Bacólod Heritage Watch

[kyle@1008]

this is an old article about Jose Yulo from the philippine free press...

to those of you who don't know, Jose Yulo is one of the philippine's most prominent statesman, he served as the Speaker of the national assembly , the third highest position in the phil commonwealth , and as Chief Justice during the japanese occupation, he is the only filipino who served in both capacities.

He ran for President, with Diosdado Macapagal as his VP, but lost the election while macapagal won and went on to become President..in the end he served as Marcos' Justice Secretary. Jose Yulo is also a prominent businessman, he created the Canlubang Sugar Estate in Laguna, which now house a mix use, residential, industrial complex,.. being run by his heirs...



The old-fashioned virtues
By Leon Ma. Guerrero
Free Press staff member
September 24, 1939

JOSE Yulo has most of the old-fashioned virtues.

He is intelligent. He passed the bar examinations at 19, was not given a license to practice law because he was under age. But in his thirties he was already topnotch Philippine corporation lawyer, helped draft the Philippine corporation law. His briefs were so logical and forceful that he seldom had to appear in person for his Big Business clients.

He is wealthy. A corporation lawyer is one lawyer that is sure of making money, if he is any good. Yulo’s income, before he became Secretary of Justice and had to abandon private practice, was estimated at about P50,000 a year. Shareholder in Negros sugar centrals, chairman of the board of the Philippine National bank (he has cut interest rates on loans, continues to show a good profit), he is still no pauper.

He is modest. Few men in Philippine public life are less known—through their own fault. Favorite adviser at Malacañang, he makes important statements—to the President. Front page copy for the last month, he has still to talk about himself. All that weary reporters can get from him is a noncommittal: “I do not cross my bridges until I come to them.” Not a streamlined slogan, just an old-fashioned proverb.

He is industrious. He has performed his official duties as Secretary of Justice, and his unofficial duties as right-hand man, with remarkable efficiency. He is seldom absent or late at his office in Malacañang. He has little use for the bright lights; probably can’t dance the tango very well. The last big party he gave was way back in 1934, that famous old-fashioned Filipiniana costume ball.

He is successful. Orphaned of his mother at six, of his father at 12, his life has been that of the Horatio Alger hero. He left his native Negros after finishing third year of high school, continued his studies in Manila, supporting himself doing odd jobs.

Copybook model boy

When he tried to enroll at the U.P. law school, the university authorities objected because he was only 16. Finally admitted, he found he had no money for textbooks. George Malcolm, then law dean, gave him a job in the college library.

Graduated with honors, he had to wait until he was 21 before he could practise. He worked with the firm of Bruce and Reed, a big U.S. firm of corporation lawyers, at P100 a month. Then he received an offer to become private secretary to Justice Adam Carson, at P300 a month.

It was a magnificent chance for easy work, high wages, and security. But Yulo turned down a chance for which 99 percent of this country’s young men would give their right arm. He was determined to make good alone, as a lawyer, outside the government service.

Bruce and Reed closed their Philippine branch. They retained Yulo as Philippine consultant, but it must have been a difficult time for the young lawyer. He received other offers from the government, of P230, P350, a month. He turned them all down.

In the end, and within a surprisingly short time, he made good.

Jose Yulo is the copybook model boy, the original Alger hero. To President Manuel Quezon, intent on the regeneration of the Filipino from the modern vices of frivolity and the easy-way-out, Yulo’s old-fashioned virtues look like heap powerful medicine.

Heir apparent

Last month the President proclaimed Yulo his heir apparent. On a tour of the southern islands, he conferred with Negros planters in Iloilo. “I want Yulo to be elected to the Assembly from Negros,” the President said in effect. “I want him to be the next Speaker.”

And then, just to show he was serious, the President joked: “If you do not support Yulo, I am willing to have him run in Tayabas.”

Subsequently the President denied he was trying to dictate to the future Second Assembly on its choice of a Speaker. But he did not make any strenuous efforts to deny that he would be very glad indeed, and very grateful, if Yulo were chosen.

It was a bombshell. Few Filipinos, outside of Manila and Negros government and social circles, had ever heard of Yulo. Certainly only those in the know had suspected that Yulo was that dear to the heart of the President, and that high in his regard.

But the Presidential proclamation spotlighted a pattern in past acts. The signs had been there to read.

When the first Commonwealth cabinet was organized, Yulo was invited to be Secretary of Justice. He was reluctant. The President insisted. Yulo finally accepted “at,” in his own phrase, “great financial sacrifice.”

