Foot and Fire

WARNING: This is not about what I think about the book because I always love the collected PDI columns of Ambeth Ocampo because they leave morsels of some historical facts. Nevermind all of his side thoughts on them. Thus,  Rizal Without Overcoat by same author will be my next reading companion after this book and I think I need some time to breathe in between and this includes expressing my thoughts on Rizal while reading Ambeth Ocampo's lectures.  A lot has been said about Rizal which praised him as our national hero and demeaned him because he should not be our national hero, but of course, both extreme polars left me to decide for myself why Rizal deserves to lead our rooster of national heroes, and does not deserve to be demeaned or doubted or compared to others.  My own measure was my take on When Rizal was exiled in Dapitan where he lived a fruitful life. I likened his exile to our present quarantine and isolation. During his exile, Rizal did not spend ...

This 1338-page book is a gift from the court interpreter who will be retiring soon. He loves novels and will be donating his fictions to my local school. I already spotted this heavyweight last time and I mentioned to him that he gift it to me because I personally "eye" it. Fellow bookworms bond... *** Quickly, I skimmed the book and the quick index. Of course, I am interested what were the entries for the Filipinos... So far, I found Jose Rizal under the tagline Filipino-Spanish and Jose Garcia Villa under Filipino writing in English. What were my instant thoughts? Why was Jose Rizal not placed as Filipino when the others were under Chinese, Malay etc. I shall write of my thoughts on Villa separately. *** *** *** WATER AND FIRE Jose Rizal...... Water are we, you say, and yourselves fire;  so let us be what we are and co-exist without ire, and may no conflagration ever find us at war.  But, rather, fused together by cunning scienc...

When Rizal was exiled in Dapitan, he was with his three nephews whom he taught acdemically and whom he was able to observe as to their inclination. I was reading at present the Looking Back 5 of Ambeth Ocampo and was so fun read on the thoughts of Rizal regarding education. I mentioned that because in this compilation, there is an article where one nephew asked for books and one asked for bolos which Rizal understood that one can be a doctor and the other can be a farmer. Aside from that, I can't help but get amused that Mr. Ocampo does not know what color do the palay get when theyre ripe for the harvest. He thought it is still green. And for the benefit of those urban babies, theyre turning golden yellow. Somewhat still having both thoughts fresh in my mind, I enjoyed how my nephew played with the ducks and ducklings today : he chased them like cats and played with them like they're dogs. In fact, he wanted to bring one duckling home inorder to play with it. Learning in f...

Inspired by the Talisay estate of Jose Rizal in Dapitan, I decided to check on the small farm where we planted fruit trees... In his piece of land, Rizal planted some abaca and corn and he bought this piece of Land out of his lotto winnings, informs Ambeth Ocampo in his compiled columns enttiled Looking Back 5. Given the seething heat brought by global warming, i believe we all need to plant something in a backyard or even on a pot, and planting is a worthy activity to kill time than malling and shopping and a worthy break from the tv and other gadgets... We all need not be exiled to think of this good activity. And we were able to bring home ingredients for our laswa!