The war destroyed Ermita and left its residents destitute. One by one, the families left their snooty,...
Forty-one years ago, on Sept. 22, I reported to the pre-martial law Graphic Magazine office in Port Area only to find it closed.
Today is Father’s Day and the most important father of all is our Father in heaven within. Speaking of “Our Father,” the prayer is the only known prayer that Jesus ever taught.
People still ask me where I learned to walk and how I prepared for the Miss International title which I won 50 years ago. Those questions never fail to surprise me. Who else could have taught me how to walk but my mother? And because she also taught me to be proud of being Filipino, that was the best preparation a Philippine representative, to anywhere, could have had.
Let’s hear it from the old gal herself: Glancing up as she edited one of my pieces on fashion history, she said, “You know what you lack? Uhm… gravitas.”
Aunt Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, the essayist, once called the actress Cecilia Bulaong “the calmly beautiful Miss Bulaong.” That was a long time ago, and for some reason the phrase has stuck in my mind. Later Bulaong got married, became a mother and reinvented herself as CB Garrucho—which has since become her professional name.
When I was a child, there used to be a Kindergarten A and B in my school. You had to go through it before you could step into Grade I. It is notable that the public school system has belatedly found the necessity to add that to their curriculum. In St. Theresa’s College, if the teacher thought a pupil bright, you were allowed to “skip” or “jump” Grade I and go straight to Grade II, as I was.
If there’s a theme uniting the 136 articles filling the thick “Heartbeat Manila Hilton,” it’s a line from a song Bob Hope used to sing to close his TV specials: “Thanks for the memory.”
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