A group of activists who marked LGBT Pride Month with a rally in Manila on Friday was arrested by the police in a way rarely seen in crowd-control operations. The protesters proceeded from Morayta to Mendiola, the rally site outside Malacañang, in two vans. Upon their arrest, some of them were ordered to return to their vehicles. Police officers then forced their drivers out and took over the vans, the protesters told the Inquirer.

Rappler CEO and executive editor Maria Ressa and former Rappler researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. were convicted on Monday of cyberlibel in a landmark case that the former said was a “cautionary tale” to make the press afraid. “I began as a reporter in 1986 and I have worked [in] so many countries around the world. I’ve been shot at and threatened, but never this kind of death by a thousand cuts,’’ Ressa told members of the media after the promulgation.

What if one day you realize you have superhuman powers but Professor X does not bring you to the mutant academy? Or you find out you’re a wizard, but you don’t get a Hogwarts letter? What if you’re left to figure out your super abilities at the most confusing time of your life—puberty?

Annie Borzola stepped out of a drug store on Bambang Street in Manila’s Sta. Cruz District with 10 disposable face masks wrapped in plastic. “The coronavirus really scares me,” Borzola said, adding that wearing face masks was the easiest preventive measure one could resort to, following the Department of Health’s (DOH) confirmation of the country’s first case of the 2019 novel coronavirus (nCoV).

As the year 2019 drew to a close, so did the operations of one of the oldest shopping malls in Manila—Harrison Plaza.

It was the third raid on a prostitution ring in Metro Manila in less than a month, suggesting a thriving business catering to a market made up of mainland Chinese men working in the Philippine offshore gaming operator (Pogo) sector.

A certain coolness welcomes visitors to the 2.1-hectare Arroceros Forest Park in Manila. While its environs swelter in the unforgiving heat, stench and noise, the park has a surprisingly refreshing feel.

Penn knew people would like the character, which is why he tried to tone down the charm (yes, that was him toning down the charm). “It is what I struggled with… I was always thinking, “What? Why? Why am I doing it this way? There were times when I apparently was too creepy or I was too dark and I would be conflicted. The point is that Joe is not a real person. He’s not meant to be like a clinical portrayal of a person who’s truly capable of these things. I think what Joe and the whole show does is it takes a lot of the themes that we see in everything, it takes these same ideas about romance and roles of men and women and chivalry and shows you how distorted some of these ideas we have about about love and relationships are.”

In surfing lingo there’s a word to describe a good surf session—“stoked.” But I felt more like I took a shot of dopamine.