If grief is the price we pay for love, I would gladly bear it for the rest of my life for the chance to feel that love once more. Time may take us away from the people we love, but it can never undo the fact that we loved them, that they loved us, and that somewhere in the grains of sand already fallen, we had a life in which we were lucky enough to have them at all.
Even when I pushed myself to the very limits, it was only a temporary remedy. It was never the cure I needed.
A government genuinely invested in resilience would act before the storm, not after. What we get instead can look like short-term responses presented as long-term solutions, accompanied by speeches about Filipino resilience that risk turning public frustration into pride before it becomes a demand for accountability.
The cruelest part is not that love is inherently expensive, but that an economy built around scarcity can make ordinary people feel as though they cannot afford to love at all.
That is why the phrase “bathroom break” feels increasingly outdated. Women were never the bathroom break—the industry simply spent decades treating them like one. Ten years after Sasha Banks spoke about audiences buying tickets to watch women’s matches, the question is no longer whether women can draw an audience.
“Kintsugi” the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with powdered gold, silver, or platinum treats flaws as part of character, not as ruins. Yet, in a society that pushes the idea that the right path is something linear, we are conditioned to believe that every journey must have a definitive finish line. If something is left unfinished, altered, or redirected, it is easily valued less. But in Kintsugi, the golden lacquer mending pottery is not used to disguise its brokenness. Instead, it highlights it, drawing attention to the underlying growth in its shift of direction.
MISOGYNY used to be blunt, harsh, and explicit—demanding women to stay in the kitchen, submit to men, and limit their ambitions to homemaking. In today’s generation, it has simply been rebranded.
The government’s proposal to have more control over social media to fight against misinformation is not only about having false information removed. It is about deciding who has power over truth. The bill seeks to counter the harmful disinformation online to spread, however it also grants the government control over digital speech, raising concerns in regards of censorship, accountability and the freedom of expression in the Philippines.
In a society where
investment thrives above quality, artistic direction is spurned, especially in a society where
attention, shortened and curated by media, is weaponized by those who value capital over
experience.
“MAHAL ang magmahal,” is a common notion passed around on social media these days. It reminds the viewers of the value of love, what it asks of a person, what is expected of them, and what it takes to be committed. Truly, loving is expensive. It is mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially taxing. And this same idea is echoed in loving the Philippines – ang ating perlas ng silanganan – it requires and asks a lot from everyone who tries.