Pinoy Writers Online

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on December 26, 2007

I AM A MARGINAL home PC owner and user who, four or five years ago, abandoned the idea of buying or owning another desktop dictated by the high cost of procuring and installing a licensed proprietary operating system, without which my desktop would just be considered a piece of junk. Even if I could afford, at a lower cost, for this software to be installed in my PC from third party sources, I don't see any reason to maintain the high cost of re-installing over and over again this operating system as it is susceptible to system crashes and quite vulnerable to viruses, internet worms and malicious software. Although there are plenty of pirated copies of this software sold in the sidewalks I was never tempted to buy one.

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on November 16, 2007.

LAST OCTOBER 15, 2007, I WENT to Mactan Island on some official business. I went to Pier 3 to board the River Ferry launch that was to take me to that island from mainland Cebu. It was 2:30 PM when the launch proceeded to cross the Mactan Channel. The rain had just stopped minutes ago where there was heavy downpour that lasted for about an hour before that.

As the launch was now cruising on the livid blue-green waters of Cebu Harbor, I noticed swarms of marine birds, unusual in number, dived and skimmed on the water’s surface. They happened to peck and pick on the flotsam and jetsam that the floodwaters of the Lahug Creek disgorged, whose river mouth is now but a square hole underneath the asphalt-and-concrete berthing area.

As far as the eye could see, discarded pieces of plastic in huge volumes and other kinds of household debris and industrial wastes were floating and bobbing on the surface, scattered over the whole width and length and depth of the channel...READ MORE (Press CTRL + click mouse)
 

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on October 8, 2007

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on January 1, 2008.

I AM NOT a writer. I was not trained to be one. I am not schooled in the ways and techniques in writing a story, an essay or a poem. I was schooled in the art of close-quarter combat and strategy and the enforcement of laws. I have never had need of a teacher to guide me on why, how, where, when and what should I write?

Still, I persevered, and I discovered that writing gives me a kind of therapy and energy. It gives me utter joy as it released all my pent-up emotions and urges that have been bottled inside of me for years. Or, were they not called memories?

The quest to write something is my preoccupation for the last nine months or so. The personal computer is a good tool and a perfect aid in achieving that. Where, before, there was the typewriter...Read more (Press CTRL + click mouse)