MEDIUM RARE What a homecoming it was, to be back in the Metropolitan Theater and relax under its ceiling of Art Deco mangoes, for a long overdue concert. Maan Hontiveros, president of the Manila Symphony Orchestra Foundation, called it the orchestra’s centennial season, in gratitude for 80 years...
MEDIUM RARE Any excuse is good enough to drop everything and climb up to Baguio City, where the mountains are kissed by clouds and pine trees shoot up to the sky. And last weekend provided the best reason: the 25th memorial commemorating the passing of Potenciano “Nanoy” Ilusorio on June 28....
MEDIUM RARE According to Zenaida Seva, who was a real astrologer and not a “manghuhula,” the Philippines is a Gemini country. Independence Day is June 12, and if a survey were to be done, it would show that more of us citizens and residents, including the national hero Dr. Jose Rizal, were...
MEDIUM RARE There he was, in a sky-blue, short-sleeved shirt, and there I was, inches away and all I could say was, “Good morning, you look great! What’s your secret?” Oops, what did I just do, besides opening my big mouth? But he replied, calmly and with half a smile, “I chose my...
MEDIUM RARE Among other things and besides being First Lady and a doctor of laws, Liza A. Marcos keeps a fleet of 150 mobile clinics to serve farflung, hard-to-reach areas. That’s in addition to the “soft” side of her office, which is keeping a score of heritage houses in the Malacañang...
MEDIUM RARE If they’re looking for a bald-headed Senator Bato de la Rosa, maybe they should try to imagine what he looks like with a wig? “Bato Bato sa langit Ang matamaan Ay huwag magalit.” That was one nursery rhyme that kids of my generation never outgrew. If it sounds timely today, a...
MEDIUM RARE Three seasons in one day. Where in the world? Right here, Baguio City, where mountains are kissed by clouds and moonlight is silvery white no matter how warm or cool the night. Spring, summer, autumn, anyone? The surge in fuel prices that kept away tourists from the lowlands now a thing...
MEDIUM RARE My favorite writers are Martha Grimes and Colin Dexter. Nobody writes like Grimes, who’s American but sets her crime mysteries in England. Unfortunately, Grimes and Dexter, who’s true-blue English, have stopped writing, I think permanently. I keep going back to the bookstore in...
MEDIUM RARE Your cousin is the child of your aunt or uncle. Very often, cousins turn out to be best friends, principally because as childhood playmates they knew how to keep one another’s secrets. Often enough, cousins live near each other. In some cases, as when I was a child and my...
MEDIUM RARE As a fan of Dingdong Dantes, I was interested in his new TV series, Master Cutter, not so much for its promise of action, crime and punishment, as for how he would interpret the character of a tailor, how he would handle guns and bullets versus how he would sew with needle and thread....
MEDIUM RARE For the first time in her life, my neighbor said she spent a weekend in Baguio without having to wear a sweater. (I should have asked her if the temperature was at least like Tagaytay’s.) If the nightly weather forecast is to be believed, the heat wave hitting the archipelago is being...
MEDIUM RARE As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. Thus Mariel Ilusorio, pianist, and Joshua Cerafica, young flutist, teamed up to celebrate the music of Astor Piazzolla, who in 1986 composed a four-movement suite in honor of a dance that was once banned, like the novel Lady Chatterley’s...
