LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Time to foray into history: 31 May 1890, in the lead story of “La Solidaridad,” editor Marcelo. H. del Pilar (a.k.a. Plaridel ) argued the obvious. How can the Cortés (Spanish parliament) legislate in favor or against the Philippines without first-hand knowledge of...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta The first electoral law of the Spanish empire, contained in the Decree of 29 January 1810, called for representatives from Las Islas Filipinas, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Chile, Venezuela, in short, from all of Spain’s colonies in America and Asia to join the...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Who was Pi y Margall? There is a street in Sampaloc named after him and when last I saw the sign, the name was misspelled. Not even the City Administrator could tell whether Margall wasa famous or an obscure Spanish colonial official, or someone’s birth place in...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta A UP professor friend sent me a photo of a burly band of youngish males, properly protected with surgical masks and face shields posing in front of the Maginhawa community pantry after depositing donations in kind. They were wearing tees of various colors and designs,...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta I am convinced that the policeman who first set his eyes on that community pantry in Quezon City must be afflicted with terminal dyslexia. Upon seeing a handwritten sign saying “community pantry” he read “communist party” and was alarmed at the audacity of...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Or, when they think you are super annuated, so obsolete and defunct! By “they” I mean not only my grandchildren, grand nieces and nephews, but also my own children, even if they themselves will be senior citizens in less than a decade. I must look rather frail...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Milonga attracts a lot of attention because her bold markings of orange and black cover her entire back; she looks like an abstract painting when she is asleep, slender body stretched out on a window sill. Once, while waiting for our turn at the vet, a woman (who...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta One of the paintings I inherited from my father-in-law, Don Jose Antonio Araneta, depicts the first mass, but where it was held remains a controversial issue, now heading towards a full-blown legal battle between the contending sides. The date on this oil painting by F....
Landscape Gemma Cruz Araneta Chapter eight of “Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas”, by Dr. Antonio de Morga, is a glimpse of how our ancestors lived before the Spaniards came. Although the book was published 43 years after Miguel Lopez de Legazpi arrived, the friars’ zealous Christianization had...
LANDSCAPE (Part I) Who was Dr. Antonio de Morga? He was a soldier and a lawyer, an explosive combination, especially if one was also a high-ranking colonial bureaucrat. Antonio de Morga SanchezGaray was born in 1559 in Sevilla, Spain, 38 years after Magellan was killed by...
LANDSCAPE (Part II) How many people read Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere when it was hot off the press? Two thousand copies were printed, a number must have been sold among the Filipino expats and Spanish liberals sympathetic to the cause of indio Filipinos. Rizal sent a copy to Prof. F. Blumentritt whom...
LANDSCAPE (Part I) My younger relatives, sturdy branches of the Rizal genealogical tree, have often asked during family reunions – why Rizal? Why was he singled out? Why was he the only one executed under such dramatic circumstances? He was banished to rot in Dapitan, imprisoned in Montjuich and...
