Only in the Philippines!

Postcard Text: Executioner at the turn of the century

Today, the Philippines celebrates Independence Day. A bunch of blogger friends decided to start a meme with the peculiar postcard in question. We found this postcard thanks to Juned (read: most cultured blogger in the PH!!!) who invited a couple of us over for his birthday celebration over the weekend.

The postcard is a (hilariously) shocking microcosm of the Philippines in the early 1900’s as a port city that was subject to different cultures including occupation by the Americans, the Spanish and the Japanese. We achieved independence in 1898, but lost a lot of cultural Manila – Intramuros particularly, because most of it was sacked. A lot of history books say the Philippines and the native Filipinos were short changed, and that our freedom was given for free, since there was a steep price that other countries didn’t want to take responsibility for – which included rebuilding Manila. Even at this time, Filipinos sure knew how to take things lightly.

Obviously this was a gag photo. The real would have been on a scaffold with Guardia Civils on each corner. Some historical trivia, the orginal garotte used to execute Padre Burgos. Gomez, and Zamora survived until it was burned to cinder during a fire, sometime between WWII and the EDSA Revolution. — Juned

Here are the guidelines:

1. Download the scanned front and back of this postcard and resize to fit your blog
2. Enter your independence day message on the back and post both images on your blog
3. Title of post should be “Only in the Philippines!”
4. Tag five fellow countrymen 🙂

I tag Riz, ate Shai, the guys from PinoyCentric, Mike Villar and Elber.