finding cain

I had several good professors during my years at the Lyceum but the one I think of most often was my mandolin-playing humanities instructor, who claimed to be an ex-Marine. He was forty-two, a widower with no kids and in the midst of a serious hunt for a spouse. He said he was from Zamboanga. His chosen drink was Tequila.    The professor was friendly, meticulous, and above all, he made the subject more interesting. He was extremely clear on all explanations and always gave his students the chance for advanced creative and scholarly work and recognition.    On the afternoon of September 7, 1998, a shot rang out somewhere around the university. I was sitting in the library pretending to be reading Homage to Catalonia when I heard the gunfire. Chaos. Panic. Confusion. The shooter was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the cafeteria. It was the professor.    I met Mr. Pineda about 16 years ago while I was attending summer school. You know, ...

One day in 2003, a twenty-two-year-old college drop out from Cebu named Trisha Vicencio decided to move to Manila to set up her own business. She was bold, independent, quite intimidating, and attractive – with an Asian face that you couldn't clearly identify as Filipina or Korean, or Thai; could even have been Indian. Trish was one of the smartest people I ever worked with, and she had this certain degree of neurosis that made her very interesting.    I got very close to her in that confused and anxious time after quitting my band to get a real job. She was born into a relatively wealthy family in Mandaue. Her father was a diplomat who took his Peruvian wife and their five children around the world in service to his country. She was obsessed with Miles Davis, Thom Yorke, Milan Kundera, and Gaugin. She was not afraid of strange places, and when sleep came and went or wouldn’t come at all, she went for long walks with her Jack Russell.    Trish and I first met at...

In the island province of Masbate, summer meant fun and great adventures, and though I was only 14 when I first went there for a vacation, I was able to recall a lot of those endeavors and use my recollection as proof that Masbateños (and Bicolanos in general) were the most hospitable people in the world. It might be different for the locals, but as a 'tourist' I was overwhelmed by how accommodating everyone was.     Aunt Esperanza usually threw a family reunion on the first Sunday of May, a potluck to which everybody brought an ethnic dish. She cooked some kinunot na pagi and ginataang manok . Uncle Charles showed up with two gallons of tuba. I sipped a little bit of the funny drink and passed the bottle to my younger cousin, who drank with such enthusiasm and filled his mouth with that awful, vinegary liquid. My mother brought her famous Bicol Express. She had an extraordinary appetite for chili peppers, the stronger the better, but sometimes she had to tone it dow...