MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza “If you get vaccinated with a dose that’s 50 percent effective, it means you reduce the infection rate by 50 percent.” It does not mean that the vaccine is only half good. If the vaccine is 95 percent efficacious, “you’re 95 percent sure of protection.” Edson...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza She’s not a spring chicken anymore but her idea of exercise in the time of the pandemic is scuba-diving. That sport may or may not be at the extreme end of leisure activities for adults, but Lee is a super/superior senior whose constitution and state of health, honed...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Corruption in places high and low. The Department of Justice is conducting a “massive” investigation but how massive can it be, that the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission beat DOJ in the game by naming names. Who’s investigating the investigators?...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza What about us working stiffs in the private sector? Medical and hospital frontliners, men and women in uniform, the poor and the elderly are assured of their vaccines. What about your normal, average, typical employee who does not belong to the civilian bureaucracy or the...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza In another 41 days there will be another New Year to celebrate. Yes, the Chinese or Lunar New Year beginning Feb. 12. The Year of the Metal Ox, hopefully and grit-your-teeth-ly a better and kinder one than the last. Everyone’s second chance to do their spring cleaning,...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza What a year it has been – sorry, guys, no firecrackers tonight to send 2020 off to the wild blue yonder! It has been a wild ride, a year when we lost so many friends, acquaintances, and strangers, not all of them to the pandemic. While the virus has killed thousands of...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Why did the second day of Christmas, Saturday, emit a Black Saturday vibe? The somber mood was almost Holy Week-like, traffic being remarkably light, parks and streets emptied of strollers. Annus horribilis , much the worse for children suffering from the unexpected...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza It’s the day after Christmas but I beg the reader’s indulgence, for I will not be writing as a Christian. I’m not entertaining any sympathy for that Tarlac policeman who killed at close range and in cold blood a mother and her son during an argument over a land...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza When it comes to giving gifts, we are proud to err on the side of excess. Look at those thick crowds shopping in Divisoria. How can you stop a people overflowing with love for parents, parents-in-law, children, grandchildren, godchildren, neighbors, officemates,...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza The next pandemic is knocking at our stomachs. Hunger. While those of us who can afford to buy a newspaper will be waiting to be “surprised” by what the lady of the house has prepared for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, millions of poor people all over the world will...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza One year and after two events were dropped by the lockdown, Benjie thought it was time to “show confidence” in the gradual opening up of the economy. Forthwith, he invited his comrades to a reunion lunch, “just to see how everybody is doing in challenging times.”...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza The Holy Trinity. Heaven Man Earth. The Holy Family, Joseph, Mary, Baby Jesus. The Three Kings. Three groups of witnesses: Angels . . . Shepherds . . . Beasts. A trio of stars. The Star of Bethlehem. The star topping the twinkling tree in the living room. The...
