Filipino creative
presence in Nantucket

BELIEVE me, nothing fills me with more pride than hearing about the achievements of my kababayan (compatriot). When you take a trip abroad, you think you leave behind your country. But I discover more and more we are very much present in every corner of the world-bringing and establishing our good name in everything we do.
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Minimizing the backlash

THE PHILIPPINE decision to leave Iraq has less to do with George Bush and Saddam Hussein, and everything to do with memories of Flor Contemplacion. It is difficult to explain to non-Filipinos how the execution of Contemplacion, a Filipino maid in Singapore, shook the Fidel Ramos government, which had to offer the heads of two Cabinet members to appease an indignant public.
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Be prepared

A LONG time ago, an American president faced a situation where a country rich in natural resources and situated in a strategic location in the Far East was his for the taking. He had a problem, though. America was the icon of democracy, the light that sought to shine across a world dominated by authoritarianism. How would it look if America went against its own principles and move in on a country that had done it no wrong?
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He's Manobo,
and proud of it

THIS 25-year-old Manobo youth leader seizes every opportunity to assert his tribal identity and wishes that his fellow lumad (members of indigenous tribes) would do the same.
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The Oriental bazaar

CALL it what you will, the bazaar or the zouk or plain Divisoria, but many are rediscovering the greatest entertainment around. Walking (trudging might be a better word) from Elcano Street to Recto Avenue, I was too absorbed to realize that my hair had collapsed. The noonday sun was beating down fiercely and I didn't even remember to watch out for bag snatchers and the like, which is the first thing anyone will tell you to do.
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Filipino firms plant
RP flag on US soil

FOR close to 30 years now, some of the country's largest food companies have been proudly planting the Philippine flag on US soil. Goldilocks, which has become synonymous with polvoron, mamon, pork barbecue and lumpiang shanghai, led the way for other Philippine companies when it opened its first shop in Los Angeles in 1976. Max's Restaurant, "the house that fried chicken built," was one of the companies that followed, opening its first restaurant in San Francisco in 1982.
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Big bird awakens
entrepreneurial spirit

BAGUIO CITY--The best way to sell ostrich meat to highland communities is to present it to them charbroiled from a ritual fire.
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Was Rizal an
American-made hero?

A PROFESSOR of mine in college used to claim that the Americans had manufactured a hero out of Jose Rizal. Perhaps he made the assertion hoping to get a reaction out of a dozen docile colegialas and was disappointed since none of us commented or asked why.
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First-time uncle

I AM going to be an uncle.
Don't get me wrong. Being from a very big clan, where the age disparity between cousins stretches to decades or even scores, (the oldest is nearing 50 while the youngest is only eight years old), I was already an uncle at a very young age.
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Not a question
of staying or leaving

TO STAY or not to stay? In the midst of our country's political and financial troubles, this seems to be one of the most pressing debates that is now running in young people's minds. Some have considered the issue with trepidation, some in jest, the young approach it with indecision, and the older ones just sigh in resignation. Others yet have shrugged their shoulders with a typical, "Bahala na."
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NGO leader-turned-mayor
survives traditional politics

FOR 16 years, economics graduate Sabas Mabulo had been content with running the daily affairs of Pag-Bicol, a nongovernment organization that helps communities save the environment, until 1998 when he decided to run for mayor of San Fernando town in Camarines Sur.
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And the winner is…

THE PHILIPPINE Congress has just proclaimed incumbent President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as the 14th president and Senator Noli de Castro as her vice president amid allegations of the present administration's widespread cheating, power play and political maneuvers. Ms Macapagal won by 1.1 million votes over bitter rival Fernando Poe Jr., popularly known as "the King of Philippine action movies," loved and idolized by the poor masses and who some believe won the recently concluded elections.
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'Green' church soon to rise
in Smokey Mountain

THE COUNTRY'S first Earth-friendly Roman Catholic church building will soon rise from the partially rehabilitated Smokey Mountain, formerly the world's biggest garbage dump which for decades also symbolized national disgrace.
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Remembering
the 'Igorrottes'

BAGUIO CITY--In 1904, their ancestors became the first wave of Igorots to work abroad, as living exhibits in the St. Louis World's Fair where they were featured as "Igorrottes."
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Around the world