The phrase became a favorite of satirists. But it was true. As Secretary of Justice, Yulo would get only P12,000 a year. As a corporation lawyer he was getting four times that amount.

Previously he had been offered the same portfolio by Gov. Gen. Dwight Davis and Gov. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt. Always he had declined.

He had left private life only shortly before the establishment of the Commonwealth. Gov. Gen. Frank Murphy, last of the American governors general, tried a third time to get his friend Joe to take the job. A third time Joe turned it down.

Then at a majority caucus, it was offered a fourth time.

“I do no think my services are indispensable at this time,” said Yulo.

“Indispensable!” cried Senate President Quezon. “Why, man, a new government will be established in the islands before the end of next year. You know what that means. The government needs all the good men that can possibly be mustered to fill positions of responsibility.”

Control of judiciary

“If it is a case of service and patriotic duty, then I accept,” Yulo gave in. “But only on one condition: that the department of justice be detached from politics; that this department be made responsible for making appointments from the post of justice of the peace to that of judge of the court of first instance.”

Yulo had his way, so thoroughly that now the department of justice is accused of playing judicial dictator. Yulo was mainly responsible for the commonwealth reorganization of judges, now assailed as unconstitutional by former Judge Francisco Zandueta. His complete control of the judiciary is one of the opposition’s main points of attack.

In fact, Yulo’s many secret enemies and detractors say he has most of the old-fashioned vices too. They say he nurses grudges, that he is unscrupulous, petty, that he is, against the law, keeping up his private practice of corporation law, under cover.

After his appointment to Murphy’s last, and then Quezon’s first, cabinet, Yulo disappeared from the newspapers except for inside sticks on departmental routine. But he was already an important and trusted Presidential adviser, well on the way to being no. 1. But the public heard more of Jorge Vargas, the Little President, or of Carlos P. Romulo, popular publisher of the DMHM newspapers.

It was not until the JPCPA that Yulo rocketed into publicity again. He was named chairman of the Filipino participation. But why had Yulo been named at all? The Secretary of Justice, theoretically at least, had less to do with economies and trade than, say, the Secretary of Agriculture and Commerce. And why, with such brilliant and recognized economists as Manuel Roxas on the committee, had Yulo been made chairman?

A plan was becoming apparent to build up Yulo.

For what? To be, as recently announced, the Speaker of the Second Assembly? Hardly. Gil Montilla, as Silent Speaker of a docile Assembly, left nothing to be desired. He was obedient, popular, generous. Under him, “cooperation” was smooth and complete.

Yulo build-up

The Speakership then was only another step in a gigantic build-up.

The conclusion was obvious: too obvious to escape political gossip. Manuel Quezon wanted Jose Yulo to be the next President of the Philippines.

But what of Sergio Osmeña, serene self-sacrificing Vice President? What of Manuel Roxas, dynamic leader, resourceful economist? What of Claro Recto, president of the constitutional convention, former associate justice, sagacious, conservative, hope of frightened businessmen?

The only logical answer is that Manuel Quezon is in much the same position as Franklin D. Roosevelt in the U.S.

Roosevelt is deep in a vast sociological experiment. His New Deal, if it is to become effective and permanent, must be kept going at full speed for a few more years. But FDR is bound by tradition to turn in his cards after two terms.

He does not trust conservative Jack Garner, his faithful but reactionary Vice President. He does not trust Jim Farley, his affable campaign manager, who would sabotage any ideal for a vote. He does not trust ambitious Paul McNutt, who has a mind of his own.

He must therefore either bust precedent and run for reelection or maneuver into power a man who thinks the way he thinks, such a man as “Dear Alben” Barkley, who has been built up to national prominence as floor leader of the senate.

In the same way, Manuel Quezon cannot trust Sergio Osmeña, the cryptic evolutionist, to carry out his Social revolution. Recto is hand in glove with Big Business; Roxas might go too far.

Who else then but quiet, dependable, faithful, Jose Yulo? As adviser no. 1 he is credited with drafting most of the President’s social justice legislation. Recently the sugar central with which he is connected took the lead in Negros and increased the planters’ share in the profits, on condition that the extra money be spent on the sugar serfs.

Like Barkley, Yulo will be built up in the legislature. And if Yulo cannot swing it, Quezon, like Roosevelt, is reported ready to run for reelection.

Can Yulo swing it?

He has most of the old-fashioned virtues. But he lacks the new-fashioned virtues. Above all, he lacks that modern virtue of virtues, personality. He lacks color, he lacks the human touch, that his patron enjoys in such abundance.

