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Check this gem out: Nostalgia Manila. As you dear readers know, I like to wax nostalgic once in a while so discovering this site was an absolute delight for me. It covers Manila in the 1970s and 1980s, the time I grew up in the Philippines (I left for the US in the early ’80s). They encourage people to submit “photos, stories, news, quotes, music, etc.” from that era. Boy, do I have a few things to share. There are a few pieces of ephemera over here just waiting to be scanned.

Another site I recently discovered is SuperPasyal. It features photos of Manila from the streets. Just looking at them brings back memories of the heat, the pollution, the sights, the scents and the noise of the city. This is the Manila I would’ve wanted to see again, warts and all, during our trip to the Philippines had we not travelled with our three young children.

Of course, Rick’s site Project Manila offers equally interesting photos, albeit through more rose-colored lenses (’cept for the accident pictures. Glad your bro is doing well, Ricky).

On the homefront, the paintings of Philippine masters are being featured at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Pioneers of Philippine Art: Luna, Amorsolo, Zóbel runs from October 20, 2006 through January 7, 2007. I found out about this exhibit early on from the sisters Maricar and Grace at Filipina Soul. Here’s the San Jose Mercury News’s coverage of the event.

Head on over to the newly redesigned thePinoy.net to catch the latest happs in the Philippines. The award-winning site is better than ever. Great job, Ernie!

Come back, I mean. I sure hope not. But Ed Santos wants it back. His website RockDaMullet has garnered him an internet cult following. Although a big part of me wants his site shut down forever, a small part of me wants it to succeed. If the 80s fashion faux pas does come back, it will make reminiscing over my high school pictures a little more bearable. Besides the cat is out of the bag anyway.

I give props to Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) for ending the Cold War but I’d like to think the Filipino people helped inspire the world to fight oppressive regimes in the 1980s. The People Power Revolution that followed Ninoy Aquino’s assassination in 1983 catapulted his widow, Cory, to run, and eventually win, against the dictator Ferdinand Marcos during snap elections held in 1986. It was this revolt that gave hope, I believe, to oppressed people worldwide. I remember in 1987 watching South Korean protesters on TV holding up the “L” sign, the initial of Cory Aquino’s LABAN party, as they appropriated the symbol for themselves in their own fight against unfair elections. I see the image of the lone guy standing defiantly against a tank in 1989’s Tiananmen Square protest mirrored in the image from 1986 of nuns and ordinary citizens praying in front of tanks during a rally in Manila. Even as Reagan set the stage in his resolve to rid the world of communism in the 1980s, the People Power movement demonstrated to the world how non-violent peaceful resistance is done.

Update: found this interesting article on the legacy of People Power.

Dear Blog Reader,

Enclosed is a photograph showing the blog author and someone who appears to be Lemony Snicket within the same vicinity. The sea of young folk in the photograph is identified by The Daily Cornholyo as the Lowell High School Choir circa 1987. Mr. Snicket aka Daniel Handler was purportedly the student assistant director of the choir. The blog author, posing as a baritone but truly could not read musical notes, is shown sporting a mullet, a hairstyle fashionable among the clueless in the late 1980s.*

Finally, true-to-life representation.

(Well, not quite. An ’80s sitcom called, get this, E/R featured a Filipina receptionist. She was played by a Japanese actress, however. The show starred Elliot Gould and a young George Clooney!)

Side note: Bend it Like Beckham’s Parminder Nagra joins ER as well.

UPDATE: How could I forget? Lea Salonga guest starred in ER a couple seasons ago.