Panorama

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Part of Panorama

Title: Panorama
Issue Date: Volume X (Issue No. 5) May 1958
Year: 1958
Language: English
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extracted text: CONTENTS Articles Flowers of Glass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Filipino Laborer in Hawaii .. Francisco M. Joson 6 Manila's Imperishable Cathedral .. A. Dorpnila and M. Mufi.oz 10 We Can Make Our Own Paper .. Eduardo Solidum 25 What About Price Controls .. Alfredo Montelibano 27 That Stain Can Be Removed .. , . . . Pedro Rarr:.'Js 32 A Critical Look at Nursing ... , .. Decoroso R0sales 34 Camiguin Island Adventure ...... . Fred D. Burdett 40 Intelli.ge.nt and Serious .............. Free World 60 The Puzzle of Linear A ...... Roberto Fernando 61 Literary Rebellion in Soviet Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Genius In Miniature ..... _ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Safe Milk for Ceylon ................ Free World 71 Training Center for Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 How to Collect Stamps .... J. P. Sto. Domingo, Jr. 79 The Unwanted Starling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Unlimited Energy from Water ....... Sixto D'Asis 89 Fiction .A Song For Two . . . . . . . . . . Hernando de] Rosario 48 Regular Features Are You Word Wise? . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Panorama Peek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Book Re·1iew: Contemporary Filipino Poetry .... Leonard Casper 55 Literary Personality - XL: Juan Ramon Jimenez 58 Panorama Quiz .......... ·.................... 73 In the Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 5 Philippine Panorama: The Jeepney ... Joseph Cruz 76 Fun~Orama by Elmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 PANORAMA is published monthly by the Community Publishers, I Inc., 1986 Herran, Manila, Philippines Editor: FELIXBERTO C. STA. MARIA Foreign contributing editor: Leonard Casper Art director: Rodolfo P. Perez Business Manal!er: MRS. C. A. MARAMAG Subs<""riotion rates: In the Philippines, one year PS.00; two years P9.00. Foreign subscription: one year $4.00 U.S.; two years $7.00 U.S. Single copy SO centavos. MANILA PAPER MILL, INC. Manufacturer$ of • KRAFT PAPER 0 WRAPPING PAPER •BOND PAPER •ONION SKIN 0 MIMEOGRAPH Factory: N ovaliches, Rizal Manila Office: 180 Echague, Quiapo • GOLDEN KRAFT Tel. No. 3-26-45 3-43-11 about the Panorama, the Philippines' most versatile, most significant magazine today. a year's subscription-NOW! they will appreciate it. 5LJBSCRIPTION FORM -------------------- 1 year for P5.00 -------------------- 2 years for P9.00 -------------------- Foreign subscription: one year $4.00 U.S. Name ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------·-··-··-····-· - Street ---------------------------------------------------------------------···-···-···----·····-···--------------City• or Toum ------------------------------------ Province --------------··----------------·-Enclos<ed is a check/money order for the amount specified above. Please address all checks or money orders in favor of: COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. 1986 Herran, Sta. Ana, Manila Entered as second class mail matter at the Manila Post Office on Dec. 'i, 1966 MAY 1958 VOL. X MANILA, PHILIPPINES No. 5 flou)ers· of ~lass Harvard's umque collection is an exquisite work ol art and o scientific achievement fJ N PERHAPS no other museum in the world is there a collection of plants and flowers modeled in glass comparable to the Ware collection of the Botanical Museum of Harvard University. Working through an extremely difficult medium, without a single assistant or apprentice, Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka completed ~.everal thousand models. Realizing that dried plants make no acceptable display, thut drawings and etches were inadequate, and that available models in wax and papier mache were crude, the planners of the Museum approacheJ Leopold Blaschka and his son. At that time the Blaschkas were not inclined to· enter a new field of model making. They were then profitably producing glass models of jelly-fish and other marine animals. They were finally persuaded to make a few samples. These samples were seriou~ly damaged in the New York Customs House. What remained intact however showed great promise. From 1887 till 1936, the Blaschkas concentrated in the glass flowers, working to· gether until the death of the father, Leopold. Leopold Blaschka, the founder of the art of representing natural history objects in colored glass, was born May 27, 1822 in a northern town of Bohemia. His father was a mechanician in electrical apparatus, and an artificer in glass. Workmanship in decorative glass was traditional in this family which came originally from Venice. From his drawings of the marine invertebrata, which he made during a voyage to th1: United States in 1853, he constructed the first glass-models of Coelenterata for the Natural History Museum at Desden. These models attracted immediate attention. Thus was laid the foundation of a successful business which was limited only by Blaschka's resolution to employ no apprentice or assistants other than his son Rudolph. 4 '1/1Jl ANY Specimens WOTe Ob· ' ' 1 tained from the Royal Gardens at Piltnitz on the Elbe. Since the contract with the Harvard museum was to illustrate the different botanical families, using American species as far as practicable, Rudolph Blaschka came to America in 1892. He made sketches, prepared notes regarding colors and preserved specimens in alcohol for further reference. His journey took him to southern United States. It is fortunate that the Blaschkas were also naturalists in addition to being workers in glass. Their models, which draw about 200,000 visitors a year, are a combination of artistic ability and scientific interpretation. The Ware collection contains 164 families of flowering plants, a selected group of PANORAM-' cryptograms illustrating complicated life-histories, a group of models exhibiting the relation of insects to the transference of pollen and a group of rosaceous fruits illustrating the effect of fungus diseases. To fully grasp the magnitui.le of the achievement of Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka and to appreciate the delicate and extraordinary nature of their life work, the glass flowers have to be seen at hand. So precise are the details of line and color, so lifelike are the representations that the flowers seem to have just been brought in from the garden. Mame First Boss: "Xyzmilazillin! That's the word - now I want you scientists to take this name and go discover a miracle drug to go with it." oJ: MAY 1958 5 It was a tough, uphill light most of the way, but it has been won 1he 1ili~iKo £abotet iK Hawaii 7HERE ARE about 19,000 Filipino laborers in Hawaii. Most of them ar'.! employed in the pineapple and sugar cane plantations. They are also among the highest paid agricultural laborers. T h e ordinary agricultural worker in Hawaii earns an average of $1.40 an hour. He has also such privileges as medical 6 By Francisco M. Joson care, old-age pension, automatic increases for skilled labor ers and social security. The story of how he fought and won all of these is a long and bitter one. The economy of Hawaii depends largely on two products PANORAMA - sugar and pineapple. These industries are controlled to ol large extent by five companies. These companies have interlocking directorates and as a consequence can operate with the almost absolute power of a combine. The power of these companies can be accurately assessed by quoting a section from a labor magazine: "The basic economic control of the territory of Hawaii is completely in the hands of five big holding companies with interlocking directorates and close cooperation assure them the ab-ility to act as one great combine. The dictates of this combine reach into every corner of island life, not only financially, but politically and culturally as well; it exerts its will upon the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the territorial government." It was this combine that the International Longshore an d Warehouse Union challenged and conquered. Some of the top men of this union are Filipinos and seventy percent of the group are Filipinos. There was a time when Orientals were regarded as no better than beasts of burden in Hawaii. There still exists a saying in Hawaii which goes something like this: "There is no difference between importing jute bags from India and importing foreign labor." MAY 1958 In fact, there used to be laws that put t)Je laborers under the absolute authority of the plantation owners. Needless to say, these laws were p;issed by the capitalists. JN THE beginning, the favorite technique of the capitalists to cow the laborers was to play one nationality against th e other. As early as 1841, Hawaiian laborers went on a strike to protest the unjust wages. The capitalists, instead of settling the problem in a l:umane way, imported Chinese labor The Chinese could not take it either and they deserted the plantations. Japanese labor was then imported, and so on. The sentiment regarding this was expressed by one planta tion manager: "It seems to me that strikes can be avoided by employing as many nationalities as possible on each plantation. If immigrants of various nationalities would come until there are sufficient of them in the country to offset any one nationality, we would then be better off." Th i s analysis is based on the assumption that people of different nationalities cannot cooperate with one another. Then around the turn of the century, Filipino laborers started to migrate to Hawaii. At the start they were victimized until around 1920 when the Fili7 pine Laborers Association, led by Pedro Manlapit, was formed. Immediately aft e r it was formed, the FLA presented :{ set of demands to the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association. Among the demands were a basic wage increase from 75 cents per day to $1.25, bonuses, double pay for overtime, an eighthour working day and welfare benefits. These demands were denied and on January 19, 1920, the Filipinos struck. Almost at the same time, the Japanese also struck. Wholesale evictions took place. It so happened that at that time, the country was suffering from influenza. Hundreds of workers died and the Association was forced to give in 8 without a single concessio'l. Later on, however, the plantations introduced some welfare measures and a meagre raise in wages. Manlapit continued to agitate for better treatment of labor. In 1922, he organized the "High Wage Movement." It had 13,000 followers. Its demands were very simple --$2.00 a day, shorter working hours, and the recognition of the principle of collective bargaining. Again, the demands were ignored and again the Filipinos struck. The strike lasted eight months and it affected 45 plantations. The planters retaliated by importing more Filipino laborers, thus creating unemployment for thousands. PANORAMA Again the strike failed, but this time it was because it was limited to the Filipino sector. The other nationalities did not support the Filipinos. And besides, there were no funds to sustain the strikers. Manlapit was arrested, indicted on conspiracy charges and imprisoned. The trial was reported to have been an unju.>t one and most of all the laborers were touched. For the first time, the laborers transcended national barriers and they rallied behind Manlapit. T HE I 924 fiasco was a setback for labor. The planters were able to prove once again that they controlled the islands and all its affairs. Then in 1933, the International Longshore and Warehousing Union entered the scene. Organizing all the workers of Hawaii, this union was able to mount a solid front. The union was preparing fo0 r battle when the war caµie. The war was responsible to a great degree for the eradication of ill-will against the Filipinos. After the war, the whites were psychologically c o n di - tioned to accept the Filipinos. But after the war the Wagner Act was passed which provides among other things that a man can join a union and not be discharged or discriminated against because of his membership. It also recognized the principle of collective bargainin~. Since that time, the conditions of the Filipino laborers in Hawaii have improved. Now he enjoys most of the privileges that American workers enjoy. The oppressions that he ust::d to suffer are now definitely things of the past. Laborers of all nationalities in Hawaii have the Fili.pinos to thank for this. OVEREMPHASIS OF SCIENCE Education at the expense of liberal arts is just as bad as too little science, Dr. John T. Rettaliata, president of Illinois Institute of Technology believes. Science and liberal education are complementary, not conflictive, he says, and high schools, which play major role in meeting the Russian challenge, should revise curricula to require minimum of three years 91 math, two of science, three of English, one of history. * MAY 1958 9 I N THE leisurely days of the galleon trade, the croc;s was a conspicuous symbol of Spanish power in the east. The seat of this power was the illustrious city of Manila and from it Spain ruled her colonies and the oceans around them on her side of the Demarcation Line. 10 Navigators in Manila bay oriented their compasses to a cross jutting out like a guiding finger from the shorelines of Manila as their galleons laden with merchandise sailed to the biddings of the trade winds to lucrative markets of the Old and New Worlds. The cross which guided marPANORAJifA MANILA'S IMPERISHABLE <tratlrehral Its deafening bells once tolled the peals of defiance -against the King's governors By AMANDO DORONILLA and Fr. FRANCISCO MUNOZ iners during the heyday of the Manila-Acapulco trade was that planted on the dome of the majestic Manila Cathedral, the dominant edifice on the Manila skyline and seat of the highest ecclesiastical authority in Spain's most prized possession in the East. Historical accounts say that the center of the cross of the dome served as a reference point of all astronomical longitudes of the archipelago. When mariners coming from their perilous voyages across the Pacific sighted the dome, it was a sight of joy and relief for despite the vaunted Spanish colonial power, the seas were never safe from buccaneers preying for booty or from privateers of hostile po w e rs covetous of MAY 1958 Spain's rich -overseas possessions. Under the banner of the cro~s and the standards of Castille and Aragon, Spain not only built a colonial empire which, as King Philip II boasted, the sun never set, but also carved out from that empire a Christian domain in the Far East. Along with the conquistador in flashing armor came the friar in black cassock and under this double-barreled pattern of colonization, it was natural that the cathedral of Manila and the Ayuntamiento were built close together in the old Spanish Walled City. It is perhaps a tribute to the more durable values of Roman Catholicism that a former subject people are now rebuilding 11 from the ruins of war the Manila cathedral and have seemed to forget that the Ayuntamiento, the seat of Spanish civil government, was the cathedral's next door neighbor. BOTH EDIFICES were center<> of power - the Cathedral, of ecclesiastical authority, and the Ayuntamiento, of civil authority - in the days when the Church and state ruled jointly - and not too happily - but in point of architectural and historical importance, the Cathedral seems to be more appreciated. Thus, while the inequities of Spanish rule have been intermittently dragged from the closets of history whenever such controversial subjects as the Rizal novels come up, the Catholic church, despite its shortcomings, remains today the strongest influence 1 e f t by Spanish colonization in th 1 s country. The Manila Cathedral is one of the most revered and impressive historical legacies of the country from its turbulent past. It is also a monument of the better contributions of Spanish colonization to Philippine history. Like the cross under whose sign Christianity was propagated, the Manila cathedral has a story written in despair and hope, destruction and resurrec12 tion that make up the theme of the faith upon which the Cathedral was founded. In the long history of the Cathedral which starts from th'! founding of Manila by the co,quistador Miguel Lopez de Legaspi in 1571, the fortunes of the Cathedral followed th~ sway of events during the entire period of Spanish rule and of the areas thereafter. It~ power as a seat of the arclibishopric of Manila, the overseer of all the faithful in the archipelago and the Spanish crown's partner in rule in this colony, see-sawed with the outcome of the sanguinary clasht!S between the church and state. Its massive doors during a critical juncture of Church-state relations, swung open to give refuge to lawbreakers w ho sought sHnctuary from the ju·stice of man. Its deafening bells once tolled the peals of defiance ilgainst the king's governors when the church had committed to its protection fugitives· of law crying "sanctuary!" "sanctuary!'" under its portals. I ts treasures were looted by invaders. From its present site rose four magnificent Cathedrals only to be smothered one after the other by major cata->trophes. T h e fourth Manila cathedral was destroyed in the Battle for Liberation of Manila in 1945. PANORAMA But rising above these tribulations the faith that inspired the building of cathedrals on the ruins of previous ones centuries ago is again the moving spirit behind present efforts to rebuild a monumental shrine of worship from the crumbled masonry. O N THE rums of the old Manila cathedral is rising today the structure of what Archbishop Rufino J. Santos of Manila hopes to be a "vast temple of the Almighty God and a true jewel of our civilization." A jewel of faith, indeed, it will be for the reconstruction of the church to regain its original elaborate design an d grandeur is estimated to cost about P4,000,000. The old lines of the Cathedral have all but been obliterated by the war, and restoring them would tax the imagination and patience of accomplished architects. The goal .of the reconstruction is to restore the church as faithfully as possible to its previous architectural design - the difficult Romanesque-Byzantine architecture which flowered in Medieval Europe under the influence of the Great Renaissance. Archbishop Santos initiated the cathedral reconstruction project with some archdiocese funds plus a great amount of MA'V 1958 v1s1on and courage in 1956. The reconstruction gift ch.est swelled with funds from war damage compensation amOU!Jting to PIOl,997.42; Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain, who donated a gift of PI00,000; pledges and gifts, from local donors who gave Pl ,500,000; and a gift of cement from Japanese Catholics worth $200,000. The rest of the amount needed to complete the job, Pl,500,000, is being raised through a fund drive conducted by the Metropolitan Cathedral board headed by Archbishop Santos himself. The Cathedral is expected to be completed on Dec. 8, the feast day of the Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Lady, patron saint of the Cathedral. · According to plans, eight chapels will be built in the cathedral. The original fa_cade, cupola and two lateral naves will be rebuilt. Although the Cathedral will retain its original lines, there will be some departures. Unlike the destroyed Cathedral, the one being built will have a tower as an integral part of the structure. The old Cathedral's tower, which was never rebuilt after it was destroyed by the earthquake of 1880, was set apart from the Cathedral structure. Seven bronze electrically bells from operateJ Germany 13 will be installed in the tower. The smallest bell has a diameter of more than one-half meter and the biggest, two