An Afternoon with THE Maestro Eddie Romero

     

  

For twelve years, we’ve made it our habit. THE MAESTRO Eddie Romero and I have had coffee sessions (plus his smoking moments) when I was still with the NCCA Cinema Program. That’s one thing I’ve missed since I left in 2007. Now, we meet from time to time to have lunch and afternoon coffee sessions. I’m glad that the last time we did this, we were finally joined by my good friend, Atty. Trixie whom I should thank for these memorable photos.

Trixie Cruz-Angeles: 'Dolphy is not covered by SC TRO' - lawyer

MANILA, Philippines - The legal controversy surrounding the National Artist Award selection in 2009 does not cover Rodolfo "Dolphy" Quizon Sr, according to a lawyer behind the Supreme Court (SC) complaint that stopped the conferment of the award three years ago.

Trixie Cruz-Angeles: Why Dolphy is not yet a National Artist

MANILA, Philippines - If there were any regrets among many Filipinos when the news of Dolphy's death broke Tuesday, July 10, it would be that the country's King of Comedy was not named a National Artist when he was still alive.

Trixie Cruz-Angeles: The Manunggul Jar

By Rose Beatrix C. Angeles (Trixie Cruz-Angeles)

Sylvia Morningstar says that we, the Filipino people, are older than our conquerors. I believe it. My favorite artifact -- emphasis on the ART -- is the Manunggul Jar. Its a Neolithic Age, nearly complete burial jar found in the Tabon Cave Complex in Palawan back in 1964.

Robert Fox describes it as follows:

"The burial jar with a cover featuring a ship-of-the-dead is perhaps unrivalled in Southeast Asia; the work of an artist and master potter. This vessel provides a clear example of a cultural link between the archaeological past and the ethnographic present. The boatman is steering rather than padding the "ship." The mast of the boat was not recovered. Both figures appear to be wearing a band tied over the crown of the head and under the jaw; a pattern still encountered in burial practices among the indigenous peoples in Southern Philippines. The manner in which the hands of the front figure are folded across the chest is also a widespread practice in the Islands when arranging the corpse.

Trixie Cruz-Angeles: Lost and Longing

By Rose Beatrix C. Angeles (Trixie Cruz-Angeles)

INQUIRER.net

First Posted 07/29/2008

My love is like a river in the Sea of Tranquility

“The Arms of Orion” (theme of Batman Forever)

BEHOLD AND WEEP- at the totally different face of Manila a hundred years ago, with its esteros flowing as a network of transportation and trade. In that era, the American master architect Daniel Burnham “believed that with proper planning he could turn Manila into a ‘city equal to the greatest of the Western World,’ with a bay like Naples’s, a winding river like Paris’s and canals like those of Venice,” writes Rose Beatrix Angeles. 

(Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institute)

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Manila was becoming known as the Venice of the Far East. This was due in no small part to the admiration of the practical and aesthetic possibilities of the esteros or inland rivers by one Daniel Burnham, then architect of Manila.

Yes, he’s the Burnham of the park in Baguio and the Manila Burnham plan. Burnham believed that with proper planning he could turn Manila into a “city equal to the greatest of the Western World,” what with a bay like that of Naples, a winding river like that of Paris and canals like those of Venice.

Trixie Cruz-Angeles: In Our Image

By Rose Beatrix C. Angeles (Trixie Cruz-Angeles)

INQUIRER.net

First Posted February 05, 2008

Religion is the opiate of the masses - Karl Marx

www.philippines.hvu.nl 

Even the most modern Filipinos will not allow two weddings in one family in the same year for fear of sukob, the belief that both couples will suffer bad, even fatal luck. To this day even city bred families send their babies or children to the hilot for unexplained fevers because of “pilay.” House moving and building are incomplete without the usual parade of cotton, rice, salt and religious figures – but only after coins have been strategically embedded into the foundations – after which, ironically, we ask a priest to conduct a house blessing.

