Vertical Declination of the Tuazon Tenement

The Tuazon ancestral home in Manila is not falling down. It is simply... re-interpreting gravity. The patriarch refuses to acknowledge the 15-degree tilt. Meanwhile, his wife, Doña Marga, is preserving the family legacy by hermetically sealing the leftovers of every meal since 1998. Their daughter Clara is waiting for a fiancé who may or may not exist, and their son Nonoy is charting a map of the living room floor to avoid the spots where the marble cracks under the weight of disappointment. But when a team of "modern" contractors arrives to shore up the building, the Tuazons must decide what to save: the house, or the lie that keeps them upright.

Brian Pollo is an MD-PhD candidate, educator, and writer whose work spans biochemistry, ethnomedicine, and the history of science. They study how complement, coagulation, and innate immunity adapt in extreme environments, while also tracing the cultural and symbolic roles of blood in human storytelling. Their writing blends scientific rigor with narrative inquiry, reflecting a commitment to both biomedical innovation and the preservation of ancestral knowledge.