not everyone is returning. A 2025 study by the University of Hawaii found at least 1,000 people left Lahaina for another part of Maui, and more than 120 people moved to another Hawaiian island. The study found that 240 moved out of Hawaii, but researchers acknowledge that is undoubtedly an underestimate.

Craig Hayase moved into his replacement home July 1, 2026, nearly three years after a fire swept through Lahaina on Maui. (Photo by Matthew Thayer/Special to AsAmNews)

Craig Hayase moved back to Lahaina in July. Four generations of his family live in Lahaina, with three generations together in his replacement home, since two daughters and two grandchildren live with him.
His neighbors on the left sold their home. His neighbors on the right aren’t sure when they’re going to rebuild. He’s not sure of the status of the neighbors behind him.
“We were close with both side neighbors,” Hayase said. “It doesn’t make it whole yet.”
Lahaina resident Mikey Burke fears her kids won’t grow up with the same pilina, a Hawaiian word for deep, meaningful relationships with people and places, that she had.
At the time of the fire, her children were entering what she called the “goonie years,” the lighthearted, preteen years when she remembers playing with friends on the street and forming lifetime bonds.
While her home rebuilding is under way, and most of her neighbors are building back what they had, she doesn’t know if her kids will form the same bonds.
“My fear is that we’re going to move back …but that pilina they were moving into is not going to happen,” Burke said.
Building a Land Trust
Autumn Ness wants to create more housing opportunities for local families so Lahaina’s community can stay and thrive.
Ness co-founded the nonprofit Lahaina Community Land Trust after the fire to protect against outsider speculators, who began calling families to buy properties before the flames were even put out.
The land trust purchases vacant properties from Lahaina sellers and then becomes the stewards of those lands. So far, they’ve secured 20 parcels of land that can accommodate 55 housing units. Those units can only be sold to Lahaina families.
“This is the first at-scale initiative where we’re actually taking land out of the market that was pushing our people out and putting it into an entirely new market that is actually reserved for Lahaina people,” Ness said.
While there aren’t any land trust homes for sale yet, the land trust plans to list units for sale ranging from $300,000 to $700,000.
The land trust receives funding from independent donors, Maui County and through partnerships in the Kaluaʻehu program, where different businesses donate a portion of their sales to the land trust.
“I think the number of Lahaina families with home ownership opportunities is actually going to increase in the wake of the fire,” Ness said. “The trend is going to reverse.”
The land trust also has a “Keep Lahaina Home Program,” which helps homeowners address gaps between insurance and rebuild costs.

The Samaritan’s Purse is rebuilding Lehua Iʻi’s home, which burned in the wildfire that swept through Lahaina, Maui, on Aug. 8, 2023. Iʻi, now 66, has lived on the island all her life except for two years when she attended school on Oahu. (Photo by Yiming Fu/AsAmNews)

Other residents, such as I’i and Frank Perry, got help through religious aid organizations like the Mennonites and Samaritan’s Purse, which filed permits and built homes for low-to-no cost.
Perry moved back into his rebuilt home on Feb. 1 after living in a rental unit across the island.
“Without them, I’d probably die here,” Perry said last year from the rental. “I’d be terribly lost. I will be forever grateful.”
Some families, like Kekoa Mowat’s, qualified for a federally-funded homeowner rebuild program that provides up to $1.2 million in grant money and allows owners to choose from different pre-set floor plans. Congress finalized the funding in June 2025.
“I like the people in Lahaina, and I want the people to live in Lahaina,” Mowat said at a community recovery meeting on May 6. “In the end, I’m going to have a house. And we will be in Lahaina.”
Looking ahead
Though families have started to return, the fire altered Lahaina indelibly.
Every day, Bayudan talks about the fire or its impacts with her friends and family. Talking about it is part of healing, she said.
But she still has memories of her old house. Sometimes, she said, it feels as if her memories and reality don’t align. She misses seeing her neighbors walk their dogs, or listening to people bicker through thin walls. She doesn’t think the new house will ever feel as homey as the old one did.

Krizhna Bayudan walks home to her Wahikuli neighborhood in Lahaina on Maui. Three years after the fire, she estimates that one in four of her neighbors has returned. (Photo by Matthew Thayer/Special to AsAmNews)

One day, while driving home from her job at a podiatrist’s office, Bayudan tried to picture what the drive used to look like. She couldn’t, so she looked through Google Maps to see the street views of her old neighborhood.
From her street, she realized she previously could see a line of 40 palm trees framing the ocean front. Now, there are only a few trees in view.
“It was my favorite view of Lahaina,” Bayudan said. “And it’s different now. It makes me sad. It’s bittersweet.”
As of July, however, Bayudan’s cousins began to put up framing for their new home next door. She can already see two floors and a roof.
She looks forward to the days when she can hang out with her cousins again. She remembers playing cards and Filipino board games, and eating good food. One of their obsessions was tracking down which local grocery stores had boba tea ice cream bars.
“I’m very happy and excited that those times will continue on very soon,” Bayudan said. “I can finally walk over there and knock on their door to get some eggs.”
This story was produced with the support of Report for America and Investigative Ed iting Corps, with Dianna Hunt as project editor. Journalist Daniel J. Willis contributed the data analysis and visualization journalist Yuxuan Xie the maps and graphics. Photographer Matthew Thayer took many of the photos.
How we did it
AsAmNews obtained data from Maui County for more than 3,000 building permit applications, starting with the day a massive wildfire swept through the Lahaina community on Aug. 8, 2023, and continuing through July 15, 2026. The initial data represented separate requests for projects at more than 1,600 individual properties.
AsAmNews then analyzed permits identified as “disaster recovery” projects for residential and nonresidential properties, a system that was set up by Maui County after the fire to speed up the rebuilding process. The disaster recovery permit combines electrical, plumbing, grading and building requirements into a single application.
Of the 926 disaster recovery permits for rebuilding residential properties, AsAmNews found that less than 25 percent had been completed. For nonresidential properties, which at the time included commercial and large multi-family structures, less than 6 percent of the disaster recovery projects had been completed.
AsAmNews then overlaid the permit locations onto a map of the burn area, showing that properties along the water were less likely to have been rebuilt than those inland.
AsAmNews also did a separate analysis of the 1,515 permits for debris removal, and found that those projects were largely finished. More than 99 percent of the debris removal permits had been completed as of July 15, with just four permits that remained pending.
Additional details were released by Maui County just days before publication. When questioned by AsAmNews about residential rebuilding, Maui County officials changed the residential rebuilding data to include large multi-family developments. Effective July 31, the county’s recovery dashboard now includes individual apartments, townhomes and condominiums along with single-family homes in the residential data.

AsAmNews journalist Yiming Fu, a Report for America corps member, obtained the permit data and reported the story from his home base on Maui.
Data journalist Daniel J. Willis analyzed the records for AsAmNews, and visualization journalist Yuxuan Xie produced the maps and graphic. Photographer Matthew Thayer took most of the photos.

‘Bad Boy’ Vince Tañada’s Theatrical Vision

Rogelio Constantino Medina — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:39:15 +0000

PhilStagers members visit a church in Naga City before their performance.

Philippine Stagers Foundation (PSF), or PhilStagers, a national mobile theater company performs original plays and musicals designed to educate, challenge, and entertain audiences all over Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.
Noted for performing original works on Filipino history and culture, PhilStagers focuses on high school and college audiences.
Growing out of the Dulaan Bedista Alumni Production (DBAP), Philstagers was founded in 2000 by San Beda Alumnus Attorney Vincent M. Tañada, playwright, stage director, and actor who has drawn controversy for his innovative and candid ways.
‘Bad Boy’ of Philippine Theatre
Vince Tañada has been fascinated by the world of theater and music since his student days at De La Salle Green Hills in San Juan City, Metro Manila. He joined the secondary music ministry, the LSGH’s Kundirana, one of the most prestigious high school musical groups in the contry. He was also with Tony Espejo’s Bulwagang Gantimpala at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Vince M. Tañada

After his college days at San Beda University-Manila, where he earned an AB in Philosophy, he decided to briefly stay in New York City to try his luck in the musical and theatrical arts, where he met and connected with the crème de la crème of the industry.
From there, he was exposed to the concept of the Renaissance man, an idea that developed during the Italian Renaissance from the notion expressed by one of its most accomplished representatives, Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), that a man can accomplish things if he wills himself to do so.
Tañada said he was encouraged by this notion to become a writer, educator, actor, singer, director, entrepreneur, businessman, marketing expert, thinker and, later, lawyer. He studied law at San Beda’s College of Law to fulfill “my promise to my late father, Tony Tañada.”
He said, “My dad was kind but outspoken. That is what I learned or inherited from him. You know that I come on too strong, or sometimes, I am brutally frank, but you know my heart. Alam ko hindi ako mabait (I know I am not kind), but I want to believe na mabuti ako. (that I am good. There is a difference between being kind and being good.” Being good often implies adhering to moral principles, societal norms and personal values, while kindness emphasizes empathy, compassion, and selfless actions toward others.
“Inaamin ko palamura ako at pranka sa pagsasabi ng aking mga opinion (I admit I often use offensive language and am brutally frank in expressing my opinions),” he said. He acknowledged that his bluntness has often created enemies in the theater world, contributing to his image as the “bad boy” of Philippine theater.
He is sometimes called “narcissistic” by detractors for showing off his well-built physique on social media despite getting older, particularly given that he was once overweight.

The Tañada family

Controversial The Embalmer
Screened at the Cannes Marché du Film and named a finalist in the Sinag Maynila Independent Film Festival in March 2026, Ang Bangkay (The Embalmer) is a suspense-drama play and film written and directed by Tañada.
It has gained a controversial reputation primarily because of its graphic content, including full-frontal nudity performed by Tañada himself and other actors, as well as its exploration of dark and taboo themes. The work is noted for its provocative nature in both its original stage version and its 2026 film adaptation.
In both the play and the film, Tañada performed full-frontal nudity. Tañada has consistently defended these scenes as essential to the work of art and as a reflection of his dedication as an artist, despite criticisms and concerns about potential disbarment.
The Ang Bangkay script, which won first prize at the 2012 Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards, reportedly contains more than 50 expletives and explores themes of incest, rape, deceit, greed, and murder.
Notably, early screenings of the film allegedly included intense segments that were later trimmed for general audiences. Tañada, however, has maintained the integrity of the dark narrative: The household descends into a bloody climax as secret trysts and incestuous encounters among family members and servants are revealed amid the shadows of the funeral home.
Original Pinoy Musicals
PhilStagers remains committed to creating and staging original Filipino musicals. It promotes Filipino culture and heritage by highlighting important historical and cultural narratives and instilling a deeper appreciation of the nation’s heritage, particularly among Filipino youth.
As a national mobile theater company, the group, composed of homegrown talents, tours its productions across the Philippines, making quality theater accessible to a wider audience. It fulfills its vision of educating the masses about Philippine history, culture, tradition, patriotism and national identity through theater.
By incorporating original Pinoy music into its productions, PhilStagers contributes to the continued evolution and appreciation of Filipino musical artistry and storytelling. Its musicals are crafted to inspire, educate and entertain audiences while addressing themes that resonate with Filipino experiences and values.
Some of its well-known productions include Joe: A Filipino Rockssical; Bonifacio: Isang Sarsuwela, about the life of Andres Bonifacio, a key figure in Philippine history; Katips: Ang Mga Bagong Katipunero, a musical tackling the period of Martial Law and the fight against historical revisionism; Juan Luna: Isang Sarsuwela; and the futuristic historical epic Rizal 3000, among others.
Actor-singer Johnrey Rivas has been appointed president of PSF, succeeding Tañada, who remains chairman of the board and artistic director.
Bonifacio Play

Vince Tañada as Andres Bonifacio

Premiered on August 2, 2025, at St. Scholastica’s College Manila and subsequently toured nationwide through April 2026, Tañada’s Andres Bonifacio musical was performed more than 700 times and seen by students at schools and colleges throughout the Philippine provinces.
Once again, it became a powerful platform for history, identity. and national reflection. Bonifacio: Ang Supremo is a stirring musical that breathed new life into the story of Andres Bonifacio—one of the country’s most revered yet often misunderstood heroes.
Furthermore, the musical traces Bonifacio’s journey from his humble beginnings to his rise as the founder of the Katipunan and a central figure in the Philippine Revolution. More than a retelling of historical events, however, the play delves into the emotional and moral complexities of his life—his courage, his sacrifices, and the painful betrayal that ultimately led to his death at the hands of fellow Filipinos.
Themes of injustice, division, and the continuing fight for truth resonate strongly, making the play particularly compelling for younger audiences. It serves both as a tribute and a call to action, urging Filipinos to reflect on their shared history and their role in shaping the nation’s future.

