VATICAN, Rome (MindaNews / 8 May) – The cry of a seagull. That would be the first thing that any one of the cardinals would hear upon waking up, on their mission to elect a new pope. The newer cardinals
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 23 April) — News of Pope Francis’ passing came as a shock to the family, to us who had encountered the Pope up close a few times that the loss already seemed personal. The family had
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 25 Feb) — My hometown Surigao currently has two black eyes, one inflicted by a fake tribal group that in January scandalized the city with its claim of ownership over most of the city’s land area.
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 31 January) – What was behind the tumult in Surigao City that was caused by an enigmatic group that mixes religious beliefs with political ideology? Is it fair to dismiss the group as just a group
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 16 Oct) – In July this year I entered a local hospital as an unusual emergency case. In fact the Klinik Permanence said mine might be the first operation ever in the hospital to retrieve a
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 24 May) – I was struck by the recent remark of a friend, who had managed to contact me online, that OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) are luckier than those living in the Philippines. “Kahayahay ninyo diha
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 14 December)—Even at the summit of his singular achievement of having walked across 22 countries in an epic trek from Switzerland to the Philippines, Thomas Kellenberger did not have that extra vantage to peer at the
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 20 May) — Feeling weak but still determined, Swiss trekker Thomas Kellenberger eyed May 25 as his arrival date in Cagayan de Oro City, Kellenberger reached Cabadbaran City in Agusan del Norte Thursday evening, after a
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 16 May)— The Swiss trekker Thomas Kellenberger is slated to arrive in Mindanao via Surigao City on Wednesday, May 17, and will try to finish his two-year fund-raising trek in Cagayan de Oro City before the
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 19 March) — Mayors making presscons from City Hall rarely make for interesting news. But not when a young first-time mayor targets local businessmen in his campaign to bring down the high prices of fish in his
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 16 February) – Swiss trekker, child rights advocate and fund-raiser Thomas Kellenberger has reached southeast Asia and has targeted his arrival in Cagayan de Oro in mid-May, some three months from now. Speaking in an online interview
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 20 Dec) – “History is not a fair weather subject. It is all-weather!” Fernando Almeda Jr., the well-known Surigao local historian, author and advocate for the Mamanwa indigenous group in the province, is prone to repeat
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 15 Nov) – Thomas Kellenberger, the Swiss founder of a children’s foundation in Cagayan de Oro City in Mindanao, reached Nepal last week and is nearing Southeast Asia in his attempt to walk from Switzerland back
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 23 August) — Thomas Kellenberger, the Swiss who started a foundation for children in the Philippines, will have completed one year of his fundraising walk from Switzerland to the Philippines on Thursday, August 25, 2022. Speaking
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 18 Jan) – Nearly five months after he started his attempt to walk back to the Philippines, Thomas Kellenberger got the recharge that he had sorely missed in his often lonely walk: Filipino food in his
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 16 January) — After walking for 141 days, Thomas Kellenberger has reached Asia, crossing over on Saturday, January 15, to the Asian part of Istanbul in Turkey, en route to Cagayan de Oro City in Mindanao,
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 06 November) — I finally caught up with my Swiss friend Thomas Kellenberger in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Or rather, I caught him online. Thomas was taking a break in the Marian pilgrimage town of Medjugorje to meet up
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 11 Sept) — Filipinos in Switzerland had their own shock, a smaller version of 9/11 today. Many must have choked on their morning coffee as they read the internet news on a resolution
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 26 August) – At around eight o’clock on Wednesday morning, Thomas Kellenberger, the 39-year-old Swiss founder of a foundation helping street children in Cagayan de Oro city, took the first of many steps that will bring
MACTAN, Cebu (MindaNews / 23 July) – I know Thomas Kellenberger, and what I know of him is that when he puts his mind to it, he does it. After all, Thomas was only 26 years old when he started
BERN, SWITZERLAND (MindaNews /19 July) – Thomas Kellenberger, the 39-year-old Swiss founder of a foundation helping street children in Cagayan de Oro city, is returning to the Philippines after being stranded here for nearly a year since July 22, 2020.
