LANDSCAPE Seventy-eight years ago, in February 1945, at Yalta, Crimea, leaders of the Grand Alliance – Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt – were re-configuring the world. They had defeated Adolf Hitler, were in the process of shredding Germany while installing an...
LANDSCAPE Jose David Lapuz, Knight Grand Cross of Rizal, was the last of that inexorable breed of orators. He had the voice for it; he was a baritone and had he chosen the opera instead of the academe he could have excelled in villainous roles like the Conti di Luna in Verdi’s “Il Trovatore.”...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Recently, the phrase “Unidentified Flying Objects” a.k.a. UFOs has acquired a different meaning, it no longer refers to enormous flying saucers of unknown origins, manned by extraterrestrials who plan to invade the planet Earth or to capture homo sapiens specimens...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Those acquainted with infrastructure say that there are two types, the horizontal consisting of roads, bridges, waterworks, sewerage systems, flood control, land traffic, and the vertical which are structures above ground like houses, schools, hospitals, markets, public...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta The unfortunate Jullebee Ranara, a Filipina domestic helper or kasambahay, could not afford to raise her four children so at age 35, she went abroad to seek greener pastures. (Where is the father of her children?) Jullebee ended up in Kuwait, perhaps she was inveigled...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Does Miss Universe, R’Bonney Gabriel, know that Texas was once Nuevas Filipinas? Don’t you think it is serendipitous that a half- Filipino Miss Texas should win the Miss USA and Miss Universe titles? It was the eminent Bicolano historian, Dr. Domingo Abella, who...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta “Gone with the wind,” a movie based on a novel by Margaret Mitchell was produced in 1939, before I was born. The protagonist, Scarlett O’Hara, was the headstrong daughter of a wealthy plantation owner and slave holder who survived the American Civil War. Some...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta “David Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier,” was the title of a movie produced by Walt Disney in 1951. No, I did not get to see it. My mother assiduously protected her children from Hollywood’s harmful influence, unlike an aunt who bought Crockett coon caps for my...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta In 1880, Jose Rizal wrote a play in verse, “Junto al Pasig,” which no one thought subversive because he was a 19-year-old, diligent student of the Ateneo Municipal in Intramuros. The play seemed innocent enough, if not pious. A group of students were waiting by the...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Yet another year is about to end and here I am with unanswered messages of good cheer, thoughtful gifts unacknowledged. I am glued to this book (a Christmas gift from a dear friend) by Nancy Isenberg, titled White Trash, The 400-year Untold History of Class in America...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Most of you already know that in 1888, Marcelo del Pilar asked Jose Rizal to write an encouraging letter to 20 of his lady townmates who wanted to open an evening school, in a private home, where they could learn proper Spanish and other subjects. They had already hired...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta They wanted to open their own night school and hire a professor to teach them Spanish. To the Agustinian parish priest it was an act of defiance; to Marcelo del Pilar, Graceano Lopez Jaena and Jose Rizal, Filipino women were throwing off colonial shackles. Rizal was...