By incorporating original Pinoy music into its productions, PhilStagers contributes to the continued evolution and appreciation of Filipino musical artistry and storytelling.

With this production, Tañada has demonstrated his stature as one of the Philippines’ leading theater directors and cultural storytellers. His ability to craft narratives that are both historically grounded and socially resonant underscores his vital role in Philippine arts and education.
Vince Tañada has established himself as a prominent cultural storyteller by bridging the gap between Philippine history and contemporary audiences through emotionally resonant and socially relevant theater and film.
He balances his various roles while advocating social transformation through the arts—using art not merely for entertainment but as a vehicle for national identity and collective memory, making him a significant figure in the modern Philippine cultural landscape.

Associate Professor III Rogelio Constantino Medina is an award-winning Filipino international journalist, columnist and academic. He is one of the awardees of the 4th Philippines Finest Business Awards and Outstanding Achievers. He has been featured on billboards in New York City’s Times Square and Las Vegas, and soon in Tokyo. He is based in Fairfield, California, USA, and is a credentialed member of the Washington, D.C., and New York City Foreign Press Centers.

More articles from Rogelio Contantino Medina

[Video] Building Communities: A Tribute to our Manongs and Manangs 2026

Staff — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:39:08 +0000

On August 8 this year, Positively Filipino held its third annual tribute to Fil-Am community elders who have distinguished themselves in various fields and have paved the way for later generations to establish their presence in US society. Here's the full video coverage of the event, hailed by audience members as "inspiring" and "memorable."

Overseas Filipino Achievers, Part 7

Mona Lisa Yuchengco — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 18:51:40 +0000

In keeping with Positively Filipino’s goal of celebrating the 13-million-strong (and counting) Filipino diaspora, we are launching a new series titled Overseas Filipino Achievers. The series recognizes outstanding Filipinos making their mark in various countries around the world. It builds on our popular and long-running feature, “FilAms Among the Remarkable and Famous.”
But we need your help. If you know Filipinos outside the Philippines and the United States who are doing exceptional work in their adopted countries, please send their names, supporting documents or links, and photos to pfpublisher@yahoo.com.
UNITED KINGDOM
Reynaldo Z. Lachica, Chemist and Engineer

Reynaldo Z. Lachica (Source: X.com)

In 2002, Lachica joined Robertson Research International Ltd in the United Kingdom as a Senior Inorganics Chemist. Over the years he worked on power plant projects across the globe. His expertise in commissioning newly-built power plants along with his comprehensive knowledge of industrial water treatment, has been instrumental in ensuring the successful start-up and operation of these energy infrastructure projects. With over 18 years of experience in various plant chemistry processes and the utilization of modern analytical laboratory instrumentations and online analyzers, Lachica possesses a comprehensive understanding of the intricacies involved in optimizing power plant operations. His current project involves the start-up of the 660MW Coal-Fired Power Plant in Ptolemais, Greece.
Edison David, Educator

Edison David (Source: AbS-Cbn/X.com)

David, a London‑based Filipino educator, has been named Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2025 New Year Honours List for his outstanding contribution to education in the United Kingdom. He received the honor from Prince William on behalf of King Charles III at a royal investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle on 13 May 2026, wearing a bespoke barong from Lumban, Laguna.
In the honors list published in The Gazette, David was recognized for his work as executive headteacher at Granton Primary School in Lambeth. This prestigious accolade acknowledges individuals whose sustained commitment and service have made a significant, long‑term impact on their communities and fields. David, 53, is believed to be the first Filipino British person to receive an MBE in the field of education.
Aimee Alado-Blake, Lawyer

Aimee Alado-Blake (Source: Instagram)

Alado-Blake is an international lawyer, cross-border adviser, and hybrid entrepreneur specializing in sustainable infrastructure, climate transition, and cross-border investment between the United Kingdom and Southeast Asia. A part-time UK civil servant, she brings more than two decades of experience across the public, private, and third sectors, with expertise in governance, regulatory risk, and complex stakeholder environments. Her work sits at the intersection of policy, finance, and infrastructure delivery, particularly in energy, waste, and climate-resilient development.
In her private capacity, she is the Chair of the ASEAN UK Business Forum (AUBF), which advances trade and investment corridors between the UK and Southeast Asia. She is also a social and impact investor committed to the Blue Economy and circular economy models, and a Trustee of WELL Trust, which supports post-disaster rebuilding and livelihood programs in communities affected by Typhoon Haiyan in Capiz, Philippines. Based in London, she mobilizes trusted partnerships for a resilient future.
NEW ZEALAND
Jay Aranas, Director, Right Education

Jay Aranas (SOurce: LinkedIn)

In 2007 together with his wife and four children, Aranas migrated to New Zealand, In 2014, they gained citizenship. As a Skilled Migrant in Auckland, he worked as a Business Development Manager for IT and Telco companies and as a Sales Consultant for service companies. Right Education provides new students hoping to study in New Zealand with guidance, assistance, and support to succeed in their chosen qualification and thrive in the new environment. Services include course selection and admission, visa application assistance, post-graduation support and pastoral care.
AUSTRALIA
Roxanne Sarthou, Community Leader

Roxanne Sarthou (Source: FILCCA)

Ms. Sarthou is a respected community leader in Australia’s multicultural sector, serving as National President of the Filipino Communities Council of Australia, Inc. (FILCCA) and Chief Executive Officer of the Filipino Community Council of Victoria, Inc. (FCCVi). Under her leadership, FCCVi has grown into Australia’s largest Filipino charity and a leading ethno-specific aged care provider, expanding its impact across aged care and multicultural communities.
Sarthou leverages more than 20 years of experience across Australia’s premier financial institutions—including NAB, ANZ, and MLC. By integrating robust governance frameworks with sustainable business practices, she has consistently enhanced the fiscal health and structural stability of the organizations she serves. She brings a community-driven approach to diaspora economic engagement, promoting entrepreneurship, strategic partnerships, and pathways for long-term sustainability.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (UAE)
Pia Fajelagutan, Airline Recruiter

Pia Fajelagutan (Source: Abu Dhabi Book Fair)

Fajelagutan is the Lead Talent Acquisition at Riyadh Air, a Saudi airline. She is also a published poet, a former artist-in-residence at The Crypt Gallery in London, and a member of the Riyadh Writers community, where she exhibited at the group’s inaugural conference this year. She has facilitated workshops at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature and the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair.
Her decade-plus in aviation recruitment has taken her from Emirates, where scale and speed demanded rapid growth, to Etihad Airways, where she rose to Recruitment Manager, and to Global Aerospace Logistics, where the work carried a more precise, military-adjacent weight. Each role, she says, “taught me a different language of leadership, of solidarity, of people.” She was there for the selection of the first Emirati astronauts and she helped build the workforce behind Zayed International Airport.
“I want to leave every space, however briefly I pass through it, a little more human than I found it,” she says.
Ezra Santos, Fashion Designer

Ezra Santos

Santos arrived in Dubai in 1993 and by 2004 he established Ezra Couture, a label that has dressed Arab royalty, Hollywood A-listers like Lady Gaga, Paris Hilton, Jennifer Lopez, Nicole Scherzinger, and beauty queens from across the globe. Growing up in Pasay City, he would come home at 3 p.m. and lose himself in black-and-white films from the 1940s and 1950s. The leading ladies. The way the fabric moved. The silhouettes that made women look both powerful and effortless. Those images never left him. “The glamour and fashion of the ’40s and ’50s will always be part of my design aesthetics,” he says. “It is always a fashion inspiration to many.” That cinematic foundation is visible in every Ezra Couture piece and its unapologetic Filipinoness. He will weave indigenous Philippine materials and design traditions into his international collections like abaca, piña, traditional weaves—fabrics that many global designers would overlook. His best experience was creating the wedding gown of Sheikha Mahra, daughter of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai.
Albert Tranquilino, Owner of Darcy Flowers

Albert Tranquilino (Source: Rappler)

Tranquilino is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Darcy Flowers, a luxury floral brand based in the United Arab Emirates known for its bespoke floral arrangements, creative design concepts, and signature philosophy of “Joy Beyond Flowers.” Under his leadership, Darcy Flowers has grown into a recognized name in Dubai’s premium floral and events industry, serving high-end events, corporate clients, and private celebrations.
His journey began in the Philippines, where he was first introduced to floristry at the age of 12 while working in a local flower and funeral shop. This early exposure sparked a lifelong passion that eventually led him to establish Darcy Flowers in 2018. Through years of dedication, creativity, and perseverance, he built the brand into a successful business in the UAE. Today, he continues to lead its vision and creative direction, driven by innovation, teamwork, and a commitment to delivering meaningful floral experiences that connect people beyond flowers.
Lyndon Magsino, Finance Executive

Lyndon Magsino (Source: Facebook)

Magsino is a seasoned finance executive and global advisor, currently serving as Chief Financial Officer of VisionX International. With a strong background in audit, risk, and financial advisory, he has worked with big four consulting firm, providing strategic guidance to central banks, as well as global and regional financial institutions across the Middle East.
He earned his Executive MBA from Hult International Business School in Boston, graduating Magna Cum Laude, and further strengthened his leadership credentials through the Executive Leadership Program at Harvard Business School. Previously, he served as Chief Audit Officer of the Maharlika Investment Corporation, leading audit functions for the Philippines’ sovereign wealth fund. Beyond his corporate achievements, Magsino is an active leader in the Filipino community and currently serves as Chairman of the Philippine Professional Organization in the UAE.
Dr. Rex Bacarra, Educator

