MEDIUM RARE Having been reassured that we SSS pensioners would be getting our 13th month pay aka Christmas bonus, I rushed out to the bookstore to see how many titles I could afford. True enough, books may now be considered the latest luxury. A pocketbook priced at US$16.99 costs ₱951....
MEDIUM RARE New Year’s resolutions, anyone? A list of to-do’s that happens mostly in the imagination. Are they still fashionable? Are they doable? Just like the fireworks that streaked the dark sky in electric colors and the noise created by firecrackers last Sunday, the last day of 2023, those...
MEDIUM RARE My introduction to the 49th Metro Manila Film Festival came by way of the waiter who seemed to know I was in his restaurant to feed my tummy before watching a movie. Without any preamble, he offered, “You here for ‘Rewind’? It’s good.” When I told him the movie was a...
MEDIUM RARE Nobody sings “Touch Me in the Morning” like Marissa Sanchez, whose bouncy charms and full-throated voice add up to a stage presence that has endured and endeared her to fans of at least two generations. She’s a singer, all right, and a well-rounded one, but entertainment...
MEDIUM RARE Of all the people in the world, who should remind me that it’s been years since we’ve known each other – you know, like an anniversary – but my dentist? “Don’t you remember, when my first clinic was at the clubhouse?” he asked, referring to the...
MEDIUM RARE One more day to go and it’s Christmas Eve, the pinnacle of the season’s anticipation of joy to the world! The experience of Christmas, as universal a holy day as it is Christian by tradition and ecumenical in practice, is a personal one, like DNA. Your experience or...
MEDIUM RARE There we sat, a group so motley no other word could describe us. A retired banker (VP, no less, of one very big bank); an astrologer; an aunt of a wealthy Cabinet secretary; a civilian lawyer with a heart and two ears for soldiers in need of advice on matters of defense, security, and...
MEDIUM RARE She’s known as the happiness giver because her parties are designed with a theme, a motif, and fun in mind. What better reasons than a belated birthday party on Dec. 10 and the imminent arrival of Christmas? Friends of Mellie Ablaza received invitations along with a Barbie doll...
MEDIUM RARE When I called the bank to ask if they had crunchy new bills to sell, the reply was that there was no indication that this late in the day BSP would be printing new money, ergo no good news for Ninang and Ninong and their godchildren at gift-giving time. But when I showed up in person...
MEDIUM RARE Happy birthday plus one day to the richest Filipino on the planet, a former Tondo boy, former Senate president, and now future planter of a million trees! Manny Villar turned one year older and no one knows how many million pesos richer yesterday, but if his track record is an...
MEDIUM RARE What is Christmas without Belen, the Spanish derivative of Bethlehem, the little town where the Baby Jesus was born? Christmas without the Nativity (Belen) would be nothing more than a long season of shopping and gift-giving, such as in non-Catholic countries where it is joyfully...
MEDIUM RARE Walking with me to the car park, the waiter proudly declared, without my asking him, “We had 800 guests at breakfast this morning.” This was two days ago, last Thursday, the precursor to a longish weekend. On a “regular” day such as Dec. 7, 600 guests would’ve been closer to...
