Indio:Bravo//

Emilio Jacinto (1875-1899), fifth point in the Katilya ng Katipunan

"History is alive whether we say so or not."

Thank you, Philippine Star, for inviting me to write about history on your anniversary. The article was born out of the debate in my head—an attempt to make sense of the value of history in the context of what’s happening now. It's me pouring my heart out and sharing why I love History and why it gives me hope amidst the darkness.

It came out TODAY online and in print.

You can read the online version HERE.

Seventy five years ago, halfway across the world, in San Francisco, California, in the United States, representatives of 50 nations gathered solemnly in a historic event culminating from the years of war, volatile peace, and grief at the tremendous loss of millions of lives. Embarking on yet another impossible dream, but holding onto hope that humanity’s shared experience of strife and destruction would reap a shared vision of lasting peace—these representatives stood, at noontime in the United States, at approximately 3:00 am in Philippine local time, just as the Philippine sun was about to rise.  

*Photos of the United Nations Conference on International Organization (25 April-26 June 1945). From the United Nations Organization.

At the time, across the world, the Axis Powers, led by Nazi Germany, have been defeated in Europe. As smoke cleared, to the shock of the entire world, Nazi gas chambers were uncovered, and the bones and ashes of around 6 million gassed Jewish lives were found. The Holocaust, long having been denied by much of the West, including the United States, have been confirmed. 

In the Pacific, the Philippines and the rest of Southeast Asia have been pushing back against the fascist Imperial Japanese forces, then on the retreat. Amidst the total destruction of the Philippine capital, (Manila was next only to the city of Warsaw as the most destroyed Allied capital of World War II), Filipinos, as well as their kindred Asian peoples who suffered under the Japanese, have begun picking up the pieces for rebuilding their nations anew, as the colonial apparatus in Asia have been shaken. The Allied forces have embarked on a push towards the final landing on Japan itself, as millions of Japanese civilians succumb to famine, carpet bombings, and a torn military leadership who still fanatically refused to surrender.

The ambitious project that would be the United Nations was long in coming. At the cessation of hostilities in the First World War, an organization of nations called the League of Nations tried to restore order, set rules for humane engagement in war, and tried to broker piece in continental Europe and w/ rising powers in the East such as Russia and Japan. But the seeds of inequality in treaties overseen by the League, and an apparent misrepresentation and unfairness it unintentionally imparted, as well as self-interest among its members, led to its disintegration and the outbreak of the Second World War. At the time, the Philippines was yet to achieve its independence from the United States.

The Japanese-occupied Philippines had been amply represented by the late President Manuel L. Quezon, who led the Philippine Commonwealth government-in-exile in Washington, D.C., when the talks of organizing a “United Nations” began in 1942, even as his health deteriorated. 

*President Manuel L. Quezon, sitting with world leaders (3rd from the left), circa 1942. The Philippines signed the UN Declaration on 10 June 1942. From the United Nations Organization website.

*A 1943 propaganda poster of the Allied forces, with the Philippine flag included (at the far right). Courtesy of the Peace Palace Library.

With the Leyte Landings, the restoration of the government on Philippine soil, and the subsequent reclaiming of Malacañan Palace in February 1945, the new President, Sergio Osmeña, gladly accepted the invitation of the Allied Powers, the Big Four—namely the United States of America, United Kingdom of Great Britain, the United Soviet Socialist Republics, and the Republic of China—for the Philippines to attend a historic event, the signing of the Charter of the United Nations. 

Osmeña sent Carlos P. Romulo, Resident Commissioner of the Philippines to the United States, and 7 others representing the Senate, Congress, the Philippine defense forces, and the academe, to attend the United Nations Conference on International Organization, or what would be known in history as the San Francisco Conference. Beginning from 25 April to 26 June 1945 (around 62 days), the Philippine delegation, together with the other 49 nations, with their 850 delegates and 3,500 secretariat personnel, have struggled to reach a consensus of this new world order of peace. 

Painstakingly debated, each line and wording were carefully crafted, that now compose the historic United Nations Charter:

United Nations · Reading of the Preamble to the UN Charter by Sir Laurence Olivier

On this day, seventy five years ago, at the War Veterans Memorial Building in San Francisco, each delegation stood up, with the Republic of China having the honor of being the first, for having been the first victim of the Axis Powers with the Japanese encroachment on the Chinese mainland and their horrifying experience in the Rape of Nanjing. On a round table, lit up brightly by spotlights, surrounded circularly by 50 flags of these nations, laid two documents to be signed—the Charter of the United Nations, and the Statute of the International Court of Justice. Poland, at the time, having suffered the worst in Europe, have yet to form a government to represent them, but a space was left for their signature on the documents, for having contributed so much to the Allied victory in Europe. 

*The United Nations Charter is signed by each delegation of the 50 nations that declared war against Germany and Japan, and/or signed the UN Declaration in 1942. Photo courtesy of the United Nations Organization.

