Philippine Trivia

World's Largest Breast-feeding
On May 4, 2006, some 3,738 mothers simultaneously breastfed their babies for one minute at the San Andres Sports and Civic Center in Malate, Manila, breaking the old Guinness World Record set by 1,135 mothers in Berkeley, California on August 3, 2002.

World's Largest Kissing Scene
On February 14, 2004, some 5,327 couples in the Philippines kissed simultaneously for 10 seconds, setting a new record for the Guinness Book of World Records. The participants occupied two kilometers of Roxas Boulevard in Manila. The event was organized by toothpaste maker Close Up.

World's Largest Aerobics Class
On February 16, 2003, some 48,188 individuals participated in a simultaneous aerobics class at the Quirino Grandstand, Rizal Park in Manila, breaking another Guinness World Record.

World's Largest Strawberry Cake
On March 20, 2004, the people of La Trinidad, Benguet baked a strawberry shortcake, weighing 9,642.45 kilos, to set another Guinness World Record. The shortcake also measure 12.31 feet long, 8.42 feet high and 8.69 feet wide, with an average diameter of 9.18 feet. The cake, which had a total of 42,080 slices, consisted of 2,000 kilos of fresh strawberries, 675 kilos of strawberry jam and 1,550 bottles of strawberry extract for the strawberry butter cake. Other ingredients include 1,500 bars of butter, 1,625 kilos of sugar, 9,000 pieces of eggs, 860 cans of evaporated milk, 1,155 kilos of flour, 20 kilos of baking powder, 10 kilos of salt and 250 liters of whipped cream for the icing.

World's Largest Ricecake
On March 28, 2006, the people of Candon City in Ilocos Sur baked the world's biggest ricecake or calamay weighing 2,547 kilos. This reportedly beat the 2,097-kilo ricecake that the Kamaura Food Co. Ltd. baked in Niigata, Japan on March 1, 2002.

World's Longest Bico
On April 23, 2006, the people of Bauang, La Union produced the world's longest bico (sweetened glutinous rice) measuring 195 meters or 640 feet in length. Some 400 people used 600 coconuts, 1,600 kilos of glutinous rice, 728 pieces of sinacob (hardened brown sugar), 200 gallons of water, and 20,000 banana leaves to prepared the world's largest delicacy.

World's Shortest Actor
Filipino actor Weng Weng was recognized as the shortest adult actor in a leading role. He stood only two feet and nine inches tall.

World's Longest Barbecue
On May 3, 2003, Dagupan City in Pangasinan produced the longest barbecue measuring 1,007.56 meters or 3,305.64 feet in total length.

World's Longest Grill
On April 29, 2006, some 40,000 residents of Alcala, Pangasinan took part in building the world's longest single grill - a three-kilometer grill that spanned across seven villages. This reportedly surpassed the 32.84 meter or 107.7 feet grill put up by the people St. Wendel Werschweiler in Germany on May 4, 2004. The Alcala resident used 21,000 sacks of charcoal to grill what they claimed was the world's longest barbecue, consisting of 4,000 kilos of pork, 20,000 pieces of milkfish. This also reportely beat the 1,007.56 meter or 13,305.54 feet barbecue made by Dagupan City on May 3, 2003.

World's Longest Tilapia Barbecue
On March 5, 2006, the people of San Fernando City in Pampanga grilled 26,000 pieces of tilapia, with total length of 1.8 kilometers. They were cooked using 675 grills set up from the Provincial Capitol to Lazatin Boulevard.

World's Longest Eggplant Grill
On January 11, 2006, the people of Villasis, Pangasinan grilled 3,000 kilograms of eggplants, using 500 grills, each measuring one meter, during the town's first-ever Talong Grill Festival. The event was reportedly just a dry run for a bigger attempt to set a Guinness World Record in 2007.

World's Largest Marathon
On July 24, 2005, some 50,000 individuals participated in what was touted as the world's largest marathon - the 42-kilometer Third Manila Marathon. Athlete Roy Vence clocked two hours, 22 minutes and 18 seconds to lead the pack.

World's Largest Photo Mosaic
Toothpast maker Close Up put up the world's largest photo mosaic along EDSA in Makati City. The structure, measuring 15,000 square feet, consisted of 34,560 photos. It reportedly surpassed the previous record of 6,928 square foot mosaic in the United Kingdom.

World's Longest Noodle
On April 24, the people of Aliaga, Nueva Ecija produced the a six kilometer long strand of "pancit canton", repurtedly the world's longest piece of noodle. The record-breaking pancit, which stretched across seven barangays, used 240 kilos of noodles.

