The Anthem Philatelist

  Mark the date-August 25, 2024 at the SM Art Center SM Megamall- A Solo Exhibit of Cebuano Master Cubist Celso Duazo Pepito featuring retrospective and recent works. It is also a pre-launching of his book- Going Above, Over and Beyond which will officially unfold in Cebu City on February 28, 2025. Primarily a painter, Celso Pepito’s (b.1956) practice stems from his love of God, family, and country. Guided by Saint Josemaría Escrivá’s teachings on the sanctification of ordinary work, Pepito believes that man must not limit himself to material production and instead remember Escrivá’s proclamation that “Work is born of love; it is a manifestation of love and is directed towards love."  Hence, Pepito’s devotion to illustrating representations of life through these virtues, along with its struggles and triumphs, are presented in the exhibition Antecedence. The selection offers a glimpse into Pepito’s artistic career, which spans four decades of mostly working with sketches , d...

A few months ago, I visited a link in Delcampe , a stamp and collectibles auction site, about "Cyber Philately: Computer Stamps- from Abacus to Internet", and I was transported back in time to my love affair with the "ultimate machine".   Pocket computer --- desktop --- laptop --- notebook --- netbook --- tablet PC . In a nutshell, that's the evolution of my computers.    Back in 1983, when I was in my second year high school in UP Cebu , my dad gifted me from Japan , my first computer- the Casio PB-300 , a pocket computer with a built in thermal printer. To my knowledge, it was the first computer with a built-in thermal printer but had only 2KB of RAM compared to mammoth 4GB of today. There were no elaborate graphics and software programs then. You can only see 12 characters in a line on a monochrome LCD for simple games and computation of algebraic formulas which was very helpful in my elective Calculus subject in high school in UP Cebu.   Only a hand...