A Filipino twist on a Middle Eastern classic

 

BY JUANA YUPANGCO

FEBRUARY 23, 2026

Photos by Mikey Yabut

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In Filipino kitchens, monggo (mung beans) are synonymous with comfort. Simmered into hearty stews with malunggay, garlic, and sometimes tinapa or pork, monggo is a Friday staple in many households.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, chickpeas are transformed into silky, lemony hummus—one of the region’s most beloved dishes. My husband’s first baby steps into plant-based eating was brought on by a love for hummus. Our fridge is stocked with hummus at any given moment. To lower the calories brought by olive oil, I use aquafaba or water that the beans are soaked in to add to the liquid, with the oil providing its taste instead of relying on it for texture and creaminess.

What happens when these two culinary traditions meet? You get monggo hummus—a vibrant, protein-rich spread that blends Filipino ingredients with Middle Eastern technique. The result is familiar yet new: earthy, creamy, and bright with citrus.

Monggo is the most researched Filipino legume, and for good reason. Its high protein content and year-round availability make it an affordable protein source. Most of us are used to eating monggo in the most common form: monggo guisado, topped with pork, fish, or served alongside paksiw.

Monggo was the first dish I used in creating my dishes for Mesa ni Misis—monggo Bolognese. Just like Bolognese recipes, the flavor varies from Filipino party spaghetti, which is sweet, to a more sophisticated version that uses red wine. The main point is to use the monggo, which is so versatile, in other dishes that are also familiar to us.

Monggo hummus proves that comfort food can cross borders. By blending the humble Filipino mung bean with the time-honored structure of Middle Eastern hummus, we create something nourishing, accessible, and culturally rich.

At first glance, swapping chickpeas for mung beans may seem unconventional. But from a culinary perspective, it makes perfect sense.

1. Similar texture

When cooked until tender, monggo becomes soft and creamy—ideal for blending into a smooth paste. Like chickpeas, they hold structure while still breaking down easily. There are two kinds of monggo—monggo kintab, or shiny—which stays more firm even with soaking and boiling, and monggo labo, which is softer and murkier. For this hummus dish, look for the ‘labo’ variety, as you will want it as creamy as possible.

2. Nutty, earthy flavor

Mung beans have a mild, slightly sweet earthiness. This pairs beautifully with tahini (sesame paste), garlic, olive oil, and lemon or calamansi.

3. Local, affordable, sustainable

In the Philippines, monggo is more accessible and budget-friendly than imported chickpeas. Choosing locally grown legumes reduces food miles and supports local farmers.

4. Nutritional benefits

Mung beans are:

*High in plant-based protein

*Rich in fiber

*Packed with folate, magnesium, and antioxidants

*Naturally low in fat

Traditional hummus from the Middle East often features a creamy chickpea base, richness that comes from tahini, lots of lemon, garlic, and olive oil. Monggo hummus on the other hand is a little gentler on the palate—sweeter and less heavy. For extra kick, I’ve added cumin but also feel free to try curry powder. I also added some serving suggestions for interesting takes on it.

Ingredients

*1 cup dried monggo (mung beans), soaked and cooked until soft

*1 to 2 cloves garlic

*Juice of 1 or 2 calamansi (or half a lemon)

*2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil

*Salt to taste

*Cooking water from monggo (as needed for blending)

*Pinch of cumin

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Instructions

1. Cook soaked monggo until very tender. Drain, reserving some cooking liquid.
2. In a food processor or blender, combine monggo, garlic, citrus juice, salt, and olive oil.
3. Blend until smooth, adding cooking water gradually for desired consistency.
4. Taste and adjust seasoning.
5. Serve drizzled with olive oil and topped with paprika, toasted sesame, or chopped herbs.

Monggo hummus is versatile. Here are some serving suggestions to create your own twist for your desired occasion.

1. Malunggay boost

Blend in fresh malunggay leaves for added nutrients and a deeper green color. Monggo is often served with malunggay, but this time, it takes on a different form.

