Alive and kicking

My friend Noy Temiong said when the time has come for the Good Lord to blow out his candle, he would not want to be buried immediately. Nor be embalmed. He is smart, this boy of 80.

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"You know," he said, "there are candles that flicker again after being blown out. You never can tell, Brad, my candle might be like that candle."

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Noy Temiong's views get support from this Reuters story about a Mississippi man who was brought dead to a funeral parlor. Upon arrival at the mortuary, he kept kicking inside the body bag. He was alive and, yes, kicking.

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Many students in Metro Manila are carrying their backpacks not on their backs but on their front. "It's wrong," says Marvin Cebrino, a Cebuano studying in UST, "but that's the right way to carry a backpack to frustrate backpack slashers."

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I want to pay tribute to Jose Melvin Landero, the 22-year-old breadwinner who died in the service of his family. The eldest of five siblings, Jose worked as a miner in Danao. He died when the mining pit collapsed. He was trapped under the pit while his companions, said to be old hands in the mining job, managed to escape.

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At 90, Ma'am Socorro Ramos still works at the National Book Store which she founded in 1942. Other rich and prominent people of her age would be just sitting pretty and listening to cash register’s ringing.

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Speaking of cash registers, did you know that Ma'am Socorro Ramos got the name of her book store from the brand name of her cash register which is "National"? This she revealed to Mitch Albom, the famous book author, who recently interviewed her for the Detroit Free Press.

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OVERHEARD. An altar in a Catholic church in Luzon was recently shown on tv with the "santoses" fenced off with iron grills. They look like saints behind bars. One comment: "Gihimo nila na tungod kay daghan kawatan nga nag-specialize og antique." Comment two: "Bitaw. Pero ngil-ad na para sa imahe sa Pinas abroad. Wa na lang unta gitelebays. Ingnon na lang sa taga-abroad nga hastang santos nato kawaton."