The King's good servant, but God's first

Early in his life, English lawyer, statesman, scholar, and writer Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535) was torn between a monastic life and a life of civil service. He became a Carthusian monk but eventually, his desire to serve his country won out and he entered the field of politics after three years. His thirty-year political career was tumultuous and controversial, and when he refused to swear to the 1534 Act of Succession and Act of Supremacy, which declared King Henry VIII the supreme head of the Church of England, More was tried, found guilty of treason and beheaded. For the same reasons that he was beheaded, Thomas More was canonized as a Catholic saint in 1935 and he is considered the patron of lawyers and politicians. It is therefore not surprising that the chapel in the Ateneo Professional Schools (law, business, government, and medicine and public health) in Makati City is named the Chapel of Saint Thomas More.

Floating fish

We saw a new restaurant in Harbour Square during our last visit, but afloat on Manila Bay rather than being a part of the complex. Does it look like it can actually sail? Even if it doesn't, if the dining area overlooks the bay, it might still be worth trying out. Mahi-mahi (Coryphaena hippurus) is a large fish found in warm seas; its flesh is firm, white and very tasty.

See what's reflecting what at James' Weekend Reflections.

A Spaniard in a Roman plaza in Manila

In front of the Manila Cathedral is a small park with a fountain and a bronze statue. During the Spanish colonial period, the open space was called the Plaza Mayor and was the site of bull fights and other public events. In 1797, the Spanish Governor-General of the Philippines Rafael Maria de Aguilar y Ponce de Leon turned it into a garden. The bronze statue of Carlos IV, king of Spain from 1788 to 1808, was installed in 1824 as a tribute for his sending the first smallpox vaccine to the Philippines. During the American period, the park was named Plaza McKinley after William McKinley, who was then the president of the United States. Since 1960, it has been called Plaza Roma because of a reciprocal agreement between the Philippine government and the Vatican (there's supposed to be a Piazza Manila somewhere in Rome).



The Intramuros Administration says that they refurbished the park in 1980. I think it's about time that they reconditioned the bronze statue again.

Lanes? What lanes?

Light traffic on Quezon Avenue, one of Metro Manila's longest thoroughfares—the white Quezon Memorial in the distance marks one end of the road—on a Sunday. Most of our roads don't have bike lanes so bicycles share the road with all other vehicles, even though they're really not supposed to be allowed on the major roads anyway. The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) closed off most intersections and instead created U-turn slots; to make sure that turning cars have a lane to drive onto, they set up concrete blocks to keep a lane free, but the blocks themselves eat up into the next lane, creating bottlenecks wherever there are U-turn slots. Major roads have bus and jeepney stops, but since this is a Sunday, there are no traffic enforcers so buses and jeepneys drop off and pick up passengers anywhere. Taxis can do that any time since, with the exception of Makati City, there are no designated stops for them in the metro. And also because of the absence of traffic enforcers, pedestrians are free to risk life and limb crossing at street level, which most would rather do than walking the additional hundred meters to the nearest blue and pink overpass, which is where I took this photo. Imagine what this street looks like during the weekdays. So if you ever hear that Filipinos are some of the world's best defensive drivers, now you know why.

Local

Manila has a local version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame: the Eastwood City Walk of Fame, located in the mixed use complex that is Eastwood City in Quezon City.

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Calling all City Daily Photo bloggers yet again! Time flies by so fast and it's less than a week until our next theme day. The theme for February 1 is Wood. (I'm going to like this one again. I love the many textures of wood!) The poll for the March theme closes on January 31, so please vote and spread the word!

A statement

Yesterday was the birthday of former president Corazon Aquino, who died on August 1, 2009. She would have been 77. According to our newspapers, more than 400 Masses were offered for her, in the Philippines and in cities all over the world with large Filipino communities. I think that the overwhelming tribute for her these past few months since her death is not really a statement about her effectiveness as a president, which some people would question (but to be fair, her presidency was extremely tough, coming as it did after more than two decades of Ferdinand Marcos' dictatorial rule). Rather, it is a reflection of how we Filipinos are (finally) yearning for ethical leaders, especially after the countless corruption accusations that have rocked this current government.


Yellow has always been Cory's color. Instead of wearing yellow shirts, most people nowadays sport a little yellow ribbon pin to show their support for the ideals that Cory embodied. One of Cory's former doctors gave away these yellow fans with ribbon-shaped handles made of handmade paper at the Mass and tribute that my husband and I attended yesterday.

Kapamilya

ABS-CBN is one of the largest radio and television broadcast and entertainment networks in the Philippines. It owns The Filipino Channel, an international broadcasting service whose two million subscribers are mostly overseas Filipino workers and their families. Its head office is located in Quezon City and the ELJ Center, one of the buildings in its huge compound, houses the executive offices and a few cafés on the ground floor. It also has a very good restaurant on the 14th floor named 9501 and I took this picture from the roof deck just off the restaurant. And if you're wondering about my title, "Kapamilya" is the network's slogan and it means "a member of the family."

Yellow diamonds

Another photo from Sofitel Philippine Plaza Manila, this time of the lights under the canopy of the driveway. Just because I like the pattern that they make. It's amazing what one notices when one's a little tipsy.

