News in Pictures: March 27, 2024
METRO’S QUIETEST WEEK
The capital region marks its quietest period this Holy Week, with many residents taking advantage of the long holiday to travel to the countryside or abroad.
On Monday, Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista inspected Ninoy Aquino International Airport, taking time to talk to passengers.
Holy Week began with Mass celebrations nationwide on Palm Sunday. Cardinal Jose Advincula, archbishop of the capital, led a service at the Manila Cathedral while members of EcoWaste Coalition held a “proces-sion” to encourage the faithful to observe a “plastic-free Holy Week” during their church visits.
In Quezon City on Tuesday, devotees including this woman (below) hold a “Pabasa,” or a reading of the passages recounting Christ’s passion, at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes.
A DIFFERENT ‘FEAST DAY
Amid the observance of Lent, when the Catholic flock is discouraged from eating meat, particularly pork, residents of Calumpit, Bulacan province, hold a Longganisa Festival on Saturday to celebrate a culinary specialty of the town, its native sausage. The event is also aimed at encouraging travelers to visit the municipality amid the expected rise in domestic tourism at this time of the year. -GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
BACK TO PH WITHOUT TEVES
National Bureau of Investigation Director Medardo de Lemos (right) holds a press briefing on Monday explaining why his agency was unable to bring back expelled Rep. Arnolfo Teves Jr. from Timor-Leste despite his arrest on March 21. De Lemos said the NBI mission to escort Teves home was set back by the legal process. His lawyer Ferdinand Topacio said earlier that Teves should be turned over to a Timorese court before the Philippine government requests his return. The lawmaker-turned-fugitive was charged late last year for the March 4, 2023, murder of his political rival, Roel Degamo. – RUSSEL ANTHONY LORETO
OPERA IN TONDO
The Italian Embassy mounts a production of Giacomo Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi” at San Pablo Apostol Parish Church in Manila’s district of Tondo on March 23. The performers were accompanied by the Manila Symphony Orchestra, a pioneering orchestra in the country founded in 1926 by Austrian-Fili-pino conductor Alexander Lippay.
Italian Ambassador Marco Clemente told Inquirer editors and reporters in a roundtable meeting earlier this month that it was his dream to introduce opera to Tondo’s youth. Among those in the audience were 620 scholars of the Canossa-Tondo Children’s Founda-tion, a humanitarian group founded by Italian priest Giovanni Gentilin.