Dr. Rex Bacarra (Source: X.com)

Bacarra is an academic and educator currently serving as Assistant Professor at Rabdan Academy (Zayed Military University) in the UAE where he teaches ethics to future military leaders. Prior to this, he held academic and administrative positions at Curtin University Dubai, Dean of General education at the American College of Dubai, and Director for Administrative Services at San Beda College-Alabang in the Philippines. Bacarra has been granted the UAE Golden Visa, reflecting the high level of trust and recognition from the UAE government.
Jeni Kar Linao and Aldrin Joseph Linao, Owners of Maria Paz Pastry and Café

Jeni Kar Linao and Aldrin Joseph Linao (Source: Facebook)

Jeni was a nurse in the Philippines who moved to Abu Dhabi where she met Joseph, who moved there when he was 19 years old. They have two children. To earn additional income, they opened a Maria Paz Pastry and Café franchise. They have two branches now in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and hope to open more branches and even a restaurant in the near future.
SINGAPORE
Edmon Alvarea Zaraspe, Engineer

Edmon Alvarea Zaraspe (Source: Instagram)

Zaraspe, 48, began his career as an entry-level technician in the Philippines before building more than two decades of experience across over 20 countries. He made history as the first Filipino and first Southeast Asian appointed as Regional Director of the American Welding Society, one of the world's leading welding organizations. Now based in Singapore, he leads regional initiatives covering nine countries across Southeast Asia.
Generoso “Jun” Ferrer, Jr., Nurse and Entrepreneur

Generoso “Jun” Ferrer, Jr. (Source: Global Filipino Magazine/Facebook)

Ferrer, who once worked as a nurse in Qatar, has built a health technology business in Singapore centered on the belief that most chronic illnesses begin not in hospitals, but in the home kitchen. He now leads SASO Health Technology Solutions, serving as an authorized dealer of a premium American cookware brand while training fellow Filipinos to build their own businesses.

When the AFAM Was Me

Maria Antonia Bosa Van Espen-Boonen — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 18:51:33 +0000
Behind every acronym lies a history. Behind every marriage lies a human story.
The moment people learn that I am married to a foreigner, many assume they already know my story. They imagine how we met, why we married, and what I gained from the relationship. The truth is that they do not—their version of my life bears little resemblance to the life I have actually lived.
Everyone in the Philippines knows what an AFAM is—or at least they think they do. The exact origin of this Filipino slang acronym remains uncertain, even though there is a widely repeated explanation that it stands for “A Foreigner Assigned in Manila.”

Top photo: Taken in 2009 at the United Nations Headquarters in Vienna, Austria, this photograph offers a glimpse of the author’s work life during her overseas posting. The author (left) with Ambassador Libran N. Cabactulan (right), then Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, during one of the many international meetings and engagements that formed part of her assignment.
Lower photo: Front row (from left): the author; Ambassador Libran N. Cabactulan, former Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York; and Ambassador Linglingay F. Lacanlale, former Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations and International Organizations in Vienna. Back row, two members of the Philippine delegation. (Photos courtesy of Maria Antonia Bosa Van Espen-Boonen)

According to this interpretation, the term originally referred to foreign men, particularly Western men, living in or spending time in the Philippines during the era of American military bases, such as Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base, where a large number of foreign servicemen were stationed.
Over time, AFAM evolved into a backronym and expanded to refer to almost any foreigner, including members of expatriate communities, the entertainment industry, and social media circles. It has been variously interpreted as “A Foreigner Around Manila” or “A Foreigner Arriving with Money.” The term has become so embedded in contemporary Filipino culture that it has evolved into a social phenomenon, generating essays, academic research, and cultural commentary.
What is interesting is that popular stereotypes, particularly on social media platforms such as Tiktok and Facebook, often frame AFAM relationships in purely economic terms: a Filipina or Filipino seeking a wealthier foreign partner. As the common remark goes “Meron na namang isang pamilya na nakaahon sa kahirapan”—another family has been lifted from poverty.
My reality never fit the usual AFAM narrative.
Preconceived Stories
I experienced firsthand how people often impose preconceived stories on interracial or international marriages without knowing the actual circumstances. Beneath the warmth of every homecoming was a familiar refrain: “AFAM na naman...” Some looked at me with curiosity, others with subtle judgment, as though they could reconstruct my life simply by seeing the foreign man beside me.
Yet my story turns those assumptions on their head. I did not meet my husband while seeking opportunities abroad or hoping for a different life overseas. By the time our paths crossed, I was already serving overseas in the foreign service. We met through our shared social circles during my diplomatic posting, and what began as a chance encounter gradually developed into a relationship founded on mutual respect, shared values, and a genuine appreciation of each other’s cultures.

The author and her husband on their wedding day in Vienna, Austria, wearing traditional Filipino wedding attire woven from piña and banana fibers. As they leave the ceremony, family and friends shower them with rice—a cherished tradition in both the Philippines and Belgium, symbolizing blessings for a prosperous and enduring marriage. (Photo courtesy of Maria Antonia Bosa Van Espen-Boonen)

Years ago, while my husband and I were living in Manila during one of my regular foreign service rotations, he decided to enroll in the Ateneo-Regis Executive MBA Program in Rockwell. As part of the admission process, he was interviewed by a panel of three professors. One question stood out: “As a foreigner from a developed country, why did you choose to join your wife here in the Philippines, instead of having her immigrate to your country—the more common path for many Filipinos?”
I never doubted that my husband would do well in the interview. He was admitted to the program and later graduated with distinction, shortly before we left for my next overseas posting in the United States.
But what is striking is the question itself.
Deeply Entrenched
The professors’ inquiry reflected a deeply entrenched, systemic assumption: that a marriage between a Filipino and a citizen of a wealthier nation must inherently serve as an escape hatch or a one-way ticket out of the Philippines. It exposed a societal blind spot that often fails to see our country as a place of destination, opportunity, and professional growth for outsiders, rather than just a point of departure.
While modern globalization has shifted how we view international marriages and relationships, personal experiences often provide the clearest lens through which to understand these dynamics. There is nothing inherently wrong with marrying a foreigner; on the contrary, when built on mutual respect, such unions can be profoundly enriching experience, beautifully bridging different cultures and perspectives.
This reality is reflected in my own family, where two of my sisters are also happily married to foreign nationals. Their journeys illustrate how these relationships can flourish alongside professional accomplishment and shared ambition. One sister met her husband while working for a publishing company in Hong Kong in the 1990s, while the other met her spouse while serving as a bank officer in Manila.
These stories, together with those of numerous friends, relatives, and notable Filipinos who have married foreigners across government, entertainment, fashion, sports, and other fields, demonstrate that many international relationships are rooted in professional equality, emotional maturity, and deep, reciprocal love. They blend the warmth, adaptability, and strong family orientation of Filipino culture with broader global perspectives, creating an environment in which both partners can thrive.
Several prominent Filipinos, including historical figures, have found love across cultures and nationalities. Among the best known is statesman General Carlos P. Romulo, who married American author and journalist Beth Day. Former Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary and Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Domingo L. Siazon, married Japanese national Kazuko Siazon, who worked closely with him on several international cultural initiatives. Lawyer Loida Nicolas-Lewis married African-American businessman and lawyer Reginald Lewis, while businessman Virgilio Hilario married Finnish beauty queen and first Miss Universe Armi Kuusela.
Multicultural marriages are also common in the Philippine entertainment industry. Examples include model Solenn Heussaff, who is married to Argentine entrepreneur Nico Bolzico; actress and model Isabelle Daza, who is married to French businessman Adrien Semblat; and internationally acclaimed theater actress Rachelle Ann Go, who is married to American businessman Martin Spies, to name a few. In many of these unions, the foreign spouse chose to live with their Filipino partner in the Philippines for a period of time.

The author’s husband on his graduation day in 2018 after earning his Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines through its partnership with Regis University in Colorado, USA. (Photo courtesy of Maria Antonia Bosa Van Espen-Boonen)

Celebrated Multicultural Marriages
While high-profile multicultural marriages are often celebrated as unions of intellectual equals and symbols of global sophistication, modern “AFAM hunting” is frequently portrayed in local popular culture as a survival strategy—a means of securing foreign citizenship or improving one’s economic prospects, including the ability to support family members back home through remittances. These negative connotations stem from deep-seated cultural biases and assumptions about economic survival, social mobility, and societal judgment.
A holistic view of the AFAM phenomenon requires acknowledging that marriage to a foreigner may also be influenced by socioeconomic realities. For some individuals, such marriages represent a practical path toward financial stability and a better future for themselves and their extended families. This reality should neither be dismissed nor judged harshly. Economic aspirations do not diminish a person’s capacity for genuine affection, loyalty, or commitment. Ultimately, whether formed through professional networks, shared interests, or aspirations for upward mobility, cross-cultural marriages demonstrate the resilience, adaptability, and openness of Filipinos in building meaningful and enduring partnerships across borders. Recognizing these diverse motivations moves the conversation beyond simplistic stereotypes and toward a deeper appreciation of the many ways human relationships are formed and sustained.
Flipping the perspective from foreigners assigned in Manila to Filipinos assigned by Manila, my foreign husband is not an AFAM. Rather, I was the AFAM— A Filipino Assigned by Manila—while on an overseas posting with the Department of Foreign Affairs. In fact, I would say that the Department has its own pool of AFAMs. Quite a few of my former DFA colleagues are also married to foreigners and, at different points in their careers, have lived in Manila during the regular diplomatic rotation. The same could be said of Filipinos assigned overseas by the Philippine government, Philippine companies, or other Philippine-based organizations for work, projects, or official duties.
A Playful Twist
My use of the acronym is, of course, a playful twist on its usual meaning. It is not intended to turn the usual meaning of AFAM into a measure of financial status or social standing. Rather, it reflects the perspective of Filipinos whose work has taken them across borders, where they, too, in the unfamiliar position of being the foreigner, become the ones adapting to a different culture, building relationships, and creating a home far from the Philippines.
In short, while many Filipinos understand AFAM to mean “A Foreigner Assigned in Manila,” its origins matter less to me than the perspective it came to represent. Not all AFAMs are foreigners. Some, in a broader and more reflective sense, are Filipinos—assigned by Manila rather than assigned in Manila.
In the end, whatever meaning is attached to AFAM, I hope it never overshadows the reality of multicultural families. They are living examples of cultural openness, mutual respect, and the increasingly interconnected world we share. Their stories remind us that the strongest relationships are built not on nationality or stereotypes, but on trust, respect, and a shared commitment to building a life together.
Over the years, I came to realize that AFAM was never just about nationality; it was about perspective. Depending on where life takes us, anyone of us can become the outsider, the newcomer, or the one learning to adapt. My years abroad taught me that what begins as “foreign” often becomes familiar through friendship, work, and love.
Looking back, I no longer think of AFAM as an acronym that defines people. Instead, I think of the friendships, the family, and the life my husband and I built together across cultures. Those, more than any label, are what truly matter.

The author and her husband

Maria Antonia Bosa Van Espen-Boonen is a retired Philippine foreign service staff officer and diplomat based in Brussels, Belgium. Her writing draws on both personal and professional experiences, spanning more than two decades of government service and diplomatic assignments in the United States and in Europe. She is a recipient of the Department of Foreign Affairs 2014 Outstanding Employee Award.

