The recent fish kill around Manila Bay has been unsurprisingly politicized, used to throw shade against the dumping of sand in Manila Bay. At first, I thought there could be a correlation between the dolomite sand and the fish kill. This may have not been a coincidence, right? Then clearer photos of the fishes started […]
Category: Manila
Reading little known diaries and memoirs are not only entertaining, they’re a great resource of anecdotal and first-hand historical information. I’m a regular reader of Manuel Quezon III’s The Philippine Diary Project, as its name suggests, it’s a collection of diaries from both less known and key historical figures. I recently stumbled upon this book […]
I got a notification from a website called slife.org a few days ago. They added my blog (here) about Nuestra Señora de Guia as reference. Wikipedia’s entry on Ermita Church used that same blog. But all I did was type, the content came from a worn booklet, “Libreta y Novena”, handed to me when I visited […]
Governor General Juan de Silva’s mission to go after the Dutch outside Spanish Philippine territory, deep into the Malay peninsula, was not without its critics. “Silva set sail from Manila late in the season, ill-staffed, ill-equipped, under a barrage of criticism from the church, the orders, the bishops, the cabildos and the Audiencia Real. Worst […]
No not madre españa but that frequently flooded area named after the Iberian motherland. The journey felt like an attraction ride. It ran steady at 20 kilometers per hour as it wildly swayed from side to side. Not to disparage efforts our government is taking to modernize our train network but like its current speed—it’s […]
I had a senior moment a few days ago. I accidentally deleted the original post “Meeting Dr. Legarda” (December 2017). I tried googling caches of the blog online hoping that there’s a copy out there somewhere to no avail. And so, I’m starting from scratch. I wanted to ask Dr. Benito Legarda Jr. […]
Feeling a bit under the weather I thought of staying home yesterday. But I was informed by the family of the eminent Chemist and historian Pio Andrade Jr. that Wednesday is the last and only day of his internment. He passed away last December 26. They decided to cremate his remains the next day and […]
President Rodrigo Duterte’s paranoia of a CIA plot against him was recently responded to by US Ambassador Sung Kim who flatly denied the allegation. No surprise there. No powerful country that spends millions on their spy agencies would admit to commiting espionage—even when their mandate is to do so. But Duterte’s charge isn’t new. America […]
Two weeks ago I received an email from Dr. Ernie de Pedro. Turns out that he has been conducting research for years on the recently beatified Takayama. I was elated to know that he created a website with his son dedicated to the Christian samurai lord. For those not familiar with Dr. Ernie de Pedro, […]
When the prolific Cebuano writer, Antonio Martinez Abad penned “La Vida Secreta de Daniel Espeña” in 1960 I wonder if he knew it would be the last from his generation. When I heard that the most dedicated advocate of the Spanish language in the country, Guillermo Gomez Rivera, completed his Spanish novel (more than half a century […]
I’ve been stocking up on my Filipiana books the past few days. Plenty of new nonfiction titles, very good ones, up for grabs. Forget the foreign publications you can get them cheap (sometimes free) over the internet. But I grumble that some great history titles are a bit too expensive. Who’s going to buy them […]
Segunda Mano shops are popping all over Evangelista. The area is now becoming the new Ermita. I recall how Mabini in Ermita was crammed with antique shops back in the day. They’ve been replaced by money changers. The antique shops hold outs can be found still in Mabini near Calle Sta. Monica. In these Segunda Mano […]
I knew it’s not going to be easy to get near Pope Francis but I had to try because in 1995 I failed to see Pope John Paul II. After standing in Quirino Avenue for 5 hours (some had been camping there since Saturday and Friday) near the Papal Nuncio I did saw the successor […]
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