Blog Posts by VERA Files

Albert Tiu

By Pablo A. Tariman, VERA Files

Chamber music enthusiasts will have another special treat when Singapore-based Filipino pianist Albert Tiu teams up with Belgian clarinetist Marcel Luxen Saturday, June 1 at the Ayala Museum courtesy of the MCO Foundation.

A highlight of the recital is the performance of Brahms sonata Op. 120 for clarinet and piano, Schumann’s Fantasie Stucke and the fiendishly challenging Weber's Duo Concertante.

Tiu elaborates on their program choice:” The Op.120 sonatas by Brahms are two of the most important works for clarinet and piano. The composer was inspired by the clarinetist Richard Muhlfeld to whom these sonatas are dedicated. They are also played on the viola, but the clarinet was the original instrument for which they were intended. The piano writing is very substantial and physically demanding. On the other hand, the Weber Grand Duo Concertante is a tour de force for both instruments, and contains acrobatics galore! It also has some beautiful bel canto

Georgina Gil-Lacuna: World's fastest jigsaw puzzle maker

By Maria Feona Imperial, VERA Files

Perhaps for breaking a world record, she has already found the answer to every jigsaw puzzle ever made. But Georgina Gil-Lacuna has one more left unresolved: the puzzle of time. And she likes it that way.

Sharp enough to be the world’s fastest jigsaw puzzle maker, the 61-year-old retired businesswoman confessed, “I don’t wear a watch. I don’t mind if it’s too late already.”

Every day, she devotes three to four hours of alone time completing her puzzles, usually while watching television. She has developed a scheme of sorting out the pieces: first by color, then by their monotone shades. With utmost concentration, she fits them together meticulously, adding up to her Guinness-awarded collection of 1,028 puzzles. And just like 1028, 3 a.m., at the end of the day, becomes nothing but a number.

Like the drooping pocket watches in Salvador Dali’s La Persistencia de la Memoria (The Persistence of Memory), the puzzle Lacuna best identifies herself with,

By Leilanie Adriano, VERA Files

Laoag City, Ilocos Norte – At least 40 Chinese and 12 Taiwanese nationals who were found with several electronic and computer gadgets and accessories in a resort in Vigan were rounded up and detained for questioning, police said on Tuesday.

They said they were investigating the foreign nationals, including 14 women, and the “unexplained purpose” of the computer gadgets and accessories in their possession.

An initial report from the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Ilocos Sur said a team composed of representatives from Vigan’s health, sanitary, engineering and licensing offices, as well as IT and legal experts inspected the rented rooms at Mom’s Courtyard in Barangay Bongtolan in Vigan on Monday morning.

Some of the Chinese and Taiwanese nationals held in the Bureau of Immigration in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte on May 21, 2013. (Photo by LEILANIE ADRIANO) They found several electronic and communication gadgets similar to those used in cybercrime operations during the inspection.

The composite team returned on Monday evening as the group was about to leave the resort and took the foreign nationals for

Ramos at CAPDI General Assembly in Makassar, Indonesia

By Ellen Tordesillas, VERA Files

Makassar, Indonesia—Former President Fidel V. Ramos has recommended the creation of a neutral investigation on the May 9 encounter between a Philippine patrol ship and Taiwanese fishing vessel in the disputed maritime boundary that resulted in the death of a Taiwanese fisherman and sparked violent protests in Taiwan against the Philippines.

Ramos also stressed that almost two weeks after the incident, the results of the Philippine investigation “should already have come out by this time.”

Speaking to Filipino journalists on the sidelines of the Second General Assembly of the Centrist Asia Pacific Democrats International (CAPDI), Ramos drew from lessons in the 1995 Flor Contemplacion crisis and recommended that a “neutral country or group do a second investigation” in case Taiwan rejects the results of an investigation by the Philippine authorities even if he said it’s “a very valid honest, according to law, upright, and credible investigation.”

By Ellen Tordesillas, VERA Files

Makassar, Indonesia—Former President Fidel V. Ramos Monday called on rich countries to reduce their budget for deadly weapons and realign resources for public safety, including navigation in the disputed waters in the South China Sea.

“Clearly, an Asia-Pacific peace must also be built on an understanding among the most affluent, and the most powerful countries in our part of the world—notably the United States, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Australia-New Zealand, and the ASEAN 10 Bloc—to moderate the procurement of lethal weapons in favor of public safety, South China Sea/West Philippine Sea/East Asia, early warning systems, and search-rescue capabilities,” Ramos told the 2nd General Assembly of the Centrist Asia-Pacific Democrats International (CAPDI) at this port city of South Sulawesi.

CAPDI, an organization of political parties, people’s organizations, think tanks, interfaith organizations, business leaders, academe, eminent persons and media,

The many faces of Carlos Celdran

By Matthew Reysio-Cruz, VERA Files

The whole nation wondered who he was.

Sporting a black overcoat and top hat, performer and tourist guide Carlos Celdran stood before a group of bishops at the Manila Cathedral in September 2010 holding up a sign with one simple, familiar word: Damaso. It was a reference to the power-abusive friar in national hero Jose Rizal’s 1887 novel Noli Me Tángere.

Celdran shouted “Stop getting involved in politics!” before being taken away by police.

That same night, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines filed charges against him for violating Article 133 of the Revised Penal Code, which forbids “offending religious feelings.” Last January he was found guilty of the crime by the Metropolitan Trial Court in Manila. Now free on bail, he awaits the possibility of being sentenced to up to 13 months in prison.

Famous 'Damaso' incident

All this was in the name of the then Reproductive Health Bill, a measure that would give government funding for contraception and which was

Raymund Nanos has hemophilia, a rare bleeding disorderBy Lean Carlo Macoto, VERA Files

Like the vast majority of Filipino men, Raymund Nanos is a huge basketball fan. His favorite sport is basketball. His favorite pastime is watching basketball. Those who don’t know him would probably think he plays ball at the court around the corner. In his purple shirt, walking shorts and flip-flops, he looks like that type of guy.

But he isn’t. In fact, this five-foot-five mega basketball fan plays no sport.

At seven months, before he could even walk, Nanos was diagnosed with hemophilia, a rare bleeding disorder and a lifetime disease. Blood doesn’t clot normally for hemophiliacs, and when they bleed, they do so much longer than normal.

Spur-of-the-moment bleeding episodes are not strange to hemophilia patients, especially around their ankles and other joints. Strenuous exercise like basketball can induce bleeding. At least once in their lifetime a vital organ bleeds, spontaneous or otherwise. A recurring question in Nanos’s life is, “Will I bleed

Entrance to cafe with display of baked products and jams

Text and photos by Elizabeth Lolarga, VERA Files

It is apropos that a café founded by artists, writers and other individuals who operate outside society’s margins should mark its 25^th year as a now respected Baguio institution with music, poetry and a satirical monologue aimed at the foibles of the city’s bigwigs.

Capping a week of workshops on food writing, demonstrations and photography, “Silver Spoons and Tunes,” the program prepared by Café by the Ruins, showcased Baguio’s wordsmiths and musicians. It testified to the café’s support of the arts and literature, apart from espousing the slow-food movement and basing its “lunch of the day” on what is available and fresh at the public market.

One of the café partners, Baboo Mondoñedo, once wrote, “When Café by the Ruins opened in 1988, the artists found a home. At the cafe they planned, plotted, exhibited and even put up their installations. Other people helped them get their act together, among them Su Llamado and Rudi Tabora. The