meters. The Cathedral will have an underground crypt into which the remains of Filipino bishops will be in tered. The crypt will have a catacomb-like chapel that will be adorned by a mosaic of the dead Christ being lowered from the cross. Before the Cathedral could even be completed, it became the site of a pontifical mass celebrated by Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York la:.;t January when the prince of the Church was in Manila in the course of his annual Christmas visit to American troops in the Far East. That was the first mass said in the cathedral since it was destroyed 13 years ago and also said to be the first by a cardinal. It was celebrated before the image of the Immaculate Conception against a background of scaffolding on the altar. Despite the lack of accommodations, devotee~ ~ramped every available space m the church. There is a coincidence in the fact that the feast day of the Im?1aculate Conception t:> which the Cathedral is dedicated also marks the outbreak of the Pacific war that ended 14 in the destruction of the Cathedral. Although the archbishop of Manila no longer wields the secular powers of office that went with it during the days of Church-state rule, the influence of the Church remains as strong as ever. Around the new Cathedral, Filipino Catholics will have a rallying point for a Faith that has survived 1958 years of trials and persecution and that faces today its most critical test since the Reformation. The path of Cathedral building, as well as that of spreading the Faith has been a tortuous o·ne in this country. There PANORAMA is no better authority on the Manila cathedral than the Catholic See in the Philippines. Like the Church in Europe, the Church in the Philippines, tried to preserve the records of the march of civilization in this frontier of colonization and to serve as the inspiration of the arts. From the documents of the past, the Church has reconstructed the following historical account of the Manila Cathedral: When on June 24, 1571 the adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legaspi formally took possession of Manila in the name of the King of Spain, he also proclaimed the establishment of its parish church and placed it under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady. And so, among the first Christian structures to rise along the banks of the Pasig was bamboo and nipa construction which stood as the first parish church of Manila. But Manila was destined for a far greater role than its beginnings indicated. On Feb. 6, 1570 Pope Gregory XIII raised it into a diocese, appointing for its first bishop, Fray Domingo de Salazar. When Bishop Salazar arrived in Manila three years later, he immediately went about the task of organizing his new diocese. After having laid its groundwork, he esMAY 1958 tablished it as Cathedral and Episcopal Se& of all the Philippine Islands and suffragan of the Metropolitan Church of Mexico, with the tide "of the Most Pure and Immaculate Conception of Our Lady." Thus, in less than a decade, the modest parish church of can and nipa became the fi.rst pro-Cathedral of Manila. Bishop Salazar's zeal in organizing his church received an early setback when in 1582, the very next years after his arrival, a great conflagration swept Manila, and with it his beloved church. The frail structure went up in flames, but to the good bishop it was not bamboo or that fell into ashes, but so much hope and faith and courage that went into its erection. A year later, he expressed his impatience over this loss when, writing to the King of Spain, he lamented "that he had no church yet, while the entire city was as good as reconstructed." (Antonio de Morga, Retana edition, quoted in the annotations). In 1591, after ten years of dedicated work in his diocese. Bishop Salazar left for Spain. The records do not tell the purpose of his visit, but it can be surmised that it was, partiy at least, to seek help towards the realization of his longstanding dream-a fitting cathedral for the diocese of Ma15 nila,-for he left at a time when he had already initiated the construction of stone masonry. It was a visit from which Bishop Salazar never returned. In 1594, while still in Spain, God called him to his rest. But, as God would have it, one year before his death, his dream was taking shape across the oceans. Manila saw its first stone cathedral in 1593. With transportation and communication being what they were in those times, it can be ::issumed that Bishop Salazar ni;ver came to know about it. Morga, in his 'sucesos,' gives a concise description of this first cathedral: On the public square stands the principal church made of stone masonry, with its major chapel and choir with high and low seats, enclosed with grillwork, adorned with an organ, lecterns and all necessary appurtenances, and with sacristy, chamber and offices. This first stone cathedral suffered some damages in the earthquake of 1599, and co_llapsed in the major shock that came at midnight of December 31, 1600. Although Fonseca says that the cathedral was "'ruined partially" in this great earthquake, the archiepiscopal annals state that "in one moment the greater part of the houses fell into ruins; and of the churches, the cathedml 16 and that of the Society of Jesus were totally destroyed." "While the Church of Manila suffered material reverses, it grew and advanced in hierarchical importance. By the time reconstruction plans for its cathedral were drawn, it had become an archdiocese. Fray Miguel .de Benavides, its third archbishop, headed the project. He had in mind a '.'first cathedral of three naves ant' seven chapels," and worked as siduously toward this end. The annals describe the initial construction work as proceeding well 'in view of his (the Archbishop's) solicitude and care,' and expressed the hope that 'with the alms of His Majesty and with others which his (the Archbishop's) efforts collected, ultimate perfection could be expected." Like Salazar before him, Benavides did not have the consolation of seeing the completion of the work he begun. In 1605, this Archbishop died, and had to be buried in the provisional sanctuary of that time-"una pequeiia iglesia de tablas" (a small wooden church). With the death of its moving spirit, and the inadequacy of funds, the reconstruction movement ceased temporarily. Very little was accomplished in the five years' interregnum that followed. PANORAM" In 1610 Archbishop Vasquez de Mercado took over the archdiocese. On assuming his office he found the work on the cathedral still in its beginnings, and only its foundation were laid. He also noted with what little dignity the services could be celebrated in the existing small church of wooden boards, and forthwith resumed the work, using what the annals describe as "very beautiful stone masonry." Archbishop Vasquez was fortunate in having behind him in this undertaking the support of pious Manila residents, among them rich traders. The annals record a certain Captain Juan Sarmiento, chancellor of the Audiencia, and his wife, Isabel Paredes, who donated one of the side chapels, and with it, a thorn from the precious crown of Our Lord donations they gave a chaplaincy with a capital of P4,200 (the equivalent in purchasing powMAY 1958 er to about P200,000 of our present currency). Another chapel was built and furnished with funds from the estate of "Father" Miguel Limon, who was a layman they honored with this title for his great charity and mercy. He, too, gave with it a chaplaincy in the same amount. The accountant of the Royal treasury, Alonso de Espinosa y Saravia, donated another chapel with a chaplaincy of Pto,000. A similar donation was given by the licentiate Rodrigo de la Barrera. But the most generouo:; endowment came from Archbishop Vasquez himself. He founded at the left side of the main altar, behind the collateral, a chapel for his interment, and for that of all the prebendaries who would like to be buried there. To this chapel the Archbishop attached a chaplaincy of P20,000 for the benefit of the cathedral chapter. In the comparatively short 17 time of four years, a beautiful cathedral 'of three naves and seven chapels' was completed. On December 6, 1614 it was solemnly dedicated and consecrated by Archbishop Vasquez. This cathedral was to last only a little more than thirty years. Decem her 30, 1645, feast of Saint Andrew, is a date entered at length in the Archbishop's archives, for on it occurred a tremendous earthquake that rocked Manila and its suburbs. At nine o'clock in the evening, the annals relate, the earth shook with such a crash that within an hour no edifice in the city was left standing. The cathedral was reduced to ruins, and in its rubble were buried the archives recording its early times. which were kept in the hall of the chapter. The havoc caused by the earthquake was so complete that a hut had to be built in the middle of the square in front of the ruined Cathedral where, with little dignity and great discomfort, the divine offices were celebrated. With undestandable sentiment the annals conclude this entry with the words . .. "All was lost, all came to an end, everything was in disorder. The Holy Will of the Lord be done." The disaster had happened during an interregnum which did not end until July 22, 1653, when Miguel de Poblete assumed the archbishopric of Manila. In the meantime, nothing had been done towards the reconstruction of the cathedral, and the pitiful hut that faced its ruins still served as the supreme sanctuary of the Islands. The day after his solemn entry, Archbishop Poblete went to inspect the ruins of his church. What he saw made him weep softly, but his compassion was more aroused when he saw the makeshift hut in the middle of the square where, up to then, the services were celebrated. Immediately he ordered the unworthy structure torn down, as he had already written the provisor and deputies of the brotherhood of the Holy Merch requesting them to lenrl their church as pro-cathedral PANORAMA until one could be reconstructed. Then he proceeded to the most heroic undertaking of his life. He went from house to house and walked along th0 streets begging for alms. He admitted this to be his greatest mortification, but the whole city, seeing its archbishop out begging, was touched to tbe heart. Years later, when the construction costs were compiled, it was found out that this effort by Archbishop Poblete accounted for the staggering amount of P40,455.50, representing nearly two-thirds of the total funds used for the reconstruction of the third cathedral! So generous was !he response that in less than a year, sufficient funds had been accumu· lated to start the work. In April 1654 the cornerstone was laid amid solemn ceremonies. Finally, in 1662, the main work was done, and preparations were made for the festivities of the inauguration. However on the appointed day, all celebrations were abandoned as the Chinese privateer Coxinga (or Coxenya). who had just thrown the Dutch off Formosa, was threatening an attack on Manila. In view of this emergency, only simple ceremonies attended the consecration and blessing of this third permanent Cathedral church of Manila on June 7 of the same year. MAY 1958 A detailed description of this church is given by Ortiz de Cobarrubias as follows: "The body of this church and its sumptuous edifice, is entirely composed of arched structures of square stones, and of masonry of rough stone and mortar. Its spacious area is 40 brazas long (140 feet) and 15 wide, and its height is 9 brazas. It is divided in to three naves, and at the middle nave there stand on each side seven beautiful pillars supporting it in equal proportion with its strong walls. The front side is elaborately adorned by three doors (each corresponding to one of the three naves) leading to the square. In the middle of the side walls are two doors opening into the streets, in addition to the doors of the two new sanctuaries (one for Spaniards and one for the natives). "The building is brigtened by its well arranged windows and bull's eyes, which accompany in equal proportion the sides of the eight chapels at the floor of the church-gifts of private persons. It is elevated by one braza above street level, covered entirely with a roof of incorruptible molave wood made up of a frame of joint trusses and a roofing of boards of the same material and covered with tiles. It has a splendid rectory to whose floor one ascends over five steps. Its choir is elevated 19 three brazas above the floor, and has 52 seats of colored wood of outstanding workmanship, and two platforms at the sides. "It is entirely covered with whitewash, and is at once very friendly bright, clear and grave. The building is flanked by a conspicuous tower, and in it is a large bell which was wanting before as the church did not have any. On the ground floor of the tower are the other necessary offices, and on its higher part is a clock large enough to show the time. In this form and arrangement the cathedral is now erected anJ perfected." Still and all, the church lacked some finishing touches. In the junction between the middle nave and the two collaterals toward the m a i n altarpiece, there were lacking two openings with four arches and supporting pillars. This detail could not be completed as the stipends due the archbishop from an encomienda granted by King Philip IV failed to come. Archbishop Poblete died on Dec. 8, 1667, on the feast day of the patronage of the church he had built so well. On his death he bequeathed to liis nephew, the then Dean Jose Millan de Poblete, his most precious earthly possession: the work on the Cathedral of Manila. 20 Four years after Poblete'.> death, the cathedral was finally completed in all its parts. Its total cost amounted to P63,l 18.70, a fabulous sum in those times. Of this figure, aside from the income from the Royal Encomienda which barely reached PS,000, the rest were collected or donated by Archbishop Poblete, or came from his estate. His nephew's efforts and personal donation also added to the sum. It was a happy day for Manila when its Cathedral stood perfectly rehabilitated. Coxinga was dead, and the city was safe again. Elaborate celebrntions started on August 31st of 1671 and lasted for eight days. In the new cathedral, the faithful gathered to attend the rites and listen to the sermons preached by the most learned members of the secular and regular clergy. In the evening of the last day, a lavish theatrical presentation climaxed the city's rejoicing. The third cathedral lasted for two centuries. During its existence it underwent frequent repairs and alterations, both minor and substantial. The hi3torian Fr. Juan Delgado relates that Archbishop Diego Camacho (1697-1706) "raised with great care and diligence forty thousand pesos which he spen~ in the ornamentation of this holy church he built three saPANORAMA cristies and the sanctuary of the main altar. He had its altar-piece gilded, and the sacristy embellished with exquisite and valuable ornaments and chalices. He built the tower and belfry of this cathedral, which is the same that exists today, of solid and beautiful architecture." (Historia Sacroprofana, Manila, 1751). In spite of Delgado, it ap· pears more reasonable to presume that all the construction work he ascribes to Camacho was in fact maintenance work only, or changes in style. There was no earthquake or other catastrophe on record during that period of time, that would have caused any parts of the cathedral to collapse, and there was obviously no reason why Camacho should have torn down Poblete's tower and replace it with a new one. Delgado is more correct in describing the work of his contemporary Archbishop Juan Angel Rodriguez (1737-1742), of whom he reports "that as soon as he took possession of his See he began to reform his Church-first, in matters spiritual, by salutary edicts and pastoral letters, and thereafter in the material substance, by replacing the wooden parts of the cathedral with very large expenditures. He obtained for it thirteen large bells." The work here referred to MAY 1958 by Delgado was of major importance, and included a great amount of remodelling. Archbishop Rodriguez, according to the records of the Obras Pias de la Sagrada Mitra de Manila, wished to provide an abode within the cathedral compound for the Colegio de Ninos Tiples, an educational institution he had founded in 1739 and which he generously endowed in his testament. His intention did not materialize, however, as he died in 1742 before the work was finished, and his successors assigned other premises for the school. Fonseca, writing in 1880, refers to the adaptations initiated by Archbishop Rodriguez with this words: "In the middle of the past century a major repair on-the Cathedral was made, modifying its old architecture. When the work was about to be terminated, it was resolved to consecrate the church, but the consecration and the feast of dedication were suspended, and only the main altar was consecrated on December 7th of 1760 by the then Archbishop Fray Don Miguel Antonio Rojo del Rio y Veyra." It was under the same Archbishop Rojo (1759-1764) that the sacristy of the cathedral suffered the loss of its entire treasure of silver and jewels and during the British occupa21 tion of Manila. The British commander had issued order protecting the cathedral, and consequently, during the sack of the city it was spared from looting. However, by command of Archbishop Rojo, order was given to hand over to the English chiefs all the wrought silver in the church, without reservation of a single censer or porta-paz, to make up the million pesos which, under the threat of death, had to be paid by the city in that month nn account of the four million which the British demanded after the general sack. The value of this silver was P31,399. Thus, in one moment the cathedral lost all the adornments acquired in the past two centuries since the conquest of the Islands. (Letter of Cathedral chapter to the King, July 25, 1764, Archives). Even after its restoration under Archbishop Rodriguez, the third cathedral required continuous maintenance work. The major and most important was that undertaken after the strong earthquake of Sept. 16. 1852. A survey of the damage revealed that its dome had suffered a slight dislocation due to rotten woodwork. After the survey, the military engineers proposed the construction of a new dome, a modification of the front elevation with complete change of the main nave 22 by one meter, and the renovation of the hall of the chapter, which repairs were estimated at f'45,000. This work was accomplished in 1858 and the church was reopened for the cult on March 31 of that year. However, the cathedral had suffered heavier damages than appeared to the eye. Four years later, new repairs were needed, and so in August of 1862 the metropolitan chapter again evacuated the church in order that further repairs could be made. A year later, the repairs were completed and the church was reopened for services in March 19, 1863. All these efforts soon came to naught. Less than three months later, in June 3, 1863, a stronger and more terrible earthquake came, and the entire building of the third permanent cathedral went down, reduced to a heap of rubble. It took nine years before preparations could be started for the reconstruction of another cathedral. In 1872 the architects submitted their plans, and although approval was obtained only at a much later date, spade work began on Oct. 4 of the same year. This cathedral is believed to have been constucted upon a floor plan similar, if not identical, to that of the third cathedral. After seven years, the work was finished and the fourth cathedral of MaPANORAMA nila stood again in its old splendor for its solemn dedication and blessing which was performed on Dec. 8, 1879. The first year of the new church was not a happy one. In July 18, 1880, during a rather severe earthquake, its tower collapsed. Aside from this, it suffered no other damage of importance. The tower that fell probably continued important structural parts of Poblete's time, as an eye-witness, Alfred Marches, expressly referred to it as "la vieille tour de la cathedral"-the old tower of the cathedral. (Lu con et Palouan, Paris, 1887). For many years after that, no funds could be secured for the construction of a tower. The Manila cathedral thus remained without a tower until its destruytion in the battle of Intramuros during the liberation of Manila in February of 1945.