Often I am asked who among the people in Philippine history I want to interview. At the top of my list, of course, is Jose Rizal followed by Apolinario Mabini, and the hot-headed Luna brothers: Juan (the painter) and Antonio (the scientist turned military general).
Marcelo del Pilar left behind dozens of letters—altogether a wonderful read for Filipinos interested in history. Many of his letters were written in Filipino, especially those he wrote to his wife and his daughters, but these also include important, indeed historical, letters to Jose Rizal.
One week from Independence Day, June 12, we commemorate the birthday of Jose Rizal, one of the founding fathers of the nation. It is a holiday in his birthplace, and the house in Calamba, Laguna, that I once painted green will be the focus of attention for a while—the focus of teachers who will advise their students to study hard and get good grades like Rizal.
Who’s the bigger hero, Jose Rizal or Andres Bonifacio? We’ve expended no small amount of energy, or indeed passion, trying to answer that question, and will probably expend a little bit more of it over the next several months as we inch toward Bonifacio’s 150th birth anniversary in November. P-Noy’s Independence Day speech on [...]
Pagasa says the rainy season officially started early this week with rain that left parts of Metro Manila under water. Filipinos of a previous generation tell the young willing to listen that June should be dry because past wet seasons started in July and peaked with the heavy rains of August, then blame the [...]
The first Catholic Encyclopedia was published about a hundred years ago; preserved inside this monumental work, like fossil in amber, is an unlikely and dated entry on Jose Rizal. Make that “carbon-dated.” The errors and emphases of this 1912 entry allow us a close, specific look at a particular era, when Catholic Americans in the Philippines had all but rationalized the national hero as one of their own.
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.
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 [...]
Expatriate Filipinos today are less homesick than the generation of Jose Rizal in the late 19th century because technology has made communication easier. In his day Rizal communicated mainly by mail, often writing many letters at a time to be sent on a monthly steamer from Europe to the Philippines. Today, a cell phone allows [...]
Filipinos visiting Hong Kong who want an alternative to the generic luxury-brand shops in Kowloon would do well to cross over to Hong Kong-side by Star Ferry or MTR to discover the old part of this former British colony. Exploring the side streets and alleys is great for window-shopping or seeking out and sampling new restaurants. Hong Kong is dotted with sites relevant to Philippine history.
Once we had to endure a long-winded academic who held forth with an impassioned monologue on Rizal. With lunch waiting in the next room, I decided to cut him short with a suggestion: “Perhaps your conclusion would be different if you had consulted Rizal’s correspondence with Dr. Czepelak.” The silence that followed was the cue [...]
