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A morning stroll around Tuguegarao
Tuguegarao’s market, the hub of commerce for the capital city and nearby towns in the province of Cagayan, northern Luzon, is a quintessential site in provincial commercial centers with vendors preparing their produce and products to be sold for the day. Bags of pansit and bean sprouts were being unloaded for pansiterias to cook the city’s famous noodle dish, pansit batil potun, widely known as pansit batil patong, while early marketgoers visited the local karinderyas serving dishes such as igado and dinardaraan. An ambulant street-side stall sold meryenda or even breakfast fares best served with coffee — puto, suman, cassava cake, and the made-to-order bibingka of many kinds. [caption id="attachment_176530" align="aligncenter" width="525"] Horno ruins (Photo by Edgar Allan M. Sembrano)[/caption] All activities radiated from the multi-level market which spans one block, a landmark to behold not architecturally but for the space it occupies and the important function it and its immediate areas serve to the community. After all, Tuguegarao is still “the best pueblo for commerce in the valley,” as noted in the early 20th century by Dominican priest Valentin Marin. At the city center, there are quite a number of wooden and mid-20th century bahay na bato which breaks the monotony of the modern concrete structures. Of course, Tuguegarao is known for the San Pedro Cathedral, the seat of the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao, and the much smaller Ermita de Piedra de San Jacinto, both made of bricks and built by the Dominicans during the Spanish colonial period. [caption id="attachment_176532" align="aligncenter" width="525"] Our Lady of Chartres Chapel (Photo by Edgar Allan M. Sembrano)[/caption] The Tuguegarao Cathedral was built from 1761 to 1766 by Fr. Antonio Lobato de Santo Tomas who also built the convent, belfry, a famed bridge, large lime-and-brick kilns, and the 25 parallel streets crisscrossed with the same number of streets forming a grid pattern. The same priest also contributed to the literary scene in the region with his Ibanag-Spanish dictionary, Ibanag grammar, and Ibanag devotional treatises. Cagayan is home to the Ibanag people as well as other ethnic groups such as the Itawes and the Ilocano. The San Jacinto chapel meanwhile was built in 1724, making it 'the oldest' structure in Tuguegarao. It still has its original wooden retablo and an iron fence installed in 1890 by Fr. Romulado Aguado, Tuguegarao’s parish priest that year. It is located east of the Colegio de San Jacinto, now the campus of the St. Paul University Philippines, originally the Colegio de San Pablo founded in 1907 by the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres. [caption id="attachment_176531" align="aligncenter" width="525"] Old building at USL (Photo by Edgar Allan M. Sembrano)[/caption] It was in 1934 that the school transferred to the site of the Colegio de San Jacinto from the Cathedral’s convent following their purchase of the colegio’s property. The colegio was located west of the chapel, the area of which is now part of College Avenue and the SPUP campus. That colegio originally served as the Colegio de Santa Imelda, an all-girls school which operated from 1892 to 1898 and was later converted into the Colegio de San Jacinto, a school for boys from 1901 to 1932. The girl’s college building was erected in 1890 under the direction of Fr. Dionisio Casas, the Dominican Provincial Vicar of that time with plans drawn by a certain Fr. Bruges and funds from the Dominican Province of the Holy Rosary. The front façade measures 75 meters while the side facades of the E-shaped edifice measures 25 meters each. The building is 17 meters wide and 10 meters high. It was of the bahay na bato style where the first level was made from stone and second level of wood. The project cost P75,000. Apart from the school building, then the biggest in the province, there used to be a separate wooden house in the area for the use of the Father Vicar. Both buildings no longer exist today. At present, the SPUP with its sprawling campus is host to many buildings including the impressive Gothic —inspired Our Lady of Chartres Chapel built in the second half the 20th century. During the Spanish colonial period, Tuguegarao was noted to have a carcel (jail), casa tribunal (court house), and schools, all of excellent construction. Today, the jail and courthouse house the Cagayan Museum and Historical Research Center which is at present being renovated. In front of this complex is the Rizal Park with the Rizal Monument. Rizal’s monument replaced that of Fr. Lobato de Santo Tomas in 1918. [caption id="attachment_176529" align="aligncenter" width="525"] Fr. Theophiel Verbist monument (Photo by Edgar Allan M. Sembrano)[/caption] Fronting Rizal Park is the old government center of Tuguegarao, now the Tuguegarao East Central School with the American-era municipio reused as one of the buildings of the school. Few blocks from Tuguegarao’s plaza complex are two brick hornos separated by a covered basketball court. Tuguegarao’s other horno is located in the same village (Barangay Centro 9) at the edge of the Pinacanauan River. These kilns produced lime and bricks for the construction of the city’s Spanish colonial buildings such as the church