Pedro Flores: Yo-yo

I can still remember my first time to have a yo-yo. I was only 8 years old that time. (I once lived in a very rural town in Mindanao. So don't be surprised if I tell you I didn't know what yo-yo is that time.) My Grandfather brought me to a river we called Suba. It was his everyday routine to visit our small house (a hut) nearby the river and took his fish baits he put the other day to gather the fishes and crustaceans trapped inside. I was playing on a river shore when I notice a round-shaped colored-green thing floating. i didn't know what it was and it has no string connected on it. I took it by curiousity, and showed it to my Lolo. (Till now, I still have this kind of attitude of picking thrashes with interesting look.) Then, he told me what it was. The next day, he gave it to me with a white string attached to it. I was amazed when he demonstrated how to use it, and then he taught me how to do it.

There was this Japanese anime about a kid who is a prodigy in playing yo-yo. He had these tricks that really amazed many other yo-yo enthusiast. I forgot the title of the anime. And because of this, I really thought that Japanese started this kind of craze. Later on, I learned that it was actually a Filipino-made toy. Then eventually, many people claimed it was originated in the Philippines.

It was said, back in Pre-hispanic Philippines, our ancestors used yo-yo as a weapon. Well, I think, many of you were aware of this information. But is it really TRUE? If you will asked Pedro Flores of where did he found out this toy, he will answer you 'from the Philippines.'

Anyway, who is Pedro Flores? (Note: He's not connected with Agapito Flores. Okay?)

Pedro Flores

Pedro Flores was born in Vintar, Ilocos Norte, and came to United States in 1915 where he studied college.

He is considered the first yo-yo maker in the US, and often described as an inventor of the yo-yo but he never personally claimed to have invented it. Flores always mention about its history as a centuries old Philippine game. Unfortunately, we don't have a strong evidence to prove it.

Pedro Flores started and ran a Yo-yo Manufacturing Company in Santa Barbara, California between 1928 and 1932, but he never patented his works.

Between 1930 and 1932, he sold his interest in yo-yo manufacturing company for greater than $ 250,000.00 to Donald F. Duncan Sr. After that sale, he was still involved in selling yo-yo under Duncan and was instrumental in setting up large number of the promotions in the cities where the early Duncan contests were being held.

The Yo-yo

To those who don't know what yo-yo is, it is a toy with an axle connected to two disks and a length of string looped around the axle. If you wanted to know how to play it, go to youtube and watch a hundred of videos uploaded there.

Accordingly, it was first invented in ancient Greece in 500 BC. However, it was also believed that the yo-yo originated in China and was played there at a much earlier date.

Back in ancient Greece, there were records describing toys made out of wood, metal or painted terra cotta pointing out what we called now yo-yo.

Take note, the 'yo-yo' probably came from an Ilocano language or a cognate of Philippine languages. Well, it is obvious, the first make who created the toy is a native of Ilocos Norte.

Afterword

Whether the yo-yo really came from the Philippines or not, we are still part of its fame in the whole world. Tayo ang pasimuno niyan.

In my own opinion, it is really impossible that the toy actually originated in our country and was used as a weapon by our ancestors.

First of all, if the toy originated from China, the first trade between some barangays in the Philippines and the Sung Dynasty was probably in the year 982 AD. So if we assumed that the yo-yo was traded that same year, and was continuously used till then, therefore yo-yo is thought by some natives to be ours because of too old forgotten transaction back in 982 AD.

About using it as a weapon, well, I have no idea. But I think, it is possible that the toy can really be used as a weapon, the same way how the Australian aborigines used boomerang as weapon.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo-yo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Flores_(inventor)

Image Source:
http://www.orso.biz/ProductsDetail.aspx?ID=413

The Black Nazarene

Have you watched what happened in the Black Nazarene Festival this year 2014? The aerial view of GMA Channel 7 displays how many people joined the procession. It only shows how Filipinos love this sacred image.

The Black Nazarene (Filipinos call Him Poong Itim na Nazareno) is a life-sized ivory sculpted image of Jesus posing the scene of His passion and suffering - carrying the cross. This statue was transported by Recollect friars from Acapulco, Mexico to Philippines on May 31, 1606.

The image is about 5 ft. tall and weighs around 50 kilos, having a dark wig hair made of dyed abaca or jusi with a golden thorn crowns. The cross the image is carrying is about 8 feet long. Oftenly, the Black Nazarene is dressed in a maroon tunic with golden floral or plant emblem designs embroidered on it, and with lace trimming on the collar and cuffs. A golden plate with His name on it encircles its waist. No one knows who sculpted the image. Probably, he is a Mexican because it originated there.

Survival

Traditionally, it was believed that the original complexion of the Black Nazarene was fair not black, as what it is now. However, it turned black because of an incident.

According to stories, in 17th Century, there was actually two statues scuplted from pure ivory aboard the ship. As the friars transported the images from Acapulco, Mexico to Philippines, a fire broke out on the galleon ship carrying it. The other one was hardly burnt and left in the destroyed ship. This tragedy caused the statue to turn black. Hence, earning the name Black Nazarene.

It was only in January 9, 1791 when the image was given by the Recollect priests to the Quiapo Church upon the request of Manila Archbishop Basilio Sancho, who also blessed the image in the 18th Century. On January 15, 1791, the chuch was engulfed in fire but the statue survived.

In 1863, a great earthquake struck Manila and partially destroyed the Quiapo Church.

On October 30, 1928, the church was caught in fire again and was almost completely destroyed, but then, it survived.

In 1945, World War II during the Liberation of Manila, the copy of the statue kept by the Recollect friars were destroyed. That copy was the older copy and the most famous. However, the other one survived.

Miracles

When we say miracle, it is when something occurred unusually or almost impossibly to happen to someone who didn't expect it to happen. Miracle appears to be contrary to the law of nature, and because of that, humans refer it as an act of God.

For some people who suffers a serious illness, they tend to believe to something impossible just because there were others who succeed on it. They do the most peculiar and outrageous thing to please the miracle or God to give them what they really wanted or needed. Philippines is not an exception for a country full of people who believes in miracle. Some mimic the sufferings of Jesus - from carrying a heavy wooden cross to being crucified; some dance in a festival for almost an hour just to have a baby; and some do everything so their towels or handkerchief touch the sacred statue. For non-believers, these people are fanatic, extremist, and more common - stupid.

Anyway, I can say, the Black Nazarene is one of the most miraculous images of Jesus Christ in the whole world. Obviously, it is because of the devotees - not only one or two devotees, nor a hundred or thousand but more than a million of them.

At some time in the past, I considered the belief of Black Nazarene as a miraculous thing as a mere folklore and even an urban legend. Now, I consider my belief wrong. How can you say it's not true if your opponent for that opinion is more than a million individual believers? How can you prove it's not true if you yourself didn't experienced going there?

I wanted to include here an example of this thing they called miracle through Black Nazarene. But I think, I don't need to put one here. Why? Because there are millions of stories of miracles that happened to individual person - from a simple wish of having a happy family to healing the most serious disease. I also wanted to put here examples of wishes that didn't come true, but I have no right to do so. God moves in mysterious way. No one knows, aside of Him, when the wish will be granted.

Afterword

I've never joined the parade of the Black Nazarene ever since. As you can see in TV shows, it is very dangerous especially to those people who have no enough strength and determination. I am also not a devotee of the image so I don't bother going there. The truth is I don't like the festival. Maybe some of you would think the same way as mine. Why will you sacrifice yourself just to touch and kiss this wooden-made black image of Jesus Christ carrying a black cross if you can pray peacefully in any church for miracle? I am very sure it's not only me who questions the same way. Like what the bible verse said, "You should not create any sculpted image or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven, earth or water. You should not bow to them, nor serve them. I, the Lord your God, am a JEALOUS God . . . " (Exodus 20:3-5) In my opinion, statues are created to inspire each and everyone of us to live the same way as them, not to praise them.

But as a Filipino, I am not ashamed of what my countrymen do in the festival. Yes, I am not in favor of it, but how can you explain their extreme devotion? They are willing to do everything for the sake of faith, and that made me say, "I'm proud being a Filipino." Well, even though the TV screen shows you a ruinous mob, you will not see even one person who looks angry and irritated. All of them have a smiling or courageous face. Some of them fainted and hardly injured but if you will talk to them and ask them personally if they still wanted to go back, only a small percent of people will say 'NO'. In my estimate, zero to five percent of them will answer that. One factor that affects my estimate is the continuous rise of number of people who joins the procession annually. Every year almost twenty to fourty percent adds to the previous number. The ambiance of the venue is not beautiful, but the fact that people love what they are doing is astonishing.

My professor once told me this, "Filipinos are religious, but not spiritual." At first, I don't know what she mean with that, but as I became more rational I now understand her. For me, she's partly right and partly wrong. Yes it's affirmative to say Filipinos are religious, because they are faithfully devoted in religious belief like the Black Nazarene Festival and the Voluntary Crucifixion in Pampanga every Holy Week. But aside of it, what they (and my professor) didn't know is that the Filipinos are also spiritually affected. They somehow change some of their normal ways to make their lives more positively good enough. Their faith also expands largely.

