Brave
Black Goes Down in History
"I guess we should not forget the six-foot black deserter
from the
American forces, David Fagan, who fought the enemy
and carried the rank
of captain in the Filipino forces".
Circumcision
is no Laughing Matter
"Barney noted that this ancient custom probably had
its roots in Muslim
tradition in which males are circumcised by priests
in a religious
ceremony, making them eligible for marriage.
What he couldn't
understand was the fact that circumcision has no religious
association
for Catholic Filipinos; "neither is it among them
done on any account of
cleanliness but from custom and disinclination to
be ridiculed. The
friars were not able to root out the custom as it
was an ugly subject to
treat from the pulpit."
Deflating
the Historical Ego
"Rizal did get good grades at the Ateneo, but at the
University of Santo Tomas --
well, let's just say he wasn't as great a student
as he's been made out to be."
Demythologizing
Rizal
The original Spanish is florid and corny, so much
the better to veil
Rizal's "educational-observation" trips to the brothels.
I use a
translation by the Jose Rizal Centennial Commission
because if I
translate these notes to their bare essentials, it
will appear as if I
were trying to denigrate Rizal. What one should
keep in mind while
reading Viola is that these recollections were not
written in 1886 but
in 1913, so many years after the actual events.
Rizal was already the
national hero and so, Viola had to paint a dignified
picture of his
friend. It is because of writings like these
that Rizal has become a
figure of myth to today's Filipinos.
Filipino
Machismo
Our indios bravos in Spain carried a chip on their
shoulders. But I
think more than the issue of racial prejudice, they
wanted to fight
duels hoping to earn a visible scar or two -- to display
as a bade of
courage and as a charm supposedly irresistible to
women. How's that for
nineteenth century pinoy machismo?
Irony
of the Tragedy
History acts in a similar way when it comes to remembering
people. If
the attempt of someone to kill a president is successful,
then both
names of the victim and the murderer enter our history
books; if not
both, both can be forgotten. Who remembers now
the historical marker on
Hole 7 of the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club where
Laurel was shot,
almost fatally, on June 5, 1943.
Kuwentong
Kutsero
When I was a child I never understood why, in directing
drivers, old
people said “mano” to turn right or “silla” to turn
left. These words
literally mean “hand” and “chair.” One cannot
use the terms with a
Spanish taxi driver who responds to izquierda (left)
and derecho
(right). As a matter of strange fact, derecho
in the Philippines means
to go straight!
The
Marcos Karate Chop
In a statement issued shortly after the incident,
Mrs. Marcos said her
husband delivered the life-saving karate chop with
his left hand (FM was
left-handed) and pushed the pope away from the attacker
with his right.
The pope was shoved towards Mrs. Marcos who
saw the assassin’s kris
fall. She even bent to pick up a crucifix that
fell. Other people
corroborated this story and even added that aside
from the famous karate
chop, Marcos even tried to give a flying kick to Mendoza".
Recto's
Rizal Bill
We do not remember how some members of the Catholic
hierarchy found 170
passages in Noli and 50 in Fili offensive to the Catholic
faith. They reaffirmed that
Catholics should read selected passages from Rizal's
work, but to compel Catholics to
read the unexpurgated version was forcing heresy on
them and constituted a violation
of freedom of conscience.