The year 2011 marks the quadricentennary of the Philippines’ oldest university continuously in existence: the University of Santo Tomas. Throughout its history, it has truly come a long way to become one of the country’s leading educational institutions. But this journey would not have been possible in the first place had it not been in the will of Manila’s 3rd Archbishop Miguel de Benavides that he would bequeath his library and property for the establishment of an educational institution. It would be 6 years after his death in 1605, that this dream was fully realized with the founding of what was then known as the Colegio Seminario de Santo Tomas…
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Via Crucis at Bonifacio High Street
For Catholics, particularly in a country as predominantly Catholic as ours, the Lenten Season has been highly regarded as a special occasion to commemorate the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. To commemorate this occasion, one gets to witness a number of interesting Lenten traditions that are being practiced. One of which is the Via Crucis or the Way of the Cross, where one gets to go on some path and do a stopover on each “station” which portrays an event in Christ’s Passion and Death. (and in some versions, His Resurrection) These stations are portrayed in various ways depending where you wish to do the Via Crucis: it…
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in memoriam: Manong Pepe’s Karinderia
I originally never thought of writing an entry about this little fastfood chain called Manong Pepe’s Karinderia. Besides, I thought it’s going to be some success for a long while and I can get into writing about it at some point in time. To think that this fastfood chain only got its start in 2007 with a branch at the EDSA Central Complex, (at the EDSA Central Market building to be exact) the fact that Manong Pepe’s got to a network of 20 branches (all in Metro Manila) throughout that 3+ years of operations is a testament to its growing popularity, not to mention the potential it has of being…
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La Mesa and the struggle for a greener metropolis
Once upon a time, much of the area we know now as Metropolitan Manila was a heavily forested area lying on the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountain range in Eastern Luzon. The situation changed beginning the 1960’s and the growing urbanization of the metropolis that arose beginning that period. The thick forests had to give way to business districts and residential complexes to meet the growing needs of a growing population. There is, however, one significant part of the metropolis that still has its forested vegetation intact, which happens to be the most important part of the metropolis. The area we are referring to here would be the La…