Rediscovering my father
MY father is a nice guy. He never hit us. But I used to think he’s distant.
Dying Young
A friend sent me a snapshot of his arm specked with what look like moles.
Stranger things: Dating like it’s the end of the world
IN a themed dinner recently, I watched a lady sitting alone across the table where I sat gingerly cut a steak.
My bully was a she
MY bully was a she. I punched her in the eye.
Sh-t hits the fan
I WAS interviewed for a freelance writing position and Betty, the editor-cum-examiner, asked me about my personality type.
Queer!
IT’S one thing to investigate whether one is a gay male; it’s quite another when it occurs to you that you might be caught in a possible same-sex couple’s lovers’ quarrel.
Hypochondriac
THERE are a lot of things that are forever showing up on my newsfeed like “Five Ways to Avoid Testicular Cancer,” etc.
My grandmother smells
SHE reeks!
‘Don’t burn bridges!’
City Garden GRAND Hotel (CGGH) is TripAdvisor’s No. 7 out of 86 hotels in Makati City. And while the rest of hotels around this part of the metro strive to serve remarkable food, deliver outstanding service and world class facilities, it all boils down to how a brand of hotel is able to sustain its constant pursuit of excellence in a world where everybody is very good at something.
Inconveniences
I WAS on the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) during rush hour, and this guy to my right accused me of touching his butt. This after the back of my hand accidentally brushed against his ass when I stuffed my pockets with my hands to keep safe my billfold and cell phone, which I always do when riding a train.
Talking to the dead
FOLLOWING the law of matter, I’ve been trying to figure whether souls are solid, liquid or gas. But since not everyone can see them, I surmise they most closely are gas, mixed with the air we ingest by eating too fast and sometimes come out as a fart.
I was flying!
WHEN I was in fourth grade, my class took a field trip to the nearby Enchanted Kingdom (EK), which my teacher said would teach us a lesson about flying. I didn’t know about that; I used to think that the only things that could teach you how to fly are birds and airplanes. When I told my friends this, they wondered if I had ever been to a carnival, explaining that EK is a theme park, “a place where everything flies.”
The corpse stealers
THE ghosts I’ve seen on Halloween TV reenactments are all dressed in barong. My late friend Mel’s explanation was simple: You carry on the outfit you’re wearing when you die.
My grandfather is an insect
I killed my grandfather.
Of etiquette and blunders
THE thing with social functions is the constant assumption that everybody is watching you. And so it goes with a caveat: “Be graceful always,” which otherwise means “Be yourself.”
I made love in the kitchen
SO much like almost infanticipating, my girlfriend would, as a matter of habit, crave for something, most often at such ungodly hours. And like fawning sycophant I’m like, OK, I’ll get it for you, “but, Miss, where am I supposed to get banana cue in the dead of night?”
A homage to history
I HAD seen Rizal Park Hotel somewhere, but I can’t quite remember where. If I may hazard a guess, it might be in a picture-perfect postcard lost in a pile of its kind, gathering a veneer of permanent dust.
Death in the john
ONE of my greatest fears is to die in the bath.
Terror victims are those who live in constant fear
THE constant news on terrorism reminds me of my teacher who shared a story about paranoia.
Where business travel is leisure
SUCCEEDING the establishment of its brand of hotels in the country’s main cities, Best Western International opens its newest addition in the relatively bustling—at the same time laidback—city of Pampanga. Called the Bendix Hotel, the property was the fruition of the partnership with local enterprise Hilcres Consolidated Corp., a straight-forward businessman and leisure-travelers hotel that’s unique and superior to other accommodation around these parts.
The future of cash
“BELIEVE it or not, there are more live SIM cards in the Philippines than there are Filipinos,” G-Xchange Inc. CEO Albert Tinio said when faced with the gap in statistics on Filipinos who are either underbanked or unbanked. Three out of four Filipinos don’t have a bank account. 40 percent of people in municipalities and cities in the Philippines do not even have access to banks.
