By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:46:00 12/05/2008
Last Sunday, Nov. 30, while the auction of Southeast Asian art was ongoing in Christie’s Hong Kong, I found myself in the Quezon City Sports Club for the quarterly auction of the Bayanihan Collector’s Club.
I have never joined an auction, and the few times I was tempted to try my luck, I backed out, suspicious that the owner of the item would bid against me, bringing the price up and leaving me with the bag. I must be missing out on something here, but what bring me to these quarterly auctions are the bourse tables where many other things are on sale. It is during these pre-auction activities that you meet with other collectors, compare notes or exchange the latest gossip.
I was surprised to find one of my former students browsing through the table of the veteran collector, lawyer Jorge de los Santos, and asked the latter to give the young man a good discount to start him early. De los Santos is now semi-retired from collecting, but he infected his son Edward with the bug, and it is from the son that I purchase postcards of pre-war Philippines as well as interesting photographs.
My loot was meager. I got a photograph of Sergio Osmeña visiting a certain Mr. Rodriguez in the hospital. The man in bed looked ill, but he sat up for Osmeña, resulting in another photograph showing the same man dead. These were known as “recuerdos de patay” and if it were not bad feng shui to collect them, I would have an enviable collection by now.
The first “recuerdo de patay” I saw was in the prewar El Renacimiento that ironically was named after “rebirth” but specialized in photographs of the dead and dying. They were the original “ambulance chasers” and their reportage can be distressing.
For example, in 1911 they ran a whole issue on Teodora Alonso, Jose Rizal’s mother, showing her from sickbed to coffin. Another issue had Emilio Jacinto on a bier carrying his rifle, while a row of sad faces mourned in the background.
My great bargain last Sunday was a paperweight made by the French silver company Christofle depicting a palm with the various lines read by “manghuhula” [fortunetellers]. Jeweler Ramon Villegas looked over my shoulder as I haggled and argued that this hand was not sterling silver, but silver-plated. He then sneered, “Iregalo mo ’yan kay Madam Auring!” [“Give it as a gift to the fortuneteller Madam Auring!”]
But why would I do such a thing? I don’t even know her. The palm now rests on my table—yet another distraction during deadlines.
Searching on the Internet that evening, I found out that the hand was unique and was never reproduced by Christofle. It was not even for sale; rather it was given as a present in 1973 to their best and loyal customers. So what was this Christofle hand doing in Manila? Who would have bought enough silverware to be gifted with such a useless but beautiful thing?
The De los Santoses asked me to stay for lunch and while there gamely answered questions like: What was the name of Admiral Montojo’s flagship during the May 1898 Battle of Manila Bay? (Answer: Reina Cristina) What is the most impressive copy of the first edition “Noli me tangere” you have seen or handled? (Answer: The one inscribed to Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo by Rizal himself. It used to be in the collection of Alfonso T. Ongpin but was acquired and later presented to Ferdinand Marcos as a birthday present. It now rests in a glass case in the Malacañang Museum.) How much do you think this 19th-century book by Montero y Vidal should cost? (Answer: Not as much as the reserve price at the auction.) I felt like reminding people that I am not the replacement for the late Ernie Baron, yet it was a pleasant way to spend a Sunday morning.
I asked Attorney De los Santos what he first collected as a child. He said they were shiny coins from his mother’s purse, sea shells on a trip to the beach, etc.
I tried to think when I became a collector. Like most children, I started with coins and postage stamps. I remember that long before Pepsi had a problem with 3-4-9 bottle caps, there was a promotion that required collecting all of Snow White’s seven dwarves on the inside of used bottle caps and this was to be exchanged for a round-trip, all-expense-paid trip to Disneyland in California. I remember parents opening more Pepsi bottles than they could drink just to find “Sneezy.” That probably made a collector of me and everyone else of my generation.
Now that I sit and try to remember, it was the late E. Aguilar Cruz who infected me with the collecting virus. Books he gave away. Other trinkets he also gave away. But I remember that he sold me my first painting, a rather impressionistic-looking still life of peeled pomelos by the late Ibarra de la Rosa. I don’t even know why I picked that out of his library floor, when there were other things to be had like pre-war landscapes, a 17th-century image of Michael the Archangel, a bust of Rizal by Guillermo Tolentino, etc.
At that time well over 25 years ago, collecting art or antiques was truly a hobby. It was affordable and there was a lot to choose from. Those were the days, best described by Belinda Olivares-Cunanan and Gilda Cordero when they maintained antique shops supplied from “walkers” and “runners” in Manila’s Ermita district.
Today, collecting is a high-end game of one-upmanship: I have a bigger thing than yours. Sexual in a way, but then all the fun is gone.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Treasure from trash
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:45:00 12/03/2008
Historians are natural-born pack rats, their living spaces often littered with books and papers. Their life and livelihood come from all that clutter. There is order in that mess, so in my home the cleaning rules are that books or papers may be stacked up neatly but must not be moved to any other place lest I have to look frantically for them. No piece of paper on any surface should be thrown away, except those that have been crumpled, torn, and thrown into the wastebasket. My father added another rule: have two wastebaskets, one for immediate disposal and the other to be reviewed lest something important be thrown away.
By far the most organized study I have seen was that of the late Teodoro A. Agoncillo. Everything had its rightful place. Knowing his part in history, Agoncillo would file every bit of paper he received—from utility bills to letters, and even random notes from students on manila paper, which he later had bound into scrapbooks. If you opened the books in his library, you would find typewritten notes on the book inside. Sometimes he would paste commentary or citations on various pages that moved him.
Before he became old and infirm, E. Arsenio Manuel filed the research papers of his students by topic, indexed them, and bound them in a series called “Pasig Papers.” These had little to do with Pasig the place, or Pasig the river. The scrapbooks contained research on history, folklore, anthropology, etc. Manuel said he learned this from H. Otley Beyer, whose “Ethnographic Papers,” also arranged by geographic region and topic, are now in the National Library of Australia.
Books are a special challenge because they take up space, and, in my case, they are so heavy that some of my narra shelves have bent or fallen off altogether. I am often too lazy to file my books properly, so when I am trying to beat a deadline and I can’t find a reference, I rush out and buy a new one—only to come upon, days later, two copies I couldn’t find when I needed them.
When Sally Arlante, then of the University of the Philippines Archives, asked for my papers 13 years ago, I readily agreed, to clear my work space. What was then a mess in my study is now neatly arranged in folders, kept in a climate-controlled room in acid-free boxes. A catalogue put order into my papers and I can now see my life in outline. Every year I send boxes of papers to UP, sparing my sisters the long and painful task of sorting them out when I pass away. I turn over research that I have used, research that I will probably never use, so that a younger person can use them and build a career.
Doreen Fernandez passed away before she could organize and donate her papers to some archive. That task was left to her sister Della Besa and her niece Maya Roxas who recently turned over boxes of papers, photos, newspaper clippings, correspondence, etc. to the Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings (ALIWW). Doreen’s papers join those of other writers like Encarnacion Alzona (first Filipina historian), Lina Flor, and friends and contemporaries like Gilda Cordero Fernando and Eugenia D. Apostol. Perhaps ALIWW should visit the Philippine Daily Inquirer and ask for the papers of Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc, Rina David and Thelma San Juan, because journalists are very bad with papers. Surely one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.
A natural teacher like Doreen would want her papers to be useful, to be consulted by others rather than kept as relics to be venerated. Now other scholars can start where she left off in terms of food and theater research.
Among Doreen’s many affiliations was with the Cultural Research Association of the Philippines, which is now rightfully extinct because its acronym spells out CRAP! Was this a private joke or a Freudian slip? Her papers might provide an answer.
Those who were fortunate to have been invited into Doreen’s cluttered study on Acacia Lane in Mandaluyong City would have marveled that the small, book-lined cubbyhole cut out from their bedroom, in a space bursting with books, papers, and bric-a-brac, was where many of her columns, lectures, and scholarly articles were born. They were first written neatly in long hand, later on an IBM electric typewriter, then on one of the earliest word processors in Philippine academia, a white monster she called “Fred” or some other familiar name.
Her similarly cluttered office at the Ateneo de Manila University’s Department of Communication was visual proof that she was very busy. Now these papers, photographs, letters, photocopies, offprints, menus, and perhaps even hurriedly scribbled notes on napkins and notebooks are evidence of a productive and well-lived life. We have published columns and sometimes drafts printed out with her corrections and additions always in her clear handwriting. All these just prove that clear thinking is a must in any sort of writing whether you write in long hand, 3x5 cards, yellow pad, or a Blackberry. That is something you learn by going through her papers.
ALIWW is a specialized library for women’s writings. One can only hope that other major universities will follow suit and fill their archives and libraries with the papers of their distinguished and productive professors, so that a younger generation may continue to learn from the generation that came before them.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:45:00 12/03/2008
Historians are natural-born pack rats, their living spaces often littered with books and papers. Their life and livelihood come from all that clutter. There is order in that mess, so in my home the cleaning rules are that books or papers may be stacked up neatly but must not be moved to any other place lest I have to look frantically for them. No piece of paper on any surface should be thrown away, except those that have been crumpled, torn, and thrown into the wastebasket. My father added another rule: have two wastebaskets, one for immediate disposal and the other to be reviewed lest something important be thrown away.
By far the most organized study I have seen was that of the late Teodoro A. Agoncillo. Everything had its rightful place. Knowing his part in history, Agoncillo would file every bit of paper he received—from utility bills to letters, and even random notes from students on manila paper, which he later had bound into scrapbooks. If you opened the books in his library, you would find typewritten notes on the book inside. Sometimes he would paste commentary or citations on various pages that moved him.
Before he became old and infirm, E. Arsenio Manuel filed the research papers of his students by topic, indexed them, and bound them in a series called “Pasig Papers.” These had little to do with Pasig the place, or Pasig the river. The scrapbooks contained research on history, folklore, anthropology, etc. Manuel said he learned this from H. Otley Beyer, whose “Ethnographic Papers,” also arranged by geographic region and topic, are now in the National Library of Australia.
Books are a special challenge because they take up space, and, in my case, they are so heavy that some of my narra shelves have bent or fallen off altogether. I am often too lazy to file my books properly, so when I am trying to beat a deadline and I can’t find a reference, I rush out and buy a new one—only to come upon, days later, two copies I couldn’t find when I needed them.
When Sally Arlante, then of the University of the Philippines Archives, asked for my papers 13 years ago, I readily agreed, to clear my work space. What was then a mess in my study is now neatly arranged in folders, kept in a climate-controlled room in acid-free boxes. A catalogue put order into my papers and I can now see my life in outline. Every year I send boxes of papers to UP, sparing my sisters the long and painful task of sorting them out when I pass away. I turn over research that I have used, research that I will probably never use, so that a younger person can use them and build a career.
Doreen Fernandez passed away before she could organize and donate her papers to some archive. That task was left to her sister Della Besa and her niece Maya Roxas who recently turned over boxes of papers, photos, newspaper clippings, correspondence, etc. to the Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings (ALIWW). Doreen’s papers join those of other writers like Encarnacion Alzona (first Filipina historian), Lina Flor, and friends and contemporaries like Gilda Cordero Fernando and Eugenia D. Apostol. Perhaps ALIWW should visit the Philippine Daily Inquirer and ask for the papers of Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc, Rina David and Thelma San Juan, because journalists are very bad with papers. Surely one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.
A natural teacher like Doreen would want her papers to be useful, to be consulted by others rather than kept as relics to be venerated. Now other scholars can start where she left off in terms of food and theater research.
Among Doreen’s many affiliations was with the Cultural Research Association of the Philippines, which is now rightfully extinct because its acronym spells out CRAP! Was this a private joke or a Freudian slip? Her papers might provide an answer.
Those who were fortunate to have been invited into Doreen’s cluttered study on Acacia Lane in Mandaluyong City would have marveled that the small, book-lined cubbyhole cut out from their bedroom, in a space bursting with books, papers, and bric-a-brac, was where many of her columns, lectures, and scholarly articles were born. They were first written neatly in long hand, later on an IBM electric typewriter, then on one of the earliest word processors in Philippine academia, a white monster she called “Fred” or some other familiar name.
Her similarly cluttered office at the Ateneo de Manila University’s Department of Communication was visual proof that she was very busy. Now these papers, photographs, letters, photocopies, offprints, menus, and perhaps even hurriedly scribbled notes on napkins and notebooks are evidence of a productive and well-lived life. We have published columns and sometimes drafts printed out with her corrections and additions always in her clear handwriting. All these just prove that clear thinking is a must in any sort of writing whether you write in long hand, 3x5 cards, yellow pad, or a Blackberry. That is something you learn by going through her papers.
ALIWW is a specialized library for women’s writings. One can only hope that other major universities will follow suit and fill their archives and libraries with the papers of their distinguished and productive professors, so that a younger generation may continue to learn from the generation that came before them.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Searching for Andres Bonifacio
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:48:00 11/28/2008
A few months back, I received an intriguing text message from Dr. Michael Cullinane of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was researching in the Philippine National Archives in Manila. He teased me silly with a “discovery” that I just had to see. Another researcher had stumbled across a document stating that Andres Bonifacio was apprehended on Sept. 29, 1896, shortly after the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution, and brought to the police detachment in the “tranvia” [streetcar] station of Malabon, now a city outside Manila. I pretended to be excited because I didn’t want to spoil the fun just yet. However, I don’t want to let this “discovery” fool the gullible.
I had come across the same document over a decade ago. It said that “Andres Bonifacio” was carrying a “cedula” [residence tax certificate] with personal number 2492892 (perhaps I should place a bet on this number in this weekend’s lotto draw because Sunday, Nov. 30, is Bonifacio Day). The cedula also stated that “Bonifacio” was a native of Tambobo, a resident of Concepcion and 41 years old. His occupation was listed as “formalero” (whatever that means).
There are a number of ways to read this document, but the common thread is that the man was not the Andres Bonifacio of our textbooks. If the cedula is legitimate then we have “Andres Bonifacio” from Malabon apprehended, interrogated and produced by the authorities for “pogi points,” or brownie points. If the cedula is a fake, then it was probably used by the real Bonifacio to mislead the police and military who were hot on his trail. If the document is a fake, then that explains how Bonifacio was able to hold rallies in various places where he would tear up his cedula to emphasize his freedom from Spanish oppression.
I am sure there are people out there who will disagree and make a mountain out of a molehill with this stray document in the National Archives. We leave them to their imagination.
The real search for Bonifacio has been done, not by a historian of the Revolution, but by a demographic historian: Dr. Dan Doeppers, now retired from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Doeppers graciously shared his data drawn from the “vecindarios,” or residence lists, of Manila’s Tondo area that he combed for the years covering 1889 to 1894. We all know that Bonifacio is from Tondo, but he is not the Hero of Tondo (the titled is reserved for Raja Soliman). Doeppers’ says that the records do not list any Andres Bonifacio in Tondo during those years. He did find the following:
1. Bernabe Bonifacio, age 36, tailor, married (probable wife Rafaela Uy-Tangco, age 29, “cigarrera,” or cigarette maker).
2. Dionisio Bonifacio, age 26 or 36, married, “carrocero” (probable wife Francisca Hilario, age 35, “cigarrera”). The latter had a son named Telesforo Bonifacio, age 6. In another vecindario entry, the same Dionisio Bonifacio’s age is given as 35 and his occupation is listed as tendero. He is still married in this document to the same Francisca Hilario age 37, “cigarrera,” but now they had two children: Telesforo, age 4, and Marcela, age 3.
3. Geronima Bonifacio, 24, “cigarrera.”
You will be amazed at the amount of useless information that Dr Cullinane has for Cebu and Dr. Doeppers for Manila. I can only hope that there are young Filipino historians who will give up the promise of finding some great historical theory and start solid archival work in the Philippine National Archives or better still the archives in Spain and Mexico. It is unfortunate that the Gen-X is separated from their past because of language. I am told that the Instituto Cervantes, the Spanish cultural center in Manila, has record numbers of students who are probably taking Spanish because they can get paid more than English, or should we say American, speakers in call centers. If only a small number of these Spanish proficient Filipinos can start research work in our archives, our past will become relevant to a new generation.
The material from our National Archives makes us ask the question: If Andres Bonifacio cannot be found in the vecindarios of Tondo, where was he all that time? Was he registered in another suburb of Manila? Maybe he was but a temporary resident of Tondo and was not included in the census count? Maybe the person assigned to collect cedula fees from Bonifacio could not find him or was too scared to present a bill? Perhaps the collector pocketed Bonifacio’s cedula money? Was the collector delinquent, negligent or both?
The bottom line is that Bonifacio cannot be found in the resident lists for Tondo. If he was indeed a bona fide resident, why was he not enrolled for the head tax among the “naturales” in Tondo? If Bonifacio did not pay his taxes, he did not have a cedula. If he didn’t have a cedula, what did he tear up during the famous “Grito de Balintawak,” the Cry of Balintawak, or, depending on the book you’re reading, the Cry of Pugadlawin?
History is a very slippery discipline because there is always more than one way to see an event. Then there is the added complication of sources. Whether there is a lot or nothing, the documentation is almost always problematic. Old questions when addressed often reveal new answers, yet Bonifacio remains one of the heroes we should know more about but cannot, pending better research to find new materials and renewed investigation of the scant material we have on hand.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:48:00 11/28/2008
A few months back, I received an intriguing text message from Dr. Michael Cullinane of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was researching in the Philippine National Archives in Manila. He teased me silly with a “discovery” that I just had to see. Another researcher had stumbled across a document stating that Andres Bonifacio was apprehended on Sept. 29, 1896, shortly after the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution, and brought to the police detachment in the “tranvia” [streetcar] station of Malabon, now a city outside Manila. I pretended to be excited because I didn’t want to spoil the fun just yet. However, I don’t want to let this “discovery” fool the gullible.
I had come across the same document over a decade ago. It said that “Andres Bonifacio” was carrying a “cedula” [residence tax certificate] with personal number 2492892 (perhaps I should place a bet on this number in this weekend’s lotto draw because Sunday, Nov. 30, is Bonifacio Day). The cedula also stated that “Bonifacio” was a native of Tambobo, a resident of Concepcion and 41 years old. His occupation was listed as “formalero” (whatever that means).
There are a number of ways to read this document, but the common thread is that the man was not the Andres Bonifacio of our textbooks. If the cedula is legitimate then we have “Andres Bonifacio” from Malabon apprehended, interrogated and produced by the authorities for “pogi points,” or brownie points. If the cedula is a fake, then it was probably used by the real Bonifacio to mislead the police and military who were hot on his trail. If the document is a fake, then that explains how Bonifacio was able to hold rallies in various places where he would tear up his cedula to emphasize his freedom from Spanish oppression.
I am sure there are people out there who will disagree and make a mountain out of a molehill with this stray document in the National Archives. We leave them to their imagination.
