Rising early is not one of my virtues. Nine years with the National Historical Commission meant sunrise flag raising and floral offerings at national historical sites and landmarks. Waking up at dawn wasn’t the real penance, it…
From the queries I receive online, almost daily, from students taking the college course on Philippine history from primary sources, it seems that teachers leave them on their own. With no prescribed textbook, students are required to…
Competing with the Independence Day coverage the other day was the news on the repatriation of a long-lost work by Juan Luna — “Hymen, O Hyménée” — painted during his honeymoon in Italy and later exhibited in…
Maria Karina A. Bolasco had been blessed with a job she actually enjoys doing—publishing books. From National Bookstore to Anvil Publishing, and lately the Ateneo de Manila University Press, she was, for over four decades, a disruptor…
Walking around the Philippine Book Festival this weekend made me reflect on the books that shaped me and my time. I looked back on all the books I have published since 1986 and revisited my now-shattered dream…
It is ironic that C.M. Recto Avenue in downtown Manila has gained notoriety for made-to-order fake documents. After all, Claro (clear) Recto (straight) was a Filipino senator who left us with a legacy of integrity and staunch…
Why is it that when we talk of Manila as an important, cosmopolitan, capital city, we do so in the past tense? Is it because Manila is lost in the group of cities that now form the…
To my knowledge, no library in the Philippines or abroad has a complete set of newspapers that were published between the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution in 1896 and the Philippine-American War in 1899. If we had…
Apolinario Mabini died in his brother’s home in Nagtahan in 1903. The wooden house with a nipa roof, now a national shrine, has been moved a number of times. First, from one bank of the Pasig to…
I have always wondered why there is no major war museum in Manila, no peace museum in a city that has often been described as the second most devastated city of World War II after Warsaw. The…
Reading history is an experience in armchair time travel. Going back to a distant past through texts, images, and artifacts is recommended because unlike time travel in sci-fi films, we need not be trapped in there. If…
Had Andres Bonifacio died of old age or natural causes on May 10, 1897, the date would not be controversial. However, May 10, 1897, reminds us of the split within the leadership of the Philippine revolution that…