He will not miss it so much in a disciplined assembly.

Much of what he lacks in personal appeal will be made up by skillful incessant publicity. His wife, the charming and vivacious Cecilia Araneta, is niece of the owner, sister of the general manager, of the powerful DMHM newspapers and the only nationwide radio chain, Radio Manila. In fact the Aranetas are said to have bought their way into control of these organs of public opinion, precisely with Yulo’s build-up in mind.

Neither the DMHM nor Radio Manila can indeed give profits to attract sugarmen accustomed to yearly grosses of a million pesos. Both concerns were in fact losing money when the Aranetas got aboard them.

But both concerns will pay millions of pesos worth of dividends in publicity for a family in quest of power. They can make the old-fashioned virtues of Jose Yulo the earmarks of a modern hero.

Then, with Manuel Quezon sewing up the Nationalist convention; with business reassured by Yulo’s steadiness and appealing business connections; it will only be a question of counting the votes in 1941.

It’s a long way off. But one of the old-fashioned virtues is preparedness.

End

[SugarFreak]

January 23, 2008
Bacoleño wins international poetry competition

BACOLEÑO Raymundo T. Pandan, Jr. has just been awarded the 2007 Meritage Press Holiday Poetry Contest Honorable Mention Award for his poem, "An Explanation."

According to contest judge, renowned New York-based novelist and poet, Eric Gamalinda, "An Explanation" is a "quiet, elegant little poem that feels like an iceberg: beautiful, mysterious, larger than it seems."

Eileen Tabios, who runs the contest from her press in the United States, wrote Pandan that "{t}his was a highly-contested field with the most entrants in recent history. Only three winners were chosen, so please know that your accomplishment is impressive."

Past winners of this contest include Palanca Awards Hall of Famer Luisa A. Igloria, Academy American Poest Laughlin Award-winner Barbara Jane Reyes and multiple Palanca awardees Joel Toledo and Naya Valadellon.

Pandan, a Palanca awardee for poetry (2006) and a National Book Award Finalist (2005), is also the dean of the University of St. La Salle College of Law and a practicing lawyer in the City.

[SugarFreak]

A Kabankalan city museum in the making



It has been City Mayor Pedro P. Zayco, Jr.'s dream to have a museum in the city. This dream is now turning into reality.

The city is lucky to have already an existing building suitable for this proposed museum. It's not actually a new building but the former city hall ideally located in front of the city plaza. This building built in 1933 had been vacant for quite sometime when all the offices were transferred to the new city hall in Brgy. Talubangi.

But life has again been lately restored in the temporarily abandoned building after Mayor Zayco decided for the Information and Tourism office to occupy the building. The mayor wants the museum to be under the supervision of tourism. The transfer was an initial step towards this plan.

The former city hall is now a landmark in the city with its American colonial design and was built with durable hard wood. It's wide windows of Capiz shell and ornate ceiling

designs will be restored to its original state. The second floor of this building will be converted into a display area and will be provided by dividers and display racks while the ground floor will house the information office.

What is encouraging for this proposed museum according to tourism chief Vir Gerongani is the positive and spontaneous response from the public especially the young people.

When the people learned that a museum will be set up in the city many express a desire to donate their art pieces. Even the artists in the city are encouraged to form an organization confident the museum can give them assistance in their projects.

This early, the tourism office is already getting art donations from some of the residents and surprisingly the first donors are from the younger

generation. Our big thanks to Dave Zayco Tajanlangit, a young artist, who donated his abstract oil painting of Madonna and Child and oil on canvas painting of old jars.

Dave also donated three sculpted figures. A life-size clay sculpture of a squatting native in tribal attire and a terra-cotta figures of a sweepstakes vendor and a “katutubo” in ethnic attire.

Our thanks too to Keeney Jose Tañez of this city for his religious paintings which now adorn the walls of the tourism lobby.

President of Kabankalan Senior Citizen Association Rodolfo Garaygay also donated an antique mortar and pestle more than half-a-century old and a primitive corn grinder rarely seen these days.

These gestures from the city residents are good signs of their willingness to be a part of this art center that

will showcase the rich cutural heritage of Kabankalan. Our tourism office is now ready to accept donations of old art pieces, heirlooms, old pictures, etc. from the residents that can be displayed in our museum. These items will be properly labeled to identify donors.