More from Maria Antonia Bosa Van Espen-Boonen

Riding to Save: An OFW’s Scooter Life in Dubai

Michael G. Lucero — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 18:51:26 +0000

Kirk pauses on his e-scooter during an early morning ride through Dubai’s designated lanes, fully geared, a quiet testament to the discipline, safety, and determination shared by many Filipino OFWs (Photo by Michael Lucero).

Before the sun rises, Kirk is already on the road. Along with Jun and Rey, he graciously shared their experiences and allowed me to photograph their rides.
Dubai’s streets are still half-asleep, the air cooler and quieter. The wind presses against his helmet as his e-scooter hums along, weaving carefully through designated lanes. At this hour, the city feels personal, less glass and gold, more asphalt and effort. For Kirk, and for many Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) like him, this two-wheeled ride is not just a commute. It is a daily act of survival, focus, and quiet joy.
In a city known for supercars and skyscrapers, the e-scooter tells a different story, one of savings, resourcefulness, and the small freedoms OFWs carve out for themselves far from home.
Why a Scooter Makes Sense

Before the city fully wakes, Jun, a Filipino OFW, pauses on his e-scooter in Dubai’s designated lanes (Photo by Michael Lucero).

We ride e-scooters for many reasons. They are practical, cost-saving, and efficient. In Dubai, transportation costs add up quickly, taxis, multiple metro transfers, fuel, parking fees. For OFWs who budget carefully and send money home every month, every dirham matters.
An e-scooter shortens the distance between a rented room and the workplace. Many of us choose accommodations closer to work so we can simply ride instead of walking long distances or paying daily fares. We also choose small, foldable e-scooters because they are easy to bring inside our rented rooms, keeping them safe and protected. It reduces commuting expenses, saves time, and gives us independence over our schedules.
But beyond practicality, there is a feeling that comes with riding, something familiar. Almost the same feeling as riding a motorcycle back in the Philippines. A rush, like adrenaline being injected straight into your veins. It’s hard to explain, but the closest word is happiness, simple, unexpected, and deeply personal.
Daily Life on Two Wheels

As the sun sets over Dubai, a Filipino OFW, rides his e-scooter home through the city’s designated lanes, each turn and glide a quiet testament to the daily journey of millions abroad (Photo by Michael Lucero).

Dubai is one of the world’s most modern cities, but for Filipinos, there are corners where it feels like home. Satwa, often called Little Manila, is one of them. Filipino restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, sari-sari vibes in a foreign land, it’s all there.
A typical day starts with breakfast. Some eat at home; others sit at small restaurants that spill onto the pavement, with plastic chairs, outdoor tables, and lively street chatter that feels unmistakably Filipino. Then, e-scooters roll out one by one, heading toward different jobs across the city.
Those assigned to farther areas fold their e-scooters and bring them onto buses or the metro, fully allowed, as long as the e-scooters remain folded. At work, many offices now have designated e-scooter parking spaces. Some even allow e-scooters inside the premises, with charging freely permitted. For Filipinos known for dedication and hard work, these small allowances feel like quiet recognition.
At night, e-scooters are stored inside shared rooms, tucked beside bunk beds. In larger buildings, basement parking is available; in smaller ones, a natoor, a building caretaker or security attendant, may collect a small monthly fee for ground-floor parking. The e-scooter follows us everywhere, grocery runs, jogs at nearby tracks, quick trips to parks like Zabeel Park, or sunset rides to public beaches like LaMeer.
Sometimes friends ride together. Someone installs a JBL speaker, playing Tagalog songs that echo through the streets. LED lights glow beneath e-scooters, styled like miniature sports cars. For a moment, Dubai fades, and it feels like we are riding somewhere back home. Filipinas ride too, confident, careful, and equally part of this quiet movement.
Rules, Responsibility, and Safety

Rey pauses on his way home after a long day at work, the city lights of Dubai surrounding him, a quiet reflection of the sacrifices and hope carried by many Filipino OFWs before they rest and rise again (Photo by Michael Lucero).

Living abroad means learning to respect the system that allows us to stay. Filipinos do not take opportunities like Dubai for granted. We follow the rules, not only because it is required, but because safety matters, and yes, it also looks cool to ride responsibly.
Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) provides clear e-scooter regulations. Riders must obtain a free e-scooter permit through the RTA website or official apps, which includes a short awareness course and an online test covering safety rules and riding basics. The permit is issued digitally and can be accessed anytime on your device.
Riding is allowed only in designated zones and shared paths approved by the RTA. High-speed roads, major highways, and most pedestrian walkways are prohibited unless clearly signposted. Helmets and reflective or bright clothing are mandatory. Only one rider per scooter is allowed, and riders must dismount at pedestrian crossings.
Foldable e-scooters can be carried on the metro or tram, provided they meet size and weight limits and remain folded inside stations.
Fines apply for violations, riding without a permit, entering restricted areas, ignoring safety gear, or breaking traffic rules. Repeat offenses can even lead to confiscation. For most OFWs, these rules are not a burden. They are a reminder: discipline keeps us safe and employed.
Facing the Challenges

As crowds pour out of the Business Bay Metro Station during peak hours, e-scooters offer a faster, more efficient alternative, turning long walks and packed transfers into smoother, time-saving commutes (Photo by Michael Lucero).

The biggest challenge is the summer heat. Dubai’s sun can be unforgiving, but most rides last only a few minutes, short enough to endure. Rain comes only a few days a year, and sandstorms sweep through the city from time to time. They exist, but they do not define our daily lives.
Maintenance is rarely a problem. Satwa has many affordable workshops, and brand-new e-scooters can last years without major expenses. For Kirk, two years have passed with almost no maintenance cost, aside from parts and accessories added to make his e-scooter look stylish.
Safety, above all, comes from following the rules. Ride only where allowed. Respect pedestrians. Stay alert. For Filipinos abroad, obedience to local laws is not just about compliance, it’s about respect for the country that gave us work.
More Than Just Savings
Yes, the scooter saves money, but it also gives freedom. It gives control over time, mobility, and routine. It allows exploration of the city at human speed, not behind tinted windows, but out in the open.
There is pride in managing life this way. In choosing simplicity. In making smart choices. In finding joy where others might only see inconvenience.
“I feel like I own a little part of Dubai when I ride my scooter,” Kirk says, smiling.
The OFW Heart on the Road
After long shifts, the ride home becomes reflective. The city lights blur. Thoughts drift, to family back home, to remittances sent, to sacrifices made quietly. The scooter carries more than a rider; it carries dreams, responsibilities, and hope.
This is the OFW story, resourceful, resilient, practical. We make do. We adapt. We find happiness in small, moving moments between work and rest.

In Dubai, an e-scooter may seem small, but it represents something bigger, the ability to take control of daily life, one ride at a time

Riding Forward
Life abroad teaches lessons quickly: frugality, independence, creativity, and adaptability. An e-scooter may seem small, but it represents something bigger, the ability to take control of daily life, one ride at a time.
For many OFWs in Dubai, the road is not just a path to work. It is a reminder that even far from home, we keep moving forward, carefully, responsibly, and with quiet determination.
Acknowledgment
This story was made richer by the voices of fellow Filipinos in Dubai who generously shared their time and experiences. I would like to thank Kirk, Jun, Rey, and other Filipino e-scooter riders whose everyday journeys, insights, and stories helped bring this narrative to life. Their openness reflects the quiet perseverance, care, and camaraderie of the Filipino community abroad.

Michael Lucero is a Filipino civil engineer from Palawan who has been working as an OFW in the Middle East since 2006 and is currently based in Dubai, UAE. He writes narrative stories and blogs on Filipino life abroad, craftsmanship, and the quiet intersections of engineering, music, and everyday survival far from home, including guitar-related writing at jmjguitars.com.

More articles from Michael G. Lucero

From Small-Town Rotunda to Big-Time Rialto

Trish Muyco-Tobin — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 18:51:10 +0000

Joan Almedilla

Perhaps it’s fitting that the 1970s song Times of Your Life has deep meaning for Filipina American Broadway star Joan Almedilla.
With lyrics that tease, Good morning, yesterday. You wake up and time has slipped away, Almedilla walked down memory lane beginning with a childhood buoyed by music. The youngest of three children, she recalls singing in the kitchen of her family home in Cebu.
“When I was five, or maybe younger, my family would ask me to sing. And if I did, they’d give me ₱10 – that was a lot back then,” she said. “And then, if I could cry real tears, they’d give me more money.”
The veteran stage performer, whose credits include playing Aurora Aquino in the Los Angeles production of Here Lies Love, Kim in Miss Saigon on Broadway, and Fantine for the national tour of Les Misérables, recently wrapped up a scene-stealing turn as Bloody Mary in South Pacific at The Muny in St. Louis.
But her knack for entertaining goes back decades and across more than 8,000 miles away. At age seven, she won an amateur singing contest on local Cebu radio, stoking an already glowing ember within.
“It was called Wee Wee Jamboree on the radio. ‘Good morning, yesterday…’ that’s what I sang,” she recalled. “Apparently, I had memorized the song. It was the very first song I learned.”

Joan Almedilla (center) performs as Bloody Mary during the July 2026 production of “South Pacific” at The Muny in St. Louis (Photo by Phillip Hamer)

Growing up, Almedilla idolized the likes of Filipino singing icons Lea Salonga, Manilyn Reynes, Ivy Violan, Rico Puno, Hajji Alejandro, and Freddie Aguilar.
“I went to an all-girls school and we had the barkada, right? In my group, I was the one who loved to sing and loved music,” she said, noting that her musical repertoire extended to playing the guitar or the conga drums during school masses.
It was during this time that Almedilla’s mother, Rose, decided to further nurture her daughter’s innate skills.
“My mom ‘secretly’ enrolled me to get voice lessons – and I say secretly because my dad (at first) wanted me to go to school and be a nurse or an accountant or something like that,” she explained. “When it was getting more serious, my dad became very supportive of me singing in the church choir, and I remember him coaching me in a school singing contest.”
In the early ‘90s, Almedilla, along with her father, Pepe, and her siblings, came to the U.S. and settled in New York, where Rose was already working at a hospital as a medical technologist.
“I was 19 years old, landing at JFK in the dead of winter. I didn’t have a jacket or anything and my mom told me, ‘You’re going to get sick.’ And I did, for like a month,” she said, noting that while it was an adjustment, being surrounded by family helped ease her transition into American life. “I met cousins here that I never knew I had, and uncles and aunties and extended family. There was always an excuse to get together every Saturday and Sunday…someone picks up the guitar and it’s like karaoke – and there’s always food.”
After a stint at Nassau Community College, where she studied communications, Almedilla transferred to Hofstra University to major in economics.
“School’s expensive, so I got a loan,” she said. “I majored closer to what my dad wanted. Accounting was not my favorite, but I actually started liking economics. But I didn’t really finish – I would love to go back.”
She had good reason to leave school: In 1999, she was cast as Fantine (the first Asian to play the role) for the national tour of Les Misérables.
“I had to decide if I should keep going on debt or pay my debt. So, I decided to stop college and went on the tour,” she said.
Prior to embarking on the Les Misérables tour, Almedilla had already launched her star on Broadway, landing the role of Kim in Miss Saigon from 1995 to 1997. It was not lost on her that it was the role originated by Salonga, which garnered the international superstar a Tony Award, among other accolades, for her performance.
“I had never really done musical theater before, and now I had to act and dance and kiss a soldier. I just wanted to sing!” Almedilla said. “After you’re hired, there's this time when they give you time to watch the actor that you're replacing, so you follow them backstage. I wish I was there to watch Lea, her process, when she was there. I was just so intimidated, so overwhelmed. But most musical theatre people are so kind. It’s such a kind community.”
For two years on tour, Almedilla settled into the role of Kim, describing a collaborative process working with her fellow Miss Saigon actors.

