Mothers All

No words can adequately express a mother's sorrow over a child's death, but two years after her son, Robby, was fatally shot, journalist/author Pati Navalta Poblete has channeled her grief into a book, A Better Place: A Memoir of Peace in the Face of Tragedy. Cathy Sanchez Babao, one of very few professional grief counselors in Manila, writes a review. The remarkable Pati has also founded the Robby Poblete Foundation, dedicated to buying back guns, which are then dismantled and the materials transformed into art pieces by Bay Area artists.

Another heart-rending story is our Video of the Week, "My Mother's Heart," featuring veteran (and retired) Fil-Am broadcast news reporter Lloyd La Cuesta's meeting with Sierra Jamieson Grande, a woman seeking information about her late mother, whom Lloyd interviewed in 1984 before and after her heart transplant. 

Switching now to our homeland, PF Correspondent Criselda Yabes visited the heritage town of Vigan, Ilocos Sur and takes us with her in "Vestigial Vigan."

With the British Royal Wedding coming up, PF Correspondent and world wanderer Rey de la Cruz spotted some Filipinos in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Be In The Know with our collection of links this week:

She Was the Enemy of Philippine President Duterte and Her Fellow Judges Just Sacked Her
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/05/11/she-was-the-enemy-of-philippine-president-duterte-and-her-fellow-judges-just-sacked-her/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4d463a4c59ec

Butchered rhino unearthed in Philippines suggests the origin of ‘hobbits’
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/human-origins-hobbit-philippines-rhino-south-east-asia-flores-a8335241.html

Chinese Money Triggers a Dizzying Rally in Manila Property
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-03/in-china-s-new-gambling-hot-spot-property-prices-are-on-a-tear

Overlooked No More: Leticia Ramos Shahani, A Philippine Women's Rights Pioneer
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/obituaries/overlooked-leticia-ramos-shahani.html

Our Happy Home Cook recipe, Rene Astudillo's Chilled, Fresh Sayote Fruit Salad.

Violence and Hope

People with guns kill people. This, in the wake of the mass shooting by one man in Las Vegas that killed 58 victims and injured 546, should no longer be debatable. While gun control is a long time coming from Washington, a grieving Filipino American mother is already doing her part in preventing gun violence. Journalist Pati Navalta Poblete (“My Story of Hope”), who lost her son, Robby, to gunmen in Vallejo, California, nudged herself out of her grief by writing again and, most importantly, setting up a foundation in her son’s name that buys back unwanted guns in her city to be used by artists in their art work. The foundation also sponsors vocational skills programs for young adults and ex-offenders to steer them away from a life of violence.

Armed violence has also disrupted the lives of thousands of residents of Marawi in the Philippines when local adherents of ISIS took over the city, triggering an ongoing battle with government forces that has killed about 700 combatants and civilians and reduced nearly everything to smoking hulks. PF correspondent Criselda Yabes visits the ruined city, peeking through sniper holes at the destruction that has brought its inhabitants, now all refugees, to despair (“In the Rubble of Marawi”).

On a cheerier note, PF correspondent Rene Astudillo writes that Filipino senior citizens are receiving the respect that they deserve in their sunset years, in “A Haven for the Elderly – the Philippines.”

To mark both Filipino American History Month and Domestic Violence Prevention Month, we hope you will Read Again “The War Brides” and “Behind the Charmer May Hide an Abuser” 

And as a fitting countrapunto to the theme of this edition’s lead articles, our “Happy Home Cook” Richgail Enriquez offers bloodless—yes--Vegan Dinuguan.

For this week's [In The Know] links:

Thurgood Marshall's Interracial Love: I Don't Care What People Think, I'm Marrying You
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/thurgood-marshalls-interracial-love-i-dont-care-what-people-think-im-marrying-you/2016/08/18/84f636be-54d5-11e6-bbf5-957ad17b4385_story.html?utm_term=.6e3e0231e085

The Best Island in the World Goes To...
https://www.facebook.com/CondeNastTraveler/videos/10155910653088982/?autoplay_reason=user_settings&video_container_type=0&video_creator_product_type=2&app_id=2392950137&live_video_guests=0

Confronting Anti-Blackness and White Supremacy in the Pilipin@ Community with Acts of Decolonization
https://www.hellapinay.com/blog/2017/9/10/confronting-white-supremacy

Baguio-Sagada-Banaue Itinerary: See The Cordillera Region in 6 Days
https://philihappy.com/baguio-sagada-banaue-itinerary/

For Video of the Week, AJ+ celebrates Fil-Am History Month by featuring the 3 ways Filipinos contributed to America.