Panagbenga

Killer Curves
Originally uploaded by Cymer

The Baguio Flower Fetival. It's flower season in the city of Pines - perfect timing for an all-out fiesta in the streets. The Baguio folk take a break on these days to revel in the cool climate and the unique culture of the city. Multi-hued costumes are worn, mimicking the various blooms of the highland region (or any of its 11 ethnic tribes). These are flowerbeds - disguised, of course, as the Panagbenga parade floats.

Flores de Mayo

Filipina Beauty
Originally uploaded by Cymer

Flores de Mayo is a month long flower festival celebration in honor of the Virgin Mary. May is considered the flower festival month in honor of the Virgin Mary. In the rural areas, flower offerings are made daily in churches and temporary altars (tuklongs) in barrios. It culminates at the end of the month with the Santacruzan festival. A day long celebration, the statues of the Virgin Mary are dressed and paraded through streets lined by a variety of food items (bread, candies, fruits, bundles of coins) hanging from bamboo poles. The traditional procession features the Reina Elena with a little boy representing King Constantine and others biblical characters.

Maria Clara

Originally uploaded by hem sytangco

"The "ideal" image, promoted by no less than Jose Rizal, is that of Maria Clara, a demure, self-effacing beauty whose place was on the pedestal of male honor. Rizal describes this "ideal" of the Philippine woman with words such as these: "an Oriental decoration," "her eyes. . . always downcast," "a pure soul." (chapter 5, Noli Me Tangere). During the first six years of American rule, the noted nationalist, Teodoro Kalaw, deplored the impact of new ideas disseminated with the advent of American education. As he witnessed their reading books in English and "chattering in a strange language" he feared that they were becoming "unconscious victims of modernity." For him it was their degradation. Lost was their "native simplicity." They now preferred to be called "girls" instead of dalagas (maidens). Soon they would abandon their duennas, "walking out alone. . . a handbag under the arm, just like bold little American misses." - Philippine Heroines of the Revolution by Dr. Robert L. Yoder, FAPC

The beautiful Philippine sunset

Originally uploaded by OEBANDA

"The sunset over Manila Bay is rightly famous. I have sometimes watched this beautiful sight from a simple floating restaurant near the Manila Hotel....

The beauty of the Philippine Islands is incredible and many resorts are available to enable the traveller to take it all in. Whether you are interested in 400-year-old Spanish churches or scuba diving on some of the best coral reefs in the world, it is all here.

Add to that the charm of the Filipinos, who even in adversity can be found smiling; the beauty of the women (one of whom I am very happily married to); and the relatively low cost of living and you realize why you often hear expats say, "another day in paradise"."- excerpt from an article by Anthony Lee

Nothing compares to the beauty of the Filipina

"Many of the Creole girls have very handsome countenances, and there are not a few who would be remarked upon as fine women by the side of any European beauty: but they are generally seen to most advantage in the evening, as their chief attraction does not consist in freshness of complexion so much as in fine features, which are often full of character and lighted up by eyes as brilliant as they are soft. Their figures are good, and their feet and ankles quite unexceptionable, being generally very much more neatly turned than those of my handsomest countrywomen. " - Robert MacMiking, 1850


(Model: Dindi. Photo originally uploaded by Lenard P0)

Paid De-virginizers!!?

Originally uploaded by goodboynaraw

"There were also men whose business was to ravish and take away virginity from young girls. These girls were taken to such men, and the latter were paid for ravishing them, for the natives considered it a hindrance and impediment if the girls were virgins when they married." - Antonio de Morga, 1609

Pinay Scandal

Originally uploaded by goodboynaraw

"The inhabitants of the Philippines have a great love for strong drink; even the young girls occasionally get intoxicated."

"The inhabitants of Mariveles have not a very good reputation. The place is only visited by ships which run in there in bad weather, when
their idle crews spend the time in drinking and gambling. Some of
the young girls were of striking beauty and of quite a light color;
often being in reality of mixed race, though they passed as of pure
Tagal blood. This is a circumstance I have observed in many seaports, and in the neighborhood of Manila; but, in the districts which are almost entirely unvisited by the Spaniards, the natives are much darker and of purer race." - Fedor Jagor, 1820