Personalities, Inc. (Sabong News)
Author
Jullie Y. Daza
Date
MAY 17 2022
Purely by accident or coincidence, the two statisticians who guided us through the helter-skelter madness of Covid-19 and the May 2022 elections share a common name.
Dr. Guido David of OCTA Research, UP, and Edson Guido of ABS-CBN data analytics.
Edson Guido is the younger. He’s turning 31 in September, though when you hear him talk, he sounds like an older man, a professor who thinks, drinks, eats, dreams in numbers and percentage points.
The other Guido also speaks the language of data which, according to one expert is “the most important resource” of our time. Dr. David a genius and therefore a techie, you say? I’ve a story for you. We were chatting across a breakfast table at the Manila Hotel recently when somebody began teasing me about my “Jurassic” cellphone, the kind without a thousand bells and whistles that cost less than P1,000 some years ago. Immediately Dr. David stopped the conversation by pulling out something from his shirt pocket. A plain black gadget exactly like mine, model, color and all.
Silence for three seconds. Then the math wizard said, “Dr. (Sanjit) Rye warned me, ‘If you don’t dispose of that thing, I will throw it out the window.” Obviously the thing was not disposed of, but Dr. Rye, executive director of OCTA, gave Guido a “real” smartphone. Now Guido carries both phones, but the cheap one, not smart but not dumb either, he keeps close to his heart.
With the appointment of Sara Duterte as DepEd secretary, hopes are high that teachers will receive more attention and better compensation in economic and professional terms. One teacher Sara should meet: Farrah Mesquite of Leyte. We don’t know if Teacher Farrah is a genius, but in preparation for the return of face-to-face classes, she’s been prettying up her classroom – painting the walls, decorating with living plants, setting up a corner for tea and cookies. She’s the teacher we want!
Headhunter Wilma Galvante’s recruits on Net 25 include Alex Santos, Joey de Leon, Aga Muhlach, and the newly elected Senator Robin Padilla. It remains to be seen how Robin will straddle the twin worlds of showbiz and politics, where the law is the more scandalous it becomes the more believable it gets.
