Wenceslao: Minglanilla’s talents

PRICES of petroleum products moved up again by more than P1 per liter. That eats up into my budget for diesel. That’s the effect of inflation for you, something that Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said won’t matter much because it’s not like prices of commodities haven’t risen before. Cebuanos have a phrase for what Diokno meant: “naanad na.” I am impressed by the smugness of the man. Really.

He can afford to be smug because he is rich. He will survive even if the inflation rate goes up to 50 percent. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is worried the inflation rate this month would settle at around 6.8 percent. That’s obviously peanuts for Diokno and this country’s economic managers.

But I didn’t want Diokno to ruin my day yesterday so I surfed for lighter stories. Like this one about Boston Celtics star Kyrie Irving. No, I won’t join the chorus of sports analysts saying the Celtics will go to the NBA finals this season because Irving and the team’s other star Gordon Hayward, are now healthy. Besides, Lebron James is now out west with the Lakers.

No, the story I am referring to is not about Irving’s ballhandling or high percentage shots. This one is about science. Or specifically his claim months ago that the earth is flat. Remember that? The other day, Irving had a special message for science teachers who felt they didn’t teach Irving well. I’m sorry, he said, adding that he wants to put to rest the issue.

Of course, he didn’t actually think the earth is flat. “At that time, I was like huge into conspiracies,” Irving explained. You know conspiracy theories. They make you believe in unbelievable ideas. Like, didn’t they say that Neil Armstrong’s walking around moon grounds was a hoax? And that the planes that rammed into the World Trade Center in 9-11 didn’t cause the building to collapse and that dynamites did?

Now don’t get me started on that because I won’t stop. When I was a teenager I was also into conspiracies, although I took them with spoonfuls of salt. So let us shift to another light story closer to us. What’s with Minglanilla town? Okay, this is not about the traffic gridlocks that surface ever so often in the part of the south highway that passes the area. This is about showbiz.

The first winner of GMA network’s singing competition “The Clash” is a Cebuana from, yes, Minglanilla town, Golden Cañedo. They say she looks like another singing competition winner who is now a big star, Sarah Geronimo. But I prefer to link her to a rising star who also has her roots in Minglanilla, Morisette Amon. I am not really sure about that but I did see tarpaulins a couple of years ago soliciting text votes for Amon who joined then an ABS-CBN competition.

Incidentally, Minglanilla has also produced a basketball phenom in Steve Nash Enriquez, who is now with the National University Bullpups in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP). Named after the National Basketball Association legend, Nash is also currently part of the Gilas program pf the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas. He is with the basketball-playing Enriquez clan that has produced former Philippine Basketball Association player Alfredo Enriquez and former M. Lhuillier mainstay Woodrow Enriquez.

So again, what’s with Minglanilla town?