World's Largest Canine Gathering
On May 8, 2005, some 7,000 dogs participated in what was billed as the world's largest simultaenous canine gathering in separate locations in the Philippines. The main venue, the Baywalk along Roxas Boulevard in Manila, drew 3,000 dogs that walked for five kilometers. Another 4,000 dogs reportedly participated in simultaneous marathons across the Philippines. The event sought to surpass the record set in the United Kingdom where some 5,017 dogs participated in a 4.8-kilometer dog “marathon” in 2004.

UN cites 165 Filipino soldiers in Liberia
April 12, 2006
Source: Philippine Star
The United Nations has recognized 165 Filipino soldiers deployed to Liberia as peacekeepers for their contribution to the peace process in the country. The Filipino peacekeepers were given commendations by the special representative of the UN secretary-general for Liberia, Alan Doss for their professionalism and dedication to the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL).
There are currently 172 Filipino peacekeepers, including nine women, serving in Liberia.
The Philippines began contributing troops to United Nations’ peacekeeping operations in 1950 in Korea and has since served in over 20 peacekeeping missions in Vietnam, the Congo, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, East Timor, Haiti and Liberia.

Greatest Asian Football Player
From Pamela de los Reyes
A contributor sent in this article. A Filipino named Paulino Alcantara who played for the Spanish club Barcelona Giants from 1912 to 1927 was the all-time leading goalscorer with an outstanding 357 goals in 357 matches.
He ripped the goal net with a thunderous strike from 35 yards out in a match between Spain and France on April 30 1922. He is considered the best Asian player in the football history.
Grand Father of Philippine Internet
Dr. William "Bill" Torres is considered as the "Grandfather of Philippine Internet." It was reportedly Torres who promoted the use of Internet in the early 1990s. In 1992, he initiated the first informal negotiations with the US National Science Foundation to bring the Internet to the Philippines.

First Woman PMMA Valedictorian
March 28, 2006
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer
For the first time in its 186-year history, the male-dominated Philippine Merchant Marine Academy (PMMA) in Baguio City honored a woman cadet as the valedictorian of PMA Class 2006.
Cadet First Class Zulaika Mariano Calibjo, 23, led 180 graduates as the first woman to top the graduating class of one of Asia’s oldest maritime institutions.

Outstanding Physicist
Physicist Rommel Bacabac of the Society of Divine Word, crafted US National Aeronautics and Space Administration experiments for zero-gravity effects on bones lofted into space by Soyuz. These have spin-off for osteoporosis and other bone diseases.

Filipino First Lady
March 2006
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer
Josepina Padiermos Fitial, the First Lady of Northern Marianas, is a Filipino. She has been married for 22 years to Benigno R. Fitial, the newly installed governor of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands.
Located in the western Pacific, this island chain of 80,000 people has been her home for about the same period. Josie came to Saipan in the early 1980s as a new graduate of the University of the East, where she obtained a bachelor's degree in business administration.
Filipinos comprise a quarter of the population, and the Chinese make up another quarter in the islands.

Filipino astronomer discovers Jupiter phenomenon
March, 2006
Source: Manila Times
Christopher Go, a 35-year-old Filipino amateur astronomer, has discovered the transformation of a high-pressure storm on Jupiter, the solar system’s largest planet. Go, a furniture company owner in Cebu City, gazes at and photographs celestial bodies as a hobby.
On February 24, 2006, Go observed that a white egg-shaped storm system in Jupiter called "Oval BA" changed its color to red, thus it was called "Red Spot Junior." He used an 11-inch telescope and a CCD camera to capture the image. Later, he informed the Jupiter Section of the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers of his discovery.

Filipino wins world jazz competition
March 24, 2006
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer
Jazz singer Mon David, 52, won the grand prize in the prestigious London International Jazz Competition (LIJC) on March 22, 2006. He beat 106 vocalists from 27 countries.
The native of Pampanga began his performance at the finals-held at the Cadogan Hall in London's Sloane Square-with a few bars of an ethnic chant, singing a cappella the first lines of "Nature Boy," and then crooning "My One and Only Love" and "Lullaby of Birdland."
David was the only Asian among the 12 who made it to the finals. Smart Communications Corp. chairman Manuel Pangilinan helped fund David's trip to London.

