True jest is no true jest By Emmanuelle   THE average Filipino must have been born equipped with a funny bone sticking out tickling him somewhere between joints of his skeleton. He is a jest in human form. What is a jest? It is a joke, a witty remark, a…

Not the enemy By Marifi Jara Governor Espino should take it from FVR when it comes to handling the press. (Perhaps FVR did whisper some words of advice related to that when he attended Espino’s delivery of his first 100-days report.) FVR was president when I was a reporter and…

Sisonian to the Core By Emmanuelle Cupped snugly between the mountain and the sea, is she. Sison is her name. And this season is hers. For years and years, she slept. So deeply, she bent herself to a curve. In this fetus pose, she waited out the decades. Now and…

Manners make the man! Or the woman? (Part 2) By Emmanuelle Old boys’ clubs way back around the middle ages had their rules of etiquette printed in guild statutes for the guidance of the members: Good manners maketh a man / Look that thine hands is clean / and that…

Manners make the man! Or the woman? By Emmanuelle It is not mere old folks’ talk. Written records from the earliest centuries had been dug up by anthropologists to give credence to the proposition that people as far back as even before the Middle Ages believed strongly in this popular…

More to life than this! By Emmanuelle Things are definitely not what they used to be. And this common-as-the-light-of-day observation originates not only from   Lolo or Lola shaking their graying heads and clacking their disapproving tongues. It is all there, plain and blatant for all to see.  And hear. And…

Of Queens and Consorts By Emmanuelle The following tale and its characters may be true. Definitely, it is not entirely false.  Meteors from heaven, ang tamaan ay huwag sanang magka-bukol. Nagmamarunong lamang po ang may kaunti at ang wala talagang . . . alam. We are the world! We are…

Never say Never! By Emmanuelle Same feathers, same bird. Birds of same feathers flock together. Trace it way back to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, this habit of collecting together a set of subjects sharing a common feature, or sets of features attributed to one subject, then converting these…

Not so little helpers! By Emmanuelle Mother’s little helpers have big, wondering eyes, begging without remorse “Let me, lemme! Ako na, siak la!”  They insist they can be trusted to do work beyond the capacity of their height and chubby, grubby little fingers, such as measuring, mixing, turning-over chops frying…

Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power! By Emmanuelle Last week, we told the story of a woman who lost the love of her life in None So Blind Than One Who Will Not See. Sadly, that story is not one of a kind. If there were any other thing…