-Manila Daily Bulletin 58th Annual Edition. Still Lucky The hat was passed around a certain congregation for the purpose of taking up a collection. After it had made the circuit of the church, it was handed to the mini.ster-who, by the way, had exchanged pulpits with the regular preacher-and he found not a centavo in it. He inverted the hat over the pulpit cushion and shook it, that its emptiness might be kn,~wn; then, raising his eyes to the ceiling, he exclaimed with great fervor: "I thank God that I got back my hat from this congregation." MAY 1958 23 24 Only one of the four meanings given aft-er each word below is correct. Without guessing, choose the right answer and then turn to page 7 4. If you have gon~ through high school, you should score at least eight correct answers. 1. ameliorate -A. to decorate; B:' to contribute to; C. to improve; D. to defend. 2. sporadic-A. originating from the masses; B. appearing in scattered or isolated instances; C. destructive; D. full of holes. 3. pun-A. a cruel joke; B. a play on words; C. an expression of disgust; D. a billboard. 4. tryst-A. an appointed meeting; B. a duel; C. an attempt; D. bitter criticism. 5. wayfarer-A. a tramp or hobo; B. an animal used as a vehicle; C. a fortune teller; D. a traveler, especially on foot. 6. communal -A. pertaining to a crowd; B. like a religious ceremony; C:' belonging to the people of a community; D. utterly vulgar. 7. dilate -A. cause to expand; B. to postpone; C. to remove the top; D. to refuse or deny. 8. efface -A. to excel in public; B. to wipe out; C. to accept humbly; D. to alter one's outward appearance. 9. languid -A. watery; B. inclined to be moody; C. like muddy water; D. drooping from weakness or fatigue. 10. topple -A. to wrestle or grapple; B. top of a tall building; C. to tumble down; D. to exceed the mark. PANORAMA Why import? 7 HE PRODUCTION of paper and paper products is an industry that has been overlooked in our country. This is really curious because our country has all the raw materials necessary for paper making and there is an extensive internal market for the product. . Paper is manufactured from wood and vegetable fibers. The kind and length of the fiber determine the quality of the product. These fibers can be· e:~ tracted from the waste materials of our forests and abaca plantations. The fibers are extracted chemically or mechanically and then mixed in water or drier in thick sheets. The mixture is called pulp. There are two kinds of fibers. The important one is the fundamental fiber which determines the strength and quality of the paper and the other is the supplemental fiber which is used to give body to the paper. MAY 1958 1f1e ean ?lta~ ()evz, tJet)n 'ii' ape't • By Eduardo Solidum Fundamental fibers can be extracted from conifers, pine and abaca. Supplemental fibers can be obtained from rice straw, bagasse and cogon grass. Without the fundamental fiber the cost of producing paper would be extremely high. Fundamental fibers are so important that paper companies are willing to invest in other countries in order to secure the fundamental fiber f o r their home production. The raw materials for paper production in the Philippines can be classified i n t o three groups. The first is the forest group which includes rice straw, carps and conifers. The second is the agricultural by-products group which inclues rice straw, bagasse, abaca, banana stalks and the third is the weed group which includes cogon, talahib and bamboo. 25 1(/E HAVE been very wasteful with these products. The by-products for instance of our sawmills are burned or left to decay. Abaca waste also is not utilized. If these by-products are transformed into paper the Philippines can produce more paper than it needs. The businessman, however, argues that the cost of transporting these by-products to a central pulp factory would make the enterprise very uneconomic. This argument is based on misinformation. If he puts up his pulp factory in Mindanao ar Mindoro where there are tons of these by-products he can make the enterprise profitable. If he wishes he can also start his own pulp forest. This will insure quantity and steady supply. The mountains of Baguio would make an ideal place for a pulp plantation. But then considering the extent of our forest resources, he does not have to do this. If he uses the forest products wisely he can be assured of a continuous supply of pulp materials. The value of this industry can be assessed by remembering that since 1947 the Philippines has spent close to $11,000,000 for paper and paper products. Recently, the newspapers were forced to cut down on their number of pages because of paper shortage. The internal market for the products of a paper factory is assured. Rabbit Beats Eagle 26 RUSTENBURG, South Africa - A black eagle got the worst of an encounter with a big rock rabbit in the Rustenburg Kloof, a popular camping resort and picnic place. Campers saw the eagle swoop and pick up the rock rabbit. But as the bird soared they saw the rabbit fight back and bite off one of the eagle's claws. The bird let go with a shriek. The rock rabbit fell in to some bushes unhurt and scampered away. The wounded eagle flew away. PANORAMA $ p $ What ftbout Price 8ontrols? $ A diehard advocate of the free-wheeling economy, businessman and former Economic: Coordinator argues against price controls By ALFREDO MONTELi BANO <J HE CURRENT proposals for price controls on prime evidence that Central Bank Circular 79 has been found insufficient to achieve its avowed purpose of lowering prices. Circular 79 was intended essentially as an instrument for forcing prices down by withdrawing a substantial portion of money supply. If this circular has been found insufficient, the question that must be answered is whether price controls will do any better and really achieve the laudable purpose of bringing down and stabilizing prices. The great preponderance of historical evidence, not only in the Philippines but also in other countries, is that price controls are generally insufficient for the purpose intended and often yield results that are the exact opposite of those envisioned. MAY 1958 Our ow n experience with them during the enemy occupation and the ~arly postwar years does not lend confidence in their efficacy. In fact, they actually promoted increased prices and increased scarcities which only added greatly to the burden of the general public, while awarding rich premiums to the racketeers and the unprincipled. The evil of price controls is that they are essentially discriminatory and unfair. Prices are fixed on the basis of arbitrary judgment and not on basic economic laws and prevailing economic conditions. Because of that, they not only do not promote efficiency of production but also hamper overall production by forcibly distorting the production pattern. In the last nine years we have the combined judgment of all 27 tried to fix prices artificially, both through direct price controls and through indirect price controls implicit in our exchange and import control systems. These have led only to even more acute shortages and economic distortions. Centuries of international experience still show, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that the law of supply and demand is still the best, the most equitable and the most advantageous system of controlling prices. And this law works best when a healthy degree of free competition exists in the market. In such a market, it is really the consumers and the producers or the buyers and the sellers that set a limit on prices of commodities and decide on what commodities should be produced. At the same time, price limits thus set do not stifle but instead encourage increased productive efficiency and do not arbitrarily force producers to continue to produce even at a loss. The rewards go to those who deserve them by having worked for them and not to those who violate laws and regulations. <]'HE ONLY permanent solution to the problem of rising prices is to once again let private enterprise produce on the basis of the demand, undistorted by controls, and let the con28 suming public accommodate itself to the prices dictated by market conditions. In such <l system, it will not be long before the consuming public becomes the price control agency itself and prices will henceforth be stable and fair all around. As productivity increases, and it is bound to increase, prices will even go down because every firm or individual production unit will have to work hard and improve its efficiency in order to nose out competitors and still earn a reasonable return for its efforts within the price limits set by the market. Then there will be no need for artificial price or profit controls. When the market is allowed to exercise its major function as the final judge of prices, the resulting prices are the true prices, not the prices fixed by arbitrary action or dictation. They are also fair prices and nobody is unfairly treated. We, therefore, believe that the best way to control, stabilize and lower prices is to allow free market forces ampler play in our economy. However, if the government is bent on imposing price controls as a temporary expedient, we beg to submit the following proposals: 1. That if the price of any commodity is to be controlled, there should be simultaneous PANORAMA control of the prices of commodities needed in its production. 2. That there should also be simultaneous control of prices of prime commodities, whether imported or locally produced, consumed by those dependent on the production of a commodity the price of which is controlled. 3. The forcible commandeering for foreign exchange earned from exports at f'2 per $1, and transferring a portion of the equivalent peso earnings to private importers is highly immoral, if not actually illegal. If we insist on continuing this commandeering, the benefits should be transferred to the state, not to a few private importers, so that these benefits can be passed on to the people as a whole and thus be able to enhance the public welfare. To control the price of any locally produced commodity is to limit the potential earning from its production unless there is a corresponding control on the cost of producing it. This is particularly injurious in the case of food commodities because these are agricultural products and agriculture, under existing conditions, is already almost a profitless undertaking. It is particularly so with respect to rice, corn and sugar. Also, unlike in manufacturing where quality and quantity MAY 1958 are susceptible to close control and in utilities where there is a captive market, agriculture is a highly risky undertaking because it is vulnerable to unfavorable changes in weather that are beyond human control. And yet, whereas even utilities are allowed to earn at least a 12 per cent return on investment, and manufacturing is aided to make even greater profits through such government assistance as tax-exemption and other subsidies, studies of the Philippine National Bank show that at the current national average yields of 27 cavans of palay per hectare and less than 12 cavans of corn per hectare, there is no profit in rice and corn production. Sugar production at the national average yield of less than 100 piculs per hectare gives a return of only 4.1 per cent. Production of other crops is hardly less unprofitable. 'l:JRICE CONTROL will limit the already inadequate earnings from these crops even more without providing any compensatory remedy in the event of losses suffered from the vagaries of nature. The least that cad be done, therefore, if it is not the intention to penalize agriculture further, is to attempt to preserve a certain degree of parity between the controlled prices and the costs of 29 production. This can be done by simultaneously con trolling the prices of commodities needed in the process of production, such as agricultural and transport machinery and equpiment, spare parts and supplies, fuel and lubricants, tires an d tubes, other agricultural implements, tools, fertilizer, insecticides, bags and other packaging materials, building materials for barns and warehouses, and all other goods needed in the process of production. But this is not enough. Simple justice demands that there should also be a positive attempt to assure a certain measure of parity between the decreased earnings arising from price controls and the necessary day to day consumption needs of all the people dependent for their livelihood on the production of the con trolled commodities, particularly the laborers and their dependents. It is, therefore, necessary that price controls be simultaneously applied to the basic needs of these people for food, clothing and shelter, whether imported or locally produced, in order that the low level of welfare now enjoyed by these people is not depressed further. If this is not done, social conditions in the areas producing the controlled commodities will certainly deteriorate further. 30 Since these social conditions are already unsatisfactory as a whole, any further deterioration can lead to active social unrest and all its consequences. Production, instead of increasing to self-sufficiency levels as desired, will certainly diminish further. If production is made even less attractive than it already is, then, those producing the commodities proposed to be controlled will produce only enough to feed themselves and their families. This in turn will only result in more and more importation to take care of the consumption needs of the rest of the country which means an increasing drain on the dollar reserve. With respect to the third proposition above, it seems clear that, while there is now official admission that the peso is overvalued, the official intention is to keep it overvalued so that the_ rate of exchange will continue to be f'2 per 1. Since, on the basis of the relative purchasing power of the two currencies, the more realistic r a t e is somewhere around f'4 to $1, to maintain the rate of f'2 to $1 simply means that as long as export earnings have to be surrendered to the Central Bank, producers for export will continue to be deprived of around one-half or 50 per cent of the equivalent peso earnings of their products. PANORAMA On the other hand, since the dollars thus earned continue to be sold at f>2 per $1, while there is no control on prices of imported goods, importers can sell at from P3 to PIO or more per $1. The government does not profit from this transaction except for the negligible banking fees. In effect, a large part of the income earned by export producers is forcibly taken away from them and handed over to importers and other purchasers of foreign exchange, a transfer of earnings that is highly immoral if not illegal and from which only a favored few benefits. Thus, the government gives away a bonanza of handsome profits to a small economic sector which is not entitled to it because it has not sweated for it. There can be no clearer case of "windfall" or unearned profits. If, for unknown reasons, the government persists in commandeering a substantial portion of the peso earnings from exports, then it should be done to benefit the state, not a smnIJ private group of privileged individuals and firms. In other words, it would be far less immoral and far more socially deMAY 1958 sirable, if the portion of export earnings that is taken away from export producers is retained by the government and used to enhance the economic and social well-being of the nation as a whole by utilizing it for economic development and social amelioration rather than private gain. There are several ways by which the government can do this. One is by increased taxes on sales of imported goods, another is by selling foreign exchange at a premium or by auction. The proceeds then accrue to the government for use in advancing the public welfare. The imposition of controls on the net profits of those privileged to purchase dollars from the Central Bank at the official rate of exchange is a desirable step towards reducing unearned profits and may lead to the lowerning of prices of imported commodities if effectively implemented. It is a necessary complement to the proposed price control system and both should be adopted as long as the government persists in maintaining the overvaluation of the currency and the present exchange and trade controls. 31 Household tips That Stain Can Be Removed E VERY years housewives throw away many stained and spotted articles while others are destroyed by unsur.. cessful attempts to removt>. stains. Home technologists of the University of the Philippines college of agriculture said this need not be so. Stains can be removed properly. Here are some general tips on stain removal as suggested by the Los Banos home technologists: 1. Be prompt. Treat the stain while it is fresh, before it dries if possible. Fabrics should not be washed or dry-cleaned before the stains have been removed as soap and water and a hot iron set many stains. 2. Know your fabric. Suit the remover to the cloth. A stam remover used successfully en one fabric may damage another. Strong acid removers, such as ovalic acid, destroy cotton and linen cloth; even mild acics, such as lemon juice and vine32 By PEDRO. RAMOS gar, may m1ure cotton .and linen if allowed to remain too long on the cloth. Strong alkalies harm these materials but weak alkalies such as ammonia water and sodium perborate are safe to use if you rinse the article well in water afterwards. Strong acids and alkalies deswool or silk materials. Bleachl!s troy wool or silk materials. Bleaches that contain chlorine, such as ordinary bleaching powder, also destroy wool and silk. For wool and silk use lukewarm water. Stains on rayon should not be removed by strong acids and alkalies. Mild acids and alkalies usually do not harm rayon m!lterials if properly rinsed. 3. Use the mildest treatment first. Several mild treatments are better than one strong treatment. 4. Test for color change. AlPANORAMA ways test water or any chemical stain remover on a hidden part of the garment to be sure it will not change the color. 5. Work carefully and always rinse well. Here are some ways on how to remove individual stains: l. rlron rust-spread the stained area over a pan of boiling water. Squeeze calamansi juice on it. Rinse after a few minutes; then repeat the process. Another method is to sprinkle the stain with salt, squeeze calamansi juice on it and spread material in the sun to bleach. 2. Mildew-wash at once with soap and water arrd bleach under the sun. Try a bleaching agent if soap and water do not work. Calamansi juice and salt may also be used. 3. 1 n k-A p p l y calamansi juice, salt and soap. Rub well and bleach under the sun. If stain remains, use alcohol, but not on acetate. Then wash in warm soapy water. 4. Candle wax-Scrape off wax with a dull knife. Place the stain between clean white blotters, cleansing tissues or paper towels and press with a warm iron. Sponge with liquid made up of 1 part alcohol and 2 parts water. 5. Oil and grease spotScrape off as much of the MAY 1958 grease as possible; then wash in warm sudsy water. Use plenty of soap on the stained part and rub well between the hands. 