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Let truth be everybody's business this 2024. VERA Files wishes you a Happy New Year!

As 2024 approaches, may we approach the New Year by keeping out lies and celebrating the truth!

Unwrap truth, and let it shine through. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

By PATRICIA ISABEL GLORIA FACTORY worker Rodelio Naval was waiting in line for a check-up at the Philippine Orthopedic Center (POC) in Quezon City when he was told he could not use his PhilHealth Insurance membership to have his legs treated. Naval, who is from San Pedro Laguna and worked for Esycon Industrial Trading, was

By JONATHAN DE SANTOS THE widows wore red, and not the black of mourning. “This doesn’t mean we are happy,” they said. “This shows we are still brave.” The two were Cipriana Gatchalian and Ramonita Salaysay, both of whom lost their husbands in the infamous Maguindanao Massacre on November 23, 2009. Last Tuesday, they and

By KARLOS MANLUPIG DAVAO CITY—The frail looking Italian priest wears an indigenous bandana called tubaw and is known for speaking gently regardless of whom he is talking to: Peasants, indigenous people, or government forces in the plains and hills of North Cotabato.

FOR about four decades now, prostituted women have climbed ships docked at the ports of Davao. These women are called akyat barko girls, which means ship-climbing girls.

Text and photos by VINCENT GO
THE Chinese New Year is considered the most important holiday on the Chinese calendar. The first day of the Lunar New Year falls on Monday, Jan. 23, which has been declared a public holiday. This means it’s going to be a long weekend, the perfect time for ordinary citizens to get a chance to visit Manila’s Chinatown and join the celebrations.

By KARLOS MANLUPIG
PANTUKAN, Compostela Valley—A loud cracking sound followed by waves upon waves of clay, timber and rocks roused sleeping residents in a poor small-scale mining community in Sitios Diat 1 and 2 in Barangay Napnapan, Pantukan, Compostela Valley before dawn of Jan. 5. Shortly after, more than 50 houses would be buried in rubble, leaving residents who survived the nature’s onslaught in shock.

Text and photos by VINCENT GO
IT was the longest procession to date in the history of Quiapo Church’s centuries-old Black Nazarene. It took almost 22 hours for the life-size wooden sculpture of a dark-colored Jesus carrying the cross to return to church after leaving the Quirino Grandstand at the Rizal Park Monday morning. It was already quarter past 5 a.m. of Tuesday when it entered Quiapo Church as millions of devotees who believe the icon to be miraculous participated in the annual feast of the Black Nazarene.

By ERWIN MASCARIÑAS
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – After the shock and the tears, people here and in Iligan City are starting to pick up the pieces and rebuild their lives two weeks after tropical storm Sendong ravaged their homes and their land. Lack of sufficient water supply, electricity and other basic necessities, did not stop the survivors of Sendong from moving on.

By DESIREE CALUZA
Photos by MARIO IGNACIO
SAGADA, Mt. Province —Morning has broken and the sun casts its rays on this northern highland village as a widow sings a song of peace for those whose hearts have been pained by turmoil and violence. In Sitio Nadatngan in Barangay Madongo here, Florence “Dom-an” Macagne Manegdeg, who turns 39 today, greets the day facing the sun and accompanying its ascent in the horizon by playing her bamboo flute.