*On 27 June 1945 (dawn, Philippine time/ 26 July in San Francisco U.S.A.), Carlos P. Romulo, as Resident Commission of the Commonwealth of the Philippines to the United States, signs the UN Charter. 

The Philippines, upon the signing of the documents, is one of the 50 core members of the United Nations, despite not having yet full sovereignty and independence at the time. The Philippines was also one of the only 4 Asian countries to sign these documents. Given our proven commitment on human rights from the time President Manuel Quezon opened the doors of the Philippines to the Jewish refugees when most of the world powers were closing their doors on them, the Philippines had proven itself worthy of becoming a responsible player in the geopolitical balance in the Pacific. The signatory on the nation’s behalf, Carlos P. Romulo, would soon serve as the Chairman of the United Nations Security Council from 1949 to 1950, the first Asian leader to assume the position. 

The United Nations would not yet exist, as these representatives would go back to their respective countries for their legislatures to ratify the Charter. On 24 October 1945, the ratification of these member states were all in, and as such, the United Nations was established on that day. 

But beyond the rhetorics and the painstaking effort to talk amidst ethnic, linguistic, social, political, and religious barriers, the miracle of this date should never be taken for granted. For upon the establishment of the United Nations was a lasting world order of peace that the world had not yet seen. 

It is this same international order that is now being threatened by demagogues in different parts of the world today. This order built an environment across the world, imperfect though it might be, conducive for international cooperation in the sciences and humanities, in the expansion of human knowledge (especially now that scientists all over the world are researching on finding a cure in this COVID-19 pandemic), innovation, and even in the peaceful arbitration between opposing modern states. This peace remains fragile and must be preserved.

Today, there are many challenges that the Philippines faces. Despite the country’s historic victory in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016, the current government has failed to follow through with using this victory and the force of our influence in the U.N. as leverage in the growing encroachment of China in the West Philippine Sea. It was only recently that our own foreign affairs department had been vocal. Moreover, the country’s commitment to the universal ideals such as human rights have largely been diminished, thanks to the concerning policies of the current government, which have also knowingly lambasted the U.N. This is utterly unfortunate, for those who came before us have laid for us a track record that many nations look up to. 

May the Filipino people never forget, and continue to hold fast to this heritage—the ideals of freedom, human dignity, and human rights—universal ideals we share with the rest of the freedom-loving peoples of the world.

“The Nation’s Fiscalizer” was the title that the Philippines Free Press had given this rising vocal senator in 1968 who have voiced his opposition on the growing authoritarian ways of the Marcos administration in every step of the way. His oratory skills in the Senate floor was legendary. He was but among the several cacophony of voices that were raised in the legislative chamber, if only in proportion to the growing discontent of people, manifested by the massive street protests that were ignored. At the time, the country have boasted then the free-est and most noisy democracy in Asia, true to our brand as Filipinos. It was, after all, the Philippines before the proclamation of Martial Law. 

This senator would be injured by a bombing, subjected to threats, and imprisoned—not unique at all when you see the like-minded leaders of the time such as Ninoy Aquino, Jose Diokno, Lorenzo Tañada, Eva Kalaw, etc. But perhaps the most unique feature of Jovito Salonga was his faith. He was, after all, raised in a robust Protestant faith that was rooted in the 16th century Protestant Reformation—that whirlwind that turned the church and state in Europe upside down and helped give birth to the modern world. And as we would see, in a nation that aspired freedom of religion, through Salonga, no matter what religious upbringing you come from, each one has a space and an opportunity to enrich our democracy and body politic.

Jovito “Jovy” Reyes Salonga was born of humble parents on 22 June 1920 in Pasig. His father, Esteban Salonga, pastored a Presbyterian church, while his mother Bernardita Reyes worked as vendor. He was fifth and youngest of the five children. The classic Protestant work ethic as worship to God was imbibed by “Jovy” as he diligently studied while earning as a proofreader under his brother’s publishing company. With the outbreak of the invasion of Japan, Jovy was already a student in the U.P. College of Law. Under the Japanese occupation, Jovy postponed his plans on taking the Bar Exam, as he decided to join the underground guerrilla movement at great risk to his life, heeding the call to defend his country. Unfortunately, the Japanese captured him in 1942, and he was sentenced to 15 years in forced labor, which would be cut short when he was pardoned in 1943. The scars he bore from those days imbued him with a spirit of iron-clad courage. 

In 1944, Jovy decided to take the Bar exam. He became that year’s Bar topnotcher from the University of the Philippines, as his score tied with Jose Diokno, who was allowed to take the Bar even without a law degree. Their score, the highest at the time, was 95.3%.  Able to obtain a scholarship from Harvard, Salonga studied for his master’s degree there in 1948 and was given a special recommendation by Prof. Manley Hudson (who used to sit as member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration) to Yale University. Salonga was conferred his doctorate in jurisprudence there in 1949. Such sterling credentials gave him an opportunity to become faculty of Yale. But once again, heeding the call of his country after the devastation of the Second World War, he declined, and opted to go back to the Philippines.