The real search for Bonifacio has been done, not by a historian of the Revolution, but by a demographic historian: Dr. Dan Doeppers, now retired from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Doeppers graciously shared his data drawn from the “vecindarios,” or residence lists, of Manila’s Tondo area that he combed for the years covering 1889 to 1894. We all know that Bonifacio is from Tondo, but he is not the Hero of Tondo (the titled is reserved for Raja Soliman). Doeppers’ says that the records do not list any Andres Bonifacio in Tondo during those years. He did find the following:
1. Bernabe Bonifacio, age 36, tailor, married (probable wife Rafaela Uy-Tangco, age 29, “cigarrera,” or cigarette maker).
2. Dionisio Bonifacio, age 26 or 36, married, “carrocero” (probable wife Francisca Hilario, age 35, “cigarrera”). The latter had a son named Telesforo Bonifacio, age 6. In another vecindario entry, the same Dionisio Bonifacio’s age is given as 35 and his occupation is listed as tendero. He is still married in this document to the same Francisca Hilario age 37, “cigarrera,” but now they had two children: Telesforo, age 4, and Marcela, age 3.
3. Geronima Bonifacio, 24, “cigarrera.”
You will be amazed at the amount of useless information that Dr Cullinane has for Cebu and Dr. Doeppers for Manila. I can only hope that there are young Filipino historians who will give up the promise of finding some great historical theory and start solid archival work in the Philippine National Archives or better still the archives in Spain and Mexico. It is unfortunate that the Gen-X is separated from their past because of language. I am told that the Instituto Cervantes, the Spanish cultural center in Manila, has record numbers of students who are probably taking Spanish because they can get paid more than English, or should we say American, speakers in call centers. If only a small number of these Spanish proficient Filipinos can start research work in our archives, our past will become relevant to a new generation.
The material from our National Archives makes us ask the question: If Andres Bonifacio cannot be found in the vecindarios of Tondo, where was he all that time? Was he registered in another suburb of Manila? Maybe he was but a temporary resident of Tondo and was not included in the census count? Maybe the person assigned to collect cedula fees from Bonifacio could not find him or was too scared to present a bill? Perhaps the collector pocketed Bonifacio’s cedula money? Was the collector delinquent, negligent or both?
The bottom line is that Bonifacio cannot be found in the resident lists for Tondo. If he was indeed a bona fide resident, why was he not enrolled for the head tax among the “naturales” in Tondo? If Bonifacio did not pay his taxes, he did not have a cedula. If he didn’t have a cedula, what did he tear up during the famous “Grito de Balintawak,” the Cry of Balintawak, or, depending on the book you’re reading, the Cry of Pugadlawin?
History is a very slippery discipline because there is always more than one way to see an event. Then there is the added complication of sources. Whether there is a lot or nothing, the documentation is almost always problematic. Old questions when addressed often reveal new answers, yet Bonifacio remains one of the heroes we should know more about but cannot, pending better research to find new materials and renewed investigation of the scant material we have on hand.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Wasted historical treasures
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:08:00 11/26/2008
With the deposit and organization of the Doreen G. Fernandez papers in the Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings (ALIWW), Doreen has finally come home to rest in the university and the university library she loved very much. As a historian, I am grateful that her sister Della Besa and her niece Maya Roxas took the trouble to sift through every slip of paper in Doreen’s study and realized their importance to future researchers. Old papers being, for many Filipinos, just “kalat” [clutter], just “basura” [trash] and better consigned to the fire or the “magbobote” [junk buyer]. Historians will tell you that one person’s junk can be treasure to another—the moral of the story being that we must not throw anything away. Come to ALIWW to read and research.
This reminds me of another writer whom ALIWW should contact soon: Asuncion Lopez Bantug, granddaughter of Narcisa Rizal and thus by extension grandniece of the National Hero, Jose Rizal. I have known her for a long time and interviewed her about Rizal. The late Austin Coates, Rizal’s biographer, who had known her for decades, was surprised that I was able to ask the questions that would induce a flood of memories. A few times, she would break into tears and even recite poems she was taught as a child. I would jot all these down, always knowing that nothing can be as accurate and as immediate as the entries in a diary. And she had those, too, filed neatly in a bedside shelf, but unfortunately she wouldn’t let me read these.
Bantug has maintained a diary since her youth, documentation of a life that spans over half a century, all neatly written on old school notebooks. Now that is a primary source that should have gone to ALIWW. But then, on one of her long annual trips to the United States to visit her grandchildren, one of the maids had the bright idea of giving her musty bedroom a much needed spring cleaning, and so everything was cleared out, including the notebooks. Upon her return, she had a fit but managed to ask why they had messed with her things and discarded her precious notebooks. “Walang silbi na po” [“They are useless”] was the polite reply of the maid. “Puno na po ng sulat lahat” [“The notebooks were filled up.”]
Every time I narrate this story, even non-historians groan. But this is not the worst of my horror stories from research. As you may well remember from grade school, the Rizal brood was quite large. Francisco Mercado and Teodora Alonso had 11 children, two sons and nine daughters, and all but one reached adulthood. One could say that Rizal grew up in a house dominated by women, and since many of them took to their mother, this was a household with some strong-willed women. The Rizal boys, Paciano and Jose, did not marry. Jose did not have children and Paciano had a daughter. Most of the descendants of the National Hero proceed from his six sisters (Josefa and Trinidad were spinsters, Concepcion died young).
I was once called in for advice when one of Rizal’s grandnieces passed away. She had left many valuable things, including a portrait of the young Rizal painted in 1882 when he had just arrived in Europe, by his friend Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. Of course, this painting was worth a tidy sum, but in my biased opinion it paled in comparison with a rather crude portrait in oil of Saturnina Rizal by Jose Rizal. This is much rarer than any Luna or Hidalgo in the market.
I asked if they had any Rizal manuscripts and photographs I could copy. They had those and other relics, but the item I most wanted to see was a stained embroidered piña handkerchief. Why did my heart race when I was told they had such a seemingly worthless thing? I had heard unconfirmed reports that one of Rizal’s sisters rushed to Bagumbayan that morning of Dec. 30, 1896 after his execution and his corpse was taken to the Paco cemetery for burial. This sister carried a dozen piña handkerchiefs, and when she found the place where her brother fell, she reverently used these handkerchiefs to soak up what was left of Rizal’s fresh blood on the ground. The urban legend is that each member of the family was given this rather gruesome souvenir.
I will never be sure if these handkerchiefs existed because one that matched the description was in this estate being divided among relatives. I asked for the handkerchief and heard one of the relatives ask loudly in Filipino, “Where was the soiled hanky that was lying on this table yesterday?” Nobody knew. So the question was asked again, and this time a maid rushed out carrying a neatly pressed hanky and proudly declared: “Naku! Ang tindi ng mantsa n’yan kahapon, kinuskus kong mabuti at nalinis naman po.” [“There was a stubborn stain on that yesterday but I managed to wash it off.”]
If the legend is true, if these morbid hankies did exist and this was the last of them, then the last traces of Rizal’s blood that could have undergone DNA testing went, literally, down the drain along with detergent and bleach.
During the last International Philippine Studies Conference in Manila, I sat with a group of historians over lunch and exchanged stories of the historical materials that got away. These horror stories were exchanged with a mixture of laughter and regret. There are enough to fill a small and interesting book. If I could only find the time and energy to set it to paper!
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:08:00 11/26/2008
With the deposit and organization of the Doreen G. Fernandez papers in the Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings (ALIWW), Doreen has finally come home to rest in the university and the university library she loved very much. As a historian, I am grateful that her sister Della Besa and her niece Maya Roxas took the trouble to sift through every slip of paper in Doreen’s study and realized their importance to future researchers. Old papers being, for many Filipinos, just “kalat” [clutter], just “basura” [trash] and better consigned to the fire or the “magbobote” [junk buyer]. Historians will tell you that one person’s junk can be treasure to another—the moral of the story being that we must not throw anything away. Come to ALIWW to read and research.
This reminds me of another writer whom ALIWW should contact soon: Asuncion Lopez Bantug, granddaughter of Narcisa Rizal and thus by extension grandniece of the National Hero, Jose Rizal. I have known her for a long time and interviewed her about Rizal. The late Austin Coates, Rizal’s biographer, who had known her for decades, was surprised that I was able to ask the questions that would induce a flood of memories. A few times, she would break into tears and even recite poems she was taught as a child. I would jot all these down, always knowing that nothing can be as accurate and as immediate as the entries in a diary. And she had those, too, filed neatly in a bedside shelf, but unfortunately she wouldn’t let me read these.
Bantug has maintained a diary since her youth, documentation of a life that spans over half a century, all neatly written on old school notebooks. Now that is a primary source that should have gone to ALIWW. But then, on one of her long annual trips to the United States to visit her grandchildren, one of the maids had the bright idea of giving her musty bedroom a much needed spring cleaning, and so everything was cleared out, including the notebooks. Upon her return, she had a fit but managed to ask why they had messed with her things and discarded her precious notebooks. “Walang silbi na po” [“They are useless”] was the polite reply of the maid. “Puno na po ng sulat lahat” [“The notebooks were filled up.”]
Every time I narrate this story, even non-historians groan. But this is not the worst of my horror stories from research. As you may well remember from grade school, the Rizal brood was quite large. Francisco Mercado and Teodora Alonso had 11 children, two sons and nine daughters, and all but one reached adulthood. One could say that Rizal grew up in a house dominated by women, and since many of them took to their mother, this was a household with some strong-willed women. The Rizal boys, Paciano and Jose, did not marry. Jose did not have children and Paciano had a daughter. Most of the descendants of the National Hero proceed from his six sisters (Josefa and Trinidad were spinsters, Concepcion died young).
I was once called in for advice when one of Rizal’s grandnieces passed away. She had left many valuable things, including a portrait of the young Rizal painted in 1882 when he had just arrived in Europe, by his friend Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. Of course, this painting was worth a tidy sum, but in my biased opinion it paled in comparison with a rather crude portrait in oil of Saturnina Rizal by Jose Rizal. This is much rarer than any Luna or Hidalgo in the market.
I asked if they had any Rizal manuscripts and photographs I could copy. They had those and other relics, but the item I most wanted to see was a stained embroidered piña handkerchief. Why did my heart race when I was told they had such a seemingly worthless thing? I had heard unconfirmed reports that one of Rizal’s sisters rushed to Bagumbayan that morning of Dec. 30, 1896 after his execution and his corpse was taken to the Paco cemetery for burial. This sister carried a dozen piña handkerchiefs, and when she found the place where her brother fell, she reverently used these handkerchiefs to soak up what was left of Rizal’s fresh blood on the ground. The urban legend is that each member of the family was given this rather gruesome souvenir.
I will never be sure if these handkerchiefs existed because one that matched the description was in this estate being divided among relatives. I asked for the handkerchief and heard one of the relatives ask loudly in Filipino, “Where was the soiled hanky that was lying on this table yesterday?” Nobody knew. So the question was asked again, and this time a maid rushed out carrying a neatly pressed hanky and proudly declared: “Naku! Ang tindi ng mantsa n’yan kahapon, kinuskus kong mabuti at nalinis naman po.” [“There was a stubborn stain on that yesterday but I managed to wash it off.”]
If the legend is true, if these morbid hankies did exist and this was the last of them, then the last traces of Rizal’s blood that could have undergone DNA testing went, literally, down the drain along with detergent and bleach.
During the last International Philippine Studies Conference in Manila, I sat with a group of historians over lunch and exchanged stories of the historical materials that got away. These horror stories were exchanged with a mixture of laughter and regret. There are enough to fill a small and interesting book. If I could only find the time and energy to set it to paper!
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
A passion for history
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:14:00 11/21/2008
E. Arsenio Manuel was a byline I always associated with the four-volume “Dictionary of Philippine Biography.” As a college student, I would go through Manuel’s work and marvel at the meticulous research that went into these books. Manuel did not only dig up libraries and archives, he actually went around cemeteries copying dates of birth and death from tombstones!
Nicanor Tiongson was kind enough to introduce me to Manuel because he was the only source for these books that were, at the time, unavailable in bookstores. Manuel and I liked each other immediately, so I would visit him from time to time to listen and be inspired by his stories on research. While telling me about the prewar University of the Philippines campus on Padre Faura Street in Manila, he said he had originally planned to be a historian, but since his friend and contemporary Teodoro A. Agoncillo was already plowing that field, he decided to shift to anthropology and started by becoming one of the assistants of H. Otley Beyer.
A retired emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of the Philippines, Manuel invited me to attend his graduate class on Philippine Prehistory in the late 1980s. For a while it seemed as if I was the only one left awake in class after three hours of monotone monologue lecturing. He came to class on the first day and wrote on the board, “Where history ends anthropology begins.” I took that as a cue to abandon history and go further down the timeline, but there was no archeological studies program anywhere in the Philippines at the time. I flirted a while with anthropology and realized early on that I was not meant to be an archeologist digging in an open field; I was more comfortable researching in a library or archive.
I funded an excavation in Barrio Laguile in Batangas province in 1990 and that became my hands-on training in archeology. I saw and learned how test pits are made, how stratification of the soil gives clues to age and chronology. I also saw how archeologists evaluate the materials coming out of the earth: bones, rocks, fossils, broken pieces of earthenware. This was all very interesting but there was just so much to learn especially in the natural sciences: botany, biology, anatomy, chemistry, etc. This made me remember that I chose to become a historian to avoid math and science in school.
During our Batangas excavation, there were only two highlights, because we didn’t find anything spectacular or even moderately important. First was when a carabao fell into the pit one night and we spent the better part of a day getting it out, to the amusement of the whole town and neighbors. Second was when a handful of farmers came to the site with sacks and “bayong” [large native woven bags] filled with an assortment of ancient Oriental ceramics they had found while tilling their fields. Some of them found this illegal trade so lucrative that they left their farms and made a living looking for and selling ceramics to dealers and collectors in Manila. They brought out Ming porcelain, usually blue and white bowls and dishes, and placed them on the ground. Some had other wares, not necessarily from the area, artifacts traded by our forefathers that came from China, Vietnam, Thailand and India. I had seen similar artifacts in museums. These objects were unfortunately taken out of the ground without proper archeological care so many of the pieces were broken. Worse, the context of the objects—where were they found, with what other objects or with human remains—all that was gone.
From then on I never looked at my mother’s display cabinets the same way. Before all this, I never took a second look at the ceramics we had at home, which mother used as flower vases or just scattered tastefully on coffee tables. But these things have been coming out of the ground and collected since the 1960s. So many clues to our prehistory are actually lying around in people’s living rooms. They are not used for study or research but just for decoration.
In the San Pedro beach resort in Romblon province, I saw a whole plate of broken shards of Ming period Chinese and Thai ceramics and was told that after a heavy rain these are readily found on the shore. A reader sent me an e-mail saying that when they played “piko” [hopscotch] as children, they threw around Ming shards too as markers.
When roads are built and fields are cleared, these things still turn up. It is too bad that young people do not take this up in school. Children are taught about pre-colonial trade and exchange in “Hekasi” [Geography, History and Civics combined] but few realize that they can see and handle the real thing in their own homes.
Although I’m a failed anthropologist, I look back with fondness to E. Arsenio Manuel’s class and the afternoons in his study because he made me see and notice things around me that I would have otherwise overlooked. He taught me to be sensitive to artifacts and the stories they contain or evoke.
Not all history is found in a written record or a book; sometimes we find stories in photographs and artifacts. Learning to see things in a different light and continually asking questions, even of things we think we know already, have made me a better researcher. Agoncillo and Manuel infected me with their enthusiasm, and I can only hope that I can pay this debt forward by rubbing off my enthusiasm on my students and readers.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:14:00 11/21/2008
E. Arsenio Manuel was a byline I always associated with the four-volume “Dictionary of Philippine Biography.” As a college student, I would go through Manuel’s work and marvel at the meticulous research that went into these books. Manuel did not only dig up libraries and archives, he actually went around cemeteries copying dates of birth and death from tombstones!
Nicanor Tiongson was kind enough to introduce me to Manuel because he was the only source for these books that were, at the time, unavailable in bookstores. Manuel and I liked each other immediately, so I would visit him from time to time to listen and be inspired by his stories on research. While telling me about the prewar University of the Philippines campus on Padre Faura Street in Manila, he said he had originally planned to be a historian, but since his friend and contemporary Teodoro A. Agoncillo was already plowing that field, he decided to shift to anthropology and started by becoming one of the assistants of H. Otley Beyer.
A retired emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of the Philippines, Manuel invited me to attend his graduate class on Philippine Prehistory in the late 1980s. For a while it seemed as if I was the only one left awake in class after three hours of monotone monologue lecturing. He came to class on the first day and wrote on the board, “Where history ends anthropology begins.” I took that as a cue to abandon history and go further down the timeline, but there was no archeological studies program anywhere in the Philippines at the time. I flirted a while with anthropology and realized early on that I was not meant to be an archeologist digging in an open field; I was more comfortable researching in a library or archive.
I funded an excavation in Barrio Laguile in Batangas province in 1990 and that became my hands-on training in archeology. I saw and learned how test pits are made, how stratification of the soil gives clues to age and chronology. I also saw how archeologists evaluate the materials coming out of the earth: bones, rocks, fossils, broken pieces of earthenware. This was all very interesting but there was just so much to learn especially in the natural sciences: botany, biology, anatomy, chemistry, etc. This made me remember that I chose to become a historian to avoid math and science in school.
During our Batangas excavation, there were only two highlights, because we didn’t find anything spectacular or even moderately important. First was when a carabao fell into the pit one night and we spent the better part of a day getting it out, to the amusement of the whole town and neighbors. Second was when a handful of farmers came to the site with sacks and “bayong” [large native woven bags] filled with an assortment of ancient Oriental ceramics they had found while tilling their fields. Some of them found this illegal trade so lucrative that they left their farms and made a living looking for and selling ceramics to dealers and collectors in Manila. They brought out Ming porcelain, usually blue and white bowls and dishes, and placed them on the ground. Some had other wares, not necessarily from the area, artifacts traded by our forefathers that came from China, Vietnam, Thailand and India. I had seen similar artifacts in museums. These objects were unfortunately taken out of the ground without proper archeological care so many of the pieces were broken. Worse, the context of the objects—where were they found, with what other objects or with human remains—all that was gone.
From then on I never looked at my mother’s display cabinets the same way. Before all this, I never took a second look at the ceramics we had at home, which mother used as flower vases or just scattered tastefully on coffee tables. But these things have been coming out of the ground and collected since the 1960s. So many clues to our prehistory are actually lying around in people’s living rooms. They are not used for study or research but just for decoration.
In the San Pedro beach resort in Romblon province, I saw a whole plate of broken shards of Ming period Chinese and Thai ceramics and was told that after a heavy rain these are readily found on the shore. A reader sent me an e-mail saying that when they played “piko” [hopscotch] as children, they threw around Ming shards too as markers.
When roads are built and fields are cleared, these things still turn up. It is too bad that young people do not take this up in school. Children are taught about pre-colonial trade and exchange in “Hekasi” [Geography, History and Civics combined] but few realize that they can see and handle the real thing in their own homes.