Strangely enough, as exemplified by these house blessing rituals, we Filipinos have conscripted our Catholicism into this belief system, so that we even ask our priests to bless other mundane objects like our cars – often to the consternation of our more modern, Western-oriented priests.

Trixie Cruz-Angeles: Intramuros, Manila

By Rose Beatrix C. Angeles (Trixie Cruz-Angeles)

INQUIRER.net

First Posted 10:58:00 07/09/2008

Ang tangi kong pag-ibig

Ay minsan lamang

Nguni?t sa iyong akala

Ay hindi tunay

Hindi ka lilimutin,

Magpakailan pa man?

Ang Tangi Kong Pag-ibig

Lyrics by Constancio de Guzman

During the governorship (1571-72) of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, the founder of Spanish Manila, the only fortification in the city enclosed what had been Rajah Sulayman's palisade of palm logs and banked earth, though even then the city limits extended well beyond the Malay settlement to encompass what is today the Manila Cathedral site and adjoining land up to where San Agustin Church still stands.

Calle Real in a restored Intramuros is a scene from centuries ago

When Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim began dismantling some of former Mayor Joselito Atienza's projects, I did not raise my voice in protest. Of special interest to me was the dismantling of restaurants on the Roxas Boulevard bayside.

Mayor Lim was well advised in that instance, the area's attraction is not the entertainment provided by restaurants and bars, but Manila Bay's famed sunset. All the paving and fireworks could only gild the lily of that daily nature show.

Trixie Cruz-Angeles: An Omelet Heritage

By Rose Beatrix C. Angeles (Trixie Cruz-Angeles)

INQUIRER.net

First Posted 14:16:00 05/27/2008

A country without a memory, is a country of madmen. -- George Santayana

The Church of Sto. Tomas de Villanueva in Miag-ao, Iloilo, 

a World Heritage Site, is made of yellow sandstone

If all uninformed tour guides are to be believed, our churches are held together with cement and egg white like the confections they are. In my former life as NCCA's legal conservationist, I've had some side-ripping tourist moments as some enthusiastic guide with more guesswork than research attempted to explain their history factoids with gossip and superstition.

Philippine churches are primary tourism targets and a booming industry surrounds them. Unlike many of their European counter-parts, these churches remain in use, and are thus showcases of continuing history. Over thirty of them have been declared national cultural treasures and World Heritage Sites.

Because of renewed interest in these structures, the informality of accreditation systems for tour guides (not to mention the downright politics of some of their appointments) and too few sources of information on the histories of both the locales and structures, too many have taken up occupations as "tour guides" using savvy business sense and not much else. The result is a disastrous mish mash of misinformation that often bewilders the educated and damages the uninformed.

Trixie Cruz-Angeles: Wedding Blues and the IPRA

By Rose Beatrix C. Angeles (Trixie Cruz-Angeles)

The State shall preserve, protect and develop the past,

present and future manifestations of their cultures

as well as the right to the restitution of cultural, intellectual,

religious, and spiritual property taken without their

free and prior informed consent or in violation of their laws,

traditions and customs.

 Sec. 32 Republic Act 8371

otherwise known as the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act

I must confess that I had liked this post conviction Robin Padilla.  More mature, more artistically daring; he is becoming a real actor, rather than a star. Still, his romance with Mariel Rodriguez elicited only boredom from me. These showbiz pairings usually do. Well, at least until the alleged Ibaloi ceremony.

TV Patrol reported that Robin married Mariel last September 16 in Ibaloi ceremonies officiated by a “native priest” (not a term I would use, but there it is) named Jimmy Ong, PEP also reported that the two married in Baguio City on that day. (source)

“The TV host-action star opted to marry Mariel in an Ibaloi ceremony because his mother, Eva Cariño-Padilla, is an Igorot. As part of the ceremony, Robin and Mariel drank tapuy (rice wine) as a symbol of their love and performed the tayaw dance to show that they are bound to each other by marriage. A pig was butchered and the blood was smeared on the faces of the celebrity couple. “After the Ibaloi ceremony, Robin and Mariel were married again in a ceremony officiated by a pastor.”