*Jovito Salonga (on the far left) with his colleagues at Yale University, 1948. Esteban Salonga Collection. 

Salonga’s entrance to politics in 1961 was only because of the encouragement of then presidential candidate Diosdado Macapagal. It was a steep challenge for Salonga, who ran as Congressman of Rizal’s 2nd district under the Liberal Party ticket, upon which he contended with a political dynasty. He clinched his win, as his party-mate Macapagal also won the presidency. Severely reduced in support with the 1965 win of the Nacionalista Party, Salonga still won the most votes when he ran as Senator at the time. 

From here on out Salonga and the like-minded senators, and even the independent ones, saw the gradual erosion of civil liberties under the Marcos administration, as people reacted in street protests that only intensified as years went by. Salonga, upon convening his partymates for the approaching mid-term legislative elections, invited the Nacionalista but independent-minded Senator Eva Kalaw to be LP’s guest candidate. On 21 August 1971, however, at the Liberal Party’s miting-de-avance at Plaza Miranda, Quiapo, Salonga was one of the LP candidates who was severely injured in the suspicious bombing blamed by the Marcos administration on the Communists. 

*Photo of Jovito Salonga after the Plaza Miranda Bombing, from the Esteban Salonga Collection. 

*Injured candidates of the Liberal Party from the bombing at Plaza Miranda, as featured in the Philippines Free Press, 1971. Presidential Museum and Library Collection.

*LP candidates with Salonga (3rd from the left) campaigning after the Plaza Miranda Bombing. Presidential Museum and Library Collection.

Despite this, Salonga and his partymates won 6 of the 8 senatorial seats. He was just one among the many loud voices of the opposition until the declaration of Martial Law on 23 September 1972. Under the 1935 Constitution, Congress was set to open on 22 January 1973, but Salonga and the others found it padlocked.  

During those years of the dictatorship, Salonga understood that his Christian faith was inseparable from the morality that should be exhibited in the political public square. It was here, as a Protestant that he associated himself with like-minded church leaders from mainstream Protestant and Evangelical denominations, such as Rev. Cirilo Rigos of the Cosmopolitan Church Manila (United Church of Christ in the Philippines) and Rev. Isabelo Magalit of the Diliman Bible Church and Philippine representative to the Lausanne Congress 1974 (the largest Evangelical congress/synod composed in history). In 1973, Salonga, together with the Protestant pastors and church leaders drafted the document, entitled We Believe:

This “statement of faith” is nothing short of extraordinary, comparable to the Barmen Declaration of 1934 that German churches drafted in opposition to the Nazi regime. Salonga would initiate conversations even from the leaders of the Marcos leadership, inviting AFP generals and Marcos technocrats to be guests in forums of lay ministers and evangelists of Protestant denominations. Several times did the Marcos regime try to shut down church events that tackle on socio-political issues. Even the National Council of Churches in the Philippines office was not spared from military raids. But in those difficult times, these denominations looked to Salonga for support. 

After the toppling of the Marcos dictatorship through EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986, Salonga’s advocacy was not yet over. After having been the first chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) serving from 1986 to 1987 tasked to sequester the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses, he ran for the Senate under the new 1987 Constitution, and won and became President of the Senate. 

It was perhaps the utter expression of the Senate’s independence from the Chief Executive, when in 1991, despite President Corazon Aquino’s push to renew the U.S. Military Bases Agreement, the Senate (as ratifier and reviewer of all treaties entered into by the Philippine government with other foreign governments) rejected the renewal. The rejection of the agreement which authorized the presence of U.S. military bases in the Philippines and a byproduct of the 1946 negotiations, had come full circle, for Salonga, at the time fresh from law school, firmly opposed the agreement.

*Jovito Salonga in his office as President of the Senate of the Philippines, 1988. Esteban Salonga Collection.

Summing up his life, one gets the impression that when a Filipino stands on what it is right and true with faith, courage, and conviction, that person would not be bound or boxed by petty partisan categories. For Salonga, his ultimate loyalty and faith is to his God and to his country, and always in the defense of freedom. 

Considered as one of his famous words, and echoing Rizal on the concept of freedom and human dignity, Salonga said:

In one of the clearest exposition of his political philosophy was the short essay Salonga wrote in 1966, on what it means to love the Philippines, in light of Marcos’s “New Society” propaganda. He said: 

As Rizal would say, true love for country is, as painful as it might be, being brave enough to expose our own malignant “cancer” to “the steps of the temple” so that anyone can “present a remedy.” As Salonga demonstrated in his life, loving the country the right way is not becoming a “nation of sheep” but becoming a nation where truth is adhered to and where justice reigns. 

