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.