Source:
www.inquirer.net/newsinfo/?id=560493
www.solarnews.ph/news/metro/2013/01/09/brief-history-of-the-black-nazarene
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Nazarene
Image Source:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/t1/167628_495676934795_5334487_n.jpg

Anniversary of December 21, 2012

The idea of seeing the world in the brink of destruction creates a very huge interest to the inhabitants of the world. Some of us are excited in discussing such subject, but others are scared seeing everything deteriorates. One of those people who are excited of this is me. Yes, I admit. I love talking with people about it, but I am afraid if it happens.

The Bible itself reveals that everything in our surrounding will someday be DESTROYED. All will start from small happenings - e.g. the anti-Christ appearance. The Seven Angels carrying Trumphets will blow their instruments and each signifies the start of plagues and natural major events. The Armageddon (or should I say, the WORLD WAR III) will start and all countries in every continent will destroy one another. The population of the world will become small and only few of the people will be saved.

Discussing such complicated topic and only based on human predictions is very hard. I have read a book (but I forgot the title) from our school library where all the possible causes of human extinction was enumerated and explained. It was a small and black front covered book. The author explicated the topic in a straighforward way which made me understand everything.

Anyway, just last year, the whole world was stirred with the idea that the world will end on December 21, 2012. Documents and old predictions rose from no where and revealed that our planet will really be ended. I considered the date a great hoax because all the predictions about it didn't happen.

By the way, where did the said date came from?

December 21, 2012

One of my classmates and also my friend was planning for her birthday party on December 21, 2012. She just ignored the idea of the grimliness of the said day. Like what she said, It's God's will. Whatever happens, it's in His hands. She is indeed correct. I approved with that, but I confess, I was really excited to what will happen on that date.

I was even preparing on days before the coming of the day. It was said that Three days of Darkness will come before the end of the world begins. Thus, from Monday night, I closed all the doors and windows in my house just like the instructions given to make your family safe. Then when morning came, I saw a flash of light from outside the window. I opened it and everything was normal, same as to the next two days.

It was Thursday night, everything in the television seemed normal - all the news and events. Making me think that maybe tomorrow is just a normal day. And the sun lit the whole place, and it was a usual morning.

I'm not joking, I really did those things, but I didn't bother to warn many people of what they should do. I just let them do the normal ways.

December 21, 2012 is Friday. I think, it's not only me who did their own safety acts preparing for the coming destruction. Besides, nothing will happen if I prepare for myself. Okay. I thought it could be appropriate if I give the best example of a person's response to the hoax. That's why I put what I did on that day.

So . . . The idea of the date, December 21, 2012, came from a Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilization which they called the Maya Empire.

The Mayans are the only known people in Mesoamerica who has a fully developed written language, art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems before the coming of the Spanish conquestadores[1]. They are the one who created what we called the Mayan Calendar. The calendar was said to have estimated the first doomsday and predicted the coming of end of the Maya Empire and the future end of the world. It even predicted the coming of the western people in their place.

By the Maya mythological tradition, as documented in Colonial Yucatec accounts and reconstructed from Late Classic and Postclassic inscriptions, the deity Itzamna is frequently credited with bringing the knowledge of the calendar system to the ancestral Maya, along with writing in general and other foundational aspects of Maya culture.[2]

This calendar consisted several cycles with different length of time. (Perhaps like what we use right now - having days, months, year, decade, century, millenium, period, era, epoch, eon, and etc.) The starting point, when a mythological event happened, was, in Gregorian Calendar, August 11, 3114 BCE or September 6 in Julian Calendar.[2]

In Long Count, the 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9 is the technique used by scholars to make a date. 1 is for Alauntun; 2 is for K'inchiltun; 3 is for Kalabtun; 4 is for Piktun; 5 is for B'ak'tun; 6 is for K'atun; 7 is for Tun; 8 is for Winal; 9 is for K'in.

Let's have an example:
0.0.0.0.13.0.0.18.2

13.0.0.0.0 is actually the date of December 21, 2012.
18 winal is 360 days. (18 winals x 20 days = 360 days)
2 k'in is 2 days. (1 winal = 1 day)

Let's count how many days from December 21 to December 31: 10 days (left before 2012 ends)
In 360 days, the 10 days (see above) is included
360 days + 2 days = 362 days
Therefore, if you count exactly from December 21, 2012 plus the 362 days, then the date is December 18, 2013 (the day when I created this article).

Correct:
December 18 to December 31 = 13 days
365 days (1 year) - 13 days = 352 days (From January 1 to December 18)
352 days + 10 days (see above) = 362 days

The December 21, 2012 simply mean that the calendar will go to the next b'ak'tun. Thus, the year 2406 is the estimated year when the calendar will go to the next b'ak'tun. We're actually in the 13th b'ak'tun based on the Long Count. Therefore, 7 b'ak'tun left before we go to the next piktun. The October 13, 4772 is the date that the calendar will go to the next piktun.

Supporting Predictions: Scientific Term

Aside of the Mayan Calendar, there are other predictions that made the theory of December 21, 2012 much stronger than the other predictions of end of the world in the last decades. All of them seemed to be consistent with one date, as if all of them were created with only one end point.

Let's with scientific explanations:

Galactic Alignment

It was said that on December 21, 2012, the Sun, Moon and Earth will align to the galactic equator of the Milky Way. Naturally, it occurs every 36 years, however this alignment is different than the others. The reason is because the Sun touches a part of the dark rift.

In effect, the alignment will cause calamities such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and other destructive weather. Others say that the inner planets' orbit will be disturbed and the earth will be sucked up by the galactic black hole.

Solar Storm

In August, 2010, a shocking news from NASA was reported that some time in 2012, a solar storm will happen. It happens when an eruption in the sun, called the solar flare, will appear.

By the way, to differentiate the two, a solar flare is a sudden brightening observed over the Sun's surface or the solar limb, which is interpreted as a large energy release of up to 6 × 1025 joules of energy (about a sixth of the total energy output of the Sun each second or 160,000,000,000 megatons of TNT equivalent, over 25,000 times more energy than released from the impact of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 with Jupiter).[5] While solar storm is a sudden burst of very fast, charged particles from the Sun.[4]

The Ultraviolet and x-ray rays ejected from the sun will cause an electromagnetic disturbance in the Earth's atmosphere. In addition to that, it may also affect the power of the world, thus losing the eletricity.

The Solar Storm itself would not cause an apocalypse, but it would bring about a sort of domino effect. People would then lose access to their heat/air conditioning, refrigeration, phone service and GPS. Also, drinking water distribution systems could break down in a couple of hours. Normally, a “Faraday Cage” protects the satellite’s internal equipment from external electrical charges, but constant bombardment of charges would cause satellites to break down. There are over 936 operating satellites in space, worth an estimated $200 billion to replace. Magnetic storm currents acting on gas pipelines are known to enhance the rate of corrosion over time, with potentially catastrophic cumulative effects.[4]

Web Bot

Web Bot is an Internet Bot computer program whose developers claim is able to predict future events by tracking keywords entered on the internet. It was developed in 1997, originally to predict stock market trends. The creator of the Web Bot Project, Clif High, along with his associate George Ure, keep the technology and algorithms largely secret and sell the predictions via the website.[6][4]

The web bot uses Wisdom of the Crowd with web crawlers that search the internet for about 300,000 keywords with emotional context. Overall, the web bot is used as a prophet that predicts future happening through computer activities of mankind. Accordingly, it had predicted the Northeast Blackout of 2003; 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake; and Hurricane Katrina and its devastation; however it missed the massive earthquake in Vancouver, Canada; collapse of US Dollar and bombing of Israel to Iran; and a Major catasthrophe in 2012.[6]

This really contributed much in the theory of December 21, 2012 apocalypse.

Supporting Predictions: Traditional Term

In traditional and religious term, a prediction of when the world will expire also rose in addition with the scientific studies.

Book of Revelations

The most famous prediction of the end of the world, no doubt, is the Bible. The final book in the Bible is the Book of Revelations written by John the Apostle or John of Patmos.

The book consists of three literary genres. It starts with the espistolary which addresses the words to the readers themselves, then the apocalyptic description of a complex series of events derived from prophetic visions seen by the author.

To make the explanation short, the book says:

The earth will face destruction in many forms. People will have to suffer from earthquakes, fire, plague, hailstorms, famine and many other calamities, in all shapes and forms. After these cataclysmic events, the Antichrist will gain domination over the world. They will rule the world for a certain unknown amount of time, which will then be followed by Armageddon. During Armageddon, a colossal battle will occur between the forces of evil (the Antichrist) and the forces of good (Jesus Christ), in which Jesus prevails. The Bible itself never gives specific dates, of course; instead all of its prophecies are based on a timeline of milestones and events.[4]

Kali Yuga

Kali Yuga (or the Iron Age) is the last of the four stages the world goes through as part of the cycle of yugas. This age is associated with the demon named Kali. His name literally means, strife, discord, quarrel or contention. The other stages namely are Krita/Satya Yuga (Golden Age), Treta Yuga (Silver Age), and Dvapara Yuga (Copper/Bronze Age).

The Kali Yuga will start when the summer solstice (June) Sun was aligned with the apparent Galactic Center. It started around 10,800 BC. Then it will end when the Satya Yuga will start. It is when the winter solstice (December) Sun aligns with the apparent Galactic Center. As we know, it happened in December, 2012. The end means that Kalki, the last reincarnation of Vishnu, will return and will battle with the demon Kali.

Timewave Zero

The I Ching, or Book of Changes, consists of an arrangement of sixty-four hexagrams (six-line figures) consisting of two types of lines, yin and yang, and has been used as an oracle. Coins or sticks are thrown, the combination of which signifies one or two hexagrams, and the second hexagram represents the predicted change from the first hexagram. Terrence and Dennis McKenna make a case that the I Ching was originally used as a lunar calendar in which the sixty-four six-line hexagrams (384 lines total) represented the 384 days in a thirteen-month lunar year. The earliest arrangement of the hexagrams of the I Ching is the King Wen Sequence. The theory that emerged from the I Ching study is known as Novelty theory.[4]

If the wave model is a valid theory of time, it should be possible to pinpoint on the wave that corresponds to the date that something important happened in history. To carry out this operation, Peter Meyer developed the Timewave Zero software. To see how the Timewave Zero software works click here. McKenna believes that during this time there will be a surge in information and evolutionary breakthroughs will start coming in nanoseconds. The theory is not deterministic; it does not say what will happen in the future, only the levels of novelty that whatever happens will have to fulfill.[4]

How the World will end

There are more than ten theories of how the world will end. If I enumerate all of them, it will take us more or less a whole day. Summarizing them is possible, but explaining them briefly could be hard. Such subject like the others above is complicated to discuss.

Anyway, let's get started . . .

The first way of how the world ends is by means of a Geomagnetic Reversal.

Geomagnetic Reversal is the interchange of position of two magnetic poles of the Earth (North and South Poles). They said, the reversal happens some time between a thousand and ten thousand years. The most recent reversal that happened in 780,000 years ago was the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal.

According to Geologist Gregg Braden, the Earth's magnetic field has dropped to 38% in the past two years and still continue to drop till it reaches the point of zero. During reversals, additional magnetic poles will appear and the compass would then point a different direction. Then the magnetic field will eventually vanish and emerge after several thousand years but in a different position. Though it will not affect physically the human body, the machines we use dependent of the Earth's magnetic field (such machines are radios, satellite, communication devices and GPS) will be disrupted. In addition to that, the charged particles coming from sun like ultraviolet and x rays will cause skin diseases (e.g. skin cancer), and the plants will die out.

The second way of how the world ends is by means of a World War III or an Armageddon.

For the past centuries of human life, we have seen brutal and catastrophic wars in the world. From simple bow and arrows, swords, catapults and horses, we now have the most destructive and scariest weapons ever created by man - the Nuclear Weapons. These weapons if fired may kill not only half of the population of the world but may wipe out almost all of us.

By the way, when we say WORLD WAR, it only not include two continents but more than of it. Well, for reasons how this war will start, in my own opinion, maybe by means of territorial and resouce scarcity, and misunderstandings. If China keeps on conquering islands in the Pacific and South China Sea, then a war may begin between Japan, South Korea, USA and Philippines. If the Middle East still in conflict of territorial disputes, then they may also begin a war. If ever North Korea fires a nuclear weapon testing, then a war against her and other countries around her will start. We all know the effects of a war - poverty, endangering wild lives, no shelter, and deaths.

The third way of how the world ends is by means of a Pandemic.

Have you watched the movie or read the book World War Z? It's actually the best example of a Pandemic. Creating a zombie disease is possible nowadays, but still undiscovered, and I hope it will not be discovered. Yeah, its exciting and interesting just like the zombie movies and series we've watched (e.g. The Walking Dead, Resident Evil, Night of the Living Dead and many more). But if it's true-to-life, then you'll realize it's not. If you've watched the series of The Walking Dead, you'll realize the effect of a zombie pandemic. Everyday, they strive for food, water, shelter, safety, medicine, and even trust with one another. It's a literal end of the world.

But its not only the zombie pandemic that can put mankind to extinction, but also the other diseases. One example that happened in the Medieval Age is the Black Plague. Documentaries about it can be watched in Youtube.

Till now, we're still trying hard to avoid the wide spread of AIDS/HIV.

The fourth way of how the world ends is by means of a Super Volcano.

There are three super volcanoes in the whole world: Yellowstone in US, Lake Toba in Indonesia, and Aira Caldera in Japan. If ever one of them erupts, surely half or more of the worlds population will die out. Yellowstone is the most likely super volcano to erup next.

A supervolcano is a volcano capable of producing a volcanic eruption with an eruption radius greater than 240 cubic miles (1,000 cubic kilometers). Supervolcanoes are the most dangerous, with a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 8.

Remember what happened when the Mt. Pinatubo here in the Philippines erupted? It caused thousands of deaths, and many villages sunk underneath the water and muds.

The fifth way of how the world ends is by means of a Solar Flare.

I will skip on this because I've explained this above.

The sixth way of how the world ends is by means of a Global Warming and Global Cooling.

Our world is actually in the brink or should I say in the midst of a Global Warming. If you compare the temperature of the world in the past decades to now, you'll notice the great difference. We always hear this issue on TV. They always remind us how to avoid and lessen the global warming. So I think explaining it is not necessary anymore.

On the other hand, here's the Global Cooling. Obviously, its the opposite of the Global Warming. The movie The Day After Tomorrow is one example of how the world will be frozen that the only area in the world that is not affected according to the movie is the equatorial countries, and Philippines is near the equator.

The seventh way of how the world ends is by means of an Asteroid-Earth Collision and Asteroid-Moon Collision.

Have you heard the Nibiru theory in the 20th Century? It is actually not an asteroid, but a planet, but it seemed to me an asteroid. The movie Deep Impact is one example of what will happen if ever an asteroid will collide to Earth.

The Asteroid-Moon Collision is also one way. If the moon changes its course in the sky or goes near to Earth or if debris fall towards the Earth, then it's not a good thing. The gravitational disturbance may cause somehow a bad effect to our planet. I just don't know how large it could be.

The eighth way of how the world ends is by means of a Nanobots.

Lately, some scientists discovered the use of a nanobot in healing internal diseases, and this nanobots are not controlled by humans. They have there own intelligence, and they can also reproduce like simple bacteria.

The nineth way of how the world ends is by means of an Alien Invasion.

The universe is very large and it is possible that we're not alone here. There are dozens of movies that can explain why these aliens will invade our world. Maybe because, they're experiencing what we're about to experience hundred years later.

The tenth way of how the world ends is by means of Humans themselves.

I don't need to explain why. The reason is very obvious. Almost half of the above examples of how the world will end is man-made.

Afterword

If ever the true end of the world approach, the only things I will do are to BOND with my parents and other family members, SAY thank you and sorry to everyone, and most importantly PRAY to GOD. I really don't have any idea what's the best thing to do before the end-times come. Enjoy? I don't think I can enjoy myself with worries in my heart that for just a second everything and everyone around me will vanish.

For Filipinos there, I know some of you are watching the TV series of GMA Channel 7 entitled Genesis. As you can see, it shows how people respond on a real apocalypse. People started to panic and even became selfish. Even though they knew that only five thousand normal, talented, strong, and important individuals will be saved by the spaceship Genesis, they still strive and fight to get there. It is similar to the situation of people in the movie Titanic. Not all life boats in the ship was used because of people's fear. Sacrificing is the only key for a better survival. But I know, it's impossible.

For us in the real world, let's just enjoy life as soon as the world is not about to end. God has plans, and we have no choice but to deal with it.

The year 2013 became rough and challenging for us Filipinos. First is the Napoles Pork Barrel Scam, second is a war, then an earthquake, and finally, a super typhoon. We cannot change what was made and happened, but we can still control our future based on how we live.

Note: Try pointing your cursor on the underlined words or letters for an additional information or definition.

Sources:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar
[3] http://listverse.com/2010/12/03/10-controversial-apocalyptic-theories/
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_flare
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Bot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_Yuga

The Ghost in CCP and Metropolitan Theater

Old buildings are always associated with terror - that all of them have cruel past and unwanted memories of people who once lived there, but that is not absolute. As those buildings are also connected with ghosts - ghost of those people who really loved the place, it only mean that they didn't want to depart on the structure because of its dear significance.

Not all buildings can be compared or synonymously be pointed to the Manila Film Center, whose past became so tragic that the dead still haunts the place for vengeance and justice.

One of our readers gave me an idea about the ghost living in the Cultural Center of the Philippines.[a] As I was finding information about the CCP ghost, I found one story about the Metropolitan Theater. So I thought, it could be much useful if I combine both old theaters in Metro Manila. Thanks to the stories created by Luce and Clarence Tuvera in Yourghoststories.com. They gave me enough history of the ghosts.

So let's get started . . .

The Manila Metropolitan Theater

Before the creation of the CCP, artistic performances were held in public places around the country. The Manila Grand Opera House, which was constructed in mid-19th Century, housed the stage plays, operas and zarzuelas and other important events in Manila. Then, there came the creation of Metropolitan Theater (or MET as what others call it).

The Manila Metropolitan Theater was the first theater created before the Cultural Center of the Philippines. It houses the Braodway of the Philippines - an Art Deco building of Manila. It was constructed in 1931. Juan M. Arellano is the Filipino architect who designed the MMT.

During the liberation of Manila by the United States and Filipino forces in 1945, the theatre was severely damaged, losing some of its roofing and destroying some of the walls. After reconstruction by the Americans it gradually fell into disuse in the 1960s. In the following decade it was meticulously restored in 1978 but again fell into decay.[3]

The Cultural Center of the Philippines

The Cultural Center of the Philippines is a government owned and controlled corporation established for preservation, development and promotion of Philippine arts and culture. It provides local and international productions with stage performances and exhibitions. In addition to it, the CCP is also the venue for festivals.

Leandro Locsin was the designer of the structure. It was originally planned to be constructed in Quezon City when the Philippine-American Cultural Foundation (PACF) raised fund for this new theater. However, First Lady Imelda Marcos persuaded the PACF to relocate the plan to Roxas Boulevard in Manila. Executive Order No. 60 was issued by Pres. Marcos for formalization of the project.

The construction was objected by Senator Ninoy Aquino because the money used came mostly from public fund and it didn't have congressional appropriation, and the institution was branded for the elites.

Story

[Taken from Internet:[1]]

Who's that Girl? By: luce [ . . . ] That day, during dad's shift, their crew were informed that the president's first lady, Imelda Marcos, will be watching the play. The Presidential Security Group (PSG) thoroughly swept the place for anything and anyone suspicious. After that, my dad and the sound technician (let's call him Roy), went up to the control room behind the stage (it's elevated, think two story backstage) and started checking their equipment to get ready for the play. Their area allows them to see the stage without being seen by the audience. Imagine the recording studios with the glass panel - that's pretty much how it looks like. On the first level across them (still behind the stage) are two PSG men, stationed in that area. The play started without a hitch but during the intermission, the two PSG guys came running inside the control room. My dad and Roy got a little worried - during that time, getting in trouble with the Marcoses either mean torture or death. One of PSG guys spoke up and asked whether someone went through the room. My dad and Roy told them they haven't seen anyone go through the door. Unconvinced, the PSG guys pointed to a door on the right. Roy said that door has been locked for a long time but gave them the key anyway so they could check it themselves. They did and found the tiny room dusty and empty (no trap doors or anything). For a couple of tough guys, they started looking a little shook up. They told my dad and Roy that just a few minutes ago, before the intermission, they saw a lady with long hair and white clothes entering the room--running, then disappearing. My dad and Roy looked at each other, shrugged and told the PSG guys that it happens a lot there (the whole CCP in fact). Here's another tale I want to share with you guys about that place. In class, during high school, our teacher in English was discussing the details of our upcoming project. She then started sharing the woes of our upperclassmen (or women since I studied in an all-girls school) with their thesis. I stopped listening at this point, deciding to scribble doodles on my notebook but a picture being passed around piqued my interest. My teacher said it was taken in one of the hallways of the CCP (the hall with the huge mirrors). I can't remember if it's 3 or 4 of her students, but I can remember seeing 3 unwelcome images - one of a lady with long hair and a boy between 2 of her students, and a head of a man in front. The lady and the boy were in the mirror. Their images like smoke. The man in front is less discernible at first glance, it looks like it was super imposed. All in 35 mm of film. No, I don't have a copy of that picture. I was a broke high school student (remember, 'tis the age of nice old film cameras) and was not a huge fan of the supernatural back then.

Another story which gave me much interest is The Dame by Clarence Tuvera.

[Taken from Internet:[2]]

The Dame By: Clarence Tuvera [ . . . ] . . . Artistic Director Rolando Tinio received the invitation to join the festival, he gladly accepted it, taking it as an act of good will on the part of the CCP. He decided to mount his Filipino translation of Will Shakespeare's The Twelfth Night (Ikalabing-Dalawang Gabi), featuring his actress wife, the dame of classical theater in the Philippines, Ella Luansing Tinio in the role of Viola. A week before the start of the actual festivities, however, Ella Luansing suddenly died due to a tragic car accident. We half expected to receive a call from director Tinio saying he will withdraw his company's participation from the festival, but he didn't. He did call to inform us that his daughter, Victoria Tinio will be taking over the role of Viola, and that we were to make the necessary changes in the list of cast for the official festival program. I know many of the people in TP. I have worked with them backstage in at least two productions, one of which - Will Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (translated as Ang Trahedya ni Hamlet, Prinsipe ng Denmarka) - was when they were already at the MET. I went to visit them two days before their Technical Dress Rehearsal, partly on official business (Director Tinio was supposed to deliver a lecture on Stage Management to festival participants, and I came over to inform him of the exact venue of the lecture), and partly out of nostalgia. Even the whole stage design was tweaked to reflect the company's state of mourning, as shown by the black and white veils that hang from the battens and falls ever so gracefully down to the stage boards. An extra character was also incorporated into the performance - a lady in black, laced evening gown whose face is covered with a thin black veil - appearing at certain scenes on stage. This extra character was played by TP resident actress, Divina Fabrique Cavestany who bears a striking resemblance to the late Ella Luansing Tinio (same facial features, same piercing eyes, same posture, though younger by a decade.) This character was to appear whenever the actors on stage would recite a soliloquy from other plays that Tinio incorporated into the script. These soliloquies were from characters in other plays that the late Ella performed in. Needless to say, the rehearsal that I witnessed, as a whole, was creepy and depressing (considering that Twelfth Night is supposed to be a comedy of manners). Nevertheless, some of us who have worked with the company in the past decided to see the play on closing night (it ran for three weekends, excluding the actual festival week). That was to be TP's final performance, as Rolando decided to finally call it quits after 17 years of translating and producing classics of world theater for Filipino audiences. His main disciple and creative partner, Ella, is gone, and so he figured there was no more reason to continue. All TP alumni, on stage and back stage, were invited to a quiet dinner afterwards. During final performance, however, as Divina's character weaved in and out of scenes, something extraordinary happened. Another lady in black appeared on stage, much to everyone's horror. The face was veiled, and yet there was no mistaking those eyes that pierced through the thin fabric. Divina actually stopped her entrance from stage left, then walked right back out, as the other veiled figure stood at stage right. Being the professionals that they were, the actors proceeded with the performance as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. The audience, many of whom were regular TP fans and Classics of World Theater enthusiasts, was in complete silence: everyone knew the late Ella enough to recognize her presence. If it was a bad joke, it was done in poor taste. The apparition appeared several times that night, often stopping Divina on her tracks. At one point, it made an entrance while Divina was already on stage. Everyone saw the two women in black on the stage at the same time. It was unnerving. At curtain time, however, only Divina came out in her costume, sans the veil to take her final TP bow. As the curtain fell for the last time, the unnerved audience stepped out of the theater in such a hurry you would have thought there was a fire somewhere. I don't know if many of the cast and TP alumni stayed for the dinner after the performance. I know I didn't. [ . . . ] TP: Teatro Pilipino

Note: The stories above are summarized for briefing the whole original story. You can visit the source websites.

Afterword

The second story is proven true by the author himself. Though the incident happened in Metropolitan Theater, the ghost seemed similar to the CCP ghost. But I don't mean the Met ghost is the same ghost in CCP. What I mean is, ghost like them have unfinished business. Ella Luansing (the Met ghost), if she didn't die, she should have been one of the characters in the play.

Note: Try pointing your cursor on the underlined words or letters for an additional information or definition.

Sources:
[1]http://www.yourghoststories.com/real-ghost-story.php?story=12344
[2]http://www.yourghoststories.com/real-ghost-story.php?story=18857
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_Metropolitan_Theater
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Center_of_the_Philippines
Image Source:
http://www.renegadetheatercompany.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/ghost_light-palace_theater.jpg

The Yamashita Treasure

The uprising started in Europe on September 1, 1939, when Germany attacked Poland. The two were rivals ever since. Germany and Italy were allied countries in Europe. Japan is also included in their alliance. Their alliance was called Axis Powers. In 1941, Japan conquered Manchuria and Indo-China.

While the peace talk was still in progress in Washington D.C., the Japanese govenment declared war, then bombed the Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 8, 1941. Pearl Harbor was the base of Unted States Pacific Meet. Because of this, the United States of America declared war next against Japan. The Philippines, which was one of USA's allies, was involved in the said war. Germany and Italy declared war against United States and Great Britain. Thus, the Second World War started.

In the same date, Japanese airplanes bombed Davao, Tuguegarao, Iba, Tarlac and Pampanga. On the second day, they dropped bombs in Manila which put the city in their hands.

And the rest is history . . . . I actually love to study the history of wars in the world. Unfortunately, we're not talking about the World War II, we'll be discussing the legend about the Yamashita Treasure. Well, I thought it could be appropriate to start the article with an excerpt from my history textbook.

The Yamashita Treasure (also known as the Yamashita's Gold and Fort Santiago Treasure) is the given name to an alleged stolen valuables particularly in Southeast Asian countries by Japanese forces during the Second World War. Those valuables were looted from banks, depositories, temples, churches, other commercial premises, mosques, museums and private homes. Then, all were buried or hidden in caves, tunnels and underground complexes somewhere in the Philippines.

The said treasure was named after the Imperial Japanese Army general Tomoyuki Yamashita, who was the commander of Japanese forces in the Philippines in 1944.

There were rumors that account the Yamishita Treasure is still hidden, inspite of the fact that a Filipino treasure hunter named Rogelio Roxas claimed that he found it in 1971.

I was actually hesitant to create this article because of its broad story. Until now, many people believed that this treasure truly exist and still uncovered from the place where it was hidden. Treasure hunters from around the globe are still tracking the footsteps of the Japanese armies, especially Gen. Yamashita, who were involved in the concealment of such a very large and controversial treasure. The Philippines is an archipelago which comprises over 7,000 islands, and I estimate less than 1% of these islands are a possible suspect for being the site of this alluring room of golds. Fort Santiago is one of the suspected places, as well as Baguio City (I'm not sure where exactly in Baguio.) Even Rizal's monument in Luneta Park, Manila City was suspected.

The Story behind the Theft

According to the books written by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave (The Yamato Dynasty: the Secret History of Japan's Imperial Family (2000) and Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold (2003)), the theft was organized by both the Yakuza Gangsters and the highest levels of Japanese Society, including the Emperor. The intention of the loot was to finance Japan's war effort.

Kin no yuri (Golden Lily) was organized secretly for this purpose. The Emperor himself appointed his brother, Prince Yasuhito Chichibu, to be its head.

The looting concentrated in Singapore, the stolen valuables were transported somewhere in the Philippines. From there, the Japanese planned to ship it to their country after the war. However, some of the Japanese merchant ships carrying the war booty sailed back to Japan. Unfortunately, some of them sunk during the combat in the Pacific Ocean against U.S. Navy submarines and Allied warplanes.

When the treasure was in the Philippines, they hid it in an enclosed area. According to some sources, as well as the Seagraves, they claimed that American military intelligence operatives found much of the loot, then they secretly cooperated with Emperor Hirohito and other senior Japanese figures for the concealment of the existence of the treasure. The said treasure was used to finance the American covert intelligence operations around the world during the Cold War.

Treasure Unearthed

Many individual persons and groups, both in the Philippine and from foreign countries, continued locating for treasure sites. A number of accidental deaths, injuries and financial losses incurred by treasure hunters have been reported. But one person successfully found the treasure.

In 1961, Rogelio Roxas, a Filipino treasure hunter, met a son of a former member of Japanese Army in Baguio City. The said son helped him mapped the location of the treasure. Another man, who served as Yamashita's interpreter during the Second World War, told him to visit an underground chamber which was the place where the treasure was enclosed. A few years after, he formed a group to search the for the treaure, and obtained a permit from Judge Pio Marcos.

In 1971, they found the chamber on state lands near Baguio City. There, they found bayonets, samurai swords, radios, and skeletal remains dressed in a Japanese military uniform. They also found the 3-foot-high golden Buddha and numerous crates. He opened one of the crates and it contains gold bullions.

They went out with the golden Buddha and one box of twenty-four gold bars. Then sealed the chamber fo safekeeping until the time he will be able to remove the crates from there.

However, an unfortunate event happened next. He sought potential buyers for the golden Buddha. There were two individuals who represent a prospective buyer, they examined and tested the metal in the Buddha and reported it was genuine - a solid 20-carat gold. After that, the President (Ferndinand Marcos) learned the discovery of Rogelio Roxas. He ordered him arrested and beaten. The Buddha and the remaining gold bullions were taken.

Roxas alleged that in retaliation to his vocal campaign to reclaim the Buddha and the remainder of the treasure taken from him, Ferdinand continued to have Roxas threatened, beaten and eventually incarcerated for over a year.

When he was released, he puts claims against President Marcos which at that time lost the presidency. In March 1988, he (Rogelio Roxas) and the Golden Budha Corp. held ownership rights to the treasure stolen from him, then filed lawsuit againsts the Marcoses in the state of Hawaii court seeking damages for the theft and the surrounding human rights abuses committed against him. But on the eve of trial, Roxas died. Before his death, he gave the deposition testimony which could be used as evidence. In 1996, Roxas and the Golden Budha Corp. received $22 Billion with interest increased to $40.5 Billion. This lawsuit concluded that Roxas found the treasure.

Well, I don't know what happened to the remaining crates still in the chamber, whether they were unearthed by Marcos or still in there.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamashita's_gold/
Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas: Pagbabago para sa kaunlaran at kapayapaan by: Dr. Florida C. Leuterio

Karaoke: Made in the Philippines?

Who really invented the karaoke machine?

Filipinos do love singing, and they usually go to bars with karaoke machines or KTV bars to entertain themselves. Singing in karaoke machines also benefited some Filipinos bringing them to stardom, like Arnel Pineda of Journey.

Sadly, this way of entertainment of Filipinos irritated some of the sensitive-eared people, who just wanted a very quiet day. Even some of the foreigners were annoyed of this. Well, I can't blame Filipinos if they like to put a karaoke machine in every celebration they hold outside their houses, especially in the streets. They just wanted to show others that they were happy. I don't know if that's the reason.

Anyway, let's go to the main event.

If you ask someone about who invented this machine, some Filipinos would answer it was invented by a Filipino, but some would say its the Japanese. So I would like to put this confusion in clarity because it even led itself to an urban legend. What makes this an urban legend? Well, it's because many people ignored the truth about it.

Introduction

The word karaoke came from Japanese words kara (which means empty) and oke (simplified word for okesutora or orchestra in English). It is a form of interactive entertainment or video game in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music (a music video) using a microphone and public address system.[a]

In a karaoke machine, the typical songs installed are pop songs such as that of Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra and etc. It also includes some of the local songs where the karaoke is used. However the songs on it doesn't have the voice of the original singer, only the sound and lyrics of the song.

Japanese Karaoke

The considered inventor of the first karaoke machine is the Japanese musician Daisuke Inoue. He invented what he called the Juke-8 in 1971.

Japanese drummer Daisuke Inoue was asked frequently by guests in the Utagoe Kissa, where he performed, to provide recordings of his performances so that they could sing along. Realizing the potential for the market, Inoue made a tape recorder-like machine that played songs for a 100-yen coin each. Instead of giving his karaoke machines away, Inoue leased them out so that stores did not have to buy new songs on their own.[a]

Philippine Karaoke

Here in the Philippines, the considered inventor was Roberto del Rosario, the president of the Trebel Music Corporation. He invented his Karaoke Sing Along System in 1975, which is 4 years after Daisuke Inoue invented his version.

Roberto del Rosario described his sing-along system as a handy multi-purpose compact machine which incorporates an amplifier speaker, one or two tape mechanisms, optional tuner or radio and microphone mixer with features to enhance one's voice, such as the echo or reverb to stimulate an opera hall or a studio sound, with the whole system enclosed in one cabinet casing.[b]

But because he patented his invention and put it in commercial purposes, he was considered the first inventor - the first patented producer.

Other Karaoke

Aside of the two persons above, there was actually another company who was also considered the first inventor - the Clarion company. They were actually the first producer, but there is no existence of the patent.

Sources:
a. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaoke
b. http://inventors.about.com/od/filipinoscientists/p/Karaoke.htm

The Secret of University of Santo Tomas

University of Santo Tomas was one of the oldest universities in the Philippines. Even our national hero Dr. Jose P. Rizal studied here. The original building of the university was actually in Intramuros, then they transfered in Sampaloc (the present location of UST).

The university is a private, Roman Catholic, teaching and research university run by the Order of Preachers in Manila. Founded on 28 April 1611 by archbishop of Manila Miguel de Benavides, it has the oldest extant university charter in the Philippines and in Asia and is one of the world's largest Catholic universities in terms of enrollment found on one campus.[1]

The Legend

[Taken from Internet:[2]]

beneath it was something, hidden for almost nine millenniums, waiting for something... There's a popular myth in the Philippines that the University of Santo Tomas was hiding something beneath it. It was said that there is a secret underground passageway beneath it and it also hides plenty of secret doorways. They said, that it was St. Thomas Aquinas who planned and wrote the testament order to be given to the Dominican priests to build that kind of passages. It was said, that from the Arc [Arch] of the Centuries towards the Main building, you will see unexplainable [inexplainable/inexplicable] languages, words, and symbols being etched at the side [in the walls] of the hallway. And that's true! I've seen those prints because I'm a student of this university. Although three of these secret doorways has been revealed, there is no passageway that we could find directing us into the main underground passageway. We are wondering if this is only a myth or reality. And we are thinking, if we could crack the codes etched through the hallway, maybe it can lead us through the secret underground passageway where secrets are meant to be secrets forever. The big question is... Why does St. Thomas needs [need] to order those Dominican priests to build this kind of passageway? What's inside this passageway, and what does it contains [contain]? How come that this passageway has been able to be kept for almost nine millenniums without the knowledge of our fellow university men? [How did they hide this passageway for almost nine millenniums without the knowledge of our fellow university men?] What does [do] the codes mean? Does the positioning of the University or the above photo* of the university can give us hints? [Can the position of the University or the above photo* give us hints?] Does [Do] the Quadricentennial square of this university and its 'arc of the century' have a relationship to this so called "myth"? I'm just wondering because I'm a student of this university... *I don't have the photo the author was talking about.

Findings

As written above by the original author of the narrative, it was a "popular 'myth'". Thus, many people knew it.

One of our readers noticed something, about St. Thomas Aquinas. He (the original author) said that the Saint planned and ordered the construction of the 'secret passageway.' However, St. Thomas had died earlier (on March 4, 1274) before the main building of UST started its construction (in 1924). Even though the university was founded in 1611, it's still too late; and the European (esp. Spaniards) even came in the Philippines in 1521.

The author also claimed that (s)he personally saw those symbols or languages inscribed in the walls of the said hallway (Arch of the Centuries towards the Main building). (S)He considered the symbols to be a puzzle that may reveal the way to the secret passageway.

The Arch of the Centuries (s)he is talking about was originally erected in 1611 at Intramuros.When UST transferred in Sampaloc, the Arch was also carried piece-by-piece and was re-erected at the present Plaza Intramuros in 1954. The original Arch which faces the Main Building was the main doorway to the university building before it was destroyed during World War II when it was at Intramuros. A newer arch faced España Boulevard, which is a reconstruction of the original arch.[3]

While the Main Building, its construction was handed over Fr. Roque Ruaño, a Spanish Dominican who had graduated at the top of the first graduating class of the UST's Faculty of Engineering in 1912. He conducted a research about earthquakes of the country.[4] Thus, the main building was built as an earthquake proof.

(S)He also mentioned the Quadricentennial Square. Ramon Orlina’s sculpture, “Tetraglobal”, is the centerpiece of it, which signifies the various stakeholders of the university represented by four figures: Two students, one male and the other, female; a professor; and a Dominican priest.[5]


Being the oldest university in Asia, it is possible that such school may hide some doorways beneath its buildings. Even the old monumental buildings (esp. Castles) in Europe contain secret passageways that may lead you from here to there. My first impression with this legend is, the author considered the university campus like that of Hogwarts. Well, I can't blame him/her. I admit, I also love mysteries and discovering places not been discovered.

It made me remember the stories my uncle told me about the province where he grew up. I am eager to go there.

Sources:
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Santo_Tomas
[2]http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=160579
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_of_the_Centuries
[4]http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/artsandbooks/artsandbooks/view/20110131-317554/The-history-behind-USTs-National-Cultural-Treasures
[5]http://www.ust.edu.ph/index.php/landmarks/839-quadricentennial-square.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas
Note:
The above story in the box is unedited. The 'I' on it is not the author of this article himself but the original writer of the story. The italicized words were inserted to make it clear and understandable for the readers.

Tasaday - Hoax or Genuine

Have you heard about the Tasaday Tribe? (The one which people considered as a Stone Age Tribe.) If yes, do you think this tribe is real? Or just a hoax? If they were not true, then someone was behind this greatest scandal.

Actually, till now no one knows who to believe - the debunkers or the believers. The Tasaday people are the only one who know if they were really true or just paid actors by Manuel Elizalde. Like what Ethnologist Thomas Headland said,

.... the Tasaday were a hoax when viewed as a group of paid actors that paraded around the forest wearing leaves.
.... they were authentic if they were viewed as a forest-dwelling group of people caught in the midst of the media.

For the sake of this discussion, let's think they were in the middle of true and fake. NO BIAS.

About the Tasaday Tribe

The Tasaday tribe is an indigenous people of Mindanao, island South of Philippines. They are considered belonging in the Lumad group together with the other indigenous people found in the same island. These group of people were believed to be living in the caves of the Philippine rain forest, secluding themselves to the others, and are not aware of their surroundings. They were wearing only orchid leaves and have their diet with fruits, fishes and insects. This tribe was called Stone Age Tribe because of their way of living which resembles that of the Stone Age people from the past, and, of course, they use stone tools.

Tasaday language is distinct from that of their neighboring tribes - Manobo in the east and Tboli in the west. They even don't have in their dialect the words war, hate, enemy, conflict and the like. However, in the mid-1980s, according to Linguistics Anthropologist Carol Malony their language was 80% similar to Manobos'.

As of 2008, their population is only 216.

Discovery

On June 7, 1971, a local Manobo hunter from the village of Blit told Manuel Elizalde about their accidental encounters with this primitive tribe. A month later, he released the discovery in the media. Visitors were very excited in seeing them. But weeks after announcement of the news, the visitors were blocked by PANAMIN guards. They only allow important visitors to meet them.

By the way, Manuel Elizalde was at that time the head of the government agency PANAMIN, which protects the interest of cultural minorities. He also took credit in the discovery of Tasaday Tribe.

In June, 1971, Elizalde with his bodyguard, helicopter pilot, a doctor, a student, named Edith Terry, and a local tribespeople for interpreting purposes, met with the Tasaday people in the edge of the forest.

In March, 1972, another meeting was held, this time in the home site of the tribe, between Elizalde, and members of press and media including the Associated Press and National Geographic Society.

Being brought out to the world, Tasaday became so popular that they caught the attention of all medias, famous anthropologists and celebrities like Charles Lindbergh and Gina Lollobrigida.

Ethno-botanist Douglas Yen, Linguistics Anthropologist Carol Malony, and Father Sean McDonaugh studied the newly discovered tribe.

Anthropologists Zeus Salazar, Gerald Berraman, Alan Barnard and Swiss Anthropologist Journalist Oswald Iten told the media that the tribe was an absolute fake, that they were just making a great show to the whole world.

Studies of the Believers and Debunkers

Ethno-botanist Douglas Yen studies the ways of different cultures in how they utilize plants. He was also a strong believer that the tribe was definitely a genuine Stone Age tribe. He lived with them for about a month and what he found out was that they actually live resembling that of the Stone Age people. Also, according to him, they live by just eating relatively a low carbohydrate and protein foods.

He made an experiment using rice plants. He asked some children about it, and no one had an idea. This proves that they have no exposure to outside world. The rice grow outside there place and yet no one of them discovered it. Tasadays eat a different variety of rice, different from his sample, but they call it in other names. Tasaday was a hunting and gathering civilization and they never planted rice, so children never know it unless they plant some.

Linguistics Anthropologist Carol Malony studied the tribe's language if they were related with others. According to her, their language was 80% similar to Manobos'. Thus, it only mean they have contact with each other or they came from only one tribe but didn't lived longer and evolved together. The media concluded that the two split off around 1200 A.D., meaning they weren't Stone Age Tribe. And this specific conclusion brought out many speculation that the tribe is FAKE.

She also approved to what Yen said that Tasadays had no borrowed words from other languages. If they had, they are good in faking themselves to not saying by a fault any of those words. She also added that upon conversation with children, she found her discovery very strong. It seemed that their language is genuine. There are plenty of rooms for children to come out even a single borrowed word from their mouths in a conversation.

According to Father Sean McDonaugh, he followed them for twenty years, and he had Tboli tribe members with him to examine them. The Tboli tribe found that they were not related to each other.

In 1986, (the time when Marcos government was overthrown) Swiss Anthropologist Journalist Oswald Iten came back to the rain forest accompanied by Joey Lozano, a Filipino reporter, and Datu Galang Tikaw for an unauthorized investigation to the Tasaday cave, they are with six Tasaday for two hours. He saw the cave empty, then Tasadays were wearing T-shirts and jeans, and had footage that they were living in houses (huts). This became the basis of another story of Tasadays - that it was a hoax.

According to him, the Tasaday people were just farmers of Manobo and Tboli tribe, and were forced to live like cavemen by Manuel Elizalde in exchange of payment.

