Guess who built the Gotiaoco Bldg.?

It’s good to see Delia Jurado’s byline again in The FREEMAN (Readers Views, page 12, Feb. 17/12). Delia’s article is a must-read piece for all Cebuanos who want to know more about Cebu of old.

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The history of the old Gotiaoco Building which Delia wrote about is interesting. And it’s doubly interesting with Delia’s revelation that pig-tailed Chinese artisans imported from China helped construct the building in 1914.

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The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is urging families to adopt children — orphaned, abandoned and neglected children. In a manner of speaking, the DSWD is sending an SOS to families to help it solve its problem with abandoned kids.

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 “You know what? Adopting abandoned children is gamble,” this according to a friend who had adopted two “unwanted” children — a boy and a girl.

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My friend, now in the US, told me he won the gamble in adopting the boy but lost in the girl. The boy became a Dominican priest in the US, while the girl went astray. He would not elaborate.

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It says here that “4 million tourists are coming to the Philippines despite the unfavorable advisories from their respective governments.” They can’t resist the DOT’s come-on claim that there’s more fun in the Phl?

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A Cebuano father in the US who has finalized his plan to send his two sons (US born) to Phl for a month’s vacation has changed his plan. He’s sending his sons instead to Singapore where his elder brother lives.

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Why the change of his already finalized plan? The safety of his boys is the reason. He said he has read in the Internet (specifically in the PhilStar website) that there are drive-by killers in Cebu. “Mura sila’g gaduwa sa ilang version sa Russian roulette,” he said. “Alaut ang mataymingan.”

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OVERHEARD. A middle aged woman was overheard asking the young lawyer son of a neighbor: “Unya kon mapilde si Corona mobarato ang sardinas?”