Can we understand our leaders through their appetites? It’s an intriguing question, and one raised during the Presidential Speaker series at Samira, Chele Gonzalez’s restaurant at Tagaytay’s Anya Resort, where, for the first edition held on Aug. 19, President Manuel Quezon’s birthday, his grandson, writer Manolo Quezon III, spoke about the former president’s appetites and favorite dishes.
In the spa and resort industries “wellness” is the current buzzword, and Anya Resort Tagaytay has added it to a formula that has already proven successful over its five years of operation.
In 1938 President Manuel Quezon directed Executive Secretary Jorge Vargas to review the status of Scarborough Shoal. He wanted to patrol the 15,000-hectare shallow waters surrounded by rock and reef. Only 123 miles off Zambales, the lagoon was deemed crucial for sea and air navigation. Quezon knew the maritime jurisdictional history:
What better place to contemplate what’s next for art and culture in the era of Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. than in the historic town of Baler where two other presidents, Emilio Aguinaldo and Manuel Luis Quezon, would loom so large?
PEACE-MAKER
Our wife Gina and we are in south of France, on invitation from the celebrated couple, Christian Baverey, scion of an industrialist French family from Lyon, and his Filipino wife, Tetta Agustin, who is highly-regarded in Europe’s prestigious fashion houses and who continues to do acti