Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from April, 2018

MONTEMARIA

Catholicism from another perspective – this is how I understand the pilgrimage site of MonteMaria in Batangas City, Philippines. It was a huge site development project with the 96-meter tall Mary, Mother of All Asia statue as the centerpiece. You have to see it for yourself to believe! Mother of All Asia - Tower of Peace at the MONTEMARIA Site What (not Who) is MONTEMARIA? Just for clarity, MONTEMARIA is the name of the 130-hectare township or development site project. Also, Montemaria is a place in Batangas City to which the site more likely is named after. The statue or monument or tower is called "Mother of All Asia - Tower of Peace" . You may simply call it Tower of Mary or Statue of Mary. The surrounding place meanwhile is known as the Mother of All Asia Shrine. Holy Week in the Philippines We visited this place during the Holy Week of 2018. During this week, many Filipino Catholics are visiting religious places which is part of what they call "Vi...

Jopa's Great Summer Escape to Apo Reef

Stressed-out at work? Pressured by projects after projects? Tired of hectic schedules and deadlines. Need a break? Jopa in his controversial summer pose 'I have nothing to wear" Well, these are almost every office worker’s questions these days which I think the answer of which all boils down into a big “YES”. In the workaholic worlds of professionals or should we say disruptive office life of the digital millennials and techy baby boomers, who doesn’t need a break? Everybody does. Righty. You know what I mean. In this beautiful country “The Philippines”, summer vacation is really a perfect escape from office nightmares and daydreams. I’m pretty sure you can closely relate on that. That routinely 9-5 thing, 1-hour lunch break, Monday meetings, urgent reports to submit to a demanding boss (apologies if you are), and who would not forget about that “bulls#@$%!” traffic in EDSA the whole week round, oh c’mon, forget about them for a few days. What’s the best remedy? ...

Lobo, Batangas – a Place of Wonder and Simplicity

Simple life? In the beach or mountain side? Lobo is the place to be. This Holy Week 2018, me, my wife, two of our friends, and their parents, visited Lobo in the province of Batangas. There are three passages going here. One is thru the main town of Taysan, Batangas via barangay Dagatan. The other one is via Gov. Antonio Carpio Road, stretching from Batangas City to barangay Mapulo also in the town of Taysan. Both passages will merge into barangay Bacao in Taysan. The road from here are zigzag that the local people have called it “bitukang manok” (chicken intestine – like). Green mountains and narrow roads will make your travel more exciting in going here. The third one is thru Batangas City entering barangay Libjo. This path is quite longer than the first two. Also a bit zigzag but as you are traversing roads mostly on the beachside, the driving experience would be full of wonders. Aside from the ocean view, there are landmarks here that will make you say to the driv...