August 1953

Born in August 2, 1953 - Rogelio Tabuco, fondly called Roger was born from the marriage of Leonor Regasa Tabuco and Josefa Abasolo Abellanosa, both of which are Teachers. The sixth of 6 brothers and 5 sisters, Roger graduated first Honorable mention in Pardo Elementary School in 1966, Cebu, Philippines. During this time, Elementary schooling in the Philippines was only 6 years. Roger excelled in Science, having won the interschool Science Contest in 1965. His high school days were spent in Pardo Gullas High School where he graduated Salutatorian for Academics in 1970. He took up Civil Engineering at University of Visayas (College of Engineering) as a university scholar. In 1973, at the instigation of his father, Roger passed the entrance test of Philippine Military Academy, an exclusive military school in Baguio, Philippines. This was a life-changing time for Roger. Though Roger passed the mental and physical examinations of PMA, he did not receive the usual notice of passing. PMA's general entrance of new cadets was on April 1, 1973. Being certain that his son passed the exams, his father decided on April 3, 1973, to send Roger to Manila for the first time on board a ship from Cebu to Manila. Like any provinciano, 19-year-old Roger goes through the rigors of locating the military camp (Camp Aguinaldo) where the PMA coordinator was assigned. At around midday, he managed to locate the PMA coordinator/office in the camp. Upon confirmation of his passing, he was told that the new batch of cadets left already for Baguio on the first of April and that he just has to take a bus to Baguio by himself. Roger arrived in Baguio in the afternoon and was received by a military jeep to PMA. Upon swearing-in, he was herded by a firstie Cadet Omengan (Class 74). Without any notice, he was subjected to the hardships of cadetship. He witnessed the new cadets jogging and the firsties shouts of Kill him!!. His pants were torn from incessant running up and down the hill with his bags and carrying all the gears up and down the Melchor hall, his new accommodation. After the exhausting day, the shocked Roger, already bald and tired, slept and cried of his new life. Due to his late entry, he was given his own bunk bed. He felt alone after leaving Cebu on a ship, on a bus in Manila and to Baguio and being crashed into military training. There are no communications to his parents or relatives. Telephony was still outdated as you need to call long distance to Cebu. Roger managed to adapt to his new life in the military and even started to excel in Academics. He became a member of the Silent drill group and the Choir, where he sung in the Church on Sundays. He was allowed certain liberties and sung in PMA's radio program - the PMA hour and enjoyed his popularity that some boodles (food) end up in this room. Ultimately, this was the start of his downfall in PMA. His popularity was at odds with his upperclassmen who requested to be sung in their wake-up calls. Since he cannot fulfill most of the requests, he had garnered more enemies than friends. His one-time tutor - Cadet V (former class 72 and became 74) became his worst enemy. Cadet V hazed him in every opportunity. He was made to exercise with rifle in his room from night till dawn. At times, with other cadets he was electrocuted (using an electric iron wire). He was "endorsed" to other classes as "magan" (son of a gun - hardheaded). He experienced the worst of hazing when during an training exercise, he brought to the side of the mountain top. Together with another cadet, they were stripped naked and the uppies put some dry grass on the cadet laying on the ground. They set him on fire and Roger was asked to put out the fire from his urine.

• Operation Big Switch: Prisoners of war are repatriated after the Korean War.

• Soviet prime minister Georgi Malenkov announces that the Soviet Union has a hydrogen bomb.
• London Agreement on German External Debts concluded, writing off 50% of repayable war debt by the Federal Republic of Germany to its creditors.
• Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap) was born at 12:30

• Pete Schoening saves members of the American K2 expedition, one of the most famous events in mountaineering history.

• A magnitude 7.2 earthquake devastates most of the Ionian Sea islands in Greece's worst natural disaster in centuries.
• Soviet atomic bomb project: "Joe 4" – The first Soviet thermonuclear weapon is detonated at Semipalatinsk Test Site, Kazakh SSR.

• Four million workers go on strike in France to protest against austerity measures.

Born: James Horner, American film composer (d. 2015)

• The first planning session of Narcotics Anonymous is held in Southern California (see October 5).

• The second Kinsey Report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, is published in the US.

• Cold War: The CIA helps to overthrow the government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran, and retain Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on the throne (see Operation Ajax).

• The French government ousts King Mohammed V of Morocco and exiles him to Corsica.
• The United States returns to West Germany 382 ships it had captured during World War II.

• The general strike ends in France.

• Nippon TV launches, becoming Japan's First Commercial Television Channel.

• Died:
  • Gaetano Merola, Italian conductor (b. 1881)
  • Maurice Nicoll, British psychiatrist (b. 1884)