[kyle@1008]

Alfonso Ossorio, the man behind the Angry Christ


The New York Times
Alfonso Ossorio, 74, Artist and Patron of the Arts


By GRACE GLUECK
Published: December 6, 1990

Alfonso Ossorio, an artist and art patron who created an internationally known arboretum and sculpture garden on his estate in East Hampton, L.I., died yesterday at New York University Medical Center. He was 74 years old.

Mr. Ossorio, who underwent heart surgery last year, died of a stroke, his longtime companion, Edward F. Dragon, said.

As an artist, Mr. Ossorio was a member of the New York School generation and close to several of its members, including Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and Clyfford Still. For a while in the 1950's, influenced by Pollock and Still, he painted in an Abstract Expressionist mode.

But in mid-decade, impressed with the deliberately crude materials-conscious work of the French painter Jean Dubuffet, he began the garish collage constructions -- he called them congregations -- for which he became known. They were built of such found materials as fake jewels, glass eyes, mirror shards, shells, bones, beads, buttons, plastic waste, antlers, horseshoes and so forth and set into refulgent beds of plastic glue and then richly varnished. The Richness of Everything

"The idea is to take the most ordinary things and make them extraordinary, as Gerard Manley Hopkins does in his poems," Mr. Ossorio once told an interviewer. "I want to show the richness of even the most disagreeable bits of life." The works, which anticipated the output of some of today's artists -- Julian Schnabel, for example -- received mixed reviews from critics but have found their way into many important museums, among them the Metropolitan, the Whitney, the Modern and the Guggenheim in New York.

Under Mr. Ossorio's aegis, "The Creeks," the 80-acre estate in East Hampton he bought in 1951 from the heirs of the mural painter Albert Herter, once again became the showplace that it had been when Herter owned it at the turn of the century. The house, a rambling mansion spectacularly situated on the edge of Georgica Pond, was strikingly painted red, white, blue and black. It was crammed with exotic birds, rare Persian rugs and a gamut of objects ranging from Spanish crucifixes to African drums, along with an imposing collection of contemporary paintings by himself and such artists as Dubuffet, Pollock and Still.

The grounds were planted with rare evergreens and other trees that Mr. Ossorio began to collect during the 1960's, and that now form a major arboretum of some 600 specimens. In the 1970's, he began to make large outdoor sculptures, of found objects and poured concrete, which he painted in bright colors. To lead the viewer's eye toward various plantings, he "decorated" the arboretum with these works, mingling large pieces in jarring colors with the greens of the trees. He enjoyed taking visitors on golf-cart tours of the arboretum, pointing out its major attractions. International Education

Mr. Ossorio was born in Manila on Aug. 2, 1916. His father started the first sugar refinery in central Philippines, the Victorias Milling Company on the island of Occidental Negros. The younger Ossorio attended private schools in England and the United States, and graduated from Harvard in 1938. He also attended the Rhode Island School of Design, and in 1939 was naturalized as an American citizen.

By then a full-time painter, Mr. Ossorio had two one-man shows, in 1941 and 1943, at the Wakefield Gallery in New York. From 1943 to 1946, he served as a medical illustrator in the Army. In 1950, he spent 11 months on Negros, where he did murals for a new church in the refinery village of Victorias.

When he returned to New York he met Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock, and in Paris around the same time he became friendly with Dubuffet. He collected the work of both artists, along with that of Still, all of whom influenced his own early paintings. To be near the Pollocks, Mr. Ossorio began spending summers in East Hampton in 1949, and two years later bought the Creeks. Art by 'Outsiders'

Meanwhile, with Dubuffet's help, he had several shows in Paris, and from 1952 to 1961, he housed and exhibited at the Creeks Dubuffet's extensive collection of art by prisoners, the insane and other so-called outsiders, known as L'Art Brut. The collection, now numbering some 6,000 pieces, is installed in a museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. In the 1950's and early 1960's, Mr. Ossorio had several shows at the prestigious Betty Parsons Gallery, which for a time handled Pollock's work. From a 1950 Pollock show at Parsons, Mr. Ossorio bought -- for $1,500 -- "Lavender Mist," a major canvas that he sold in 1976 to the National Gallery of Art in Washington at a price said to be more than $2 million.

In 1957, with the artists John Little and Elizabeth Parker, Mr. Ossorio founded the Signa Gallery, East Hampton's first commercial art showcase. Its mission in the town, which was then conservative, was to introduce local audiences to "new, significant contributions of the painting and sculpture of its day," including the work of Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline. Though it was a success, it closed in 1961 because of the advent of Pop art and the founders' devotion to other activities.

