MINIATURES

Sa dulo ng ilog Pasig, sa paglapit sa boca ng Laguna de Bay, di kalayuan sa Napindan, makikita noon ang isang pook na tinawag na "Hagdang Bato". Nakilala ito sa ganitong tawag sa dahilan na ang malalaking bato sa pampang ng ilog ay nagsisilbing hagdanan ng mga taong umaahon sa nasabing ilog at ito din ginagawang daungan ng mga casco, pituya at maliliit na bangkang gamit sa pangingisda o  panunuso.  Sa paglapit sa hagdang bato mapapansin din ang isang lugar na punong puno ng kawayanan, mga punong kahoy at magagandang halaman. Kilala ito sa luntian nitong kulay, sa tahimik at maginhawang kapaligiran. Sa loob ng nasabing pook ay may isang payak na bahay kubo. Dito pumipisan ang sinasabing tagapangalaga ng mga puno at mga halaman ng hagdang bato-- Isang matandang babae na wala namang makapagsabi kung ano ang ngalan at saan nanggaling. Sinasabi rin tuwing umaga nakikita ang matanda sa hagdang bato naglilinis at tinatangal ang mga lumot  sa mga baitang na sa gayun paraan ay mak...

My companion during the long weekend -- This coffee table book talks about the meaning of the word "bridge" to different cultures and societies. The physical and the metaphoric. How are bridges designed?  How do we create those unseen bridges of our lives? Romans built aqueducts bridging water to their people. With water passing on top of it not bel ow. Or the jargon that often implies to crossing it, overcoming something.  In Chinese art and literature, there are many descriptions of bittersweet partings at a bridge. Then there is this Japanese haiku I have read about unknown bridges, the haiku of chance.

One of the early contacts Ferdinand Blumentritt had with Filipinos in Spain was with the propagandist Graciano Lopez Jaena. In a letter dated 26 June 1888 to German Philology professor Hugo Schuchardt, Blumentritt mentioned his correspondence with Jaena and described the Ilonggo patriot: "Jaena often leaves a long wait for an answer. He is also very vain and easy to hurt. Like most Indios, they always believe that one wants to mock or humiliate them..... They are extraordinarily good, amiable, and noble. I now understand why the Europeans talk so badly about them. The Indios are shutting up before them because they always believe the whites want to make fun of them. I am writing this to you so that you can provide your respectable letter for a brief introduction about the purpose of your creole studies. The effort will be worth it. Believe me, I am supposed to be an Indio, and I am their brother and friend." This part of the letter gives us the mind of Blumentritt when dealin...

                                                La Bête Humaine by Juan Luna           The book held by the beautiful lady commands more attention than herself. It is the novel of Emile Zola, La Bête Humaine (The Human Beast), part of a series or a cycle of stories chronicling the lives of two families Rougon-Macquart as they march to events in French history. La Bête Humaine  has this intriguing reputation for it deals with subjects such as displaced sexuality and the psychotic tendencies of man.  The plot involves a character named Jacques Lantier, who has an inborn madness, that hereditary trait to kill, ergo he is the human beast in the novel. Themes of sexuality in psychoanalysis come as Lantier also has to deal with his erotic attraction to an object, of all things, the train engine he drives. All these themes of mad...

Fr. Jose Burgos (1837-1872) P erhaps, it was his "kastila" features, his creole background, and not counting even his intellectual gifts, that led to his undoing. Spain of 19th Century mistrusted so much her sons born in the colonies. The experience Spain had in the Americas, with this great wave of new thinking brought by the Enlightenment which resulted to revolution and subsequent ind ependence of many of her colonies, had made her weary if not too cautious of this criollos and mestizos, that sector she at first relied so much on spreading "Pax Hispanica".  With Burgos, Spain saw the events in Mexico reverberating. Burgos was another potential Padre Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the Mexican clergy who led the "Grito de Dolores' -the Mexican Cry of Independence and like Fr. Hidalgo, Burgos championed the cause of the native clergy. The pamphlets and writings Burgos spread were like papers for bonfires that potentially could burn the colonial authoriti...

From the first look, the photo seems to be a harmless pose with this group of "Aetas" and a German professor. But when closely scrutinized and identified, the German anthropologist was no other than Egon Freiherr von Eickstedt, one of the leading proponents of this racial theory glorified by Nazi Germany.  In 1934 Egon Freiherr von Eickstedt  published his work "Rassenkunde und Rass engeschichte der Menschheit" (Ethnology and the Race History of Mankind). He was closely identified with Hans F. K. Günther, considered as the Nazi party's racial theorist. In the late '30s, in a state-sponsored trip, von Eickstedt traveled to Asia and the Philippines for his study in the classification of human races. Arrested in 1946 by the Soviet Army, he was later released and was allowed to teach at the University of Leipzig. he continued to deny his Nazi label claiming that he was never accepted as a member of the party. Egon von Eickstedt is defined by many...

I t is probably the most moving depiction of Filipinos ever sculpted. And it is only fitting that it's about the country's foremost son- Andres Bonifacio, the great plebian.  Unlike the Rizal monument in the Luneta, which was designed by a Swiss, (and was subject to controversies and debates even before its existence) the Bonifacio monument was designed by a Filipino, Guillermo Tolentino.  The Supremo  stands in a ready yet calm manner while his young squire stands at the back depicted with his youthful aggressive stance. On the left, the young and the old are represented, with the fist of the old man in the air as if saying, "enough!".  There is also a depiction of a blood compact, while the two priests of the "Gomburza" are seen in their violent end. Burgos faceless in his final moments yet it sends that haunting feeling.  These are fragments of the soul of our nation. Guillermo Tolentino's art and genius have kept it alive. The Supremo lives in th...