6. Paint and varnishesScrape off as much of the paint or varnish as possible. If the stain has hardened, soften it first by rubbing on oil, lard or petroleum jelly; then washwith plenty of soap. 7. Chewing gum-Rub the area with ice or soak in ve:y cold water or soften the gum stain with egg white and then wash. 8. Fruit stains-Treat the stains immediately. Boiling wa· ter removes most fruit stains from cotton and linen. Never use boiling water on silk and wool. Stretch the stained part over a bowel, fasten with string and pour boiling water from a height of 3 or 4 feet so that the water strikes the stain with force. Rubbing alternated wi~h the boiling water is also helpful. If the stain remains, squeeze a little lemon juice on it hand place in the sun or use one of the chemical bleaches. ~. Lipstick-Rub glycerine or vaseline on stain to loosen it. Launder as usual. When using bleaching solution on any stain follow the instructions found on the package. 33 A GRITIGRL LOOK AT NURSING In Samar there is only one nurse to every 27,000 people By Senator DECOROSO ROSALES • NURSING is one of the most vital professions in all mankind. Its tradition of service and loftiness of purpose is an established fact. Who has not heard, for example, of the immortal Florence Nightingale, English nurse and pioneer of hospital reform? As early as grade school we had known of the exploits of this valiant lady who, during the Crimean War, led a handful of nurses to the battle area to alleviate the suffering of the wounded. We had heard of how nightly, with a lamp in hand, she visited the sick soldiers who soon looked up to her as the "Lady with a Lamp"-their own guardian angel. Florence Nightingale did establish a tradition of greatness and of unselfish devotion in the nursing profession. 34 In the Philippines, who has not heard of Tandang Sora, the "Grand Old Woman of the Philippine Revolution"? Students of history will recall that Melchora Aquino, popularly known as Tandang Sora, rallying to the cry of the revolution in 1896, ministered to the ill-equipped rebels at the danger of her own life. Although in the strict sense not a nurse - since the army of the revolution had no medical corps to speak of-Tandang _Sora sheltered some of our patriots, including Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto, the Sarmiento brothers and Teodoro Plata, until they were well enough to fight again. Her humanitarian activities in fact caused her arrest and subsequent exile to Guam. PANORAMA I am sure there are others who, like Nightingale and Tandang Sora, have been equally noble and dedicated but whose names are not recorded in history. The point is that these examples suffice to delineate the true mission of the nursing profession. Unfortunately in our country the nurse, like the school teacher, has been honored more in the word rather than in the deed. When I mention the paramount importance of the nursing profession and the nobility of its calling, it is not my intention to pay more lip service than what has already been done. Rather, I believe that only by recognizing the vital place of a profession such as nursing can we do anything· to elevate its standards or to give our nurses the treatment that they deserve. For like other professions in our country today, it is possible that nursing also suffers from a few ills which, to my mind, could· be remedied. And when I say remedied, I mean without necessitating the usual "additional appropriation," which is hard to come by anyway. THE FIRST of such ills, in my opinion, is the poor distribution of our nurses. One does not have to be an expert to discover this simple fact. I could say the lack of nurses, MAY 1958 but that again would bring up the usual and logical comment that there are no funds with which to train more. A report was published about three years ago by the nursing representatives of governmental and private agencies which made a study on nursing resources, services and education in our country. The significant fact that strikes one looking at this report is that while there is on the average one nurse to every 5,400 persons in the Philippines, most of such nurses are found in Manila. I don't know if the ratio of 1 :5,400 is a good or a bad one, but I would venture the statement that within the modest framework of our economy, it is not so bad. Yet when we consider, as the report states, that in some provinces there is only one nurse to every 16,000 of population as in the case of Leyte, or one nurse to every 27,000 of population as in the case of Samar, then we realize how terribly lopsided indeed is the distribution of the few nurses that we can afford. The same report shows that Manila with a population of about 1,100,000 has 1,136 nurses or a ratio of 1 :940, whereas three provinces have only one nurse for 15,0QO or 20,000 population. The situation with regard to public health nurses and mid35 wives is not any better. The same study shows that in the whole country the ratio between such nurses and midwives on the one hand and the population on the other is about 1 : 12,500. Again the average is not really as bad as the distribution. Batanes, for example, has one midwife for every 5,000 population whereas Masbate has only one midwife for every 233,000 population! As it is to be expected, the Manila ratio is much better: it has one public health nurse to every 7,000 population and one midwife to about 23,000 population. There is no need to deny the fact that Manila, being a cosmopolitan center, must necessarily attract professionals. The number of hospitals in Manila alone would easily warrant the employment of a good portion of our trained nursing gra~ uates. But this is no justification for the alarming shortage of trained nurses in the rural areas, where their services· are just as badly, if not more badly, needed. The familiar refrain of "rural amelioration" made popular during the regime of our great late president, Ramon Magsaysay may be noticed here. ·while it may not be a new . idea, it certainly is to the point. One has only to go to the barrios to see for himself the need36 the urgent need-of the rural people for greater hospital and nursing care. One does not have to read voluminous reports to know this. the idea then, is to spread more evenly the humanitarian services of the nursng profession. It is to give those services where they are most greatly needed, where the people because of poverty and ignorance do not seek the help of doctors and nurses, as many in the cities do. The advice is easy to make but quite hard to take. "All right, I shall go to the barrios," a young nurse would say. "I shall go to the barria.3. But then what? Who will support me there? Who will employ me with a decent salary or promise me a bright future?" These are faii- questoins to ask. Frankly, I don't think I can answer them satsfactorily. Let me put it this way: In almost all professions there is the conflict between material advancement on the one hand and service on the other. It is unfortunate that the ·two seldom go together. If it is fame and fortune one wants, then probably a nurse is in the wrong profession. l know a dozen other ways of making money quicker. And fame is out of the question. Yet obviously these things are not what nurses want; othPANORAMA erwise, they would not be nurses. I think the nurse's reward is in her profession and her future is with the sick and the suffering. There is little tangible reward in either; there is only inner satisfaction and spiritual growth. T HE OTHER shortcoming of the nursing profession, as I see it, deals with the system that produce our nurses. Again, like the first one. it is to my mind remediable. In another study, conducted by the Philippine Nursing Association, it was found out that many of the hospital schools which train our nurses are not adequately prepared to give such training. I hasten to add that this study was made in 1953, and I tlo not know to what extent conditions have changed since then. Nevertheless, the study brings out the fact that in 13 hospital schools of nursing studied, only 49 of the 87 faculty members possessed degrees. The rest were either academically unprepared or were still in the process of acquiring such preparation. In other words, almost one half of such faculty members responsible for the training of our· nurses were unprepared at least from the point of view of academic training. It was also brought out that of 73 governMAY 1958 ment hospitals studied, only three met the arbitrary requirements for graduate nurses and attendant staffs; and of 83 nongovernmen t hospitals studied only five met such standards for graduate nurses and attendants. These figures speak for themselves. I would not give the impression though that these are singularly terrible conditions. To be perfectly honest with ourselves, our whole educational system is suffering from many postwar ills which in a sense are inevitable. In the' mad scramble for profit, some businessmen and pseudo-educators have made a farce of our educational system, They have made education a thriving business. This fact is now common knowledge. Yet, this is no justification for the sub-standard condition of some nursing schools in our country. Needless to say, the elevation of the standards of the nursing profession should entail the commensurate elevation of its financial rewards. For while we invoke the highest idealism in this respect, we must not lose sight of the fact that nurses are also human beings entitled to a decent means of livelihood. Certainly, the nursing profession deserves a place of dignity and importance in our national life. The same group which 37 made the study just cited recommends, for example, the reclassification of nursing personnel in the government service according to scientific job analysis and description. l think this is an excellent idea, but only after stricter standards shall have been imposed on nursing schools and colleges. These ills are, I repeat, remediable, and not necessarily with more appropria ti_ons. Reform, they say, must come from within. The hospital schools and colleges which train nurses must elevate their standards first, in order to attract better students and better teachers. Quality will beget quality. The inevitable result will be higher professional standards and higher pay. But the greater problem still is the proper distribution of our nurses. When the young graduates decide to take on an assignment, they should bear in mind the critical need in the rural areas. They should go to the barrios and help the sick, the dispossessed, the ignorant, the poverty-stricken people in those places. Indeed, they should go, like the missionaries, to the hinderlands where their humanitarian services are critically needed. If they do this, they will neither be famous nor rich. Their names and their faces will most certainly not land on the society pages of our newspapers. In some of the backward areas their work will not only be unappreciated but will also incur the suspicion and ill-will of the local folk. The challenge would then be greater. There one would have to fight not only apathy but superstition. The Florence Nightingales and the Tandang Soras are not freaks of history; they are very much with us today. It does not take a war to make patriots or heroes. In the quiet tempo of everyday living, in the neglected barrios of our country, there is an ever present opportunity to serve mankind generously and without fanfare. Mo re 38 "Don't worry about the money you Jose at the gambling tables. just remember - there's plenty more where that went." PANORAMA Panorama Peek SUMMER COMES AND GOES. but Baguio's vegetable vendors ply their healthful trade the year round. 40 Burial u r n s in a dead volcano crater By FRED D. BURDETT MANY YEARS ago, I 908, if I remember rightly, l was talking with Ferguson of the Bureau of Mines about mining matters generally, when he said, "Have you by any chance been over the vo~ canic island of Camiguin? l was marooned there for over three months and had one of the hardest and most interesting exreriences I have yet encountered. "For one thing there is a deposit of some six to eight thournnd tons of high grade sulphur on the east side of the island which ought to interest you, old timer, and another thing and to me more important still, there are literally thousands of burial mounds of a long lost PANORAMA race scattered all over the island, so that at one time it must have been very thickly populated. Their descendants were evidently annihilated in some great volcanic eruption which destroyed every living thing on the island, possible centuries ago. The only living people on the island are a few llocanos or Cagayanos, possibly misdoers who escaped from the mainland and are now settled Jown and living decently trying to forget their past, makmg a scanty living on the really fertile volcanic soil. Take my c1.dvice, old scout, and look the place over." It has always been one of my greatest weaknesses to go chasing the rainbow, and I at once got in touch with some friends and we formed a little Sociedad Anonima, and in a few weeks' time I was on my way in a 30foot biray from the port of Dirique with a picked crew of Ilocanos to tackle what 1 a t e r i::roved a very dangerous voyage to Camiguin. We arrived there safely about six days later, just reaching the island in time to miss by a hair's breadth one of those wicked tide rips which make the Babuyan and Balintang channels so dangerous for navigation at spring tides even for big steamers, let alone a small sailboat like ours. It happened when we had almost arrived at the island. As MAY 1958 I had some previous experience with tide rips, when I heard the terrifying roar still some miles distant, I at once impressed on my husky miners and sailors from Ilocos Norte that we had not a moment to lose in getting behind a small point of land which jutted out a short distance ahead of us. Luckily for all of us, we had been paddling in leisurely, so, calling to everyone to put their weight into the oars, and seizing one myself, we soon had the little bi ray' surging through the water. But that terrific rush of water was coming at us with leaps and bounds, the roar by now so close as almost to cripple us, but we just made it, not fifty yards ahead of the maelstrom. As we looked back at that waste of roaring water rushing past us, we all heaved a big sigh of relief. All I could say was, "Close shave that!" We could see great whirlpools of ten and twelve feet diameter, any one of which would have engulfed us even if we had not foundered in the great waves of the broken water. The more I looked, the more I was convinced that n e v e r again would I attempt the Babuyan Channel in the spring tides, and as I am still very much alive today, it was near tides only from that time on for me. 41 w E GE~TLY paddled an d sailed around the island when the great rush of water had passed. We entered the only port, called Pio Pin to, which is protected by a small island on the west, making it a fairly good port in any weather. As we neared the landing, an American on horseback came jogging along the sandy beach waving his hand at us. Close by was a big lagoon and as the tide was going out, there was quite a little river of water running into the sea. When the man and his horse entered the small river, the horse seemed badly scared and balked, but the rider drove him in and like a flash the catastrophe happened. There was a great flurry in the shallow water and the 11ext moment the horse with its forelegs broken was on its side and man and horse were there struggling in the water together. The man managed to scramble back to shore, but the poor crippled horse was carried out to sea with a huge crocodile hanging on by its claws to the horse's hind quarters. Two startling experiences like this within a couple of hours was enough to disturb even the most tranquil temperament, and when my patron, Bartolomeo, said "Malo sitio, Apo," I fully agreed, and when we later built a good camp, it was some hundreds of yards farther along the beach, not close to the lagoon where we had at first intended to pitch our camp. A few years previously the fine cruiser, Charleston, had been wrecked _on an uncharted pinnacle rock off the east coast of Camiguin, becoming a total loss. All hands had been saved and landed in Camiguin but Meyler, the American we met, had taken the opportunity to desert. He later died on the island from blood poisoning following an infected foot. THE NEXT morning Meyler procured a guide for us and we set out on another adventure which proved one of the most thrilling experiences of my life. I have not yet ascertained who was the most scared by that day's experiences. All I can say is that if the men were worse scared than I was . . . well, perhaps it just as well not to go into particuli;rs. We had to cross the island from west to east and after climbing a steady, uphill grade we came to what seemed to me an impasse as a great bed of volcanic ash loomed up about fifty feet high. Luckily there were a number of big bejuco vines hanging down the precipitous sides, and directed by our guide we soon overcame what at first had appeared an unsurmountable obstacle. PANORAMA Every one by this time was complaining of thirst, but when our guide informed us that we were walking over water galore, we thought he was joking. Going over to where a big bejuco was trailing along the ground he cut about six feet of it and, borrowing the small enamel cup of one of the men, he cut the piece of bejuco into eighteeninch lengths and giving each of them a tap with the back of his bolo, he upended them in the mug, and in no time there was half a pint of clear, fresh, cool sweet water. What a Godsend! Here on this plateau of volcanic ash, where there was apparently not a drop of water to be found, here it was in illimitable quantities! It was a new experience to my Ilof;_ano friends and myself, and one we never forgot. It was always all exciting source of conversation over the night camp fires. We had been warned of an exceedingly poisonous "stinging tree." One of my men trusted too much to our guide to clear away with his bolo anything in the way, and was walkmg along, not in line, as he should have done, but alongside of a friend, w h en he walked into one of those vicious plants. So badly was he stung that he screamed and threw himself on the ground in paroxysms of torture. But the guide was again equal to the MAY 1958 occasion and, telling us to wait for him, soon returned with a bundle of l eaves which he crushed on a flat rock. He instructed us to rub the bruised leaves well over all the huge swellings which now were over an inch in height, and the relief was almost instantaneous. The victim was, however, so exhausted by his late sufferings that we told him and his companion to return to camp. They arrived safely, but it was some days before the victim of the stinging tree got back to normal. The guide told us that should a man be stung so badly that he falls to the ground, becoming unconscious, the exhalations from tilt tree will eventually kill him. It must be of the same nature as the deadly upas tree. 43 SHORTLY AFTER this we left the great bed of volcanic r.sh behind us and came on evidences of volcanic action all around. Dead solfataras with piles of sulphur about them, calcined rock everywhere with all vegetation destroyed. Ahead of us we saw clouds of vapor arising and knew we were very close to our objective, the great group of solfataras that were the source of big deposits of rnlphur we were looking for. Occasionally we passed over tracts of ground that drummed under our feet. Everything had npparently been burnt out beneath us and we were walking over a thin covering that, if it gave way, would precipitate us into the hell of boilin,g mud and molten lava still raging and heaving below. I for one felt distinctly easier in my mind when we struck solid rock once more, passing over a small ridge with nothing growing on it but cogon grass and small shrubs. My companions and I gazed down in awe at the hundreds of jets of steam pouring out in &ii directions, and at the numerous small cones of boiling mud bubbling up below