Although I’m a failed anthropologist, I look back with fondness to E. Arsenio Manuel’s class and the afternoons in his study because he made me see and notice things around me that I would have otherwise overlooked. He taught me to be sensitive to artifacts and the stories they contain or evoke.
Not all history is found in a written record or a book; sometimes we find stories in photographs and artifacts. Learning to see things in a different light and continually asking questions, even of things we think we know already, have made me a better researcher. Agoncillo and Manuel infected me with their enthusiasm, and I can only hope that I can pay this debt forward by rubbing off my enthusiasm on my students and readers.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine-French relations
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:26:00 11/19/2008
June 26 is just one of 365 days in a year, a drop in an ocean of dates that constitute Philippine history. It is probably significant to people who were born, married, had children, or have relatives who passed away on this date. For the rest of us, June 26 means nothing without some research that reveals some relevant footnotes: On June 26, 1875 a royal decree was issued authorizing the planning of a railroad in Luzon; on June 26, 1910 Artemio Ricarte, revolutionary general, was released from Bilibid Prison in Manila; on June 26, 1950 the world felt the outbreak of the Korean War; on June 26, 1947, with the stroke of two pens, formal diplomatic relations were established between the Republic of the Philippines and the Republic of France. It is this last date that is being commemorated by a recent book I helped put together, titled “60 Years and Bon Vivant: Philippine-French Relations” (ArtPost Asia, 2008).
The book grew out of the “Symposium on Philippine-French Relations” held at the Ateneo de Manila University on June 26, 2007 to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and France. The symposium covered four themes: France in Philippine history, France in Philippine culture, France in Philippine education, and Filipino families of French ancestry.
History tells us that the relations between the Philippines and France go beyond 60 years. A French consulate was established in Manila in the late 19th century, when the Philippines was still a colony of Spain. The short-lived First Philippine Republic had a diplomatic representative in Paris in 1898 when the United States and Spain were negotiating the terms for peace in what has come down in history as the Treaty of Paris. The Filipino representative worked in vain to gain recognition for the Philippines as a free and independent nation, thus the US acquired the Philippines from Spain for $20 million.
We can take the short view that pegs Philippine-French relations to 60 years, or take the long view and trace our relations to the Frenchmen who formed part of the Magellan expedition that came to our shores in 1521. A historian can cast a net narrow or wide, depending on the available documentation and, more importantly, his or her viewpoint.
French Ambassador Gerard Chesnel wondered aloud what happened to the Frenchmen who were part of Magellan’s crew because they were not included in the list of stragglers who made it back to Spain after the Battle of Mactan. He suggested that these French sailors remained in the Philippines and sired Franco-Philippine children, which would truly be the beginning of Philippine-French relations, not the opening of embassies 60 years ago.
While it would be fascinating to trace the descendants of these Filipino-French people in Cebu or Mactan, we can presume that those missing Frenchmen were either killed during the battle or were wounded and taken prisoner. The viceroy of Mexico wrote the king of Mactan, offering payment for Magellan’s corpse and survivors of the battle. The curt reply was that Magellan’s corpse was a war trophy and would not be returned. The prisoners of war were not available, having been nursed back to health and eventually sold off to the Chinese as slaves to generate income.
French travel accounts of the Philippines in the 18th and 19th centuries help Filipino historians recreate the past. These publications are illustrated with charming photographs and engravings that provide a visual link to the Spanish Philippines. More importantly, there are a handful of French eyewitness accounts of the Philippine-American War that provide a different view from the Filipino or American sources (it is always essential to see the same story from another angle). These French accounts are critical of the way Spain administered the colony and sympathetic to Emilio Aguinaldo and the Filipino struggle for freedom.
We do not have to look far for traces of France in Philippine history. Our national anthem has a part that echoes the French national anthem. The red, white and blue that, according to our June 12, 1898 declaration of independence, commemorate the colors of the US flag can be traced all the way back to the French tri-color. As a matter of fact, in the great Malolos banquet of September 1898 to celebrate the ratification of the declaration of independence in Kawit, the elaborate printed menu had a French feast. What better way to remember the battle cry of the French Revolution: Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!
Going back to the intellectual roots of the Philippine Revolution, we see France once again. When Spanish police raided the bodega where Andres Bonifacio worked, they found books that the Supremo of the Katipunan read. Two of the significant titles were: “Lives of the Presidents of the United States” and, of course, “The French Revolution.” An obscure bit of information that has yet to be verified is that one of Andres Bonifacio’s brothers worked abroad as a seaman and settled in France.
What would have been boring symposium proceedings was transformed by Tina Colayco and ArtPost Asia into a handsome book that I am quite proud of. My next project will be Philippine-Spanish relations.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:26:00 11/19/2008
June 26 is just one of 365 days in a year, a drop in an ocean of dates that constitute Philippine history. It is probably significant to people who were born, married, had children, or have relatives who passed away on this date. For the rest of us, June 26 means nothing without some research that reveals some relevant footnotes: On June 26, 1875 a royal decree was issued authorizing the planning of a railroad in Luzon; on June 26, 1910 Artemio Ricarte, revolutionary general, was released from Bilibid Prison in Manila; on June 26, 1950 the world felt the outbreak of the Korean War; on June 26, 1947, with the stroke of two pens, formal diplomatic relations were established between the Republic of the Philippines and the Republic of France. It is this last date that is being commemorated by a recent book I helped put together, titled “60 Years and Bon Vivant: Philippine-French Relations” (ArtPost Asia, 2008).
The book grew out of the “Symposium on Philippine-French Relations” held at the Ateneo de Manila University on June 26, 2007 to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and France. The symposium covered four themes: France in Philippine history, France in Philippine culture, France in Philippine education, and Filipino families of French ancestry.
History tells us that the relations between the Philippines and France go beyond 60 years. A French consulate was established in Manila in the late 19th century, when the Philippines was still a colony of Spain. The short-lived First Philippine Republic had a diplomatic representative in Paris in 1898 when the United States and Spain were negotiating the terms for peace in what has come down in history as the Treaty of Paris. The Filipino representative worked in vain to gain recognition for the Philippines as a free and independent nation, thus the US acquired the Philippines from Spain for $20 million.
We can take the short view that pegs Philippine-French relations to 60 years, or take the long view and trace our relations to the Frenchmen who formed part of the Magellan expedition that came to our shores in 1521. A historian can cast a net narrow or wide, depending on the available documentation and, more importantly, his or her viewpoint.
French Ambassador Gerard Chesnel wondered aloud what happened to the Frenchmen who were part of Magellan’s crew because they were not included in the list of stragglers who made it back to Spain after the Battle of Mactan. He suggested that these French sailors remained in the Philippines and sired Franco-Philippine children, which would truly be the beginning of Philippine-French relations, not the opening of embassies 60 years ago.
While it would be fascinating to trace the descendants of these Filipino-French people in Cebu or Mactan, we can presume that those missing Frenchmen were either killed during the battle or were wounded and taken prisoner. The viceroy of Mexico wrote the king of Mactan, offering payment for Magellan’s corpse and survivors of the battle. The curt reply was that Magellan’s corpse was a war trophy and would not be returned. The prisoners of war were not available, having been nursed back to health and eventually sold off to the Chinese as slaves to generate income.
French travel accounts of the Philippines in the 18th and 19th centuries help Filipino historians recreate the past. These publications are illustrated with charming photographs and engravings that provide a visual link to the Spanish Philippines. More importantly, there are a handful of French eyewitness accounts of the Philippine-American War that provide a different view from the Filipino or American sources (it is always essential to see the same story from another angle). These French accounts are critical of the way Spain administered the colony and sympathetic to Emilio Aguinaldo and the Filipino struggle for freedom.
We do not have to look far for traces of France in Philippine history. Our national anthem has a part that echoes the French national anthem. The red, white and blue that, according to our June 12, 1898 declaration of independence, commemorate the colors of the US flag can be traced all the way back to the French tri-color. As a matter of fact, in the great Malolos banquet of September 1898 to celebrate the ratification of the declaration of independence in Kawit, the elaborate printed menu had a French feast. What better way to remember the battle cry of the French Revolution: Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!
Going back to the intellectual roots of the Philippine Revolution, we see France once again. When Spanish police raided the bodega where Andres Bonifacio worked, they found books that the Supremo of the Katipunan read. Two of the significant titles were: “Lives of the Presidents of the United States” and, of course, “The French Revolution.” An obscure bit of information that has yet to be verified is that one of Andres Bonifacio’s brothers worked abroad as a seaman and settled in France.
What would have been boring symposium proceedings was transformed by Tina Colayco and ArtPost Asia into a handsome book that I am quite proud of. My next project will be Philippine-Spanish relations.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Born in 1933
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:11:00 11/14/2008
Most Read
EACH YEAR WHEN we celebrate Independence Day, we hear a few voices of dissent that seek to change the date from June 12 to something else. People of the post-war generation remember that our Independence Day used to be celebrated on July 4, like that of the United States of America, until President Diosdado Macapagal moved it to June 12. I won't repeat the columns on the other dates proposed for our Independence Day, let's just say that the choice of date is often dependent on one's ideological or historiographical outlook.
Choosing the date to celebrate anything can be quite arbitrary. If we follow ancient Chinese example, we are already a year old at birth because they reckon from time in the womb. We have people eager to be the first to greet birthday celebrants and wait till the clock hits 12:01 a.m. to send a text or ring the sleepy person. Some people say we shouldn't celebrate birthdays in advance, while others say we shouldn't have the celebration after the actual date. All this can be quite confused and confusing.
I will bore you with a bit of institutional history today because in the case of the National Historical Institute, which celebrated the 75th year of its foundation a few weeks back, there has to be some kind of reckoning. The NHI as we know it today was established by President Ferdinand Marcos in 1972, following the reorganization of government after the declaration of martial law. If we take Marcos and 1972 as a reference point, then the NHI is far from 75 years old. But the institute has chosen to trace its birth all the way back to 1933, with the establishment of the Philippine Historical Research and Markers Committee (PHRMC).
Many people still refer to the NHI as a commission because it used to be the National Historical Commission before it became an institute in 1972. Before 1972, there used to be a number of historical commissions created by law to commemorate the birth centennials of our heroes of the late 19th century: Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini, Juan Luna, Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos, Jacinto Zamora, etc. At one point, all these commissions were merged into one National Heroes Commission. Then it became more general as the National Historical Commission, until someone decided to give it a more academic tone by renaming it as the National Historical Institute. So far its selective institutional history is based on events and achievements during the terms of its different chairs: Encarnacion Alzona, Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, Esteban de Ocampo, Serafin D. Quiason, Samuel K. Tan, Pablo S. Trillana and yours truly.
To complicate matters, we go back to U S Governor General Frank Murphy who issued Executive Order 451 in 1933, creating the PHRMC whose job was to identify and mark "historic antiquities" in the capital, Manila, and later throughout the Philippines as a first step in their preservation. The members of this committee were: Walter Robb, an American journalist interested in the history of Manila as chair, the pioneering pre-historian of the Philippines H. Otley Beyer, the Spanish Jesuit Fr. Miguel Selga, SJ and dean Edward Hyde. The Filipino members of the committee were: Jaime C. de Veyra, Conrado Benitez and Eulogio B. Rodriguez.
When the Philippine Commonwealth was established in 1935, the PHRMC was replaced by the Philippines Historical Committee that had basically the same functions as the former, with the additional responsibilities of acquiring antiquities owned by private individuals and repairing government-owned antiquities. We have not yet found any material on the activities of the committee during the war years, and it is hoped that research on the Commission of Education, Health and Public Welfare during the Laurel presidency will fill in the gap.
Six months after independence and the inauguration of the Third Philippine Republic, on Jan. 20, 1947, the Philippines Historical Committee was reconstituted and placed first under the Office of the President, and later transferred to the Department of Education. The PHC was very active in the post-war years when the country was rebuilding from the ashes of the war. It was a time not just for physical reconstruction but also the reconstruction of the past as a means to form nationhood. Over 400 markers were installed all over the archipelago by the PHC, and most important, it acquired places and relics of heroes. The PHC was also responsible for the naming and renaming of streets, plazas, towns and other public places.
All these functions are still undertaken by the NHI in addition to the preservation of historical sites and structures, serving as lead agency for the commemorations of Independence Day, Rizal Day, etc.
Whether we reckon 75 or 36 years, the question of relevance crops up and the words of Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, who was appointed chairman in 1965, still rings true:
"In a country where poverty, underproduction, unemployment and corruption are the chief problems, what justification can there be for a national (cultural office) devoted to history? Surely such a question is rhetorical and does not need an answer, for it must be obvious to the most materialistic and pragmatic of us that the past is necessary to make the present viable and the future possible."
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:11:00 11/14/2008
Most Read
EACH YEAR WHEN we celebrate Independence Day, we hear a few voices of dissent that seek to change the date from June 12 to something else. People of the post-war generation remember that our Independence Day used to be celebrated on July 4, like that of the United States of America, until President Diosdado Macapagal moved it to June 12. I won't repeat the columns on the other dates proposed for our Independence Day, let's just say that the choice of date is often dependent on one's ideological or historiographical outlook.
Choosing the date to celebrate anything can be quite arbitrary. If we follow ancient Chinese example, we are already a year old at birth because they reckon from time in the womb. We have people eager to be the first to greet birthday celebrants and wait till the clock hits 12:01 a.m. to send a text or ring the sleepy person. Some people say we shouldn't celebrate birthdays in advance, while others say we shouldn't have the celebration after the actual date. All this can be quite confused and confusing.
I will bore you with a bit of institutional history today because in the case of the National Historical Institute, which celebrated the 75th year of its foundation a few weeks back, there has to be some kind of reckoning. The NHI as we know it today was established by President Ferdinand Marcos in 1972, following the reorganization of government after the declaration of martial law. If we take Marcos and 1972 as a reference point, then the NHI is far from 75 years old. But the institute has chosen to trace its birth all the way back to 1933, with the establishment of the Philippine Historical Research and Markers Committee (PHRMC).
Many people still refer to the NHI as a commission because it used to be the National Historical Commission before it became an institute in 1972. Before 1972, there used to be a number of historical commissions created by law to commemorate the birth centennials of our heroes of the late 19th century: Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini, Juan Luna, Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos, Jacinto Zamora, etc. At one point, all these commissions were merged into one National Heroes Commission. Then it became more general as the National Historical Commission, until someone decided to give it a more academic tone by renaming it as the National Historical Institute. So far its selective institutional history is based on events and achievements during the terms of its different chairs: Encarnacion Alzona, Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, Esteban de Ocampo, Serafin D. Quiason, Samuel K. Tan, Pablo S. Trillana and yours truly.
To complicate matters, we go back to U S Governor General Frank Murphy who issued Executive Order 451 in 1933, creating the PHRMC whose job was to identify and mark "historic antiquities" in the capital, Manila, and later throughout the Philippines as a first step in their preservation. The members of this committee were: Walter Robb, an American journalist interested in the history of Manila as chair, the pioneering pre-historian of the Philippines H. Otley Beyer, the Spanish Jesuit Fr. Miguel Selga, SJ and dean Edward Hyde. The Filipino members of the committee were: Jaime C. de Veyra, Conrado Benitez and Eulogio B. Rodriguez.
When the Philippine Commonwealth was established in 1935, the PHRMC was replaced by the Philippines Historical Committee that had basically the same functions as the former, with the additional responsibilities of acquiring antiquities owned by private individuals and repairing government-owned antiquities. We have not yet found any material on the activities of the committee during the war years, and it is hoped that research on the Commission of Education, Health and Public Welfare during the Laurel presidency will fill in the gap.
Six months after independence and the inauguration of the Third Philippine Republic, on Jan. 20, 1947, the Philippines Historical Committee was reconstituted and placed first under the Office of the President, and later transferred to the Department of Education. The PHC was very active in the post-war years when the country was rebuilding from the ashes of the war. It was a time not just for physical reconstruction but also the reconstruction of the past as a means to form nationhood. Over 400 markers were installed all over the archipelago by the PHC, and most important, it acquired places and relics of heroes. The PHC was also responsible for the naming and renaming of streets, plazas, towns and other public places.
All these functions are still undertaken by the NHI in addition to the preservation of historical sites and structures, serving as lead agency for the commemorations of Independence Day, Rizal Day, etc.
Whether we reckon 75 or 36 years, the question of relevance crops up and the words of Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, who was appointed chairman in 1965, still rings true:
"In a country where poverty, underproduction, unemployment and corruption are the chief problems, what justification can there be for a national (cultural office) devoted to history? Surely such a question is rhetorical and does not need an answer, for it must be obvious to the most materialistic and pragmatic of us that the past is necessary to make the present viable and the future possible."
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu
A personal introduction
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:36:00 11/11/2008
THRICE COLONIZED and with an archipelagic landscape, the Philippines is a young nation constantly in search of self. History is central to this search for identity and thus the teaching of history in schools is both informative (as an academic discipline that studies the past) and formative (when the past is utilized to place the student in the context of the nation--its past, present and future). Thus, the structure and presentation of history in textbooks, classrooms, official holidays and commemorations, street names and monuments, while seemingly innocent, become contested territory when history as a social science or an academic discipline becomes a handmaid to citizenship, nation building and nationalism.
It is the beginning of yet another semester, and I will enter a classroom and have 80 pairs of eyes following me around, 80 pairs of ears that I presume are listening to every word that proceeds from my lips. I have been teaching since 1985, but I still feel stage fright at the beginning of every term.
The first day is crucial. While many teachers are content with meeting the class, distributing the syllabus and explaining course requirements, I give a full lecture using all the tricks I have learned over the years. Students will remember your first day. If you do well, that first impression will be carried till the end of the term. If you don't make an impression, you are doomed for the whole term. You can never catch up, you can never make up.
While I have always been interested in history, I did not foresee my future as an academic and didn't really prepare for my future (my undergraduate thesis was actually on "Food in Kapampangan Culture"). The turning point in my life came when I met two senior members of the National Historical Institute: the late E. Aguilar Cruz (journalist, writer, painter, wonderful raconteur who served as permanent Philippine representative to Unesco in Paris--all this without having finished college) and the late Teodoro A. Agoncillo (nationalist historian, opinionated raconteur, academic who built a distinguished and colorful career likewise without a PhD). Agoncillo got me interested in research, Cruz opened doors to a career in journalism where I specialized in history.
I began writing in 1985, the tail-end of the Marcos period, in the pro-Marcos Daily Express. In those days of strict censorship, history was considered a "safe" subject and I was allowed to write anything I wished. Then, as now, sensitive readers noticed that I actually commented on the present using the past.
From the beginning, I have always been suspicious of textbook or official history, often asking questions or exploring other possibilities in something that has come down to us over the years as truth. Writing for the general reader also made me write without jargon, in a clear and simple way which is frowned upon by some constipated academics. To engage readers uninterested or hostile to history because of their traumatic experience with the subject in school, I would often write about the lives and times of men and women canonized as heroes to free them from their monuments of stone and bronze and make them human again. My light and often mischievous slant can also be credited to my having started my career in the same room as the infamous show-biz columnist Ricky Lo.
