Etched in the Filipino psyche, Holy Week continues to serve as a constant reminder of betrayal and the redemptive sufferings of Christ...On a similar plane, Filipinos continue to struggle under the heavy cross of iniquity, injustice, poverty, unemployment, and corruption while the web of lies and deceit is continually woven by leaders who have chosen to play the roles of Judas and Christ's tormentors...For how long will this calvary last ?
As a young child in Purok Balut, Barrio San Agustin, Hagonoy, Bulacan, I used to frequent my late Nanang Terang's ornamental garden and the adjoining creek where our motley group of sun-baked kids sucked the marrow out of our early childhood years capturing hapless ant lions, ladybugs, dragonflies and damselflies, beetles and crickets, crabs, frogs, and fish. They were our constant companions as we soaked under the sun, exploring and declaring dominion over countless playgrounds. We filched indian mangoes and tasted nature's bounties in the same spirit as Yevtushenko's "Stolen Apples". At night under the pale moonlight my father would regale us with tales of creatures that lived in the vastness of space. Fireflies flickered in the darkness and occasional meteor fragments rained from the sky. We counted the stars and looked for the big dipper, the little dipper and the "tatlong maria", and often asked how far these stars were and how long it would take us to reach them...Can our children boast of the same childhood ramblings or are they so enamored with the stale and lifeless fruits of technology? 
Those who sneer at the nobility of the past are in for a rude awakening. Our lives cannot rest on laughter and gaiety alone. Those who refuse to look at our present wounds by covering them with layers and layers of frivolity will awaken one fateful day to the reality of a cancer gone mad... Can the lesion heal itself? Can a malevolent spirit send us to heaven? What treatment does a physician prescribe for a pestering lesion? A boil or even a cancerous mass deserves extirpation. Half measures will only prolong the patient's agony and give ample time for the infection or the cancer to spread and destroy the body...Lalagyan lang ba natin ng plaster ang kanser ng bayan? raul espinoza ramos, md 
Unlike their human counterparts, bloodsucking leeches fall off once they are engorged. As they reach the point of satiation, they disengage and start to digest their meal. Much maligned and often portrayed in movies and literature as capable of bleeding their hosts to death, these poor annelids from subclass Hirudinea are all carnivorous but only a few are truly bloodsucking brutes ! Their value in medical research and in maintaining nature's delicate balance cannot be overemphasized. Along with other "unloved" creatures like barnacles and sharks and crocodiles and snakes and fungi they know what satiation means and they help us survive and live peaceably in the blue marble. Unfortunately, insatiable, scheming, and power-intoxicated politicians can suck the lifeblood of this nation! 
Tatum, Patricia, Bernice, Yurii, Xavier, Nicole and Nadine flash their impish smiles... The magical days of childhood never cease to amaze and to draw a sentimental tear. How can one ever forget days of innocence and pure delight at the things life has to offer? Dusty little feet, eager hands and bruised knees, terrible ant and bee encounters, the pesky neighborhood dog and the sweetest lemonades... all these form a priceless chain of irretrievable and hauntingly poignant events that define childhood...
guyabano calumpit ilang-ilang breadfruit cashew bamboo buho bayawak catmon kamias jackfruit crane damselflies paramecium algae caterpillars cogon alibangbang earthworm ants bees dragonflies talahib quails mimosa dayap mice saluyot turkey mansanitas men... 
With the bust of John Steinbeck, the genius who probed deep into the human heart. Like Dostoevsky, he gave us a crisp and magnified view of humanity stripped to its barest essentials, where existence is in a continual flux...
A proud race steeped in religiosity, close family ties, education and blessed with an indomitable spirit...
Cicadas are well-known for their vocal talents and their unrelenting soporific hum. Often cited in poetry and literary texts, the familiar drone of their timbals heightens feelings of isolation, a pleasant solitude where one communes with nature, away from the drab and often petty concerns of our daily lives. It seems we have a lot to learn from this humble yet very successful member of the animal world. Man's well-developed brain has certainly put homosapiens way ahead of other creatures in many respects, yet it has miserably failed in maintaining man's balanced relations with the environment...Is too much consciousness really a disease?
Fitzgerald In this immortal work we are reminded of the primeval desire to go eastward, towards the green light that defines our lives, that, inspite of ourselves and our failings, our upstream voyage brings us to a destination far more incomprehensible and distant than all our journeys combined - ourselves...