I TOLD my friend, a journalist from Paris, that the last time I was in her city, which was the early 1990s, my impression was that the number of migrants there had grown tremendously. In the 1980s, you saw only a sea of white faces in the Metro. In 1993, you saw faces of different colors mingled among the white ones. She was surprised and said she hadn't noticed but had the same impression when she went to London. The number of migrants had positively exploded there. Well, the hardest thing to see is always what's under your nose.
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Rizal and our national identity

TO CLAIM Jose Rizal as the foremost national hero of the Philippines may be open to debate as some will contend that it was actually the Americans who decided to make him the rallying symbol for all Filipinos instead of Andres Bonifacio because the former rejected any kind of resistance or aggression as a means of effecting change, in contrast to the Great Plebeian. The Americans therefore thought it best to give preference to Rizal.
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'Gawad' for Bishop Labayen

THE WORD "kagitingan" summarizes the best in a human being: nobility, courage, integrity, strength of character, greatness of spirit. It is derived from the word "magiting."

What does it mean to be "magiting"? Filipino hero Emilio Jacinto defined it in the "cartilla" [booklet] for wannabe Katipuneros: "...may magandang asal, may isang pangungusap, may dangal at puri, di nangaapi at di nagpapaapi, marunong magdamdam at ginugugol ang buhay, pagod at talino sa pagiging mabuting anak ng bayan at ng Diyos." [...of good character, has word of honor, integrity and purity, does not oppress and does not allow oppression, sensitive to others and dedicates his/her life, energy and talent toward being a good citizen and child of God.]
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A Philippine love song

IT'S difficult to celebrate something of which one does not really have any experiential knowledge. Such is the difficulty I feel whenever Independence Day comes. When I was younger, it merely marked the end of summer vacation and the start of rainy schooldays.
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Pursue the revolution

TOO long have we Filipinos been distracted from the cause of our suffering, allowing societal entertainers to shove aside in our consciousness the needed focus on the cancers that corrupt our national soul. We prefer elections to revolutions, lotteries to reform, consumerism to industrialization, and clowns to statesmen. We have become escapists who find the truth too ugly and don rose-colored eyeglasses to brighten reality.
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The Noy-pi redux

I WAS with some friends last Saturday, leisurely driving toward the C-5 highway. A car with government license plates was ahead of us. When traffic slowed down, the car's driver tossed an empty plastic cup outside the window. We took note of the car's plate number and model and the time and place: SEK214, black Excel Hyundai, Katipunan Avenue corner Santolan Road, around 11:15 a.m.
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Filipino chef cooks
up storm in New York

WITH all the new restaurants sprouting up in Manila, a career in the food industry has become an appetizing prospect for graduates. Young minds are now going to the United States and Europe not only for degrees in business or medicine but for the culinary arts as well.
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'Woven Memories':
Filipinos in the UK

SLOWLY, imperceptibly, over a surprisingly long period, Britain has got itself a Filipino community. Immigration is nothing new in the UK but being "Asian" in Britain has always meant being from India or Pakistan with a somewhat catch-all group of "Asian-other" appearing on census forms to cover others of whom Britain was vaguely aware. But now there are over 100,000 Filipinos here and that is more than enough for a sense of community and excuse for a fiesta.
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From destroyers
to protectors of nature

THEIRS is not yet a case of starting small and becoming big. Although relatively small in terms of assets and wealth, they are very rich in terms of "bayanihan" spirit, which among other things, made them achieve rare accomplishments.
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Write, read, live

WHEN I'm in the huge New York Public Library, just three blocks from my office, or a bookstore (especially the used-book types), I think to myself, "So many books and so little time!" When I see all my drafts of articles, written-out journals or my ideas on my Palm Pilot, but most especially every time I experience, see or hear something that I want to share (and believe me that happens in New York every single minute), I wish I could just sit and write for two weeks straight, finish the writing and share the things that other people might also find interesting.
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'Jawbone'

"WAS that Filipino physicist's experiment for the space shuttle Soyuz to test the strength of an ass' jawbone which Samson used to slay a thousand men?"
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A mixture of races

IF we are to believe old friar chronicles, among the causes that contributed to variations among the early Filipinos was the ancient and constant commerce of the neighboring regions of China and Japan. Before Ferdinand Magellan "discovered" the Philippine archipelago, the Chinese and Japanese were making excursions to some islands to get gold that the natives mined from the
mountains, in exchange for which they traded cloth, arms and diverse trinkets. W.E. Retana tells us that the relations were superficial, since the Celestials did not modify the anthropological marks nor the history or language of the people nor were there pre-Spanish "mestizos" [people of mixed blood], i.e., what came to be known as "mestizos" --Sangley. To be precise, there was no transfer
of technology or significant intermarriage. The Chinese did not bring over the plow or the wheel. Nor did they introduce paper or printing technology that they already had.
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Taguba's report
on Abu Ghraib

