BY ALDWIN FAJARDO-PONDER MANILA — Flooding in the Philippines has become so routine that the images almost arrive with the predictability of the monsoon itself: commuters wading through brown water, stalled vehicles, families carrying children above waist-deep floods, classrooms converted into evacuation centers, and mountains of garbage collecting along waterways. This August has been no exception. Weeks of southwest monsoon rains, repeatedly enhanced by tropical cyclone

BY ALDWIN FAJARDO-PONDER For months, the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte was treated like another episode in the Philippines’ favorite political teleserye: Marcos versus Duterte, former allies turned enemies, accusations of persecution, loyalty tests, conspiracy theories, and enough political drama to keep Facebook comment sections employed full-time. Then the Senate impeachment trial started doing something considerably less exciting. It began looking at receipts.

Maybe I really do not understand how hospitalization works in the Philippines. I say this as someone who has spent most of his professional life in healthcare, although admittedly in the United States. I run skilled nursing facilities in California. I deal with hospital discharges, rehabilitation needs, nursing assessments, physician orders, wound care, therapy, insurance authorizations, and the countless details that determine whether a patient can safely move from one level

By ALDWIN FAJARDO-PONDER My support for the Philippines’ claim of sovereignty over the West Philippine Sea is not rooted in hostility toward China, nor in the easy excitement of waving a flag whenever another country tests our patience. It comes from a simpler conviction: a nation that refuses to defend what is legally and historically its own eventually teaches others that its boundaries, rights, and dignity are negotiable. For Filipinos, the West Philippine Sea is not an ab

There are two kinds of OFWs in the world: (1) The one who sends money home like a national hero. (2) The one who sends money home and also somehow finances everyone else’s Netflix, birthday parties, and mysterious “emergencies.” If you’re reading this, congratulations! You’re probably both. Let’s be honest. Being an Overseas Filipino Worker doesn’t just mean earning in dollars. It means carrying the emotional weight of an entire barangay. You are not just a worker. You are a

I get teary-eyed when I see people protesting for immigrant rights. It’s not just empathy, it’s recognition. Every chant, every placard, every raised fist feels like an embrace meant for me. It feels like they’re fighting for my place in a world that sometimes forgets how hard it is to begin again, to rebuild a life on foreign soil while carrying the ghost of another home in your chest. When I see them march, I feel seen. I feel like my neighbors love me not because they have

I sometimes question the career choice I made. Not in a throw-my-laptop-out-the-window-and-open-a-beach-bar kind of way — although that fantasy does visit me every Monday at 7:13 a.m. — but in a quieter, more persistent way. The kind that shows up when I’m driving down I-680, coffee in one hand, existential dread in the other, wondering how my life became a series of phone calls that begin with, “Hi, just looping you in…” Being a nursing home administrator is not just a job.

Although unlikely to pass, the Philippine House of Representatives’ vote to allocate nothing but PhP1,000 (US$20) to the Commission on...

Human rights protection in the Philippines is on the verge of extinction after the country’s House of Representatives voted to...

About 361,000 children under 5 years of age die each year due to diarrhea caused by poor sanitation and lack of access to safe, readily...