On August 1, 2009, Ma. Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco Aquino, the first woman President of the Philippines, died of colon cancer at the age of 76. Born in Manila, “Tita Cory,” as she was fondly called, is the mother of the country’s 15th and current President, Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III. She is best remembered for [...]
On July 31, 1946, the Philippine Airlines (PAL) claimed the official title of being the first Asian airline to cross the Pacific Ocean, departing from the then Nielson Airport in Makati to the U.S. mainland with a DC-4 aircraft. After that, PAL started its official service between Manila and San Francisco in December 1946. Other [...]
Speaker Feliciano Belmonte; Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile; Vice President Jejomar Binay, Chief Justice Renato Corona, Former Presidents Fidel Valdez Ramos and Joseph Ejercito Estrada; Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate; distinguished members of the diplomatic corps; My beloved countrymen: Our administration is facing a forked road. On one direction, decisions are [...]
On July 10, 1934, the Filipino voters elected at least 202 delegates to a constitutional convention which drafted the Philippine Constitution. Headed by Claro M. Recto, the Constitutional Convention of 1934 was responsible for framing the 1935 Commonwealth Constitution which was approved by President Franklin Roosevelt on March 23, 1935. It has been said that [...]
According to Forbes Magazine, the list below are the Top 10 richest Filipino’s for 2010 : 1) Henry Sy; US$5 billion 2) Lucio Tan; $2.1 billion 3) John Gokongwei Jr.; $1.5 billion 4) Jaime Zobel de Ayala; $1.4 billion 5) Andrew Tan; $1.2 billion 6) Tony Tan Caktiong; $980 million 7) Enrique Razon Jr.; $975 [...]
On July 9, 1985, Arturo P. Alcaraz, a volcanologist and acknowledged “father of geothermal energy” won the IBM Science and Technology Award. Alcaraz, who earned his Masters of Science degree in Geology at the University of Wisconsin in the United States as a government scholar, pioneered in generating electricity by means of geothermal steam among [...]
On July 8, 1987, as official representative of the Vatican to the Millenary of the Russian Orthodox Church, his Eminence, Jaime Cardinal Sin became the first Catholic prelate to visit Lithuania since the 1917 Russian Revolution. Born on August 31, 1928 in Aklan, Cardinal Sin, Archbishop emeritus of Manila, attended the 600th anniversary celebration of [...]
On July 7, 1892, a group of Filipino patriots led by Andres Bonifacio, Teodoro Plata, Ladislao Diwa, Valentin Diaz and Deodato Arellano, among others, formally founded in Tondo, Manila the Katipunan, an anti-Spanish society with the goal of gaining Philippine independence. It had three principal aims: political, moral and civic. The political aim was to [...]
On July 2, 1971, the first Pan American World Airway’s Boeing 747 jumbo jet arrived at the then Manila International Airport with 269 passengers. Pan American World Airways was the second airline to open a regular jumbo route to the Philippines with 20 hours flying time between San Francisco and Manila. Also on this same [...]
On July 1, 1978, Filipino singer Hajji Alejandro won the Best Singer Award in the Seoul International Song Festival for singing Ryan Cayabyab’s composition “Kay Ganda ng Ating Musika.” Alejandro sang Cayabyab’s winning entry in the 1978 Metropop and then went on to win the Grand Prix of that year’s Seoul World Music Festival. It [...]