MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza At age 94, there’s not much in the world that surprises Tony Pastor, leading citizen of Batangas City who sings and plays piano, a philanthropist who keeps himself happy by helping others. But when he received a letter last month from Lipa Archbishop Gilbert A. Garcera...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza “It’s our money!” “Don’t you dare touch it!” In a nutshell, that’s how SSS and GSIS members, including retirees who are on pension mode, express their distrust of whoever will handle, manage, use the money to be poured into the so-called Maharlika Wealth...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Climate change, climate change. The bad news is there’s nothing we can do to stop it or reverse its irreversible course. How many centuries to create another glacier to replace one that’s melting away? How many magicians to build a mountain and cover it with trees,...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Judging by the crowds that packed the malls last Wednesday, a national holiday – or was it bonus day? – the people can’t wait for Dec. 24 to arrive soon enough. Before we know it, it will be Dec. 31, the end of the year, the last page on the calendar on the wall;...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza First chance I got close enough to chat with the 6’ 4”-tall San Juan Mayor Francis Zamora without standing on a chair, I asked, “How tall is Mrs. Zamora?” “Five-six,” he replied. “And my mom is five-eight.” Mayor Zamora has a new reason to be someone to...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza First of all, there are five different meanings of market, but for our purposes market refers to “palengke” in the vernacular, that is, a place to buy goods and stuff, or merchandise of a particular type such as meat, fish, vegetables. Trade Secretary Fred Pascual...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza A colleague used to call it a “pay day economy” because no one pulled out bills from their wallet until the day after the 15th and 30th of the month to pay for rent, food, utilities and other obligations. They couldn’t plan on going on a movie date or to the...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza ‘Tis the season, between Halloween and Christmas, or haven’t you noticed? There’s mobs and chaos at the airport terminals, with a history of 24 million travelers landing at or departing from NAIA between January and October 2022. Now, with such an urge as “revenge...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Weeks before he was appointed to take stewardship of GSIS, Wick Veloso boldly stated that electricity rates could (should?) go down by 50 percent. He was president of PNB at the time but what he said made us commoners hopeful that together with private citizen-pundit...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Oh, the people you meet at a tree lighting! Especially when tree rhymes with duty-free, as in Duty Free Philippines, where imported meets Philippine-made, global grade. Tourism Secretary Christina G. Frasco arrived at Duty Free’s Luxe boutique at the center of Mall of...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza For one whose life was once lived snapping a perpetual “Yes, sir” to his superiors in the military, where the unwritten law is “No talk, no mistake,” Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong is now saying that “people should feel government” enough to act and...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Thinking of climbing up to the only fully airconditioned city in the Philippines? Do it now! Don’t wait for December, not for the New Year! Getting more crowded by the day, by the weekend, it is. The climate is almost Christmas-like, temperatures at minimum 16 to...
