MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza There must be more than 5 million Manuels but there’s only one Manoling. Manoling Morato, 87, who held his moral compass close to his chest for use in his personal, social, and spiritual life. There was no gray with Manoling, only black and white, good vs bad, the...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza While there are those who were dissatisfied with the President’s State of the (Vacci)Nation speech – three hours for what should have been a 60-minute address that he himself kept interrupting, to the consternation of the teleprompter’s page-turner – I found it...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Or, if you prefer, 224 kg. Hidilyn Diaz is worth her weight in gold. Although she weighs a mere 54.9 kg or 121 lb, she lifted 127 kg – more than twice her own weight -- to win the Philippines’ first Olympic gold medal in nearly a century. Cheers! Mabuhay! Does her...
Medium Rare Jullie Y. Daza Typhoon. Wind and rain. Thunder and lightning. Floods everywhere, some swallowing rooftops. Earthquake. Pandemic. Forced evacuation and its attendant miseries. All in one day. At 2:20 a.m. the noise was so frightening it woke me up. In the dark, I heard Fabian Jr.’s...
Medium Rare Jullie Y. Daza If I were to conduct a casual survey of family and friends, the results would likely be five in eight for Sinovac. Not that we had much choice, Sinovac being the first vaccine to arrive in massive crates and thanks to the propaganda being mouthed by Dr. Anthony Fauci that...
Medium Rare Jullie Y. Daza How can the days fly by so swiftly when what lies ahead is more of the same -- routine, boredom . . .? Before anyone offers an enlightening Einstein-like answer, let’s fast-forward to September, when Christmas unofficially begins. But before we do the countdown,...
Medium Rare Jullie Y. Daza Scramble the letters in “pandemic” and what do you get? Pain, panic. Who’s panicking? COVID-19 variants are coming at us faster and packing a deadlier punch with each mutation. Fear of the unknown can be a pain, but like the good doctor says, no need to panic. Not...
Medium Rare Jullie Y. Daza With the passing of Henry Sy, and Glecy and Bienvenido Tantoco, best known as the lords of retail who changed the shopping landscape of our cities in the last century, what do their descendants have up their sleeve? Their ancestors are a tough act to follow. Expert...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza As my friend Armi puts it so eloquently, “Shopping is better than sex!” She said this as she pushed three jumbo carts filled to the brim and headed to the cashier’s at Duty Free Philippines. Money is no object, she could have added, unlike sex, which you pay for in...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza A good thing, too, for kids five years old and older stepping out of their discomfort zones to enjoy the outdoors – on the beach, in the park, anywhere but not a mall. The idea that they should accompany an adult is sound. Children are street-smart and tech-savvy in...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza President Duterte running for vice president? VP Robredo aiming for the presidency? What if they both win? A recurring daily nightmare for the two winners as well as the state? As Mr. Duterte himself said, musingly, as if he were talking to himself, he cannot imagine...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Let’s not fly off the handle and blame “pilot error” for the crash of the C-130 military transport aircraft that killed 50 soldiers and injured scores of others, including three civilians who were on the ground, on the path of the plane when it fell from the sky. As...
