Maria Alyssa Blogs?

Many of you have heard the tale of Agapito Flores, Fe Del Mundo, and Daniel Dingel. We’ve all heard the stories of Filipinos making their mark on the world, be it in writing, singing, or inventing. But really, which of them really created their “invention?”

Singers, writers, and athletes don’t have to worry about having their achievements stolen from them…But in inventing, it all depends on the person and the invention. Why? You can easily claim you invented this, but no one will notice until it has become very useful.

Alas, there are a lot of “supposed” inventors of certain products. Stealing someone’s idea is as simple as taking it, patenting it, and marketing it to the public. But here, there are a lot of people who claim to have made famous products, yet they are not being recognized. Why? Because they didn’t invent it.

Pride is good for a country, but claiming that a countryman invented another person’s product is a bad thing to do. Myths likes this thrive on people who are unaware, and they have gained notoriety after the birth of the internet and cellular phones. Spreading them has become easy, and many school books actually CREDIT these people as the true inventors.

Doesn’t that seem like a slap to the face of the real inventors? To show you some examples, here are some “supposed” inventors.

• Roberto Del Rosario, the “inventor” of the karaoke.
• Armando Lite, inventor of the “Armalite” or M16.
• Eduardo San Juan, inventor of the Moon Buggy.

In truth, the three inventors are not real.

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(source: pinoytumblr)

Filipinos have much to learn by simply looking further back to our history and looking past the over-hyped American influences in both Basketball and the Presidential System.

First off, we need to remember that the Azkals are not the first group of Filipinos to do well in the sport of Football. We’ve had a Filipino – born and raised in the Philippines – who rose to become a football hero in Spain, and holds the distinction of being F.C. Barcelona’s all-time highest goal-scorer in all of the club’s history and a committed doctor of medicine: Dr. Paulino Alcántara y Riestrá.

Secondly, we’ve had a Filipino – born and raised in the Philippines – who excelled in Spain’s Parliamentary System. This Filipino started off in a military career, became a high-ranking general, rose to become a high-ranking Minister in Spain’s cabinet and even went on to become a three-time Prime Minister of Spain: Marcelo Azcárraga y Palmero.

Two questions need to be asked regarding our infatuation with all things American:

(1) Have we ever had a Filipino basketball player get into the NBA?

(2) Has a person of Filipino descent ever become President of the USA or at least become a high-ranking US cabinet secretary?

The answer is clearly a big NO on both counts.

(Having a Filipina Chef serve in the White House does not count for number 2!)

Between the two former colonizers, Spain has proven to be the country that has treated Filipinos – regardless of racial background – as true equals, granting all Filipinos with full Spanish citizenship and giving equal opportunities for Filipinos to excel and reach the top as exemplified by high honors presented to Juan Luna and Félix Resurrección Hidalgo in the arts and the rise of Philippine-born Filipinos (who at the time were full Spanish citizens) such as Azcárraga and Alcántara to the top of their fields.  With these facts, it thus comes as no surprise that José Rizal and many of his friends and fellow Filipino expats in Spain and Europe such as Antonio Luna were said to have staunchly advocated integration into Spain rather than outright independence: It was clear to them that better political integration and assimilation with Peninsular Spain would  have allowed competent Filipinos to easily rise to the top.

(In fact, Antonio Luna remained a pro-Spain loyalist  - like Rizal – until after the Spaniards surrendered to the Americans in 1898 and it became clear that the Americans were planning to take over the Philippines. It was at that point when officers and soldiers of the Spanish Army, along with other Spanish loyalists joined forces with Aguinaldo’s Katipunan forces to repel the Anglo-Saxon invaders just as Filipinos and Spanish authorities had done much earlier when another Anglo-Saxon invader – the British – tried to take over the Philippines.)

It’s high time we Filipinos acknowledged that not only do we have much more in common with Spain – in terms of culture and heritage – than with the USA, but also that we Filipinos have had the opportunity to excel in two things that are more associated with Spain than the USA, and are more appropriate to our situation: Football and the Parliamentary System.

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While it is clear thanks to the example of Paulino Alcántara that Filipinos have it in us to succeed in Football and that the Azkals’ recent performance is really just all about reclaiming our glory in a sport more suited to us, there actually also exists a solid example of the ability of Filipinos to perform well within the parliamentary system. While we’ve had a Filipino figure prominently in Football as FC Barcelona’s all time highest goal-scorer, we’ve also had a Filipino excel within Spain’s own Parliamentary System by becoming a three-time Prime Minister of Spain!