Almedilla (center) in the July 2026 production of “South Pacific” at The Muny in St. Louis (Photo by Phillip Hamer)

“You work together for six, eight hours a day, so you see each other’s flaws. You’re finding things and you adjust,” she said. “It’s kind of humbling, you know, when you’re still finding your own.”
Her search for professional growth led her to legendary acting coach Allen Savage, a beloved teacher to many who aspired to see their name in lights.
“He was my mentor. He completely changed my life,” Almedilla said. “I always jokingly say that he would shred you to pieces and then he’d put you back together. He could tell if there was something holding me back.”
Working with Savage over the course of several years, Almedilla said one of the most important things she learned about acting is how to listen.
“Acting is so brave emotionally, you really have to get there,” she said. “You don't think, ‘I'm going to be convincing,’ you just do it many times and you understand. It’s like throwing a basketball back and forth without dropping it because you’re in sync. It’s really life-changing. It’s like when you have a friend that just listens, you know what I mean? So, as an actor – I don’t want to get too technical – he taught us how to just listen. And it’s incredible when you also apply it in life.”
Savage died in 2024, the same year the Almedilla family lost Pepe.
“My dad passed away in February and (Allen) passed away in November…2024 was hard,” she said of losing her father and a father figure at the same time.
Such profound loss may have been channeled months later, as Almedilla took on the role of Aurora Aquino in Here Lies Love, the groundbreaking musical featuring music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim. The story centers around the former first lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, wife of the late dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. Almedilla played the mother of slain opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. as part of an all-Filipino cast in the show’s Los Angeles production.
“The show didn’t force people to pick sides or anything,” she said. “It just tells a story about what war can do and what division can do – and what peaceful protest can do, if we all band together as people.”
Almedilla credits fellow performer Reanne Acasio, who played Aurora on Broadway, for giving her insight into who the real Aurora Aquino was.
“Reanne was kind enough to share her notes – she spoke with the family, with the grandchildren. And what I have discovered is that there was such a quiet strength about Aurora,” Almedilla said. “If you know the story, you know what happened to her son. People looked to her for strength. We all have that in our family, right? The grandma who doesn’t judge but is just there for you and you know they’ll always be there.”
Performing Here Lies Love for a mostly Filipino audience was a highlight, but as Almedilla would come to find out, its message was far more universal.
“It wasn’t just so many Filipinos, but there were Asians, whites, Blacks and Latinos – they all came to watch,” she said. “Every time I had a chance to speak with people who didn’t know anything about the show, they would always say, ‘I’m going home to research this. I had no idea what you guys went through.’”
Some in the audience were Filipino Americans who had fled the country to escape the turbulent political climate of the 1980s.
“They were crying, bawling 80-year-olds… and to see the show reminded them of their history,” she said.
Her most recent appearance as Bloody Mary in The Muny’s production of South Pacific” marked a departure from the “quiet strength” of her previous role. But Almedilla was careful to avoid playing into any stereotypes long associated with the larger-than-life character from mythical Bali Ha’i.
“The first thing I did not want to do is make a caricature out of Bloody Mary,” she said. “She’s just a businesswoman fighting for her daughter and for survival. She’s not afraid, she’s not trying to please anybody. She just wants to survive and she’s going to use as many tactics as she can to survive and make sure her daughter, Liat, is going to be OK.”
When asked about her most challenging role to date, Almedilla considers her portrayal of opera great Maria Callas in the Sierra Madre Playhouse production of Master Class.

Growing up, Almedilla idolized the likes of Filipino singing icons Lea Salonga, Manilyn Reynes, Ivy Violan, Rico Puno, Hajji Alejandro, and Freddie Aguilar.

“Maria Callas was a perfectionist…she was a beautiful singer but so scary and so effective, I had to get into her mind,” she said.
These days, Almedilla calls Burbank home, where she lives with her husband, Charles Uy, and their teenage son. But the Philippines will always tug at her heartstrings.
“I always look at little Joan when she had her first singing contest, and my mind goes back to that little town and singing in the middle of that rotunda,” she said. “Now that I’m older, I look back and there are a few people I want to go back to and just thank them. Oh, my gosh, I wish I could see them again! My teachers in school, some friends, the voice school I went to…they really believed in me.”
Life happens fast, Almedilla concluded.
“I cannot not think of Cebu. I think of Cebu every day. And I think of my friends all the time. It’s always, always on my mind.”
Almedilla, along with Broadway’s Jon Jon Briones, “The Voice” Season 26 winner Sofronio Vasquez and others, will appear in concert as part of East West Players’ “Crazy Talented Asians” showcase Aug. 21 and 22 at the David Henry Hwang Theater in Los Angeles.

Award-winning journalist Trish Muyco-Tobin has a combined 30 years of experience in TV, radio and print as an editor, reporter, news anchor and producer. She is a member of the faculty at the School of Communications at Webster University in St. Louis, where she also serves as adviser for student publications, including the Webster Journal and Ampersand magazine.

More articles from Trish Muyco-Tobin

Honoring Our Manongs and Manangs 2026

Lorna Lardizabal Dietz — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 22:37:19 +0000

Standing (L-R) Joe Gacoscos, San Francisco Consul General Arnel G. Talisayon, Mona Lisa Yuchengco, Brig. Gen. Steve McLaughlin, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba (Ret.), Roderick Medallon and Lloyd LaCuesta. Seated: Dr. Richard Tenaza, Dr. Joy Bruce, Luzviminda Micabalo, Perla Ibarrientos and Polly Cortez (Photo by Minerva Amistoso)

Dressed in "something Filipino" --- from traditional Filipiniana to modern Philippine-made fashion accessories --- Filipino American elders, community leaders, families, and supporters gathered in style for the third annual "Building Communities: A Tribute to Our Manongs and Manangs."
A packed Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library served as the backdrop on Saturday, August 8, 2026, for a moving three-hour afternoon program honoring 12 Filipino American leaders. Their collective lives represent decades of pioneering achievement and selfless service across military defense, diplomacy, public service, medicine, literature, field science, entrepreneurship, and grassroots advocacy.
Organized by Positively Filipino, a premier digital magazine chronicling the global Filipino story in all its complexity, in partnership with Cris and Evelyn Raimundo, Publisher Mona Lisa Yuchengco described the honorees as true "living treasures" who have safeguarded culture and carved out paths for future generations.
"We honor them today to express the gratitude and appreciation they so richly deserve, and to let them know their hard work and sacrifices have not been forgotten. Their stories remind us of where we came from and guide us to a better future. Their experience and wisdom give us hope and new beginnings," Yuchengco stated, grounding the event in purpose. She also mentioned the passing of two honorees: Peter Jamero (2024) and Diosdado "Dado" Banatao (2025).
The afternoon opened with greetings from Jaena Rae Cabrera, Program Manager of the library's Filipino American Center. Cabrera offered a land acknowledgment, paying respect to the Ramaytush Ohlone people as the original caretakers and sovereign inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula.
Veteran television journalist Lloyd LaCuesta served as emcee, steering the audience through a rich repertoire of community introductions, trophy presentations, heartfelt acceptance speeches, and family remembrances. The resonant gongs of the Kulintang Dialect ensemble, led by educator and composer Conrad Benedicto, provided live music that anchored the ceremony in pre-colonial cadence and diaspora pride.
Marking a historic milestone in longevity, this year’s tribute honored a vast span of life experiences, from the youngest honoree in his active mid-70s to an extraordinary matriarch celebrating 110 years of life.
It is with profound respect and affection that the 2026 tribute spotlights these remarkable Manongs and Manangs.
The 2026 Honorees
Lt. Gen. Edward Soriano, U.S. Army Ret. (Colorado)
The first Filipino American promoted to general officer in the U.S. military, Soriano retired in 2005 after 35 years of service as a three-star lieutenant general. He had commanded I Corps at Fort Lewis, Washington, and was the highest-ranking Filipino American in U.S. military history at the time.

Lt. Gen. Edward Soriano (Image courtesy of Lt. Gen. Edward Soriano)

Introduced by Brig. Gen. Steven McLaughlin, Soriano appeared by video and urged younger Filipino Americans to recognize the opportunities created by those who came before them. “The door is open. It was opened for me by people I never met, and we carry a duty to hold it open for others coming behind us,” he said. “There will be challenges, obstacles, and naysayers along the way. So, don’t quit or give up.” He added that legacy is “not about the title you carry, but the example you left.”
His son, Keith Soriano, accepted the award and offered a more personal portrait of the general as a devoted father and grandfather.

Keith Soriano accepting the award for his father, Lt. Gen. Soriano, from Brig. Gen. Steve McLaughlin (Photo by Minerva Amistoso)

Perla Gange Ibarrientos (California)
Introduced by Dr. Rod Daus-Magbual, a council member and former mayor of Daly City, the 91-year-old community leader was honored for nearly four decades of volunteer service, including her longtime work with the Pilipino Bayanihan Resource Center (PBRC). A pharmacist by training, she immigrated to the United States in 1973 and later found her calling in community service.

Perla Ibarrientos receiving the award from Dr. Rod Daus-Magbual (Photo by Minerva Amistoso)

“Tita Perla” called Daly City her extended family and spoke warmly about the rewards of volunteering. “In my 37 years of service, serving the community, I found out volunteering is amazing. It’s rewarding,” she said. “I touched so many people, so many people’s lives in my 37 years.”
Eddie Flores, Jr. (Hawaii)

Eddie Flores, Jr. (Image courtesy of Eddie Flores, Jr.)

Lloyd LaCuesta read the introduction prepared for Susie Quesada, president of Ramar Foods, who was unable to attend. Co-founder of L&L Hawaiian Barbecue and author of Franchising the American Dream, Flores overcame a learning disability and academic struggles to become one of Hawaii's leading Filipino entrepreneurs and community builders.
After joining the Filipino Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii --- the nation's first Filipino chamber, founded in 1954 --- Flores became deeply involved in the effort to build the Filipino Community Center in Waipahu. Recruited by Roland Casamina, he spent nearly a decade helping turn the dream into reality, including raising funds through Filipino community celebrations. The 50,000-square-foot center opened in 2002. Flores has often said that building it was a greater accomplishment than growing L&L Hawaiian Barbecue.
“For me, giving back to the Filipino community is very important,” Flores said in a video message. His younger sister, Vicky Leon, accepted the award on his behalf.

