MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Not unexpectedly, the government TV channel has been running a series of news features on the Duterte legacy, including his signature war on drugs. On his birthday, the President was congratulated by his executive team – cabinet secretaries – for having fulfilled his...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza You have two days left to greet us a Happy Women’s Month and let us choose, be a happy woman or have a happy month? Happiness is a moment, a condition or an attitude; like love, hard to define. But if a country (or nation) may be considered a family, as in the UN...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Water, water, water! The heat is on. Rain, rain, come this way and stay any day. Only God can make a raindrop, but if man can mix two parts hydrogen with one part oxygen and produce water (H20), can he make an ocean? And even if God causes the rain to...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Having run out of new books to read, I picked through dusty shelves for something to rediscover. And there it was, a slender little book in sunset shades of orange and gold. During a black period of deadly assassinations, character assassination, attention-calling crimes,...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza As the body count continues in Ukraine; as oil and food prices keep spiking; as temperatures inch up and the water level in Angat dam dips and the planet faces irreversible climate change, how do our candidates propose to solve that P12 trillion debt in the next six...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Reunions big or small are important as a marker of time – how many months, years since the last greeting, the last meeting, the last get-together. In the last two years, we lost jobs, income, opportunities, colleagues, friends and lovers and other strangers, family...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Does Alert Level 1 read the return of bad manners in cinemas? People kicking the chair in front of them, eating popcorn cooked in rancid butter, unwrapping their green mango smothered in bagoong. People swapping movie reviews while the movie is unfolding on the screen,...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Are we the only people celebrating a Valentine’s Month because one day is not enough to express feelings of love, romance, more love? Cecile Licad, all the way in New York, treated us in Metro Manila to a virtual “Amore” piano recital on the...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza When there’s nothing new, yet things are neither normal nor abnormal, what do you call it? Unusual times call for unusual deeds and styles. Look at the way the election campaign is going. The President’s administration party has been so shamefacedly misadministered...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza At last I’ve found someone who doesn’t watch K-dramas for the simple reason that “I don’t like them, period.” For the rest of us pandemic-induced couch potatoes cooked in and hooked on Netflix, Hallyu was pretty much how we survived ECQ, MGCQ, Alert Level 3 and...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Just because there are 12 senators to be elected come May 9, the race has not attracted or generated half the excitement, the noise, or the scrutiny that’s its due. The senatorial candidates come from the ranks of reelectionists, returnees, and new faces. It’s the...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza On one of my rare visits to the supermarket, a display of garbage bags – not in black – attracted my attention. They stood out because they were packaged in sunny colors and labeled as pleasant-smelling garbage bags, thanks to the added value of fruit and flower...