Filipino-American Actors, Singers, Artists, Dancers, Athletes and Celebrities

Nicole Scherzinger, whose father is a Filipino, is the lead singer of the highly popular girls' pop group Pussycat Dolls. Among the group's chart-topping hits are Don't Cha, Stickwitu, and Get Over Yourself. In 2005, she appeared in the movie Be Cool.

Apl.de.Ap, a member of the hip hop group Black Eyed Peas, actually means Allen Pineda Lindo, a Filipino singer who was born in Angeles City.

Lalaine Ann Vergara-Paras, whose parents are Filipinos, achieved fame as "Miranda Isabella Sanchez" on Disney Channel's popular teen show, Lizzie McGuire, which stars Hilary Duff.

Dean Devlin is the producer/screenwriter of Hollywood blockbuster movies Independence Day, Godzilla, Cellular, The Librarian, The Patriot, Universal Soldier, Eight Legged Freaks, and Stargate.

Cheryl Burke, together with his partner Drew Lachey of 98 Degrees, won the second season of the Dancing with the Stars reality competition on ABC in February 2006. Cheryl's mother, Sherrie Bautista-Burke, is from the Philippines.

Lou Diamond Phillips, who was born in Subic in 1962, starred in such movies as Courage Under Fire, Bats, La Bamba, Supernova, Hollywood Homicide, and Red Water.

Tia Carrere, whose father is from Cebu, starred in hit movies such as True Lies, High School High, Rising Sun, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, Wayne's World, Showdown in Little Tokyo, Top of the World, Kull the Conqueror and Lilo & Stitch.

Rob Schneider, an actor and writer whose mother is a Filipino, appeared in such Hollywood hits as Deuce Bigalow, 50 First Dates, Down Periscope, Big Daddy, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Mr. Deeds, The Animal and the Hot Chick.

Jocelyn Enriquez, a Filipino-American singing sensation, popularized the songs Do You Miss Me? and A Little Bit of Esctacy.

Paolo Montalban, an actor who was born in Manila, became famous as Kung Lao in the TV hit series Mortal Kombat: Conquest. He starred along with Daniel Bernhardt and Kristanna Loken. In 1997, he played Prince Charming in the 1997 TV version of Cinderella, co-starring with pop singers Brandy and Whitney Houston and upcoming star Angela Gaylor.

Fritz Friedman, a Filipino-American who was born in Manila, is the senior vice president of worldwide publicity for Columbia TriStar Home Video, the video distribution arm of Sony Corp., owner of Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Sony Picture Classics and Sony Music.

Roman Gabriel, whose father is a Filipino, served as a quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles in 16 years. In 1969, he was named NFL's Most Valuable Player.

Angela Perez Baraquio, a Filipino-American from Hawaii, was crowned Miss America 2001 on October 14, 2000.

Saint Valentine

Saint Valentine (in Latin, Valentinus) is the name of several martyred saints of ancient Rome. The name "Valentine", derived from valens (worthy), was popular in late antiquity.^[2] Of the Saint Valentine whose feast is on February 14, nothing is known except his name and that he was buried at the Via Flaminia north of Rome on February 14. It is even uncertain whether the feast of that day celebrates only one saint or more saints of the same name. For this reason this liturgical commemoration was not kept in the Catholic calendar of saints for universal liturgical veneration as revised in 1969.^[3] But "Martyr Valentinus the Presbyter and those with him at Rome" remains in the list of saints proposed for veneration by all Catholics.^[4]

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Saint Valentine the Presbyter, is celebrated on July 6,^[5] and Hieromartyr Saint Valentine (Bishop of Interamna, Terni in Italy) is celebrated on July 30.^[6]

The name "Valentine" does not occur in the earliest list of Roman martyrs, compiled by the Chronographer of 354. The feast of St. Valentine was first established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, who included Valentine among those "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God." As Gelasius implied, nothing was known, even then, about the lives of any of these martyrs. The Saint Valentine that appears in various martyrologies in connection with February 14 is described either as:

• A priest in Rome
• A bishop of Interamna (modern Terni)
• A martyr in the Roman province of Africa.^[7]

The first representation of Saint Valentine appeared in the Nuremberg Chronicle, (1493); alongside the woodcut portrait of Valentine the text states that he was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II, known as Claudius Gothicus. He was arrested and imprisoned upon being caught marrying Christian couples and otherwise aiding Christians who were at the time being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. Helping Christians at this time was considered a crime. Claudius took a liking to this prisoner -- until Valentinus tried to convert the Emperor -- whereupon this priest was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and stoned; when that didn't finish him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate. Various dates are given for the martyrdom or martyrdoms: 269, 270, or 273.^[8]

The official Roman Martyrology for February 14 mentions only one Saint Valentine.