Vicky Leon, sister of Eddie FLores, Jr., accepting the award on his behalf from Lloyd LaCuesta (Photo by Minerva Amistoso)

Evangeline Abellera Paredes (Washington, D.C.)

Evangeline Abellera Paredes (Photo by Jon Melegrito)

Zeni Mallari, president of Gordon Manor, offered a remarkable look at the 110-year-old Manang Vangie’s life of public service and volunteerism. During World War II, Paredes served as secretary to Philippine Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon when his government was based in Washington, D.C. She later worked for the Philippine Embassy, traveled across the country with Gen. Carlos P. Romulo to visit Filipino communities, and joined the U.S. Department of Defense in 1957.

Zeni Mallari (Photo by Minerva Amistoso)

Asked what she was most proud of, Manang Vangie pointed not to her government career but to helping raise funds for the Congress Heights Senior Wellness Center, serving underserved Black families in Washington. Even in her 90s, she continued volunteering and speaking out against racial injustice.
Her advice for a long life was just as memorable: “Volunteer, help others as much as you can, be kind and generous, eat plenty of nuts, chew your food well… Most of all, don’t take yourself too seriously.”
“I’m ready to go any time,” Manang Vangie said, “but I’m not pushing it.”
Milagros “Mila” Medallon-Ka‘ahanui+ (Hawaii)

Milagros “Mila” Medallon-Ka‘ahanui+ (Photo courtesy of the Medallon-Ka‘ahanui Family)

A pioneering social worker and former executive director of Hawaii’s Office of Community Services, Manang Mila devoted more than four decades to defending the dignity of immigrants, Filipino World War II veterans, care-home residents, and other marginalized communities. Introduced posthumously by Dr. Angelica Cortez, founder and CEO of LEAD Filipino, her story showed a life spent not only helping people in need, but building systems to support them.
When Filipino World War II veterans began arriving in Hawaii in 1992 with little support, Mila mobilized housing, food, citizenship assistance, and social services. She created a state task force for Filipino veterans, helped establish immigrant resource centers on three islands, and fought for stronger standards for care homes.
Her son, Rod Medallon, remembered a mother who was “very, very tough, but kind-hearted.” He recalled her emptying the family pantry to feed veterans who had nowhere else to turn. “Her compassion was never passive,” he said. “She was a woman of fire and grace, strong as steel against injustice… but she had a tender heart.”

Roderick Medallon, accepting the award on behalf of his mother, Milagros Medallon-Ka‘ahanui+, from Dr. Angelica Cortez (Photo by Minerva Amistoso)

Dr. Jocelyn “Joy” Bruce (Florida)

Dr. Jocelyn “Joy” Bruce, accepting the award from Gayle Romasanta (Photo by Minerva Amistoso)

Retired neuropathologist, tenured professor at the University of Miami, author, and community advocate, Manang Joy was introduced by Gayle Romasanta, author and trustee of the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS). Alongside her distinguished medical career, Bruce founded organizations serving Filipino American families, elders, and youth.
She founded NANAY, meaning “mother” in Filipino (Tagalog), in honor of her own mother. “I decided that whatever time I did not spend with her, I’m going to spend with all the other elders who are still around,” Bruce said. She wanted to provide companionship, address depression, and help elders enjoy their remaining years.
Her service went beyond NANAY. Bruce founded the Philippine Charities Foundation in Miami in 1992 and the Philippine American Federation of South Florida in 1998, which brought together 20 Filipino American associations. She also served as Southern Regional Chair of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations. After seeing a CNN report about children imprisoned with adults in the Philippines, she helped establish Advocates for Children and Elders International Philippines, which advocated for changes in the country's juvenile justice law.
But Manang Joy turned her recognition of past accomplishments into a responsibility for the future. “I’m challenging everybody to get together, join hands, and make sure that we serve these people who are needy, elders who need companionship, and youth who need guidance. Can we do that?”
Linda Ty-Casper (Massachusetts)

Linda Ty-Casper (Image courtesy of Linda Ty-Casper)

At 95, Manang Linda, author and poet, is best known as a legendary historical novelist who transformed a troubling library discovery into a 60-year literary crusade to tell the complex history of the Philippines. She was introduced by scholar, professor, and writer Michael Gonzalez.

Dr. Michael Gonzalez (Photo by Minerva Amistoso)

Her fascination with Philippine history began with her grandmother's stories about the Revolution against Spain and the Philippine-American War. Years later, while studying at Harvard, she discovered inaccurate and derogatory accounts of Philippine history and Filipinos in Widener Library. Determined to challenge those narratives, she turned to historical fiction, eventually writing more than 20 books. Her novels explored war, colonialism, political corruption, human-rights abuses, and the Marcos dictatorship, preserving difficult chapters of Philippine history for generations of readers who did not experience them firsthand.
Her work continues to reach new generations. The Three-Cornered Sun, set during the Philippine-American War, was reissued in 2024, while a revised critical edition of A Small Party in a Garden was reissued in 2026. Even in her 90s, she remains productive, publishing a memoir in 2025.
Luzviminda Sapin Micabalo (Nevada)

Luzviminda Micabalo, receiving the award from Lourdes Moldre (Photo by Minerva Amistoso)

At 88, Manang Luzviminda is a healthcare leader and philanthropist whose professional success became a platform for decades of service. Lourdes Moldre, a nurse executive at UCSF Health, traced her career from establishing Cabrini Medical Center's first home health agency to becoming a healthcare executive, while building an equally remarkable record of humanitarian work in the United States and the Philippines.
With her late husband, surgeon Dr. Zosimo E. Micabalo, she participated in medical missions across the Philippines for more than 27 years, bringing healthcare to underserved families. In 2001, she established a nonprofit foundation in Nevada to support underserved communities in the United States and the Philippines. In 2007, the couple donated land in Oroquieta City to Gawad Kalinga to build homes for poor families. She also supported educational programs, raised funds for disaster victims, and advocated for Filipino nurses' rights. Long retired from her professional career, she continues to join medical missions.
Manang Luz turned those accomplishments back toward the people she served. “When we lift someone, we lift the whole community,” she said. “This award belongs to you, the community, and to my husband, whose compassion still guides me.” She added, “If our small part inspired others, even one person to help others, then I feel that we have won our cause.”
Dr. Richard Tenaza (California)

Dr. Ricard Tenaza, receiving the award from Dr. Elena Mangahas (Photo by Minerva Amistoso)

Manong Richard is a renowned field biologist, Professor Emeritus at the University of the Pacific, primate researcher, and namesake of Antarctica's Tenaza Peak. Elena Mangahas, co-founder of Little Manila Rising in Stockton, gave the audience a worldview of Dr. Tenaza's accomplishments.
Born into a Filipino migrant farmworker family, Tenaza spent his earliest years living in a packing-crate home near Half Moon Bay. From those humble beginnings, his curiosity about nature took him around the world, from the Arctic tundra and California's Farallon Islands to the rainforests of Indonesia, the savannas of East Africa, and Antarctica, where his pioneering research on Adélie penguins led to Tenaza Peak being named in his honor.
But his legacy extends beyond scientific discovery. During three decades at the University of the Pacific, he took generations of students out of the classroom and into forests, oceans, and distant lands where science became something they could experience firsthand. He also devoted decades to Filipino American education and community organizations, including FANHS, and served as the first faculty advisor to Kilusan Pilipino, mentoring Filipino students as they explored their own history and identity.
Polly Santiago-Cortez (California)

Polly Cortez, accepting the award from Flor Nicolas (Photo by Minerva Amistoso)

Manang Polly is a retired federal banking regulator, Vice Chair of the Friends of UP Foundation in America, and President of the Dr. Jose Rizal Legacy International Foundation.
Introduced by Flor Nicolas, South San Francisco councilmember and the city's first Filipino American mayor, Polly was recognized for a life that joined professional achievement with community service. During 38 years in federal banking regulation with the U.S. Treasury, she helped oversee financial institutions and protect the public interest. Beyond government service, she has encouraged Filipino Americans to participate in civic life and pursue positions of leadership.
For nearly two decades, she has served the Friends of UP Foundation in America, helping channel alumni support toward scholarships, research grants, and professorial chairs. A lifelong Girl Scout, she has also served as a board member, financial consultant, and mentor. She helped establish the sister-city relationship between South San Francisco and Pasig City and, through the Dr. Jose Rizal Legacy International Foundation, continues working to preserve and share Rizal's legacy with future generations.
Manang Polly traced her drive to serve to a near-death experience when she was struck by lightning at age eight. Given what she considered a second chance at life, she built a personal mission around her “P” words—purpose, positive prayer, participation, perseverance, persistence, principles, and passion.
“This is not the end; we have to keep going,” she said. Her mission: “Building bridges, making a difference that matters, guided by purpose and powered by passion.”
Manang Polly ended with a challenge that captured the spirit of the afternoon: “May we continue to turn our compassion into action, service with impact, purpose into legacy.”
Paciencia “Pat” Gacoscos+ (California)

Paciencia “Pat” Gacoscos+ (Photo by Mona Lisa Yuchengco)

Manang Pat was honored posthumously. Manny Fernandez, a former Union City councilmember and longtime friend, recalled the retired public servant and community activist who became the first Filipino American woman elected to the Union City Council.
Her public service began long before elected office. In the late 1980s, she spoke out against racism and called for greater minority participation in politics. She served eight years on the New Haven Unified School District Board of Education, where she helped bring Tagalog instruction to James Logan High School. Later, as Union City vice mayor, she supported a resolution backing the DREAM Act and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrant youth.
Manang Pat also believed in building bridges across cultures. As chair of the Human Relations Commission, she founded the Union City Sister City Festival in 2004 and became founder and president of Union City Friends of Sister Cities, promoting friendship and understanding among communities across several countries. Until her death on May 22, 2026, shortly after her 81st birthday, she continued encouraging others to embrace civic engagement and community service.
Her son, Joe Gacoscos, remembered another side of his mother, a woman who could make friends with anyone, regardless of wealth, race, gender, or political influence.
In her recorded message, Manang Pat said their generation was “giving it to the younger people to accept the challenge” and become of service to the community.

Joe Gacoscos (right) receiving the award for his mother, Pacienca Gascoscos, from Manny Fernandez (Photo by Minerva Amistoso)

Maj. Gen. Antonio "Tony" Taguba, U.S. Army Ret. (Virginia)

Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, accepting the award from Cecilia Gaerlan (Photo by Minerva Amistoso)

Manong Tony's life reflects military service, moral courage, and a commitment to preserving Filipino American history. Introduced by Cecilia Gaerlan, founder and executive director of the Bataan Legacy Historical Society, Taguba rose to major general during a 34-year Army career. The son of a Philippine Scout who survived the Bataan Death March, he gained international attention in 2004 when he led the investigation into detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. His report documented widespread abuse and failures in military oversight, even though speaking the truth came at great personal cost to his career.
Retirement opened another chapter of service. As chairman of the Filipino Veterans Recognition and Education Project (FilVetREP), Manong Tony led the national campaign that secured the Congressional Gold Medal for Filipino World War II veterans. But he believed a medal was not enough. FilVetREP went on to develop "Duty to Country," an educational program designed to teach new generations about the veterans' service and sacrifice.
“That's their legacy,” Taguba told the audience. “You got to tell their story.”