I wrote feature articles on history and eventually wrote a column that appeared in the Lifestyle/Entertainment page of the now defunct Daily Globe. Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc suggested that I move to the Inquirer or at least have my column moved from Lifestyle to the Opinion-Editorial page. I didn't realize it then, but I often wrote serious stuff but these were not taken seriously because the column appeared next to a photograph of Dolphy or a starlet in half a dress. I moved to the Inquirer in 1993 and now provide foil in a spread where columns comment mainly on politics and current social issues.
Professional and academic historians did not look kindly on popularization. While much of my writing is culled from primary sources, the style and form are not academic. Critics unfairly demand that my column utilize footnotes, have a clear theoretical framework, and should be written in the deadly prose better suited to academic journals. Partly as a result of this aggravation, I pursued (and still pursue) a PhD to get my license to practice history. Often addressed as "Doctor," I have always been tempted to have calling cards made with the letters "HpD" after my name instead of "PhD" to signify "Hindi pa doctor" (Not yet a doctor).
While I am an associate professor in the history department of the Ateneo de Manila University, it is journalism that provided me with a public voice that led to books, lectures, consultancies, and eventually my appointment as chairman of the National Historical Institute in 2002. It was then that I realized one of the great ironies of my life: I built a reputation as an iconoclast, my articles often challenged textbook or official history but with the stroke of a president's pen, I suddenly found myself the keeper of that same official history I had previously challenged.
With this personal introduction, I begin yet another semester introducing my students to the joys of Philippine history.
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:36:00 11/11/2008
THRICE COLONIZED and with an archipelagic landscape, the Philippines is a young nation constantly in search of self. History is central to this search for identity and thus the teaching of history in schools is both informative (as an academic discipline that studies the past) and formative (when the past is utilized to place the student in the context of the nation--its past, present and future). Thus, the structure and presentation of history in textbooks, classrooms, official holidays and commemorations, street names and monuments, while seemingly innocent, become contested territory when history as a social science or an academic discipline becomes a handmaid to citizenship, nation building and nationalism.
It is the beginning of yet another semester, and I will enter a classroom and have 80 pairs of eyes following me around, 80 pairs of ears that I presume are listening to every word that proceeds from my lips. I have been teaching since 1985, but I still feel stage fright at the beginning of every term.
The first day is crucial. While many teachers are content with meeting the class, distributing the syllabus and explaining course requirements, I give a full lecture using all the tricks I have learned over the years. Students will remember your first day. If you do well, that first impression will be carried till the end of the term. If you don't make an impression, you are doomed for the whole term. You can never catch up, you can never make up.
While I have always been interested in history, I did not foresee my future as an academic and didn't really prepare for my future (my undergraduate thesis was actually on "Food in Kapampangan Culture"). The turning point in my life came when I met two senior members of the National Historical Institute: the late E. Aguilar Cruz (journalist, writer, painter, wonderful raconteur who served as permanent Philippine representative to Unesco in Paris--all this without having finished college) and the late Teodoro A. Agoncillo (nationalist historian, opinionated raconteur, academic who built a distinguished and colorful career likewise without a PhD). Agoncillo got me interested in research, Cruz opened doors to a career in journalism where I specialized in history.
I began writing in 1985, the tail-end of the Marcos period, in the pro-Marcos Daily Express. In those days of strict censorship, history was considered a "safe" subject and I was allowed to write anything I wished. Then, as now, sensitive readers noticed that I actually commented on the present using the past.
From the beginning, I have always been suspicious of textbook or official history, often asking questions or exploring other possibilities in something that has come down to us over the years as truth. Writing for the general reader also made me write without jargon, in a clear and simple way which is frowned upon by some constipated academics. To engage readers uninterested or hostile to history because of their traumatic experience with the subject in school, I would often write about the lives and times of men and women canonized as heroes to free them from their monuments of stone and bronze and make them human again. My light and often mischievous slant can also be credited to my having started my career in the same room as the infamous show-biz columnist Ricky Lo.
I wrote feature articles on history and eventually wrote a column that appeared in the Lifestyle/Entertainment page of the now defunct Daily Globe. Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc suggested that I move to the Inquirer or at least have my column moved from Lifestyle to the Opinion-Editorial page. I didn't realize it then, but I often wrote serious stuff but these were not taken seriously because the column appeared next to a photograph of Dolphy or a starlet in half a dress. I moved to the Inquirer in 1993 and now provide foil in a spread where columns comment mainly on politics and current social issues.
Professional and academic historians did not look kindly on popularization. While much of my writing is culled from primary sources, the style and form are not academic. Critics unfairly demand that my column utilize footnotes, have a clear theoretical framework, and should be written in the deadly prose better suited to academic journals. Partly as a result of this aggravation, I pursued (and still pursue) a PhD to get my license to practice history. Often addressed as "Doctor," I have always been tempted to have calling cards made with the letters "HpD" after my name instead of "PhD" to signify "Hindi pa doctor" (Not yet a doctor).
While I am an associate professor in the history department of the Ateneo de Manila University, it is journalism that provided me with a public voice that led to books, lectures, consultancies, and eventually my appointment as chairman of the National Historical Institute in 2002. It was then that I realized one of the great ironies of my life: I built a reputation as an iconoclast, my articles often challenged textbook or official history but with the stroke of a president's pen, I suddenly found myself the keeper of that same official history I had previously challenged.
With this personal introduction, I begin yet another semester introducing my students to the joys of Philippine history.
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Torture
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:40:00 11/07/2008
Whenever you see traffic policemen or enforcers lying in wait or hiding midway along a one-way street, one word comes to mind: “kotong.” One would assume that prevention should be the option rather than punishment, but then that does not generate income. If a traffic enforcer stands at the beginning of a one-way street and waves the unsuspecting or stubborn motorist the correct way, there is no need for a ticket, fine and seminar. No need for a bribe.
Erring motorists flagged down by corrupt traffic cops or deputized “alalay” [aides] used to be asked the odd question, “Sino’ng abogado mo?” [Who is your lawyer?] The clueless ask why they need a lawyer for a minor traffic infraction, so the corrupt cop then makes clear that the question is a polite way of asking for a bribe. The “lawyers” refer to various faces on the different denominations in our paper money. It is a way for the motorist to make an offer or haggle for a comfortable amount.
Remember nobody takes coins, so the heroes of the 19th century—Rizal, Mabini, Bonifacio—cannot act as “abogado.” Thus, Quezon means P20, Sergio Osmeña is worth P50, Manuel Roxas P100 and, God forbid, Aquino has a face value of P500. At today’s rate, Quezon and Osmeña will get you nothing, except a traffic ticket. Roxas might get you off the hook if you are lucky. Aquino often does the trick but, if you intend to haggle, then use Macapagal, who is worth P200. If you want a “Get out of jail” card like those in the famous board game Monopoly, you will need three “lawyers”: Abad Santos, Lim and Escoda who are on the P1,000-bill. Estrada is on the P2,000-bill but these limited-edition bills, while legal tender, are best kept for numismatic collectors and are probably worth more than their face value.
Looking at the “ube” ice cream colored Roxas bill recently, I remembered the controversy it sparked when it was first issued. Rabid nationalists objected to the American Stars and Stripes on our money. Why, they argued, is a foreign flag on our currency?
It was a valid point that missed two bits of history. First, if you take the trouble to read the Declaration of Independence from Spain that our founding fathers read from the window of Emilio Aguinaldo’s home in Kawit, Cavite on June 12, 1898, you will find that the colors of our flag—red, white and blue—are mentioned. Every school child knows the symbolism for these colors: red for bravery, white for purity, and blue for peace. There seems to be nothing assigned to yellow or gold, the colors of the eight-pointed sun and the three stars. Nationalists will be disappointed to discover that according to the 1898 Declaration of Independence, the red, white and blue in our flag, our national symbol, were based on the same colors as those in the American flag! Little wonder the author of that text was never given an important office in the First Republic.
Second, if you look at the Roxas bill, there is no text to explain the context of the offensive flag. It is presumed that everyone knows that the two flags on the bill come from a significant scene in Philippine history. On July 4, 1946 when the United States recognized the independence of the Philippines, the American flag that flew over the islands for almost 50 years was finally lowered, and our flag was raised—proof that we were, finally, a free and independent nation. On that day, Emilio Aguinaldo, a living relic of the Philippine Revolution, was quoted as saying, “Isinauli lamang nila ang kalayaang ating nakamit noong 1898.” [“They only returned the freedom we had won in 1898.”]
Aguinaldo was still alive when President Diosdado Macapagal moved our Independence Day from July 4 to June 12. The Philippine-American War puts this part of our history in context.
In the San Francisco Presidio exhibit “War and Dissent” is a disturbing picture showing the use of “water cure” on a Filipino being interrogated by American soldiers. The procedure is simple: Water (salty or dirty) is forced down a prisoner’s mouth, and then when the victim’s stomach is full and bloated, someone jumps on it, forcing the water out. This is repeated until the victim spills the beans. I have read the transcripts of US congressional investigations on this and was horrified that sometimes this torture was done under medical supervision so that the victim was pushed to his limits but kept alive. Despite being a century old, this painful part of the Philippine-American War gains renewed resonance because of the use of torture in our times, in later wars.
To be fair and balanced though, there is an old photograph of small models showing the various forms and types of torture used by the Spaniards on Filipinos during their watch. Torture was used by all sides in those wars. A disgusted Apolinario Mabini denounced its use, and said it was more humane to carry out a swift execution than slow torture.
The Philippine-American War has long been swept under the rug. To study it makes us realize that history does not repeat itself. We have not progressed much in the past century. History does not move by itself, rather it is we who repeat.
What one should learn from history is not the names, dates and places better used for game shows and crossword puzzles. The real challenge is to recognize and break the historical cycle.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:40:00 11/07/2008
Whenever you see traffic policemen or enforcers lying in wait or hiding midway along a one-way street, one word comes to mind: “kotong.” One would assume that prevention should be the option rather than punishment, but then that does not generate income. If a traffic enforcer stands at the beginning of a one-way street and waves the unsuspecting or stubborn motorist the correct way, there is no need for a ticket, fine and seminar. No need for a bribe.
Erring motorists flagged down by corrupt traffic cops or deputized “alalay” [aides] used to be asked the odd question, “Sino’ng abogado mo?” [Who is your lawyer?] The clueless ask why they need a lawyer for a minor traffic infraction, so the corrupt cop then makes clear that the question is a polite way of asking for a bribe. The “lawyers” refer to various faces on the different denominations in our paper money. It is a way for the motorist to make an offer or haggle for a comfortable amount.
Remember nobody takes coins, so the heroes of the 19th century—Rizal, Mabini, Bonifacio—cannot act as “abogado.” Thus, Quezon means P20, Sergio Osmeña is worth P50, Manuel Roxas P100 and, God forbid, Aquino has a face value of P500. At today’s rate, Quezon and Osmeña will get you nothing, except a traffic ticket. Roxas might get you off the hook if you are lucky. Aquino often does the trick but, if you intend to haggle, then use Macapagal, who is worth P200. If you want a “Get out of jail” card like those in the famous board game Monopoly, you will need three “lawyers”: Abad Santos, Lim and Escoda who are on the P1,000-bill. Estrada is on the P2,000-bill but these limited-edition bills, while legal tender, are best kept for numismatic collectors and are probably worth more than their face value.
Looking at the “ube” ice cream colored Roxas bill recently, I remembered the controversy it sparked when it was first issued. Rabid nationalists objected to the American Stars and Stripes on our money. Why, they argued, is a foreign flag on our currency?
It was a valid point that missed two bits of history. First, if you take the trouble to read the Declaration of Independence from Spain that our founding fathers read from the window of Emilio Aguinaldo’s home in Kawit, Cavite on June 12, 1898, you will find that the colors of our flag—red, white and blue—are mentioned. Every school child knows the symbolism for these colors: red for bravery, white for purity, and blue for peace. There seems to be nothing assigned to yellow or gold, the colors of the eight-pointed sun and the three stars. Nationalists will be disappointed to discover that according to the 1898 Declaration of Independence, the red, white and blue in our flag, our national symbol, were based on the same colors as those in the American flag! Little wonder the author of that text was never given an important office in the First Republic.
Second, if you look at the Roxas bill, there is no text to explain the context of the offensive flag. It is presumed that everyone knows that the two flags on the bill come from a significant scene in Philippine history. On July 4, 1946 when the United States recognized the independence of the Philippines, the American flag that flew over the islands for almost 50 years was finally lowered, and our flag was raised—proof that we were, finally, a free and independent nation. On that day, Emilio Aguinaldo, a living relic of the Philippine Revolution, was quoted as saying, “Isinauli lamang nila ang kalayaang ating nakamit noong 1898.” [“They only returned the freedom we had won in 1898.”]
Aguinaldo was still alive when President Diosdado Macapagal moved our Independence Day from July 4 to June 12. The Philippine-American War puts this part of our history in context.
In the San Francisco Presidio exhibit “War and Dissent” is a disturbing picture showing the use of “water cure” on a Filipino being interrogated by American soldiers. The procedure is simple: Water (salty or dirty) is forced down a prisoner’s mouth, and then when the victim’s stomach is full and bloated, someone jumps on it, forcing the water out. This is repeated until the victim spills the beans. I have read the transcripts of US congressional investigations on this and was horrified that sometimes this torture was done under medical supervision so that the victim was pushed to his limits but kept alive. Despite being a century old, this painful part of the Philippine-American War gains renewed resonance because of the use of torture in our times, in later wars.
To be fair and balanced though, there is an old photograph of small models showing the various forms and types of torture used by the Spaniards on Filipinos during their watch. Torture was used by all sides in those wars. A disgusted Apolinario Mabini denounced its use, and said it was more humane to carry out a swift execution than slow torture.
The Philippine-American War has long been swept under the rug. To study it makes us realize that history does not repeat itself. We have not progressed much in the past century. History does not move by itself, rather it is we who repeat.
What one should learn from history is not the names, dates and places better used for game shows and crossword puzzles. The real challenge is to recognize and break the historical cycle.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
A splendid exhibit on a forgotten war
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:05:00 11/05/2008
There is a splendid exhibit going on at the Presidio of San Francisco, a former military base very much like Clark, Subic and Camp John Hay that is now undergoing conversion into a modern space for civilian use. The exhibit, “War and Dissent: The U.S. in the Philippines 1898-1915,” curated by Randolph Delehanty, PhD (Harvard), explores the little known period of our shared history that is now known as the Philippine-American War.
It is a forgotten war, not fully explained in both American and Philippine textbooks because when George Dewey and his ships blasted the floating wooden antiques that comprised the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, that battle marked the first shot in the Spanish-American War. We must remember that the US was interfering in the way Spain was running neighboring Spanish Cuba, which like the Philippines had people fighting for their independence. When the American ship Maine exploded in Havana, the accident was used as an excuse for the US to declare war against Spain. The first shot was not fired anywhere near Washington or Madrid, it was heard half the world away in Manila Bay.
After his victory in Manila Bay, Dewey held Manila hostage from the sea; he didn’t have land troops to take and occupy the city. So to keep the pressure on the Spaniards holed up in Intramuros, Emilio Aguinaldo was brought back to resume the Philippine Revolution. He was led to believe that the US, which had fought and won her independence from Britain, was helping Filipinos win theirs, too.
Aguinaldo was to be sadly disappointed. After his return to the Philippines from Hong Kong in late May 1898 on board a US vessel, he resumed the struggle for freedom. On June 12, 1898, in his home in Kawit, Cavite, the Filipinos made their declaration of independence from Spain. Dewey did not attend the party, as he had been instructed by Washington not to make any promises to the Filipinos or recognize their independence in any way.
On Aug. 13, 1898, Dewey bombarded Fort San Antonio Abad (inside the present Central Bank complex along Roxas Boulevard) and the Spaniards, in accordance with a secret agreement, surrendered to the US, not to the Philippines and the Filipinos.
In the evening of Feb. 4, 1899, a sentry named Grayson in a blockhouse in Sta. Mesa shot and killed a Filipino whose name is forever lost to history. That shot began what used to be called the “Philippine Insurrection” because it was convenient for the US not to recognize the First Philippine Republic established in Malolos earlier in the year. To refer to the “insurrection” as a war would have been tantamount to recognizing that the Philippines was already a free and independent nation.
In 1998, the Library of Congress changed its bibliographic classification and changed “Philippine Insurrection” to “Philippine-American War.” That simple change in words significantly changes the whole way in which we see our past, understand our present, and see the future.
Over two decades ago, when I first wrote about the Philippine-American War using as illustrations gory pictures of dead Filipinos in the trenches, I received hate mail branding me as “anti-American” and a “leftist” and a “communist.” Historical memory is short in the Philippines, leading someone to write, “Don’t blame the US if they don’t come back to liberate us as they did from the Japanese in 1945.”
These critics didn’t even know that I used American sources for my articles, mostly materials from the anti-imperialist league—including Mark Twain—that tried to remind Americans against the expansionist policies of Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt. These materials were sourced from the New York Public Library, but that did not stop the board of censors from banning an anti-bases documentary where I appeared on camera to provide historical context. (I have only appeared on film twice in my life and both were given an “X” rating and banned, so no producer or director has touched me since.) Fortunately, the world has become a better place, and now that such an exhibition has been made in the US, I hope we can bring it to the Philippines.
The exhibit consists mostly of text and photos, with some artifacts like captured Philippine and Spanish flags, maps, books, letters and diaries. It explores “the little known war in the Philippines from several points of view, including one American soldier’s story, the struggles of the Philippine independence movement, and the experience of the Lopez family [these are Lopezes from Batangas province, related to Rizal, not those from Iloilo province who are now associated with Manila Electric Co. and ABS-CBN Broadcasting]. Furthermore, the exhibit illustrates how US expansion was depicted in political cartoons of the period.”
Thoughtfully provided on tables are i-pods that allow visitors to hear the “voices of dissent: Mark Twain, other members of the Anti-Imperialist League, and the African-American Press.” The exhibit concludes by showing “the rise of the Presidio into a major military installation and the expansion of the US into the Caribbean and Pacific.”
If you are visiting San Francisco or have friends or relatives there, the exhibit runs until Feb. 22, 2009.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:05:00 11/05/2008
There is a splendid exhibit going on at the Presidio of San Francisco, a former military base very much like Clark, Subic and Camp John Hay that is now undergoing conversion into a modern space for civilian use. The exhibit, “War and Dissent: The U.S. in the Philippines 1898-1915,” curated by Randolph Delehanty, PhD (Harvard), explores the little known period of our shared history that is now known as the Philippine-American War.
It is a forgotten war, not fully explained in both American and Philippine textbooks because when George Dewey and his ships blasted the floating wooden antiques that comprised the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, that battle marked the first shot in the Spanish-American War. We must remember that the US was interfering in the way Spain was running neighboring Spanish Cuba, which like the Philippines had people fighting for their independence. When the American ship Maine exploded in Havana, the accident was used as an excuse for the US to declare war against Spain. The first shot was not fired anywhere near Washington or Madrid, it was heard half the world away in Manila Bay.
