EVEN if you carry one of these supposedly tamper-proof, machine-readable e-passports you will still be subjected to close biometric scrutiny in airports abroad. Some airport immigration counters capture your photograph, others take fingerprints, the more hi-tech ones scan your retina. Some day, as they do in science fiction films, everyone will be identified with the most fool-proof marker of identity: DNA.

Photographs and photography came to the Philippines in the late 19th century making it easier for historians to recreate the past. Because of some visual record, we know what the Philippines was like then, we know how people dressed, we even know what our heroes looked like. Faces that figured in the making of the nation were preserved in photographs and converted into stamps, coins and paper bills: Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Aguinaldo and the other Founding Fathers. Aside from Gregoria de Jesus, Lakambini of the Katipunan; Marcela Agoncillo, who directed the sewing of the first Philippine flag; Melchora Aquino, who sheltered and fed the weary Katipuneros; and Emilio Aguinaldo’s first wife who was photographed on horseback, we have little record of the Founding Mothers of the nation. We have photographs of Rizal’s mother, and even Aguinaldo’s mother who was carried all over during the Revolution in a hammock lest she be captured by the enemy and used to lure her son into a trap. What about the Founding Grandmothers and Founding Grandfathers of the nation?

Perhaps the most documented hero we have is Rizal who was photographed throughout his life, from age 14 as an Ateneo student to the split second before he was shot dead in Bagumbayan. Bonifacio is remembered for only one photograph and in it the Great Plebeian, the hero of the masses, is not wearing the white camisa de chino and rolled-up, screaming red Kundiman pants, he is garbed in a black suit with a white tie!

Aguinaldo outlived everyone in the Revolution, so there are photographs of him as an idealistic young revolutionary and up to the time he was feeble. He was wheeled out each year for Independence Day, a shriveled historical relic.

We only have two photographs of Rizal’s older brother Paciano who rose to become a general in Aguinaldo’s army. (He refused to be photographed to escape arrest during troubled times.) One photo was taken without his knowledge in his Los Baños home before World War II, the other is a gruesome picture taken when he was inside a coffin in 1930 (by then he could not complain).

Graciano Lopez Jaena, editor of Solidaridad, is another historical figure with only one photograph. This may be bad for historians, but it saved his life at the time. According to Jose Lopez of Iloilo, grandnephew of Lopez-Jaena, the anti-clerical writer and orator was warned to leave the country for his own good. He took a boat from Iloilo to Manila and onward to Spain disguised as a waiter. It is said that the friars who denounced Lopez-Jaena loitered in piers ready to point him out for arrest. His disguise was so good that he even served the friars without being recognized. (How come nobody asked for identification or a passport? This may be another fairy tale but it is an amusing story.)

A similar story is told by Marcela Agoncillo in her book “Reminiscences of the Agoncillo Family.” Her father Felipe escaped arrest, not by disguising himself but rather his wife Marcela pretended to be a maid. A guardia civil knocked at their door in Taal, Batangas, and asked to see Agoncillo, and fortunately, it was Marcela who was at the door. Sensing something amiss she replied, “Please wait a while, I will ask Mrs. Agoncillo if Mr. Agoncillo is in.” (How on earth can you mistake the lady of the house for the maid? Why was the lady of the house opening doors?) Anyway, Marcela went up slowly and warned her husband about the caller. Felipe then summoned all the servants up into his room, fearful that in such a tense atmosphere one of the help would break down and identify him. Marcela Agoncillo returned to the door and calmly told the guardia civil that her señora said Mr. Agoncillo was in Manila attending the carnival and that if it was an important matter, he was welcome to wait until he returned home. So the guardia civil left, saying he would be back later. That done, Felipe slipped out of the house a free man.

The above story reminded me of my uncle’s mayordoma of many years. She answered the phone one day and the caller asked to speak with Mr. Ocampo. “Sino pong Mr. Ocampo ang gusto nyong makausap? Ang lalaki o ang babae? (Which Mr. Ocampo do you want to speak with, the husband or the wife?),” she asked.

The last anecdote comes from Julio Nakpil, composer of the Revolution and second husband of Gregoria de Jesus: Fr. Pedro Dandan, a Katipunero, was on his way out of the house when he met the secret police. They asked for Father Dandan, not knowing they were speaking to him. Father Dandan replied, “He is upstairs eating breakfast.” As the detectives went up the house quietly, Father Dandan took the same taxi that brought the detective to his place.

In recent times we have the last moments of Ninoy Aquino on the plane caught on video. Soldiers come in to arrest him and the first one walks past him. A history of escapes in Philippine history will make engaging reading.

Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu