MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Don’t look now, there’s one more Chinese festival coming up. Sen. Imee Marcos was right, greeting the Year of the Rabbit with her Chinese friends and neighbors in San Juan on Jan. 22 and 29, as if in preparation for the coming of spring on Sunday, Feb. 5, day 15 in...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza There will be 150 million of us by the year 2050 – it’s flying toward us at the speed of a jet plane. By that time, warns Jun Palafox, “we will need 100 new cities, otherwise existing cities and emerging metropolitan areas will be congested worse than Metro Manila...
The Manila Hotel’s romantic Champagne Room turns into a crystal-and-silver forest for magical times at Benjie Yap’s birthday Images by NOEL PABALATE CRYSTAL GARDEN The Champagne Room setup designed by Manny Samson You have to hand it to bon vivant Benjie C. Yap. His parties always reflect his...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza It’s the 19th day of 2023 going by the Gregorian calendar. On the lunar calendar it’s three days to go before the new New Year, this one belonging to the Water Rabbit, a gentle cuddly creature on which hopes are pinned for a calmer year with few or no cataclysmic...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza There are two angry ladies in the Senate. Senator Cynthia Villar to resource persons from the Department of Agriculture: “Maybe BAI stands for Bureau of Animal Imports? And what have you done in the last 25 years to increase dairy production?” Senator Imee Marcos to...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022, the passing of football legend Pelé, 82, who put Brazil on the map of the world by revolutionizing the sport. Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022, the passing of retired Pope Benedict XVI, 95, nine years after he walked away from the Vatican as leader of...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza To quote the novelist Louise Penny as spoken by a character in one of her books: “What’s a year? Why do we need a new year? Is the old one broken?” Clocks and calendars and countdowns, the new year has crept up on us and it’s now three days old. We are all three...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Vice President Sara Duterte said it best, “May God have mercy on his soul.” Her father, the former President RRD, was kinder in expressing his condolences to the family of the late CPP-NDF leader who was his professor once upon a time. Mr. Duterte called for an end to...
Medium Rare Jullie Y. Daza What have we done to Christmas? Jammed in traffic. Crushed by fellow travelers at the pier, the airport, bus terminals. Flight schedules altered here and there. Police presence reminding the guilty and innocent of crime and other dangers. High and higher prices at the...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Why is rice so expensive? Because our farmers aren’t planting enough, because the costs of planting are going up, and because, even as that is happening, smugglers are bringing in imported rice and hoarding tons for bigger profit margins. According to Cathy Estavillo,...
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...