us. Looking down into those weird depths, I inwardly cursed Ferguson and his confounded sulphur deposits. However, I did not have to lead the way; the g u i d e would do that, I thought; but nothing would in44 duce him, he told us, to descend into that inferno; he had done his part; he had brought us here, and now it was up to us or rather unfortunate me tu lead the way, and the worst of it was, the longer I looked, the worse it became. "Bartolomeo," I said, "come on and bring that fellow wearing the alpargatas." They were not anxious in any way to view the solfataras close1, but on mv promising to lead the way they consented to join me in inspecting the inferno at closer quarters. I descended literally in fear and trembling. ! had the wind up badly, and as we descended and it got hotter and hotter, great gusts of sulphurous steam made breathing difficult at times. After a very cautious descent, we finally reached the bottom. Just where we landed there was one of those beastly small cones with its pool of liquid stinking mud, which would rise PANORAMA until you would think it must overflow, then with a really horrid belch it would fall again a few feet. In the meantime there were jets of steam hissing out of small crevices in the rock, that would sear like a red hot iron if one got close enough to them. Carefully feeling our way, we crept cautiously along on the hard sulphur crust which extended for some distance along the bottom. When I knocked a hole with my small prospecting pick in the sulphur bed, I discovered that under the hard sulphur was a bed of fine soft sulphur of beautiful yellow color but the flory sulphur underneath was not so good. T HE HEAT was terrific, and even my Filipinos began to have drawn, haggard looking faces, which made me wonder what mine looked like. I know what I felt like! Another appalling th i n g was the floor where we were walking over. The only thing I can compare it to, is the lid of a kettle when it is boiling. The volcano floor Eimply quivered. On the opposite side were three ridges running down to where we were standing and as a gust of wind blew the steam away, I noticed that they were covered with stone cairns. Large cairns dotted the two outer MAY 1958 ridges but the middle one was covered with smaller ones. It was, we later discovered, an an· cient burial ground - for men on one ridge, women on another and children in the middle. Some of these cairns had been covered with masses of almost solid sulphur. I could not help thinking \Vhat a value the Smithsonian Institute or some other great museum would put on these extraordinary looking cairns. On opening one of them later on, I found the large urns and the bodies they had contained had been displaced by pure, crystalline sulphur in its most beautiful form. I tried to lift some of this material out but it crumbled in my hands, and at any rate was too hot to handle. The men's cairns were some eight feet in diameter, the inner part being earth mixed with small stones enclosing two urns about four feet high, while the outside was a wall of rock built round to hold the mass together. When we reached the glorious fresh air at the surface once more, while resting, I could not help wondering what sort of people these were who, instead of waiting patiently like the rest of humanity, had anticipated Hell. 45· AFTER THE rest of our party had walked around the top of the crater and joined us, we all had a long drink of bejuco water, and after eating our lunch, l remembered that when exploring Calayan, a neighboring island, the natives there had told • e many interesting stories of Limajor ~. the great Chinese pirate, "ho in years gone by had r~vaged Lingayen and adjacent parts. He made a sort of base at a place called Ibo, on the westward sir'e of Calayan, and from there used to send his junks to Camiguin to collect the sulphur and saltpeter to be found there, bringing it back to Calayan where he manufactured it into gun· powder and stink-pots, preparatory to his attack on Luzon later on when the monsoon was favorable. I was aroused from my re\.erie by Bartolomeo drawing my attention to the sun almost at the point of disappearing behind the mountain at our back. A little later, it dawned on me that I was alone. All my companions, as the sun sank behind the mountain, had gathered themselves up and literally fled, not standing on the order of their going. Looking across the crater, I saw the last of them disappearing in the small shrubs and tall cogon grass on the ridge on the opposite side, and, believe me, 46 I was not long in following them as l was not sure 1 could find the trail back to the camp. I was in pretty good condition and finally caught up with them where the edge 1Jf the pig volcanic ash bed had to be descended. I noticed several of the men hanging on to the bejuco vines below me, and hastily taking hold of one, lowered myself, my descent being considerably accelerated by the big vine beginning to draw away from where it was fast to something overhead. But as the bottom was only ash, our landing was, if somewhat rapid, at least a soft one. We finally arrived in camp, the men primed with enough weird things to talk about for years to come. While my companions, apparC'ntly without any fear of the numerous crocodiles, were day after day fishing for all they were worth with their small nets on the sandy beach of Pio Pinto, and steadily but surely fillin.g their big jars with the odoriferous bugaan, I continued to explore the island and found it literally riddled with crater holes, but none were really active and nearly all were what are known as dying volcanoes. In every one or in the immediate vicinity were scores of the burial cairns, possibly of great antiquity, while high up above the volcanoes slumbering PANORAMA below, were great graveyards of thousands. of cairns. One urn I found was evidently of Chinese origin, as ttiere was a great dragon running round the outside of the urn, and jade beads were found in others; relics possibly of a very ancient civilization. As regards walls of houses or ruins of any kind, not a trace; only the stone walls of the burial cairns were left, and I have no doubt that there are scores of graveyards elsewhere buried underneath the great deposits of volcanic ash that cover so much of prefent-day Camiguin. Chinese Drama TRADITIONALLY the age-old dramas of Chinese opera are presented upon bare, brightly-lighted stag€s. Without scenery, without props. brilliantly costumed performers magically transport the audience to another world. The language of gesture, developed and perfected down through a 2,000-year history. is used to create the illusion of bygone days of dynasties and emperors. The curtains part, and the spell is cast. Reality fades away as the language of gesture creates a setting for the drama: A kings palace, a royal horse, a quiet forest, a tumbling river. A single symbolic movement weaves the illusion of a greer: garden be-neath a graceful hand and the fragrant jamine blooms. The enchantment and poetry of this classical Chinese art was presented recent.ly in the Philippines by Taiwan's Chin Su-Chin operatic troupe. Through the craftsmanship of operatic gesture, Taiwads foremost start of Chinese opera, Miss King Sou Chin, authentically interpreted the ancient legends. Appearing before Manila audiences for the first time, this graceful artist won wide acclaim during the troupe's month-long visit to Taiwan's free world neighbor, the Republic of the Philippines. - Free World. MAY 1958 47 ~ ong forBy HERNANDO DEL ROSARIO I N SOME ways that early morning resembles dusk. There are still patches of darkness in the surrounding. The atmosphere is heavy with mist and dew still hangs pre· cariously at the tip of every lip. The wind that is blowing then brings shiver and chill to every object. That very same morning I find m y s e If walking limply PANORAMA through the misty path. I have been journeying all night. I am already tired and my every motion is lifeless. But my destination is still far off, I can not see even a single trace from the end of my journey. I am somewhat getting skeptical as to the prospects of reaching my goal. All around me, then, Christmas carols from different radios are filling the air with pollity. These carols together with the early chirps of awakening birds arid the creaking of trees nearby are making the morning a little livelier. All of a sudden, I am held dumbfounded. I stand still and my heart starts beating faster. From a restaurant at a distance comes forth the soft, heartrending notes of "Eternally" that drown all the carols that are being sung. Something inexplicable is awakened in me. There is a force that compels me to hear the song. I cannot believe what I am hearing. I thought the song has died years ago. That song played an important part in my life. It was the song hU!rlette and I used to sing years before. We sang it together at the Aristocrat beach on the occasion of her birthdav and then at Balara on Saint Valentine's Day. It was the song that sealed my pledge of undying love for her. I told MAY 1958 her then that my love was eternal. I can still remember the farewell lines that I wrote her before I finally forgot all about her tern porarily. "Wherever you are, if you hear the melodious strains of 'Eternally,' pause for a while and think of me and my eternal love. So long as that song lives, then my love lives, but when it dies, then my love dies. But you know it will not die." Since I wrote her these lines I have little heard of her. And I did not care to hear from her. I know I am not worthy of her love. Perhaps she should send me light in my journey now that I need her most. No. Not now. Not until I shall have reached my goal. That will be the time, the only time. For the moment, she should remain aside. This is my own battle. I CAME to know Marlette through Melchor, a friend of mine when I was in the first days of my senior year in the high school. Mel told me to befriend her through letter-writing. I liked the idea. Thus we became friends through the mails. We came to know each other better as days went by. She told me she was a senior high school student, like me, at the National University. One time she sent me her school organ where she was featured 49 in the personality section. I found out then that she was brains and beauty personfied. Then she told me a lot of things -about her hobbies, her. likes and dislikes -- things which I enjoyed reading about. In turn, I told her also things about myself. We continued to exchange pleasantries through the mails. And as days went by, I noticed I became eager to receive her letters. Until such time came that I felt I loved her. I did not know whether it was really love or infatuation or what not. All I knew was that I was always thinking of her. Unable to repress this feeling, I decided to tell her all about it. After I had sent my letter, I became always restless, bothered. I just felt quite relieved when she answered my letter. She was not angry after all. So I flooded her with letter after letter asking for her decision. However she remained stubborn in her decision not to answer me. She always had an excuse. She was thinking it over, she said. Deep inside me I had harbored the idea of meeting her personally. The opportunity came when she invited me to her birthday party in November of that year. Together with her invitation was her promise to let me know her decision that day. She told me the day be. 50 fore her birthday she would wait for Mel and me at Nemy's house. (Nemy is a cousin of Mel.) Somehow the prospect of meeting her made me worry. I seemed to be quite afraid. I even thought of giv· ing up the idea of meeting her, but her letter said in part: you should be here or else ... How could I possibly resist the invitation? That afternoon before her birthday I found myself face to face with her. She was all smiles with hands drawn out towards me when Mel and I arrived. "How are you Nanding? I have been tired waiting for you. I have even entertained the idea that you will not be coming. Good you came.'' I did not know if 1 was dreaming then. I could not believe I was in front of her. She was really beautiful. Her laughing eyes, kissable lips, her pinkish complexion, her we11-shaped figure ... 0 how lovely she was! I was cold then, very cold, perspiring profuse'·r and somewhat trembling. I even forgot to answer her greetings. I just smiled. Before I realized it, I found my hands tightly clasped to hers for quite sometime, staring blank'.y at her. "It seems Nanding is shy"this was Nemy now speaking, directing her words to me when she noticed my awkwardness. "I just . . . just could not PANORAMA believe. . 1 am in front of Marlette,'' was my curt reply, a bit emboldened. "Ehem ... Ehem," chanted a chorus of voices coming at the room at my back. "So there are many people in the house," I muttered to myself. It seems everything was prepared. "Nan. ding, they are my friends. This is Lina, that one is Virgie, and the other one is my cousin, Henrietta." Like a puppet, Marlette was able to turn me to all directions. At any rate, it was a pleasure to meet them all. BEFORE we parted that afternoon, all of us practically knew one another well. I was able to regain my composure. I was once again in my normal self. The next morning we found ourselves viewing the scenery at Aristocrat beach~ I was with Marlette and the rest of the gang were having their own fun. I kept reminding Marlette of her promise, but she always replied, "what promise?" Then I would wax poetic. "Do you want me to request the flowers around us and the wind that wafts through our cheeks to make you make good your promise?" Her answer would then be a hearty chuckle. After spending some moments along the seashore we MAY 1958 decided to go boating together. When we were already out in the sea, we cast our sights at the vast horizon. For long moments we looked at the surging waves, now silently moving and then onrushing furiously. We looked at the beauty of nature. What a splendid panorama was unfolding before us! There up in the heavens, flocks of swallows were flying like marching cadets in formation. Then we could hear the sound of the rippling waves. After moments of silence, I turned to Marlette who was then like me possessed of the beauty before us. "Marlette, look at the space beyond. Isn't it eternal, infinite?" "Perhaps, it is." "My love for you is like that space beyond; it knows no bounds." ''I bet you have said that to other girls," she said teasingly. From the radio in the motor boat meanwhile "Eternally" was being sung. Suddenly I heard Marlette humming the song. "My love for you is like that song. It is eternal." She did not pay attention to me. She continued humming the song. In a little while I joined her in her humming. Just as the song was being ended, the motor boat was then nearing the shore. In an instant we looked for our companions 51 hand in hand and with smiles on our lips. The days before the closing of classes were numbered. In a few weeks I would be receiving my high school certificate. Speculations were running high that I would land a place in the list of honor graduates. I had been landing in the honor roll since my first year; in addition I had a battery of top student positions. I was editor of our school organ and president of some clubs and organizations. This would make me match Mariette's beauty and brains. I would not feel inferior to her after all. QN SAINT Valentine's Day · she invited me again. This time she told me to proceed to Balara where she was to wait for me. In that place we again had occasions to exchange sweet nothings. We built dreams by the dozen. We planned for our future. After we got through with our respective courses we would serve our parents and then afterwards get married. On my graduation she would be there to witness my first hard-earned achievement. Then we would dance in our graduation ball. We were then all dreams, all hopes for the future. We were full of idealism that goes with youth. We never thought that 52 that would be our last meeting. When we parted, we were again singing "Eternally," but I noticed tears were rolling down her cheeks for reasons I did not bother to know. Some weeks after that meet· ing, I received an astounding news. It was something of a death blow. I was not included in the honor roll. All my dreams were shattered, like a house of cards. I was stunned. I could not believe it. Later I heard rumors that my exclusion from the honor roll was deliberately plotted. While it was true that there were teachers who did not like me, I never thought they would go to the extent of blocking my inclusion in the honor graduates. Young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, I submitted to my fate. I admitted the verdict with resignation but no small amount of concealed bitterness. Though I admitted my fate gracefully, somehow I felt the first spark of rebellious spirit. I would show my enemies that I was really robbed of honor. I would show them that I was worth graduating with honor. I would someday inflict upon them the same wounds they gave me. I would destroy this world, the moneyed class, the privileged class! 0, 1 was bitter, very bitter. PANORAMA Then I thought of my love for Marlette. How about it now? How can I invite her to my graduation? What about our dreams for the future? Well, I had to forego that love, even if it had to cost me untold sufferings and loneliness throughout my life. I really loved her very much; I feel I could not live without her. But I am not the man for her. I am not worthy of her love. She is beautiful and she graduated with honors f r o m the high school. There is a very wide MAY 1958 gult between her and me. Until such time that I can bridge the gap, I ought not to see her. I should come back when I am worthy of her love. Meanwhile, I should strive hard with a double purpose: to be worthy of her love and to show the favored group in my high school that their vaunted position can be shattered. She continued writing me but I purposely did not answer any of her letters. She had awaited for my invitation but the invitation never came. Nemy relayed to me Mariette's disappointment. She was at a loss. (I did not know how Marlette came to know why I was not answering her letters.) She was crying every night, Nemy told me. She reg uested me to write Marlette, to talk to her. But I turned a deaf ear to Nemy's plea. To ALLAY her feeling of Joss, I decided to write her later to explain my side. A part of my letter stated : "I feel I am not worthy of your love. Until such time when I shall have reached my goal, I'm sorry we will be missing each other. "Wherever you are and you hear the melodious strains of 'Eternally' pause for a while and to think of me and my eternal love. So long as that song 53 lives then my love lives but when it dies then my love dies. But you know it will not die." From that time on I have not heard of her and I did not care to hear from her for my heart seemed to break. The popularity of "E t er n a 11 y" meanwhile was gradually sub· siding and time came when l did not hear the song anymore. THE SONG coming from the restaurant has long ended but I still remain standing, contemplating. I seem to have forgotten the s o n g already. I thought the song had died years ago. I never thought that the song still lives. Just then I feel my blood course faster through my veins. I feel vigor injected in me. Smile plays on my numb, cold lips. From where l am standing I stir and look at my surroundings. The first streaks of light are then piercing through the atmosphere. There are but traces of the mist that beclouded my vision. From the end of my journey I seem to see some scintilla of bright light. Then heaving a deep sigh, I walk ahead. Not Taking Chances 54 TRINCOMALEE, Ceylon (NC)-Brother Everard ]. Booth, S.]