During my grade school years, I was ostracized for being gay and a Noranian. I always found strength in Ate Guy’s characters in the movies. It made me feel positive. She was indeed a reflection of our lives! I had a classmate who I have ignored since 1980 because he told me Nora was ugly!

Amb. Mario de Leon Jr.: Diplomacy practiced at the human level can bridge divides, preserve dignity and respect, and ensure that peace and development reinforce each other in the lives of ordinary people.

My alma mater USC witnessed the rise of the student government, primarily through the STAND party in 1981. Two years later, the student publication was established in 1983 also upon the effort of the STAND party.

Known as Today’s Carolinian, after the defunct The Carolinian (shut down in 1971), the student paper formally came to life when Ninoy Aquino was assassinated and the Philippines was a smoldering volcano.

How do you stomach stolen wealth while your countrymen live in poverty? How can you swim in your fancy pools when your countrymen swim in floods along with all their belongings?

Following the journalists’ code of ethics is a must, but ultimately the decision to live such ethics is up to the journalist.

People, whether undocumented or not, are a vital labor force in agriculture, healthcare, infrastructure industries, and a vast consumer market that has made the US economy vigorous. The approach to solving this immigration issue is thus legislative. Without legislative reforms, USA will continue to grow undocumented population. 

As the CEO of Apicha Community Health Center, a Federally Qualified Community Health Center (FQHC) with a long tradition of providing high quality and culturally responsive care for Asian and Pacific Islanders (API) and other communities most deeply impacted by HIV, and as a board member of the nonprofit Medicaid health plan Amida Care, I’ve witnessed firsthand the critical importance of HIV/AIDS programs.

Reductions in HIV programs undermine our progress and threaten the health of the very people who need these services the most.

Rev. Fr. Ramon Echica, Dean of Studies of the San Carlos Major Seminary in Cebu City, Philippines endorses readers for a clearer understanding of the troubled humanity these days. Take a read.

In honor of the National Nurses Month this May 2025, we publish the acceptance speech of Ms. de Luna Sanchez as one of awardees of the Global Women Peace Ambassador - on Health and Women Empowerment - on March 1, 2025 accorded by the global women’s organization Women’s Federation for World Peace International at the Philippine Center, NYC. Ms. de Luna Sanchez received a Presidential Award from Pres. Barack Obama on Feb. 12, 2013 for her act of heroism.

Congress must thoroughly examine the immigration and labor policy and come up with thoughtful measures to stop the influx of cheap temporary labor immigrants.

It has to also come up with measures to optimize the people who are already working here and actively contributing to the economic and socio-cultural diversity of the US. Unless the immigration policy is investigated carefully and compassionately, social divide in the US will continue.

The book Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map for Spiritual Formation by M. Robert Mulholland Jr. offers a new twist, or the radical mind shift that our spirituality is not an add-on.  “It is the essence of our being. We are spiritual beings whose emotions, psychology, body, and mind are the incarnation of our spiritual life in the world,” as Ruth Haley Barton noted.

He emphasized that individual growth towards wholeness is an integral part of living for the sake of others.

Thank you, UPF and IMAP for the honor. Excerpts of my speech on women leaders as peacebuilders and chartering a bright future. “We will reach a bright future if we begin with the truth. Truth is our light. Correct information, based on research and digging of facts, is the first step to charter a bright future. We cannot do that with partial or complete lies.”

That is the challenge of journalists like me - to be courageous frontliners for truth.

Persons with disabilities activist Priscilla Garces writes: “Like many others, I strongly urge Congress and lawmakers to reconsider their proposed cuts to Medicaid or Medicare programs. These programs provide essential support services, assistive tools including access to medical care through telehealth durable medical equipment, medical transportation and essential therapies that enable individuals with lifelong disabilities including mental health disorders to achieve autonomy, participate fully in their daily lives, and enhance their independence and freedom.”

Republishing this article is my tribute to Sylvia Hubilla, a great friend who felt like my mother, a suave writer, and regular contributor to OSM! online magazine since its formative years. She passed away on December 20, 2024 in Austin, TX. Our last conversation on FB messenger was that she will write an essay on retirement bliss. That would not come to my email anymore.

This essay was the highest read essay in the defunct website of OSM! online magazine. It is heartfelt, straightforward, so relatable, and useful.

Caution and care must be used before applauding the scary atmosphere created by President-elect Donald Trump’s electoral promise of mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.

First, the lack of reforms on the 59-year-old Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 by the members of Congress, has spawned problems on immigration – ranging from overstayed visas and the massive flow of immigrants coming in from the borders. Thus, if there is anyone needing to do their jobs to create a sound immigration policy, it’s the well-paid US legislators.

Mass deportations are costly for government, detrimental to the economy, and will tear families apart.   

On retirement, Dr. Vanette Colmenares pens: In my senior years, I find true wealth in the serenity of farm life, the legacy of my ancestors, and the love of family and friends. Life's greatest treasures are often intangible, resonating deeply within our hearts and souls.

I come from a lineage of obscure immigrants. My great grandfather Raymundo Hinaut was a labor import from the Philippines in the late 1920s-1930s. He worked as a farm worker, called sacada, in the asparagus plantations of Hawaii and California. He died in a dysentery epidemic when my maternal grandmother was two years old.

I am a fourth-generation immigrant of my family, and I am not your stereotypical Filipino nurse. I am a writer.  But like all of us here, I rest on the shoulders of my immigrant ancestors.

Immigrants form the social fabric of America and have done so right from the beginning of this American experiment about 247 years ago.  With apologies to the natives of America, the peoples of the First Nations who have been wiped out by genocide and concentrated in reservation parks, we immigrants have contributed to empowering the US.  

Jose Rizal, the 1998 film by Marilou Diaz Abaya, is remastered and shown internationally. It ignites the same inspiration and brilliance today as it did 26 years ago. Dr. Romulo Aromin Jr writes a critique.

I appreciate my adopted homeland, where dreams don’t just come in dollars and cents, but in the currency of knowledge, experience and a dash of audacity. It is within the realms of such, that one comes to realize the purpose of life, and it lies in recognizing one’s unique talents and the meaning is to share it.

Community leader and real estate businessman Edwin Jose noted that the community had embarked on an intelligent and relevant conversation on immigration and journalism with the presentation the doctoral research that aimed to bridge the socio-political gap in understanding immigration issues.