Marcelo H. del Pilar once quoted Jose Rizal as saying, “Where there are two Filipinos unity is not possible.” We will never know if Rizal was misquoted, but that line should encourage us to do some soul-searching.
Textbook history is riddled with cardboard characters to hide the complexity of human nature that some teachers find difficult to explain. With the exception of the rivalry between the two Cavite factions of the Katipunan (Magdalo vs. Magdiwang), or the overblown but poorly explained conflict between Emilio Aguinaldo and Andres Bonifacio, or between Aguinaldo and Antonio Luna, all the characters in the story of the nation are selfless and only thought of the country’s interests. In order to make sense of the way we in the present deal with elections—local or national—we have to go back and confront the ghosts of the past.
Voting was uneventful where I voted last Monday. No election irregularities, no machine breaking down or jamming. It just took so long—a little past two hours—from the time I entered the barangay hall to the time the machine flashed the message that I had voted successfully. A drop of indelible ink applied on my finger was the last step in a process that should’ve taken just a little more than half an hour. If I were a senior citizen I would have finished in half the time, but I struggle, vainly, to keep from entering middle age. I endured a long, slowly moving line to get the ballot, a long piece of paper that reminded me of school and multiple-choice exams.
If you go to downtown Iloilo on Wednesday, you will come across the “Muelle Loney,” or even “Muelle Loney street,” that remind us of Nicholas Loney, Her Britannic Majesty’s vice consul in Iloilo during the days when the wharf was one of the busiest trading ports in 19th-century Philippines. Loney was also a prominent trader who is largely credited with the establishment and promotion of the sugar industry in Negros. What has been left out of the story, though, was how Loney killed the native textile industry there by introducing competition from machine-made cloth from Manchester. It is said that people working in textiles were encouraged to go into sugar, and land once planted to cotton were planted to sugar. So depending on who is telling the story and why, Loney can be your choice of hero or heel.
Mayon Volcano is a major tourist spot not only for Bicol but also for the whole Philippines. This leads some of our countrymen to brag that Mayon has a better shape than Japan’s Mount Fuji, which is truly more photogenic, especially when snow covers its tip, creating a picture that launched a million postcards. Visitors to Bicol are often told that Mayon is picky and does not show her charms to everyone. Depending on her mood, the great volcano will impress by displaying all majesty or disappoint by hiding partially or even fully behind clouds.
Somebody asked me yesterday (Thursday) if I have written anything on dynasties. Of course, he was referring to local political dynasties and their kind running in the coming elections, but I associate dynasties with the ancient Chinese ceramics of: Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming or Ching.
Summer is still upon us, temperatures still sizzle, and while most students should be enjoying their “long” vacation, some are busy with all sorts of workshops that their parents decided to spoil the break with. Some students are taking up foreign languages or art lessons, or attending sports clinics. Why can’t some parents leave vacation alone?
Some years ago, I advised a friend looking for a dining table that she was better off buying a second-hand hardwood table from Bangkal in Makati than getting the plastic or glass-top versions readily available in the malls and department stores. With some effort, I told her: You can find a good table of Philippine [...]
The correspondence of Vicente Lukban (1860-1916), the military general in charge of Samar and Leyte during the Philippine-American War, awaits a local historian to work on it. Some of his letters, orders, decrees and reports translated from the original Spanish were published in the five-volume compilation by Capt. John R.M. Taylor. The compilation is known [...]
Command responsibility is something no one should take lightly. A responsible leader ultimately takes credit or blame for the outcome of things undertaken by underlings.
Filipinos often complain about their lot. They blame the government for any real or imagined mess they are in, they blame the past for the present, they blame others for a bad situation instead of initiating change for the better from themselves.
Facebook is a wonderful tool in our world because it provides faces to names and turns strangers into friends. Moderating a Facebook Fan Page for some time now, I have been posting photos of people who figure in Philippine history so that through a face-name connection, they come out not just as textbook references to be memorized but real people to a new generation.