complex and the cemetery portal, walls and chapel. [caption id="attachment_176527" align="aligncenter" width="525"] Cagayan High School (Photo by Edgar Allan M. Sembrano)[/caption] During the American period, public buildings such as schools were also built. These include the Gabaldon-style Cagayan High School Building and the Cagayan Valley College of Arts and Trades. The Cagayan High School Building still exists to this day while the campus of the Cagayan college which is located in front of the former is now the Cagayan State University after its merger with the Northern Luzon College of Agriculture in 1972 through Presidential Decree 1436. The CSU campus now houses a number of overly decorated buildings, perhaps it most unique feature. [caption id="attachment_176528" align="aligncenter" width="525"] Ermita de San Jacinto (Photo by Edgar Allan M. Sembrano)[/caption] Also during the American colonial period, Dutch Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary priest Msgr. Constant Jurgens founded a school for boys named Cagayan Valley Atheneum inside the Tuguegarao Church complex. This school existed from 1938 to 1946 but it was destroyed during World War II. After the war, it was taken over by the Jesuits and renamed Ateneo de Tuguegarao which operated until 1962. In 1965, it became the Saint Louis College of Tuguegarao under the CICM priests and in 2002, University of Saint Louis Tuguegarao. The university’s campus, located on Arellano, Mabini and Lecaros streets, still has its mid-20th century, U-shaped wooden building and features a number of monuments including those of St. Louis Gonzaga, USL’s patron saint; two for Fr. Theophile Verbist, CICM founder; and the gigantic Good Shepherd at the facade of the Good Shepherd Chapel. Exiting through the schools main campus to Lecaros Street, one is greeted by the Bayani Hall Lecaros, the city’s first condominium building, adding another layer to the city’s history. These layers define what is Tuguegarao now, a bustling commercial center, showing glimpses of its storied past of its peoples. The post A morning stroll around Tuguegarao appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
Idolizing Danny Dolor (The man I might have been if I had at least P500 million)
Here’s sharing with you Cyber Proust’s (now Proust Redux) winning piece when he joined the 2010 Philippine Star Lifestyle Journalism Contest sponsored by Rustan Commercial Corporation and the Stores Specialists, Inc. The announcement called for feature articles, as many as one could submit, about heroes, dead or alive. Cyber Proust submitted three — one about his mother; another about a blogger who tells stories about his clan and people like them, making for a good read for people interested in Philippine upper class but not necessarily high society; and this one, about Danny Dolor, Cyber Proust’s patron and benefactor when Cyber Proust had not yet declared himself rich. Here goes: My hero, my icon, the man I’d rather be When people are asked who they want to be if they ever get the chance to live their lives all over again, they almost always say they want to be the same person. If you ask me the same question, I’d have the same answer, only because I want to keep the same set of parents. But if I could keep my Dad and Mom, and still be someone else, I’d look at you straight in the eye, and declare, I want to be Danny Dolor. I can think of a hackneyed thousand and one reasons why I prefer to breathe and eat and live like Sir Danny, but let me stick to the quintessential five. First, he is rich which we all want to be. He is an art lover which I profess to be. He is a trailblazer even if he is a Libran who prefers balance, while I am an Arian who always wants to be the first. He was a good son who took care of his mother in her old age, which every good son should do especially if he were single. I am single, but I was always away from home, too busy changing and finding writing jobs. The closest I got to emulating Sir Danny was spending endless nights conversing with my mother whenever I was home during Christmas breaks. Sir Danny, on the other hand, never travelled abroad because he wanted to be by his mother’s side every night of the year. When he visited Lipa, their hometown, he would pick up his mobile phone to check on his mother and sister Fe in their Makati home, rattling off his orders to their yaya — check their temperature, don’t forget the medicine after their merienda, and so on. Finally, Danny Dolor is a good Catholic who hears Sunday Mass, fingers his beads when in the car, and joins the procession on Good Friday beside his own Mater Dolorosa. How I wish I could give away lands on which to build churches, donate thousands of portfolio bags for priests attending their annual convention, and build a museum in honor of a townsman, Alfredo Maria Obviar, who may yet be the first Filipino bishop to be beatified and, in God’s time, canonized. First conversation I am lucky to have an icon whom I have seen up close. I have seen Danny Dolor when he goes into a trance as he describes his first conversation with National Artist Atang de la Rama, to whom he became a friend and confidante, or fits of laughter as he recalls the usually funny repartee between his friends Sylvia La Torre and Oscar Obligacion when the latter was still alive. For all the secrets and fun times we have