Regarding the Manila Film Center

(from GMA TV journalist Howie Severino's blog)

While recently reading the Jessica Hagedorn novel/play Dogeaters (TP is watching the play on Feb. 7 BTW), I noticed that there were several mentions of the infamous building in Manila called the Manila Film Center.

During the second half of the martial law imposed by the Marcos regime, both Marcos and his wife Imelda wanted to build the Manila Film Center in order to enhance the Philippines' reputation in the world. The inagural Manila International Film Festival was to be held in the year 1982, and this Center would host that festival. However, delays hampered its completion, and Imelda wanted this Center done before the festival, so as the deadline loomed, the construction workers were working as quickly as they could to complete the building.

On November 17, 1981, the upper scaffold collapsed and sent workers falling into wet cement. A witness said that some of the workers were impaled on upright steel bars.

Now here is where it gets creepy and ambiguous.

It's been said that since the film festival was about to happen and that the recovery of all the bodies would take too long, Imelda ordered that the construction work continue despite the accident and that the bodies be covered by cement. The number of dead differs depending on who you talk to differs, but it has reached as high as 169 people.

The Film Center was eventually completed, and the festival was held. During opening night, Imelda "strode on stage in a Joe Salazar black and emerald green terno with a hemline thick with layer upon layer of peacock feathers" (http://manalang.com/philippines/manila/manila_film_center.html).

So is there any proof that this actually happened? Or is this just an urban myth?

No news agencies covered the accident when it happened. Perhaps the Marcos regime purposely had the media not report it. This was during martial law, after all. Perhaps the number of dead has been exaggerated as the story spread throughout the Philippines during Marcos's regime and after he was ousted.

In his blog, GMA TV journalist Howie Severino writes the following:

...After numerous return trips to the film center's dark and eery catacombs, futile efforts to find a paper trail, and interviews with survivors and loved ones of dead construction workers, my half-baked conclusion: Not more than a dozen died (we heard figures as high as 169, which was based on an Inquirer account of a spirit questor expedition years ago), and NONE of them left behind in the Manila Film Center. Why are you surprised?

First of all, we couldn't find anyone who knew anyone in there, including relatives. If there really were dozens of skeletons still encased in cement in the film palace, we are almost sure we would have been able to trace loved ones, or they would have found us. The construction workers who survived the incident did not know anyone, nor did they know anyone who knew anyone missing in the building.

We know from years of working in media that the relatives of missing people are extremely persistent and vocal, driven as they are by a human desire for closure on their grief. I think this would have been the case even if they were bribed by Imelda, which is one theory for why they have been so quiet through all these years. I have my own theory: the missing don't exist.

One witness told us that workers cleared the bodies and the debris from the theater floor before resuming the construction, which was finished the same day that international stars like Jeremy Irons and George Hamilton waltzed in...

I guess that the only way to find out what really happened is to excavate the foundations of the Manila Film Center to find the bodies of any missing workers. That's probably not going to happen any time soon, however. The building is still being used, despite the fact that a lot of Filipinos stay away from that building because they think the building is haunted by the ghosts of the dead workers.

After the Marcos regime, the Manila Film Center became the government's official passport office during the Aquino administration. Then, an earthquake struck in 1990, cracking the stairs and the road outside. The building was then pretty much abandoned until 2001...


(again, from Severino's blog)

...when the Center became home to the "Amazing Philippine Theatre", a theatrical show featuring LGBT actors. A Youtube clip can be seen below:



Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_Film_Center_scaffolding_collapse
http://www.gmapinoytv.com/sidetrip/blog/index.php?/archives/42-The-Manila-Film-Center-mystery-A-ghostly-place-or-an-urban-legend.html
http://manalang.com/philippines/manila/manila_film_center.html

This and VAT

The following post about Philippines' VAT (Value-Added Tax) was written by Isabelle Lacson:




I made a purchase at Commons the other day with fellow TP-er, Jeff Okita. As I juggled my chicken pesto, napkins, and wallet, I managed to whip out my USC ID to avoid the big bad sales tax implemented on all Californians (and those who go to Commons hungry and ID-less). The lady who beamed at my black Styrofoam box asked me to pay up my $6.25, and I did so with a smile because I saved an estimated 50 cents. If one day I am interviewed on how I made my first million, I will attribute it to my being practical like this (“I brought my student ID with me everyday to school and look at me now!”).

By virtue of the CIA World Factbook, the 2005 estimate of Philippine GDP growth has been proclaimed 4.8%, well above the rest of the pack of the international community. Upon my most recent return to the homeland over Christmas break, I found that hard to believe. Until I encountered the VAT (value-added tax). The Philippine Department of Finance (DoF) implemented the VAT last November, and its effects have been quite mixed. Usually, economic growth alludes to bigger and better things for a country, but in this case, the DoF has single-handedly raised the GDP growth of the entire nation without changing the development of the economy as a whole.

