Category: WAYWARD AND FANCIFUL. By Gail Ilagan

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/03 October) — The frequency of disasters occurring in the Philippines had started to decline since 2005. In 2011, however, the figures suddenly rose by more than half – from 202 disaster events in 2010 to 431 in

First off, I’d like to say that I am happy to have this occasion to be reunited with good friends and good friends I have yet to meet.
It was some time in July when our good friend Karl Gaspar emailed me to request for a review of this book.

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/9 Aug) – Communities that lie in rebel transit areas put residents there at risk of violence and atrocities in the hands of lawless elements who might demand to be provided food and shelter while passing through or

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 4 Aug) – Mid-year 2012, Government of the Philippines (GPH) peace panel chair Marvic Leonen optimistically reported that after the 18 October 2011 incident in Al-Barka, Basilan, there had been no more armed skirmishes between government

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/16 July) — We had gotten off to a rocky start. In mid-2006 when the Philippine Army founded its 10th Infantry Division, I was reluctantly starting my doctoral studies in clinical psychology. It was not exactly a perfect

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/03 July) — When they would have been knee high to the grasshopper, re now in my classroom greeted each other that way – slapping palms front and back then linking hands and laughing. It was early in

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (MindaNews/16 May) — I’d love to sit and write, but it’s just too damn cold, I’ve got to keep moving. The place is Prague and the time is spring. Locals say there’s no lovelier time to see

DUMAGUETE CITY (MindaNews/21 April) — With a deft twist, the man took her right arm cleanly off her shoulder socket. He nonchalantly swung the limb over his shoulder, his face impassive as he waited for his wife to take the

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/7 April) – Finding myself with a free afternoon in Iligan two weekends back, I texted Bob Timonera on the off chance that he would be home and free to show me his beautiful city. Now, there is

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/02 April) – The 2012 Summer Sports Program at the Ateneo Matina runs from April 9 to 28. This year, with former Philippines Sports Commissioner William I. Ramirez back in harness as University Athletics Director, the long-running annual

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/14 March) – A phenomenological research report does not warrant a categorical conclusion or generalization. Instead, it usually ends with a short section on implications and specific recommendations on logical courses of action to adopt.

Phenomenology is concerned with studying the experience of the individual and representing it from the point of view of the researcher. It is about “the researcher trying to make sense of the participant trying to make sense” of his experience (Smith, 2009). In so doing, the researcher gains insights into the complexity of the participant’s motivation and the behavior is put in its subjective context. By highlighting the peculiarities of this chosen case, the findings often put to question our normative assumptions about the social behavior under study.

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/12 March) – This is a five-part series, taken from the lecture I gave on March 10 at the CAP Auditorium on the occasion of the 2012 Research Congress of the Commission on Higher Education. I feature it

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/26 February) — I skipped town to marry the love of my life on the sly when this boy was in the grades. Twenty years later, the boy texts that he’s in my town on business. We went

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/23 February) – Meong Cabarde dropped by yesterday to invite me to speak at the annual forum to commemorate Women’s Day. This year, the gender advocates at school wish to focus on the role of women in building

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/21 January) – At fourteen, Sage is still used to being able to channel a parent with just the action of her fingertip. She texts without preamble, like we’re just picking up the thread to an interrupted conversation.

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/9 January) – Last month, when I sent Fr. Dan McNamara’s article for Tambara guest editor Jojo Abinales to review, Jojo wanted to know why a physics paper was being considered for Tambara, a journal publication that is

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/28 Dec) – Regularity of release being among the criteria on which journal publications are assessed, the editorial board of the Tambara has made sure that volume 28 comes out as expected on the last day of the

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/25 December) — “Gail! You’re not writing for us any more?” asked University of Mindanao President Willy Torres. UM owns Mindanao Times, a local daily that carries my wayward and fanciful column on MindaViews. I reminded Willy that

