Category Archives: Philippines
A View from the Philippines
(This interview was conducted online with Jose Abeto Zaide, a former Philippine diplomat who during a career of more than forty years served as ambassador to Austria, Germany and France. Since retirement, he cheers from the bleachers writing a column in the Manila Bulletin.) George Thomas Clark – I checked my files and note that […]
Also posted in Diplomacy, Donald Trump, Jose Abeto Zaide
Alive in the Cemetery
There aren’t any squatters among a million deceased residents in vast Manila North Cemetery. If my family doesn’t pay the lease every five years, someone living among the headstones and colorful tombs will earn three bucks to dig me up for cremation. That’s reasonable work. Six thousand poor people need a little food and shelter […]
Also posted in Drugs, Homeless, Manila, Poverty, Rodrigo Duterte
Manila Bulletin Posts “Easy Riders, Best of Friends”
The Manila Bulletin Posted “Easy Riders, Best of Friends” – On my website it is titled “Donald Duterte” and a bit more candid. Thanks to veteran diplomat Jose Abeto Zaide for sharing his space. Click here to read
Also posted in Donald Trump, Jose Abeto Zaide, Nuclear Weapons
Undercover Trump
Make me a mature Mexican rock star, I tell my makeup lady, hang some long cool black hair on my head and pin a big mustache on my face. I need to blend with families and friends of those being naturalized as U.S. citizens this morning in Fresno. There’s already a big crowd in the […]
Also posted in Donald Trump, Fresno, Immigration, India, ISIS, Mexico
The Loaded Lip
Listen to me. I’m determined to kill a hundred thousand drug dealers and users and to fatten fish in Manila Bay where I’ll dump all destroyers of our children. I won’t actually be doing the killing and the lifting and dumping, of course. I’m president of the Philippines and before that was the feared and […]
Also posted in Drugs, Murder, Rodrigo Duterte
Ferdinand Marcos Writes to President Duterte
Dear President Rodrigo Duterte, I would like to at once thank you in writing, as I soon shall in person, for allowing my publicly-displayed and cosmetically-altered corpse to be removed from refrigerated and glass-encased exile and moved to its rightful place of honor, the Heroes’ Cemetery of our great Philippine nation, over which I benevolently […]
Also posted in Ferdinand Marcos, Rodrigo Duterte, Vietnam
Delano Grape Strike
This story appears in the collection “In Other Hands”
Also posted in Agriculture, Cesar Chavez, Delano, Larry Itliong, Poverty, Strikes, Unions, United Farm Workers
Pacquiao’s Super Surgery
Frankly, I’ve been besieged by Manny Pacquiao’s managers, trainers, and relatives who for personal and financial reasons want me to not only repair his injured shoulder but make it manifestly better. I told them Dr. Elpedio Marcos does not deal with intermediaries; have Manny call me. Last night, he did. “What’s the best you can […]
Also posted in Boxing, DNA, Floyd Mayweather, Genetics, Gennady Golovkin, George Foreman, Juan Manuel Marquez, Manny Pacquiao
Almost Missed Manny and Money
I realize most sports fans and other seekers of excitement planned to watch the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight at cool places like the MGM Grand Arena or packed sports bars or at least at big private parties enlivened by booze. My intention was far more mundane: I’d view the eternally-hyped showdown with my Philippine wife […]
Carmel Winter
Daily, it seems, I either see or read about tragedy and pain. One of my neighbors has Alzheimer’s and is beating his wife. Another suffers from cancer leaving her dependent on a daughter more interested in her money than health. Always there are wars aplenty and domestic murders in the streets. Rapes, fires, and traumatic […]
Don’t Diss Pacquiao’s Hoops
For two decades Manny Pacquiao has excelled in a sport requiring mental and physical toughness, and when not punishing opponents in the ring he loves to relax playing basketball. He’s played the game all his life and does so fairly well. If no one’s near his five-six, short-armed frame, he can hit an unorthodox, two-handed […]
Also posted in Basketball, Boxing, Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao
Sleeping with Marcos
This story is now in the collection “Tales of Romance”
Also posted in Ferdinand Marcos, Imelda Marcos, Sex
Pacquiao Plans Another War
Several years ago Freddie Roach, in a radio interview I heard, said he hoped his star pupil Manny Pacquiao was only going to fight one or two more times because he wanted to make sure Manny never got hurt. Roach, a brain-damaged former fighter, has evidently revised the career blueprint to one or two fights […]
Also posted in Boxing, Manny Pacquiao
Ferdinand Marcos Endures
I’m not surprised the communists are still after me. They know I’m their most resolute enemy. I won’t let them carry out subversive activities. I won’t permit them to dominate my country. That’s why they didn’t want me to remain President of the Philippines longer than two four-year terms limited by the constitution. The communists […]
Also posted in Communism, Ferdinand Marcos, Imelda Marcos, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan
Floyd Mayweather in Hot Tub
“Ladies, it’s a whole lot better being in this fancy hot tub in my Las Vegas mansion than in a sweaty arena, isn’t it?” “Yeees,” gushed all but one. “You should be there,” said a lovely young woman. “You need to prepare to fight the winner, who’s going to be Manny Pacquiao.” “Who’re you?” “I’m […]
Also posted in Bob Arum, Boxing, Floyd Mayweather, Las Vegas, Manny Pacquiao
Pacquiao v. Bradley – The Rematch
Manny Pacquiao near his peak is better head to head than Timothy Bradley, and he proved so their first fight, out power-punching Bradley about two to one, but lost one of those odiferous decisions that frequently plague boxing. Since that encounter, however, Pacquiao has been flattened by Juan Manuel Marquez, a man Bradley subsequently decisioned. […]
Also posted in Boxing, Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao
Looting in Leyte
This story appears in the collection “In Other Hands”
Also posted in Food, Short Pieces - GTC, Starvation
Typhoon in the Philippines
Wish I’d stayed in the mountains but years ago moved to the coast and became a fisherman and usually did pretty well and survived countless typhoons, annual curses in the Philippines, by grabbing my family and rushing into mountains which weren’t always hospitable flooding down toward us but we’d always dodged. This time, before we […]
Also posted in Earthquakes, Short Pieces - GTC, Typhoons
Ferdinand and Imelda
This story is now in the collection “Tales of Romance”
Also posted in Ferdinand Marcos, Imelda Marcos, Short Pieces - GTC
The Fifth Marquez-Pacquiao War
This story is from the collection “Death in the Ring”
Also posted in Boxing, George Thomas Clark, Juan Manuel Marquez, Manny Pacquiao, Uppercuts
