MONDAY was a day of failed expectations.

For all of the tightness of my schedule that morning, I managed to eke out time to come to the popular Pandesal Forum for one reason: Wilson Lee Flores, entrepreneur of the Kamuning Bakery Café that hosts the event, had stressed in his invitation that the outcome of the summit between United States President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping would be up for discussion. I had already made a draft of my own observation of the China event for my Manila Times column, and I had expected to enrich it further with the discussions at the Pandesal Forum.