In the 1960's and early 70's, Mr. Ossorio had a number of shows at the Cordier and Ekstrom Gallery. But in the mid-70's, he began devoting his energies to the arboretum, selling the cream of his art collection to help pay for its development. In recent years, collector interest in his own work has grown, however, as evidenced by a highly successful Ossorio retrospective mounted last summer at the Benton Gallery in Southampton, L.I.

Mr. Ossorio is survived by his brothers, Roberto, of New York City, Eric, of Greenwich, Conn., and Jose, of Naples, Fla. A memorial service is to be held at the Creeks in the spring.

[habagatcentral1]

Kyle, do you know someone from Bacolod or in Negros Occidental who is a young heritage enthusiast?

[kyle@1008]

me... do really I look that old to you?

[habagatcentral1]

Hehehe!! But do you know other young people like you who is also into the Negrense heritage?

[kyle@1008]

well there's one girl...I know

[habagatcentral1]

Ok. Can you PM me the details (or just text me)? Are you in still in Biñan or in Bacolod right now? I want to talk to you about something. I'll be in Bacolod more frequent than ever.

[kyle@1008]

I'm still in binan, I'll be back in bacolod next month..I'll text you then...

[kyle@1008]

Mission To the East

Time Magazine 1981

an account of Pope John Paul II's Philippine tour in 1981..
where he visited the Manila, Cebu, Davao and Bacolod (berns I want that picture)...

Pope John Paul had his mass in Bacolod's reclamation area, where SM city bacolod now stands, so technically speaking the Mall is a holy site and oh the chair he used is on display at the la salle museum, if he becomes a saint that's considered a holy relic in catholic rite...
*****
The Pope on human rights—and wrongs

After eight international tours that have covered IS nations, tumultuous motorcades and clamoring multitudes have become familiar when Pope John Paul II is on the road. But the papal procession across the Philippines last week—his ninth foreign journey and his first to Asia—also displayed ample elements of stagecraft along with spontaneous outpourings of devotion.

On the one hand, there were memorable eruptions of unprogrammed exuberance. At Manila's Baclaran Church, John Paul's mere appearance sent 2,000 nuns into a wave of near ecstasy. During a pep rally at the University of Santo Tomás, tens of thousands of students lustily chanted "J.P. Two, We Love You—You Are Super." The highest pitch came in Cebu, the cradle of Philippine Catholicism, where the city's population doubled for the day. Thousands had waited in the open air since the previous night to catch a glimpse of the Pontiff.

There were also rehearsed spectacles that were part of a careful plan laid down by autocratic President Ferdinand Marcos and his powerful First Lady Imelda, who had much to gain from a festive association with John Paul. Everywhere, as if on cue, Filipinos were on hand to enact earnest welcoming playlets, sing, dance or pose as "tribesmen" in outdated garb. During one motorcade, a phalanx of trained water buffalo knelt in reverence just as the pontifical car swept by, while at another point a beaming bride and groom in a mock wedding paused in mid-ceremony to wave to the Pope from a bamboo roadside chapel.

Throughout, the Filipinos saw and heard a many-sided Pontiff. John Paul was, as always, the charismatic Pope who set multitudes cheering. He was the political Pope, at once scolding his presidential host with a sermon on human rights and admonishing priests and nuns against revolutionary activism. He was the diplomat-Pope, extending an olive branch to the People's Republic of China and appealing for Muslim-Christian harmony on blood-soaked Mindanao. He was the doctrinaire Pope, zealously condemning artificial birth control in a nation with one of the most rapidly growing populations on earth. And he was the pastoral Pope, fondly kissing each member of a delegation of deaf-mutes, or impishly chiding singers who struggled through a rendition of the song Sto Lat (100 Years) in Polish. "The melody is good," he laughed, "the words so-so."

It was the second papal visit in only a decade to Asia's one predominantly Christian nation. Pope Paul VI had gone in 1970, and narrowly escaped serious injury when a crazed man attacked him with a knife. John Paul, history's most traveled Pope, laid on a punishing 20,000-mile, twelve-day itinerary that included an initial stopover in Muslim Pakistan on the way to Manila, and was to be followed this week with a stop on Guam, four days in Japan, a touchdown in Anchorage, Alaska, and a first-ever papal flight over the North Pole en route to Rome.

The journey in the Philippines was officially billed as "pastoral," and included a beatification ceremony in Manila's Luneta Park. But the Pope knew he was ministering to a troubled flock. Just last month, in an effort to stave off criticism in advance of John Paul's visit, Marcos had slightly softened his autocratic rule by decreeing an end to more than eight years of martial law. It was largely an empty gesture; the President retains most of the government machinery in his own hands.

