This morning, I had the privilege of talking about a variety of topics, with a special focus on the growing phenomenon of young people developing personal attachments to Ai.
My sincere thank you to DZXL RMN News for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts–as well as my book, Better People, Better Country–with your listeners on live radio.
Here’s the full interview. Fast forward to the 16-minute mark.
All done!
Twenty-nine copies of Better People, Better Country have been delivered to seven Fully Booked branches.
I have no illusions that this book will have mass appeal.
But it represents years of work, much of it done in quiet isolation, through late nights in front of a computer screen, and with the hope that an aging body would hold up long enough to see the project through.
Along the way were moments of encouragement, but also skepticism, rejection, and many reasons to set the project aside.
Whether the book reaches ten people or ten thousand, I am grateful for the opportunity to place these ideas on public-facing shelves.
My hope is simply that it contributes, in its own small way, to conversations that matter and give voice to those who believed they had little.
The conversation continues.
On the afternoon of June 15, 2026, I made my second delivery of Better People, Better Country to the Fully Booked UPTC branch.
This book was intended to be, above all, a contribution to conversation and learning. Seeing it on the shelves of a bookstore surrounded by schools, universities, and places of learning feels especially meaningful.
I have always enjoyed a lively exchange of ideas and passionate debate about the questions that shape our lives and our society. Many of the themes explored in this book grew out of years of reflecting on the very human struggles we all encounter—how we live, how we love, how we work together, and how we build a country that gives more people the opportunity to flourish.
My hope is that the ideas in this book will find their way into conversations that matter, especially conversations about how we can build a society where more Filipinos can live with dignity and opportunity.
My thanks to the friendly staff for indulging my requests for selfies, and a special shout-out to Dandrille, who welcomed me with a smile throughout the entire process.
The journey continues.
One unintended consequence of the prevailing disease or mental disorder model is that life slowly becomes a competition over who feels the best, the happiest, the most confident, or the least distressed.
But if feeling good were the ultimate purpose of living, we would expect our final tributes and epitaphs to celebrate people mainly for how good they felt about themselves.
We know that’s rarely the case.
Most obituaries are not about who felt the happiest.
They are about what people did.
How they loved.
What they built.
Who they helped.
What they stood for.
Nathaniel Chua was recently interviewed about marital sexual consent. He, together with a legal practitioner were the featured resource persons for the article. Click the link below to read the article:
https://philstarlife.com/news-and-views/928796-consent-rape-marriage-explainer
In this episode for our series, Shrinks Over Drinks, I talk with Dr. Niklas Torneke, a Swedish psychiatrist who has authored three books in English and more in Swedish. Two of his books in English have been very instrumental in my journey into ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), RFT (Relational Frame Theory), and behaviorism. He is an authority when it comes to the uses of language and metaphors from an RFT perspective.
I have myself seen how his work has informed me inside the counseling room and how much it helps people see through the veneer of language.
Listen on Spotify!
If you prefer to listen to this video interview, you can click the play button below:
