Foot and Fire

This is one of the series of colorful birds in the zoo we found  at the foot of the Banal na Bukid in San Miguel, Bulacan. The zoo can be a sidetrip after enjoying the Biak Na Bato river, cave and trekking area. However, as for our visit, it is still closed following the tragedy where the students of Bulacan University were washed away in the river. The residents said that the area will open again by November 2014. *** The colorful green bird beside the red one. *** The friendly grey bird. *** The cute bird. *** The colorful bird of them all. *** The tiger who is camera-shy. The big pile of its poop keeps me away. *** What is this? Deer with no antler? *** White peacock. *** The greenish-black-colored peacocks which are busy feeding. *** Donkey in the pasture. *** This is the area which is still under construction/expansion.  They have various animals such...

Theories on Etymology of the word Barasoain are listed in the church's comprehensive website .   According to some people who see the relevance of the name Barasoain in the Revolution, the word Barasoain came from the term "Baras ng Suwail" which means "dungeon of the defiant." It may be seen that Barasoain is the town of the nationalistic Filipino, fighting against the foreigners who oppressed the nation.  However, according to Jose P.W. Tantoco, the former president of Bulacan Historical, Inc., the name Barasoain came from the missionaries in this town who came from a similarly-named town in Spain. The town of Barasoain in Spain is located in the District of Navarra.  From Pampanga, the Augustinian missionaries arrived in Barasoain via Calumpit. Here, they saw a community that reminded them of the forest and the beauty of Barasoain in Navarra, Spain. ​ It can be said that a missionary from Navarra recognized his hometown he loved and c...

The historical Barasoain Church where our first constitution was drafted. *** The historical significance of this church in our political history is summed in the church's website . It relates that: The history of Barasoain Church also became the history of the Philippines. After General Emilio Aguinaldo transferred the capital of the Revolutionary Government in Malolos, a national convention was held on 15 September 1898 to write the Constitution in Barasoain Church.  According to witnesses of the historical event, the opening day is glamourous. The houses along the procession route, now called Paseo del Congreso, are filled with colorful decorations with palmera leaves and flags. One hundred and ninety three delegates that represented each provinces of the Philippines like Fr. Gregorio Aglipay, Felipe Calderon, Antonio Luna and Teodoro Sandiko. Pedro Paterno was elected as the president of the convention. While the constitution is being written, in 29 September 189...

The members of Malaya Lolas who organized themselves in 2007 in order to get justice from the sufferings they went through  as comfort women during the war. Photo taken from a 2010  article. On November 23, 1944, Japanese troops descended on the town of Mapanique in the Philippines. The troops gathered  men and boys in the town and proceeded to castrate them. Afterwards, the men were forced to put their severed sexual organs in their mouths before they were burned to death en masse. Women and girls were marched to what is known today as “Bahay na Pula” (red house) in San Ildenfonso, Bulacan. There, they were interred and repeatedly raped. Lola Isabelita Vinuya is one of the faces of the women of Mapanique, Bulacan who were violated by the Japanese soldiers during the war. Photo taken from a 2010 article. The magnitude of the Japanese cruelty in Mapanique can be attributed to several causes. The town was known to be a hotbed of resistance to Japanese rule....

I grabbed this photo from a Facebook page dedicated to all facts about Bahay na Pula. Here's the link to that page which still contains few and wide posts.  This one was still taken from the page referred above.  Must be an old photo given the lush greeneries around. This one photo is a latest photo of the renovated  mansion because this is how it looked  when I visited last 19th of October 2014.  This was taken from an article  that tackled whether the haunted story is for real or not. This is the one I took when we dropped by the Bahay Na Pula. Had I known that a pertinent wartime event happened here, that it is more than a haunted house, I would have had taken time to capture much of its details within and without. 

The Bahay Na Pula in San Ildefonso, Bulacan has been known as haunted house, it having been utilized as set of Abs-cbn horror series, "Oka Tokat," way back in 1997 to 2002. I did not pay much attention to this house when we dropped by because I was told by my host-friend who resides in San Ildefonso, Bulacan that this is the famous haunted house. True to its introduction, the house is famous (or infamous) as haunted house when I searched for it in google. Horror stories perpetuated the relevance of the house today but historically, the house is also a symbol of one sad local wartime event. One article of note that caught my attention and led me to immediately write this story tells of the story of the comfort women who were violated at the Bahay Na Pula and who in 1997 organized themselves and called themselves as Malaya Lola. "It was Nov. 23, 1944. This was their story:  Central Luzon suffered heavily during the war as it was the base of the Hukbo ng B...