shared, I stick to calling him Sir as I did the first time I interviewed him in his thickly-carpeted, air-conditioned and perfume-smelling den. I had known about the man before I ever met him. I knew about his Tribung Pinoy which concertized all over the country in the late 1970s all the way to the mid 1980’s. I never saw them perform in person, but I read about Danny Dolor and his gang of sopranos, tenors and baritones who rendered their harana, danza, balitaw and, of course, kundiman, in schools and churches, and quixotic venues like the Culion Leper Colony in Palawan, the mental hospital and the women’s correctional where the patients and inmates cried, sang, danced and thanked him because no one ever came to sing for them. The path-breaking Danny Dolor also produced the first ever concert at the Cultural Center of the Philippines featuring an all-Filipino-traditional-music repertoire. Danny Dolor’s house, at that time when I interviewed him, was along Tamarind corner Banaba in uppity Forbes Park. In the den, paintings, sculptures, plaques, and trophies vied for the attention of first-time guests. I immediately liked a Zalameda portrait of a basketball player, but what impressed me was a plaque with Latin inscriptions which, my host explained to me, was his papal award. He next brought me to the lanai, thrice as large as the den, where beside the lacquered opium bed stood a gigantic St. Joseph. He showed me a life-size oil portrait of Charito Solis, Ramon Valera ternos worn by Gloria Romero and his sister Fe, and original drawings of Darna by Mars Ravelo. The man, who knows his art, takes pride in his penchant for everything Filipino. It is an interest that goes a long way back to his childhood during the Japanese occupation. In the family hacienda where they evacuated, he listened to the farmers sing native songs. In grade one a year or two later, the young Danny sang Bayan Ko before his classmates, to the shock of the teacher who probably expected Jack and Jill. When Sir Danny was in grade school, he watched Filipino films in the movie houses along Rizal Avenue. As a high school student, he listened to the Mabuhay singers over the radio. In college, he watched Tawag ng Tanghalan on television. Is it any wonder that he should mount a best-selling exhibit of movie ads from the golden years of Philippine cinema? Or that he has maintained, for more than ten years, a column in the Philippine Star, “Remember When?” featuring the movie stars and great musical talents of yesteryears? Danny Dolor is unique in that he straddles the worlds of show business and high society, which many find incompatible. Not with him who has produced movies, including Indie films, and concert tributes honoring luminaries of the silver screen like Director Hermogenes Ilagan and movie queen Carmen Rosales. His involvement in the upper strata, on the other hand, is never without a good reason. For example, he collaborated with the socialite businesswoman Nedy Tantoco in organizing the best-selling Ramon Valera retrospective exhibit. If he is chummy with the grand dame Imelda Cojuangco that’s because he is a loyal and trusted officer the Cofradia de la Inmaculada Concepcion, of which she is the chair. Every year, come Feast of the Immaculate Conception, they gather hundreds of children from depressed areas to receive their first holy communion. Imagine the mix For all of these, he takes a break from his duties as chairman of various companies that include a hospital, hotel, educational institution, bank and subdivisions. Imagine the mix — movies, music, church, business and high society. And he dances the Rigodon too. How can one not desire such completeness? There’s something though he’d rather not be said about him. In my times of need, he does not hide under his canopied bed, and in the milestones of my life, he gives me a thick red envelope. Once I ran out of cash to pay my rent, I called him up and told him that if only I could touch the tip of his pants, I was sure to have what I needed. Scolding me first for being such a cheap copy of the woman in the bible, he said Yes to my pleadings, while reminding me to help him prepare another souvenir program for yet another concert tribute for another forgotten gem of Philippine music. The man does not believe in outright charity. Not to me, anyway. And while he is patient with me, he insists that I “fix” my life for “all these things you delight in will soon come to pass” and “if you do not take care of yourself, who will?” and so on. From his mother, he passes on a classic gem, “Never do anything that people will notice from afar,” a rough translation of “Huwag kang gagawa ng kahit anong matatanaw mula sa malayo.” In short, don’t be a show-off. My hero and icon, Danny Dolor, is not only a model for living the successful and well-lived life that I dream about. He is also a saviour, a mentor and an angel who, despite the “professional distance” we keep between us as a “client” and as a “talent,” if the relationship must breed results, has come closest to being my “Tito” and best friend. Sir Danny will not be pleased with this article. He will think that I need to borrow money from him again. The post Idolizing Danny Dolor (The man I might have been if I had at least P500 million) appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
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