Trixie Cruz-Angeles: Don't Call It a Costume

Don't Call It a Costume

by Rose Beatrix C. Angeles

I wondered before why we insist on calling the baro't saya or the terno a national "costume." Is it because we are only really impersonating Filipinos, and that deep inside we feel we're actually Americans or Europeans or Chinese who just so happen to find themselves miraculously transported to this backwoods country where nothing seems to work, and thus we spend so much of this lifetime trying to escape this place?

However, every so often, like in August for Buwan ng Wika, we have to pretend we live in this place, instead of thinking of it as some kind of transition point - you know, like the old tradition of Limbo. So, we dress up in what we quaintly refer to as "costumes" and make a big show of "nationalism."

Read the rest of the article by Trixie Cruz-Angeles at:

http://www.pilipino.org.ph/angeles_frame39.php

To know more about Trixie Cruz Angeles, check out: I AM TRIXIE CRUZ

Trixie Cruz-Angeles: Assassination and Change

All changes, even the most longed for, have

their melancholy; for what we leave behind

us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one

life before we can enter another.

--Anatole France

"Assassination of Governor Bustamante" by Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo

originally "The Church and the State" (National Museum) 

In August 1717, Fernando Manuel de Bustillo Bustamante y Rueda was appointed governor general of these islands, by King Philip of Spain. He was chosen for his probity and efficiency after reports of the bankruptcy of the treasury in Intramuros reached the court.

An efficient administrator, Bustamante threw himself into work. The treasury was in a deficit and collections were down due to excessive graft and tax evasion allegedly abetted by Church officials (no separation of Church and State then). As Bustamante pressed for tax payments, prominent citizens sought Church assistance in continuing to evade collections, seeking traditional sanctuary.

Things came to a head when a notary public sought sanctuary, taking with him the protocols of 1717-1719 reportedly to assist some citizens in evading further taxes by secreting their property - a practice that continues to this date, unfortunately. Bustamante demanded the return of the protocols. Initially, Archbishop de la Cuesta agreed, but later changed his mind saying that the documents were subject to Church sanctuary and could not be reached by the civil authorities. Perhaps because such an act outrageously abused the privilege of sanctuary - which applies only to people (not documents) who have just cause to avoid the authorities - Bustamante ordered de la Cuesta's arrest and confinement in Fort Santiago on October 11, 1719.

See the full article by Trixie Cruz-Angeles on:

http://www.pilipino.org.ph/col_angeles.php

To know more about Trixie Cruz Angeles, check out: I AM TRIXIE CRUZ

Trixie Cruz-Angeles: Music and Rebellion in Sta. Ana

by Rose Beatrix C. Angeles

INQUIRER.net

First Posted 15:59:00 05/12/2008

History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity.

- Cicero, Pro Publio Sestio

Heritage Month is celebrated in May because it coincides with many of our fiestas, the latter being an example of intangible heritage. And there is much to celebrate, although we tend to overlook them. Much of our heritage, though compromised or randomly destroyed, still remains, although it requires increasingly talented people to see and help others appreciate them.

Fortunately, there is the Filipino Heritage Festival, Inc. funded by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), an entire month of activities in various regions in the country.

Trixie Cruz-Angeles: What Do You Mean "Only in the Philippines"?

By Rose Beatrix C. Angeles (Trixie Cruz-Angeles)

When the smoke cleared and the bodies were counted, as Mendoza's story slowly is spread to a visibly shaken nation, I am shattered by the vicious remarks brought to my doorstep courtesy of Facebook. I see words like "Only in the Philippines" and "nakakahiya tayo."  Here are my countrymen, talking about themselves as though everything that had been done wrong at the Quirino Grandstand was a national trait, as though stupidity were possible only here and the only ones capable of it are Filipinos. And then, I remember with sadness that it is also my own countrymen, who, when seeing a beautiful place in the Republic say with awe, "Ang ganda dito, parang wala tayo sa Pilipinas!"