Two days ago, we commemorated the centennial birth anniversary of this awesome Filipina Senator. Through a string of tweets, I posted her story on Twitter. I transformed it into a full feature article via the SubSelfie blog. 

Today, she passed away at the age of 95. Known by her stage name “Anita Linda”, Alice Buenaflor Lake (1924-2020) was acknowledged as the oldest Filipina living actress honored at the celebration of the Centennial of Philippine Cinema last year. 

Rest in power. 

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*Portrait of Filipina actress, Anita Linda, by Fernando Amorsolo.

It was around 10:00 pm, on a quiet night of 24 April 1980. In a remote barrio called Bugnay, in Tinglayan, Kalinga, nestled in the mountains of the Cordilleras in northern Luzon, the festivities and revelry of the Butbut tribe have just been concluded. Residents have already gone to their homes, and the barrio sat quietly and soundly, with their lights turned off.

Suddenly, two Ford Fiera vehicles rushed through the narrow streets hugging the mountains into the quiet barrio. From the two vehicles alighted two military men armed with a Browning automatic rifle and an M-16 armalite. They knocked loudly on the door of a humble house.

“Macli-ing, come out!” they shouted, awakening the dogs.

From the house came a voice of an old man. “Whatever it is you want of me, let us talk about it in the morning.” The two military men struck the door in response. Macli-ing Dulag, the pangat or leader of the Butbut tribe, and elected barrio captain of Bugnay, stood up and quickly closed the door, and with the lamp now lit and with his wife holding onto the door, Macli-ing attempted to fix the lock. The men outside quickly fired bullets on the door hitting Dulag on his left breast and right pelvis, instantly killing him.

But unknown to these two murderers that night, they were about to reap the whirlwind.

For Macli-ing Dulag was not just a simple man murdered at the dead of night. He was a visionary, born and raised in the indigenous culture of the Kalinga, as sturdy and as lofty as mountains they inhabit. Dulag’s dream was animated by an all-consuming vision for his own people. He stood approximately 5 feet and 6 inches, wearing a G-string like a true proud Kalinga, and wherever he went, different disparate tribes in the Cordilleras were drawn to him and his words.

No one knows when Macli-ing Dulag was born. Like many of the Philippines’ indigenous groups, many of the Kalinga were not formally schooled, but as anthropologists, sociologists, and cultural workers could attest, this didn’t mean they were any less educated. For education comes with the ability to sustain themselves, to adapt to their environment, to form their own unique cultural expression rooted in centuries old history that had been virtually free from colonial intrusion. In so doing, they have preserved their peculiar indigenous identity and their way of life and have added another dimension into this imagined community of peoples we call the “nation.” 

*Kalinga woven fabrics were sourced from bark fibers which were turned into intricately designed skirts for women and loincloths for men. Kalinga later on adapted to cotton and polyester material to depict their love of their environment as believed to have been bestowed to them by their god, Kabunian—the stars, the vegetation, mountains, and anthropomorphic patterns. The Kalinga use red, black, yellow, and green threads to reflect their worldview. 

*”Rice Terraces in Baguio” (1944) by Fernando Amorsolo. 

*Rice terraces in Bontoc, Philippines, from Vogn Laron.

And indeed, the peoples of the Cordilleras, not just the Kalinga, have become economically sufficient. They have carved mountains into wonders that make the world gasp, done farming on seemingly impossible terrains, pushing the boundaries of engineering hundreds of years ago. Their cultures, while strange to modern eyes, have been shaped by this harsh terrain, forming a mutual and beneficial relationship between man and his environment. This is because of their spirituality, their belief in the god Kabunian, who provided them with the land. For them, the land is sacred. 

From this worldview that have shaped generations of his people, came Macli-ing Dulag. This worldview was about to be tested. 

It all started when the Chico River Basin Development Project began to be implemented by the Marcos regime. The plan was initially drafted in 1965, but only began rolling out in 1973, at the height of the dictatorship, when accountability and public scrutiny were gagged (free press was shackled), to give way to cronyism and plunder. German engineering and consulting company, Lahmeyer International (now Tractebel), and the Engineering and Development Corporation of the Philippines (EDCOP), submitted the plan to the government, to be funded by the World Bank. The plan was to build four dams along the Chico River, a major river in the Cordilleras forming river tributaries across the mountainous region, to generate approximately 1,010 megawatts of electricity. But the dams would submerge numerous villages, rice fields, and displace populations, many of them indigenous communities who have called the lands about to be submerged their own. Even when the government offered financial aid and relocation, it seemed to Dulag that they were not making an effort to understand the culture and history of his people—human beings whose livelihood and spirituality were tied to the land. The land, as Dulag and his people have insisted, is sacred. Dulag was most famous for uttering these heart-wrenching words: 