2. Smoked tinapa version

Incorporate flaked smoked fish for a savory, umami-forward spread—perfect with pandesal.

3. Spicy sili kick

Add chopped red chilies or chili oil for heat. 

4. Coconut-lime fusion

Swap part of the olive oil with a small amount of coconut oil for a subtle tropical aroma.

How to serve monggo hummus

Monggo hummus bridges cuisines effortlessly. Try it:

*As a dip with pita, flatbread, or pandesal

*Spread on whole-grain toast with tomatoes and cucumbers

*As a sandwich base instead of mayonnaise

*Paired with grilled vegetables or chicken

*As part of a mezze-style platter with olives and pickled vegetables

*It also fits beautifully into modern wellness-focused diets—whether you’re eating plant-based, high-protein, or simply trying to incorporate more whole foods.

In praise of listening

 

BY ANNA CRISTINA TUAZON

FEBRUARY 19, 2026

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My maternity leave has led to an unintended consequence: opting out of my usual platforms for discourse. I had no students, no colleagues, no clients, and no column to which I can express my thoughts and ideas. It was not a slow month for news, either, making my self-imposed abstinence from opinion an even bigger challenge. There were concerning developments regarding civil rights violations in the United States, escalation of tensions around the West Philippine Sea, impeachment cases filed against the two highest positions in the land, and of course the infamous remarks of Sen. Robinhood Padilla regarding the youth as “weak” for having mental health issues. What a time to bring a child into the world!

That said, listening and observing are underrated skills and perhaps we should devote our time to it more often. In psychological first aid, we follow the core actions of “look, listen, and link.” Before we prescribe any intervention, we must first look at the situation and listen to our clients. In psychotherapy, listening and observing are fundamental and at times make up much of our work. I would often remind my students that if the therapist did most of the talking in session, that probably wasn’t therapy. This is what prompts the misconception that our work is easy, and that “all therapists do is listen.” In fact, listening is much more difficult, and has more impact, than talking.

There are depths to listening. One can hear but not listen. One can repeat what one hears but still fail to understand. To listen actively and empathically, which is what psychotherapy requires, is to observe at multiple levels at the same time. To hear what is being said, to hear what cannot be said, to observe how things are said, and to understand the context behind what is being said.

To listen to others well, you must also know how to listen to yourself. How are you receiving what you heard? What emotions and reactions are coming up for you as you listen to the experience of others? What urges accompany these reactions? What biases and context do you have that are filtering what you are hearing? For therapists, it is especially important to be well acquainted with your own voice, so you don’t impose it on others. One should also have the humility to acknowledge that our experience and views are, by essence, limited. This will allow us to listen to others without judgment or constraint.

Being forced to stay in listening mode this past month has been a good and humbling reminder for me. I’ve inhabited various positions of authority–of being a teacher, therapist, and professional–that has made me, perhaps, too comfortable in expressing and asserting my views. (Caring for a newborn is, likewise, a humbling experience. No amount of imposing my will on this little one will change when she wants to feed, cry, sleep, and poop. I am forced, as her mother, to hone my listening and observing skills to better anticipate her needs so that I can have even a sliver of a chance of sleep and rest.)

Listening opens us up to resources we usually gloss over. First, listening gives us time. Instead of reacting quickly, we have time to process and digest. If I had written this article right after Padilla’s statement, I would have probably expressed indignation and focused on providing counterarguments. But having to sit with it for a week, as well as allowing my emotions to complete their cycle, I feel less of a need to quench my personal frustration. I still do not agree with the senator’s sentiments. However, I can locate that my true frustration lies in the realization that such sentiments still exist in society–especially among leaders and elected officials–and that our work as mental health advocates are far from over.

