MEDIUM RARE Nine months to carry a baby to full term, two years to sit out a virus. At long last, with the health emergency status induced by Covid-19 finally lifted, life is normal enough now to indulge in moments of serenity while reading a book. Specially a book as elegant to look...
MEDIUM RARE Two times in two days in different places I heard the same phrase, “Barya barya lang,” the vernacular for “small change,” though a better translation would be, “I’d be happy with whatever small change you can give.” The first time it was uttered, I heard it in the...
MEDIUM RARE At the cash counter in the little crafts shop where I bought PH-made stickers and paid ₱400 for four tiny sheets, I told the cashier, “Imagine, stickers costing ₱100 per sheet.” She said, poker-faced, “Everything’s expensive now. Transportation two-way is hurting my wallet,...
MEDIUM RARE Three cheers! to Gabbie, BS in Economics, UP class 2023, and Maya, Immaculate Conception Academy (high school) class 2023. Gabbie for her magna cum laude honors, and Maya for being a merit scholar of Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana, USA, where she’ll be taking political...
MEDIUM RARE With so many SM malls to choose from, where do you think Tessie Sy-Coson does her shopping? “I shop abroad!” came the surprising reply, until she added, “Otherwise I’d be working.” In other words, this workaholic lady would be noticing things, observing people, checking into...
MEDIUM RARE Barbie Mattel is 60 years old, would you believe? Oh, well, in Barbieland you can be anything you want, such as being a Ken rather than a Barbie. The movie “Barbie” begins at the beginning: “Since the beginning of time –” In the US where Barbie and “Oppenheimer” ruled the...
MEDIUM RARE As President BBM rattled off numbers and figures – up to the trillions! – I wished the producers of his televised State of the Nation Address had the viewing audience in mind: They’re not all 99.9 percent numerate. Two sets of figures that were easiest to absorb had to do with his...
MEDIUM RARE He was a builder of churches, a tertiary hospital, at least one school for Catholic boys and girls. Professionally, he was a banker. At heart, he was a lover of music, a silent impresario. What is not so obvious from a brick-and-mortar point of view, he was a keeper of memories of our...
MEDIUM RARE State of the Nation Address. SONA. As old fogeys will tell you, a sitting president’s yearly report to the nation that dates back to “panahon pa ni Quezon,” i.e., Quezon’s time, circa 1935. The format has stayed the same from one president to the next. And as anyone who speaks...
MEDIUM RARE This one’s for you, Social Welfare Secretary Rex Gatchalian. There’s a family living in the Baseco Compound in Tondo, Manila, where a 43-year-old is the mother of 14 children. They would’ve been 15, except for the one who died in infancy. Their father is a mechanic of sorts, but...
CHEERS Louie Ablaza on his 85th birthday with his wife Mellie Ablaza On a coolish Sunday morning, Mellie Ablaza turned the family’s weekend spot, Casa Amelia in Alfonso, Cavite, into a street party to celebrate her husband Louie’s 85th birthday. With their son JunJun, who conceptualized the...
MEDIUM RARE Needed: Four typhoons with enough rain to pull up the normal water level of Angat dam. Wanted: A typhoon without floods stopping traffic in the cities, drowning crops in the farms, forcing the evacuation of families (into a situation that’s no longer so much a necessity as a seasonal...