"We didnt live in caves, only near them, until we met Elizalde," they said. "Elizalde forced us to live in the caves so that we'd be better cavemen. Before he came, we lived in huts on the other side of the mountain and we farmed. We took off our clothes because Elizalde told us to do so and promised if we looked poor that we would get assistance. He gave us money to pose as Tasaday and promised us security from counter-insurgency and tribal fighting."

Manuel Elizalde was accused of promising food and clothing to the tribe if they will cooperate with him. He was also rumored that the reason why he made it is just to take their land. (But he was proven to had acquired some lands from other tribes.)

A few weeks later, a team from Dern Stern went there accompanied by the original discoverer of the tribe. There, they saw them again wearing leaves in the cave, with clothes under those leaves. This was supposed to disprove their authenticity.

Anthropologists Zeus Salazar who also believed that Tasaday were not true. He studied the tools that the Tasaday were using. He found out that those tools were not made just like that used by people in Stone Age, that those tools cannot be used in daily activities. With these discovery he concluded that they were fake, and was just used as props for the show.

Anthropologists Gerald Berraman also studied their stone tools. He didn't found any remains of old tools in the cave. Tasaday tribeman told him that after 1970s, they stopped creating stone tools because they were given knives by explorers who visited them. However, this reason, for Barraman, was unbelievable because if they started to use these tools at around 1970s then there should be any remains of their old tools somewhere. He also found out that these people don't have hunting tools nor any rituals and folklores which for him, was an important ways in survival.

Ban to Visitations

In April 1972, (same year when Martial Law was declared) Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos (at the behest of PANAMIN and Lindbergh) declared 19,000 acres (182 km²) of land surrounding the Tasaday's ancestral caves as the Tasaday/Manobo Blit Preserve. By this time, eleven anthropologists had studied the Tasaday in the field, but none for more than six weeks, and in 1976, Marcos issued a decree to close the preserve to all visitors in ... protecting the Tasaday and other unexplored cultural communities from unauthorized entry. This declaration was rumored that Elizalde persuaded Marcos to do such.

One of the reasons for the closing was a number of suspicions that arose. Apparently, their dead were left in the forest under a layer of leaves, yet no bones, compost, or the like were found. Secondly, although the Tasaday had claimed to be living in the jungle at their cave shelter full time, there was no garbage or sign of human waste. Elizalde claimed that among the 24 remaining Tasaday, there was no wife-sharing, adultery, or divorce. Their diet was claimed to be all forage, i.e., wild fruit, palm pith, forest yams, tadpoles, grubs, and roots. The calories in such a diet are less than the amount needed for survival, so they should have been paper thin. The apparent yams that they survive on were experiencing a shortage around the area where they lived. When dietitians and health advisors suggested further research, they were promptly banned from the Tasaday's home. An anthropologist reported seeing soldiers slipping cooked rice to the Tasaday, and he was banned as well.

Prior to the closing of the preserve to visitors, PANAMIN funded essentially all efforts to find, visit, and study, the Tasaday, with most of the money used to "protect" them coming from Elizalde and his family, with a lesser portion provided by the Philippine government. As contact between the Tasaday and the world outside their forest virtually ceased with the banning of visitors to the preserve in 1976, so did expenditures on the Tasaday by PANAMIN.

Rise of Controversy

In a TV program (ABC Televion's) 20/20 two young Tasaday, named Lobo and Adug, told the interviewer, through their translator Datu Galang Tikaw, that they were indeed not Tasaday. Because of this claim, the hoax of Tasaday became the headline worldwide.

Two years after them, in BBC Documentary, they interviewd again the same Tasaday. They showed the video of their interview with the 20/20 program together with other Tasadays. They confessed that what they said in the interview was not true, Galang told them to say those words in exchange of cigarettes, clothing, and anything they wanted. But Galang confirmed those statements.

Others

At the time when Swiss Anthropologist Journalist Oswald Iten came back to the rain forest and found Tasaday wearing clothes and living in houses, it was about 15 years later from the time they were discovered and televised, and had contact with outside world. So in those years, it is possible that they had changed their ways. It doesn't mean that they were cavemen, will be cavemen forever; they were wearing leaves, and will wear leaves forever.

And at the time a team from Dern Stern came back after Iten's encounter, they saw them wearing leaves again. Its not a problem if they wanted to go back in wearing leaves again. Especially, if some of them find clothes irritating (just like Tarzan when he wore a cloth).

Lawrence A. Reid (U. of Hawai'i, Dept. of Linguistics, Emeritus) writes that he spent 10 months with the Tasaday and surrounding linguistic groups (1993–1996) and has concluded that they probably were as isolated as they claim, that they were indeed unfamiliar with agriculture, that their language was a different dialect from that spoken by the closest neighboring group, and that there was no hoax perpetrated by the original group that reported their existence. In his paper 'Linguistic Archaeology: Tracking down the Tasaday Language' Dr. Reid states although he originally thought that an individual Tasaday named Belayem was fabricating data, he later found, after a detailed analysis of the linguistic evidence, around 300 of Belayem's forms were actually used in Kulaman Valley, Manobo (Manobo languages), that Belayem had never visited and did not even know about. Reid also concluded that the Tasaday had not been isolated for a thousand years. He speculated that they split off from the Kulaman Valley Manobos, perhaps about 150 to 200 years ago. They might had fled into the jungle to escape any of disease, and war.

Ethnologist Thomas Headland says that the Tasaday were a tribe that was caught in the midst of a changing world. Headland edited a book composed of all the anthropological articles and data analysis along with the various arguments about the Tasaday and reached the conclusion that the entire Tasaday episode was the result of exaggerations and miscommunications among the media. He said that he doubted the accusations that the Tasaday were paid to live half-naked in the rain forest as dwellers and that he does believe they were a discovered tribe, but not a Stone Age tribe.

According to Headland, the Tasaday tribe incident was the result of the noble savage attitude toward a newly discovered tribe that came during the late 1960s resulting from the wars and the need for peace in the world. Headland also said that the Tasaday were a hoax when viewed as a group of paid actors that paraded around the forest wearing leaves. He said they were authentic if they were viewed as a forest-dwelling group of people caught in the midst of the media. Anthropologists instantly worshipped the Tasaday because they were seen as a new area of study. During this time, everyone thought this tribe was unique because the tribe had no words for war and hate in its society. This belief made way for the conditions of self-fulfilling prophesies that the researchers experienced causing them to only record data that related to their individual theories.

Now the tribe is okay. They are gaining population again, and they learn how to farm.

And its up to you if you believe some of the above information.

By the way, I had watched a documentary by Kara David in I-Witness (GMA): Tasaday Revisited 30 years. She asked Lobo if Tasaday truelly were Tasaday, and he answered a big YES, that they were.

For more about them, click here

Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasaday_people
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,452856,00.html
http://jamesjr.tripod.com/index-3.html
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/the_stone-age_tasaday

No. 14 Laperal

It has been urban legend or just plain curiosity that make the locals and tourists alike flock to # 14 Laperal, or famously know as the "White House" in Baguio City.

Many TV shows and films have capitalized on its notoriety as being haunted.

But what really boggles the mind is the mystery surrounding the history of the house. Many stories have come up about the fate of the Laperal family. No one really knows what happened inside the white structure. Even the relatives of the original owners are mum about it.

The paints are fading. But the popularity of the house just keeps on growing because of the interests of the people in the paranormal.

Who are the ghosts that haunt the Laperal White House? Do they have stories to tell?

I-Witness dared to find out when Jay Taruc and a group of psychics locked themselves inside the house to just feel their "presence."

What the cameras captured were extraordinary sounds and images that will stir the senses.

The Video

Click Here to watch this video in youtube.com

I watched this documentary of Jay Taruc in the middle of the night alone in my room ... This scared me very much, especially of that part where a ghost talked in the CCTV Camera saying, Nandito kame ... (We're hear ...) Till now, I can't forget that ...

Source:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty9_VjYy7Ek

Malacañang Palace

Malacañang Palace is the home of the President of Republic of the Philippines, the symbol of the nation, and also his/her official office. It is located at 1000 José P. Laurel Street, San Miguel, Manila. The house was built in 1750 in Spanish Colonial style. In Spanish Era, it is also the home of Governor-General of the Philippines. It was purchased from a Spanish Aristocrat named Don Luis Rocha, and was purchased by a Spanish Colonel and again purchased by the state, thus became the home of the representatives of Spain in the Philippines.

Yes! It is true. The building was built since the Spanish time. So, it might be true that there is an unknown entity there. Then, what are they?

Male and female figures disappearing into walls. Pianos playing by themselves in the dead of night.

Empty chairs turning, heavy curtains parting, plates vanishing from where you put them. --- Philippine Daily Inquirer

Pres. Noynoy Aquino once said,

No one wants to live in Malacañang proper, because of the eerie environment.

Actually, he prefer to live in the other side of Pasig River - on Bahay Pangarap.

I don?t like the ambience of Malacañang Palace. There's this big balete tree in front [of the state entrance] ... And the guards say sometimes, the pianos start playing by themselves and someone is [heard] marching [down the hall].