An ode to a lifework
TWENTY-FIVE years ago, Elmarie Reyes (then Elmarie Silvino), was looking for something that she couldn’t find in her previous employment. She had a lucrative job as a treasury manager, but she was also young and precocious and idealistic, nursing a gaping void in her work life and was always mooning over what’s outside the fence.
New level of hotel service and hospitality point toward the ‘north’
TWENTY-one years of industry experience and global exposure have allowed Brett Patrick Hickey, Seda Hotels group general manager (GGM), to discern the hair-splitting difference between service and hospitality.
A Scorpions ditty brings back memories of a long bus ride
THE playlists of country buses I usually ride in the wee hours of the morning include Scorpions’s “I’m Still Loving You”, which drives my musings into the red-light recesses of my brain and gives me homosexual thoughts.
Lest we forget
Vernon Velasco / MIllennial Universe
Revolutionizing the way you get a loan
IN an age where transactions can be done online, there is a copious amount of equivalent mobile app for just about anything.
Young couple eyes ‘corner’ market
By Vernon Velasco
For the love of all things Indian
By Vernon Velasco | Photos by Alysa Salen
Gaming the correct way
AT a recent discussion with Widus Hotel & Casino Vice President David Lawrence, he shares how Widus is a premier destination for leisure and how the sprawling metropolitan that is the Clark City in Pampanga has become a major entertainment hub in the north.
Everybody has a role to play
By Vernon Velasco / photo by Roy Domingo
Young businessman brings Bruno Mars’s song to reality
WHEN most billionaires share their tales, a common denominator is that they started from the ground up: Gokongwei sold candles; Sy manned a sari-sari store.
Newest Alorica center to generate 10,000 jobs
ALORICA, the largest provider of customer-experience solutions to the US market, inaugurates a brand-new $23-million (P1.154-billion) facility in Makati City, which is expected to generate 10,000 new jobs for Filipinos this year.
A weekend of all things Brit
AT the recent Great British Festival, life was good—especially to a hardcore fan of all things British, or one who is simply fascinated by them.
solb! transforms the way you pay
EVEN before “PokémonGo” had yet to happen, I had thought of, well, a card that you could use to purchase everything. Everything. Think of it as something a kiss shy of a magic card emblazoned with the number of God’s bank account, a piece of plastic less bulky than a bottomless billfold.
Dear Cobie
IT wasn’t too long ago when, once you’re heartsick and scathed from a previous relationship, you guilt-tripped me for a petty wrongdoing and (you said as my way to make up) talked me into drinking with you at a bar until the wee hours. There you got drunk a kiss shy of passing out, and felt the need to cop out from our table from time to time to ease at the female washroom.
Carol Colborn became a wife at 65
AND she went to the states to look for a husband. She was the CEO of the ICT titanic BayanTrade, and had everything we thought we could ever equate “the life” to. But something was amiss, and there was a gaping void in her life.
Discovering What Pepsi is About: Performance with Purpose
THINK Pepsi and you also think of other companies in the beverage space, outdoing each other for the ‘share of throat’. But this should not just be the only top of mind when one thinks of Pepsi, at least as what can be gleaned from Pepsi Cola Products Philippines Inc. (PCPPI) President Furqan Ahmed Syed.
The luxury of sleep
AS your home is your haven and intimate space, premier bedroom gallery Luxeroom allows homemakers to design their own sanctum by making sense of its array of exquisite mattresses, beds, bath and decorative inspirations, as it recently opened on the fourth floor of Shangri-La Plaza Mall in Mandaluyong.
Affordable doesn’t have to be cheap-Cellprime CEO
By Vernon Velasco | Special to the BusinessMirror
From print to digital
HEALTHCARE organizations commonly face challenges with administration of information via physical records and documents management, leading to counterproductive results such as excessive manpower resources and longer response time.
Burn, Baby Vern
By Vernon Velasco | Millennial Universe
‘Appreneur’ school touts pilot classes
APPSTART Academy, the first and only “appreneur” center in the Philippines, announced the start of its formal classes on June 20.
