MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza If there’s anyone who’d decline to R.I. P., I imagine it would be the exceptional Joy or Joya, Ma. Josefina to you. Joya, 61, passed away on Sept. 7 after a six-hour dialysis session followed by cardiac arrest. She had spent the last few weeks of her topsy-turvy,...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza At 11:32 p.m. precisely on Sept. 1, I heard my first carol of the year, “White Christmas.” Twelve hours earlier, Pedro, a father of four, put up his Christmas tree and pulled out box after box of ornaments. Later in the day, TV5 launched the network’s Christmas...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza This business of wearing a mask as a weapon against the deadliest virus of our time has other virtues going for it. For one, it imparts a mysterious air to its wearer. It also hides his or her imperfections from the bridge of the nose down to the chin, in that way...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Before CNN and the worldwide web, news did not travel as fast as light. As it was an unknown entity, the name Afghanistan stood for anything that was strange, unfamiliar, far and far away. In short, Afghanistanism was the catch-all for whatever seemed or...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Break, break, break! Too much already! Did we take one step forward, only to take two steps back? After an unending series of monotonously named lockdowns, it feels like we’re back where we started on March 15, 2020. True, more vaccines but also more deadly variants....
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza To retire or not to retire from the square ring of boxing? That sounds like the question of the day being bandied about by analysts, while another batch of curiosity seekers wonder if Manny Pacquiao should throw his hat in the three-ring circus of the coming elections....
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza To illiterates and innumerates alike, the universe is founded on numbers. The numbers that Ugas in Vegas beat out of Pacquiao after 12 rounds read 115-113, 116-112, and again 116-112. Numbers are the foundation of a predictable world, specially when your profession is...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza An alternative headline would have been “The last Q” (for quarter), but where’s the romance in that? Quoting the president of the biggest federation of business clubs in the Philippines, “Spare the last quarter.” Henry Lim Bon Liong was okay with the Aug. 6-20...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Ask. So you call One Hospital Command. The phone is either tied up or it just keeps ringing. OHC boasts a complement of 120 operators working ‘round the clock. Nobody home? Or simply no answers? With hospitals filling up, full, shut down, or overflowing to sidewalks and...
Medium Rare Jullie Y. Daza And it’s not just doctors, nurses, lab technicians, hygiene and sanitation engineers, but also policemen/women out on the streets chasing after toughies aching to catch or spread the vilest of viruses. A picture published in Manila Standard a few days ago says it all:...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza That’s the advice of Dr. Francisco Duque to parents and family members who are worried sick about the growing number of young COVID-19 patients, from babies to teens and up. As explained by the Secretary, if there are five people in one household and four of them have...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza As I promised myself, no mention of the C word, not today. After watching the nth replay of My Fair Lady, the air feels bright, the space is light, the mood is right as rain and the pretty things it grows – flowers, grass, crops, the umbrella factory. My Fair Lady the...
