MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza It’s in the air, all right. Prematurely, perhaps, but necessary to our sense of survival. As TV anchors keep reminding, Christmas is just a wish away. On one of my daring trips outside the gates of our house, I drove from Quezon City to Manila – with the blessings of...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza When things go wrong, you wring your hands or you use them to “ease the situation.” In the time of the great pandemic, when those who are not in perfect health are considered highly vulnerable to the novel coronavirus, how are the sick and young residents of ChildHaus...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza If there was ever an original “plantita” it’s got to be Mina Gabor, former secretary of tourism. For the last many years she has been promoting sustainable tourism, “mother” of ecotourism and farm tourism, all of which involve a passion for planting for the...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Teacher, it’s your turn to listen. Can we make going to school more fun, less cruel? The picture of a third grader crying because he was exhausted by the amount of homework he was forced to leave unfinished went viral two days ago. No doubt parents, outstanding alumni,...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza A question that’s either too late or too soon to ask, too rhetorical at any rate. At any rate, a furniture designer with a background in psychology estimates that WFH (work from home) has saved us 58 minutes and 2,000 steps of walking and just standing around; another...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Unbelievable, times three! You thought a Pulse Asia rating of 91% and 92% approval of the President in terms of trust and job performance was too good to be true? Phenomenal, until, some days later Pulse Asia reveals another 92% score, this time for the government’s...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza First day of school (public education) came and went, under terrifyingly abnormal conditions. As one parent put it, seeing the high frustration level experienced by teachers was enough to make her wish that we had had the foresight to postpone classes for one...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza For the last 20-something years, I have been trying to stop a person or persons unknown from using my byline to spread what appears to be a devotion to a canonized saint of the Catholic Church. I have nothing against religion nor saintliness, but what kind of Christians...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Those multidigit numbers collated by DOH either numb your skull or send you reeling, fueled by anxiety, panic now and again. After seven months of limitless restrictions on our movements and still we’re getting nowhere? Senior citizens, classified as “vulnerable,”...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza In the 30 years that he has been a diplomat in the service of the State Department of the United States, Ambassador Sung Kim has “never made more friends” than right here in the Philippines. And he’s been everywhere, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, etc. The quote is...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza To five-year-old Marco I ask, “And when will you read me a story?” He’s in kindergarten but, because his mother took advantage of the long lockdown to drill him on sight-reading, he can easily read grade-four-level words. To my question his reply comes with a swak:...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza When I was in Korea in October 2011, they were celebrating – yes, like it was a national holiday -- the 10 th anniversary of the then phenomenal Korean TV series, Winter Sonata. Stores offered promos, restaurants cooked up special menus, the streets were decorated...