This year’s tribute honored a vast span of life experiences, from the youngest honoree in his active mid-70s to an extraordinary matriarch celebrating 110 years of life.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Building Communities: A Tribute to Our Manongs and Manangs 2026 was made possible through the generosity of many, including:
Title Sponsor: Cris and Evelyn Raimundo,
Sponsor: Gordon Manor and the Mallari Family
Partners: Ben and Rose Olivas
Supporters: Alex and Barbara Abela; Sonia Delen and Chris Fitzsimmons; LBC; Loida Nicolas Lewis; Mila and Ernie Llorente; Mango Tours; The Pasquil Rogers Family; Ramar Foods; BEI Hotel San Francisco; Goldilocks USA
Volunteers: Agnes Alikpala, Beverly Bongolan, Lois Briones, Eliza Duerme, Imelda Oppenheim, Maritella Oppenheim, Bess Roces, Irwin Ver, France Viana
Event recording: Minerva Amistoso
Snacks: Goldilocks USA
Hotel accommodations: BEI Hotel San Francisco
Stage and audiovisual support: San Francisco Public Library and its crew
Host: Lloyd LaCuesta
Entertainment: Kulintang Dialect
CLOSING REFLECTIONS
When the honorees and the audience moved to the Latino/Hispanic Community Room for networking, post-event photos, and refreshments provided by Goldilocks USA, Philippine Consul General Arnel Talisayon offered another perspective on the meaning of the tribute. He recalled growing up in Manila knowing relatives in America largely through balikbayan boxes, cassette-tape messages, long-distance telephone calls, and other connections between migrant relatives and families left behind.
"I remember associating life in America with one of plenty. Life without challenges, without sacrifice, and without struggle. As an adult, I now know that this is not the case. Every migrant story carries with it themes of uncertainty, anxiety, doubt, and even fear. Every migrant story has tales not only of the excitement of arrival, but of the pain and difficulty of departure. Every story of Filipinos who migrated to the U.S. is built on the stories of generations who carried the same hope, uncertainty, courage, anxiety, strength of will, fear, doubt, and piety," Talisayon shared, connecting those memories directly to the Manongs and Manangs and saying today's Filipino American communities were built through years of work, shared vision, and commitment by those who endured earlier struggles.
The call to action is clear: An honor recognizing past achievement also carries a responsibility for the future.

Lorna Lardizabal Dietz is a Filipino community publicist and cultural empowerment advocate. She serves on the board of directors of Sentro Filipino: The San Francisco Filipino Cultural Center.

More articles by Lorna Lardizabal Dietz

The Only Unhappy Aquino in America

Howie Severino — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 22:37:06 +0000
Before Noynoy, there was his father, Ninoy, the man with the limp who opened the door to let in a callow college sophomore into his sparse university office in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
I was then 19 years old, working on a research paper on the United States military bases in the Philippines. I knew no one else in the Boston area who had any first-hand knowledge of the topic. A former senator, Ninoy Aquino then was a little-known exile in America, permitted to leave political prison in the Philippines for heart surgery and recently arrived in Boston to take up a fellowship at Harvard. It was 1981.

I had seen him give a talk in a school auditorium a few weeks earlier in the dead of winter. There were only about two dozen people in the audience, including a few homeless who were there only because the space was heated, but he sounded like he was addressing a miting de avance. His passion filled the room.

Desperate to finish my paper, I gave his office a call. He picked up the phone himself and instead of just answering my queries, he told me to come to his office. He even called me, “Pare.”

He occupied a small office he shared with an African scholar who wasn’t there. There was nothing on the walls and not even family pictures on his desk; he had apparently just moved in.

I stayed much longer than I expected, listening to him not only talk about the U.S. bases (he was a bit careful not to offend his hosts) but also share gossip about Filipino politicians and their children, and his prognosis for the country’s near future. He talked about what he knew of then-President Marcos’ illness, and the “bloody merry-go-round” of power if Marcos were to suddenly die. As for the limp, he told me he had a fall during a speaking trip to another state.

The wide-eyed student just trying to write a paper left his office more than a bit overwhelmed. It wasn’t just the knowledge or insight that I got, but the time and attention. He spoke to me like a peer and looked me in the eyes. I was still too young to realize that it was an aptitude shared by many skilled politicians.

As different as we were, I came away with the feeling that we were alike in at least one way – we were both homesick Filipinos who loved the company of other Filipinos, especially in a place where there were so few of us.

Late senator Benigno Aquino Jr. in Massachusetts. (Photo courtesy of Benigno S. Aquino Jr. Foundation)

I would seek out his company again, this time in a small academic seminar where we were the only Filipinos in the room. He made the Americans gasp when he mentioned that the influential Cardinal Sin had to be more like Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, whose followers had just taken over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and taken everyone in the embassy hostage. But what he meant was the church leader needed to be more active in opposing the dictatorship.

Soon after, he would return home and become a martyr. He was also the first person I knew as an adult who died.

Like other overseas Filipinos during this time, I went home to join the ferment that would eventually lead to people power and political change in 1986.

Thirty years after the death of Ninoy, and accompanied by my documentary team, I would return to the city where we met and visit his former office in a squat colonial building where he welcomed a young Filipino stranger like a friend. A portrait of a smiling Ninoy now hangs in a conference room in the building.

This time, in 2013, his son Noynoy was already president.
[In 2013, Howie Severino produced an I-Witness documentary on the Aquino years in Boston.]
I was surprised to recall then that I had never asked Ninoy about his family.

But he did have a family life in Boston, the private and happy flip side of the public, intense Ninoy. Those were the three years in the early 80s when all five kids and the two parents lived together for the first time since the youngest, Kris, was a baby. Noynoy was the only son and the middle child.

They lived in a modest brick house across from the campus of Boston College and along the route of the famed Boston Marathon. When I paid the house a visit, the unmarried elderly sisters who now own the house and lived there showed me Ninoy’s sunlit study on the ground floor where he’d do his writing and every year watch the marathoners run past his window. That was his simple man cave where he could have made the fateful decision to return home.

There was no marker or any other sign in the house that two future Philippine presidents had once lived there.

Ninoy wasn’t the handyman in the house, according to his eldest child Ballsy Aquino Cruz whom I interviewed, partly because he had had recent heart surgery. It was their mom Cory who took charge of minor repairs and household emergencies like a flooded basement from a water leak.

The Aquino family in Massachusetts. Conspicuously missing is Noynoy Aquino, who remained in the Philippines to finish his studies at Ateneo de Manila University. (Photo courtesy of the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation

Noynoy himself declined our request for an interview about those years, but Kris eagerly obliged and described the joy of being the constant object of her father’s attention, recalling that he never missed a school event or play even if Kris had only a minor role.

She also said those years were financially tight for the family. “Alam na alam ko what it’s like na magtipid sa kuryente,” Kris recalled. “Like now super conscious ako na ‘hoy magpatay kayo ng ilaw’ or pag walang tao, ‘patayin n’yo yung aircon (I know what it’s like to conserve electricity… Now I’m super conscious and tell others, ‘hey, turn off the lights,’ or if no one’s in the room, ‘turn off the aircon,’) because of those years.”

His sisters told me that while the rest of the family became comfortable in America, there was one member who felt out of place during their exile, and that was Noynoy.

After his father’s heart surgery in Dallas in 1980 when the entire family was together, the 20-year-old Noynoy went back to Manila alone to finish his last year as an economics major at Ateneo de Manila University.

Noynoy Aquino graduated from Ateneo de Manila University in 1981. (Photo from The Aegis)

So as his family was adjusting to a new life in Boston as a nuclear unit again, Noynoy was living by himself until his graduation a year later, which his exiled parents couldn’t attend. When he finally rejoined his family in the U.S. in 1981, the rest of the family had already happily settled in, his dad Ninoy with a prestigious fellowship at Harvard, 10-year-old Kris enrolled in a private Catholic school within walking distance from their home, his sister Viel in college, the two eldest sisters Ballsy and Pinky working, and mom Cory the anchor at home who kept everything humming with Ninoy’s steady stream of visitors.

“Yung aming one year of setting up house and all that, kami-kami yun, he (Noynoy) wasn’t part of that,” Ballsy the eldest said. “Yung kanyang transition, I would say, walang transition ano. Parang masyadong biglaan… Dumating siya na parang hindi pa rin niya alam kung ano ba talaga.”
(I think maybe it was also his age, you know soon after college and then you live in exile. I think it was the most difficult for him. When we spent the first year setting up house and all that, that was just us. Noynoy wasn’t part of that. His transition was really no transition. It happened so fast. He had no idea what to expect).

Kris was more direct: “Hindi siya happy talaga dun (He really wasn’t happy there), unlike me na I could've lived there (the U.S.) forever... And I think it was really hard to be an only boy when you're surrounded by four sisters.”
“Siya yung type talaga na parang hate niyang bumyahe,” Kris continued. “It’s not his thing talaga. Love niya dito. Pwede sya sa Tarlac forever. Not like me nga na parang I kept telling my mom and dad, can't we become Americans? Tapos sabi ng dad ko, you'll never be American, you're Filipino. Ginaganun ako. Sabi ko, ok fine.”

(He always hated traveling. He loves it here. He could stay in Tarlac forever. Unlike me, I kept telling my mom and dad, can't we become Americans? Then my dad would say, you’ll never be American, you’re Filipino. He would tell me that.)

Noynoy Aquino returned to Boston in 2014... this time as President of the Philippines. (Photo by Ryan Lim/Malacañang Photo Bureau)

Prior to the US, Kris had no memory of her father living at home as she was a baby when he was imprisoned in 1972, released only in 1980 for surgery and exile in America. So it seemed Ninoy was making up for lost time by being a constant, doting presence. He and Kris would go to movies and bookstores, and he would show up even for PTA meetings at her school.

She doesn’t recall a similar bonding between her kuya Noynoy and her dad. When I asked if they ever did anything together, she laughed and said, “Shovel the snow. Nagsho-shovel sila. Kasi grabe mag-snow du'n.” (They would shovel the snow. It snowed a lot there.)

“I think Noy learned how to be on his own talaga. So I’m not saying naman that they were distant pero my dad was maybe like most dads nga talaga na may soft spot sa mga babaeng anak, dun sa girls talaga.”

(“I think Noy really learned how to be on his own. So I’m not saying that they were distant but my dad was maybe like most dads – he had a soft spot for his daughters.”)

When I was in Boston to research the Aquinos in 2013, I sought out their family friends, mostly Filipino doctors who were also Ninoy’s mahjong buddies. They had little memory of Noynoy socializing or chatting with them.

“He was the quietest person,” recalled Dr. Cherry Agular, the Aquinos’ family dentist in Boston and still a close family friend. “Every time we see him, he would just kiss, hi tita, hi tito. Tapos mawawala na.” (Then he would disappear.)

When Noynoy became PNoy and made a sentimental visit to Boston in 2014, he recalled the frigid winters and having to take a bath without hot water. But he also hinted at deeper personal struggles.