Second, listening leads to empathy and compassion. The extra time I had to reflect on what I heard helped me see how our narrow definition of what it means to be strong and our unwillingness to be vulnerable has led us to cut short our empathy for others. Listening bridges us to others, helping us to see our interconnectedness. It opens us up beyond our personal and direct experience. It allows us to experience lives far different from our own. We see how this refusal to listen to others have led to cruelty. For example, refusing to listen to the lived experience of immigrants, instead labeling them as “illegals” or “criminals,” made supporting actions that violate their civil rights easier. Our version of it is “Red-tagging,” where we put labels such as “adik,” “tibak,” or “komunista” to give ourselves permission to stop listening and to stop seeing them as fellow human beings.

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The weight of words

 

BY ELEANOR PINUGU

FEBRUARY 16, 2026

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Afriend of mine, who is an infectious disease specialist, once observed that many Filipinos tend to delay going to the doctor unless something hurts. He shared the case of a man who consulted him for a mild stomachache, even though the patient had a visibly bulging goiter. The stomachache was painful and, therefore, was considered urgent, while the goiter was merely seen as an inconvenience.

He noted that part of this pattern may be linguistic. The Filipino word for illness is the same word we use for pain: sakit. When illness is tied to pain in language, painless symptoms, even if they are potentially life-threatening, are easily minimized and tolerated, leading to delayed diagnosis and intervention. It is only when something hurts that we treat it as a serious concern. This is the quiet power of language. It shapes not just how we perceive and describe our experiences, but also the kind of action and attention they require.

Words matter even more when they come from those in positions of authority. What leaders say carries a disproportionate ripple effect, shaping culture, morale, and collective behavior within their sphere of influence. Language, in their hands, can actively construct norms. This is why the remarks made by Sen. Robinhood Padilla during a recent Senate hearing drew such widespread criticism. Padilla suggested that children today are “weak” compared to previous generations, citing their vulnerability to mental health challenges.

Experts and citizens alike were quick to respond. The Psychological Association of the Philippines emphasized that resilience cannot be meaningfully compared across generations, because the challenges young people face today are both “quantitatively and qualitatively more intense.” They also stressed that what appears to be an “increase” in mental health conditions is, in part, the result of greater awareness and significant advances in identification and diagnosis.

Rather than acknowledge how his previous statement could compromise the mental health discourse, Padilla doubled down by claiming that his notions about today’s youth are not simply an opinion, but are based on worldwide data surrounding the rise of suicide rates. He argued that if the public were truly concerned, then the focus should be on responding with solutions to the problem rather than correcting what he said.

What Padilla fails to grasp is that how he talks about mental health is itself a large part of the problem that needs to be addressed. For instance, one of the longest-standing challenges that mental health practitioners have faced is the common word choices in media and public discourse (e.g., “psycho” and “crazy”) along with portrayals that equate mental illnesses with criminality. These have reinforced myths that people who have diagnoses are dangerous and socially undesirable. While greater awareness in recent years has helped dismantle some of these misconceptions, fears of being boxed into stigmatizing terms have led people to delay help‑seeking or avoid mental health care altogether.

When Padilla labeled children as “weak” for having suicidal ideation, he inadvertently framed mental health issues as a personal failure rather than a public health concern. This could feed into one’s self-stigma, where individuals internalize negative labels around their condition, leading to lower self‑esteem, social withdrawal, and reduced hope for recovery.

As proof of his generation’s resilience, Padilla claimed that young people during his time weren’t “crybabies” and did not even know what depression meant. Yet, suicide deaths are also alarmingly high among males in middle and later adulthood, globally, and in the Philippines. This potentially points to long-standing patterns of silence from men who were socialized to suppress rather than articulate suffering, and to cope through socially acceptable but harmful substitutes like substance use. Older generations may not have known the word for depression and other mental health challenges during their time, but they almost certainly felt its weight.

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It’s true that mental health language these days can sometimes be used loosely, especially among younger people, which strips these terms of their clinical meaning. But rather than dismiss the experiences behind them, the appropriate response is guidance and education. These are opportunities to build deeper understanding and stronger mental health literacy.