After his victory in Manila Bay, Dewey held Manila hostage from the sea; he didn’t have land troops to take and occupy the city. So to keep the pressure on the Spaniards holed up in Intramuros, Emilio Aguinaldo was brought back to resume the Philippine Revolution. He was led to believe that the US, which had fought and won her independence from Britain, was helping Filipinos win theirs, too.
Aguinaldo was to be sadly disappointed. After his return to the Philippines from Hong Kong in late May 1898 on board a US vessel, he resumed the struggle for freedom. On June 12, 1898, in his home in Kawit, Cavite, the Filipinos made their declaration of independence from Spain. Dewey did not attend the party, as he had been instructed by Washington not to make any promises to the Filipinos or recognize their independence in any way.
On Aug. 13, 1898, Dewey bombarded Fort San Antonio Abad (inside the present Central Bank complex along Roxas Boulevard) and the Spaniards, in accordance with a secret agreement, surrendered to the US, not to the Philippines and the Filipinos.
In the evening of Feb. 4, 1899, a sentry named Grayson in a blockhouse in Sta. Mesa shot and killed a Filipino whose name is forever lost to history. That shot began what used to be called the “Philippine Insurrection” because it was convenient for the US not to recognize the First Philippine Republic established in Malolos earlier in the year. To refer to the “insurrection” as a war would have been tantamount to recognizing that the Philippines was already a free and independent nation.
In 1998, the Library of Congress changed its bibliographic classification and changed “Philippine Insurrection” to “Philippine-American War.” That simple change in words significantly changes the whole way in which we see our past, understand our present, and see the future.
Over two decades ago, when I first wrote about the Philippine-American War using as illustrations gory pictures of dead Filipinos in the trenches, I received hate mail branding me as “anti-American” and a “leftist” and a “communist.” Historical memory is short in the Philippines, leading someone to write, “Don’t blame the US if they don’t come back to liberate us as they did from the Japanese in 1945.”
These critics didn’t even know that I used American sources for my articles, mostly materials from the anti-imperialist league—including Mark Twain—that tried to remind Americans against the expansionist policies of Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt. These materials were sourced from the New York Public Library, but that did not stop the board of censors from banning an anti-bases documentary where I appeared on camera to provide historical context. (I have only appeared on film twice in my life and both were given an “X” rating and banned, so no producer or director has touched me since.) Fortunately, the world has become a better place, and now that such an exhibition has been made in the US, I hope we can bring it to the Philippines.
The exhibit consists mostly of text and photos, with some artifacts like captured Philippine and Spanish flags, maps, books, letters and diaries. It explores “the little known war in the Philippines from several points of view, including one American soldier’s story, the struggles of the Philippine independence movement, and the experience of the Lopez family [these are Lopezes from Batangas province, related to Rizal, not those from Iloilo province who are now associated with Manila Electric Co. and ABS-CBN Broadcasting]. Furthermore, the exhibit illustrates how US expansion was depicted in political cartoons of the period.”
Thoughtfully provided on tables are i-pods that allow visitors to hear the “voices of dissent: Mark Twain, other members of the Anti-Imperialist League, and the African-American Press.” The exhibit concludes by showing “the rise of the Presidio into a major military installation and the expansion of the US into the Caribbean and Pacific.”
If you are visiting San Francisco or have friends or relatives there, the exhibit runs until Feb. 22, 2009.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Shared history
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:24:00 10/31/2008
The main shopping district in San Francisco, California, radiates from Union Square. All the main hotels and name shops—Macy’s, Louis Vuitton, Williams-Sonoma, Baccarat, Victoria’s Secret, Goyard, etc.—can be found around it on Powell, Post, Geary and Stockton streets.
Union Square boasts of a large, and historically, the world’s first, underground parking lot. If you stroll around the square today you will see many Filipino old-timers killing time and many tourists with shopping bags resting after a spending spree.
Union Square was dedicated in 1850, and got its name from the pro-union rallies held there during the US Civil War although no trace of this history remains, except in the name of the place. Aside from coffee shops, ice cream vendors and an outlet of See’s Chocolates, one of its landmarks is a gaudy heart, popular among tourists and lovers, indicating that Union Square is the heart of San Francisco. It could also refer to the song “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
The late Bienvenido Santos wrote a novel, “What the hell for, I left my heart in San Francisco,” with his picture on the cover. Santos was photographed, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, wearing the attire of a Filipino old-timer: jacket, cap, and ancient face. This is an iconographic image captured by National Artist Bencab in a series on drifters, the most famous being “Pinoy Old-Timer in Chicago.”
What many Filipinos in San Francisco today tend to overlook is the main landmark on Union Square, a slender monument topped with a woman depicting “Victory,” which makes reference to the Philippines and Philippine-American history. The monument commemorates George Dewey’s victory in the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898.
I sat around this monument on previous visits to San Francisco but only noticed the text on its base two years ago, while waiting for friends shopping in the area. One side reads: “Erected by the Citizens of San Francisco to commemorate the victory of the American Navy under Commodore George Dewey at Manila Bay May first 1898. On May 3, 1901 the ground for this monument was broken by President William McKinley.”
The historic telegram is etched on granite on another side of the base: “Secretary of the Navy John D. Long to Commodore George Dewey April 24, 1898. War has commenced between the United States and Spain. Proceed at once to the Philippines Islands and capture or destroy the Spanish fleet.”
A short and dramatic narrative is to be found on the third side of the base: “On the night of April 30th 1898 Commodore Dewey’s Squadron entered Manila Bay and undaunted by the danger of submerged explosives reached Manila at dawn of May first 1898. Attacked and destroyed the Spanish fleet of ten warships. Reduced the forts and held the city in subjection until the arrival of troops from America.”
Finally, there is a list of the names of the US ships that saw action in the Philippines: “American Squadron Manila Bay, Olympia (flagship), Baltimore, Raleigh, Boston, Concord, Petrel, McColloch. On May 14, 1903 this monument was dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt.”
Textbook history teaches us that the Battle of Manila Bay was one of the greatest naval victories of the United States. The destruction of the Spanish fleet by Commodore (later Admiral) George Dewey was commemorated on the bayside drive in Manila made famous by postcard pretty sunsets, one of the city’s main streets where the Embassy of the United States of America is located.
“Dewey Boulevard” has since been renamed after the post-war Philippine President Manuel Roxas, further obscuring a part of Philippine-American history. There is little left to remind Filipinos of the Philippine-American War. For example, streets in the Malate district near Manila Bay used to carry names like Kansas, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas (pronounced as written by Filipinos as AR-KAN-SAS), memorials to the US Army regiments that fought in the Philippine-American War.
If Filipino tourists take time out from shopping and visiting relatives, they will encounter a lot of common history in San Francisco. Two years ago, an old Philippine flag was found in a museum in San Francisco and it was alleged that this was the first, the original flag sewn in Hong Kong by Marcela Agoncillo and others in 1898, shortly before Emilio Aguinaldo was transported to the Philippines on an American vessel to continue and finish the Philippine revolution against Spain that began in August 1896. That flag led me to open my files again and read up not just on the flag but on the Philippine-American War.
Many of these flags were taken in battle and brought back to the United States as souvenirs or war trophies. At the Historical Institute, we have two or three donated by people who found these in their attics among their grandpas’ things. The flag found in San Francisco was an authentic flag of the period. It had flown in battle, but unfortunately it was but one of many contemporary flags, not the Mother of all Philippine flags.
San Francisco and Manila became sister cities in 1986, and it is hoped that both the American and Filipino historians from both cities can re-visit our shared history.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:24:00 10/31/2008
The main shopping district in San Francisco, California, radiates from Union Square. All the main hotels and name shops—Macy’s, Louis Vuitton, Williams-Sonoma, Baccarat, Victoria’s Secret, Goyard, etc.—can be found around it on Powell, Post, Geary and Stockton streets.
Union Square boasts of a large, and historically, the world’s first, underground parking lot. If you stroll around the square today you will see many Filipino old-timers killing time and many tourists with shopping bags resting after a spending spree.
Union Square was dedicated in 1850, and got its name from the pro-union rallies held there during the US Civil War although no trace of this history remains, except in the name of the place. Aside from coffee shops, ice cream vendors and an outlet of See’s Chocolates, one of its landmarks is a gaudy heart, popular among tourists and lovers, indicating that Union Square is the heart of San Francisco. It could also refer to the song “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
The late Bienvenido Santos wrote a novel, “What the hell for, I left my heart in San Francisco,” with his picture on the cover. Santos was photographed, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, wearing the attire of a Filipino old-timer: jacket, cap, and ancient face. This is an iconographic image captured by National Artist Bencab in a series on drifters, the most famous being “Pinoy Old-Timer in Chicago.”
What many Filipinos in San Francisco today tend to overlook is the main landmark on Union Square, a slender monument topped with a woman depicting “Victory,” which makes reference to the Philippines and Philippine-American history. The monument commemorates George Dewey’s victory in the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898.
I sat around this monument on previous visits to San Francisco but only noticed the text on its base two years ago, while waiting for friends shopping in the area. One side reads: “Erected by the Citizens of San Francisco to commemorate the victory of the American Navy under Commodore George Dewey at Manila Bay May first 1898. On May 3, 1901 the ground for this monument was broken by President William McKinley.”
The historic telegram is etched on granite on another side of the base: “Secretary of the Navy John D. Long to Commodore George Dewey April 24, 1898. War has commenced between the United States and Spain. Proceed at once to the Philippines Islands and capture or destroy the Spanish fleet.”
A short and dramatic narrative is to be found on the third side of the base: “On the night of April 30th 1898 Commodore Dewey’s Squadron entered Manila Bay and undaunted by the danger of submerged explosives reached Manila at dawn of May first 1898. Attacked and destroyed the Spanish fleet of ten warships. Reduced the forts and held the city in subjection until the arrival of troops from America.”
Finally, there is a list of the names of the US ships that saw action in the Philippines: “American Squadron Manila Bay, Olympia (flagship), Baltimore, Raleigh, Boston, Concord, Petrel, McColloch. On May 14, 1903 this monument was dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt.”
Textbook history teaches us that the Battle of Manila Bay was one of the greatest naval victories of the United States. The destruction of the Spanish fleet by Commodore (later Admiral) George Dewey was commemorated on the bayside drive in Manila made famous by postcard pretty sunsets, one of the city’s main streets where the Embassy of the United States of America is located.
“Dewey Boulevard” has since been renamed after the post-war Philippine President Manuel Roxas, further obscuring a part of Philippine-American history. There is little left to remind Filipinos of the Philippine-American War. For example, streets in the Malate district near Manila Bay used to carry names like Kansas, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas (pronounced as written by Filipinos as AR-KAN-SAS), memorials to the US Army regiments that fought in the Philippine-American War.
If Filipino tourists take time out from shopping and visiting relatives, they will encounter a lot of common history in San Francisco. Two years ago, an old Philippine flag was found in a museum in San Francisco and it was alleged that this was the first, the original flag sewn in Hong Kong by Marcela Agoncillo and others in 1898, shortly before Emilio Aguinaldo was transported to the Philippines on an American vessel to continue and finish the Philippine revolution against Spain that began in August 1896. That flag led me to open my files again and read up not just on the flag but on the Philippine-American War.
Many of these flags were taken in battle and brought back to the United States as souvenirs or war trophies. At the Historical Institute, we have two or three donated by people who found these in their attics among their grandpas’ things. The flag found in San Francisco was an authentic flag of the period. It had flown in battle, but unfortunately it was but one of many contemporary flags, not the Mother of all Philippine flags.
San Francisco and Manila became sister cities in 1986, and it is hoped that both the American and Filipino historians from both cities can re-visit our shared history.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Problems with names
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:38:00 10/29/2008
Most Read
There is a website that deals with names. My name generated this useless information: First, “42% of the letters are vowels. Of one million first and last names we looked at, 22.8% have a higher vowel makeup. This means you are well envoweled.” Second, “In ASCII binary it is... 01000001 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110100 01101000 00100000 01001111 01100011 01100001 01101101 01110000 01101111.” Third, “Backwards, it is Htebma Opmaco.” Fourth, “in Pig Latin, it is Ambethway Ocampoway.” Fifth, “People with this first name are probably: Male or female...We don’t know yet. We’re working on it!” Sixth, there was nothing on word or name origins. Seventh, my personal power animal is a “Giant Weta” (whatever that is). Eighth, “Your ‘Numerology’ number is 4. If it wasn’t bulls**t, it would mean that you are practical, tenacious, traditional, and serious. You are well organised and have a strong work ethic.” Ninth, “According to the US Census Bureau, fewer than 0.001% of US residents have the first name ‘Ambeth’ and 0.0072% have the surname ‘Ocampo’. The US has around 300 million residents, so we guesstimate there is only 1 American who goes by the name Ambeth Ocampo.”
Further surfing revealed that: I share the name “Ambeth” with an Indian Member of Parliament, Shri Ambeth Rajan. There is an Ambeth Street in Farmington, Michigan, USA. There is a tour guide in Intramuros who doesn’t know me or my work and probably copied his spiel from Carlos Celdran. There are a number of Filipinos, both male and female, with the same nickname, and on YouTube there is a plump woman in shorts named “Ambeth” who dances seductively. (You can spend hours on the Net on sites infinitely more engaging than porn.)
After four columns on names, naming, and pseudonyms in Philippine life, this will be the last for a while.
Today I share an email response. From Rudy Coronel: “Indeed, ‘Names can be fun’ (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 10/24/08)! Your column suddenly resurrects this once-upon-a-time related experience of mine. It was our town fiesta, and there was to be a Mass baptism in our parish. My first-born, Rubelyn (I coined it from my and my wife Belen’s names) was among the ‘newborns’ awaiting the occasion. Inside the church, the priest first assembled us—parents, children and sponsors—side by side into a semi-circle, then one by one asked each child’s name prior to conducting the simultaneous ritual. On hearing my daughter’s name, the Among remarked with unconcealed insult: ‘Oh, you people are really fond of unChristian names. Call her Maria Rubelyn!’ We meekly said, ‘Amen!’ When the father next to me was asked his child’s name, his immediate reply was: ‘Tigre po, Padre!’ [‘Tiger, Father!] That all the more provoked the clergyman’s temper, as he retorted: ‘Bakit, hayop ba yang anak mo?’ [‘Why, is your child an animal?’] To which the unperturbed father answered: ‘Gusto ko lang pong lumaki siyang matapang, Padre! Paris din marahil noong isang ama na nauna ninyong tinanong at sa naging tugong Leon po, Padre, ay ‘di kumibo. [‘I want him to grow up brave, Father! It’s like the way the father you asked and you said nothing when he replied, Leon, Father.’]
“Well, whatever else happened next in the church is beside the point. The point is, what can you say about such commonplace stupidity of some priests as I have related? I couldn’t care less about the Tigre or Leon thing! The sad thing is many, many years thereafter, my daughter, who had since adopted Maria Rubelyn in all the schools she attended, was denied a passport when she applied for one, because the name in her original birth registration was only Rubelyn. In hindsight, I should have probably gone back to the civil registrar after my daughter’s baptism to have her registered name amended to include the additional name given by the priest. But could the civil registrar, in those days, just do that without a court order? Besides, to be honest, which father could be so intelligent and exceptionally farsighted as to have thought of that, if he were in my shoes.
“At any rate, thanks to a so-called Angara Law (I haven’t yet read it), my daughter’s problem was solved. According to a lawyer-friend of mine, that law allows simple changes in one’s name in the Civil Register without court action. But here’s the rub! In our midst and times, when everybody wants to go abroad and direly needs a passport, and given the countless other people who had once been a ‘victim’ of the Church in the same way I was, it is unfortunate that most civil registrars have been making a killing out of the situation by charging exorbitantly prohibitive fees for quite a very simple clerical process. Maybe, the true objective of the law along this light needs to be revisited.”
Frankly, I am seriously considering going to court to change my awful baptismal name (it’s not Ambrosio) into my professional name. I wouldn’t be surprised if my NSO certificate will yield another name. My mother was close to 70 when she had to get an NSO certificate for a passport application. All her life she was known as “Belen” but her civil registry read “Valeriano.” If you think getting a man’s name was bad enough, Valeriana was the name of her wicked stepmother! My mother assumed that when the priest or civil registrar asked for the name of the child, the stepmom, who was hard of hearing, gave her own name. Then, the clerk, also hard of hearing or stupid, or both wrote down “Valeriano.” I know of similar cases but will not mention them here to protect the innocent.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:38:00 10/29/2008
Most Read
There is a website that deals with names. My name generated this useless information: First, “42% of the letters are vowels. Of one million first and last names we looked at, 22.8% have a higher vowel makeup. This means you are well envoweled.” Second, “In ASCII binary it is... 01000001 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110100 01101000 00100000 01001111 01100011 01100001 01101101 01110000 01101111.” Third, “Backwards, it is Htebma Opmaco.” Fourth, “in Pig Latin, it is Ambethway Ocampoway.” Fifth, “People with this first name are probably: Male or female...We don’t know yet. We’re working on it!” Sixth, there was nothing on word or name origins. Seventh, my personal power animal is a “Giant Weta” (whatever that is). Eighth, “Your ‘Numerology’ number is 4. If it wasn’t bulls**t, it would mean that you are practical, tenacious, traditional, and serious. You are well organised and have a strong work ethic.” Ninth, “According to the US Census Bureau, fewer than 0.001% of US residents have the first name ‘Ambeth’ and 0.0072% have the surname ‘Ocampo’. The US has around 300 million residents, so we guesstimate there is only 1 American who goes by the name Ambeth Ocampo.”
Further surfing revealed that: I share the name “Ambeth” with an Indian Member of Parliament, Shri Ambeth Rajan. There is an Ambeth Street in Farmington, Michigan, USA. There is a tour guide in Intramuros who doesn’t know me or my work and probably copied his spiel from Carlos Celdran. There are a number of Filipinos, both male and female, with the same nickname, and on YouTube there is a plump woman in shorts named “Ambeth” who dances seductively. (You can spend hours on the Net on sites infinitely more engaging than porn.)
After four columns on names, naming, and pseudonyms in Philippine life, this will be the last for a while.
Today I share an email response. From Rudy Coronel: “Indeed, ‘Names can be fun’ (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 10/24/08)! Your column suddenly resurrects this once-upon-a-time related experience of mine. It was our town fiesta, and there was to be a Mass baptism in our parish. My first-born, Rubelyn (I coined it from my and my wife Belen’s names) was among the ‘newborns’ awaiting the occasion. Inside the church, the priest first assembled us—parents, children and sponsors—side by side into a semi-circle, then one by one asked each child’s name prior to conducting the simultaneous ritual. On hearing my daughter’s name, the Among remarked with unconcealed insult: ‘Oh, you people are really fond of unChristian names. Call her Maria Rubelyn!’ We meekly said, ‘Amen!’ When the father next to me was asked his child’s name, his immediate reply was: ‘Tigre po, Padre!’ [‘Tiger, Father!] That all the more provoked the clergyman’s temper, as he retorted: ‘Bakit, hayop ba yang anak mo?’ [‘Why, is your child an animal?’] To which the unperturbed father answered: ‘Gusto ko lang pong lumaki siyang matapang, Padre! Paris din marahil noong isang ama na nauna ninyong tinanong at sa naging tugong Leon po, Padre, ay ‘di kumibo. [‘I want him to grow up brave, Father! It’s like the way the father you asked and you said nothing when he replied, Leon, Father.’]
