Today, the Fourth of July, 2014, is the annual Philippine-American Friendship Day in the Philippines. I have fond memories of celebrating this day in 1998, when I was teaching for the semester at UP Diliman in Manila. My department chair, Cora Villareal, invited me to a celebration of the day at the American Embassy. I met the Cultural Attache at the embassy as well as the U.S. Ambassador. The latter scolded me for not having contacted the embassy to inform them of my being in Manila for such a length of time. The most memorable persons I met, however, were Joe Rogers and his wife Natividad Crame-Rogers. Joe had been a young flier in the US Army Air
Force in WW II and then rose to the rank of Colonel in the Philippine Air Force after the war. He met his wife Natividad when he co-piloted one of the first Philippine Air Lines planes (on loan to PAL from the Air Force); Natividad was one of the first PAL stewardesses. Read more about this couple in Chapter Seven of Sundays in Manila.
Happy Friendship Day!
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