., was singularly interested by one request for a job. It was signed "K. Abraham Lincoln." The American Jesuit Brother sent Mr. Lincoln the following reply: "Dear Mr. Linc0ln: "We received your request for an interview and we welcome you to St. ]oseplts College. We feel it only fair fo you, however, to call your attention to the signature on this Jetter. Sincerely, E. ]. BOOTH" The coincidence in surnames possibly frightened Mr. Lincoln. He was understood to have started looking for a job elsewhere. PANORAMA ~~Book ~ Cottlempo'La'L~ 1ilipino Poel'L~ By LEONARD CASPER 1 wo FORCES have contributed to the development, in the Philippines, of a cross-roads culture: its history (three centuries of colonialism) and geography (its position as an archipelago of ports off the Asian mainland). The competition of several traditions for popular favor today, midway through this century of transition, is apparent everywhere, including the realms of contemporary poetry. The Philippine national anthem, characteristically, was written in Spanish, under American rule, by a Filipino. Of these traditions the least likely to survive is the Spanish. The invaders' "cross and crown" policy in the 16th century required destruction of all pre-Christian writings; yet the fruits of their own literary renaissance were withheld from the governed classes. The first collection of Filipino poetry in Spanish was not published until 1880---nearly the end of the Spanish regime; and it had to be published in Madrid. Poems in Spanish have always tended to be serenades written for the entertainment of friends or for the kind of prestige required by those who wanted recognition from their rulers, and aspired to careers in the courtroom or politics. Poetry for them was a form of conspicuous display, a genteel mannerism. More important were the prophetic, patriotic verses of Jose Rizal, later a martyr, and a handful of others: written in Spanish and published in Madrid in hope of changing colonial policy at the summit, and later smuggled into the Philippines. Independence, of course, has made such appeals to the foster-motherland unnecessary. MAY 19S8 SS What foreign rule through the centuries could never destroy was an oral tradition in the dialects so strong that primitive planting and harvest rituals, war songs and epics have survived in almost pure form, constituting a major portion of modern poetry, on the folk level. Moreover, the necessity of preserving literature orally has kept Filipino poetry inseparable from song and the drama. One of the most popular forms of self-entertainment during fiestas in rural barrios is balagtasan, a kind of spontaneous debating in verse, testing wit rather than reason: a kind of jazz without music. 13EcAUSE vernacular poetry has had to serve often as the secret voice of a gagged people, what seems least distin· ugished is, sometimes, merely cryptic, to avoid censorship. Just before revolt ended Spanish rule, one famous narrative poem had to pretend to be placed in Albania, to disguise its criticism of local conditions. Similarly during Japanese occupation in the forties, use of the dialects became a badge of national pride-and of underground conspiracy. Nine major dialects exist, preventing the people of one island group from communicating with another. Recognizing this, American administrators early in the 20th century offered English as a common tongue; and since education of the masses for the first time became widespread, this was effective as a temporary measure. When the Commonwealth was established in 1935, Quezon as first president encouraged the gradual transformation of Tagalog into an inter-island language. Still, Quezon distinguished between the literature of elementary communication and the language of literature. Just before the outbreak of war, he awarded prizes to works in Tagalog, Spanish and English. Zulueta da Costa's Like the Molave, one of the winners, was written in English in the declamatory free-verse style of Whitman, but sang cities in the green turmoil of jungles and not the American frontier. Even in the works of Jose Garcia Villa, poet with an international reputation, whose idiom seems most personal and forms unique, there is this representative quality of a people demanding recognition, dedicated to the right of self-determination. Villa has his own reasons for having lived, for many years, an expatriate in America. Nevertheless, though he scorns his people's most sacred images- the father; the homeland-and even wrestles God for his daily soul, his is the 56 PANORAMA voice of the paradoxical Filipino rebel, who will conform to taboos-of his own making only; who will define himself by his own history, not any others'. There is the cry of Balintawak uplifted, the first sword of defiance, in a poem such as Villa's "Much beauty is less than the face of"; there is the spirit of aspiration, a refusal to be humiliated in "My most. My most. 0 my lost!" Many of the poets now writing in English have been schooled, as well as published, in the United States. But instead of sad, sentimental homesickness in their work, one finds a sensibility sharpened by experience of other cultures -an eagerness to turn their curiosities homeward, to discover and explore themselves. This kind of awakened confidence is epitomized by Amador Daguio, a poet so quiet during Japanese times that people thought he was dead, until in the early 1950's at Stanford he wrote, "Off the Aleutian Islands": I have reaped the sickle edge of rain, Rain harvests that had no grass: In youth I let, instead, lusty mushrooms Discover me ..... 7HE patience required in their common past, the years of waiting, have trained Filipinos to value the long-developing, inner seasons of change, the truths beneath appearances that wear away. A faith derived not from the skyline of factory-cities with their quick turnover in human relationships; but from the cyclic migrations of man towards a prophesied end-this faith is clear in Carlos Angeles' symbolic view of the sun's core, which he calls "The Eye": The eye, sprout in the mesa of the mind, Must seek sanctuary in the soul of sun ..... As the Philipine Republic matures, the renaissance visible in such poet's growing self-reliance, becomes a possi_l:i_ility. Only the language of utterance may change. The national will to find self-expression may well insist on such enduring future sounds as the experimental poems of A. G. Abadilla: Kung ang sarili kong - Dating aking-aki'y muling magbabalik ... MAY 1958 57 Literary Personality - XL Juan 1~amon Jimene:z: emptiness In 13etween 7HE 1956 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Juan Ramon Jimenez, 74-year-old Spanish poet, whose best known work has been about his conversations with a donkey~odes to the donkey. The work, "Platero y Yo" (Silver and Me) was written in 1914 and concerns a light gray donkey named Silver to whom the writer makes poetic speeches while they wander along the roads of southern Spain. Eighteen literary experts of the Swedish Academy of Letters chose Senor Jimenez from the field of about thirty candidates proposed for the $38,000 prize, the richest in literature. Senor Jimenez who left Spain in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War is now living in Puerto Rico. He went there in 1951 to become a visiting professor in the College of Humanities at the University of Puerto Rico. In a recent letter to Juan de Gorostidi, his friend and the mayor of his native Moguer, in Andalusia, Senor Jimenez wrote that he was just finishing a new book, "Piedras, Hombres y Bestias de Moguer." Early this year, Senor Jimenez purchased a dwelling in Seville, planning to return there, but he postponed the trip because of the grave illness of his wife, Zenobia, herself a writer. 7 HE POET, whose full name is Juan Ramon Jimenez Mantacon, was born in Moguer, a villag~ of Huelva Province, on December 24, 1881, the son of wealthy landowners. He was educated at the Jesuit school of Puerto de Santa Maria near Cadiz. Part of his twenty-year period of exile has been spent in the United States. At fifteen he turned to painting and designating, but 58 PANORAMA a mental collapse, characterized by a persecution complex, sent him to a Madrid sanitarium a short time after his parents were ruined financially in the wine business. His first poems, "Almas de Violeta" and "Nimfas" were published in 1898 after he was released from the sanitarium. The theme of most of his work is pastoral and most often is melancholy. A member of the Nobel Prize awarding committee said the Jimenez poems were like "modernistic sculptures made out of a few metal pieces, with emptiness between them wherein their artistic meaning is expressed." Juan Ramon, as everyone refers to the poet, has always been hypersensitive. Decades ago he lived in a cork-lined room in Madrid, shutting himself off from the noise as though it were the plague. His poems, according to fellow Spaniards who have known him for years, came from remorseless penetration of his own sensibility, not from contact with the outside world. I F THESE old tendencies in Juan Ramon have become more extreme, there is a tragic reason. At the time the Nobel Prize was awarded him, his wife was dying of cancer. Several days later she died. They had been married forty years and he had repeatedly given her credit for helping him achieve his best work. He has not ceased to mourn for her. He has a portrait of her on the table in his dining room. As he eats his frugal meals, it is said that he occasionally talks to the portrait. And occasionally he sings endearingly to it. He has not written a word in months. He was trying to write a memorial poem to his wife but could not even after sitting endless hours in a darkened room. In the weeks after his wife's death, eyewitnesses said, he would grow violent, smashing plates on the floor and hurling books against the window. If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. MAY 1958 59 60 Aga Khan IV ~nttlligtnt and Jtrious A TALL, handsome young man has been entrusted with the welfare of the Ismaili sect, a group of 20 million M oslems scattered over Asia and Africa. Seated on a white satin throne on the lawn of his late grandfather's estate in a suburb of Geneva, Switzerland, Prince Karim accepted the title of Aga Khan IV and proclaimed the start of his reign. The late Aga Khan III designated in his wiII that his 20-year-old grandson Prince Karim, a student at America's famed Harvard University, was to be his successor. In the ordinary course of succession under Moslem law, the oldest surviving son is chosen. This would have been Prince Aly Khan, Prince Karim's father. However, the Imam of the Ismaili sect is free to name the male descendant of his choice. In naming his grandson, Aga Khan Ill stated in his will that in view of the changing world condition "I am convinced that it is the best interest of the Shia Moslem lsmaili community that I should be succeeded by a young man who has been brought up and developed during recent years and in the midst of the new age, and who brings a new outlook on life to his office." Aga Khan IV is the 49th Imam, the lsmaili descendant of the Prophet Fatima. Most of his formative years were spent in Europe and the United States but he has traveled extensively in the Moslem world. In his early years, he was thoroughly trained in the Moslem faith and its observances. He speaks Arabic as weII as English and French. This new religious leader and temporal guide of the Moslems of the Ismaili sect has been described as "inteIIigent, serious, charming but shy." He says he is more interested in books than in sports. At the time of his grandfather's death, he was a senior honor student of Oriental History at Harvard University. - Free World. PANORAMA Will it change history? The Puzzle of Linear A ? ? ? • • • CYRUS GORDON, professor of Near Eastern Studies at the Brandeis University in Massachusetts, claims that he has deciphered the Minoan script "Linear A." His discovery, he believes, will lead to a "revaluation of the origin of western civilization." Linear A is a script found in Minoan tablets that has puzzled scholars for almost a century. It was discovered by the British archaeologist, Sir Arthur Evans, in 1861. The Minoan script dates back to the 17th century B.C. Professor Gordon suggested that Linear A is Akkadian, the language of the Assyrians and Babylonians an d which was spoken in the time of the first Semitic Empire of Mesopotamia which was founded by Sargon of Akkad about 2,350 B.C. According to Professor Gordon, Akkadian was the official language of diplomacy, business, law, administration and literature. MAY 1958 By ROBERTO FERNANDO Professor Gordon also believes that the Cretans who were in contact with the Mesopotamian borrowed the language and used it for their own literary and 1 e g a 1 purposes. This is now clear in the light of the decipherment of the Linear A tablets found in Crete. The most important implica: tion of his discovery would be the reconstruction of the history of western civilization. "The intimate contact between the Aegean people and the Akkadians affected both profoundly and we still feel the effects in our own culture today," Professor Gordon said. Professor 0 Gordon e:ven asserted that there are "unmistak· able affinities" between th e Odyssey of Homer and the masterpiece of Mesopotamian liter· ature, the Gilgamesh Epic. Both deal with the wanderings of a hero that ends with homecom61 ing and specific details agree to such an extent that would discount coincidence. Gordon said that he had discovered 160 parallels between Homer's work and its Semitic counterpart. T HE CONCLUSIONS of Gordon, however, are still regarded as controversial by the other scholars. Professor A. Furumark of Upsala University m Sweden, for instance, insists that Linear A was an lndoEuropean language that was transplanted to Crete from Asia Minor in the third millennium, B.C. He said that the Cretan script has no relation to Akkadian or any other Semitic language. The other archaeologists are impressed by Gordon's arguments but they could not comment because they have no expert knowledge of Semitic lang· uages. Professor Gordon said that he was greatly helped in his re search by the decipherment of Linear A by a later Cretan script that was discovered by the British architect Michael Ventris. Linear B is now regarded as the earliest form of Greek. Gordon says that JI1any signs in Linear A resemble the syllabic signs of Linear B. By applying the phonetic values of the Centris decipherment to similar Linear A signs, Gordon says that he was able to form Akkadian words from 300 clay tablets found in Crete. "It has been the habit of scholars to stress the Akkadian impact on the West," Gordon explained "and to overlook Western influence on the Akkadians. However, when two populations enter into close contact with each other, the influence is bound to be a twoway affair. "A goddess wearing a flouncing skirt, and raising her hands haif way, appears in Mesopotamian art only after the advent of the Semitic Akkadians. A representation of her on the purely Mesopotamian seal found in Crete and now in the Museum at Heraklion, leaves no doubt that she is related to the Minoan goddess of the flounced skirt and the half-raised hands." Bull-grappling was both typical in Crete and Mesopotamia. The scholars have not connected the bull-grappling in both cultures because they thought they were two distinct worlds - "a notion which has been blasted by the decipherment of Linear A as Akkadian," Gordon said. Gordon now believes that the scene in the Gilgamesh epic in which the hero slew a creature which is part man and part bull was derived from the same origin as the myth of the MinoPANORAMA taur. If the conclusions of Gordon are borne out by other discoveries the historians will have to adjust somewhat their conclu· sions about Western civilization. Basic Strength O NE compelling thought has emerged from the discussions; i.e., that the prerequisites for material progress lie primarily within the family itself and only secondarily with its environment. The group wishes to stress the fact that far more than what the government and other institutions can do for the family, what is more important is what it can do for itself. This will mean among others, in effect, a revolution in attitudes, shedding off traditions and putting an end to improvidence. Indeed, the first approach to material progress is through social and moral advancement. The basic solution to the economic problems of the family is, in fact, non-economic and the method is education. Education will develop the right attitudes and improve production efficiency so that every Filipino family will not only enjoy the blessings of abundant living but shall find a true place in society. Finally, while recognizing that any gains in material well-being that the family can achieve will depend on its own efforts, the group can see a wide scope for the government to help the family help itself and the group trusts that the leaders in their statesmanship will continue to protect and promote the real levels of living of the ordinary Filipino family for only when the basic unit is economically secure can the larger unit, the nation, be trully economically and socially strong and therefore politically stable. -Group report, First National Conference on Filipino Family Life. MAY 1958 63 "Freedom is relative" Literary l(ebellion 111 Soviet C9ountries 7HE post-Stalin "thaw" in the mental climate of the USSR during the autumn of 1953 had no direct parallel m the satellite countries, but by 1955 a similar ferment was under way, and the winter months of 1955/6 afforded ~-.ome evidence of sub-surface tensions. The most marked feature of this movement throughout the satellite area was -and is the similarity of the basic themes-demands for greater freedom of thought, restiveness under official control-n o t· withstanding the evident lack of any kind of coordination. Perhaps the most vigorous of all rank-and-file attacks was launched in the autumn of last year in Bulgaria, where the leadership of the writers' union found itself the target of s u ch epithets as "lackeys," "mercenaries," and even "fascists." Commenting on the lack of freedom, one writer, Pavel 64 Vezhinov, complained that "somehow all of us have begun, without noticing it, to merge into a grey impersonal mass." This was too much for the Party leader, Valko Chervenkov, who took time out from his other duties to reprimand the rebellious authors in a lengthy speech delivered on December 28, 1955, the text of which was made public only on February 2 last year. The rebellion, he told his audience, had not been aimed at the leaders of the writers' union "but at the Central Committee of the Party. The writers must rid themselves of their unhealthy outlook and underi::tand that, in the circumstances in which we are placed, the demand for liberty cannot become one of our slogans. It is not the task of the writers to instruct the Party. The Party organisation has the right to exercise control over the writPANORAMA ers' union. With a Party organisation such as ours there can be no question about this right of control. We are not a group of free-thinkers, we are a militant organisation of people thinking alike. Every writer must write as his heart dictates, hut the heart of all writers must belong to the Party ... " Chervenkov dwelt at some length upon the theme that "the Communist Party does not regard freedom as an absolute concept of the kind that the Anarchists are fond of discussing, but which in our view does not correspond to reality. There i~ no absolute freedom in general. . . we are for criticism th a t strengthens us, we are against criticism of the sort that aims to undermine us." 1 N BULGARIA as elsewhere, personal and clique disputes were an important factor in promoting the abortive rebellion. The opposition group in the writers' union (with the apparent support of the great majority of members) assailed the official leadership, notably Kristo Radevski and Furnadshiev, as "Trojan horses and secret enemies" who had participated in the Zlatorog circle during the twenties, Zlatorog having been an influential con~ervative periodical of the period. MAY 1958 The issue was broadened by the evident dissatisfaction felt by most writers with the current state of affairs, and eventually there arose a generalised cry for cultural freedom which caused the Party leader to step into the arena. His assertion that the criticism was really aimed at the regime was - perhaps not unfounded. It has recently become common knowledge that at about the same time there was a similar stir in Poland, the most striking expression of which so far has been the publication of some remarkably outspoken poems by one of the country's best-known w r i t e rs, Adam Wazyk (Cf. Manchester Guardian, October 29, 1955; Twentieth Century, Decem her 1955; Preuves, Decem her 1955). The official reaction has so far been more lenient than in Bulgaria. A recent editorial in Nove Drogi, the Party's monthly theoretical organ (February 1956), discloses the interesting fact that a Central Committee meeting was conve!1ed to deal with the problem of "dispelling the doubts and hesitations which have recently come to light h e re and there among writers and artists." The meeting, it appears, reached the conclusion that "our offensive will be crowned with success, provided· that we show the necessary determination in re65 66 "Nothing . .. Profound . . II SPEAKING objectively, a portion of the blame for the unsatisfactory state of ideological work should be attributed to the circumstances created for scientific and ideological work during recent years; there is, however, no doubt that definite blame for our serious backwardness on the ideological front devolves upon the workers of this front themselves. . . . "The liquidation of the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, which had existed for 139 years, is also difficult to understand, particularly since our relations with the East are growing in scope and strength, since, with the extension of economic, political and cultural relations with th~ Eastern countries, the Soviet public's interest in them has grown so greatly,-so has the need of people to know the languages, economy, culture of the Eastern countries. One cannot but draw attention to the fact that, as we have heard, there are in the USA about 20 scientific establishments studying the Soviet economy: I am not touching upon what and how they study; but it is a fact that an immense number of economists are engaged there in selecting material on and studying the Soviet Union's economic development ... "Scholarly work on the history of our Party and Soviet society is perhaps the most backward sector of our ideoloi:;ical work . . . We also still lack real Marxist works on the period of the Civil War. "One should say something--even if only two wordswith regard to our philosophers. Actually, they should themselves realise that they are in no better position, that they are even more insolvent in the eyes of the Party, than the historians and economists .... From the economic and political aspect, our country has reached gigantic heights. We are examining a programme of a new and even greater upward development of our economy. Our party has an immense number of dialectically trained cardres of economists, historians, philosophers and lawyers-people who have the classics of Marxism-Leninism at their finger-tips; and yet the practical effect of this knowledge is exceedingly small. We see nothing of profound Marxist-Leninist creative work; the majority of our experts are engaged in repeating and paraphrasing old quotations, formulae and theses. Such a science is non-creative; it is more a scholastic exercise than a science ... " (Pravda, February 18, 1956) .-Anastas Mikoyan. PANORAMA moving the errors and distortions or the previous period, th~ remnants of fossilization and dogmatism, and provided that we combat attempts to undermine our ideological principles." The issue of Nova Kultura which contained Adam Wazyk's "Poem for Adults" was reportedly seized by the police, and the editor is said to have been demoted. But writers such as Brandys, Slonimsgy and Yastrun have commented in a similar vein, and a d e b a t e on "dictatorship in literature" - more outspoken than in any other satellite country - went on all through the winter of 1955/6. At about the same time the current of protest reached Hungary, where the literary rebellion was likewise sparked by old Party stalwarts in the writers union: Gyula Hay, Tibor Meray, Laszlo Benjamin, Tibor Dery, Tamas Aczel, and other veterans, took the lead, while the fellow-travellers kept in the background. According to a formal resolution of the Party's Central Committee, matters came to a head early in November last. when speakers at a meeting of the writers' union "attacked the Party and the People's Democracy. "They voiced the usual bourgeois calumnies ... and argued MAY 1958 rhat the Party had no right to direct the literary work done in the country. They attempted to put moral pressure upon, and to terrorize, those Communist writers who opposed their enti-Party attitude." (lrodalmi Uzsag, December 10, 1955.) The reso1:i.tion expresses particular concern over the "organised character" of this "literary revolt." It appears that several members of the executive of the writers' union resigned their function by the way of protest, while Dery and Zelk went so far as to circulate a memorandum criticising the measures taken by the Central Committee. "This memorandum is tantamount to an attack upon Party and State." The Central Committee's resolution maintains that the struggle against these right-wing reactionary elements on the literary front is part and parcel of the general struggle against right-wing deviation. The authors of the demand for literary freedom are described as "having abandoned the socialist perspective. Their belief in the working class has been weakened. They have been overcome by pessimism and despondency - and- they celebrate this as a victory over 'schematism'. The non-political trend has gained ground, and there has been a great deal of anarchist, pseudo-revolutionary 67 poetry wherein our day-to-day constructive endeavours are likened to the senseless activity of a robot. There has been much nihilistic, cynical unbelief, and an ambiguous symbo1:sm directed against the policy of the Party." -If ASTLY, one may note some faint stirrings of opposition at the fourth congress of the East German writers' union in Berlin, last January. (Cf. ADN. January 11, 1956.) The Party official in charge of literature, Wilhelm Girnus, had to listen to attacks as Anna Seghers and Willy Brede!, on the score of having talked to authors "in an offensive personal tone, a language suggesting a teacher armed with a cane." (Brede!.) Girnus apologised and grovelled slightly before his critics ("Henceforth l shall have even more respect for Comrade Bredel"). However, it w as made clear by the official spokesman, and even more so by Walter Ulbricht who appeared on behalf of the SED leadership, that there is to be no significant change in the gent:'ral line. The whole affair was much more limited in scope than in the case of the other satellite countries. There has been no demand for greater literary freedom on anything like the scale experienced elsewhere.-Congress /Qr Cultural Freedom. Public Relations or Public Menace? 68 In a recent speech in St. Louis before a national convention on social work, Mrs. Agnes E. Meyer, wife of the board chairman of the Washington Post and Times-Herald and a writer and civic leader in her own right, declared that "public relations experts are using mass media to control rather than enlighten public opinion, and are a menace to democracy." She added: "They are a menace to democracy because only the political party that is well-heeled and with money can afford their exorbitant fees." PANORAMA Electronic wonders DEVICES so small that 100 of them can fit into a thimble may open the way to a revolution in electronic computer design, according to the engineer who developed them at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The devices, called cryotrons, suggest the possibility that computers occupying only a cubic foot of space may do the work of machines that now fill whole rooms, the designer said. An electronic data processing machine now being built by A. D. Little Company in cooperation with engineers at the institute will be the first to use cryotrons. It will use 215,000 of them in place of the vacuum tubes and transitors found in present equipment. The cryotron works because some metals become superconductors of electricity at extremely low temperatures. This characteristic is destroyed by a magnet:c field. Dudley A. Buck, a graduate student and instructor in electrical engineering, has developed the cryotron over the last three years in cooperation with physicists at the institute's Lincoln Laboratory. The device consists of a straight piece of wire with another extremely fine wire wound around it. They are kept at a temperature colder than 455.4 degrees below zero Fahrenheit-4.2 degrees above absolute zero by liquid helium. Below the critical temperature the straight wire is superconductive to electric current. Current flowing through the other wire destroys the superconductivity and thus can cut off the current in the straight wire. Switching circuits of the kind needed for many computers can be made by interconnecting "great families" of these single switches, according to Mr. Buck. Tantalum and niobium are the metals used. Simplicity, economy of electric power and compactness are among the advantages of cryoton-based computers, Mr. Buck said, though the need for refrigerating units limits the amount of space that can be saved. The most important characteristic is the cryoton's basic simplicity which will allow easy manufacture, Mr. Buck said . • MAY 1958 S TERILIZED MILK - m i 1 k that remains unspoiled at room temperatures for a period of months-is now available in tropical Ceylon. Operating the only Southeast Asian dairy which processes raw cow's milk by the sterilization method, the Ceylon Milk Board is currently bottling and distributing 45,000 pints of this nourishing milk each day. In order to produce a tasty milk that will remain fresh and sweet for as long as two or three months without refrigeration, the system of milk sterilization has been adopted in the Colombo dairy. More extreme than ordinary pasteurization, this sterilization method calls for an intense heat-270 degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature completely destroys the bacteria that would normally lead to milk spoilage. And even though the raw milk must undergo this high temperature in a special steam pressure tower, only 10 percent of its nutrient value is lost. The Milk Board's central dairy in Colombo is a model of modern proc~ssing methods. Operating at full capacity this plant can wash, steam and dry 5,000 bottles each hour. Into these spotless bottles, sterilized milk is poured at the rate of 8,000 pints hourly. In order to make each bottle of milk air- ·. 70 SAFE MILK FOR CEYLON A forward step for health tight against germs, the most modern machinery is used for capping. The idea of milk sterilization was initiated several years ago when the Ceylon Ministry of Health pointed out that the nation's milk consumption was averaging only one and onehalf ounces per person per day. Figures were produced showing 10 ounces in India, 62 ounces in New Zealand and 40 ounces in the United States. In order to increase Ceylon's milk consumption, and thus contribute to the health of the PANORAMA people, an answer was sought to the problem of milk spoilage. Fresh milk sp_oiled before it could be delivered to the consumer, and pasteurized milk was not safe to drink after 48 hours without refrigeration. With the introduction of the system of milk sterilization, this problem of spoilage was solved. Consequently, the Milk Board was established in 1954 under the Ministry of Agriculture. Since that time, with the financial assistance of New Zealand-under the terms of the Colombo Plan-the Milk Board has become an independent corporation, and is operating on a non-profit basis. Plans are now underway to provide this healthful milk product, without cost, to preschool children in Ceylon. This sterilized milk will supplement the powdered milk that CARE is now providing for the youngsters. Together with the Ministry of Health, the Milk Board hopes to firmly establish the milk-drinking habit among Ceylon's children. The Milk Board's central dairy distributes its milk twice daily to households in the Colombo area, as well as many of the suburban areas. This efficient system of distributing the sterilized milk, as well as its economical cost, is making it possible for more and more people in Ceylon to drink healthful, nutritious milk every day.-Free World. Baby Is Saved MADISON, Wisconsin.-The distraught woman watching flames consume her apartment wrung her hands and sobbed, "Baby's inside." Mrs. Barbara Stacy then tried to run back into the building. Grim looking firemen, preparing to search for "baby," heaved a collective sigh of relief a few moments later. "Baby," Mrs. Stacy said, was her pet Parakeet. The little green bird was rescued. MAY 1958 71 - - Scholars all 72 S IMILARITY of climate, customs and environment are dominant factors in the rapid development of the Republic of the Philippines as the technical training center of Southeast Asia. Under the "Third Country Training Program," sponsored by the U.S. International Cooperation Administration (!CA)· with the cooperation of the Philippine Government, hundreds of Asian men and . women are furthering their technical education. These trainees are g_overnment officials, technicians and students. They come from Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Taiwan, Korea, Nepal, Pakistan, India, Iraq and Jordan. These men and women were chosen for this training by their own governments on their individual merit their sincerity of purpose and on the basis of their governments' needs in the way of trained technicians in various fields. Their studies are in a variety of technical fields such as: agriculture, education, public administration, health, information techniques, transportation, industry and community deyelopment. Where they receive their training is determined by their field of specialization. Among the various Philippine government agencies and educational institutions which are participating in the Third Country Training Program is the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture at Los Banos. PANORAMA One mark of an educated man is the possession of a reasonable fund of general information. The highly specialized individual, oftE.n dubbe<l an "expert," frequently knows little or nothing ou:side his ov.·n line. Tr:• yourself on the following questiona. then turn to the next page for the ccrrect answ~rs. I. Medical science says that in order to help your thyroid glands function pr?perly, ~ou m~ h_ave small but steady amounts of: A. calcmm; B. iron; t. iodme; D. salt. 2. Most historians agree that the legendary founding of Ron_;~{Jy Romulus took place in: A. 1800 B.C.; B. 753 B.C.; C. 'Y A.D.; D. 930 A.D. '3. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the number of major crimes comyiitted in the United States in the year I 952 exceeded: A. _pvo million; B. one million; C. five million; D. half a million. · 4. With what sport would you associate the game of Cary Middlecoff? Is it: A. tennis? B. football? G./auto racing? D. golf? 5. Biblical history states that Noah's Ark rested,_)lfter the deluge, on: A. Mt. Sinai; B. the plains of Israel; CY.' Mt. Ararak; D. the banks of the River Jordan. 6. You should recognize the quotation, "Water, fi/ater everywhere, but not a drop to drink," as coming from: X. Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner; B. Poe's The Raven; C. Shakespeare's The Tempest; D. Tennyson's Ulysses. 7. Now artificial rain can be induced by a high flying pla.ne which sows saturated clouds with: A. potassiUJll permanganate; B. oxalic _acid_ crystals; C. solid oxygen; OC dry ice. 8. What is a gosling? It is: A. a fairy or sprite; B. a foolish, inexperienced person; C. a small goose; D. an English lawn g~ 9. Not many Filipinos realize that their country had been threatened with colonization at one time or another before and during the Spanish regime, by all of the following, except one. Which one? A. British; B. Dutch;~- French; D. Japanese. 10. Source of edible bird nests in the Philippines is: A. Mindoro; B./alawan; C. Sorsogon; D. Panay. MAY 1958 73 ARE YOU WORD WISE? ANSWERS 1. C. to improve 2. B. appearing in scattered or isolated instances 3. B. a play on words 4. A. an appointed meeting 5. D. a traveler, especially on foot 6. C. belonging to the people of a community 7. A. to cause to expand 8. B. to wipe out 9. D. drooping from weakness or fatigue 10. C. to tumble down PANORAMA QUIZ ANSWERS 1. C. iodine 2. B. 753 B.C. 3. A. two million (probably the is greater now) 4. D. golf 5. C. Mt. Ararak 6. A. Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner 7. D. dry ice 8. B. a foolish, inexperienced person 9. C. French 10. B. Palawan Chameleon Van 74 SOMETHING entirely new is a 'chameleod caravan finished in reflective fluted aluminium and translucent stove enamel, which actualiy changes colour to harmonise with its surroundings! This novel 17 it. 26 cwt. model has a timber framed body mounted on a steel chassis. It is jig built in separate side and roof sections - each section being completely finished with windows and paintwork before being assembled. PANORAMA MISSING PAGE/ PAGES ( /.'