Hippocrates and Florence Nightingale forged a pact in heaven...Nurse medics of Saint Dominic Savio College enroute to Batangas on this very stormy day - gusty and very chilly winds and torrential rains... 
ma's house in Cabanatuan City. In this wooden abode the distinctively woodsy scent made a lasting impression on me. Wide wooden floors and walls, antique chairs with inlaid nacar designs, huge glass vases with heart-shaped waterplants and camia blooms plucked from the gardens. From the dirty kitchen below Nana Bina could be seen stoking the fire, cooking the breakfast meal as the strong and homey smell of coffee beans and Darigold milk and garlic wafts to the upper floor... © 2007 rauleramos, md
Heady days teaching Zoology, Anatomy & Physiology, and Microbiology. We pored over anatomical texts, dissected live and anesthetized frogs and cats, mastered the intricacies of microscopy, and even the dynamics of the cardiac cycle ! It was a succession of intelligent students whom I had the opportunity to teach. During our rest periods we dabbled in philosophy and ethics. At least two notable students were regularly borrowing my books including one by Dostoevsky. But it was not all seriousness - we often burst in fits of laughter at the most inane and ancient of jokes. It was not a burden to any of us. It was an unforgettable experience...
The first Miss Universe, Ms Armi Kuusela of Finland, endeared herself to Filipinos when she married debonair Filipino businessman Virgilio Hilario in 1953. Discovered this photo while rummaging mother's old photo files many years ago...
, the piano teacher. Max was still an infant and had locks of really curly hair, a maternal gene gone transiently expressive...Yurii had not yet experienced that unfortunate episode with the microscope where, in the general excitement over the quaint- looking apparatus, he took a misstep and fell from the table where all five where fighting tooth and nail for the best position to touch the microscope, their first actual encounter a real post-Leeuwenhoek model. Joshua the toddler was asserting himself, fighting for his own niche. Xavier, on the other hand, already had a serious air about him, despite well-spaced mischief... Is there a song written for these unforgettable growing-up days where children grow as fast as mongo seeds?
The sea beckons like a mother to a child lost in the unfamiliarity and confusion of life. A magnetic, primeval attachment, an invinsible umbilical cord that binds us to our humble origins, an inextricable past... la mer as the French would call her, a matriarchal haven for distressed souls...
This photograph, taken with a Kodak 135mm box-type instamatic camera, has rich painting-like tones, making it one of my old favorites. Even the posing gives that 'moment- snatched' effect.
Gutsy and full of spunk, this fighting pair is ready to claw its way to the top of the heap in life's arena where relations are conveniently forgotten... It is sad but it is real - Darwin was right all the time (survival of the fittest), Steinbeck too when he said that a man can be great and kind but he must get there first ! Grrrrr...
Pacific Ocean, Dingalan, Aurora Province. Joshua and Max and a playmate reenact man's adventurous inclinations.
Time flies so fast. It really seems just like yesterday when as kids we used to frolic in these very familiar surroundings. Every tree was known to us and the time of fruit-bearing was greatly anticipated. Mangoes, guavas, camachile, duhat, and tamarind were regular fare. We knew like the palms of our hands every nook and cranny, even where the birds wove their nests and regaled us with their birdsongs and multi-colored eggs, which we poached once in awhile. We were one with nature, albeit with the characteristic "amoy-araw" after a day's rambling through thickets and rocks, cogonal patches and rivulets, where the trickling of clear water was a familiar and soothing sound. We collected flowers and leaves, seeds, fruits, mushrooms and marveled at nature's rich diversity. Spiders, snails, cocoons, butterflies, colorful birds, fish, damselflies and dragonflies, crickets and beetles were a regular treat. Occasional encounters with wasps and ants and the inevitable wheals they made were considered a normal part of such pulses of activity. At night when we moved about in gasera-lit rooms, a peek through the windows would reveal steady lights from distant houses and flickering stars and fireflies. Under one mosquito net we dreamt after recounting the day's misadventures amidst the incessant croaking of frogs and soporific hum of cicadas...
Gregorio Espinoza (back row, fifth from left) and classmates at the University of Manila College of Law. Note the posing characteristic of a bygone era. An air of seriousness, direction, and purpose. Isn't it true that those who sneer at these now rare traits actually do not possess these characteristics and are merely sourgraping and rationalizing their mediocrity?
It's really sad to see an old ancestral home give way to the inroads of modernization, something which many people mistake for progress. In this magical kingdom I had secret hiding places where everything seemed big and I was small, dwarfed by the walls, cabinets, chairs and tables from which emanated a distinctive woodsy scent complimented by the sweet smell of camia and ilang-ilang flowers picked by trusty and reliable Nana Bina, our man Friday who stayed with us until her death. When I came back to visit before it was remodeled, the walls, cabinets, chairs and tables did not appear big any longer and I kept on wondering how in the world could they have appeared so huge compared to myself?
This picture, which I took using a box-type Kodak instamatic camera, must have been taken in the mid-70's.