English eighteenth-century antiquarians Alban Butler and Francis Douce, noting the obscurity of Saint Valentine's identity, suggested that Valentine's Day was created as an attempt to supersede the pagan holiday of Lupercalia. This idea has lately been contested by Professor Jack Oruch of the University of Kansas. Many of the current legends that characterise Saint Valentine were invented in the fourteenth century in England, notably by Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle, when the feast day of February 14 first became associated with romantic love.^[9]

While a website of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia and other sources give different lists of Saint Valentines, the Catholic Church's official list of recognized saints, the Roman Martyrology lists seven: a martyr (Roman priest or Terni bishop?) buried on the Via Flaminia (February 14); a priest from Viterbo (November 3); a bishop from Raetia who died in about 450 (January 7); a fifth-century priest and hermit (July 4); a Spanish hermit who died in about 715 (October 25); Valentine Berrio Ochoa, martyred in 1861 (November 24); and Valentine Jaunzarás Gómez, martyred in 1936 (September 18).^[10]

Earliest church dedications

Hagiographical sources speak of a Roman priest and a bishop of Terni each buried along the Via Flaminia outside Rome, at different distances from the city, with each venerated on February 14.^[11] In the Middle Ages, two Roman churches were dedicated to Saint Valentine. One was the tenth-century church Sancti Valentini de Balneo Miccine or de Piscina, which was rededicated by Pope Urban III in 1186. The other, on the Via Flaminia, was the ancient basilica S. Valentini extra Portam founded by Pope Julius I (337‑352), though not under this dedication.^[12] The basilica apellatur Valentini, "is called Valentine's"; but early basilicas were as often called by the name of their former owner as by the saint to whom they were dedicated: see titulus.

This, the earlier and by far more important of the churches, is dedicated to the less prominent of the two saints, Valentine, presbyter of Rome;^[13] this was the Basilica S. Valentini extra Portam, the "Basilica of Saint Valentine beyond the Gate" which was situated beyond the Porta Flaminia (the Porta del Popolo, which was the Porta S. Valentini when William of Malmesbury visited Rome). It stood on the right hand side at the second milestone on the Via Flaminia.^[14] It had its origins in a funerary chapel on the site of catacombs, which the Liber Pontificalis attributes to a foundation by Pope Julius I (337-352). However, the dedications of two basilicas dedicated by Julius are not specified in the Liber Pontificalis. It was restored or largely rebuilt by Pope Theodore (642‑649) and Pope Leo III (795‑816), enriched with an altar cloth by Pope Benedict II (683‑685) and by gifts of Pope Hadrian I (772‑795), Pope Leo III and Pope Gregory IV (827‑844), so that it had become ecclesia mirifice ornata, "a church marvellously adorned". The monastery of San Silvestro in Capite was annexed to it, and in the surviving epitome of a lost catalogue of the churches of Rome, compiled by Giraldus Cambrensis about 1200, it was hospitale S. Valentini extra urbem, the "hospital of Saint Valentine outside the city". But in the thirteenth century the martyr's relics were transferred to Santa Prassede, and the ancient basilica decayed: in Signorili's catalogue, made in about 1425, it was Ecclesia sancti Valentini extra portam sine muris non habet sacerdotem, "the church of Saint Valentine beyond the gate without [enclosing] walls, has no priest".^[15]

In the catacombs connected with the basilica of Valentine, outside the Porta del Popolo, nineteenth-century excavations unearthed two hundred Christian inscriptions.^[16] Lanciani reported, from the chronicle of the monastery of S. Michael ad Mosam, an account of a pilgrim of the eleventh century who obtained relics of saints "'from the keeper of a certain cemetery, in which lamps are always burning'. He refers to the basilica of S. Valentine and the small hypogaeum attached to it (discovered in 1887)."^[17]

The earliest written Acta for Saint Valentine were written in the sixth or seventh century, when the hagiographical was well established, with pious accounts of miracles and torture shared among many texts and applied to many martyr-saints. The longer of the two is that written of the martyr Valentine of Terni and his cure, through faith alone, of a crippled child. Bede, in the eighth century, knew of both hagiographies and included transcripts of both under February 14 in his martyrology.^[18]

In the Golden Legend

The Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, compiled about 1260 and one of the most-read books of the High Middle Ages, gives sufficient details of the saints for each day of the liturgical year to inspire a homily on each occasion. The very brief vita of St Valentine has him refusing to deny Christ before the "Emperor Claudius"^[19] in the year 280. Before his head was cut off, this Valentine restored sight and hearing to the daughter of his jailer. Jacobus makes a play with the etymology of "Valentine", "as containing valour".