I had my first taste of the VAT when I made a trip to Powerplant Mall in the upscale area of Rockwell in Makati. I thumbed through the clothes in one of my favorite apparel stores, and began purchasing things on impulse (my excuse to my dad later on: I just wanted to make sure my international credit card worked). I noticed a whopping 12% tax on the bottom of my receipt. I asked the saleslady what the hell it was and why it was on my receipt. She explained that the reasonable(?) PhP 2,450 for one of my items qualified for PhP 300 worth of VAT.

I was surprised, mostly because in all my years of living in the Philippines, I had never paid tax for things that I had purchased. I remembered the positive report on the GDP growth later on, and almost smiled at myself for contributing to my country’s economic growth. However, taking the estimated minimum wage into consideration, PhP 275 per day, there are probably a considerable number of people in the Philippines feeling the negative effects of the new VAT regime. Although the VAT has been solely responsible for pushing the peso down to about PhP 48 to the dollar (the lowest in six years), I couldn’t help but notice that nothing in the country has changed outside the low exchange rate…

I was not expecting a significant change upon my arrival. The inherently Pinoy attitude of “bahala na” (a longer way of saying “whatever”) will not make its exit soon. But, I was expecting some sort of change to manifest itself in the economy, what with the rosy depictions of growth that several government officials profess. In recent years, several people close to me have made their way into public office, and as I watch their lives improve (how they do this, I do not even want to know) I cannot help but think about those whose lives are getting worse.

So for those of you traveling to the Philippines over the summer, consider this a travel advisory. Pack on the extra peso to offset the raised prices on… well, almost everything. Although, yes, some items are cheaper in the Philippines compared to U.S. prices, you will find that your vacation money cannot hold as much as it used to. The VAT policy is likely to stay until a) the budget deficit is cured or b) people get so poor that violent unrest starts plaguing the nation, whichever comes first. Until then, I’m going to contemplate on innovative ways to budget my precious peso.



edit by celeste-
----

More information on the VAT:

• It was implemented in 1988
• The rate was raised from 10% to 12% in February 2006

To put this into perspective:

• CA's tax rate is between 7.25% to 8.75% (the highest in the USA)
• NJ's tax rate is 3.5% to 7%
• Hawaii has no sales tax, but excise taxes of up to 4%

Thanks Isabelle!

sources: (http://www.usig.org/countryinfo/phillipines.asp)

What's in a name?

Did you ever think that just because you had a Hispanic surname, one of your ancestors must have been from Spain? But you look around, and there's nothing mestizo about your relatives.

I'm a Hernandez. Since "Hernandez" means son of Hernando, and I always thought there was a guy named Hernando that linked all the Hernandez's in Mexico, Spain, and Philippines together. In actuality, my last name most likely was arbitrarily assigned from a torn off page of a book.

The Spanish were having hard time with taxation as many of the newly-Catholicized Filipinos took Catholic symbols as surnames creating an abundance of Santos' and de la Cruz's with no appropriate relation. Filipinos also went P.Diddy with the names as a means of tax evasion. In 1849, the Catalogo Alfabetico de Apellidos was produced to help the Spaniards with their bookkeeping.

From the book, each Filipino family was assigned a surname, in an apparently systematic process. There's debate if each province actually received the whole book if not sections. Some towns have historic last names all beginning with the same letter. It appeared all the northern provinces like in Ilocos and Cagayan got surnames from A to C while surnames from W to Z went to Southern Mindanao.

Now these surnames like Gregorio, Fernandez, Perez, etc. indicate these families come from Spanish conquered lands. There are remote areas where indigenous names like Macapagal, Pacquiao, & Samiley, Ople have survived the westernization. Apparently as well, some indigenous names were are part of the catalog of names. It's also here to note that the Muslim influence has brought in some religious last names of Islam similarly to when Spain brought Christianity.

Chinese Filipinos

Nowadays, one syllable last names like Lim, Tan, & Sy aren't so bad for business. Early merchants / future Chinese Filipinos fit in with their multiple syllabic counterparts by taking on names of a respectful elder or ancestor and adding the suffix -co or -son. -Co was a respectful title; I would compare it to the use of "Kuya". (I don't know if I'm correct.) But the triple-syllable last name like in Yujico & Cotangco is something distinctly Chinese Filipino. Also Chinese-derived, Dizon, Lacson, Ayson are examples of the two syllable surnames ending in -son or -zon which have strong prevalence in Pampanga.

Now indigenously, second names used to be taken from children. Here is Berto father of Pito, and such and such. The traditional naming standard currently is for the children to take on the mother's surname as the middle name.

Sources

• Catalog of Filipino Names - bibingka.com
• Philippines Surnmaes FAQ - WorldGenWeb Project
• surname: The Philippines - Answers.com