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 In case you have not heard of Our Lady of the Abandoned (Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados), she is the patroness of Santa Ana, the 6th district of Manila. Santa Ana used to be called Sapa, the capital of the Namayan kingdom that included Quiapo, San Pedro Macati, San...
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 I came across this declaration: “We have created our myth. This myth is a faith, a passion. It is not necessary for it to be a reality…Our myth is the nation, our myth is the greatness of the nation! And to this myth, this greatness, which we want to translate into...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta Suddenly, there were no more coups d’etat. Although President Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) won 23.58 percent of electoral votes in the 1992 elections, the country seemed to have breathed a sigh of relief. How reassuring that perennial destabilizers, mutineers and plotters,...
With a passing rate of 100 percent, the University of the Philippines Diliman topped the July 2022 Landscape Architect Licensure Examination, the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) announced. (PRC / Manila Bulletin) The exam was given by the Board of Landscape Architect in Manila and Cebu on...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta If I were teaching the Rizal course as mandated by RA 1425, I would begin with how Rizal reacted to the most devastating crisis he had to face. Isn’t crisis management what we need most these days? In 1891, the Dominican Order of friars were the richest landowners...
LANDSCAPE Gemma Cruz Araneta To this day, the Philippines is described as an agricultural country which is probably why the 17th president, Ferdinand Marcos, Jr, (PBBM) appointed himself Secretary of Agriculture. It happens to be an utterly sensitive sector of the national economy, the most...
