“Thank you, God. You gave me the sun!” an ecstatic Cristalle Belo Henares exclaimed, her eyes sweeping the breathtaking view of Lake Como outside of her villa room.
LAST Wednesday afternoon looking at the ’50s house that was slowly filling up with well-heeled Cebuanos, we had a nice feeling trying to recall that around 1987, Mother Teresa was in this house, visiting with the sick.
As president Aquino greets us in the meeting room in the Palace, he instructs his aide to play the CD, then turns to me, telling me to listen to it.
Now that we know who the new President is—and who the people with and behind him are—Lifestyle gets to the more pressing and pleasant matter at hand. Friends have been bugging me to answer: Why did Conrad Onglao and Zsa Zsa Padilla split up? Are they really off?
She’s the last. They’re all gone,” Mark Higgins whispered to me mournfully at the door of the Heritage chapel, as he was coming in and I was going out.
IT’S NOT true that all that Filipinos talk about at the dining table is diet; now they talk about the elections, and how it’s an impending boom or gloom.
They may not have made the Dutertesque sound bites that made headlines and hooked social media, but the Filipinos who made it to the Palace last Thursday deserved the attention and admiration (click “Like”) of every Filipino—they who so quietly yet exceptionally devoted a lifetime to creating works that helped define our race and serve as beacon to the next generation.
This is a true story, but without the real names. It may be shocking to men and women my age, but perhaps not to today’s young. To the latter, it may even pass for a love story (shivers!).
Very early this year we picked up already three eye-opening lessons: one grave and sad, the other trivial but true, and still another, happy and invigorating. It’s not as if we didn’t know these way before; we did, but experiences always drive home the lessons.
Held last Thursday was what must have been the most attended—and most upbeat—vin d’honneur at the Palace under the Aquino administration. It was the last to be hosted for the diplomatic community by President Aquino, whose term ends in June.
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