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.
Sixty-four years ago on April 28, 1949, Aurora Quezon, widow of Commonwealth President Manuel Luis Quezon and First Lady of the Philippines from 1935 to 1944, was ambushed by Hukbalahap elements along the Bongabon-Baler provincial highway in Nueva Ecija.
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 [...]
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.
There may be a myriad reasons why she took her life. As with the deaths of Kurt Cobain or Lee Kyung Hae or Aaron Swartz, we are left to our second guesses and likely inaccurate interpretations of Kristel Tejada’s motives. This is discomforting for many, especially those who truly love her, but, alas, we will never know what really happened. We will never know the exact array of reasons why thoughts of suicide emerged and swirled in her head. History will never capture the exact truth. History will never give us the exact description of the psychology of Kristel’s final escape.
The Sultanate of Maguindanao and the kingdom of Buayan in upper Cotabato played key roles in ending a civil war in Brunei in the 17th century that resulted in the Sulu sultanate being rewarded a huge swath of territory called Sabah.
(Concluded from Monday) In his speech last March 18 at the 45th anniversary of the so-called “Jabidah Massacre,” President Aquino stood at loggerheads with his father, the late former senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., in their presentations of the event that triggered the Moro secessionist wars in the Philippines. “It has been four and [...]
Why did the United Kingdom so easily cede its sovereignty over Sabah to Malaysia in 1963 despite knowing that its rights over the territory arose merely from the lease granted by the Sultan of Sulu to the British North Borneo Company? Why did it ignore the Philippine claim and voluntarily relinquish its sovereignty over Sabah to the new emerging state of Malaysia?
Under a treaty entered into with the sultans of Sulu and Maguindanao in 1640, the Spaniards recognized the independence of the two sultanates. Thus, the Sulu sultan later became the sovereign ruler of Sabah.
We are advised never to judge a book by its cover. We are also advised not to judge people because they are not books. However, we have to accept the fact that what initially attracts us to a book on a shelf or a person in a crowd is the cover! The thickest Filipiniana title [...]
Once upon a time there were kings and sultans. They were absolute monarchs. They were sovereign. They owned the land. They knighted nobles or named datus to whom they parceled out their lands in exchange for service in times of war and revolution, and in times of peace. Now, it is the people who are [...]
