Archive • Nothing In Particular • Buttondown

December 14, 2023

This photo was taken during a moment of weakness in June this year by Bernard Testa, photographer and frenemy, in a downtown Iloilo city bar called Pigadong...

Long Time, No See

December 13, 2023

Participants of the Zen retreat I attended in Tagaytay City in November included a former expat who has recently moved to Japan, a practitioner who flew in...

Jay Bautista, friend and confidante

August 6, 2023

Barry, Jay, Reggie, Benjo, Alcuin. Jay suffered a bad death. Thanks for reading Nothing in Particular! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my...

No Work, No Pay, No Problem

January 5, 2023

I was able to ride to Manila and Chinatown from Quezon City in February 2022 during the Chinese New Year. This was months before my right knee got injured....

Purely voluntary (or how I became a personal assistant of a Leni-Kiko and Leila de Lima campaigner in Iloilo City)

March 11, 2022

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — In November last year, during a trip to the City of Love, I was able to meet and greet a senatorial candidate whose staffer...

I went to Iloilo City and all I got was a pink T-shirt from Sonny Matula

December 29, 2021

Some people dislike Sonny Matula. One of them is Ted (not his real name), a friend on Twitter who bombards me with messages and links about socialism,...

The Maginhawa St. State of Mind

October 14, 2021

Below is a piece I wrote for the Nostalgia issue of the Maginhawa Street Journal. The artwork above was by Amado Bajarias Jr., one of the journal’s co-...

FROM THE ARCHIVES | 1995 tax evasion case could send Bongbong Marcos to jail

October 6, 2021

A photo of the story published in the November 6, 2004 edition of the Manila Times. Below is the full text of the story published by the Manila Times in...

My Kind of People

September 6, 2021

Graphic by Amado Bajarias Jr., who produced this for the third issue of the Maginhawa Street Journal. This piece was first published by the Maginhawa Street...

The package not delivered took the route not taken

August 30, 2021

Clicking on the stylized graphic above, which was designed by Amado Bajarias, will bring you to the second issue of the Maginhawa Street Journal where the...

Locked down and laid off

June 28, 2020

The lockdown cleared streets in Bonifacio Global City, one of Metro Manila’s financial districts, but definitely curbed economic activity in the Philippine...

Cojuangco and the Coconut Levy

June 21, 2020

Filipino tycoon Eduardo "Danding" M. Cojuangco, who passed away this month, might have won the presidential polls in 1992, six years after he fled the...

VIDEO | Residents recall experiences after building’s wall collapses, falls into street

May 3, 2020

Photos, video, and text by Bernard Testa For a full report, please visit the ABS-CBN story about the incident. Maria, 60, a resident of one of the towers...

Greider on how to avoid a bank run

May 3, 2020

“On a Monday morning on the late summer of 1931, the lobby of the First National Bank of Ogden, Utah, was jammed with nervous depositors — people waiting in...

Locked down and losing it

April 20, 2020

President Rodrigo Duterte emphasizes a point during a speaking engagement in this file photo taken by Bernard TestaI’m this close to losing it. And the lack...

Freedman on when to trust expert advice

March 31, 2020

“The point isn't that you should always do what the experts say but rather that making giant, sweeping decisions without listening to them at all is really...

Bengzon on the uninformed opinion of Filipinos

March 30, 2020

“As a people, we often have a knack for taking the path of least resistance...I think it is because we are by and large a culture of feel and flash — a...

PHOTOS | 4 hurt after ambulance en route to pick up patient collides with private vehicle in Manila

March 27, 2020

Photos by and with reports from Bernard Testa Four people were injured after a private vehicle and an ambulance on the way to pick up a patient crashed into...

PHOTOS | Female worker walks 3 hours to meet mom, kid after Manila shuts down public transport

March 24, 2020

Czarina Denosca finally gets a ride.With reports from and photos by Bernard Testa Czarina Denosca, 29, was forced to walk three hours to meet her mother and...

PHOTOS | Quarantine turns streets of Manila into portraits of still life

March 23, 2020

Share Metro Manila may be many things: dirty, congested, inaccessible. But like most world capitals, it is a hub of activity. Unfortunately, that all stopped...

A photographer's take on poached eggs

March 19, 2020

Bernard Testa is this newsletter’s favorite photographer.This is because he’s the only one willing to endure its insufferable working conditions (all play...

ON THE SCENE | Truck drags motorcyclist underneath, leaving a trail of shoes, debris, and death

February 8, 2020

(WARNING: This entry contains images that some viewers and readers might find disturbing.) An empty delivery truck ran over a motorcycle, dragged its driver...

PHOTOS | Residents return to homes submerged by volcano's ash

February 1, 2020

The trip to Cavite was ad hoc, impromptu, and a host of other foreign-sounding words that could be used to refer to three grown men who almost got lost on...

PHOTOS | Volcano Island engulfed in ash

January 28, 2020

(Text and photos by Bernard Testa) Roberto Sentiles (center) and members of his family as they pose for a picture in a shelter. Sentiles‘ livelihood...

The gin and tonic: A drink my friend's mother would love

January 25, 2020

Sign up now (A slightly different version of this piece was published on a defunct Web site.) To those who haven’t tried it yet, a gin and tonic is arguably...

Sex, a sledgehammer, and a suitcase filled with money: A book review

January 25, 2020

A review of Mata: Memoirs of a Master Mariner, published in 2011 by the Mata Family, 200 pages (A slightly different version of this piece was published on a...