…You Think Epifanio de los Santos is a Highway October 24, 2006
Posted by manila in People, Places.add a comment
Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) is Metro Manila’s main highway, stretching from the Mall of Asia in Pasay City to Monumento Rotonda in Caloocan City. Edsa is also popular for being the stage for two nonviolent revolutions and ousting two Philippine presidents.
Of course everyone knows that Epifanio de los Santos is probably an important historical figure, why else would Metro Manila’s main highway be named after him? Few, however, knows why he became part of Philippines’ history.
Epifanio de los Santos is a Filipino historian. He was born on April 7, 1871, in Malabon, Rizal, the only son of Escolastico de los Santos and Antonia Cristobal. He was the first Filipino member of the Spanish Royal Academy in Madrid.
During the Philippine revolution, he and Jose Clemente Zulueta published the news paper libertad in Malabon. He then later became an associate editor of La Independencia, the first revolutionary periodical.
On May 16, 1925, he was appointed as a director of Philippine Library and Museum by Governor Leonard Wood. He also published several books (Tagalog Literature, Confidencial letter of Dr. Jose Rizal, The Tagalog Theater, Musical folklores of the Philippines, Criminality in the Philippines (1903-1908), Fraudes Electrorales Y Sus Remedios) and wrote the biographies of Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Andress bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto, and Ignacio Villamor.
…You Know How Many Islands There Are, Both High Tide and Low Tide October 23, 2006
Posted by manila in General, People.2 comments
In 1994, The Miss Universe Pageant was held in the Philippines and it was during one of the interviews that the words “High tide or low tide?” was immortalized by Miss Philippines Charlene Gonzales. She then answered that there are 7,107 islands during high tide and made a rough guess of 7,108 during low tide. Although not necessarily correct, a lot of Pinoys use this as a witty remark to foreigners who ask about the islands.
The official count is 7,107 and of these, 2,773 have names and only a few hundred are inhabited. Some of the islands are so small that they disappear during high tides. The largest island is the island of Luzon. Together with Mindanao, the second largest island, they cover more than 60% of the contry’s total land area.
The Philippines is commonly divided into three island groups: Luzon, where the country’s capital (Manila) can be found, is the largest and the most politically important island in the Philippines; Visayas, where the Philippines’ oldest city (Cebu) can be found; and Mindanao, where the nation’s highest peak and the world’s largest city can be found.
The although the official count is 7,107, the actual number of islands is still unclear as there have been dispute over the ownership of Spratly Islands. Geographically, the Philippines have a strong claim over the islands, yet other countries try to prove their claim through historical bases.
