LANDSCAPE When the USA sneezes, the world catches a bad cold, tectonic plates shift figuratively and tsunamis hurl destructive forces on faraway shores. That is because the United States of America has been the insurmountable world power since Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin and Franklin D....
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta No, this is not about the intrepid Gringo Honasan who was at National Defense Minister J. Ponce Enrile’s side when the Marcos government was toppled by People Power in February 1986. Gringo also led a few coups d’etat against President Corazon Aquino which she...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta “The Lord gazes at the Philippine Islands:” In Spanish, “El Señor mira (contempla) a las islas Filipinas” is a satirically humorous piece, translated into English by Dr. Encarnacion Alzona in 1957 and included in “Rizal’s Prose” published by the Rizal...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Jose Rizal, who would have turned 161 on June 19, was a sociologist by instinct, an irrepressible observer of human nature. He could not resist conjuring scenes and creating incredible characters from the frenetic tumble of events that marked his life. He wrote a short...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta I am the happy owner of two pre-loved Camilo Osias books both titled, “The Philippine Readers;” I do not know if these were also used in private schools, specially the sectarian ones, during that period called “peacetime.” The revised edition of Book...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta In 1901, General Arthur MacArthur (Douglas’s father) announced: “A rapid extension of educational facilities is an exclusively military measure…” What a clever strategy, that was the essence of “benevolent assimilation” and “pacification.” Immediately,...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta How I wish I had asked my grandmothers more about themselves. Both lived in historical times; both survived a yesterday of revolutions and wars of invasion; their today overlapped with mine and they unobtrusively prepared me for a tomorrow of uncertainties. My...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta My zoom mates and I were arguing about People Power 1. What happened to all that enthusiasm that toppled a dictator? When the dust settled, the old order crept back into place. The pyramid of possibilities for structural changes crumbled steadily. Then someone asked if...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta The “Protocol of Agreement” signed by Spain and the USA in Washington in August 1898 brought about a lull. But, the USA kept sending troops to the Philippines. The USS Arizona arrived with four companies of the 18th Infantry, detachments of the 1st Nebraska, 1st...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta You may have noticed that our young people are being corrupted in so many despicable ways. They are deliberately being taught to lie which will surely lead them astray. That is why the anguished words of Padre Florentino often comes to mind. Here they are, from the last...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta With bracing directness, Senator Imee Marcos called VP Leni Robredo an “extraordinary housewife.” That was last Oct. 27, when she was interviewed by the gentlemen anchors of “On the Spot.” They asked her to describe all the presidential aspirants. So, Imee said...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Recently, along the cyber highway, I found my missing-in-action Haitian friend, Rosemarie Lelong. In 1990, we bade each other tearful goodbyes at “Los Venaditos,” a favorite haunt. We had felt a special affinity, our homelands were shrouded in darkness by military...