I STAYED up very late the other night to watch live on CNN the US Senate investigation of the torture committed by US military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison, with US Army Major General Antonio Taguba, Undersecretary of Defense Stephen Cambone and Lieutenant General Lance Smith testifying.
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Coming home

IBARRA Gutierrez, the junior professor who wrote about coming back to resume his work in the University of the Philippines (UP) after having spent a couple of years getting his Master of Arts degree in the United States, continues to elicit strong responses from readers. As does the group of Ateneans who proclaimed a similar desire.
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Voting by post:
The UK experience

THE APPROVAL of the Overseas Absentee Voting Act (OAV) was a landmark in the
Philippine electoral process, effectively granting an estimated three million overseas Filipinos (seafarers included) the right to choose, for the very first time, the president, vice president, senators and party-list representatives. The OAV set in motion the process of registration, confirmation of voters eligibility, and the development of guidelines for the conduct of the elections in places outside the usual Philippine public school classroom.
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Yes, it's a 3-star Pinoy
restaurant in New York

A CAUCASIAN friend of mine once challenged me to name him a Filipino restaurant in any big city in the world, saying that people are acquainted with Japanese, Chinese, even Ethiopian food, but no one is really acquainted with food that is Filipino; and there are definitely no Filipino restaurants in any big city, especially not in New York. I had to slump in defeat after this conversation, which took place during my first week in New York City. At the time, I was not yet well acquainted with the restaurants in the city and could not name one Filipino restaurant in Manhattan.
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Macapagal or Poe? The poor
to ultimately decide fate of RP

NEXT week, Filipinos will vote in the national elections, choosing one of six candidates running for the highest position in the archipelago. First on the list is Raul Roco, who is a former senator and former education secretary. Second is Panfilo Lacson, a senator and former head of the Philippine National Police. Third and fourth are Brother Eddie Villanueva and Eddie Gil, a preacher and a businessman, respectively.
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'Pinoy menu' sedative

NEED a tranquilizer for election campaign fatigue? Consider the Filipino love affair with food, suggests a friend.
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On the road to Senate
with Richard Gordon

AS one of the millions of overseas Filipinos who can't or won't vote, I have watched many election events at a safe distance -- like watching a roadside accident on TV. I rubberneck to assess the damage. Then look away and forget about it. As a non-Philippine resident, I don't have to live with the aftermath. It seems mean to compare an election outcome to a roadside accident -- real bedlam! So I apologize. But it is hard not to notice that electioneering in the Philippines can appear farcical -- a tragic comedy. It beggars belief that we are lining up to elect a president who is cast in the similar gung-ho disastrous mold as the one currently on trial.
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Portrait of the Filipino
artist as a New Yorker

IT isn't very often that you come across a Filipino artist who makes a name for himself in New York City. In the city where artists are scrutinized without mercy, where the critics make or break you, a Filipino has stood his ground and broken into the art scene.
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Sacrifices

IBARRA Gutierrez has written a very inspiring piece that surprisingly hasn't yet found its way in print. So I have the honor of doing it for him.
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Finding warmth in winter

I HAVE always pictured New York to be the coolest residence on earth. When I got here on January 2, I realized it isn't only the coolest, but one of the coldest places on earth. I arrived in New York at the worst time possible: during one of the coldest winters it has had in years. Temperatures dropped to the teens and flakes hailed from the sky. I was vacationing inside a Slurpee.
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Thoughts of an OCW

INITIALLY, they were called overseas Filipino workers. Then, for some murky reasons, the government decided to describe them instead as overseas contract workers.
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Fil-Canadian intern
meets Barbara, Diane

THE PLANE tipped to the right as I strained to look out my tiny window. I made out dots for trees and toy cars on the distant roads. Then there it was: the Manhattan skyline. I had arrived in New York. To live and work there is my dream. I have lived all my life in Canada, where my parents had immigrated to before I was born.
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Making of a woman
of the century

SHE climbed mountains, braved falling rocks along dangerous dirt roads, walked through slippery hanging bridges, and crossed rivers with leeches.
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Repackaging the japayuki

