While companies are struggling to keep their businesses afloat under government-sanctioned restrictions, they must address yet another crisis. Mental health...
Los Angeles-based independent Fil-Am singer-songwriter Tiana Kocher (pronounced Coker) is no pushover when it comes to love. Her debut...
She began with a small table of pater, a Maranao staple of rice and minced adobo, wrapped in banana...
My routine changes during Ramadan (May 5-June 4), the ninth month of the Islamic calendar: low on food and sleep, high on the Quran (religious text of Islam), salah (worship), and iman (belief in the six articles of faith).
The backyards of Tugaya, a lakeshore town in Bangsamoro, are noisy in the daytime, as craftsmen hammer away to make musical instruments such as the horizontally laid-out brass gongs called kulintang, and the agong (a suspended gong). Sometimes they saw, carve and paint tall drums, called the gadur.
Welcoming visitors in Cotabato City approaching Pedro Colina (PC) Hill is a cluster of kaleidoscope-colored houses, with design elements of its cultural symbols, ginaukit (a fleet of Muslim boats), gongs and crabs.
In a restaurant where I am a regular customer, the waiter sets a salad bowl and kombucha drink in front of me. I tell him politely that it is for my guest, and that I am fasting in Ramadan month. The waiter, who usually takes my orders, is in awe of my discipline.
Muslims worldwide are in the midst of Ramadan, the holy month of rigorous fasting, prayers and reconnecting with the Quran. In the Philippines, where Islam is the second largest religion, 60 percent of the Muslim population live in Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
As a sign of thanksgiving for good graces, the Yakans, the indigenous group of Basilan, serve dulang, a medley of molded sticky rice with chicken, fried fish and vegetable on a banana leaf.