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 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 Summer – it may be hot and dry, but there’s no better time than now to bite into a crunchy fruit sweet with the juices of nature. Cook is ecstatic that singkamas are so cheap, ₱40 for a bundle of six pieces, that she finds it a mystery that not more people are buying them. Too...
MEDIUM RARE What an awesome surprise, to land in the National Museum and discover that it’s no longer a museum piece but an elegant building that has aged graciously and acquired a rejuvenated life all its own, with 29 salons (or galleries) painted in modern bold colors, a network of handsome...
MEDIUM RARE Have you ever seen a cache of money laid out before you in the hundreds of millions and billions and billions? Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman opened her eyes wide and affirmed, “Yes, yes, when I was with the central bank!” At home, where she lives with her parents as an only...
MEDIUM RARE An old friend used to say that “the coolest place to be is your car,” but that was before the price of petrol hit the roof at P60 and up. Nowadays the place to cool off is the mall. As long as one is able to resist the lure of impulse buying, the mall is a safe place to crawl and...