IN HER high-heeled strappy sandals and smart business suit, Christie Gatchalian-Buan strides confidently into the compound of Gatchalian Promotions. The place is teeming with young, talented women who hope to make it out of the country soon as overseas performing artists (OPAs). On Fridays, when aspiring OPAs flock to her office to be discovered, Christie walks past them, and may stop in front of one applicant and send her straight in for an interview. After being in the talent promotion business for almost 18 years, she can spot a potential talent in a crowd, even if the applicant is 20 pounds overweight.
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The heroic defense of Cainta

AFTER THE DEATH of Rajah Matanda, Adelantado Miguel de Legaspi received word that two ships, S. Juan and Espiritu Santo, arrived in Panay Island in the central Philippines from Mexico with Don Diego de Legaspi, his nephew, in one of them. Don Diego arrived in Manila July 17 in the company of Captain Juan Chacon, who commanded one of the ships.
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He built Pinoy brands,
now he builds health

ALBERT M.G. Garcia was on his way to building a career in advertising and marketing when his father decided the political situation in Manila was too uncertain so he sent his son to Australia. Garcia had barely worked a year at Ace Compton and was involved in the launch of Marites Revilla as the Camay girl, and big brands like Safeguard and Dari Creme.
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Gift of words
for kids with autism

"BUTTERFLY."

It was the first complete word uttered by Monique and her parents were beyond overjoyed. They were so overwhelmed and grateful that her whole family -- parents, two siblings and grandparents on both sides -- within the same day, trooped to the shrine of the Birhen sa Regla (Virgin of the Rule) in Lapu-Lapu City to thank the Blessed Virgin for an answered prayer.
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Portrait of an
artist as father

IN MY last dream of my father, I am with my sister Diwata. We are in his Baguio house, packing his things, when my sister suddenly sees him sitting on his bed beside his paintings.
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A virtual nation

"...AHEAD of other nations, ours is becoming a global nation, a virtual nation..."

The excitement of this eureka shared with Inquirer columnist Manuel Quezon III has turned his perfect ending to 'The Filipino Volk' into the perfect title for my first weekly cyberspace walk with INQ7.
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Vanishing beauty
of black teeth

SHINY, white teeth are the standards of beauty nowadays as implied by toothpaste advertisements. However, such criterion might not be accepted by some of the old folks in southern Kalinga province, where black teeth are considered beautiful.
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A tale of Pangasinan

WORD arrived in Manila that Igorot infidels infested the provinces of Pangasinan and Ilocos. An order was thus given to D. Manuel de Arza y Vorutia, mayor of Pangasinan, to wage war against those who inhabited the mountains and ranges of that province from Aringay town to San Fabian administered by the Dominican fathers and from Santo Tomas town to those of Galopen under the Augustinians. The local authorities were to force them to live in towns, destroying their settlements located in entrenched sites in order to facilitate the establishment of the pueblos.
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RP firm brings Filipino
expertise across globe

THE OVERSEAS Filipino worker (OFW) normally brings to mind the thousands of Filipinas --mothers, sisters and wives -- who have left their homes to be helpers in other people's homes abroad. On the other hand it reminds us of fathers, brothers and husbands who weather the lonely deserts of the Middle East as laborers.
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NY-based couple comes
home for wedding

ONE of the grandest weddings of the season was that of pretty Marie Faye "Pinkie" Go, daughter of Philip and Nenita Go, to Ernest Salas. He is the son of Carmelita Rodriguez Salas, currently the Philippine ambassador to the Czech Republic, and the late Rafael Salas.
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High on Hugh
in New York City

IN NEW YORK, dreams come true on a daily basis. I used to be a dreamer, but New York made me a realist. I guess that's where I made the jump from dreaming the life to living the dream.
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RP delegate to health meet
seeks aid to realize dream

IF there is one thing I truly believe in, it is that miracles happen, especially to those who take giant leaps of faith. I am now at that point where I have taken that unbelievable, giant leap. "Suntok sa buwan," as we Filipinos would say it.
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'Sarok' exporter
overcomes challenges

AS the song of the town of Consolacion goes, "Sarok, panalipod sa ulan ug init; sarok, makahaw-as sa kangitngit (The hat provides protection from the sun. The hat helps you come out of darkness)."
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Irish charm irresistible
to Fil-Aussie lass