Knocking on heaven’s door
THERE is an elaborate house of cards perched on a cliff facing the sea, where a panoramic view of the sunset makes you wax poetic verses and dream that one day you could touch the ochre sun. But if you’re, otherwise, on the other side of the threshold and see this landmark from the vantage point of that sun, you might as well long to go to the place the way you might long to reach the sky, wondering if God is somewhere up there.
It’s not about reading the time anymore
TAKE it from maverick watchmaker TW Steel CEO Jordy Cobelens himself who, all while some can go extreme and feel naked divested of a wristwatch, dons a timepiece not as much to know the hour of the day as for its design element.
‘Santorini in Asia’ eyes expansion to bolster local tourism in La Union
PRESTIGIOUS luxury property Thunderbird Resort & Casinos Poro Point in San Fernando pushes the envelope even further by building more facilities in its bid to affirm “Santorini of Asia” as the prime destination in the North and bolster tourism in La Union.
How big boys tell papa ‘I love you’
THERE are days when us men realize our dads need caring. They’ve neglected themselves and are always worn out from work. We begin to worry, but are afraid to go drama queen on them, because it might look cheesy and over-the-top.
A penchant for the underdog
I WAS first introduced to Alcatel as a brand in the 1990s at around the same time we acquired the first-generation Playstation and when the beeper was passé.
Business ultrabook makes the grade
I FELL in love again and again. I did every time my finger’s skin touch the new AsusPro Advanced BU201 Ultrabook. That is, if love means burying the review unit between the sands of a beach in Pagudpud before taking a dip. That is, if love is taking the unit along when playing tag for the sole reason it kills me to be separated from what I regard as my girlfriend one minute.
Daring to disagree
OUR National Service Training Program (NSTP) in college meant two things: either you go to public schools feeding malnourished children or you teach them. I was, in every grace, schooled in La Salle, an institution that invests a great deal in education.
She
THERE are days when you wonder where your youth ended and your responsibility began. But when it finally dawns upon you, you would wake up hungry on a weekend and realize you’re alone in the house, nothing on the fridge but a box of cold pizza.
A buffet and more at Marriott Café
SUPERLATIVES run out when trying to describe dining at Marriott Manila’s namesake café. The friendly and well-informed staff, the spacious dining area and of course, the food all make for an unforgettable meal. Even the most discriminating gourmand should find that Marriott Café can more than meet the most exacting standards.
Play bares difficulty to talk about the birds and the bees
BACK in the day when my uncle Elmer still lived in the neighborhood, he would accidentally leave seedy tabloids in the parking lot. These I would “accidentally” pick up and, from the paper’s raunchy covers graced by the likes of scantily clad sirens, I would, again, “accidentally” jump to the entertainment section and read the comics, titled “Buhul-buhol na Init” (Tangled Heat).
Nonplussed with the Plus
THE D-Lite Plus 2, this newest addition to Happy Mobile’s roster of ever-affordable phones, reminds me of the first time I laid hands on the Samsung Galaxy S2, the first touchscreen phone that ever sat on the palm of my hands three years ago.
At Peperoni Pizzeria all they knead is love
PEOPLE who care about you always say this when preparing something for you. But what is love when put into food? I learned somewhere that love is not a flavor and doesn’t make a dish more salty or more pungent or more sour. Rather, it is something added to food in the process of cooking. It can also be added while dining, when a meal is shared.
Asahi Super Dry Beer available at Ichiba Market
ASAHI Super Dry, the most popular high-quality beer in Japan, has partnered with Ichiba Japanese Market, the recently opened first-of-its-kind Japanese seafood-concept restaurant in the Philippines, to give Japanese-cuisine fans a more authentic dining experience. With also the first-ever Asahi Super Dry Bar in the country, nestled at the very heart of the thematic restaurant’s bustling Japanese-market setting, dinner in Ichiba Japanese Market is a kiss shy of the real McCoy, whether you enjoy your crisp Asahi Super Dry beer to cap off the night, or while indulging in platters upon platters of freshly grilled yakitoris.