The long absence of democracy had deepened rifts in the country—rifts that have polarized the Philippine church. Some of the 7,000 nuns, 4,500 priests and 99 bishops support the Marcos regime, but many others openly criticize its social and economic priorities and have spoken out against political abuses or military atrocities in never ending counterinsurgency campaigns. Seeking to throw some sort of unity over this divided church has been Manila's Jaime Cardinal Sin, 52, who follows a policy toward the Marcos regime known as "critical collaboration." Lately, Sin has been more critic than collaborator, however.

Into this arrived John Paul II, carrying his own message of muscular but peaceful Christianity. He went to preach human rights to the Marcoses and moral obligations to the Philippine people, to speak of a revolution of the spirit rather than of the gun, to depoliticize the church and dissociate it from the political left and political right.

From the outset, the Pope wasted little time before plunging into polemics. Within eight hours of his rousing arrival at Manila International Airport, John Paul was feted at a formal reception in Malacanang Palace, the glittering presidential mansion. With the Marcoses seated stiffly at his side, he scolded the President in some of the sternest language that diplomacy admits. He said that he was pleased at "recent initiatives"—meaning the lifting of martial law—but proceeded to challenge the rationale upon which Marcos had built his strongman rule. "A legitimate preoccupation with the security of the state," warned the Pontiff, "could lead to the temptation to subjugate the people, their dignity and their rights to the state." Discarding a prepared reply, Marcos seemed chastened in his first response: "Forgive us, Holy Father. Now that you are here, we resolve that we shall wipe out all conflicts and set up a society that is harmonious, to attain the ends of God." After the Pope, the President, the First Lady and their two daughters had retired for a 50-minute conversation, Marcos emerged looking unusually solemn. He later went on television to report that in private the Pope had expressed concern over "the influence of the liberal as well as the Marxist elements in the church." Said Bishop Francisco Claver, an outspoken anti-Marcos progressive: "The visit is go ing as we government." feared. It's being used by the government."

It is a continuing paradox of John Paul's pontificate that he exerts profound personal political impact at the same time that he pleads for a less politi cized priesthood. In the Philip pines, that meant criticizing Marcos at the palace, while is suing, in meetings with nuns and priests, now familiar warnings against direct political action. Partisan politics and concerted social action, said John Paul, should be left to the lay Christians, while the clergy provides spiritual leadership.

The political tension was nowhere more evident than in a midweek visit to the Tondo section of Manila, one of the most notorious slums in Asia. It was there in 1970 that Paul VI had dramatically entered the shack of a modest laborer, Carlos Navarro, and had given him $500. Tondo this time became another Marcos stage setting. The Pope appeared in a square that had been beautified with a manicured park and freshly painted public housing. Just two blocks away lay the ram shackle shanties and filthy, un-Jubilant paved alleyways. In his speech, The John Paul renewed his plea to the who are "trapped in injustice and powerlessness." But, paradoxical again, he also cautioned the poor that "violence, class struggle or hate" cannot produce true liberation.

The failure of the papal party to explore the slum was due not only to stage-managing but to justified worries about the Pope's safety. Police had earlier received a tip that a religious cult was bent on assassinating John Paul. Jitters increased when a student plunged toward the Pope during the frenzied youth rally at Santo Tomas. Even before he reached the Philippines, during the stopover in Karachi, a handmade bomb had gone off, killing a man who appeared to have been holding it just before John Paul arrived to celebrate a stadium Mass for 100,000.

After Tondo, the Pope moved to the bayside park for the lavish outdoor beatification, the first held outside Rome in modern times, for 16 martyrs slain for trying to preach the Gospel in 17th century Japan. One of them from the Philippines, Lorenzo Ruiz, thus became his country's first candidate for sainthood. That night, after the ceremony, at a meeting with ethnic Chinese from several Asian nations, John Paul issued his most direct appeal yet for normalized church relations with Peking. "Whatever difficulties there have been," he said, "they belong to the past, and now it is the future that we have to look to." From China, however, came a less than enthusiastic initial response. Bishop Michael Fu of Peking, a spokesman for China's "Patriotic" church, which broke ties with the Vatican more than two decades ago, said: "It will be very difficult to alter the present situation." For one thing, he asked, was the Vatican prepared to end its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan?