IT was as romantic as a love song, palanggas, the meeting and courtship of vivaciously attractive Pacita Christina "Chie" A. Jose, unica hija of Rowena N. Aquino and hubby Bayani L. Jose, who hails from Sydney by way of Manila, and good-looking charmer George Andrew Justin Irwin, a native of Donegal, Ireland.
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Americanizing
Pinoy names

WERE I to be born and christened in this era, my mother would probably have named me "Nativity," instead of Natividad. Why not? There's a "Felicity" character on a Western TV show--isn't Felicidad the local equivalent? Most of my contemporaries used to sport Spanish monikers until they decided to keep up with the American-dominated times and renamed themselves Rose (from Rosalia), Frank (from Francisco), Cecile (from Cecilia), Arthur (from Arturo), Mary (from Maria), etc. Nicknames similarly evolved from Viring to Virgie, from Paeng to Raffy, from Esting to Steve, from Pinang to Jo, to cite a few.
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Back in Dubai

I AM back in Dubai. I am back to my job as a graphic artist for one of the biggest fashion retail companies in the Middle East. I am back to working the whole day from Saturday to Wednesday, and half days on Thursdays in the company of my Sri Lankan, Filipino and mostly Indian officemates. I am back to the daily grind of being an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) eking out a living, earning better money abroad so that my family back home will have a more financially stable life -- the better life they deserve.
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Buhay OFW

I ARRIVED here in Singapore smugly thinking that I came here to train. And indeed, so far, it has been a good, all-around training.
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WE are told that the external manifestation of religion is the practice of rites, and pre-Hispanic Bicolanos employed quite a few of them. The early Bicolanos had a special rite for the Gugurang, one of their gods, that they called Atang [sacrifice]. The Atang was offered as an act of thanksgiving for a favor received. It consisted basically of singing, eating, dancing and drinking many times to excess.
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Fil-Am's first trip
to the Philippines

I WAS awakened from an oblivious dream when I arrived in the Philippines with my mom and my brother for her family reunion. It was really my first time being away from the United States. I had never dreamed what it would be like in a different country. In fact, I selfishly felt that I could never love any country more than my own, for the simple reason that I was used to America. Although I am half-Filipino, I stubbornly refused to believe I'd be able to feel at home in the Philippines. How wrong I was to make such an assumption!
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Identity

"I CHUCKLE, painfully aware that 'I'm an American' carries little weight with him," Andrew Pham comments to himself, as he speaks to a Vietnam War veteran. His book "Catfish and Mandala" is his story about the time when he went back to his homeland to search for his roots, exorcise personal demons and define his identity. I enjoyed reading about a different culture, but what intrigued me most was that I found many similarities between him and myself. Though I am not Vietnamese-American, many of our feelings, and quite a few aspects of our different Asian cultures overlap.
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MARGA Ortigas fiddles with the wooden frame to be used in the pictorial, feeling far from the loquacious and self-assured news reporter that she normally is. A bit self-consciously, she experiments with a pose while the camera flash pops.
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Hawaii wedding, Cebuano
guests for NY-based couple

BENJIE Borromeo, son of Barbara Mulcahy and the late Canuto Borromeo Jr., has been in New York for several years now, working for the prestigious international law firm Morgan-Lewis as a computer expert. He met, and consequently fell in love with, Maria Tomei, also Manhattan-based and vice president of the agency that promotes Alexander McQueen, Gucci, etc.
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Lolo Potin and his
'Sarung Banggi'

ON JANUARY 19, 1961, a fire hit Santo Domingo town in Albay province, destroying the ancestral house of Potenciano Gregorio Sr., the composer of the Bicolanos' favorite song, "Sarung Banggi" (One Evening).
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Loss of the Santo
Cristo de Burgos

PART of the customs and traditions of the Philippines is the devotion that has developed around various religious images, such as the Nazarene in Manila's Quiapo district and the Child Jesus in the Tondo district. Sometimes, however, these traditions disappear and the images that were once revered are forgotten and either destroyed or sold to dealers or collectors. The following account tells us of the "retablo" [image] of the Santo Cristo de Burgos that may still be in a church in Camarines province or may have disappeared. It is also possible that this story itself may long have been forgotten and even never known by the present parishioners.
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Thoughts of a new OFW

I AM a new overseas Filipino worker. I have been living here in Canada for the past three months. I left a good and challenging job working for peace in the country to come here and change my life. The first month was the toughest. I missed family, friends and home so much that I cried a lot. I fought to understand and asked my family to remind me again and again why I was in Canada and not "there" with them.
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A day with the veterans

IT was to be my first medical mission with the bank so I thought I would have to make a good impression on Tita Maricar by not being late -- after all, everything's going to be free for me on that day. And so as early as two in the morning, I got up, picked my backpack and took a cab to the Makati Head Office of Philippine Veterans Bank.
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SO what do you do in New York?

