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...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Early on, towards the end of the 16th century, Spanish ministers had nagging doubts about keeping the archipelago named after King Felipe II. Although the Capitanía-General de Filipinas was in the vicinity of Maluco, Ternate, Tidore, Ambon – the fabled spice islands...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Last week, we were intrigued by reports about a 30-meter deep and 300-meter-wide tunnel, with a 1.72-meter-high cave, totally man-made, “discovered” in the New Bilibid Prison Reservation in Muntinlupa City. Was someone looking for gold? Towards the end of the year,...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Fr. Pedro Chirino, S.J. ( 1557-1635) arrived with governor-general Gomez Perez Dasmarinas in 1590. He wrote “ Relación de las Islas Filipinas (1604),” which is valuable because it captured a historical moment, those early “points of contact” between natives and...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta That was Pres. Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.'s enlightened declaration – “We need reforestation… plant good trees.” – After the Biblical deluge and killer landslides in Maguindanao del Norte. During a conference with local government officials of Datu Odin Sinsuat, he...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta The spokesman of Filipino farmers, Ka Rene Cerilla of PAKISAMA, lamented that farmers are never consulted, much less invited to significant policy-making meetings. He was one of the panelist-reactors at the “21st Jaime V. Ongpin memorial lecture on Public Service in...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta “What is the dead body saying?” That was how Dr. Raquel Fortun answered when I asked about her profession. What is it like to be a forensic pathologist, and be with cadavers most of the time? She had just returned to the Philippines after giving up a successful...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta In 1959, while Antonio Araneta, Jr. ( my husband) was polishing his undergrad thesis (‘Elites and Economic Development in Underdeveloped Countries’) at the Notre Dame University, a be-medalled sergeant of the Philippine Army, survivor of World War II was applying...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta The phrase “red tagging,” which sends a chill up my spine, did not exist when Antonio S. Araneta (my husband) was writing his undergrad thesis in 1959, titled “Elites and Economic Development in Underdeveloped Countries.” Way back then, he called red-tagging a...
