My father

Abstract

THE PHILIPPINES FREE PRESS requests that I write something pertaining to the daily life of General Aguinaldo - his habits, customs, opinions on topics, his likes and dislikes, I gladly do so.

I shall begin with his daily routine whenever he is at Kawit, He gets up very early in the morning, often before five o’clock except after a very long trip when, through fatigue, he oversleeps. But this seldom happens. He says he has already reached the age when he can sleep only from three to six hours a night, When preparing an important document, he sometimes does not sleep at all. He does not dictate his statements. He writes them out in long hand, closely spaced and in very fine letters. He goes at it paragraph by paragraph, perfecting each paragraph by writing it several times. He then goes on to the next, and so on. Whether in Spanish or Tagalog, that is his method. After finishing his own draft he turns it over to his advisers for polishing and revision.

At about six in the morning he takes his daily exercise, followed by a cold shower. Before he was given a chest expander, his exercise consisted in stretching his arms out above his head, then bending his body, with legs stiff, and then straightening to the erect position. He did that 113 times -- because when he was operated upon for appendicitis some gauze was left inside and was found only on the 113th day. Now he has modified this by adding exercises with the chest expander. He began with two springs; now he uses five. When he has time he goes swimming in the small pool under his room to which he has a private entrance. After his shower he invariably pours plenty of alcohol on his head, wetting the hair and scalp thoroughly with it. I suspect that this is the reason why he has very few gray hairs, and I have been suggesting to Mr. Melencio that he follow suit in order to prevent incipient baldness.