Born in Manila in 1832 to a Basque Spanish father (a general, later turned bookseller) and a mestiza-Bicolana mother from Albay, Marcelo de Azcárraga y Palmero – just like Paulino Alcántara – was raised in the Philippines, and studied law at the Universidad de Santo Tomás in Manila (“UST”) before moving on to the Nautical School and then transferred to Spain to attend a military academy. Thanks to a distinguished military career where he rose to become a general in the Army, upon retirement from his military carreer, Azcárraga shifted to Spanish politics and became a leading member of the pro-Monarchy Conservative Party.  From being a Senator, he later became the top-ranking Minister of War in the Conservative Party’s cabinet and succeeded on to become the interim Prime Minister of Spain after his party’s leader, Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, was assassinated in 1897. He again went on to become Prime Minister in two separate incidents.

Respected and remembered in Spain, where he was given the Golden Fleece award for defending the Spanish Monarchy and is the highest possible award that any person can be awarded in Spain, Azcárraga was originally honored  in Manila with a long avenue that was named after his illustrious family. That avenue, originally called Calle Azcárraga, is now known simply as “Recto” after a series of name-changes were pushed  in 1961. Nevertheless, numerous Tondo and Manila natives still refer to Recto as “Azcárraga” just as practically everyone in Metro Manila still calls “Sen. Gil Puyat Avenue” by its original name “Buendía.”

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Due to boredom and National Geographic said that “curiosity beats boredom” so I typed my surname in Google. Of course, it has over a million results and majority are about Spain. I already knew it that my family is a Spanish descent though I am curious if we’re a Basque or Catalan descent.

I knew it will be hard to research but I didn’t expected that it will be EXTREMELY hard. Anyway, on searching Spanish/ Filipino, I found some famous Filipinos in Spain and an idea crossed in my mind that I should blog them in my Tumblr.

So I will start on the man that I most admired and blogged about for the third time already, fourth if you counted this and fifth if you will also count this. I think you already have a clue, don’t you? Ha ha… His name is Paulino Alcantara and again one of Europe’s legendary footballers, even better than Pele, Maradona and Ronaldo. And he is from FC Barcelona (not my favorite team).

The truth is that excelling in Football isn’t really new to Filipinos to begin with. The “Azkals” are simply reclaiming the history of excellence in Football that Filipinos have actually enjoyed at one point in our history. Unknown to many Filipinos, the greatest football striker in the history of the famous Spanish team FC Barcelona, fondly called “Barça” was a Filipino: Paulino Alcántara.

Born in 1896 in Iloilo to a Spanish father and an Ilongga mother, Paulino Alcántara y Riestrá was raised in the Philippines until he was between the age of 13 and 14 and moved to Barcelona where he was discovered and given the chance to join the professional FC Barcelona team where he became known as “El Romperedes” – the   “net breaker”, as he is known to have broken nets due to the sheer strength of his kicks.

To this day, Paulino Alcántara remains Barça’s record holder with a total of 357 goals having appeared with FC Barcelona 357 times, and no one has come close to beating his record as a phenomenal striker. He is most remembered for a game against France in 1922, here he scored a powerful goal from 30 yards away, with the French goalkeeper having been totally unable to prevent it from coming through.

He had a little hiatus away from Barcelona when his family returned to the Philippines in 1916 where the young Paulino likewise played for the Philippine Football Team, bringing it to 2nd place against Japan in the Far East Championship Games in 1917. While in the Philippines, he also excelled in international table tennis!

In the meantime, with Paulino away from Barça, his old team wasn’t doing very well [Me: Probably loosing to Real Madrid… Ha ha!], since he was their star striker and there was no one else who could fill in his shoes. He later returned to Barcelona after his old team kept begging him to return and the team found itself winning once again. But lest we all think sports (football and table tennis) defined “El Romperedes”, it actually turns out that in the midst of his very successful professional football career, he was also studying to become a doctor. When in 1920, Paulino was scheduled to take academic examinations for his medical studies, he turned down the chance to play for the Spanish National Team as he needed to concentrate on studying for his exams. 

The Legend of Paulino Alcántara, a Filipino – born and raised in the Philippines who also had the chance to represent the Philippines in both Football and Table Tennis – is solid proof that Filipinos have excelled in football and that the Beautiful Game is not some new undertaking in which we have no experience.