After a bit of sleep, the Pope was off to the port city of Cebu, where the chaplain to Explorer Ferdinand Magellan said the Philippines' first Mass in 1521. There John Paul was accorded his most thunderous welcome. Cheering, weeping crowds along the route engulfed the papal car. The jubilant procession carried the Pontiff to an airfield, where he celebrated Mass beneath an 80-ft. cross carved from the trunk of a palm. Prominent on the altar, in the Pope's honor, was a replica of Poland's omnipresent Black Madonna, constructed of butterfly wings.

There John Paul reaffirmed his stern opposition to priests marrying, divorce, polygamy, abortion and artificial birth control. Filipinos have one of the world's highest population growth rates (2.6% a year), and the sermon was another rebuke to the Marcos government, which has pressed for family planning and voluntary sterilization.

The most grueling leg of the trip was an island-hop to five cities in the central and southern archipelago. John Paul encountered a notably more subdued reception at Davao, on the island of Mindanao where 60,000 people have died since 1972 in a Muslim insurrection. After a Mass for Catholics, John Paul met 65 Muslim representatives who had come from other parts of Mindanao. He made an eloquent plea for an end to warfare and interreligious discord. The entire world, he said, "needs to see fraternal coexistence between Christians and Muslims in a modern, believing and peaceful Philippine nation."

Next he was off to Bacolod, a region of sugar plantations and grinding rural poverty, where Communists have been gaining influence. Nearly 200,000 Filipinos were on hand as John Paul declared: 'The church will not hesitate to take up the cause of the poor and to become the voice of those who are not listened to when they speak up, not for charity but for justice." He also said it is inadmissible to use the gift of land to serve the few, while "the vast majority are excluded from the benefits the land yields." But again he warned against political violence and class struggle.

What impact would the Pope's alternating pleas for social justice and cautions against activism have upon the highly politicized Philippine priests and nuns? Sister Pilar Verzoza, who had opposed the whole idea of the papal visit because it would help Marcos, paused to ponder the Pope's statements as she made her social welfare rounds in a Manila slum. "We're certainly not going to be closing our eyes to the injustices around us." Added her colleague, Sister Christine Tan, "I will study what he says, and then decide whether it is true."

Whatever the sisters and other activists decide about John Paul's social stands, none would deny that he had been crystal clear on one issue. Under Marcos, strikes are forbidden and labor unions are government-controlled. Thus it was a final act of outspoken opposition when the Pope strongly upheld the right of workers to organize free trade unions and "guarantee the pursuit of their social welfare." If the word Solidarity did not cross his lips, Poland and its laborers could not have been far from his thoughts.

—By Richard N. Ostling. Reported by Ross H. Munro and Wilton Wynn/Manila

With reporting by Ross H. Munro, Wilton Wynn

[habagatcentral1]

I don't have the copy of Totus Tuus book. I think Arnold (LordCarnal) has. Yup, at the present site of SM Bacolod was the mass for Bacolod in 1981 when PJP2 went here. It was full of people and there was a signage there stating "City of the Future". Why, Cebu's Asiatown IT Park also sits on holy ground. Nothing was left of the said momentous event.

What I really like there was the merger of 2 social extremes all in the name of Faith.

[Christendom]

March 3, 2008
AAB schedules series of activities

The Art Association of Bacolod-Negros is gearing up for several major shows and competitions this year starting with a group exhibit at the Negros Museum in Bacolod City entitled “Dagway Sang Babaye” which opens March 17 and runs until April 5.

The show, in celebration of the March Month of Women, aims to be an artistic tribute to women and their role in different aspects of society and as some of the beautiful creations of God, a press release from the group said.

The group, led by AAB-Negros president Nunelucio Alvarado and founder Edgardo “Budot” Lizares, will participate in the Diamond Jubilee of the Diocese of Bacolod with the San Sebastian Cathedral as subject of a group show tentatively scheduled on April 2, it added.

The works will be exhibited at the right belfry and choir loft of the church which will be converted into a walkway museum, the release said. The show will be entitled “Simbalay,” the name means house of God and house of men, especially the poor, it said.

The release said AAB is also scheduled to exhibit starting April 1 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The works will again proclaim the vitality of the Negrense art community.

The group will also participate over the coming GSIS national painting competition which was officially launched last February 20 at the GSIS Museum in Pasay City, it added.

This year, AAB has been invited by the Philippine Consulate in Athens, Greece, as part of the June celebration of the Philippine Independence Day, to hold an exhibit entitled “Kadalag-an, Kahilwayan, Kauswagan,” scheduled June 7-15, the release said.

