Czech ambassador to visit Dumaguete, Dapitan

MANILA, Philippines — Czech Republic ambassador Jaroslav Ludva will visit Dumaguete City on Nov. 3 as guest of honor at a special academic convocation of the Silliman University, an online news site reported. Visayan Daily Star (www.visayandailystar.com) reported that Ludva will speak on the friendship between national hero Jose Rizal and Prague-born Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt. Ludva gained national prominence in 2006 when he unveiled his Czech translation of "Mi Ultimo Adios," written by Rizal hours before his execution in December 1896, on a marker at Fort Santiago in Intramuros. He recently launched a volume of poems titled "Doce Poemas de las Islas Filipinas" which also pays tribute to Philippine history and Spanish colonial architecture, and the Filipino people, and on the life of Rizal and his friendship with Blumentritt. The Knights of Rizal invited him to be area commander in the Czech Republic. Ludva vigorously promotes cultural and historical activities between the sister cities of Litomerice in the Czech Republic where Blumentritt grew up and where Rizal frequented, and Calamba in Laguna where Rizal was born. Litomerice and Calamba signed a sister city agreement in 1974. The report said it took Ludva only two days to translate Rizal's masterpiece from Spanish, but it took him two years and several trips to Intramuros, San Agustin Church, Calamba, Vigan, Dapitan, the Cordilleras and Batanes to write the book "Doce Poemas." A Filipino translation of Doce Poemas will be worked on later this year with his Filipino friends in the academe. It will not be translated to English, however. Ludva will also meet with Dumaguete Mayor Agustin Perdices and other city officials, and the members of the Knights of Rizal. He will later proceed to Dapitan in Zamboanga del Norte, where Rizal was exiled in 1892. Before Rizal left for Dapitan then, he made a stopover in Dumaguete where he walked along the shoreline teeming with locals. - GMANews.TV