DUMAGUETE CITY (MindaNews/06 December) — Forty days after coming off the bloody encounter in Al Barka, two or three of the soldiers are still finding it hard to control the emotions that accompany memory retrieval of the 18 October 2011

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/02 December) — Basilan Vice Governor Al-Rasheed A. Sakkalahul was at the Ateneo de Davao University last 25 November 2011 to tell the story of Al Barka where he once served as mayor. Sakkalahul came on the invitation

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/29 October) — I was thirty minutes in the airport lounge in Zamboanga City at 2:15 pm last Friday when the shakes came on. I locked myself in the privacy of a public restroom before someone would mistake

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/22 Oct) — War Wounded came out middle of last year, a product of my doctoral thesis which I immediately converted  into a book that not only details the conduct of narrative therapy for practitioners to learn from,

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/03 October) — One of the priceless pleasures we classroom instructors get is in seeing the student use what we teach as tools he would employ in order to further his pursuit to know that which he is

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/29 September) — The year was 2011 when I woke up on Tuesday morning, September 27. There was a big storm somewhere else, but the weather in Davao City was fair and planes were flying. I was getting

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/24 September) — Prof. Rudy Buhay Rodil suggests that the term captures the defining attribute of resilience as a human trait, and so I bannered it to introduce my report on the Mindanao Resilient Communities Project that I

DAVAO CITY (09 June) — Until early yesterday afternoon, I had last seen young Jason one fine evening two summers back, rocking the MTS Tent. Later that night, I saw him and Jeff clowning around doing an impromptu choreographed routine

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/28 May) — In comes Custard, golden and well-fed. With his signature rolling gait, he sidles up to his master and, as if balancing on his frame the ponderous weight of the world, he carefully drops on his

PAMILACAN, Bohol (MindaNews/23 April) — “Oh, you’re a psychologist!” the German girl exclaimed. “In my spare time. Not today,” I assured her, as I waved goodbye, happy to have convinced her to come see Davao some time soon. I’d found

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/26 March) — In September last year, the 10th Infantry Division began deployment of its Peace and Development Teams (PDTs) to implement its Peace and Development Outreach Program (PDOP). The Division initiative would anticipate the implementation of the

DAVAO CITY (21 March 2011) — I have a million things on the backburner, but never mind all that. I am going to write. I am going to write or I’ll go crazy. Writing has always been my therapy for

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/9 March) – She used to paint. In fact, she exhibited 22 years ago. That was some time before she became a lawyer, got married, had kids, and left her paintbrushes out to dry. Between juggling the demands

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/8 Feb) – Nobody he could respect came to his public defense. Days later, he died alone and unaided, bringing to his grave the answers to the questions that by now most everyone wants to know. Ultimate denial

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/3 Feb) – Reacting to my tongue-in-cheek take on the IPSP recently (see How to legitimate a military takeover), a retired officer emailed to say, “I have been in our military for 30 years before I joined the

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/11 Jan) ­– If we average out the annual man-hours spent in battle by the 140,000-strong Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) troops, we might find that a soldier can expect to be engaged in combat, his traditional

DAVAO CITY (December 29) — We woke up this morning and he was gone from his cage, the door flung wide open. Searching for him in the yard proved fruitless. Sage sagged against the cement block on the front porch,

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/11 Dec) – Some readers ask why they can’t read me as much any more. Some think that perhaps my professional concerns do not allow me to write about what I see and who I talk to. Others

DAVAO CITY — Sometimes, I spend too much time thinking that I forget what it’s like to let my body think for itself. After a long week checking prelim essays and exams, I needed a long walk where it’s quiet

DAVAO CITY — When a population outstrips the carrying capacity of its habitat, Malthus observed that natural checks drastically bring down population to a sustainable level. It’s a convenient way to explain calamity of the catastrophic proportions. Like, the Great

DAVAO CITY — Social research is about sampling the reality of a phenomenon that features into our collective experience. One seldom gets to do it from the comfort of the armchair. And while some academics find very little need to