Rogue.ph

An artistic crucible dwells in the spiritually energetic Cordillera Islands—an 87-year-old lady named Fang Oud. The last of the original artists in the area, she has solely preserved a forgotten Kalinga rite of passage: the art of tribal tattooing. After traveling to the Cordilleras to meet the cultural icon, Swiss-Filipino traveler Raphael Kiefer narrates how he has come away changed forever.

Each year, a carefully chosen committee scrutinizes lifelong brilliance, then, after a tortuous process, proclaims individuals worthy of being conferred membership into an exclusive, rarefied fellowship deemed to have made crucial contributions to the Philippine arts. Emily Abrera—chairman emeritus of McCann-Erickson Philippines—with her vast network (and the incomparable counsel it affords her) breaks down how, in 2009, the process cynically broke down.

Perhaps one of the most affecting essays published in Rogue last year, “Satellite of Love” was a painfully honest depiction of the author’s experiences dealing with his mother’s mental deterioration. It was written several years ago and won a Palanca but had never been published. This year, with her death, Tad Ermitaño writes an epilogue to the story, a fitting requiem to both the piece and its subject.