A Busy May

May is always a busy month, not only because of the Flores de Mayo rituals, the Santacruzan and the many town fiestas back home. It’s also because we celebrate Mother’s Day, Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Month, Mental Health Awareness Month and Older Americans Month, among others, here in the U. S. We’ll be publishing stories in line with these celebrations throughout the month, so check us out regularly.

For this first week, we serve up something juicy—“State Dinner From Hell” where regular contributor John Silva brings us to that contrived barrio fiesta in Malacañang to honor President Barack Obama during his brief Manila visit. Also on the menu is “She Kissed Elvis and Lived to Tell the Tale,” a never-before-told-to-a-Filipino-audience story by Imelda Oppenheim about a FilAm starlet named Marya Coburn who, well, the title says it all and more …

Also in this issue, we feature one accomplished Filipina CEO, Marla de Castro-Rausch, whose company, Animation Vertigo, creates those special effects in popular video games and movies so beloved by dedicated digirati. The company’s workload is done in the Philippines—proof that Filipino digital artists are way up there in the world’s hierarchy of digital creators and talents. Read all about it in “She Answers the Call of Duty” by another regular contributor, Anthony Maddela of Los Angeles.

In the arena of international politics, tensions are escalating between the Philippines and China as the former submitted a detailed legal brief against the latter to an international arbitral tribunal in The Hague. There is so much back-and-forthing between the two countries that we asked China expert Chito Sta. Romana to help us untangle the confusing mess. Please read “‘Legal Warfare’ Between the Philippines and China” to better understand this increasingly alarming situation.

For our initial volley into the world of senior citizenship, here’s a heartwarming story about a wedding between seniors that turned out to be more fun than some weddings among juniors. Bella Bonner shares with us the excitement of her romance and matrimony at a certain age in “Lovelier the Second Time Around.”

May your May days be filled with the fragrance of flowers and the healing rays of the sun.