The Kalinga, like the rest of the diverse cultures in the Cordilleras, have conflicts that, on occasion, manifest in bloodshed. But the Kalinga culture also provides a way out of these conflicts, in what would be termed as the bódong, a peace conference between two warring tribes that seals a peace agreement, and ends in festive dance and song. Dulag, in numerous occasions, imbued with his vision and how he saw the Marcos government displace lowlanders & the indigenous in the highlands, have manifested his skill in Cordilleran diplomacy by initiating numerous bódongs in the course of his leadership. Dulag initiated the largest bódong recorded in 1979, attended by 2,000 Kalinga and Bontoc, upon which, all the tribal elders designated him as their spokesman. Dulag issued these words to National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) President, Gabriel Itchon:

Soon, communities in the Cordilleras, even those of Bontoc and others who would not be directly affected by the dam project stood behind Dulag. In an effort to neutralize the growing opposition of the now combined voices of the Kalinga and the Bontoc, President Ferdinand Marcos issued Presidential Decree No. 848, forming the Kalinga Special Development Region. Despite intimidations, false charges, and imprisonment, Dulag and the people stood firm. Perhaps some of those who would read this blog may dismiss Dulag and his movement as Leftist. But the indigenous never cared about ideologies. Lin Neumann, a human rights volunteer affiliated with the United Methodist Church, said, “I had been told, before entering the village [Bugnay] that the Left was a great influence… but I never found that these people of the Cordillera took any real interest in ideology. They were people of the land and their land was threatened. Macli-ing was their guardian and emissary.”

The murder of the Cordilleran leader planned by the culprits upon whom Lt. Leodegario Adalem and his group from the 44th Battalion took their signal to kill, seemed the logical step. But Dulag was ready to die. In 1978, in one bódong, he said on those present

Dulag’s death awakened a shackled press from slumber. Thanks to the great effort of journalist Ma. Ceres Doyo, and the formed coalition of ecumenical groups, the Catholic Church, journalists, cultural workers, lawyers of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) led by former senator and opposition leader, Jose W. Diokno, Dulag’s martyrdom was a milestone in those years of dictatorship. It shook people amidst the growing discontent under the corruption of a regime that knew no accountability but ruled with shameless impunity. And most importantly, the government was forced to stop all plans for the Chico Dam construction. 

*Photo of the banners around Bugnay, after Macli-ing Dulag’s murder, documented by journalist Ma. Ceres Doyo.

After the toppling of the dictatorship, a move was done to officially acknowledge the Cordilleran peoples’ will to self-determination. Talks were initiated between the new Philippine President Corazon Aquino, the representatives of the Cordillera Bodong Administration, and the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army in September 1986. On 15 July 1987, the president issued Executive Order No. 220, forming the Cordillera Administrative Region to grant the Cordillera peoples’ aspiration for autonomy. 

In honor of Macli-ing Dulag and his role as the unifier and voice of the indigenous communities in the Cordilleras, April 24 was designated by virtue of Proclamation No. 893, s. 1992, as Cordillera Administrative Region Day, or Cordillera People’s Day/Cordillera Day, commemorated in the entire region. Dulag’s name is also inscribed in the Wall of Remembrance at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City, honoring him as one of the fallen heroes and martyrs of the country during the Marcos dictatorship. 

*The Bantayog ng mga Bayani Wall of Remembrance, where Macli-ing Dulag’s name is inscribed together with other heroes and martyrs of the Philippines under the Marcos dictatorship (1972-1986). Photo by Alternativity (Wikimedia).

Doyo, who wrote about the 1980 expose article of the Kalinga leader’s murder, even when intimidated by military authorities, was acknowledged by the international press. Her article was later awarded in the Catholic Mass Media Awards in February 1981 with Best Feature Article Award trophy bestowed on her by none other than Pope John Paul II. She wrote the book, Macli-ing Dulag: Kalinga Chief, Defender of the Cordillera that came off the press in 2015, which won in the National Book Awards that same year, and is the main source of this blog post.

Today, the Duterte administration continues to push for the Chico Dam project, but this time, under Chinese funding. Indigenous communities in the Cordilleras, despite being red-tagged by the administration, continue to resist. 

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In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the martyrdom of Macli-ing Dulag, and in solidarity with the People of the Cordilleras on Cordillera Day 2020.

Manila of Our Affections: An Introduction to a Blog Series 

They say that 75th year anniversaries are appropriate to look back and commemorate milestones that have changed people’s lives forever. When the Second World War in the Philippines began on 8 December 1941, Filipinos were still in disbelief that the Americans would be defeated by Japan with its invasion of the Philippines and the rest of Southeast Asia. As the occupation went on, most Filipinos had begun passively resisting, and others mounted fierce guerrilla resistance in the mountains. Still others collaborated with the Japanese—some out of convenience or fear/false sense of security, while others out of sheer thirst for power. 