This is the dreaded question I keep hearing, now that I'm back in Manila after being away for more than two years.
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Pinoy fabrics and designs
wow Denmark conference

ASIANS filled the National Museum of Copenhagen in Denmark to celebrate Asian culture and womanhood late last year during the conference, "Celebrating Asian Women."
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Family: The price
of working abroad

THE HOPE of uplifting the Philippine economy by encouraging more Filipinos to work abroad is disastrous because there are tens of thousands of family men and women who left the Philippines in the early seventies up to today who have ended up with broken families.
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Dagupeño is mayor
of city in California

THE FIRST Filipino immigrant to be elected as mayor of the City of Milpitas in Silicon Valley, California, returned to his birthplace in Dagupan City to foster goodwill and sisterhood ties between Dagupan and Milpitas.
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WHAT a respite from all the bickering, grandstanding, and the self-promoting antics of politicians. Read their lips and their body language and what do they say?
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Spinning another
life in America

HOW does one cope with life after dropping out of the semi-fame game? For Ruben Cadsawan, 57, formerly one of Philippine television's most sought-after musical scorers and now a US-based hotel valet parking clerk, the answer is simple: You have to keep playing.
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Runaway

IT'S been 21 months since I ran away.

I vividly recall the ride to the airport in the wee hours of the morning. Yaya had seen me off and there were tears in her eyes. The flight from Manila to Narita went by fast. After the brief stopover, my agony began. The exhausting lap from Narita to LA left me pondering the exodus I had embarked on.
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IF Kenneth Cobonpue hesitates to predict the future of furniture this 2004, it's because he's never been one to rely on trends. "If you design something that's beautiful and comfortable, people will want it, whether it's a trend or not," he says succinctly.
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After 50 years, frail Marcelo
still carries other people's load

THE SKY is still dark but the streets are already busy. Sound of engines, smoke and dust begin to fill the early morning air, and people begin to "rise" from the sidewalks to set up their stalls for selling flowers, vegetables and fruits.
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Local comic book creators
fight foreign superheroes

IF you were to pit Darna against Wonder Woman, she probably would have a good fighting chance. Sadly, in the comic book stands, Darna and a group of other Pinoy comic book character underdogs don't stand a chance against the superheroes of DC Comics or Marvel Comics. The Philippines is home to dozens of talented comic book creators but unfortunately, the comics stands are dominated by foreign names. However, thanks to several brave and talented comic book creators, like Zach Yonzon, our local heroes are slowly taking charge of the comics battleground.
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History in pictures

"COLUMNS of black, oily smoke rose thousands of feet into the sky, blocking out the morning sun and creating an apocalyptic backdrop for the last hours of American Manila." Historians Richard Connaughton, John Pimlott and Duncan Anderson, in their book "The Battle for Manila" (1995), conveyed in words how American engineers blew up the oil storage depots in Pandacan as the Japanese started its invasion of the Philippines during the World War II.
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I GAZE woefully at the dismal weather outside. The thermometer reads forty-three degrees, and I stubbornly continue to type in shorts and a flimsy sweater on this freezing night in Southern California. It is during times like this that I wish I had never moved here, that I did not have to settle halfway across the world and grow up so far away from all of my relatives and my home. It would have saved me from the pain of saying goodbye to my family many times over, from the many nights of crying after returning to the States, and all the lonely years spent wondering how much longer the wait will be until I go back to my country.
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Archdiocese of Cebu: 70 years after

CEBU is not only the oldest city in the Philippines. It is also Christianity's entry point to the country.

It was on this island that Legaspi, together with five Augustinian friars determined to spread Christianity, encamped. From Cebu, Faith spread to Panay in 1569, Masbate and Burias in 1570 and Manila along with Central Luzon in 1571. Truly, Cebu is the cradle of the Christian Faith in the Philippines.
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Turning pineapple fiber
into high-end piña cloth

WE see these clothes during weddings and celebrations. And these clothes vie with each other with respect to the intricacies of design and the fineness of the weave. The piña barong has been a mainstay throughout our formal occasions.
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