“Well, whatever else happened next in the church is beside the point. The point is, what can you say about such commonplace stupidity of some priests as I have related? I couldn’t care less about the Tigre or Leon thing! The sad thing is many, many years thereafter, my daughter, who had since adopted Maria Rubelyn in all the schools she attended, was denied a passport when she applied for one, because the name in her original birth registration was only Rubelyn. In hindsight, I should have probably gone back to the civil registrar after my daughter’s baptism to have her registered name amended to include the additional name given by the priest. But could the civil registrar, in those days, just do that without a court order? Besides, to be honest, which father could be so intelligent and exceptionally farsighted as to have thought of that, if he were in my shoes.
“At any rate, thanks to a so-called Angara Law (I haven’t yet read it), my daughter’s problem was solved. According to a lawyer-friend of mine, that law allows simple changes in one’s name in the Civil Register without court action. But here’s the rub! In our midst and times, when everybody wants to go abroad and direly needs a passport, and given the countless other people who had once been a ‘victim’ of the Church in the same way I was, it is unfortunate that most civil registrars have been making a killing out of the situation by charging exorbitantly prohibitive fees for quite a very simple clerical process. Maybe, the true objective of the law along this light needs to be revisited.”
Frankly, I am seriously considering going to court to change my awful baptismal name (it’s not Ambrosio) into my professional name. I wouldn’t be surprised if my NSO certificate will yield another name. My mother was close to 70 when she had to get an NSO certificate for a passport application. All her life she was known as “Belen” but her civil registry read “Valeriano.” If you think getting a man’s name was bad enough, Valeriana was the name of her wicked stepmother! My mother assumed that when the priest or civil registrar asked for the name of the child, the stepmom, who was hard of hearing, gave her own name. Then, the clerk, also hard of hearing or stupid, or both wrote down “Valeriano.” I know of similar cases but will not mention them here to protect the innocent.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Names can be fun
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:29:00 10/24/2008
MANILA, Philippines—When Juan Luna’s second child, a daughter, was born, he asked his friend Jose Rizal to be one of the godfathers. Asked to propose a name for the infant, Rizal replied that it would be appropriate to call her Maria de la Paz, in honor of the Blessed Virgin and of course the mother Paz (whose nickname was “Chiching”). Perhaps every relative or godparent who had a say in the naming of the child was accommodated because her full baptismal name was Maria de la Paz Blanca Laureana Herminigilda Luna y Pardo de Tavera. The poor child must have had difficulty writing her entire name on quiz papers and so she was called “Bibi” (I think that’s their version of “Baby”) for short. (Reading the wedding and baptismal notices in our parish reveals that complicated compound names are making a comeback.)
My own unfortunate experience is to be named after my paternal grandmother and my father. My mother always got a kick out of my baptismal name, not knowing how much I hated it and that I never used it. Since I am publicly known under my pen name “Ambeth” (guess where that came from), I’m seriously considering going to court to have my name changed. The only problem is my superstitious belief that St. Peter won’t find my nickname in his register when I turn up at the gates of Heaven, and if I go to the hot place where all the fun people are, it might be better not to be in the devil’s books either.
Nobody believes me when I tell them how a Mass card created a stir during my grandfather’s wake. In true Kapampangan fashion, my overweight aunts were all in black and wailed every time someone approached the coffin and asked for yet another narration of my grandfather’s long illness and peaceful death. Late one afternoon instead of playing mahjong, my aunts decided to open and list down all the Mass cards and wreaths received. An aunt shrieked and started to laugh. The Mass card was passed and was met with laughter every time. When it reached me, I saw why: It had been sent by a certain Circumcision Garcia. She was a contemporary of my grandfather and was known by her nickname, “Apung Tuli.”
Obviously, her unimaginative parents picked her name from a Catholic calendar. You still see these in kitchens (it is often in blue and red and contains the phases of the moon). On each date you will find two names of Catholic saints whose feasts are celebrated on that day. The names are often in the Spanish form and can be made feminine or masculine by changing the last letter, hence: Mario/Maria; Jose/Josefa; Jesus/Jesusa; Dionisio/Dionisia; Gregorio/Gregoria and so on. You will also notice some obscure and wonderful names like Walburga, Epictetus, Expedita and Gorgonio.
“Apung Tuli” was born on Jan. 1, which was not marked as New Year’s Day in the old Church calendar but commemorated as the Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord. One old abbot claimed he used to receive every New Year’s Day from a convent of nuns a greeting card that said, “Happy Circumcision Day!” Of course, in our more politically correct and gender-sensitive day, the Feast of the Circumcision has been changed to the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God.
Can you imagine all the fun and hilarity that these calendars can give us? They also make us rethink some names that are not really names: Asuncion (Feast of the Assumption, Aug. 15); Concepcion (Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8); Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows); Nieves (Our Lady of the Snows). Guadalupe and Lourdes are place names, the sites of Marian apparitions.
If you find the kitchen calendar too limiting, you can get names from TV, movies, radio, even the Internet. In bookstores, you can find pocket-sized books that provide “5,000 names for baby.” If you are into Filipiniana, you can understand why some people are called Rizal or Mabini or Luzviminda (Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao), Filamer (Filipino-American) or Marcial (martial law) or even Edsa. There are political figures with quaint names like Jejomar Binay (Jesus, Jose and Maria, which tells us why old people used to exclaim, “Susmariosep!”) or Heherson Alvarez (He, Her and Son).
Such can be analyzed from real names, so why bother with pseudonyms?
But to end this series, here are a few more from the University of the Philippines’ list of pseudonyms, with my own additions: Nick Joaquin signed some of his works “Quijano de Manila.” Jose Garcia Villa was “Doveglion” or signed his first name in Russian characters as “Xoce.” The most popular National Artist for the Visual Arts, Benedicto Cabrera, is simply “Bencab,” and some stupid folks don’t take the trouble to check and simply proceed to print his name in promotional literature as “Benjamin” Cabrera.
I don’t know who Julio Blanca is and why he chose to become “El Diablo Negro” (black devil), in contrast to Carlos Omana who was “El Diablo Rojo” (red devil as in the Tabasco sauce).
Some took names from nature: Ariston Villanueva took the flower “Kampupot” while the revolutionary Mariano Trias was “Labong” and Briccio Pantas “Bungahan.” I forgot who it was in Philippine history who chose the name “Platano” (banana).
If one is curious one can find delight in simple things like names. If you are a constipated academic, you squeeze the life from learning by focusing on theoretical frameworks and other boring stuff.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:29:00 10/24/2008
MANILA, Philippines—When Juan Luna’s second child, a daughter, was born, he asked his friend Jose Rizal to be one of the godfathers. Asked to propose a name for the infant, Rizal replied that it would be appropriate to call her Maria de la Paz, in honor of the Blessed Virgin and of course the mother Paz (whose nickname was “Chiching”). Perhaps every relative or godparent who had a say in the naming of the child was accommodated because her full baptismal name was Maria de la Paz Blanca Laureana Herminigilda Luna y Pardo de Tavera. The poor child must have had difficulty writing her entire name on quiz papers and so she was called “Bibi” (I think that’s their version of “Baby”) for short. (Reading the wedding and baptismal notices in our parish reveals that complicated compound names are making a comeback.)
My own unfortunate experience is to be named after my paternal grandmother and my father. My mother always got a kick out of my baptismal name, not knowing how much I hated it and that I never used it. Since I am publicly known under my pen name “Ambeth” (guess where that came from), I’m seriously considering going to court to have my name changed. The only problem is my superstitious belief that St. Peter won’t find my nickname in his register when I turn up at the gates of Heaven, and if I go to the hot place where all the fun people are, it might be better not to be in the devil’s books either.
Nobody believes me when I tell them how a Mass card created a stir during my grandfather’s wake. In true Kapampangan fashion, my overweight aunts were all in black and wailed every time someone approached the coffin and asked for yet another narration of my grandfather’s long illness and peaceful death. Late one afternoon instead of playing mahjong, my aunts decided to open and list down all the Mass cards and wreaths received. An aunt shrieked and started to laugh. The Mass card was passed and was met with laughter every time. When it reached me, I saw why: It had been sent by a certain Circumcision Garcia. She was a contemporary of my grandfather and was known by her nickname, “Apung Tuli.”
Obviously, her unimaginative parents picked her name from a Catholic calendar. You still see these in kitchens (it is often in blue and red and contains the phases of the moon). On each date you will find two names of Catholic saints whose feasts are celebrated on that day. The names are often in the Spanish form and can be made feminine or masculine by changing the last letter, hence: Mario/Maria; Jose/Josefa; Jesus/Jesusa; Dionisio/Dionisia; Gregorio/Gregoria and so on. You will also notice some obscure and wonderful names like Walburga, Epictetus, Expedita and Gorgonio.
“Apung Tuli” was born on Jan. 1, which was not marked as New Year’s Day in the old Church calendar but commemorated as the Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord. One old abbot claimed he used to receive every New Year’s Day from a convent of nuns a greeting card that said, “Happy Circumcision Day!” Of course, in our more politically correct and gender-sensitive day, the Feast of the Circumcision has been changed to the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God.
Can you imagine all the fun and hilarity that these calendars can give us? They also make us rethink some names that are not really names: Asuncion (Feast of the Assumption, Aug. 15); Concepcion (Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8); Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows); Nieves (Our Lady of the Snows). Guadalupe and Lourdes are place names, the sites of Marian apparitions.
If you find the kitchen calendar too limiting, you can get names from TV, movies, radio, even the Internet. In bookstores, you can find pocket-sized books that provide “5,000 names for baby.” If you are into Filipiniana, you can understand why some people are called Rizal or Mabini or Luzviminda (Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao), Filamer (Filipino-American) or Marcial (martial law) or even Edsa. There are political figures with quaint names like Jejomar Binay (Jesus, Jose and Maria, which tells us why old people used to exclaim, “Susmariosep!”) or Heherson Alvarez (He, Her and Son).
Such can be analyzed from real names, so why bother with pseudonyms?
But to end this series, here are a few more from the University of the Philippines’ list of pseudonyms, with my own additions: Nick Joaquin signed some of his works “Quijano de Manila.” Jose Garcia Villa was “Doveglion” or signed his first name in Russian characters as “Xoce.” The most popular National Artist for the Visual Arts, Benedicto Cabrera, is simply “Bencab,” and some stupid folks don’t take the trouble to check and simply proceed to print his name in promotional literature as “Benjamin” Cabrera.
I don’t know who Julio Blanca is and why he chose to become “El Diablo Negro” (black devil), in contrast to Carlos Omana who was “El Diablo Rojo” (red devil as in the Tabasco sauce).
Some took names from nature: Ariston Villanueva took the flower “Kampupot” while the revolutionary Mariano Trias was “Labong” and Briccio Pantas “Bungahan.” I forgot who it was in Philippine history who chose the name “Platano” (banana).
If one is curious one can find delight in simple things like names. If you are a constipated academic, you squeeze the life from learning by focusing on theoretical frameworks and other boring stuff.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
What’s in a pen name?
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:23:00 10/22/2008
Most Read
After the semestral school break, I should really take the time to return to the University of the Philippines Main Library in Diliman, Quezon City, to take notes on the rest of the pseudonyms listed on those yellowing pieces of newsprint in that forgotten drawer of useless information. The list is only useful to literary historians, and I do wonder who was the strange bird who compiled all this data and for what purpose? Has the research been discontinued or is there someone still compiling pseudonyms, nicknames and pen names, bringing everything (e.g., “Jose Velarde” and “Garci”) up to date?
In recent political history, one only has to look at media to see how airtime and column inches were saved by compressing: Corazon C. Aquino into “Cory” and Joseph Ejercito Estrada into “Erap.” Fidel Valdez Ramos is “Eddie” to friends, “Tabako” to those fixated on the unlit personalized cigars he would chew on, and “FVR” to the media. It is also significant that Cory and Erap were referred to in the familiar, while others were known by their initials. One oddity though was that while Ferdinand Marcos was referred to as “FM,” his wife Imelda was never referred to as “IRM,” the initials in her personalized license plates; rather she was simply “FL,” for “First Lady,” in the same way that Jose Miguel Arroyo, the current First Gentleman, is referred to as “FG.” President Estrada’s spouse was simply “Loi,” and Ramos’ spouse was just “Ming.” I will leave the political analysis on names and naming to Randy David and the anthropological analysis to Mike Tan, but someone should really look into all this someday because it may reveal something about us as a people.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is definitely a mouthful, so this has been shortened to “GMA.” Unfortunately, those initials can also stand for “Greater Manila Area,” long before Marcos-era technocrats coined the word Metropolitan or Metro Manila. GMA, depending on the context, can either mean the President or it can be mistaken as the television network GMA7. To avoid this confusion and instill some respect in government, employees (who should not address the President in the first person) have transformed “GMA” into the formal “PGMA” (for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo). The added “P” is for the dullards who don’t know or don’t recognize her as president.
With regard to signatures, those familiar with documents emanating from Malacañang know that the President usually signs important papers with her full name. There are some documents signed only with her married name—“Gloria Arroyo”—and, if in a hurry, with the simple initial “Gma.” (Note the distinct capital “G” and the lower case for the surnames.) In rare moments, the President make a letter more personal with the familiar “Gloria.” Naturally, no document signed by the President is official and binding unless it is attested to and countersigned by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, with his now familiar scrawl under the words “By the President.” This may partly explain why executive secretaries—from Jorge Vargas under Manuel Quezon to Ermita under Arroyo—are referred to as the “Little President.” All these are small details, trivial to most, but they must be significant in some way.
Going back to the University of the Philippines’ list of pseudonyms — Jesus Balmori, a writer and poet in Spanish, used the pseudonym “Baticuling,” a type of wood; Jose Corazon de Jesus was either “Bato,” “Batute,” or “Huseng Batute”; Antonio Luna, who was of Ilocano ancestry but was born in Binondo, Manila, close to the Pasig River, used “Taga-ilog,” which, when further contracted, becomes “Tagalog.”
Others played on their initials, like the bibliographer Gabriel A. Bernardo who was simply “B.A.G,” “Gab” or “Bargeli Barderon.” Claro M. Recto was a poet before he became a senator, nationalist icon, and street name, so he signed himself “Clovis Ronsard.” Kapampangan playright Juan Crisostomo Soto was simply “Crissot,” and his plays became a genre known in literature as “Crissotan.”
Some writers actually make the trouble to make allusions to earlier and greater literature hence the poet Cecilio Apostol used “Catulo,” “Calipso” and “Calypso.” Felipe Calderon took names from Rizal’s novels and signed as “Simoun” or “Elias.” Marcelo H. del Pilar had a number of names: “Carmelo,” “O. Crame,” “D.M. Calero,” “Hilario,” “Kupang,” and “M. Dati.” Jose Ma. Sison is now known as “Amado Guerrero,” the byline appearing in the book “Philippine Society and Revolution.” I asked him to autograph my little red book, and he signed it “Jose Ma. Sison” — with a star as a flourish at the end. I asked why he chose the pseudonym Amado Guerrero, and he chuckled: “It means ‘Beloved Warrior.’” He then added that he was not as conceited as someone else in the movement who used the name “Salvador del Mundo” (Savior of the World).
Come to think of it, the hard-hitting prewar newspaper columnist Amando Dayrit used the pseudonym “Cyclops,” which could mean the monster in Greek mythology or that he was the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.
Virgilio S. Almario is the name used by the dean of the University of the Philippines College of Arts and Letters when he signs official papers, but when the muse takes hold of his pen he becomes “Rio Alma” (River Soul).
What possessed Diosdado Macapagal, the Philippine president who was a poet earlier in life, to take the name “Dandelion”?
What is in a pen name or pseudonym? A lot.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:23:00 10/22/2008
Most Read
After the semestral school break, I should really take the time to return to the University of the Philippines Main Library in Diliman, Quezon City, to take notes on the rest of the pseudonyms listed on those yellowing pieces of newsprint in that forgotten drawer of useless information. The list is only useful to literary historians, and I do wonder who was the strange bird who compiled all this data and for what purpose? Has the research been discontinued or is there someone still compiling pseudonyms, nicknames and pen names, bringing everything (e.g., “Jose Velarde” and “Garci”) up to date?
In recent political history, one only has to look at media to see how airtime and column inches were saved by compressing: Corazon C. Aquino into “Cory” and Joseph Ejercito Estrada into “Erap.” Fidel Valdez Ramos is “Eddie” to friends, “Tabako” to those fixated on the unlit personalized cigars he would chew on, and “FVR” to the media. It is also significant that Cory and Erap were referred to in the familiar, while others were known by their initials. One oddity though was that while Ferdinand Marcos was referred to as “FM,” his wife Imelda was never referred to as “IRM,” the initials in her personalized license plates; rather she was simply “FL,” for “First Lady,” in the same way that Jose Miguel Arroyo, the current First Gentleman, is referred to as “FG.” President Estrada’s spouse was simply “Loi,” and Ramos’ spouse was just “Ming.” I will leave the political analysis on names and naming to Randy David and the anthropological analysis to Mike Tan, but someone should really look into all this someday because it may reveal something about us as a people.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is definitely a mouthful, so this has been shortened to “GMA.” Unfortunately, those initials can also stand for “Greater Manila Area,” long before Marcos-era technocrats coined the word Metropolitan or Metro Manila. GMA, depending on the context, can either mean the President or it can be mistaken as the television network GMA7. To avoid this confusion and instill some respect in government, employees (who should not address the President in the first person) have transformed “GMA” into the formal “PGMA” (for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo). The added “P” is for the dullards who don’t know or don’t recognize her as president.
With regard to signatures, those familiar with documents emanating from Malacañang know that the President usually signs important papers with her full name. There are some documents signed only with her married name—“Gloria Arroyo”—and, if in a hurry, with the simple initial “Gma.” (Note the distinct capital “G” and the lower case for the surnames.) In rare moments, the President make a letter more personal with the familiar “Gloria.” Naturally, no document signed by the President is official and binding unless it is attested to and countersigned by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, with his now familiar scrawl under the words “By the President.” This may partly explain why executive secretaries—from Jorge Vargas under Manuel Quezon to Ermita under Arroyo—are referred to as the “Little President.” All these are small details, trivial to most, but they must be significant in some way.
Going back to the University of the Philippines’ list of pseudonyms — Jesus Balmori, a writer and poet in Spanish, used the pseudonym “Baticuling,” a type of wood; Jose Corazon de Jesus was either “Bato,” “Batute,” or “Huseng Batute”; Antonio Luna, who was of Ilocano ancestry but was born in Binondo, Manila, close to the Pasig River, used “Taga-ilog,” which, when further contracted, becomes “Tagalog.”
