LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta At this writing, 22:16 hours, May 9, I am seized by dread as election results from various sources appear online. From Regions 1 and 2, the solid North, the BBM-Duterte tandem has emerged the winner, as expected. But, there are 15 more regions in the Republic of the...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Throughout his life, Jose Rizal constantly argued with himself. In his mind, political thoughts contended vigorously, endlessly. He expressed his convictions and beliefs in his letters to his family and contemporaries, in travel journals, essays for “La...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Jose Rizal must have wanted his two novels to be read as one book, that is why on the title page of the hand-written original of “El Filibusterismo” (1891) these words appear in parenthesis – (II parte del Noli Me Tangere). But, Rizal crossed it out before...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta When I first read “El Filibusterismo,” I was too young to understand why it is “profound and perfect” (Rizal’s own words), so I was appalled that Maria Clara jumped off the convent roof before Simoun could rescue her and that his revolution failed. Two decades...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta “The Philippine Readers,” a teleological series of textbooks for Filipino youth during the American colonial period, was edited by Camilo Osias who had lived through the Revolution against Spain, the First Philippine Republic, Philippine-American War, the...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta As Women’s Month comes to an end, I am rereading essays written by my mother (Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, CGN) about the Filipino woman. She was not a feminist, yet she defended women’s rights to education, freedom of speech and assembly, the pursuit of happiness and...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta (Part I) To celebrate Women’s Day (March 8), I resurrected the first ever article I wrote about my mother, Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, published in a widely-circulated daily in 1964, a month after I had won the Miss International Beauty title in Long Beach, California....
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta I n September 2013, with Syria in mind, President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation said that the founders of the United Nations Organization must have understood that decisions affecting war and peace should be made only by consensus. And with the USA’s...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Let us get a handle on Biac-na-Bato, that tangled network of caves and rivers in San Miguel de Mayumo, Bulacan, 42 kilometers away from the Barasoain Church of Malolos. President Manuel Quezon declared it a national park in 1937 because of historic events that unfolded...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta If you are among those who still have not heard of the First Republic of the Philippines, this column was humbly written with you in mind, so kindly read on. While members of the Malolos Congress gathered in Barasoain church in 1898, to debate on the 101 articles of the...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Last Jan. 23, we should have celebrated the 123rd anniversary of the First Philippine Republic with fireworks, parades, platitudes and flowered wreaths. You may have noticed that we have never done that, not even in Manila, the seat of government. Bulakeños call their...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Mariano Ponce always kept a low profile probably because he was the tallest among the Filipino expats in Europe. In that iconic Gomburza-like “triumvirate” studio photo with Jose Rizal and Marcelo del Pilar, Mariano Ponce had to sit down sideways on a stool with...
