Filipino heroes in France

Bastille Day, the French National Day, was held this year in the residence of the French ambassador in Forbes Park, which was once the chic home of the late Elvira Manahan. Bastille Day in Manila often required a large hotel venue, but this year’s event was smaller because a separate reception was hosted for French nationals, while the one held the other Monday competed with another, more flamboyant, society event. Before the toasts, Ambassador Gilles Garachon announced the success of a major exhibition of Philippine art in the Musee de Quai Branly in Paris and the hope that President Aquino, like his mother, would make a state visit to France.

Each year during Bastille Day I am reminded of the short text “The Rights of Man,” which was translated from the original French into Tagalog by Jose Rizal. I am also reminded of Filipino heroes of the late 19th century who lived or visited France. In 1889, for example, all roads led to the Exposition Universelle in Paris to celebrate the glories of the French Revolution of 1789. Aside from commemorating the past, the Expo provided a glimpse of the future. That Expo is no more than a historical memory today, but one of the engineering marvels of that time, the Eiffel Tower, which was much reviled in its day, has remained and since become the iconic symbol of Paris.

We don’t know what Rizal thought of the Eiffel Tower or whether he hated it as much as Gustave Flaubert did. It is said that Flaubert had lunch every day in the Eiffel Tower restaurant not because he liked the food but, rather, because it was the only spot in Paris where he did not have to see it. It is significant that none of the Pinoys who visited the Universal Exposition of 1889 mentioned the newly built Eiffel Tower in their writings. The Eiffel Tower does not appear except as a stray reference in the journals of the men who were involved in what our textbooks now call the “Propaganda Movement.”

Why is the Eiffel Tower absent? Maybe Rizal was too busy organizing a conference on Philippine studies in time for the Expo to notice. Nevertheless, it is not well known that the Eiffel company exported bridges to the Philippines, and the all-steel San Sebastian Church in Manila was prefabricated in Europe, shipped to Manila piece by piece, and built on-site like a Lego set. Despite the fact that a steel church in Manila is listed in Eiffel’s work, and that there is only one all-steel church in Manila—San Sebastian—our tour guides are still confused.

Rizal planned a meeting of people studying, interested in, or merely in love with the Philippines and Filipinos in 1889, an International Congress of Philippinologists organized around the Expo. Although the congress did not materialize, Rizal with the help of his friend Ferdinand Blumentritt drew an outline, a thematic historic-cultural study of the Philippines from past to present that resembles the programs of academic Philippine studies conferences today. In memory of Rizal’s visits, now part of Philippine-French relations, a small plaza on the 9th arrondissement of Paris has been dedicated and named the “Place Jose Rizal.”

Paris is not just about Rizal, and if one takes the trouble to go over his correspondence, one will find these names and addresses: Valentin Ventura, 45 rue de Maubeuge; Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, 65 Boulevard Arago; Justo Trinidad, 78 Faubourg Poissoniere; Isabel Tuason, 5 rue de Debarcadere; Felix Pardo de Tavera, 14 Avenue Wagram; Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera, rue Frochot; Juan Luna, rue Pergolese; and many more who should be documented by historians.

What we know of Filipino expatriates in Paris in the 19th century is far from complete. Aside from letters home from Rizal, Luna, Resurreccion Hidalgo, and Marcelo H. del Pilar there must be other material somewhere. Del Pilar once described a Filipino meal taken in the Paris home of Juliana Gorricho, where they feasted on lechon and sinigang. They even ate kamayan-style long before the famous restaurant of the same name opened in the Philippines. Juliana Gorricho’s recipe book is preserved in the Rizal Library of Ateneo de Manila University.

Luna and Resurreccion Hidalgo made a living in Paris as painters. Trinidad and Felix Pardo de Tavera were medical doctors educated in the Sorbonne. Antonio Luna was a chemist who took postgraduate courses at the Institut Pasteur and did landmark research on water from the Pasig River and the purity of carabao milk. One of Andres Bonifacio’s brothers was a seaman who settled in France.

Philippines-France relations go way beyond our formal diplomatic ties, into the 19th century, or even up to the Frenchman who came with the Magellan expedition and possibly sired a child in Cebu or Mactan.

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Readers commented on last week’s column, “Chewing testicles,” saying my Chinoy students’ translation was too modest. They said “Ka Lantiaw” does not mean to chew testicles in Hokkien and is more vulgar: It means to “suck d–k.” Also in Cebu carinderias, they said, you can have “lanshiao,” a bull-testicle soup meant as an aphrodisiac. Lanshiao can also be made of horse testicles and, sometimes, bits of penis as well for added flavor and strength. More on these in my lecture on “The Kalantiao Hoax” at the Ayala Museum on Saturday, July 20, at 3 p.m.

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