MEDIUM RARE Last Thursday’s front page read like a divorce document. “VP Sara Duterte resigns from Cabinet” and “Over 40 lay groups form ‘super coalition’ against divorce”. There’s an “absolute divorce bill” pending in Congress, a close call between 131 pro divorce versus 129...
MEDIUM RARE Irreconcilable facts. We are – were? – an agricultural country. Once upon a time our IRRI (International Rice Research Institute) attracted farmers from all over Asia, including Vietnam, to learn the best techniques in planting, etc. Today we are the world’s leading importer...
MEDIUM RARE Not seven, not ten. Eight minutes, advised the Holy Father, Pope Francis, and that’s exactly how much time the priest took to deliver his sermon last Sunday. I timed him, and he was on the dot. Eight minutes, said the Pope from the Vatican. His advice had the effect of an ex cathedra...
MEDIUM RARE Charisse Chuidian, VP for public relations of City of Dreams hotel out there in BGC, wouldn’t be the acknowledged dean of hotel p.r.’s in the Philippines if she did not know the ABC of what it is to be nice to clients and good to people in general. So when she gathered us for lunch,...
MEDIUM RARE From the time she retired as secretary to a string of ex-journalists who found themselves one after the other as VP of Philippine Airlines’ (PAL) public relations office, Rosie Dizon has been making rosaries — bead by bead, chain by chain, five mysteries at a time — for people who...
MEDIUM RARE In my family, Ateneo, UP, and UST are the universities to enroll sons and daughters after high school. Generally, the girls are alumnae of Immaculate Conception Academy Greenhills and the boys are from Ateneo. We non-Atenistas have a common challenge: Why shouldn’t the Jesuits rank...
MEDIUM RARE Alice Leal Guo makes you wonder. Her story a fairy tale? Is she a spy, a la James Bond on the fast lane? Too much (wealth) too soon? Too little (verification) too late? She’s up against the Ombudsman, possibly DILG, DOJ, OSG, and Senators Gatchalian and Hontiveros. The story of...
MEDIUM RARE Back in the day, in a nice building with a nice name, Gold, Charley Barretto held her listeners spellbound with tips on how to become prosperous. For more than two hours each day for three days she talked extemporaneously, without notes nor a pause. In those days,...
MEDIUM RARE On second thought, would that title sound better if it was written as “Ode to Olde”? Old shoes are more comfortable. Old bedsheets are softer come bedtime. Old trees are stronger than saplings. Old friends know you through and true, so you may count on them to be there when...
MEDIUM RARE Quoting the first lines of a poem by the French Impressionist poet Paul Verlaine: “It rains on the town as it weeps in my heart.” Imagine how much more beautiful it is in French! But then, wishing for the rain as a romantic element is just that, pure imagination. Rain could be...
MEDIUM RARE When you’ve hit the golden 50 in your life as a happily wedded couple, your friends are dearer to you now that they’re old enough to value your wisdom. Niwa Ang, a retired banker, went up the stage and took the mic to address his and his Olive’s guests last Saturday to...
MEDIUM RARE Before the lights go out, said the president of the company that manages and operates the five-star hotel, “Let’s do lunch.” I still find it hard counting the decades when we spent Tuesdays, me and my colleagues, at Sofitel hotel (aka Philippine Plaza) for our Bulong Pulungan...
