In the 1935 elections of the Commonwealth, Emilio Aguinaldo ran for president against Manuel L. Quezon, a young lieutenant during the Philippine-American War and the First Philippine Republic. As a campaign strategy, Quezon astutely resurrected the specters of Andres Bonifacio and Antonio Luna. He went around brandishing a sack of human bones purportedly Bonifacio’s and … Read more
In January 1900, five years before Felipe Calderon began writing his Memorias de la revolucion filipina,AmericanSenator Alfred J. Beveridge addressed the US Congress and raved about the Philippines: “No land in America surpasses in fertility the plains and valleys of Luzon. Rice and coffee, sugar and coconuts, hemp and tobacco, and many products grow in … Read more
A few years ago, I found a copy of Felipe Calderon’s Mis memorias sobre la revolucion filipina, published in 1907. He was an eminent lawyer from Santa Ana, Manila, who drafted the Malolos Constitution of the First Philippine Republic, our government on-the-run that General Antonio Luna so valiantly defended. The book piqued my curiosity because … Read more
I hope I am wrong but we might have our own Malvinas, at the rate China is occupying the Bajo de Masinloc and other bits of Philippine territory. Let us put that aside for another letter. It seems that Filipinos cannot stop talking about Lolo Kiko, Pope Francis I, and with renewed vigor at that … Read more