MEDIUM RARE Ninety-seven percent of the time I don’t envy the President for his perks, privileges, and power. The remaining three percent is reserved for how I wish I could, like him, zip into and out of our airport and into an airplane, skipping the hundred-and-one steps that we mortals are heir...
MEDIUM RARE In a greet-and-meet with the Filipino community in Washington, D.C., PBBM invited them to go home to a bet-ter airport, roads, government, and internet. This was after an eight-hour power outage at our airport’s Terminal 3 canceled/delayed 50 flights and pun-ished some 9,000...
MEDIUM RARE If you mix one part oxygen with two parts hydrogen, H2O, you produce water. How much? A drip, a drop, a river? Just because you can afford your water bill, you’ve no right to waste water when the dams and reservoirs are about to look like the bottom of a very dry well. We hear calls,...
Medium Rare For all our avowed love for and life-and-death attachment to our cellphones, what was so hard about meeting the SIM registration period of 180 days? As usual, the powers-that-be gave in to the clamor for an extension, so now we have 90 more days to obey a law that takes but minutes to...
MEDIUM RARE To quote a balikbayan Alex-in-Wonderland, “Some of your malls are much nicer than what we have back home,” home being the great United States of America. I remembered AiW upon stepping into the mall housing Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Makati last week. Another excuse to...
MEDIUM RARE As every culture vulture knows, Cultural Center of the Philippines won’t be alive with the sound of music, drama, and applause for the next two years. The 52-year-old lady needs a bit of cosmetic surgery to keep in step with performers’ demand for a home worthy of their talents...
MEDIUM RARE The last time I was with Boysie Villavicencio was four months ago, December last year. That was when I lost another friend with the same initials, Butch Valdes. (Another coincidence, the two BV’s lived a few blocks from each other.) Boysie, 73, started his rise to fame as a fashion...
MEDIUM RARE With the merger of Development Bank of the Philippines and Land Bank, it was a natural question to ask Tessie Sy-Coson if a union of Banco de Oro and China Bank was in the offing. “No,” she said, as all around us alumnae of Immaculate Conception Academy reveled in the happy...
MEDIUM RARE When I wrote about bookstores (April 14) as a casualty of the cyber age, the idea was to use it as an introductory paragraph but I got so carried away it became the whole piece. The real intention, then as now, is to say that every book published is a celebration of sorts, of the...
MEDIUM RARE They have been partners for 48 years, with “not a single fight” to mar or fray the relationship. At Mader Ricky Reyes’ birthday party a few nights ago, the ultimate compliment was paid by Father Anthony, who described his kindness, generosity, and compassion, quoting Cris...
MEDIUM RARE As civilization advances, is the bookstore about to beat a hasty retreat? When was the last time you were in a bookstore? How much of the past did you miss there, standing among the loosely stacked shelves and remembering the not-so-long-ago? Bookstores have cut down their branches,...
MEDIUM RARE Among other things, he is a Papal Awardee for serving Mother Church through his charity works, as he is also well known near and far for his love of music (and unstinting support for up-and-coming musicians). He sings in church as regularly as he jogs around the ancestral home built by...