Tradition of excellence
By Vernon Velasco
Jabra Evolve headphones a good tool to concentrate
By Vernon Velasco
Carburetor-maker Zama erects plant in Batangas
By Vernon Velasco
There’s no taking Happy Mobile Neo Lite lightly
By Vernon Velasco
A different breed of sports is entertainment, too
THE last time I was this fat was when I was 10 years old, days when I could get along just fine playing slide alone at the playground because nobody wanted to play with a “fat boy” like me. I was too fat, I couldn’t catch up with my childhood friends when we played tag, so that I would stand there panting: “Time first! Time first!” Worse, I was too fat, I would often either get bruises from a bad fall or accidentally bang my shin on the slide’s iron. There was even a time I slid real hard—“Woooo-hoooo!”—that my butt hurt from too much friction, only to realize later when I touched it that I had a gaping slit on the rear of my short.
A penchant for hospitality, and then some
OVER dinner at the Phoenix Court at the Bellevue Hotel Manila in Alabang, my girlfriend KC told a story: “I was on a plane to China, and the flight attendant kept on addressing me as Miss Pusing,” this, as to substantiate why, earlier, she summoned our dinner attendant, Wilson, by his name.
Dentsu Aegis merges with JaymeSyfu
By Vernon Velasco
To eat is human, to drink is divine
TO eat is human, to drink is divine, especially in the off chance you find yourself lazing in your sweet, suite life, and then later prowling for good wine and dine at the Bellevue Manila.
When everything unfolds at a breakneck speed
I WAS in grade-school at a time when computers had yet to happen. By computers, I mean the standard desktop we know of today or something as nearly as recognizable, not its roomy precedents we learned about in our Computer subject. The introduction chapter taught us about Eniac and Edvac, which are clunky apparatuses that I identified in a quiz as “students’ lockers”. Back then it was easy to just agree to the teacher that these are the first-generation computers that made the world then “digital”. Back now, however, you might as well say that these are the kind of crap our parents had to live with.
When it’s more than just an ‘aircon’ brand
IN the Philippines among the many things that get one’s turkey is the heat. Take it from me, had not been for the aircon, I would have had every reason to have early on left this sweltering country for Alaska. Then again, thanks to air-conditioning units installed just about everywhere I go, I would not have to suffer all my life from the scorchin’ heat from which I am luckily insulated.
Mind your own business; the business has a mind of its own
By Vernon Velasco
Of Tanduay, recognition and immortality
By Vernon Velasco
The hardest thing about connecting is that you’re two
THE Internet is among the very few things that stand between me and a complete nervous breakdown. Because it is true that the world is increasingly becoming ever smaller and hyper-connected, so that, I think, the books have changed and the five basic needs of man are food, water, shelter, clothing and Wi-Fi.
When a text scam isn’t funny anymore
SENATOR Cynthia Villar was having a bad hair day and was recently in a snit with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on account of the, quote unquote, inaction of the NTC over the involvement of the foundation she runs, the Villar Foundation, in text scams.
Vista Residences elevates “Ceboom” lifestyle with Vista Suarez Cebu
By Vernon Gabrielle Velasco
Authentic flavors of neighboring Indonesia in Manila
AUTHENTIC Indonesian cuisine is the order of the day at the Oakwood Premier Joy~Nostalg Center Manila Nostalgia Dining Lounge from September 8 to 18. While geographically and ethnically similar, Indonesia and the Philippines each have their very distinct cuisines.
DOST-ICTO develops digital start-up road map, eyes to multiply new businesses by 2020
THE emerging global start-up hub that is the Philippines will now have a benchmark pattern in the Department of Science and Technology-Information and Communications Technology Office’s (DOST-ICTO) Philippine Roadmap for Digital Start-ups, which provides a framework for the development of the Philippine start-up ecosystem mainly consisted of Internet-related innovation.
When art becomes your bedroom space
THERE’S a boutique hotel nestled where the landmark Blanco Center used to be on Salcedo Village in Makati City, which reminds one of Frank Gehry, the iconic architect who did not just change the face of architecture but an entire city’s economy, and is perhaps among the very few marketer extraordinaire Seth Godin referred to as “a purple cow in a field of monochrome.”