Padilla was correct in pointing out that the problem must be addressed. But how we frame the mental health discourse dictates the kind of action and policies that follow. By recognizing depression as a clinical condition rather than a character weakness, we open the door to policies and evidence-based interventions grounded in compassion, empathy, and care. Our leaders’ choice of words matters because it can determine whether people seek and receive help or continue to suffer in silence.

—————

eleanor@shetalksasia.com

Breaking up with the dating app

 

Now that all my dating apps are uninstalled, I don’t have it in me to be ashamed of admitting I’ve had my fair (borderline desperate) share of window shopping for potential significant others. After all, my job doesn’t really give me space to meet a lot of people, so I’ve had many accounts set up on different apps.

There have been a few “matches” that led to so many boring conversations that I’m still not sure whether they actually found me interesting or if one of us accidentally swiped right. Needless to say, none of those “matches” equaled actual compatibility, nor have any meaningful relationships sprouted out of them. Zero actual matches with people, and instead, matches between characters and curated personas.

The only other period when I didn’t have a dating app was in mid-2024, when I thought I didn’t need one anymore because I’d met someone to fill that void in real life. But once that ended, I found myself dealing with a severe case of withdrawal from romantic affection. Suddenly, the dating apps were back. But something was different this time. It was no longer exciting. It wasn’t fun. And then I realized that the whole time I had invited the apps into my life, it had not been fun at all. Then I came to an even greater realization: dating apps will never work for me because my self-worth demands fairness to myself and my conscience demands fairness for others.

Bumble, my most frequently-used one, has a feature called “best photo,” which can determine which of the first three Bumble profile photos gets the most attention and then place it on top. The temptation would be to gather all the pictures with your best angles. Then, from that selection, weed out any pictures that don’t contribute to the persona you’re trying to present. Come up with a witty bio, one that aligns with your persona. This is not a one-time process. It’s an ongoing process of updating every time something impressive (and hence, attractive) happens to you. By the end of it, you’re your own brand manager.

This constant curation has worn me out over the years. At first, I thought I was being pretentious while everyone else was being real, but from the conversations I’ve had with people there, it became clear to me that everyone there was presenting a persona that was far different from their actual selves.

I had an entanglement with a person who had fallen in love with an idea of me that he had created for himself, and got very disappointed when I felt safe enough to reveal my humanity. After that, my growing self-worth gnawed at me to be immediately authentic, as well as unapologetically potentially unlikable. The act of depending on the algorithm and on strangers on the internet for acknowledgment that you look good in the pictures wasn’t sustainable. It was also happening during a critical period of my life when I was being misunderstood by many around me, and I needed to be sure of myself, no matter what. It wasn’t fair to myself anymore that I wasn’t applying the lessons I had been learning in my platonic and professional life to my romantic life.

It also wasn’t fair for everyone else that I wasn’t giving them my real self. The heartbreak had forced me to reflect that we really could fall in love with the idea we have of others instead of who they actually are. If someone could fall in love with a persona I didn’t create, who can say that can’t happen for a persona in a dating app that I did actively create?

If you want something sustainable, you would have to eventually break down that mask. They would have to re-learn you all over again, and that isn’t necessarily what most sign up for. How could I possibly demand that of someone and expect them to be fine with me going, “Actually, I lied on that profile. I’m not as interesting or likable as I seem to be. Here are facts about me I intentionally left out”?

I don’t think love works that way: “Love me first and then I’ll tell you the unlovable things later.” I think we are supposed to know people with the good and the bad, and then see if there is anyone you’re willing to love despite the less-than-desirable qualities. My life had already re-routed itself to be open to being unlikeable. I could easily just be honest and put the most authentic version of myself on the app, but that would mean getting back into the cycle of curation, only this time subscribing to a different set of criteria.

Of course, some people do end up together after meeting on dating apps—all the best for them, absolutely. I can never make assumptions, and I don’t have any ideas about the conditions that led them to that happy ending, but what I do know for myself is this: I’m not sticking around to find out.