MEDIUM RARE ‘Twas a Liberal Party party, if you could call it that, although the event was billed as a book launching. Raul A. Daza, 90, Samar-born, former governor, former congressman, has been a Liberal since 1965. His new books come as a pair: A Life: Years of Crisis, covering the years 1974...
MEDIUM RARE It’s official. Survey shows two out of three respondents describing Transportation Secretary Vince Dizon as likeable. Those three individuals belong to one household — mine — the third member explaining that her YouTube habit includes only people she knows, such as television and...
MEDIUM RARE Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree. — Joyce Kilmer In her time, then first lady Imelda Marcos called coconut the “tree of life” — providing food, water (the cleanest, safest in nature), shelter and construction material. Now, one generation later and...
MEDIUM RARE She was not a typhoon, she was just a severe tropical storm. But wet and wild she was, just the same, at least as far as her effects were felt. “Crising” was nothing like Ondoy or Yolanda even if she unleashed winds and rain that inconvenienced the lot of us driving around Metro...
MEDIUM RARE It was the beer-guzzling novelist, dramatist, magazine editor and wordsmith Nick Joaquin who invented the word “Imeldific” to describe the first lady who was also governor of Metro Manila, the former beauty queen (‘Rose of Tacloban’) who would capture the heart of the...
MEDIUM RARE He was baptized Jaime. Friends and classmates called him Jimmy. Later, when he converted to Islam, he changed his first name to Jamil. But we still used his nickname when talking to him or about him. The bad news is that Jamil/Jimmy Maidan Flores is no longer with us. News of his...
MEDIUM RARE There are workers and there are savers, just as there are spenders. Without spenders, how would the economy function? We were at the mall last Sunday and I told my companions, “BBM should visit any of our malls one of these days and see how shoppers and consumers, the small ones, are...
MEDIUM RARE After PBBM accepted the courtesy resignations of all but the economic managers of his cabinet, he’ll have to cast a wide, wide net to form a new team. No need to apply, but how’s the supply? In a perfect Aristotelian society where truth is beauty and beauty is order, any...
MEDIUM RARE For the first time in his 10-year-old life, Miguelito (not his real name, but close enough) tagged along to the “palengke” (public market) with his mother. After the first few steps, looking very worried and puzzled at the same time, he asked, “Are you poor today, Mama?” Mama,...
MEDIUM RARE So we have 12 new and not-so-new senators. Plus a roster of both new and repeat congresspersons, mayors, vice mayors, and councilors. Congratulations and my sympathies to you all! Now the work begins, or begins again. There were no tears shed when the winners were proclaimed, but there...
MEDIUM RARE One day before “all roads lead to Rome” for the conclave of cardinals to choose the next pope, friends of Imelda R. Marcos from way back were invited to commemorate the 71st anniversary of her betrothal to Ferdinand E. Marcos last Tuesday, May 6. No one at our table brought up the...
MEDIUM RARE Traveling up in the air on a plane with journalists, Pope Francis was asked what he thought about same-sex unions. As the story goes, the Pope replied, without batting an eyelash, “Who am I to judge?” My favorite couple, “Mader” Ricky Reyes and Cris Aquino, have been...
