“The words are not good for the secret meaning, everything always becomes a bit different, as soon as it is put into words, gets distorted a bit, a bit silly—yes, and this is also very good, and I like it a lot, I also very much agree with this, that this what is one man’s treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to another person.” ― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
Finally saw the somewhat controversial film Quezon (2025), the 3rd movie in the Bayani (Hero) series of E.A. Rocha and Fernando Ortigas, Executive Producers and Jerrold Tarog, Director of the films. The controversy arose when one of Quezon's grandsons Ricky Avanceña questioned the director during a Q&A forum on the film. He asked if the… Continue reading The debunking of the Quezon hero image
Debunking Heroes like Lapu-Lapu while Upholding Colonizers like Magellan in Philippine Films A grandson of the country’s first Commonwealth president expressed concern and anger at the portrayal of his grandfather in the movie about his granddad. Quezon (2025) is the fourth movie in the Bayani (Hero) quadrilogy that included Bonifacio, ang Unang Pangulo (2014), Heneral… Continue reading Lapu Lapu Out, Magellan In; Revolutionaries Out, Colonizers In
Just saw Magellan (2025). I have never been a fan of Lav Diaz. Once, I had to sit in a theater to watch a 7-hour Diaz film. It was required watching for one of my film studies graduate courses. It was one of the worst films I had seen. Magellan (2025) was a re-imagining of… Continue reading Magellan (2025): Filipino Self-Bashing
Abstract: This paper explores the traditionally accepted claim that Aisha bint Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with her, was married to the Prophet Muhammad,(ﷺ) peace be upon him, at the age of six and that the marriage was consummated at the age of nine. Drawing from both hadith literature and early Islamic historical sources,… Continue reading Reassessing Aisha’s Age at Marriage: A Historical and Hadith-Based Inquiry
FB reminded me of a blogpost I wrote in 2015 about the movie Heneral Luna. At that time, FB had a section for blogposts. I wonder why this blogpost is still in FB memories when the Blog or Notes section on FB had been deleted already. Since the Blog/Notes section of FB had been deleted,… Continue reading Luna, Mabini, the Cojuangcos and the Philippine Revolution
The Real Story of the Origins of the modern-day Malita There are just so many #FakeNews or #MisInformation or #DisInformation widely disseminated through the World Wide Web that one does not know what to believe anymore. One cannot trust even official government sites or even legal documents like congressional bills. Some may be harmless or… Continue reading MALITA, the town my great-grandparents built
Postprandial Musings, 2.0 