Months before the Japanese occupation of the Philippines ended, the war, as people would not have foreseen, would turn out for the worst. Inflation was an all-time high. Food was scarce. Banditry and thievery were all around. As the Japanese took whatever they could from Filipinos, the Filipinos were forced to ration their resources. Some even relocated to the provinces, learned farming to support themselves. When the news of the Leyte Landing in 1944 was heard from underground transistor radios, Filipinos were anticipating a quick liberation from the enemy occupying force. None of them knew that the worst was still to come.

The Japanese themselves, refusing to surrender despite the impending defeat in the Philippines, chose Manila as the battleground for their last ditch effort to slow down the American advance, and perhaps stall for a few days the Allied invasion of Japan. The Japanese knew that the Americans would make Manila a staging ground for that invasion, and so they decided, if they are going down, they’re going to include everyone with them, including unarmed civilians. 

But as leaders of the opposing forces and the combatants saw this big picture, the residents of Manila never cared for this, other than to hope for freedom, and to live for another day. All they thought of was how to secure their families and loved ones, and hope against all hope that they would all, in the end, survive. Nobody knew how painful and dark it would be until sunrise. But as history would have it, one of the most beautiful cities in Asia, Manila, would be decimated and razed to the ground. It would be the second most destroyed Allied capital of the Second World War, next to Warsaw Poland. The destruction was so absolute, that even after 75 years, one could still see the scars of it, along the disorganized alleys of Tondo and Binondo, the worn-down buildings along Rizal Avenue. One could even see that the sites burned and destroyed had the most high-rise buildings in Manila. But like all other cities destroyed by war, life survives, continuing to resist time and forgotteness. There are still glimpses of this charm of old Manila, what Nick Joaquin, the National Artist, used to imagine. 

*A perspective map of the Battle of Manila 1945 by artist Rodolfo Ragodon of the Sunday Times Magazine (23 April 1967 issue)

*Pedro Gil Street in Manila after the battle. From LIFE Magazine. 

*Agriculture and Commerce Building (now the National Museum of Natural History), in Luneta in 1945. The angle of the photo faces the Teodoro Kalaw Street. Courtesy of John Tewell. 

But more than the buildings, the romantic esteros and bridges, the neo-classical buildings and old Spanish churches of Manila that have been erased by war and destruction, were the people themselves—the Manileños. Around 150,000 non-combatant city residents (or maybe more) died on this battle. With no hope of escape, as the Japanese severed all exits to the city, tragedy was bound to happen. 

In commemoration of the 75th year anniversary of the Battle of Manila, we are going to remember some extraordinary lives that were snuffed out by the destruction of the city. It will remind us that in war, the civilians and the countless dreams and possibilities they possess, would always be in peril. And with their loss, come the tremendous loss of an entire nation. 

This reminds me of how the late National Artist Nick Joaquin, like a bard singing of the destruction of Manila, wrote to life his fictional characters, Don Lorenzo Marasigan and his two daughters, Candida and Paula, in a play entitled “The Portrait of the Artist as Filipino.” Joaquin bestowed upon these three characters the ideals that he believed the Old Manila stood for. These lines always bring tears to the eyes: 

Let the city rise again, if only in our song. 

"Panahon na ngayong dapat na lumitaw ang liwanag ng katotohanan; panahon ng dapat nating ipakilala na tayo'y may sariling pagdaramdam, may puri, may hiya at pagdadamayan. Ngayon, panahon ng dapat simulan ang pagsisiwalat ng mga mahal at dakilang aral na magwawasak sa masinsing tabing na bumubulag sa ating kaisipan." -Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro, "Ang Dapat Mabatid ng mga Tagalog" (c. March 1896) #BonifacioDay #QOTD #bonifaciomonument #igersmanila #PH #kasaysayan #history #Filipino #dignity #PhilippineRevolution (at Bonifacio Monument) https://www.instagram.com/p/BqzMCvqB8XD/?igshid=2x1a6ddpvi7

“If,” an editorial published by the Philippines Free Press on 23 August 1986

What was denied to a Catholic priest was granted to a Protestant Pastor. The end became the beginning.  

It was on 15 February 1872 when three secular priests—José Apolonio Burgos, Mariano Gómes de los Ángeles, and Jacinto Zamora—were sentenced by the Spanish court-martial to death by strangulation through the garrote. Despite weak evidence, these priests were found guilty of treason as alleged instigators of the Cavite Mutiny in Fort San Felipe, the failed uprising of around 200 Filipinos in the said Spanish arsenal that happened a month before. It must be noted that the three were only among the hundreds who were arrested at the time for the mutiny. But as if singling them out, they were the ones who were to be executed, while others were either exiled or freed. 

*Popular engraved depiction of secular priests— Mariano Gómes, José Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora—known in the portmanteau name in Philippine history as GOMBURZA.

These same priests happened to be some of the active voices that expressed dissent over the redistribution of the parishes, which used to be under the secular priests’ charge, but then were turned over, albeit forcefully, to the Recollects to compensate for the said order’s loss of parishes to the returning Jesuits. These three voices were seen as an affront to the authority of the Spanish friars over Philippine parishes.

