HOTSPOT Tonyo Cruz Going to the public market or supermarket in the past few months and weeks is a sure way to have heartaches and headaches. Less people are using the big carts. We’re not really buying less stuff. We can no longer afford to buy more, even if we wanted to. Our money costs less...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta That was Pres. Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.'s enlightened declaration – “We need reforestation… plant good trees.” – After the Biblical deluge and killer landslides in Maguindanao del Norte. During a conference with local government officials of Datu Odin Sinsuat, he...
Pangasinan 4th District Rep. Christopher de Venecia on Wednesday, Nov. 9, questioned the lack of government-provided incentives for Filipino creatives who have won prestigious international awards as he compared how athletes have gotten benefits for achieving the same. (Unsplash/Manila Bulletin)...
HOTSPOT Tonyo Cruz It is said that the family is the basic unity of society. Who would oppose that? No one. But there are a lot of backward ideas about it, and they are not helpful to families and it’s members. There are extended families, or those that include grandparents, titos, titas,...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta The spokesman of Filipino farmers, Ka Rene Cerilla of PAKISAMA, lamented that farmers are never consulted, much less invited to significant policy-making meetings. He was one of the panelist-reactors at the “21st Jaime V. Ongpin memorial lecture on Public Service in...
HOTSPOT Tonyo Cruz After my mother Liwayway Memije Cruz died, our dad and my siblings talked about what to do next and how to go about the wake. Our sister said Mama should have a wake where students and friends could visit and honor her. We could think of only one fitting place: the Polytechnic...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta “What is the dead body saying?” That was how Dr. Raquel Fortun answered when I asked about her profession. What is it like to be a forensic pathologist, and be with cadavers most of the time? She had just returned to the Philippines after giving up a successful...
HOTSPOT Tonyo Cruz While I guess many Manila Bulletin readers are more fortunate or more affluent, that doesn’t mean that they are immune or unbothered by rising inflation and escalating prices of basic goods. Everyone’s affected especially the upwardly-mobile yet peso-pinching middle class....
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta In 1959, while Antonio Araneta, Jr. ( my husband) was polishing his undergrad thesis (‘Elites and Economic Development in Underdeveloped Countries’) at the Notre Dame University, a be-medalled sergeant of the Philippine Army, survivor of World War II was applying...
HOTSPOT Tonyo Cruz Wow Presents Plus, Discovery+ and HBO Go have yet to release the final viewership numbers, but there’s no denying that Drag Race Philippines was a success as the show this week crowned Precious Paula Nicole as the winner of its first season. Yes, Precious Paula Nicole prevailed...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta The phrase “red tagging,” which sends a chill up my spine, did not exist when Antonio S. Araneta (my husband) was writing his undergrad thesis in 1959, titled “Elites and Economic Development in Underdeveloped Countries.” Way back then, he called red-tagging a...
HOTSPOT Tonyo Cruz I have been asked a couple of times at forums or on Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse, how we columnists come out with commentary on the issues. There are a lot of ways how we go about it, perhaps many times more than the number of columnists. Coming from my experience, I could say I...