"I acquired the ability to adapt to a changing environment, which, as you can imagine, is very valuable when handling crises. I learned to cope with uncertainty, having had to constantly wonder when and if we could go back to our beloved homeland," he said in a speech to the Filipino community in Boston.

While Ninoy Aquino was incarcerated during Martial Law, he passed upon his son "the great responsibility" for the Aquino family. (Photo courtesy of the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation )

Quiet, even introverted, that’s how Noynoy was described by loved ones in his youth. But even then, the brooding Noynoy, unhappy in exile, harbored a mission, assigned to him when he was just 13 by his father, then in solitary confinement in a military prison and already sensing an early death.

“You are my only son. You carry my name and the name of my father,” Ninoy wrote in a letter nearing midnight on August 25, 1973. “Forgive me for passing unto your young shoulders the great responsibility for our family. I trust you will love your mother and your sisters, and lavish them with the care and protection I would have given them… Stand by your mother as she stood beside me… There is no greater nation on earth than our Motherland, no greater people than our own. Serve them with all your heart, with all your might and with all your strength. Son, the ball is now in your hands.”

So as his family was adjusting to a new life in Boston as a nuclear unit again, Noynoy was living by himself until his graduation a year later, which his exiled parents couldn’t attend.

It was a letter publicly shared only after Ninoy’s death in 1983, but the words must have weighed heavily on the mind of a young man who grew up in the shadow of a political prodigy, and who was constantly underestimated from the time of his youth and even after he became president.

Noynoy must have known he was no prodigy and would forever be compared to his namesake. But his sister Ballsy believes her brother stood out in at least one way. She told me in 2013, when he was only halfway through his presidency, “I think of the five of us I would say he's the most idealistic, and especially now I can see that. You know this love of country I think comes with age and with parents like our parents kung hindi pa namin mahalin ang bayan e there is something wrong with us. Pero kay Noy, ang tindi talaga e.” (With parents like our parents, if we didn’t love our country, there must be something wrong with us. But with Noy, it was really intense.)

She thought that’s what gnawed at him in the U.S., even as his sisters were relishing their family life.

“Siguro lahat yun umiikot sa ulo nya – ganito na lang, dito na lang ba tayo? Hanggang kelan tayo rito? We have to go back. The struggle is there.” (That probably didn’t leave his mind – is this it, we’re just going to live here? How long? We have to go back. The struggle is there.)

The family did go back, the father first, only to be assassinated. That began a historic struggle that no one could have imagined.

Like millions of other Filipinos at the time, I was deeply shaken by the spectacular brazenness of his killing, frozen in time by images of a bloody tarmac tableau.

I soon found myself back in Manila a fresh college graduate, shaming myself into abandoning a careerist ambition overseas to become a teacher, writer, and protest photographer at home.

Former president Corazon Aquino (center, holding megaphone) is accompanied by her son Noynoy at an event in February 1986, days before the People Power Revolution that toppled the Marcos dictatorship. (Photo by Howie Severino / Colorized by Jeric Benitez)

Five years after I nervously entered Ninoy’s office with a list of research questions, I saw his son for the first time. In the tense days after the snap election in February 1986, I was taking pictures of volunteers guarding ballots in the old Makati City Hall when the presidential candidate and eventual winner Cory Aquino arrived and appeared on a balcony to boost the morale of the crowd.

Handing her a megaphone to speak to the throng was someone who looked like Ninoy, the 26-year-old only son Noynoy with a full head of hair. He was standing beside his mother, just as his father told him to do 13 years earlier.
Reposted from the author’s Facebook page.

A Childhood My Children Will Never Fully Know

Elena Baldwin — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 22:36:57 +0000

The author and her sister in the ‘80s (Photo courtesy of Elena Baldwin)

Some evenings, when the house is finally quiet, I find myself thinking about how different my children’s childhood will be from mine.
Not better or worse. Just different.
I grew up in the Philippines surrounded by people all the time. There were cousins everywhere, neighbours dropping by unannounced, karaoke playing in the background, and family gatherings that somehow always became bigger than planned. I remember family reunions that fill up a basketball court, plates constantly being refilled before you had even finished eating, not bothered by not having many friends at school (because who needs friends when you have 20 cousins!) and adults still talking long after the children had fallen asleep somewhere in the corner.

A typical birthday in the ‘90s (Photo courtesy of Elena Baldwin)

Even ordinary days felt shared.
Now, raising my children in the UK, life feels much quieter.
Sometimes our street here feels almost too quiet compared twith the neighbourhood I grew up in. Life feels more scheduled, more individual, and although there is beauty in that too, there are moments when I deeply miss the closeness of home.

Our family in the UK (Photos courtesy of Elena Baldwin)

After having my children, I also went through quite a difficult period returning to work after maternity leave. I think many mothers understand that feeling of suddenly being pulled in so many directions while quietly trying to figure out who you are again underneath it all.
For a while, I felt like I had lost parts of myself in the routine of work, motherhood, responsibilities, and simply trying to keep up with everyday life. Writing slowly became one of the few things that felt like mine again.
But it also became something else.
It became a way of holding onto home.
I found myself thinking more about the parts of my childhood I wanted my children to grow up knowing too. I want them to feel proud of every part of who they are, British and Filipino.
But when you raise children far away from family, you realise how difficult some things are to pass on.
Not just traditions or language, but the feeling of family itself.
There is a deep ache of home that becomes stronger after every trip back to the Philippines.

My little one with her cousins (Photo courtesy of Elena Baldwin)

You spend weeks surrounded by noise, conversation, laughter, children running between rooms, family nearby, people constantly arriving with food, and family members squeezing around tables that somehow always make room for one more person.
Then suddenly you come back to quieter routines again.
I always feel that transition emotionally, especially now as a parent.
During our last holiday home, I found myself watching my children more than anything else. Watching how they slowly adjusted to being around cousins all the time. Watching them learn to share space, toys, attention, and affection in ways that feel so natural in big Filipino families.
At one point, I realised that not being the centre of attention all the time felt like such a new concept to my little one. Honestly, that moment stayed with me long after we returned to the UK.
Not because one way of growing up is better than the other, but because it reminded me how much family quietly shapes you without even realising it.
Growing up in the Philippines, I never had to think about community because it was simply there all the time. Here in the UK, family life can feel smaller and more self-contained. Beautiful in its own way, but different.

Quezon City Public Library, Storytime + creative writing event, May 12, 2026 (Photo courtesy of Elena Baldwin)

Sometimes I think that is why going home can leave such an ache afterwards.
You return carrying the warmth of being surrounded by family again while knowing your children are growing up far from much of it day to day. There is a quiet sadness in knowing some parts of Filipino childhood, the constant closeness, the shared upbringing, the easy familiarity of extended family, may only exist for them in short visits and memories.
Maybe that is also why storytelling became so important to me.
I did not start writing because I planned to start a business. Honestly, it began during quite a difficult period in my life when I was trying to reconnect with myself again outside of motherhood and work. But it also came from wanting my children to see themselves in stories.
I wanted them to hear familiar names.
To recognise Filipino food, humour, traditions, and family dynamics.
To grow up knowing they never had to choose between parts of themselves.
Slowly, those stories became Mango & Marmalade Stories.

Why I wrote these stories (Image courtesy of Elena Baldwin)

What surprised me most was realising how many other families connected with the same feelings. Not only Filipino families, but mixed-heritage families and parents trying to hold onto culture, memory, and connection while building lives far from home.
In many ways, the stories became my own way of preserving pieces of home too.
This year feels especially meaningful because Mango & Marmalade Stories books will officially become available in the Philippines through 8Letters Publishing from August, and the books will also join the Manila International Book Fair in September.

Growing up in the Philippines, I never had to think about community because it was simply there all the time.

There is something emotional about knowing these stories, which began quietly at home with my own children during a season when I was trying to find myself again, are now making their way back to the Philippines too.
My children may never fully have the childhood I had growing up in the Philippines. But through stories, family, memory, and the small things we continue to carry forward, I hope they will always feel connected to it in some way.

Elena Baldwin is the founder of Mango & Marmalade Stories, a Filipino British children’s storytelling brand creating books that celebrate culture, identity, and belonging for mixed-heritage families. She is based in the UK with her family.
Website: www.mangoandmarmaladestories.com
Instagram: @mangoandmarmaladestories
Philippines Publisher https://www.8lettersbooks.com

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Following the Purple

Sell the Purple

Little Manila: Filipinos Bite a Piece of the Big Apple

Our First Date

My Grandmother’s Love

Filipino Americans Sound Off on the Toboso Tragedy

Reactions and Perspectives

Fact-Finding

Immersion Program

‘Not Naïve’

‘Not Duped’

Memory and Legacy

With Feathers on Her Cap

Chronic Decline

Ray of Hope

From Nature Lover to Birder to Scientist

A Pioneering Hummingbird Study

Natural Selection

The Manong Who Never Loses

Old Game

Undocumented

Across Distances

Growing Up Tough in Sta. Ana, Manila

Finding the Philippines and Its Economic Future Far from Home

The Invisible Visible Minority

From Remittances to Filipino Diasporic Capital

Human Networks Behind Globalization

A World That Continues to Connect

An Underappreciated Strategic Advantage

A Global Filipino Identity

Recognizing the Value We Already Possess

FilAms Among The Remarkable And Famous, Part 81

Steven B. McLaughlin, Brigadier General

Myrna Lynne Willkom Chai, Retired Nurse

Flomy Javier Diza, Immigration Lawyer

Shawn Felipe, Comedian

Bea Millan-Windorski, Beauty Queen

Mark Philip Valerio Santos, Owner, Valerio’s Bakeshop

Andi Therese Sycip, Lab Researcher

Nacho Tambunting, Actor

Rear Admiral Victorino Mercado, U.S. Navy

Marie Husa, Relations Director

J Rey Soul, Singer

Rising from the Ashes in Maui

Rebuilding Lahaina

Building back

Cleaning up after the fires

A changing town

Future generations

Will neighbors return?

Building a Land Trust

Looking ahead

‘Bad Boy’ Vince Tañada’s Theatrical Vision

‘Bad Boy’ of Philippine Theatre

Controversial The Embalmer

Original Pinoy Musicals

Bonifacio Play

[Video] Building Communities: A Tribute to our Manongs and Manangs 2026

Overseas Filipino Achievers, Part 7

UNITED KINGDOM

Reynaldo Z. Lachica, Chemist and Engineer

Edison David, Educator

Aimee Alado-Blake, Lawyer

NEW ZEALAND

Jay Aranas, Director, Right Education

AUSTRALIA

Roxanne Sarthou, Community Leader

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (UAE)

Pia Fajelagutan, Airline Recruiter

Ezra Santos, Fashion Designer

Albert Tranquilino, Owner of Darcy Flowers

Lyndon Magsino, Finance Executive

Dr. Rex Bacarra, Educator

Jeni Kar Linao and Aldrin Joseph Linao, Owners of Maria Paz Pastry and Café

SINGAPORE

Edmon Alvarea Zaraspe, Engineer

Generoso “Jun” Ferrer, Jr., Nurse and Entrepreneur

When the AFAM Was Me