- 75-· .. ?.r:' ) S TAMPS were used as early as 1,000 B.C. The archeologists say that they appear as small marks on clay or stone tablets. However, no one is sure if these marks were used in the same way as posta~e stamps today are used. No one is sure either if the people of that era collected these sm91l marks. The first modern postage stamp was issued in Great Britain in 1840. It irried the portrait of Queen Victoria and was printed in black. The Philippines issued its first stamp in 1854, a full 14 years after Great Britain. Stamp collecting or philately must have started around this time. Some writers on the subject say that at that time stamps were regarded as curios and were collected as curios. It was only when the other countries started to issue their own postage stamps did philately take shape as a hobby. Stamp collecting proved to be so interesting that it immediately became universal. Philately became a cultural and educational aid. Many schools use it as a supplement to the study of currency, social science, history and geography. Unfortunately, many amateur philatelists do not know how to extract or mount stamps. Their items, hence, become useless in the philatelic sense. This brief MAY 1958 Perseverance and money HOW TO COLLECT STAMPS By J. P. Sto. Domingo, Jr. article will give the amateur some pointers on the mechanics of philately. The first thing that an amateur must remember is that a 79 stamp should not just be peel· ed from an envelope. The stamps must first be cut with scissors from the envelope. No part of the stamp should be damaged. Then the stamps should be soaked in water for about twenty minutes. The stamps begin to come off the paper of the envelope. Wash off the remaining gum. Do not rub very hard. The amateur philatelist must constantly remember that any damage, even the slightest, renders a stamp less valuable and in some cases worthless. After washing off the gum, spread the stamps on a piece of blotter to dry. Do not dry the stamps under the sun because they will curl and fade. However, there ar~ stamps that are more valuable when on its original envelope. So the amateur must remember that not all stamps should be cut from their envelopes. In cases of doubt, consult a senior collector. THE NEXT problem is mounting the stamps. In most cases, stamps are mounted on stamp albums. In buying or making an album it is best to. keep several pointers in mind. The album must be durable-that is the paper and the binding must be first class. The album must be presentable and easy to inspect. There are 80 albums that are difficult to open. The size of the album must be convenient for storing or transporting. It must not be so big as to make it a bulky nuisance. The album must be flexible enough to accomodate a growing collection. Henry C. Hitt, in an address to the International-Pacific Philatelic Association, has this to say about albums: "Let us go into the important question of what kind of an album page to use .... use a loose-leaf album for any serious mouqting, for your choice of page is more important than what kind of a cover you use. "You have · a rather large choice, though the majori!Y of serious collectors have standardized one size and style of page which comes in various qualities. The size is slightly smaller than letter-head-size. The faint quadrille design ;s a great aid in arranging the stamps and as a guide to lettering. "The planning and composition of each individual page is an interesting problem which can be left largely to individual taste. In general; however, it should have a pleasant balance, with the center of interest massed somewhat above the exact center of the sheet." The stamp hinge is the most practical mounting de vi cl~. PANORAMA Hinges enable the collector to insert or remove stamps ensily. The amateur must remember not to put the hinge too close together because later he might want to write annotatidns below the stamp. Stamp hinges are available in most book stores. The perforations of a stamp are also significant. The number of perforations around a stamp vary. Some stamps are perforated 10, · 11 or 12, etc. A device used to measure perforations is a perforation gauge. This instrument cost fifty centavos in most stamp stores. To use the gauge, but an edge of the stamp against the dotted line in the gauge. The circles that appear are 2 cm. long. If the indentations of a stamp coincide with the solid circles on the line, the stamp is perforated 10 or 11 depending upon the index number of that particular line. Not all stamps are perforated in the same way. Some stamps have perforations only on two vertical or horizontal MAY 1958 sides. Other' stamps are not perforated at all. Such stamps are called imperforates. Imper· forates are quite expensive and there are some unscrupulous dealers who would trim off the edges of a stamp and pass it off as an imperforate. The smateur should be wary of thi'>. One way of discovering if a stamp is a real imperforate is by measuring the stamp from side to side either vertically or horizontally. A real imperforate would measure wider or longer than the perforated issues. THE COLLECTOR must be sensitive to the appearance of watermarks. These are marks left by the paper manufacturer. In cases of doubt or dispute watermarks are the reliable guide to the date of the stamp, its place of origin and the manufacturer of the paper. The more sophisticated collectors are very interested in these details. A question that most ama~ teurs like to ask is this: What makes a stamp valuable? The 81 answer is very simple: scarcity. The more scarce a stamp is the more valuable it is. This however does not mean that one has to wait a hundred years to see a valuable stamp. The Bureau of Posts sometimes puts out a limited quantity of a special stamp. These stamps are valuable. The United Nations, for instance. put out a stamp that very few people bought. After sometime. the United N:ttions post office decidc·J to destroy the unsold stamps. The holders of this same issue auto· matically f o u n d themselves owning very valuable stamps, worth hundreds of dollars eaci1. The design of the stamp, ics color and art work also contribute to the value of a stamp Some stamp collectors pay more for well-centered stamps, lightly cancelled stamps or stamps in perfect gum condition if unused. To build a collection, one needs patience, perseverance and money. However, one can simplify the job by joining a stamp club. The amateur collector can save a lot of money by taking full advantage of stamp trading or exchanging. Foreign collectors advertise 111 philately journals. These people are good sources of foreign issues. Why They're Fighting for Outer Space 82 T wo BILLION 655 million human beings inhabit the planet earth, according to the latest statistics published by the United Nations. The population of the world may be broken down as follows: Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.451 million Europe (less USSR) ... _ 407 North America .... _ _ 233 USSR ........ _ 215.5 .. Africa 214 South America 121 Ocear.ia _ .. _ .. _ . _ ... __ .. _ 14.2 ·· The world's population increases at a dizzying rate. During the I 7th century, total population was half a billion. By 1900 it had reached two billion. In spite of the terrible diseases which ravaged mankind, the different armed conflicts of the last halfcentury, the figure has not ceased to rise and it is estimated that it will reach 4 billion in 1980. PANORAMA What to do? Starling Unwanted 0IKE MANY other cities J_ throughout the East, Washington has been fighting an endless war against the starling. But tens of thousands of starlings continue to roost there every night. Most of the birds head for the downtown business areas along Pennsylvania Avenm~. There the neon signs and other lights give off enough warmth to suit them. There, too, are hundreds of ledges and nooks among the Government buildings. There is a continuing governmental program to disperse the birds and to clean and birdproof the buildings. The most recent cleaning and birdproofMAY 1958 ing work was done on the archives and Treasury buildings, where every roosting area was fitted with small wires carrying an electric current. However, this type of birdproofing costs about $8 to 12 a foot. Approximately $39,000 was spent on the archives, and more than $50,000 on the Treasury Building. Although most Congressmen recognize the need for keeping the Governments' buildings looking their best, they are generally not eager to appropriate the large sums necessary for birdproofing. However, over the years the campaign has produced about forty measures to scare the 83 starlings away. These measures have also been usM against the English sparrow and the vagrant pigeon. For example, the city has used rubber mice, green snakes and two-faced owls to frighten the birds. Tape-recorded noises of the starling's distress call have been played from the rooftops. This, like many of the other measures, proved effective at first, but then the birds got wise to it. Slanting boards and metal sheets used on ledges have made it more difficult for the birds to stay on. Putties, powders and pastes containing chemicals that sting the birds' feet have been used. Oil and water-base sprays were used last year at the Presidential inauguration to keep the birds out of the trees along the parade route. And the city has used adhesives and other sticky substances; snares and traps; treetrimming to cut down roosting area; water sprayed from fire hoses; and ropes and lines attached to tree branches that may then be jiggled. District law forbids the killing of birds, but a bill currently before a committee would revise the law so that birds that deface and destroy property could be dealt with more severely. Aside from the above measures, there have been many theories on dealing with the menace. Some favor the building of large shelters outside the city. Others feel that the birds should be captured _by the thousands and exported. Their use as a gourmet item is another idea. But the new ideas are always opposed by bird lovers and by the farmers, who feel the starling is an asset. Although the birds have an affinity for fruit, especially, cherries, they do eat such objectionable pests as grasshoppers and Japanese beetles. The starling was introduced in this country about 1900. The birds stayed in the Greater New York area for about six years and then spread rapidly into New Jersey, southern New England, the Hudson Valley, and eastern Pennsylvania. He: "I'm ~lad I'm not a Frenchman." She: "Why?" He: "I can't speak French." * -84 PANORAMA Religion and superstition By Richard Arens, S.V.D. Ji NCIENT healing practices in Leyte and Samar recognize the factor of fear as badly affecting the health of a person. Medical science uses psychoanalysis and even drug treatments to cope with the emotional state of fear, worry and anxiety. The method used in Samar and Leyte, especially jn the rural areas, is fumigation. The state of sickness created by fear is called "ugmad"; a n d the person affected by t h e sickness is c a I 1 e d "hinugmaran ." According to folk beliefs a person can be affected by "ugmad" directly, as by seeing a frightful object, an1 MAY 1958 indirectly by a person who has been frightened but failed to warn others by saying "may you not be afraid of the thing I was afraid of today." The fumigation ceremony I!' called "lo-on" and the person who performs it is called "para-lo-on" or "para-pan-lo-on." This master 'of ceremonies is usually an herb doctor. A member of the family where the ceremony is performed assists him by gathering some pieces of charcoal or coconut shells. T h e "para-loon" hims e 1 t gets the material he needs in the fumigation ceremony: hair of the sick person , ravelin~ fibers o n th e seams of the 85 clothing of the patient when he became sick, and also from the parents' clothings, a small piece of palm leaf which had been blessed on Palm Sunday, camangyan (a mineral mixed with pili sap), and of the object which frightened the patient. In case the object is not available, like a snake, then something closely resembling the snake is used. To prevent the coconut sheil containing the charcoal from· burning it it is immersed in water before it is handed to the "para-lo-on", who is also given a glass of water. The patient either sits down or kneels. Then to the live charcoal arc added the objects the "paralo-on" himself has gathered. <JJ URING the burning of the objects the master of ceremonies chants an oracion. After reciting a line he takes a handful of smoke, lays his hand on the patient's head, moves it downward to get another handful ready. When the oracion is finished he blows three times on his fist which he places on the patient's head. Then he extinguishes the burning charcoal with the water given to him at the beginning of the cere.mony. He dips his forefingers in the coconut shell, makes the sign of the cross on the patient's fontanel, forehead, tem,ples, tongue, chest, 86 navel, joints of the arms and legs, on the palms and on the sole of the feet. If the patient will bathe next day the coconut shell and its contents are kept to be added to his bathing water. Otherwise, the "para-lo-on" throws it outside, saying: "May all the things that scared you go with the throwing of this coconut shell." In Guiuan, Samar more religious ceremonies are used, and the oracion consisted of prayers. The "para-lo-on" prays the Hail Mary three times, the Doxology once, the Hail, Holy Queen once, the Apostle's Creed once; and in his prayers he asks God to banish fear from the child. In additional prayers he asks God to let the child's sickness pass away with the smoke. After the ceremony the child is told to go to sleep and to get up only after he had perspired. Where the patierrt is not cured in the first ceremony, the fumigation is continued everyday until he is well. Related to the fumigation ceremony is the immunization ceremony, called "dagit," which is supposed to make a child immune from any kind of sickness. JF THE baby is a month c,r over, the parents prepare the child for presentation to the herb doctor (tambalan) who determines whether the child PANORAMA is fitted for the ceremony. Should the examination be positive a black chicken is killed. Care is taken that all the feathers from the wings and tail are kept. Then the baby is placed on a hammock. The herb doctor then takes a coconut husk and places the feathers of the black chicken around it, tying these together into a toy for the baby. While the baby is playing with the toy he goes around the hammock saying his oration. At" a certain moment he will pick the baby up· and dance with it around a fire built from lime sulphur, honey, carabao horn, peelings .of the cacao and oil. As the dance goes on, the people outside the house will shout: "Long live the baby and his God, the spirit!" Thereafter all . the things used during the ceremony are buried. Music Hath Charms W HO WOULD believe it? Flowers, or at least so~ flowers, love music aod grow much faster in a surrounding which is bathed with harmony. This was the conclusion reached by two Indian scientists, Messrs. Singh and Porni.ch, after havin~ grown acertain variety of mimosa under various conditions. In the United States where "functional music" research is much more intensive, a recording company has marketed discs which are appropriate for the diverse activities of the woman in the home. There is a special record of the woman working in the kitchen, another for those who are cleaning the house, and even for those who are about to deliver their babies. MAY 1958 87 'Jeen,-()'tama, , , , , , by Elmer Things to come Unlimited Energy From Water By SIXTO D' ASIS SINCE THE advent of the nuclear age, the scientists have been absorbed by research on a process that will cor.vert ordinary water into energy. Recently, British and American scientists annouqce..1 that they have come nearer this goal. These sci en tis ts have developed machines that will induce fusion. These machines are designed to heat gaseous deuterium (heavy hydrogen) to high temperatures and confine it in a small space as long as possible. When the deuterium atoms get hot enough, they collide so hard that they fuse, forming helium 3 and a neutron or tritium and a proton. During MAY 1958 the process of fusion the atoms give off energy. This process happens explosively in hydrogen bombs but in order to control the reaction for peaceful purposes, the deuterium has to be confined. Since ordi1111ry w a 11 s cannot hold heavy hydrogen at the required temperatures which run to many million degrees, the scientists use walls of magnetic force. These walls are strong, do not cool and are not affected by the gas. However, the machines that produce these magnetic forces are so complex that they are difficult to handle. 89 ihe fus.ion machine of the British is called ZETA, a con· traction of Zero-Energy Thermonuclear Assembly. It is Rn assembly of three doughnutshaped structures. The central horizontal torus (the scientific name for a doughnut shape) is an aluminum vacuum chamber with a 39-inch bore. The two vertical tori joined to it are the iron cores of a transformer. When a small amount of deuterium is released in to the vacuum and a heavy electrical ch a r g e is shot through the transformer, a heavier current flows through the deuterium. The current completely ionizes the deuterium, separating the positive nuclei from the negative electrons. When a strong current passes through this "plasma," the gas is compressed by the magnetic field that the current generates. It gathers in a ring at the center of the torus and heats the gas to millions of degrees. T HIS PHENOMENON h a s become popularly known as the "pinch effect" and according to scientists it seems to be the most promising approach t'l thermonuclear power. The only drawback is that the pinched current oscillates so violently that it touches the walls of the container. The ZETA scientists, led by Peter Clive Thonemann, have tried to solve this by pass90 ing a second current through coils around the torus. This current creates a second magnetic field which keeps the pinch away from the walls for as long as five one-thousandths of a second. The deuterium in its is heated to 5,000,000 degrees centigrade. Thermonuclear research in the United States is done at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. The American counterpart of the ZETA is the Perhapsatron S-3. Its torus is made of glass and sheathed with cop· per. It is as big as a small tire. The temperature of its pinch is higher than ZETA's but the pinch lasts only a few millionths of a second or about one-thousandth as long as ZET A's. The other thermonuclear PANORAMA machines at Los Alamos use straight tubes through which the currents are forced to flow to ionize deuterium. All these machines give off abundant ne!ttrons. The question that bothers the scientists is whether these neutrons are really produced by the fusion of deuterium into helium 3. Powerful electrical charges sometimes give off false neutrons. Sir John Cockroft of Harwell Laboratory in England says that he is "90% certain" that some of ZET A's neutrons come from thermonuclear fusion. Dr. Thonemann, however, refuses to commit himself. Dr. James Tuck of the Los Alamos group is equally reluctant to issue a statement. THE AMERICANS, however, are pushing ahead. A new thetmonuclear device called the Stellarator is scheduled to go into operation soon at Princeton, New Jersey. There are still a great number of difficult problems to solve before reasonable fusion can be achieved. Much higher temperatures, above 100 million degrees, are needed before the fusion of deuterium gives off even as much energy as it contaiI).s. No one is certain as to the leqgth of time necessary for research. According to Sir John, "it might be as long as 50 years" before one is even sure of the process. The cost of the research is fantastic but the reward is equally high. Deuterium can easily be extracted from any kind of water and there is in five gallons of water as much energy as ten tons of coal. Sue· cess in this field will yield for man unlimited energy. How Come Department "BEST FOOT FORWARD'' In the past European noblemen were quite vain and took pride in having handsome legs. Some even went so far as to decide which leg was mnre attractive and - in order to make a sensation at parties and affairs - they would stand with their "best" foot forward. Eventually, the expression come to mean trying to make a good impression. MAY 1958 91 Attentiom All organization heads and memben Help gonr club raise funds painlessl~ . . . Join the Panorama "Fund-Raising by Subscriptions" plan today! The PANORAMA FuNn-RAISING BY SuBSCRIPTIONS PLAN will get you, your friends, and your relatives a year's subscription to Panorama. The Panorama is easy to sell. It practically sells itself, which means more money for your organization. The terms of the PANORAMA FuNn-RAISING BY SuBscruPTIONS PLAN are as follows: (I) Any accredited organization in the Philippines car take advantage of the PLAN. (2) The organization will use its facilities to sell subscriptions to Panorama. (3) For every subscription sold the organization will get Pl .00. The more subscriptions the organization sells the more money it gets. r ReadTHE MORNING JOURNAL The only Chinese Daily Newspaper with Editorials in English Advertise - THE FOOKIEN TIMES The Leading Independent Chinese Newspaper with the Largest Circulation in the Philippines tell your friends about Give them a gift subscription - 1 they'll appreciate it I (K1WU1n in till! U.S. a.s Miehk 11 Lithoprint) * TM mol't modern Offset pre" of its size ( 14 x 20 inches I * The easie5t to operate with Its centralized control panel and pueli button operation. * No dampening rollers to boi'ier witti its patented Rotafount,'. 9ivi119 mechanically controlled damping. * Hairline register--ideal for multicolor jobs on any type of paper at low colt and great speed •.. Model R. 30/90 Actual Demonstration now going on!! You are invited to see COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. PRINTERS * UTHOGiAPHERS * PUIUSHIRS 1986 Benaa, Sia. Au Tel. Ml-96