A little bit of Philippine History

[rajakrsna]

We Filipinos were colonized by Spain from 1565 to 1896. The Americans took over from 1898 to 1942 then the Japanese took over from 1942-1945. We became an independent nation on July 4, 1946. Filipinos are a mixture of Malay, Chinese, Spanish, Americans and Japanese.

A brief history of the Philippines.... - YouTube

[rajakrsna]

Believe it or not



DR JOSE RIZAL was rumored to be the father of Adolph Hitler



Here`s a poem Rizal wrote when he was in Germany:



To the Flowers of Heidelberg



Go to my country, go, O foreign flowers,

sown by the traveler along the road,

and under that blue heaven

that watches over my loved ones,

recount the devotion

the pilgrim nurses for his native sod!

Go and say that when dawn

opened your chalices for the first time

beside the icy Neckar,

you saw him silent beside you,

thinking of her constant vernal clime.

Say that when dawn

which steals your aroma

was whispering playful love songs to your young

sweet petals, he, too, murmured

canticles of love in his native tongue;

that in the morning when the sun first traces

the topmost peak of Koenigssthul in gold

and with a mild warmth raises

to life again the valley, the glade, the forest,

he hails that sun, still in its dawning,

that in his country in full zenith blazes.

And tell of that day

when he collected you along the way

among the ruins of a feudal castle,

on the banks of the Neckar, or in a forest nook.

Recount the words he said

as, with great care,

between the pages of a worn-out book

he pressed the flexible petals that he took.

Carry, carry, O flowers,

my love to my loved ones,

peace to my country and its fecund loam,

faith to its men and virtue to its women,

health to the gracious beings

that dwell within the sacred paternal home.

When you reach that shore,

deposit the kiss I gave you

on the wings of the wind above

that with the wind it may rove

and I may kiss all that I worship, honor and love!

But O you will arrive there, flowers,

and you will keep perhaps your vivid hues;

but far from your native heroic earth

to which you owe your life and worth,

your fragrances you will lose!

For fragrance is a spirit that never can forsake

and never forgets the sky that saw its birth.



Here`s a brief background of who Rizal was:



Rizal travelled throughout Europe, America and Asia. He proved to be a versatile genius mastering 22 languages and a multitude of occupations. He was an architect, artists, businessman, cartoonist, educator, economist, ethnologist, scientific farmer, historian, inventor, journalist, linguist, musician, mythologist, nationalist, naturalist, novelist, ophthalmologist, poet, propagandist, psychologist, scientist, sculptor, sociologist, and theologian during his short life. He was also proficient in martial arts, fencing and pistol shooting.

[Ahso!]

I was in the Philippines twice in 1975. First on our way into Vietnam for the Saigon evacuation and again on the way out. In fact it may have been three times, once after processing Vietnamese refugees and setting up a tent city in Guam.

[rajakrsna]

Ahso!;1389532 wrote: I was in the Philippines twice in 1975. First on our way into Vietnam for the Saigon evacuation and again on the way out. In fact it may have been three times, once after processing Vietnamese refugees and setting up a tent city in Guam.


Did you land in Mactan Air Base, Cebu, or was it in Clark Air Base, Pampanga, or the Subic Naval Port in Zambales? The Mactan Air Base in Cebu was used by the Americans to refuel their US jet fighters on a mission in Vietnam.

[Ahso!]

Subic Bay. I was a sailor.