A French chronicler, Edmond Plauchut, recorded that in that evening, when the sentence was delivered to the priests, Burgos broke down in tears, as Gomes, having gained maturity brought by age and quiet meditation, only listened. But as for Zamora, the youngest of the three, the injustice perhaps was too much for him to handle, and triggered by intense fear, it made him lose his mind.

That fateful Saturday morning, 17 February 1872, the three priests were executed in Bagumbayan (now Luneta), which as Filipinos would have it, became a rallying cry that would see its fruition in the Philippine Revolution of 1896. That day, the Archbishop of Manila, Meliton Martinez,  refused to give in to the Governor-General’s demand of having the priests defrocked. He even had the church bells tolled in their honor, drowning the executioner’s drums. 

Zamora, the priest least known of the three, was a Spanish creole and a parish priest of Marikina. Apparently inheriting his advocacy of freedom, a nephew of his, a man named Paulino Zamora, harbored his own resentment of the Spanish friars. Discontented by the rituals of the religion of the friars, Paulino took the dangerous step of having a personal Spanish Bible. It is unclear whether he was able to obtain it via a sea captain through smuggling or through Protestant church leaders in Spain, since sources are conflicted. One thing was clear: Zamora was aware of the danger he was entering into since possessing a personal Bible was forbidden by law. But his curiosity to find out what Scriptures say was a motivation he could no longer put off. He probably got curious of the religion exhibited by the English, that hailed from the Protestant Reformation which sprung up in Europe in 1517. Zamora married Epifania Villagas, and she bore him their son, Nicolás Zamora, on 10 September 1875.

Paulino Zamora’s family moved to Bulacan, away from the watchful eye of religious authorities, so they could freely read the Scriptures together. Nicolás, roughly at 12 years old, listened intently. The Bible group slowly began to attract neighbors by word-of-mouth, who were also curious of what the Scriptures really say of God, heaven, and salvation, and why such a book was prohibited to be read privately by individuals in the colony. Meanwhile, Paulino had his son taken care of by his brother, Fr. Pablo Zamora, who was a curate at the Manila Cathedral. The priest, in wanting Nicolas to pursue law or the priesthood, led him to enroll in the Ateneo de Municipal, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree. Eventually shifting his track into law, upon graduation in Ateneo, Nicolas enrolled at the Universidad de Santo Tomas. 

The outbreak of the Philippine Revolution in 1896 changed everything. The Spanish authorities heard of Nicolás’ father, Paulino Zamora’s, religious activities. Paulino was immediately arrested without trial and exiled halfway across the world to Chafarinas Islands, a penal settlement in the Mediterranean, off the northern coast of Morocco. Meanwhile, Nicolás, aggrieved, left his studies to join the revolution, eventually being drafted into General Gregorio del Pilar’s army. As the revolution raged, Nicolas made time to study the Scriptures for himself in the frontlines. Eventually he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. 

*Photo of Methodist Bishop James M. Thoburn who paved the way for the establishment of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Philippines. Courtesy of the Filipino Methodist History Facebook Page. 

With the Treaty of Paris signed in 1898, Paulino Zamora was granted amnesty and was allowed to go back to the Philippines. Paulino made sure he attended his first Protestant worship service in Spain and purchased evangelical readings from Spanish Protestants before he went back. Overjoyed upon hearing from his son the new religious freedom in the country under the Americans, the father and son were avid supporters of the first Protestant missionary activities in the country under Methodist Bishop James Thoburn and Arthur Prautch, that began in March 1899. By June, Protestant services that catered specifically to Filipinos, with an interpreter, was held in Teatro Filipino in Quiapo, Manila (where SM Quiapo stands today). On the fourth Sunday, Prautch’s Spanish translator did not make it to the service. Prautch asked Paulino to speak instead. The father, however, knowing the oratorical skills of his son, recommended Nicolás to face the thirty people gathered there. It was here when Nicolás shined, as he told his story, of his late great uncle, Jacinto Zamora, of their travails in wanting to read the Bible in the language they understand, and his own personal journey to faith. The people present were deeply moved by his testimony that Nicolás was asked to speak again the following Sunday. That Sunday, promoted in broadsheets across the country, was attended by a large crowd and Nicolás’ message was received with great impact. 

Eventually Paulino Zamora, upon the proddings of James Rodgers, a Presbyterian missionary, became affiliated with the Presbyterians. Nicolás preferred to stay in Methodism, and he eventually became an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Nicolás’ ascent from a mere deacon holding itinerant preachings in several locations to an ordained pastor was breathtakingly fast, if it is to be compared to the slow struggle of the secular priests against the Spanish friars from before. Recognizing Nicolás’ zeal and passion for the Gospel, it was Bishop Thoburn himself, and Bishop Frank Wayne, another Methodist leader impressed by Nicolás, who went out of their way for Nicolás’ ordination as deacon to happen. Commenting on his preachings, Wayne wrote, “He was a good man, educated, married, converted, eloquent, knew his Bible and abundantly qualified to preach.” Not long after, he became a fully ordained Protestant minister, the first in the country. 

