MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Why did the second day of Christmas, Saturday, emit a Black Saturday vibe? The somber mood was almost Holy Week-like, traffic being remarkably light, parks and streets emptied of strollers. Annus horribilis , much the worse for children suffering from the unexpected...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza It’s the day after Christmas but I beg the reader’s indulgence, for I will not be writing as a Christian. I’m not entertaining any sympathy for that Tarlac policeman who killed at close range and in cold blood a mother and her son during an argument over a land...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza When it comes to giving gifts, we are proud to err on the side of excess. Look at those thick crowds shopping in Divisoria. How can you stop a people overflowing with love for parents, parents-in-law, children, grandchildren, godchildren, neighbors, officemates,...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza The next pandemic is knocking at our stomachs. Hunger. While those of us who can afford to buy a newspaper will be waiting to be “surprised” by what the lady of the house has prepared for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, millions of poor people all over the world will...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza One year and after two events were dropped by the lockdown, Benjie thought it was time to “show confidence” in the gradual opening up of the economy. Forthwith, he invited his comrades to a reunion lunch, “just to see how everybody is doing in challenging times.”...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza The Holy Trinity. Heaven Man Earth. The Holy Family, Joseph, Mary, Baby Jesus. The Three Kings. Three groups of witnesses: Angels . . . Shepherds . . . Beasts. A trio of stars. The Star of Bethlehem. The star topping the twinkling tree in the living room. The...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Or, as former colleagues in TV used to say, “in the time of Nick.” The more you think about it – nine months after the first ECQ – the more you realize we need Christmas now, in the year of Our Lord 2020. St. Nick couldn’t be coming at a better, more aptly...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Months before the pandemic shut down our social lives, the loudest whisper was about politics and not your usual society scandal. Whispered or rumored, the talk was to the effect that THE tandem for 2022 was already in the works. The names being dropped were not those of...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza If the Toll Regulatory Board’s RFID system – cashless but equally brainless – was meant to speed up the flow of traffic if not the cash flow, how did they explain the 5km traffic jams that got Valenzuela City Mayor Rex Gatchalian’s goat? Likewise, how was it that...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza Before President Duterte showed up to participate in PDEA’s burning of P7 billion worth of drugs last week, a previous total of P13 billion was confiscated. On Dec. 5, in Bacnotan, La Union, PDEA destroyed P60 million worth. November’s hoard was valued at P345...
MEDIUM RARE Jullie Y. Daza On his 96 th birthday last Thursday, novelist, essayist, social critic and commentator, bookstore owner Frankie Sionil Jose reported for work as usual, once a week, at his office atop the shop in Ermita. How does he do it, looking the same today as he did 10, 20 years...
“Chinatown is not a place,” declared journalist-author Jullie Yap Daza to her friends. Now that sentence is the title of her latest book. Technically, Chinatown is only one square kilometer in size, an area surrounded by streets whose real estate values rival Makati’s. If it’s not a place,...
