Popular architect Gerry Contreras, who suffered a massive heart attack in April, was still very much alive over the weekend, contrary to the tasteless texts and rumors circulating for over weeks now.

The South Forbes Park resident has a wheelchairbound sister from New Jersey who rushed to Manila to attend to her bedridden brother and manage his business affairs.

The political stars are aligned for Meralco chairman Manuel Lopez to be named ambassador to Japan.

A wicked e-mail slamming Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. using the e-mail address of “camillessamson@yahoo.com.ph’’ had been traced, after clicking on the photo of Ochoa attending the birthday party of Boy Montelibano (the lesser half of Maria Montelibano), to a Multiply social network site of a certain “korina.”

Harbour Centre owner Reghis Romero came out yesterday with a full-page ad in another broadsheet, answering the series of full-page advertisements hitting alleged anomalies in the Smokey Mountain project.

Romero’s salvo was headlined: Port Competition: Ang Tunay na Rason.

Hmmmm. Who could he be referring to?

They may be board members of the various La Salle schools, but the señoras and señores that own the Philippine Daily Inquirer seem to have an affinity for businesses that go bumping into the night.

The latest tenant of Sunvar Plaza is—we kid you not—a 24-hour massage parlor with the suggestive red light, right next to a Japanese karaoke bar.

Malacañang has invited BBC News anchor Rico Hizon to become P-Noy’s economic spokesman, essentially the same position held by Gary Olivar under the Arroyo administration.

The Office of the President was, up to yesterday, still using Yahoo! e-mail accounts to communicate with the bureaucracy and the outside world after the IT team from the Arroyo administration was replaced, leaving the Aquino boys fumbling with programming codes.

The bumbling also infected the Malacañang Photo Bureau, when it misidentified a new Malacañang official whose photograph appeared Tuesday in the front page of the Manila Standard as Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Eduardo de Mesa, when in fact he was Assistant Executive Secretary Ronaldo A. Geron.

Geron’s actual designation: Officer-in-Charge, Office of the Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs.

Now that his cousin Benigno C. Aquino III is president, PLDT heir Antonio Cojuangco has vowed to pursue Dodie Puno for the alleged Road Users Tax mess with the same zeal that Puno had pursued Gretchen Barretto.

Two key image makers of President Arroyo, Lupita Aquino-Kashiwahara and Conrado Limcaoco, have both left for the United States without waiting for today's turnover of the Palace to their Edsa 1 colleagues.

Kashiwara returned to her empty nest in San Francisco; Limcaoco flew to see his doctor for a scheduled operation.

Another Arroyo aide, Medy Poblador, also elected not to see her ex-Cory Aquino colleagues in Malacanang, most especially Miguel Perez Rubio.

New York-based Minnie Osmeña fractured a wrist from a bathroom fall last week and, not knowing any doctor in town, had to be persuaded to seek emergency treatment at the St. Luke’s Medical Center at The Fort.

The millionairess, who just popped into the hospital’s emergency section, was pleasantly surprised not only by the quality of the facility but her being received and assisted like royalty by the staff who do not even know her.

Even better for a parsimonious Cebuana, the socialite did not have to write a check but only fish for petty cash from her bag for the cost of the treatment, which included the X-ray and the cast.