How do you produce a child prodigy? Maybe we can learn from a Belgian couple whose nine-year-old son will graduate from college this coming December. Laurent Simons will be finishing his Electrical Engineering degree and then plans to take up a PhD in engineering and at the same time enroll in a medical school. “Laurent is the fastest student we have ever had here,” his school said. “The absorption of information is not a problem for Laurent,” his father observed. After the experts had administered a battery of tests to determine the extent of his intelligence, his parents said that “he is like a sponge.” Laurent’s parents are both doctors but they have not come up with any explanation as to why their child is so gifted intellectually. His mother though has her own theory and attributes it to her eating a lot of fish during her pregnancy.
Filipinos should take a cue from this. Our seas teem with various species of fish and our typical viand consists of fish but we have not produced a child prodigy. Maybe we have been eating the wrong kind of fish like galunggong, tilapia and bangus, which are the only affordable kind. The price of fish has become so prohibitive particularly after the ASF scare that lapu-lapu can only be found in our history books and public parks but not in our dining table. A family can partake fish in the form of tuyo and daing but this may also become a luxury once the proposed salt tax is imposed. I am glad that the DOF has stamped down this proposal.
We may not have produced a child prodigy but definitely our country does
not run short of “extraordinary” talents. A recent news report announced that a
settlement clerk of a stock brokerage firm was arrested after it was uncovered
that he had stolen “over P700 million worth of inventory stocks.” The massive
theft had virtually depleted the firm’s stock position causing the 50-year-old
company to cease operations. Investigation revealed that he transferred the
shares to others for a fee and then falsified the records to avoid
detection. He used the money for his quarry business and other investments.
Interestingly, the alleged thief’s name as reported is “Marlo Moron” but he is
anything to me but a moron.
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The case of Kai Sotto who is currently in the US to further hone his craft clearly demonstrates that height is might in basketball. The 7’2” Kai continues to dominate the matches his Atlanta-based team, The Skills Factory, played in. In his last outing, he impressed basketball aficionados by posting a near triple double against the opposing team by scoring 20 points, 11 rebounds, nine blocks and four assists. In his debut, Kai scored a double-double by converting 18 points and grabbing 12 rebounds. It was enough for the opposing clubs to notice and mark him as a threat. One of the NBA’s most prolific scorers, James Harden of Houston Rockets and All-Star player John Wall of Washington Wizards were products of TFI when they were training early in their career. The Philippines is a basketball-crazy country and Filipinos dream of making it big in the World Basketball Championship and the Basketball Olympics despite our size. Our best performance ever was recorded in the 1954 World Basketball Championship of the International Basketball Federation hosted by Brazil where we won third place behind the champion, US, and the runner up, Brazil. The mythical Philippine team was led by the finest Filipino cagers the Philippines has ever produced, Carlos “The Big Difference” Loyzaga and Lauro “The Fox” Mumar. The Filipino squad was among the tallest teams with its average height of 6 feet. We were competitive then because our opponents did not have stratospheric players unlike now. I have little doubt that Kai, given his impressive performance in his US outings and his sheer height, will be the first Filipino to don an NBA jersey.
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The World Health Organization hailed the Philippines’s “sin” tax campaign as a global model for promoting national health and preventing noncommunicable diseases in the country. The government’s efforts to raise revenue from sin taxes to finance its universal health care program is a groundbreaking initiative that other countries may adopt and replicate. The WHO cited the Duterte administration for coming up with a cheap and cost-effective measure to discourage consumption of tobacco and alcohol, which have deleterious effects to their users. We should commend PRRD and our economic managers for their vigorous resolve to curb inordinate drinking and smoking, which are inimical to one’s health. Imposing taxes on the so-called sin products is grossly unpopular but its salutary effect is not lost to our discerning citizens.