Others played on their initials, like the bibliographer Gabriel A. Bernardo who was simply “B.A.G,” “Gab” or “Bargeli Barderon.” Claro M. Recto was a poet before he became a senator, nationalist icon, and street name, so he signed himself “Clovis Ronsard.” Kapampangan playright Juan Crisostomo Soto was simply “Crissot,” and his plays became a genre known in literature as “Crissotan.”
Some writers actually make the trouble to make allusions to earlier and greater literature hence the poet Cecilio Apostol used “Catulo,” “Calipso” and “Calypso.” Felipe Calderon took names from Rizal’s novels and signed as “Simoun” or “Elias.” Marcelo H. del Pilar had a number of names: “Carmelo,” “O. Crame,” “D.M. Calero,” “Hilario,” “Kupang,” and “M. Dati.” Jose Ma. Sison is now known as “Amado Guerrero,” the byline appearing in the book “Philippine Society and Revolution.” I asked him to autograph my little red book, and he signed it “Jose Ma. Sison” — with a star as a flourish at the end. I asked why he chose the pseudonym Amado Guerrero, and he chuckled: “It means ‘Beloved Warrior.’” He then added that he was not as conceited as someone else in the movement who used the name “Salvador del Mundo” (Savior of the World).
Come to think of it, the hard-hitting prewar newspaper columnist Amando Dayrit used the pseudonym “Cyclops,” which could mean the monster in Greek mythology or that he was the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.
Virgilio S. Almario is the name used by the dean of the University of the Philippines College of Arts and Letters when he signs official papers, but when the muse takes hold of his pen he becomes “Rio Alma” (River Soul).
What possessed Diosdado Macapagal, the Philippine president who was a poet earlier in life, to take the name “Dandelion”?
What is in a pen name or pseudonym? A lot.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Aliases
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:53:00 10/17/2008
MANILA, Philippines—“Jurassic” is a word I never imagined would apply to me, until my students brought home the point. Three years ago I came to class, as I had been doing for many years, to give what has since been known on campus as “The Great Ambeth Ocampo Slideshow.” This was my introduction to the course on Jose Rizal, made lively by my collection of photographs showing the development of the National Hero from age 12 to the time he was shot at 35 years, six months, 10 days, seven hours and five minutes. I had been using positives and a slide projector. I think for many of the students this was part of the experience. As I was setting up the equipment, one of the students, pointing at the projector asked, “What is that?” Then it hit me: This equipment was “cutting edge” two decades earlier. But in the age of PowerPoint and Keynote for the Mac, the “Great Ambeth Ocampo Slideshow” was quaint.
To compare pictures, I would sometimes run two machines on two screens, and that used to be impressive. In the computer age, however, it was definitely antiquarian.
So I stepped into the 21st century like everyone else, and the experience of the clicking sound and the ventilator of the slide machine is no more.
Another thing my students find strange are research assignments that require a trip to the library. You can actually hear a collective groan when this is announced, and voices from the back of the room ask, “Aren’t those materials available on the Net?” When I explain that not all things are available online and that a trip to the library is part of university life, someone stands up and asks, “You mean to say, you want us to handle a physical book?”
This sharp remark made me feel 200 years old. Looking back on my days in college, we did have to visit the library and go through those 3 x 5 cards in narra drawers called a “card catalogue.” Today students can open the catalogue of almost any major library in the universe online. To borrow a book, I had to write down call numbers and accession numbers on a library card, sign my name on yet another card found in a sleeve on the back cover of the book. The end of the process was when the librarian stamped the due date on the book and the library card.
Today you can check out a book without a librarian. All you need to do is scan your university ID and barcodes on the books, just as a “tindera” [vendor] checks out groceries in a supermarket. I wonder what became of all those narra card catalogues. What I regret though was not collecting the cards with signatures in the backs of books. Fellow teacher Danton Remoto once told me to gather these from the Ateneo de Manila University’s Rizal Library because I would actually find autographs of famous borrowers: Horacio de la Costa, Fernando Zobel, Doreen G. Fernandez, Rolando Tinio, Alfredo Navarro Salanga, Bienvenido Lumbera, etc. The University of the Philippines (UP) Main Library in Diliman, Quezon City, would have been another source of famous autographs.
The Internet is really a wonderful research tool, and I cannot imagine scholarly life without it. But there is still a thrill to handling physical books, there is still excitement going through the stacks and finding a book that one did not expect to find. Just recently I was in the UP Main Library and I saw that they still maintained a card catalogue in some forgotten corner of the reference section. Out of pure nostalgia, I hurried there to handle old and grimy cards and was surprised that it contained a list of periodical materials indexed by author and subject. Then there was one drawer that had an alphabetical listing of pseudonyms. This was not on the Online Public Access Catalogue, or OPAC. The pen names were not even written on cards but on slips of scratch paper. I spent an hour going through these, and here are some of my findings:
I always knew Rizal used the pseudonyms Dimasalang (that’s Tagalog for Touch me not), Laong Laan (Ever-prepared) and even Calambeño. But this list said Rizal also used AGNO. Faustino Aguilar was SINAG-INA. Novelist Valeriano Hernandez Peña had many names: Ahas na Tulog, Anong, Damulag, Dating Alba, Isang Dukha, Kalampag and Kintin Kulirat. Antonio K. Abad was Akasia. Pedro de Govantes de Azcarraga was Conde de Albay. Luis Taruc used Alipato, which means “spark that spreads a fire.” One of Rizal’s pet dogs was also called Alipato.
Aurelio Alvero was better known as Magtanggul Asa. Macario Adriatico (1869-1919) for whom Adriatico Street in Malate was named used the names Amaori, C. Amabri and Felipe Malayo. Hugo Salazar was Ambut. Jose Palma (1876-1903), the poet who wrote the lyrics of our National Anthem, was also known as Ana-haw, Esteban Estebanes, Gan Hantik. Both Lope K. Santos and Pascual H. Poblete used Anak-Bayan. The former also used Doctor Lukas. Rizal’s grand niece Asuncion Lopez Bantug used “Apo ni Dimas.”
Revolutionaries had many aliases. Jesus Lava was B. Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista was Ba Basiong. Pascual Alvarez was Bagongbuhay. Moises Salvador was Araw. Andres Bonifacio played on his initials and used Agapito Bagumbayan, while his inspiring Katipunan name was Maypagasa.
Sixto Lopez was Batulaw. Apolinario Mabini was Bini. Gen. Vito Belarmino was Blind Veteran. Severino de las Alas was Di-kilala. Juan Luna was J.B. or simply Buan, a translation of his surname Luna which means moon. For writing, Emilio Jacinto used Dimas-ilaw. His Katipunan name was Pingkian.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:53:00 10/17/2008
MANILA, Philippines—“Jurassic” is a word I never imagined would apply to me, until my students brought home the point. Three years ago I came to class, as I had been doing for many years, to give what has since been known on campus as “The Great Ambeth Ocampo Slideshow.” This was my introduction to the course on Jose Rizal, made lively by my collection of photographs showing the development of the National Hero from age 12 to the time he was shot at 35 years, six months, 10 days, seven hours and five minutes. I had been using positives and a slide projector. I think for many of the students this was part of the experience. As I was setting up the equipment, one of the students, pointing at the projector asked, “What is that?” Then it hit me: This equipment was “cutting edge” two decades earlier. But in the age of PowerPoint and Keynote for the Mac, the “Great Ambeth Ocampo Slideshow” was quaint.
To compare pictures, I would sometimes run two machines on two screens, and that used to be impressive. In the computer age, however, it was definitely antiquarian.
So I stepped into the 21st century like everyone else, and the experience of the clicking sound and the ventilator of the slide machine is no more.
Another thing my students find strange are research assignments that require a trip to the library. You can actually hear a collective groan when this is announced, and voices from the back of the room ask, “Aren’t those materials available on the Net?” When I explain that not all things are available online and that a trip to the library is part of university life, someone stands up and asks, “You mean to say, you want us to handle a physical book?”
This sharp remark made me feel 200 years old. Looking back on my days in college, we did have to visit the library and go through those 3 x 5 cards in narra drawers called a “card catalogue.” Today students can open the catalogue of almost any major library in the universe online. To borrow a book, I had to write down call numbers and accession numbers on a library card, sign my name on yet another card found in a sleeve on the back cover of the book. The end of the process was when the librarian stamped the due date on the book and the library card.
Today you can check out a book without a librarian. All you need to do is scan your university ID and barcodes on the books, just as a “tindera” [vendor] checks out groceries in a supermarket. I wonder what became of all those narra card catalogues. What I regret though was not collecting the cards with signatures in the backs of books. Fellow teacher Danton Remoto once told me to gather these from the Ateneo de Manila University’s Rizal Library because I would actually find autographs of famous borrowers: Horacio de la Costa, Fernando Zobel, Doreen G. Fernandez, Rolando Tinio, Alfredo Navarro Salanga, Bienvenido Lumbera, etc. The University of the Philippines (UP) Main Library in Diliman, Quezon City, would have been another source of famous autographs.
The Internet is really a wonderful research tool, and I cannot imagine scholarly life without it. But there is still a thrill to handling physical books, there is still excitement going through the stacks and finding a book that one did not expect to find. Just recently I was in the UP Main Library and I saw that they still maintained a card catalogue in some forgotten corner of the reference section. Out of pure nostalgia, I hurried there to handle old and grimy cards and was surprised that it contained a list of periodical materials indexed by author and subject. Then there was one drawer that had an alphabetical listing of pseudonyms. This was not on the Online Public Access Catalogue, or OPAC. The pen names were not even written on cards but on slips of scratch paper. I spent an hour going through these, and here are some of my findings:
I always knew Rizal used the pseudonyms Dimasalang (that’s Tagalog for Touch me not), Laong Laan (Ever-prepared) and even Calambeño. But this list said Rizal also used AGNO. Faustino Aguilar was SINAG-INA. Novelist Valeriano Hernandez Peña had many names: Ahas na Tulog, Anong, Damulag, Dating Alba, Isang Dukha, Kalampag and Kintin Kulirat. Antonio K. Abad was Akasia. Pedro de Govantes de Azcarraga was Conde de Albay. Luis Taruc used Alipato, which means “spark that spreads a fire.” One of Rizal’s pet dogs was also called Alipato.
Aurelio Alvero was better known as Magtanggul Asa. Macario Adriatico (1869-1919) for whom Adriatico Street in Malate was named used the names Amaori, C. Amabri and Felipe Malayo. Hugo Salazar was Ambut. Jose Palma (1876-1903), the poet who wrote the lyrics of our National Anthem, was also known as Ana-haw, Esteban Estebanes, Gan Hantik. Both Lope K. Santos and Pascual H. Poblete used Anak-Bayan. The former also used Doctor Lukas. Rizal’s grand niece Asuncion Lopez Bantug used “Apo ni Dimas.”
Revolutionaries had many aliases. Jesus Lava was B. Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista was Ba Basiong. Pascual Alvarez was Bagongbuhay. Moises Salvador was Araw. Andres Bonifacio played on his initials and used Agapito Bagumbayan, while his inspiring Katipunan name was Maypagasa.
Sixto Lopez was Batulaw. Apolinario Mabini was Bini. Gen. Vito Belarmino was Blind Veteran. Severino de las Alas was Di-kilala. Juan Luna was J.B. or simply Buan, a translation of his surname Luna which means moon. For writing, Emilio Jacinto used Dimas-ilaw. His Katipunan name was Pingkian.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Seeing places with a hero’s eyes
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:09:00 10/15/2008
Ten years ago, I visited the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Medico Legal Office on Taft Avenue in Manila to seek expert opinion on an autopsy undertaken on bones excavated in Cavite province that were being passed on as the remains of Andres Bonifacio, who was executed with his brother somewhere in the Maragondon mountain range in 1897. My research was done long before forensics grew into something that attracts public interest because of the popular “C.S.I.” TV series.
Nothing came of that research because the bones disappeared before the war and have not surfaced since. I think those bones were not Bonifacio’s and they would not have withstood closer scrutiny. All we have left are photographs and an autopsy report by Dr. Sixto de los Angeles and a certain Dr. Cuajunco as leads.
I didn’t realize, until I sat beside Dr. Romel Papa on a flight to Singapore, that the NBI actually has a neuropsychiatric service that undertakes psychiatric forensics. It seems the NBI is worth a future visit because we can probably use forensic psychiatry on our heroes and history. While Papa is more engaged in drug abuse rehabilitation, he listened with interest to my research and I told him that perhaps they could help me in some historical research.
When Jose Rizal made his first trip abroad in 1882, he spent three days in Singapore on a stopover. In his diary, he wrote on his second day in Singapore: “I left the Philippines exactly one week ago today, and I’m already in a foreign country.” Today you take a plane ride for two hours and you can be in a foreign land.
Reading Rizal’s travel diaries in the context of modern air travel can be very engaging as we can compare and contrast travel in his time and ours. What is significant is that Rizal recorded this nightmare in his diary:
“I’ve had a sad and frightful dream with all the appearance of reality. I dreamed that while in Singapore, my brother had died suddenly, and I told my old mother, who was traveling with me in the same boat, about it. The dream was confirmed by Sor Catalina and then I had to return, leaving everything in this country. Why did I have that dream? I’m thinking of cabling my hometown to find out the truth, but I’m not superstitious. I left my brother strong and robust. May God will that it might not happen thus!”?
What is even more interesting is that this was not the first time Rizal had precognitive or prophetic dreams. He continued: “It is true that I had a dream once that was fulfilled. Before the examination for the first year in medicine, I dreamed that I was asked certain questions but I didn’t mind them. When the examinations came, I was asked the questions in my dream.”
When we are told in school that Rizal had very high grades and that he maintained an academic average at the top of his class, you should remember that he could foresee exam questions before he took tests. Was he lucky or cheating? Maybe he should have spent more time dreaming about lotto numbers so that the outcome would have been more useful. We know that he won second prize in lotto while he was in exile in Dapitan, which was why he was able to buy over 30 hectares of prime beach-front property there.
Perhaps we should not only look at dreams. Even in the mundane diary entries that a historian takes at face value, a forensic psychiatrist might see something else of value. When Rizal described what he saw on the second day in Singapore, was he just giving us a narrative of what he saw and experienced, or can we find deeper meanings there?
For example, he wrote: “The first that I saw were two beautiful houses of Chinese in European style, surrounded by walls and trees. I made the carriage stop in front of a Chinese building decorated with dragons and paintings. I entered. I was equipped by Goinda with some English words. With these, I entered a kind of small garden among columns and pedestals. Numerous beautiful plants and a variety of flowers, planted with symmetry and order; cages at the two extremes; in one of them were pheasants, a kind of turkey, and other birds beside; in the other, spotted deer and peacocks. I came out and got into the carriage to continue my tour.” What Rizal saw and what he ignored might mean something. What did he record in his diaries, and what did he leave out? What do this reveal? Could we find a psychological clue in Chulalalngkorn’s elephant?
Rizal wrote: “I visited also a large school for Chinese, Malays, Indians and Englishmen. It is a magnificent building and there are many students. The palace of the Rajah of Siam is also notable and has a small iron elephant and whatnot on the pedestal placed in front of the building.”
The bronze elephant was given to Singapore by Thai King Chulalangkorn in gratitude for the hospitality extended to him during his 1871 visit. The statue was moved from the place where Rizal saw it and is now in front of the Old Parliament, now known as Arts House. On my last trip to Singapore, I looked for Chulalangkorn’s elephant and finding it, I stood in front of it with the knowledge that Rizal had gazed upon it too over a century earlier.
We are lucky to have a world traveling National Hero, because when you visit a foreign country he visited, you see it with his eyes as well as your own.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:09:00 10/15/2008
Ten years ago, I visited the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Medico Legal Office on Taft Avenue in Manila to seek expert opinion on an autopsy undertaken on bones excavated in Cavite province that were being passed on as the remains of Andres Bonifacio, who was executed with his brother somewhere in the Maragondon mountain range in 1897. My research was done long before forensics grew into something that attracts public interest because of the popular “C.S.I.” TV series.
Nothing came of that research because the bones disappeared before the war and have not surfaced since. I think those bones were not Bonifacio’s and they would not have withstood closer scrutiny. All we have left are photographs and an autopsy report by Dr. Sixto de los Angeles and a certain Dr. Cuajunco as leads.
I didn’t realize, until I sat beside Dr. Romel Papa on a flight to Singapore, that the NBI actually has a neuropsychiatric service that undertakes psychiatric forensics. It seems the NBI is worth a future visit because we can probably use forensic psychiatry on our heroes and history. While Papa is more engaged in drug abuse rehabilitation, he listened with interest to my research and I told him that perhaps they could help me in some historical research.
When Jose Rizal made his first trip abroad in 1882, he spent three days in Singapore on a stopover. In his diary, he wrote on his second day in Singapore: “I left the Philippines exactly one week ago today, and I’m already in a foreign country.” Today you take a plane ride for two hours and you can be in a foreign land.
Reading Rizal’s travel diaries in the context of modern air travel can be very engaging as we can compare and contrast travel in his time and ours. What is significant is that Rizal recorded this nightmare in his diary:
“I’ve had a sad and frightful dream with all the appearance of reality. I dreamed that while in Singapore, my brother had died suddenly, and I told my old mother, who was traveling with me in the same boat, about it. The dream was confirmed by Sor Catalina and then I had to return, leaving everything in this country. Why did I have that dream? I’m thinking of cabling my hometown to find out the truth, but I’m not superstitious. I left my brother strong and robust. May God will that it might not happen thus!”?
What is even more interesting is that this was not the first time Rizal had precognitive or prophetic dreams. He continued: “It is true that I had a dream once that was fulfilled. Before the examination for the first year in medicine, I dreamed that I was asked certain questions but I didn’t mind them. When the examinations came, I was asked the questions in my dream.”
When we are told in school that Rizal had very high grades and that he maintained an academic average at the top of his class, you should remember that he could foresee exam questions before he took tests. Was he lucky or cheating? Maybe he should have spent more time dreaming about lotto numbers so that the outcome would have been more useful. We know that he won second prize in lotto while he was in exile in Dapitan, which was why he was able to buy over 30 hectares of prime beach-front property there.
Perhaps we should not only look at dreams. Even in the mundane diary entries that a historian takes at face value, a forensic psychiatrist might see something else of value. When Rizal described what he saw on the second day in Singapore, was he just giving us a narrative of what he saw and experienced, or can we find deeper meanings there?
For example, he wrote: “The first that I saw were two beautiful houses of Chinese in European style, surrounded by walls and trees. I made the carriage stop in front of a Chinese building decorated with dragons and paintings. I entered. I was equipped by Goinda with some English words. With these, I entered a kind of small garden among columns and pedestals. Numerous beautiful plants and a variety of flowers, planted with symmetry and order; cages at the two extremes; in one of them were pheasants, a kind of turkey, and other birds beside; in the other, spotted deer and peacocks. I came out and got into the carriage to continue my tour.” What Rizal saw and what he ignored might mean something. What did he record in his diaries, and what did he leave out? What do this reveal? Could we find a psychological clue in Chulalalngkorn’s elephant?