This article is from AntiPinoy [Me: Weird title for a blog that talked about good things about Filipinos, well, at least about the history of Filipinos]

I know I know, My FCOTW is almost/ over 5 hours delayed to its usual schedule that’s because I literally had a hard time finding a footballer to feature. Well, thaks to Facebook, I had an idea who will I feature now and for the very first time, I will feature a Filipino footballer and yes, he’s an Azkal but he’s not James nor Phil Youghusband, and nope, not Neil Etheridge too. (C’mon guys! Haven’t other blogs already blogged about them? And I’ve already blogged about them too, last year, around December, just check out my archive but it is not a FCOTW, its just Meet-the-Azkals thing)

So no more explanations… Meet Patrick!

Full Name: John Patrick Hinrichsen

Nickname: Patrick

Lives in: Lives in Bad Homburg Vor Der Höhe, Hessen, Germany

Date of birth: 2 March 1991

Age: 20

Height: 1.75 m

Position: right/left midfielder/wingback 

Club: SC Eintracht Oberusel

Bio: Patrick Hinrichsen is a versatile attacker who can play both midfield and up-front as a striker. His mom hails from Pagadian City while his dad is German. He was scheduled for a try-out in the summer of 2009 but failed to show up due to illness.
After talking to Simon Greatwich, Patrick won a chance to have another try-out with the team with their new German head coach, Hans Michael Weiss. He was further convinced to join the team by fellow Filipino-German and former KSV Kleinkarben teammate Patrick Herget.

(Bio Source)




Stare all you want in that photos now because he already cut that gorgeous hair, Look:

Still looks cute right? ha ha… Just FYI, this is his new profile picture in Facebook.
And now, the BIG question… IS HE SINGLE?
Answer: According to his Facebook status… He’s in a relationship but there’s no one tag in that status and sorry no photo available. He used to have a photo with a girl in his album but I think he removed it all and leave his first week with Azkals album (you know, it’s better to keep some thing private ^^,)

*all photos are from Facebook

pinoytumblr:

I was born in a Catholic family and studied all my life at catholic schools and college. But by catholic standards, I am one of the worst Christians. I believe in God but I don’t subscribe to the idiocy and universal uptightness, short-sightedness of the narrow minded Roman catholic church. Neither do I support the delusion of grandeur of other christian sects like the Iglesia ni Cristo, El Shaddai and Ang Dating Daan or the schizophrenic christianity of Apollo Quiboloy. They fool their followers into believing that God has entrusted them to save human race or in the case of Quiboloy, he claims that he is the APPOINTED son of God. Now that is revolting. I’m never a fan of commercialized churches. Even here in England, whenever I hear the holy mass, collection of donations in form of cash is done three times in a span of an hour. I know somebody who never missed the Sunday holy mass but shows so little holiness the rest of the week.

How christian are we? If we never miss a Sunday mass, or if we give monthly tithes to our church, or if we pray the rosary everyday and do not eat dinuguan or meat during holy week, does that make you or me a good Christian?

There is no true religion. Christianity can not be more true than Hinduism or Shintoism. It’s laughable to see how Ang Dating Daan and Iglesia ni Cristo fight each other and how they try to destroy each other is beyond description. It’s revolting to see El Shaddai and JIL evolve into political force when now, sons of the leaders of these flock are both members of the Philippine Congress.

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(Source: kuro-kuro.org)

(Source: darysavella, via iputhogwartsonmyback)

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Kapampangans might just be the luckiest regional group in the Philippines. Not only are they renowned for their culinary prowess, but they also have a luxury called tibok-tibok. Literally “heartbeat” in the Kapampangan dialect, the word aptly describes the cooking process of this ethereal sweet. Two milks, carabao and coconut, are stirred long and lovingly over a gentle heat along with sugar and maybe the zest of a citrus fruit.

One of Manila’s talented and more popular artisan ice cream makers, Ian Carandang of Sebastian’s Ice Cream, has translated the tibok-tibok into an ice cream. This particular flavor possesses a curse-inducing creaminess mainly due to the duo of milks it’s made from. “This is truly a labor of love,” Ian explains. “The coconut cream is hand squeezed and it takes liters of milk to make just one gallon.”

Ian is a 30-something, modern-day sorbetero. His life’s mission is to make better, bigger ice cream for Filipinos.  His life’s work was spurred on by a seemingly innocent purchase of a pint of Ben & Jerry’s at Duty Free Philippines in the early 2000s.

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