The show, that will showcase the rich socio-cultural heritage of the Negrenses and the beauty of their island, will travel to other Greek cities in a 3-month arts festival, it added.*

[Christendom]

March 6, 2008
Piano studio holds annual contest

The Annual Memory and Sightplaying Piano Contest to develop the skills of students was held by the SOJ Music Studio, at Greensville II, Bacolod City, recently, a press release from the studio said.

Performing from memory allows the students to express themselves spontaneously without relying on a printed page, while sight playing fluency enables them to perform a musical composition at first sight, without previous practice.

First to fourth place winners and their respective categories were: Elementary A – Robert Gerard Uy, Audrey Su, Kyla Rae Jolingan, Emilee Caye Garingalao and Bea Marie Tabligan; Elementary B – Timothy John Ureta, Janice Francyne Uychiat, Louis Miguel Lo, and Errika Carmela Uychiat;

Elementary C – Hazel Arabelle Javellana, Christian Genon, Jessa Ivana Sian, and Samantha Nicole Leonardia; Elementary D – Kathrina Layon, Dane Marie Debulgado, Victorino Alcala II, Felix Kevin IV and Paulene Joy Ramirez;

Elementary E – Maria Rosarita Mesina, Raphael Joseph Ledesma, Judy Grace Baniquet, and Leandro Montilla; Elementary F – Jobert Chong, Michelle Marie Baylon, Paul Ryan Labra, and Nadine Noelle Agraviador;

Intermediate A – Loreanne Novem Loriezo, Dana Lei Zabala, and Natalie Yao; Intermediate B – Ezra Magallona, Daniela Marie Mesina, Maria Jessica Mesina, and Joanne Grace Liu, the press release said.

Adjudicators were April Joy Ponce de Leon, and Ann Carmona, the press release added.*

[Christendom]

March 10, 2008
‘Sitti Smiles’ in Bacolod March 15

Bossa Nova vocalist Sitti Navarro will take center stage in “Sitti Smiles” at the Grand Ballroom, Sugarland Hotel, in Bacolod City, on Saturday, a press release from organizers said.

Special items and a P100,000 accident insurance coverage also await the audience, in the show aimed at raising funds for the Negros Cultural Foundation.

Sitti has become one of the most promising vocalists of her generation. At 16, she made her rounds in topnotch show venues around Metro Manila and created a following whenever she performed, the press release said.

She has also performed in Naga City, Tuguegarrao and Lucena City, among others. In 2006, Sitti recorded her first 18-track CD titled, “Café Bossa,” and performed in Australia, Malaysia and Guam.

For show inquiries and ticket reservations, interested parties may call Tel. Nos. (034) 708-2892 or 639066489408, or email to strategiceventspro@yahoo.com,” the press release added.*

********************************

Int’l film fest in Bacolod set

Believing in the “healthy culture” of artists in Bacolod, a group of movie directors will stage an international film festival in the city this year.

Open to high school and college students, the .MOV International Digital Film Festival’s “silvershorts” division, which was launched last week, is the first in Bacolod, Paolo Villaluna, a member of the Independent Filmmakers’ Cooperative, which sponsors the event along with Robinson’s Movieworld, said.

Villaluna, who directed the digital movie Selda, starring celebrities like Ara Mina and Michael de Mesa, said, one reason they will hold the festival in Bacolod is the “healthy relationship between independent filmmakers here.”

The contest is in its third installation and will award a P100,000, P50,000, and P30,000 cash prizes for the top three 20-minute digital films in the “silvershorts” category in September in Bacolod.

In a written statement, the festival’s director, Khavn de la Cruz, said, despite the challenges of government bureaucracy and the limitations of funding, they continued to work for digital films because “they believe this is just what Philippine cinema needs.”

“.MOV is here because we believe there is hope still for Philippine Cinema. Our aim is to provide venue where digital storytellers can bring their personal visions to a wider audience” and “help unleash new talents who will infuse new blood” to it, De la Cruz said.

Students who wish to join the film festival may contact Donna Plugio through 09282220987 or through 632-395-2188 locals 230 and 240.*PP

[kyle@1008]

anyways old houses in silay city...

[kyle@1008]

old bacolod..

Originally Posted by JEFFjr_25

Old Bacolod pics... Sneak into the past.

Araneta Street in front of the Old City Hall in 1953


Bacolod Plaza, April 1, 1929


Philippine National Bank along Araneta St.

[kyle@1008]

Originally Posted by jaywalker

Sacred Heart Church (Lupit Church)
Bacolod City

image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr

....

[jaywalker]

Bacolod's Branch Old Central Bank Building

[jaywalker]

Silay City