Rizal wrote: “I visited also a large school for Chinese, Malays, Indians and Englishmen. It is a magnificent building and there are many students. The palace of the Rajah of Siam is also notable and has a small iron elephant and whatnot on the pedestal placed in front of the building.”
The bronze elephant was given to Singapore by Thai King Chulalangkorn in gratitude for the hospitality extended to him during his 1871 visit. The statue was moved from the place where Rizal saw it and is now in front of the Old Parliament, now known as Arts House. On my last trip to Singapore, I looked for Chulalangkorn’s elephant and finding it, I stood in front of it with the knowledge that Rizal had gazed upon it too over a century earlier.
We are lucky to have a world traveling National Hero, because when you visit a foreign country he visited, you see it with his eyes as well as your own.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The mob of 1719
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:14:00 10/10/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Before I began my lecture on Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo at the National Museum last Saturday, I went into the Hall of the Masters of the National Gallery (the old Legislative Building) to see both Juan Luna’s “Spoliarium” and Hidalgo’s “Assassination of Governor Bustamante.” I was disappointed, because the Hidalgo painting was covered with scaffolding, as it was undergoing restoration and cleaning. Nevertheless, one could peek through the heavy equipment and see the angry faces of Dominican and Augustinian friars. It is a terrifying sight to see murder and mayhem in their eyes, and then, as you look up past the paint cans, you feel as if you were actually there.
At the top of the stairs, the ill-fated governor is losing his balance. There is a rope around his body, and at the other end friars are dragging him down. A Dominican stands before him brandishing a crucifix in a violent gesture reserved for the exorcism of demons in a possessed person. Behind the governor brandishing a sharp object is an Augustinian. This was the death blow. It was a tragic end for a man who attempted to run the country well. Then as now, trying to collect the right taxes, trying to stop graft and corruption, going against the Church can be dangerous.
The painter is said to have given his work the title “Iglesia contra el Estado” (“Church against the State”). But its theme was so controversial, its execution so powerful that the huge canvas was rolled up and never exhibited in Hidalgo’s lifetime. It was publicly exhibited only twice in the last century: in 1974 at the National Museum and in 1989 at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila. We must thank the family of the late National Artist Leandro V. Locsin, especially Mrs. Cecilia Y. Locsin, for making this long-hidden national treasure available to the public.
The account by a contemporary witness is in Volume 44 of the so-called “Blair and Robertson.” The governor and the Church did not see eye to eye, and Bustamante had Francisco de la Cuesta, archbishop of Manila, thrown in jail. So at the prodding of the religious, a crowd was mobilized into what could probably be seen as one of the first exercises of People Power before 1986. The difference was that the 1986 revolt was peaceful and little or no blood was shed, whereas in 1719 the church bells rang and the crowd turned into a mob that stormed the palace. From Blair and Robertson we read about that bloody evening of Oct. 11, 1719:
“The Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians came out from their convents, each as a body, carrying in their hands crucifixes and shouting, ‘Long Live the Church! Long Live King Felipe V!’ They were joined by people of all classes and proceeded to the church of San Agustin. The governor who was roused from his sleep and informed of the arrival of the mob sprang up and ordered the guards to keep back the crowd. He dispatched an order to the fort to discharge artillery at the crowd, but he was so little obeyed that, although they applied a match to two cannons, these where aimed so low that the balls were buried in the middle of the esplanade of the fort.
“Without opposition, this multitude arrived at the doors of the palace. As for the soldiers of the guard, some retreated in fear, and others in terror laid down their arms. The mob climbed up by ladders and entered the first hall, the halberdiers not firing the swivel-guns that had been provided, although the governor had commanded them to do so. [The governor] attempted to discharge his gun at a citizen standing near and it missed fore. Then the governor drew his saber and wounded the citizen. The latter and with him all the rest at once attacked the governor. They broke his right arm, and a blow on his head from a saber caused him to fall like one dead.”
The governor’s son who tried to intervene was likewise killed that night.
That is the story as narrated by an eyewitness in a primary source account. But when Antonio Ma. Regidor asked Hidalgo to paint this scene from history, his imagination wandered and “the crowd” was depicted as a pack of furious religious identifiable by their distinctive habits, most prominent being Dominicans whom Felix knew in the University of Santo Tomas.
The Bustamante story spawned “La Loba Negra,” a work once attributed to Fr. Jose Burgos, which was available in manuscript and translated from the original Spanish into English by the ex-Jesuit Hilario Lim. However, scholars had their doubts: the writing was bad, the Spanish far from elegant, there were historical inconsistencies in the narrative. Yet the story is intriguing. The black she-wolf murdered friars at night. She was the avenging widow of Bustamante.
This story inspired a play by Virginia R. Moreno, titled “Onyx Wolf,” which won third prize in the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ literary contest of 1969-1970. Before the play was published in 1980 and even before it was staged in 1971, “Onyx Wolf” became a landmark ballet by Alice Reyes, “Itim Asu.” It has also been made into an opera by Francisco Feliciano.
“La Loba Negra” was not by Burgos but by Jose E. Marco of Negros Island, whose forgeries were so successful that aside from “La Loba Negra” he created Kalantiaw, who in 1433 gave Philippine history an ancient set of laws predating the Spanish conquest.
Was Marco an evil genius? Or maybe it was all misplaced nationalism?
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:14:00 10/10/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Before I began my lecture on Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo at the National Museum last Saturday, I went into the Hall of the Masters of the National Gallery (the old Legislative Building) to see both Juan Luna’s “Spoliarium” and Hidalgo’s “Assassination of Governor Bustamante.” I was disappointed, because the Hidalgo painting was covered with scaffolding, as it was undergoing restoration and cleaning. Nevertheless, one could peek through the heavy equipment and see the angry faces of Dominican and Augustinian friars. It is a terrifying sight to see murder and mayhem in their eyes, and then, as you look up past the paint cans, you feel as if you were actually there.
At the top of the stairs, the ill-fated governor is losing his balance. There is a rope around his body, and at the other end friars are dragging him down. A Dominican stands before him brandishing a crucifix in a violent gesture reserved for the exorcism of demons in a possessed person. Behind the governor brandishing a sharp object is an Augustinian. This was the death blow. It was a tragic end for a man who attempted to run the country well. Then as now, trying to collect the right taxes, trying to stop graft and corruption, going against the Church can be dangerous.
The painter is said to have given his work the title “Iglesia contra el Estado” (“Church against the State”). But its theme was so controversial, its execution so powerful that the huge canvas was rolled up and never exhibited in Hidalgo’s lifetime. It was publicly exhibited only twice in the last century: in 1974 at the National Museum and in 1989 at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila. We must thank the family of the late National Artist Leandro V. Locsin, especially Mrs. Cecilia Y. Locsin, for making this long-hidden national treasure available to the public.
The account by a contemporary witness is in Volume 44 of the so-called “Blair and Robertson.” The governor and the Church did not see eye to eye, and Bustamante had Francisco de la Cuesta, archbishop of Manila, thrown in jail. So at the prodding of the religious, a crowd was mobilized into what could probably be seen as one of the first exercises of People Power before 1986. The difference was that the 1986 revolt was peaceful and little or no blood was shed, whereas in 1719 the church bells rang and the crowd turned into a mob that stormed the palace. From Blair and Robertson we read about that bloody evening of Oct. 11, 1719:
“The Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians came out from their convents, each as a body, carrying in their hands crucifixes and shouting, ‘Long Live the Church! Long Live King Felipe V!’ They were joined by people of all classes and proceeded to the church of San Agustin. The governor who was roused from his sleep and informed of the arrival of the mob sprang up and ordered the guards to keep back the crowd. He dispatched an order to the fort to discharge artillery at the crowd, but he was so little obeyed that, although they applied a match to two cannons, these where aimed so low that the balls were buried in the middle of the esplanade of the fort.
“Without opposition, this multitude arrived at the doors of the palace. As for the soldiers of the guard, some retreated in fear, and others in terror laid down their arms. The mob climbed up by ladders and entered the first hall, the halberdiers not firing the swivel-guns that had been provided, although the governor had commanded them to do so. [The governor] attempted to discharge his gun at a citizen standing near and it missed fore. Then the governor drew his saber and wounded the citizen. The latter and with him all the rest at once attacked the governor. They broke his right arm, and a blow on his head from a saber caused him to fall like one dead.”
The governor’s son who tried to intervene was likewise killed that night.
That is the story as narrated by an eyewitness in a primary source account. But when Antonio Ma. Regidor asked Hidalgo to paint this scene from history, his imagination wandered and “the crowd” was depicted as a pack of furious religious identifiable by their distinctive habits, most prominent being Dominicans whom Felix knew in the University of Santo Tomas.
The Bustamante story spawned “La Loba Negra,” a work once attributed to Fr. Jose Burgos, which was available in manuscript and translated from the original Spanish into English by the ex-Jesuit Hilario Lim. However, scholars had their doubts: the writing was bad, the Spanish far from elegant, there were historical inconsistencies in the narrative. Yet the story is intriguing. The black she-wolf murdered friars at night. She was the avenging widow of Bustamante.
This story inspired a play by Virginia R. Moreno, titled “Onyx Wolf,” which won third prize in the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ literary contest of 1969-1970. Before the play was published in 1980 and even before it was staged in 1971, “Onyx Wolf” became a landmark ballet by Alice Reyes, “Itim Asu.” It has also been made into an opera by Francisco Feliciano.
“La Loba Negra” was not by Burgos but by Jose E. Marco of Negros Island, whose forgeries were so successful that aside from “La Loba Negra” he created Kalantiaw, who in 1433 gave Philippine history an ancient set of laws predating the Spanish conquest.
Was Marco an evil genius? Or maybe it was all misplaced nationalism?
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The education of Hidalgo
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:01:00 10/08/2008
Most Read Other Most Read Stories x
Opinion
Under siege
Trust and prudence
Where corruption is leading the nation
Panlilio foes betraying all Filipinos
Records prove Estrada’s achievements
Missing the goals
Telcos, not text senders, will be taxed
Days of ‘hoodlums in robes’
Envy
Great and small
Obama in Omaha; 2010 in 2010
The education of Hidalgo
Opinion Most Read RSS
Close this Two decades ago, I visited the archives of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid in the hope of finding the academic records of Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. Their grades were secondary; what I wanted to know was what subjects they took and who their teachers were. I wanted to know what kind of education coupled with talent produced these two painters, the shining stars of Philippine art.
Unfortunately, historical research is hit or miss. Sometimes you hit the jackpot (lots of documents nobody else has seen or used before) or, if you are truly unlucky, as I was that day, you find nothing. I went through 10 big boxes of documents and found no reference to Luna and Resurreccion. I did not find the other Filipinos, like Esteban Villanueva, Miguel Zaragoza, not even Melecio Figueroa. But then as the late Salvador Laurel used to say, “Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet.” In the last box was the biggest surprise of all: Jose Rizal’s application letter to the Academy of Fine Arts. It was not what I was looking for, but it made all my efforts worthwhile.
What could not be found in the archives was provided by Hidalgo in a letter written from Madrid on Oct. 15, 1879 to his friends Rizal and Glicerio Anson in Manila. Here he described a typical day in the Academy of San Fernando:
“Our professor in the class of ancient painting and drapery from 8 to 10 in the morning is Mr. Espalter; in that of coloring and composition from 10 to 12, Mr. Federico Madrazo; in that of pictorial anatomy from 1 to 2 in the afternoon, Mr. Ignacio Llanos; and in that of the [still life] or natural from 6.30 to 8.30 in the evening, Mr. Carlos Ribera.”
Hidalgo worked eight hours a day, broken only by a long siesta after lunch. From the names of his professors, someone should do research in 19th century Spanish painting to see what influences these teachers left on Hidalgo’s art.
He wrote further:
“They are all very good professors, but you can be very sure that what you can study [in Manila] under Mr. Agustin Saez is exactly the same as what is taught here, neither more nor less, with the difference that there you paint and draw much more comfortably than we do here, because there you have the entire hall at your disposal, while we here can hardly pick up a bad corner, often enveloped in darkness, and we have to stretch our necks to see the model who, parenthetically speaking, is almost always quite poor, though very suitable for the study of the deviations of the human form.”
Resurreccion advised Rizal and Anson: “Do not lose your courage and follow the advice of our dear professor, Agustin Saez, and in that way you will advance greatly in such a difficult study as that of painting.”
If further proof is needed that Hidalgo was trained very well in Manila, he was disappointed with school and his classmates. Coming from the colony he felt inferior at first, a “probinsyano” [provincial] in a great capital, but “upon seeing here the work of the students of the Academy, we lost our fear. On the other hand, we were greatly disenchanted because we would have liked to have as classmates people who have more mettle than the ones now attending the school for they would have served as stimulus to us.”
Whatever disappointment he had with his formal schooling was made up for by living in the capital and being exposed to the Museo del Prado: “I do not want to tell you about the Museum because I have no more time. I will only tell you that it contains the most valuable collection of paintings, more than 3,000, that is found in Europe. One leaves that building with a headache and despair in the soul, because one is convinced of the little he knows, that one is not even an atom compared with the colossi of art.”
Like Luna, who left Madrid for Rome to work with his teacher Alejo Vera, Hidalgo joined the company of Spanish painters in the Eternal City. It was in Rome that he was immersed in the history and stories of ancient Rome, thus producing “Virgenes Cristianas Expuestas al Populacho” [“Christian Virgins Exposed to the Mob”], which won a silver medal in the 1884 Madrid Exposition of Fine Arts. In the same Exposition, Luna was awarded the gold medal for “Spoliarium.” From then on Hidalgo would always be a quiet shadow to Luna.
From then on, according to our textbooks, Luna and Hidalgo became the first international Filipino painters. Then, as now, they made us feel good as a people, like Manny Pacquiao winning in the boxing ring.
However, we have to rein in our enthusiasm and remember that these gold and silver medals should not be seen as Olympic gold, silver and bronze medals. Luna did not win “first place” and Hidalgo, “second place.” Luna garnered one gold medal out of the three that were given out that year. He was not awarded the much-coveted Medal of Honor, which was withheld in 1884. Hidalgo won one silver medal out of at least 15 given out that year.
Still, for these two colonials from Manila to beat their classmates, and their professors, in Madrid means a lot, and their life and work should not remain as footnotes in our history. Luna and Hidalgo should continue to inspire even in the 21st century.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:01:00 10/08/2008
Most Read Other Most Read Stories x
Opinion
Under siege
Trust and prudence
Where corruption is leading the nation
Panlilio foes betraying all Filipinos
Records prove Estrada’s achievements
Missing the goals
Telcos, not text senders, will be taxed
Days of ‘hoodlums in robes’
Envy
Great and small
Obama in Omaha; 2010 in 2010
The education of Hidalgo
Opinion Most Read RSS
Close this Two decades ago, I visited the archives of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid in the hope of finding the academic records of Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. Their grades were secondary; what I wanted to know was what subjects they took and who their teachers were. I wanted to know what kind of education coupled with talent produced these two painters, the shining stars of Philippine art.
Unfortunately, historical research is hit or miss. Sometimes you hit the jackpot (lots of documents nobody else has seen or used before) or, if you are truly unlucky, as I was that day, you find nothing. I went through 10 big boxes of documents and found no reference to Luna and Resurreccion. I did not find the other Filipinos, like Esteban Villanueva, Miguel Zaragoza, not even Melecio Figueroa. But then as the late Salvador Laurel used to say, “Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet.” In the last box was the biggest surprise of all: Jose Rizal’s application letter to the Academy of Fine Arts. It was not what I was looking for, but it made all my efforts worthwhile.
What could not be found in the archives was provided by Hidalgo in a letter written from Madrid on Oct. 15, 1879 to his friends Rizal and Glicerio Anson in Manila. Here he described a typical day in the Academy of San Fernando:
“Our professor in the class of ancient painting and drapery from 8 to 10 in the morning is Mr. Espalter; in that of coloring and composition from 10 to 12, Mr. Federico Madrazo; in that of pictorial anatomy from 1 to 2 in the afternoon, Mr. Ignacio Llanos; and in that of the [still life] or natural from 6.30 to 8.30 in the evening, Mr. Carlos Ribera.”
Hidalgo worked eight hours a day, broken only by a long siesta after lunch. From the names of his professors, someone should do research in 19th century Spanish painting to see what influences these teachers left on Hidalgo’s art.
He wrote further:
“They are all very good professors, but you can be very sure that what you can study [in Manila] under Mr. Agustin Saez is exactly the same as what is taught here, neither more nor less, with the difference that there you paint and draw much more comfortably than we do here, because there you have the entire hall at your disposal, while we here can hardly pick up a bad corner, often enveloped in darkness, and we have to stretch our necks to see the model who, parenthetically speaking, is almost always quite poor, though very suitable for the study of the deviations of the human form.”
Resurreccion advised Rizal and Anson: “Do not lose your courage and follow the advice of our dear professor, Agustin Saez, and in that way you will advance greatly in such a difficult study as that of painting.”
If further proof is needed that Hidalgo was trained very well in Manila, he was disappointed with school and his classmates. Coming from the colony he felt inferior at first, a “probinsyano” [provincial] in a great capital, but “upon seeing here the work of the students of the Academy, we lost our fear. On the other hand, we were greatly disenchanted because we would have liked to have as classmates people who have more mettle than the ones now attending the school for they would have served as stimulus to us.”
Whatever disappointment he had with his formal schooling was made up for by living in the capital and being exposed to the Museo del Prado: “I do not want to tell you about the Museum because I have no more time. I will only tell you that it contains the most valuable collection of paintings, more than 3,000, that is found in Europe. One leaves that building with a headache and despair in the soul, because one is convinced of the little he knows, that one is not even an atom compared with the colossi of art.”
Like Luna, who left Madrid for Rome to work with his teacher Alejo Vera, Hidalgo joined the company of Spanish painters in the Eternal City. It was in Rome that he was immersed in the history and stories of ancient Rome, thus producing “Virgenes Cristianas Expuestas al Populacho” [“Christian Virgins Exposed to the Mob”], which won a silver medal in the 1884 Madrid Exposition of Fine Arts. In the same Exposition, Luna was awarded the gold medal for “Spoliarium.” From then on Hidalgo would always be a quiet shadow to Luna.
From then on, according to our textbooks, Luna and Hidalgo became the first international Filipino painters. Then, as now, they made us feel good as a people, like Manny Pacquiao winning in the boxing ring.
However, we have to rein in our enthusiasm and remember that these gold and silver medals should not be seen as Olympic gold, silver and bronze medals. Luna did not win “first place” and Hidalgo, “second place.” Luna garnered one gold medal out of the three that were given out that year. He was not awarded the much-coveted Medal of Honor, which was withheld in 1884. Hidalgo won one silver medal out of at least 15 given out that year.
Still, for these two colonials from Manila to beat their classmates, and their professors, in Madrid means a lot, and their life and work should not remain as footnotes in our history. Luna and Hidalgo should continue to inspire even in the 21st century.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
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