New products seen to bolster Epson’s industry dominance
A PROMISING new roster of products is expected to ratchet up Epson Philippines Corp.’s (EPC) industry domination and provide much-needed fillip to double the printer and projector titanic’s market share, an EPC executive said at a news conference in a recent launch at the City of Dreams Manila.
It’s a granules generation
IMAGINE a magical time in the kitchen where all you have to do is sit back, open a packet of granules or broth cubes and—voilà—you conjure a genie chef, say, an Ina Garten, perhaps, a Boy Logro, who’ll concoct your raw ingredients.
Vista Residences: Raising the stakes for the Filipino condominium buyer
By Vernon Gabrielle Velasco
When art becomes your bedroom space
By Vernon Gabrielle Velasco
All you need is coffee
By Vernon Velasco
Finding success in the Philippines
By Vernon Velasco
Israeli Embassy announces search for best Filipino IT start-up
By Vernon Velasco
Making sense of the Pinoy pride hashtag
By Vernon Velasco
Working the runway for a cause
By Vernon Velasco
The wonders of CamSur go to print
By Vernon Velasco
Epson PHL to hire 6,000 more workers
By Vernon Velasco | Special to the BusinessMirror
Breathe again
WHO is your god?”
Matters of the heart
CARDIOLOGIST Dr. Alan Maisel has seen the worst—and probably the best—through a lifetime of medical practice, but the one that really lingers, and which he brought up over a recent lunch with the press, was the story of a patient whose life he could have saved.
Finding expression in the abstract
I had my first brush with the “abstract” as an “expression” in a high-school art class. A friend was painting something amorphous, glow-in-the-dark specks floating in what looked like a murky pool of water. Neutral colors went every which way on the paper that I could not make sense of the subject. If I could hazard a guess, it most closely resembled bacteria under the microscope in one of those household cleaning agent TV commercials. And I wondered why, given so many things—the sky, the birds, the trees—someone as reasonable as he was would pay germs any mind.
Discovery uncovers the mystery behind the tragic AirAsia Flight QZ8501
SINCE last December 28, when AirAsia Flight QZ8501 en route from Indonesia to Singapore inexplicably went off the radar, the mystery has spurred all kinds of conjectures, informed or otherwise. Now, Discovery Channel will shed some light as to what really happened to the ill-fated flight in a comprehensive 60-minute documentary, Flight 8501: Storm Disaster, which airs today. It explores the tragedy that took the life of 162 people onboard, and one that has baffled many.
‘Bituing Walang Ningning’ goes onstage
In playing the rags-to-riches Dorina Pineda in the upcoming stage adaptation of Bituing Walang Ningning, Monica Cuenco might as well be playing the lead in her own biopic. During the news conference for the upcoming theater production, she stood against a backdrop of stars and the prelude to the iconic titular theme song, made famous by the young Sharon Cuneta, began to play. In a moment, Monica began to sing—her voice trembling, her eyes moist. The song, in her rendition, didn’t lament the story of the character as much as it lamented her own.
‘Are we there yet?’ Yes, dearie, we are
IT sounded misplaced, quite unbecoming of an “international” show that supposedly saw both connoisseurs and believers of Filipino craftsmanship flying in from half a world away to take in—and take home—our furniture, the design realm from which Filipino Kenneth Cobonpue has emerged as an international luxury brand. But it was posed, time and again, amid a global audience and with a tinge of half-assed pride: “Are we there yet?”
Have your kids explore the Exploreum
YOU can’t always fool this generation’s 10-year-olds into believing that babies come from monggo beans and get away with it. In fact, they can already make mincemeat of you, when they want to, should you spin them tall tales about babies being harvested on experimental tin pots on Day 49.
Making kids their own environmental hero
THE last time I took the cudgels for the environment, it was in high school. I was involved in veganism, as I was in an Adventist school where you stumbled upon “veggie meat” (the most sorry-looking “meat” one could ever see, made out of, well, vegetables and batter) and quickly guilt-tripped by an enumeration of what’s so wrong about eating pork chops.