The Legenda Aurea does not contain anything about hearts and last notes signed "from your Valentine", as is sometimes suggested in modern works of sentimental piety [1]. Many of the current legends surrounding them appear in the late Middle Ages in France and England, when the feast day of February 14 became associated with romantic love..

St. Valentine's Day

For more details on this topic, see Valentine's Day.

Historian Jack Oruch has made the case that the traditions associated with "Valentine's Day", documented in Geoffrey Chaucer's Parliament of Foules and set in the fictional context of an old tradition, had no such tradition before Chaucer.^[20] He argues that the speculative explanation of sentimental customs, posing as historical fact, had their origins among 18th-century antiquaries, notably Alban Butler, the author of Butler's Lives of Saints, and have been perpetuated even by respectable modern scholars. In the French 14th-century manuscript illumination from a Vies des Saints (illustration above), Saint Valentine, bishop of Terni, oversees the construction of his basilica at Terni; there is no suggestion here yet that the bishop was a patron of lovers.^[21]

Relics and liturgical celebration

In 1836, relics that were exhumed from the catacombs of Saint Hippolytus on the Via Tiburtina, then near (rather than inside) Rome, were identified with St Valentine; placed in a casket, they were transported to the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland, to which they were donated by Pope Gregory XVI. Many tourists visit the saintly remains on St. Valentine's Day, when the casket is carried in solemn procession to the high altar for a special Mass dedicated to young people and all those in love. Alleged relics of St. Valentine also lie at the reliquary of Roquemaure in France, in the Stephansdom in Vienna and also in Blessed John Duns Scotus' church in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, Scotland. There is also a gold reliquary bearing the words 'Corpus St. Valentin, M' (Body of St. Valentine, Martyr) at The Birmingham Oratory, UK in one of the side altars in the main church.

Of greatest interest at this altar is the rich coffin which lies beneath it, containing the body of St. Valentine, a martyr whose relics from the Roman catacombs were given to John Henry Cardinal Newman by Blessed Pius IX in 1847.^[22]

The Saint Valentine who is celebrated on February 14 remains in the Catholic Church's official list of saints (the Roman Martyrology), but, in view of the scarcity of information about him, his commemoration was removed from the General Calendar for universal liturgical veneration, when this was revised in 1969. It is included in local calendars of places such as Balzan and Malta, where relics of the saint are claimed to be found. Some^[who?] still observe the calendars of the Roman Rite from the Tridentine Calendar until 1969, in which Saint Valentine was at first celebrated as a simple feast, until 1955, when Pope Pius XII reduced the mention of Saint Valentine to a commemoration in the Mass of the day. It is kept as a commemoration by Traditionalist Roman Catholics who, in accordance with the authorization given by Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of July 7, 2007, use the General Roman Calendar of 1962 and the liturgy of Pope John XXIII's 1962 edition of the Roman Missal, and, as a Simple Feast, by Traditionalist Roman Catholics who use the General Roman Calendar as in 1954.

The feast day of Saint Valentine, priest and martyr, was included in the Tridentine Calendar, with the rank of Simple, on February 14. In 1955, Pope Pius XII reduced the celebration to a commemoration within the celebration of the occurring weekday. In 1969, this commemoration was removed from the General Roman Calendar, but Saint Valentine continues to be recognized as a saint, since he is included in the Roman Martyrology, the Catholic Church's official list of saints. The feast day of Saint Valentine also continues to be included in local calendars of places such as Balzan and Malta, where relics of the saint are claimed to be found.

Saint Valentine
Saint Valentine of Terni oversees the construction of his basilica at Terni, from a 14th century French manuscript (BN, Mss fr. 185)
Bishop and Martyr
Died	traditionally ca. 269[1] but see text
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Church Anglican Communion Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
Feast	February 14 (Roman Catholic Church) July 6 (Eastern Orthodox Church)
Attributes	birds; roses; bishop with a crippled or epileptic child at his feet; bishop with a rooster nearby; bishop refusing to adore an idol; bishop being beheaded; priest bearing a sword; priest holding a sun; priest giving sight to a blind girl[1]
Patronage	affianced couples, against fainting, bee keepers, happy marriages, love, plague, epileptics[1]