Located along the southeastern end of the City of Manila is the district known to many as Santa Ana. Or as it proudly states on its welcome marker, “the historic community of Santa Ana.” Santa Ana by itself has a colorful past that has much been overlooked other than its repuation of having a race track which is NOT evenlocated in the area. (and the race track itself today is no longer in operation, but that’s another story)
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spending an alternative Valentine’s affair: Chinese Lunar New Year
Just when you thought Valentine’s weekend (which by itself is somewhat a rare occurence) would find yourself limited to being caught in crowds of couples flocking into the metropolis’ usual romantic haunts, and/or if you yourself do not feel like spending Valentine’s either, it was nice to get an alternative occasion to celebrate: the Lunar New Year which our fellow Filipino-Chinese brethren celebrated that same weekend. What better way to celebrate it than to pay a visit to the place which is the heart and soul of the Filipino-Chinese community: the Manila Chinatown.
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in memoriam: the old Magnolia/Nestle Ice Cream House
My personal recollection of this place was my habit of looking at it whenever we go to Cubao and pass by this landmark. Growing up with fondness for ice cream and the old Magnolia (who can forget their ice cream and bottled Chocolait?) it was unfortunate that I didn’t get to set foot in the place throughout my childhood. My only satisfaction back then was to get a good view of what I considered a piece of heaven to, at the very least, satisfy a desire that I could not attain at that time. Some though were lucky to get to eat or spend a party in this place back then. During the 1980’s, it was…
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commemorating the first shot of the Philippine-American war
At this time, we marked the 111th anniversary of the outbreak of the Filipino-American war, part of a chain of events that began way before of how we ended up being screwed by the Americans who were in the processing of building their own colonial empire and became their “little brown American brothers” regardless of the positives and negatives that were borne out of these events. For those who at least still remember those lessons in Philippine history way before, we were told that the Filipino-American war began on February 4, 1899 when an American soldier named Willie Grayson fired that first shot. Depending on which book you read, Grayson…