Story

[Taken from a News Website:]

Strange things The strongman's son, Senator Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr., narrated tales of ghostly goings-on during the family's 20-year stay in the Spanish-era Palace. There's no doubt about it, many strange things are really happening there, the senator told the Inquirer. Everybody who lived in the Palace, during and after [our stay], including the security and the staff?everybody has experienced something, he said. Eduardo Rozon, chief steward during the Marcos regime, and Bernardo Barcena Jr., a guard posted at the door to the private quarters of the then first family, vividly recall both frightening and hilarious encounters with the unknown in Malacañang. From their stories recounted to the Inquirer last week, it appeared that ghosts haunted not only the numerous state rooms but also the Marcoses? private quarters, and even the adjoining building known as Kalayaan Hall. The chandeliers clanked, the plates in the china room tinkled, and staff members felt their hair rising. The ghostly occurrences always happened in the wee hours?between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., when the Palace was quiet and deserted, according to both Bongbong Marcos and Barcena. During that witching hour, it was common for the staff to see figures appear at the Reception Hall, the massive corridor framed by pictures of all Philippine presidents, and the Ceremonial Hall, the biggest room in the Palace where the most important state functions are held and which served as balcony during the Spanish and American eras. Never their faces You just see them. You think they're your colleagues but they're not. And they always had their backs to us; we never saw their faces, said Barcena, who is now on his second term as barangay councilman in Bagong Nayon in Antipolo City, the housing project awarded by the Marcoses to their household staff. Barcena once walked up to who he thought was a colleague leaning on a panel in the Ceremonial Hall: I was just a few meters from him when he vanished. Frightened, Barcena hurried to tell his colleagues about the experience. Rozon, who supervised the Palace waiters, recalled one night when he was at the Reception Hall and noticed that the door to the Music Room was ajar. (A bedroom during the Spanish time, the Music Room has since been used by first ladies as a sitting room for important state guests.) Rozon said he wondered to his companion what would happen if the half-open door would suddenly close. Then the door did close! We ran downstairs! he said, laughing. Barcena swore that in the same room with no one else around, they heard the piano play and saw the first lady's chair turn by itself. Intrigued by the stories, Bongbong Marcos and his friends decided to go ghost hunting in the courtyard of the private quarters, which had a fountain in the middle. Knock, knock A friend reached for a doorknob, but the door opened before he could touch it. They scrambled upstairs, the senator recalled with a chuckle. It was also common for the family members to hear someone knocking on their doors, always at around 2 a.m. During the renovation of the Palace, Bongbong Marcos said, he used a room adjacent to the State Dining Room as his temporary quarters. (The State Dining Room, originally a ballroom during the Spanish and American times, has three Commonwealth-era chandeliers and 40 carved chairs around a long dining table. It is now where Cabinet meetings are held. Its large French mirrors were installed in 1877, according to the book Malacañan Palace, The Official Illustrated History.) Knocking awakened Bongbong Marcos one night, and when he opened his door, he saw no one there. Suddenly, one of the antique chairs stacked leaning against the dining table righted itself! I couldn't sleep anymore that night, he said. The ghosts also apparently liked telephones. The senator said his mother Imelda had been roused from sleep by the ringing of the phone in her bedroom, also during the wee hours. The next morning she would ask who called her at that time, and of course nobody did, he said. Rozon said the ringing phones even sparked quarrels among the guards, each suspecting his colleagues of pulling a prank. Seeing things It was President Marcos who reportedly kept seeing people who were not actually there. Coming home from school once, Bongbong Marcos and his two sisters were told by their father about an experience the previous night in the President?s Study, which once served as Quezon's bedroom. A household aide walked into his office past midnight, and Marcos ordered him to fetch something. When the aide did not return, Marcos asked the guard where he had gone. Sir, there is no one here, the guard said. Rozon told another version of that story of Marcos wondering why a household aide was still in his study well past midnight. He peered through his glasses to look closely at the aide, who disappeared into the wall, Rozon said. Bongbong Marcos said his sister Imee had also seen Quezon's ghost in one of the state rooms. Undersecretary Manolo Quezon of the Malacañang communications group recalled a story of how his grandfather's ghost paced the Palace during times of crisis. (But ?no one I have met, or heard this story from, ever described him as menacing, or cursing, the grandson said.) He said it was supposedly one of the reasons the Marcoses had the Palace reconstructed in 1979, doubling its original size. Another story from the current staff in the Palace is they sometimes see the lights on late at night in the Quezon Room (now the Executive Office) in Kalayaan Hall, he said. The ghosts may be the lost souls of people slain during World War II, Bongbong Marcos said, adding that the Japanese Army used Malacañang as headquarters and that people were killed in some of the rooms there. Father Brown et al. One person believed killed by Japanese troops was an American priest whose ghost has since haunted the Palace as ?Father Brown? and who, Bongbong Marcos said, was wont to wake dozing Palace guards with a variety of tricks. Then there is a Chinese manservant who has appeared to Palace staff and guests. Bongbong Marcos said a guest from Italy recounted being awakened by a Chinese servant at around 3 a.m. and told to attend Mass with the Marcoses. The first family asked around and was told that the ghost had been known to appear as early as the time of President Manuel Roxas. The ghosts are apparently a mischievous lot. Said Elmer Navarro, whose father Federico, now deceased, was a household aide during the Marcos years: The ghosts played tricks on him. When he put down the plates and turned away, they would be gone when he looked again. Then he would find the plates elsewhere. Barcena said he and his colleagues reported their experiences to their superiors, and were told, with a shrug: Those are house guests. Mr. Brown The most popular of the Palace ?guests? is the benevolent kapre said to inhabit the balete tree that makes President Aquino uncomfortable. Rozon, now 69, said the kapre had been known as Mr. Brown (perhaps confused with Father Brown) since Quezon?s time, but that some staff members also referred to him as Mr. Jones. Mr. Brown was not bad. He didn't harm people, Rozon said. The story goes that household aide Mariano Dacuso, now deceased, was relaxing and reading the papers in the Tea House (where a mosque now stands) when he found himself being lifted along with his chair. He was lifted almost to the ceiling so he told the kapre, Please put me down. Then he ran to us, Rozon said. Then there was a cabbie who got the scare of his life when he asked for a light and looked up to see the kapre chomping on a cigar. Shaking in fear, the cabbie ran to the quarters of the servants, who told him he had found Mr. Brown. Rozon also said that when the social secretary's staff worked overtime typing letters, they would hear someone else typing in the next room, which was empty. Whenever something mysterious happened, it was always blamed on Mr. Brown, he said. Elmer Navarro, who lived in the old servants? quarters as a child, said the kapre was feared even by the military. Sometimes, he recalled, ?you could see smoke wafting from the tree.? Bunye's story Ignacio 'Toting' Bunye, now a member of the Monetary Board, has his own story to tell: From Day One of my assumption as press secretary in 2002, I have been warned about creepy happenings in ... Malacañang. Not being the superstitious type, I readily dismissed such stories. But it is not uncommon to hear about various offices being blessed every now and then, supposedly to ward off any unwanted unearthly visitors. One senior official even had the windows and doors of his office plastered with small medallions of the Blessed Virgin as added insurance. And then it happened! One night after a late dinner at the Ceremonial Hall, I passed by my office to pick up some stuff before going home. It must have been past 9 [p.m.]. My office, at that time, was ... what used to be [Marcos?] bedroom. To reach it from the Ceremonial Hall, one passes through a series of doors and hallways, starting with the Music Room, then through the Ramos Room, another connecting room, and finally the Marcos bedroom. As I walked to my office, I had a funny feeling that somebody or something was following me. I could feel my hair rising and my heart ... [pounding] faster. In the still of the evening, the footsteps on the wooden floor were very audible. As soon as I reached my office, I locked the door behind me (as if it would have mattered). The Thing Bunye said the footsteps slowly but progressively moved closer. He continued: Then I heard the doorknob turn and I felt the slight push on the door. After a while the footsteps started to move away, but seemingly in circles. What I have heard is now happening to me! I quickly said three Our Fathers, three Hail Marys and three Glory Be's. Somehow, I felt emboldened and I decided to leave in a hurry. I told myself: Mr. Ghost, you can scare me but you cannot hurt me! My first view of The Thing from a distance was of a white-haired man wearing a dark suit. The Thing must have sensed my presence because he immediately turned around. He said: Toting, paano ba lumabas dito (How do you get out of here)? Secretary Raul Gonzalez seemed as relieved as I was. The then newly appointed justice secretary had followed me through the secret door and somehow had gotten lost in the Palace labyrinth. The two men later learned it was Gonzalez?s footsteps, and not those of a ghost, that Bunye had heard. Real or imagined, ghosts have the run of Malacañang, making it truly a place not for the faint-hearted.

Sources:
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20101031-300680/Mr-Brown-lives-in-RPs-most-haunted-house-Palace
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacañan_Palace