Gemma Cruz Araneta | LANDSCAPE

Most Filipinos like me believe that the United States of America is the unbreachable, gleaming bastion of democracy. Despite the rise of China and Russia, the USA remains to be the most powerful, mightiest and wealthiest country on Planet Earth. Many of my contemporaries migrated to the USA soon after graduation, in pursuit of “the … Read more

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 a total reality, we … Read more

Suddenly, there were no more coups d’etat. Although President Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) won barely 20 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, the majority from the military and police, were content to bask in FVR’s … Read more

Much too often,  snippets of “legal wife versus mistress” pop up while I am scrolling for breaking news about the J6 Select Committee hearings in the USA,  or the billion dollars awarded to the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu by a foreign arbitral court. I am always tempted to watch because the snippets, usually … Read more

If I were teaching the Rizal course as mandated by R A 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 in Kalamba, Laguna, among their lease … Read more

No, this is not about the intrepid Gringo Honasan who was at National Defense Minister J. Ponce Enrile’s side when the Marcos government was toppled by People Power in February 1986. Gringo  also led a few coups d’etat against President Corazon Aquino which she narrowly survived. Despite his being a  cashiered military officer, Gregorio  Honasan … Read more

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 neglected and abused.  Let us hope he does not regret his decision. Over the … Read more

On 30 June, the world around me unveiled an astounding mural of light and brilliant pigments splashed across the horizon. Gone was the subdued landscape of impressionist paintings with indeterminate brushstrokes in pastel shades. If the colors and myriad hues  I now see were notes of a symphony, I  would be hearing   Beethoven’s 5th conducted … Read more

“The Lord gazes at the Philippine Islands”: In  Spanish,   “ El Señor mira ( contempla)   a las islas  Filipinas” is a satirically humorous piece,  translated into English by Dr. Encarnacion Alzona in 1957 and included in  “Rizal’s Prose” published by the Rizal Centennial Commission in 1962.  To celebrate the 159th birthday of its author, it … Read more

Like many of us today, Jose Rizal must have wondered whether the first batch of natives who were baptized knew what was going on. Language was a barrier; Spanish missionaries had not yet learned our native tongues, nor compiled those monumental glossaries and grammar books. No matter how clearly they enunciated the strange Iberian words … Read more