MACTAN, Cebu (MindaNews / 17 July) — I haven’t stayed ìn a hotel room for ten straight days, was my first thought when I realized I was going to have to undergo mandatory quarantine. I was trying to get
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 10 June) – “The victims of Covid are getting closer to my circle.” Reading this post by a friend on Facebook made me realize that a year and a half onward, we have stepped no farther
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 01 April) – I decided to shut down on social media starting today, to give myself time to focus on what things are important in the Holy Week. Not that I don’t consider lugaw as an
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 31 January) — A cursory glimpse on Friday at my favorite Corona virus tracker site gave me a curious and surprising statistic. The site (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/) ranks countries according to the total number of Corona virus cases
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 22 Dec) – Minda Teves is no ordinary OFW. Aside from leading the Associazione Culturale Filippina del Piemonte or ACFIL for many years, Minda had already set her goals forward. She had already saved from her
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 21 Oct) – If there is something that Switzerland can tell Filipinos at this point of the pandemic, it is not to open up the economy and public life so quickly. Owing to its proximity with
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 25 September) – Little do Filipino visitors to Germany know that there is a Rizal Park and even a Jose Rizal Street in Germany, built by Filipinos and Germans alike to honor Rizal’s stay and friendships
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 13 September) — Protesters composed of Swiss, Filipinos and second-generation Filipinos staged a rally Saturday at the Swiss capital here against the Anti-Terror Law signed in July by Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte. The rally organizers, Anakbayan
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews /30 August) — I read and watch news about the Philippines every day. And today 28 August I was starting my routine when I realized the agonizing significance of this Friday. There was a lot of emotions
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 14 July) – It was like déjà vu, said Ernie Lopez of the family which founded ABS-CBN, describing the moments after the house franchise committee voted 70-11 to deny ABS-CBN’s franchise application last Friday. In a
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 19 June) – For nearly a month now, my family has been holding weekend Zoom meetings to keep in touch with each other during the Covid-19 pandemic. We ask about each other’s work and health, ask
BERN, Switzerland (9 June) – Is it just the time of COVID-19 that is driving us crazy, or is Philippine society entering a phase of social distrust and political paranoia that will slowly tear it apart? I asked myself that
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 30 April) – Walking home last night, my wife and I experienced one of the strangest sights ever, in these days of fear and despair over the COVID-19 lockdown. It was nearly 10 o`clock in the
BERN (MindaNews / 31 March) – I am conflicted with the recent news items saying that German and American hospitals and healthcare recruitment sites are urgently hiring nurses to add to their medical workforce. Because the implications are clear: in
BERN, SWITZERLAND (MindaNews / 26 Nov) — For Monika Baumann, it feels like their 28 years of work to uplift the plight of Lumads, or the indigenous peoples of Mindanao, was going down the drain. Baumann heads the Theresa Laden,
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 20 November) — Following the latest natural disaster that hit the Philippines, overseas Filipinos face the same questions as our kababayans at home: What can I do to help? Where do I send help? These questions
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 04 November) — It’s not playful wordplay to say that news of strong earthquakes is always received with a jolt. Or to say that the accounts of the survivors are always moving. Because earthquakes have the
BERN (MindaNews / 01 October) — It was an awesome sight I would remember for years to come – 100,000 people massing up and then marching in this Swiss capital to call for urgent government action on its climate policies.
«Saan ko hahanapin ang heograpiya ng gunita na kasabay na tinibag ng pagbuldoser sa lupa?” “Buldoser” by Nikki Mae Recto, a writer-accountant from Valenzuela BERN, SWITZERLAND (MindaNews / 16 Aug) — Today was one of the few times that I
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 06 July) — What to do when my adopted place Bern is as hot in summer as my hometown Surigao? That was the unlikely problem I faced together with the rest of Europe which baked last
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews / 23 May) – Civil courage. The phrase leaped at me while I was reading a light-hearted online article on “How to behave on a Swiss train”. A Swiss woman had recently published a rule book on
BERN, Switzerland (MindaNews/27 March) – Again, it took the horrific images of what man-made wastes are doing to nature to shock us into thinking about our damaged environment. This month, we were horrified to know that up to 40 kilos