We await you still

This statue of the young Jose Rizal, Philippine national hero, is in the Ateneo de Manila High School and a gift of Class 1997. The inscription at the base is a quotation from Rizal's second novel El Filibusterismo, published in 1891, and spoken by the priest Father Florentino in the concluding chapter:

Where are the youth who will consecrate their golden hours, their dreams, and their enthusiasm to the welfare of their native land? Where are the youth who will generously pour out their blood to wash away so much shame, so much crime, so much abomination? Pure and spotless must the victim be that the sacrifice may be acceptable! Where are you, youth, who will embody in yourselves the vigor of life that has left our veins, the purity of ideas that has been contaminated in our brains, the fire of enthusiasm that has been quenched in our hearts? We await you, O Youth! Come, for we await you!

I feel like howling

A full moon over the Hotel Sofitel Philippine Plaza Manila. Sofitel is located in the same complex as the Cultural Center of the Philippines and overlooks Manila Bay and its beautiful sunsets. Its flagship restaurant is Spiral, famous in the metro for its huge buffet spread. Its bar, 7Pecados by the Bay, I've featured quite a few times already.

Visit the Sky Watch Friday home page and tour the skies of our beautiful world.

Artistic temperament

We've all heard about how artists of all kinds can be very emotional and temperamental. It probably isn't true of many artists, but by all accounts, it was true of Juan Luna (October 23, 1857 – December 7, 1899), the painter of yesterday's Spoliarium. Born in the town of Badoc in the province of Ilocos Norte, Luna was discharged from one art school in Manila because he refused to follow what his teacher wanted, and he left another in Madrid because he didn't like their teaching style. He married Maria de la Paz Pardo de Tavera in 1886 and they settled in Paris. Only six years later, Luna, in a fit of jealousy, killed his wife and mother-in-law, and wounded his brother-in-law. This small sketch of Juan Luna hangs in the Luna and Hidalgo Gallery of the National Art Gallery, where the Spoliarium is also located. I now forget if this was a self-portrait or drawn by an artist friend. It was done in Rome in 1879, before the Spoliarium and before the marriage, and he does not yet have the handlebar mustache of his later portraits and photos.

The painting that launched a revolution

The Spoliarium of Juan Luna (October 23, 1857 – December 7, 1899) is perhaps the most famous painting in the Philippine National Art Gallery. Measuring 4 meters high and 7 meters wide, Luna entered the painting in the 1884 Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes in Madrid, where it won a gold medal. John Silva, writer, museum consultant, and advocate for the arts and heritage preservation, describes the Spoliarium thus:

The painting’s brooding dark canvas exudes tragedy. The scene is the exit room of the Roman Colosseum called the Spoliarium, hence its name. The injured and dying gladiators are being dragged in. To the far right, a woman is half-sprawled on the floor, with her back turned to us. We do not see her face, but her crouch, her hands seemingly to her face, her head bowed and despondent, reveals only sorrow. To the far left we see Romans cheering on the next batch of gladiators in this blood-letting sport. It is barbarism captured on canvas…

In the same 1884 Madrid exhibition, another Filipino artist, Felix Resureccion Hidalgo, also won a second place silver medal for his painting Virgenes Cristianas Expuestas al Populache (Christian Virgins Exposed to the Masses). Both paintings were seen as a critical allegory of Filipinos under the yoke of Spanish colonial rule. During the celebration of this double victory several weeks later, Jose Rizal, who was close to both artists, gave a toast congratulating them and proceeded to declare a manifesto of Filipino political equality with their colonial masters. It was because of this speech (collected in the book "20 Speeches that Shaped the Nation" selected and with introductions by Manuel L. Quezon III) that Rizal came to be branded a rebel by Spanish authorities, and it was also soon after this speech that he began writing "Noli Me Tangere." And thus was the road paved that would lead Jose Rizal to Bagumbayan for his execution and his proclamation as a national hero.

One final note about the Spoliarium: Since 1885, the painting was in Barcelona, having been bought by the provincial government for 20,000 pesetas. In 1937, it was sent to Madrid for restoration after it was damaged during the Spanish Civil War. In 1958, General Francisco Franco gifted the painting to the Philippines and it was shipped to Manila in three pieces. It was unveiled in the Department of Foreign Affairs in December 1962.

Obviously, my photo does not do the painting justice. Despite having darkened much since Juan Luna first painted it more than a century ago, standing in the same room as the gigantic (both in size and historical significance) Spoliarium is still an awesome experience.

Home supermarket

As I mentioned when I posted a picture of the Ortigas Home Depot, the concept of one-stop home improvement centers is relatively new in Metro Manila, though they are quite common now. Ace Builders Center, an international franchise, is a daughter company of SM, that proponent of gigantic malls, and their stores can be found in all of SM's largest malls. Unlike Home Depot, Ace doesn't carry the bigger construction pieces like lumber or doors, but you'll still be able to find most of what you need for home improvement projects. I can spend many happy hours in this store, including drooling over power tools that I have yet to gather enough courage to learn how to use.

Formal Mini

It's not everyday that I see a Mini Cooper on the streets of Manila either. Don't you think that it complements last week's party pug so well? It's not surprising because they're owned by the same person. These two photos were from last year's Ateneo de Manila University's sesquicentennial launch in Intramuros and I had forgotten about them until I decided to organize my files two weekends ago. The Mini Cooper was part of the classic car motorcade but came late and wasn't parked in front of the Manila Cathedral. I remember that I didn't include it in my post about the classic cars because its orientation vis-à-vis the street was different. (Yes, I admit that I can be O-C about stuff like that.)

Find more Odd Shots—or post your own—at Katney's Kaboodle.