MY late friend Willie Mañabo spent his entire working life as salesman for various manufacturers and distributors of food supplements with the caveat “no approved therapeutic claim”. To this day, thousands of networkers like him still thrive by selling similar products, as well as by recruiting “downlines” for even bigger commissions. If
September 6, 2023
BEAR with me. If I often wax nostalgic in this corner, it’s because I want the young ones today to know how it was in the proverbial “good old days” when life was simpler and one Philippine peso could buy lunch for the family. So, let me share a story that’s now
September 4, 2023
WHO comes into our hearts, eyes and ears today and every first day of September? Here comes singer Jose Mari Chan, singing “Christmas In Our Hearts” and other songs in his Christmas album that has sold more than 800,000 copies, according to the Philippine Association of Recording Industry (PARI). September 1, therefore,
September 1, 2023
FIRST, the good news for Bacolod City and suburbs: The debt-ridden Central Negros Cooperative Cooperative (CENECO) is about to get a new lease on life with the apparent win of the “yes” votes for its joint venture agreement (JVA) with Primelectric/MORE Power. “Unofficially yes,” quipped MORE Power President Roel Z. Castro during
August 30, 2023
IF you are a 65-year-old retiree with one million US dollars stashed away, would you be okay until the end of your earthly journey? Why not? At today’s exchange rate of ₱56 to $1, that translates to fifty-six million (₱56,000,000) pesos! But if all you have is one million in pesos –
August 28, 2023
THANK God it’s Friday and a special non-working holiday in Iloilo City, which is celebrating its 86th charter anniversary. Today reminds us of the historical event of Aug. 25, 1937 when then President Manuel Luis Quezon signed Commonwealth Act 158 declaring Iloilo as charter city, and merging the towns of Molo, Arevalo,
August 25, 2023
ONE of yesterday’s world news was about the ongoing joint “war drill” participated in by around 2,000 Australian, American and Philippine troops (August 14-31) on board the biggest Australian war ship, HMAS Canberra, while ploughing through the disputed South China Sea in the face of China’s growing military presence thereat. Known as “Exercise
August 23, 2023
TODAY marks the 40th death anniversary of the man who could have been President of our nation, former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” S. Aquino Jr., The “Ninoy Aquino Day” every August 21 has been commemorated as a special non-working holiday since the year 2004 under Republic Act No. 9256, signed by former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on
August 21, 2023
ON Saturday (August 19, 2023) our nation will remember the 145th birthday of the late Manuel Luis Molina Quezon, the first President of the Philippine Commonwealth, who was born on August 19, 1878. In fact, we remember Quezon throughout August for being the National Lung Month in accordance with the late dictator
August 18, 2023
LUCKY ME. A vacationing friend from New York City has just gifted me with a US $100 bill. But it made me wonder why the portrait of Benjamin Franklin has stuck on the obverse of the bill –since 1914, according to Google. Since he was never President, it’s probably to remind the
August 16, 2023
OCCASIONALLY, I take my visitors to Farm to Table Restaurant on Megaworld Boulevard, Iloilo City. Thanks to feature writer Andrea Ortega Guanco for specifying in an article that this “lifestyle restaurant uses fresh produce and local ingredients – organic vegetables, meat from grass-fed cows and free-range chicken and eggs, among others.” The
August 14, 2023
A seminar for student journalists saw me speaking on the topic, “Why Use English Idioms?” I began by drawing on the blackboard a hammer hitting the nail on the head. “You see,” I told the class, “when you hit the hammer on the head but do not mean it literally, it means you
August 9, 2023