PHILIPPINES: The Philippines remembers victims of 9/ 11 with a sombre concert in Manila

As the world prepares to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the 9/ 11 terrorist attacks, Filipinos paid their tribute on Sunday (September 10) with a sombre concert to remember the victims. Up to 300 people gathered in Manila's Union Church on the eve of the tragedy to hear the church choir perform one of Mozart's most powerful works, the Requiem, widely known to be a mass for the dead. Almost 3000 people died in New York on September 11, 2001, after hijacked planes plunged into the World Trade Centre towers in the heart of the city's business district. Christine Jackson, a New Yorker who worked just three blocks from the World Trade Centre during 9/ 11, says she still remembers watching from the street as the first tower collapsed. Five years on, she says she wanted to commemorate the loss felt by victims' families and remember the goodwill shown by so many. "Something I learned in New York after September 11th was, and what I most loved in the days just after, was the resilience of people. New Yorkers in that sense and America as a nation and all the other nations really coming together at that point in time to try to tackle this problem and we have a long way to go, but I think we'll get there," said Jackson, who now works as a consular officer at the U.S. embassy in Manila. "We try to reach other people through the music. Not only through the music but to open their eyes that we'll need to pray for one another," said Ervin Lumauag, a tenor with the choir. While sending shockwaves through America, the event also had a profound affect in the Philippines, which is a former colony of the United States and remains a close regional ally. Thousands of Filipinos have immigrated to America, and while no exact figures are available, the United States embassy in Manila believes that were Filipino Americans among the victims of 9/11.

ITN Source | September 12, 2006

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