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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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…
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The city remembers the woman in yellow
It was been more than 5 months now since former Philippine President Corazon C. Aquino passed away after a long bout with cancer. Not to mention the “yellow fever” that came along with that. Which has led to a chain of events in which the details would lead us astray from the topic here at hand. And for those who are still stricken or just had about enough of the yellow fever, guess what. Cory magic is here again as the country commemorated on January 25 what would have been the 77th birthday of the woman we know as Cory, the woman in yellow.
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Going postal at the Post Office Building
Here in this part of Manila called Lawton, or Liwasang Bonifacio as it’s officially called nowadays, you simply cannot miss this imposing edifice proudly standing along the banks of the River Pasig. Yes, I’m referring to the grand old Manila Central Post Office Building, the head office of the Philippine Postal Corporation who is the by itself sadly one of the few remaining landmarks of American-influenced neo-Classical architecture in the country. Having risen after a devastating war and an in the midst of an ever-changing (and sadly deteriorating) landscape that Manila experienced over the years, it’s good to know that the Post Office Building is still standing proud and has…