Gaining a following, with his powerful preaching in Plaza Goiti in Manila, Nicolás Zamora’s pulpit became known in downtown Manila and beyond. He would hold debates with priests which would draw large crowds. By 1902, Nicolás was ordained as elder, and by 1903, he was assigned as the first Filipino pastor of the Methodist church at Avenida Rizal (now known as Knox United Methodist Church). Under his leadership, the church grew exponentially in membership. 

*The Knox Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church (now the Knox United Methodist Church) in 1907, courtesy of the Filipino Methodist History Facebook Page.

Dr. Dionisio Deista Alejandro, the first elected Filipino bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, recounted, upon being interviewed by Richard Deats:

While all was well in his ministry, Nicolás Zamora encountered condescending and racist comments even from among his American colleagues. One time, he overheard someone in a seminary say that Filipinos would never be good pastors. Another time, one wrote that “For all their veneer [they are still] primitive and childlike.” Zamora never left his nationalist ideas. In fact, it was his Protestant faith, with emphasis on the Christian’s individual conscience, direct access to God through Christ, personal reading of the Scriptures in the vernacular language (not from Latin, but from the original languages of Hebrew and Koine Greek), and the free gift of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, that intensified it all the more. Perhaps alluding to the Protestant movements that encouraged people to read the Bible in their own ethnic language/dialect, Zamora’s wish for the Filipino church to be free of foreign control intensified. 

*Portrait of Nicolas Zamora, courtesy of the Filipino Methodist History Facebook Page.

Finally on 28 February 1909, at St. Paul’s Methodist Church in Tondo, Manila, Zamora told the congregation that he will be leaving the American-controlled Methodist church to form the La Iglesia Evangelica Metodista en las Islas Filipinas (IEMELIF). Twenty five out of the 121 local preachers joined Zamora. Upon closer analysis, those who joined Zamora in this new independent church belonged to the generation of Tagalogs who were animated by the Philippine Revolution and have never given up on insisting on a uniquely Filipino way of Christian worship, despite the overwhelming American influence in the country. 

As if echoing the late great Protestant missionary to China, J. Hudson Taylor, who advocated for the indigeneity of the Christian message, Zamora uttered these words in one of his sermons:

Zamora, unexpectedly, died of Cholera in 1914, at the age of 39, two years longer than that of his great uncle, Jacinto Zamora. But his legacy lives on in the Protestant expression of Filipino spirituality today.

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In commemoration of the Protestant Reformation that began in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517 and ignited the Evangelical faith and the Modern World. 

It’s also Pastor’s Appreciation Month this October among mainline Protestant and Evangelical churches.

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*ABOVE: Portrait of Nicolás Zamora from the Filipino Methodist History Facebook Page.

*Special thanks to my fellow colleague researcher in NHCP, Eufemio Agbayani III, Vice President of the Historical Society of the United Methodist Church-QC PACE, who helped me supplement this blog post with vital facts on Philippine Methodism. :)

Carlos Bulosan (1913-1956), America is in the Heart

In celebration of the Museums and Galleries Month this October, I am featuring here all the 27 history museums of the National Historical Museum of the Philippines (NHCP). I have been fortunate to be working with the awesome team of the NHCP’s Historic Sites and Education Division led by its passionate division chief, Ms. Gina Batuhan, and the division’s tireless museum curators and guides, whose task is to maintain and develop these museums for the education and enjoyment of the wider public.

History museums, by definition, are different from other types of museums. Art museums showcase art pieces, and at times, put on panel texts dedicated to the artists’ life and legacy. Usually, the explanation of the art piece is left to the visitor as part of their museum experience. Anthropological (archaeological) museums showcase excavated artifacts from before recorded history, and also the material culture (past and present), with special emphasis on the indigenous cultures. The galleries explain the process upon which these artifacts have been excavated, the cultural value of the displays, and the cultural practices of the people that produced the artifacts. Others are multi-sensory museums, showcasing fabricated tactile displays that could be touched, smelled or listened to. These museums are highly interactive and are customized towards a specific demographic they cater to, such as children, or towards a specific theme. 

History museums by contrast are different.

G. Ellis Burcaw, in his book, Introduction to Museum Work (1983), explains:

What makes history museums different is the narrative it creates for the visitors, a chronologically-ordered, proportionally-laden, representative-conscious, and critical view of history, upon which the set narrative are laid out by historians that aid museum visitors to interpret for themselves the “forces” that made things as they are through a linear or multi-linear timeline. 

As of 2019, the NHCP has 27 history museums scattered all over the country, all different in their emphasis of Philippine history, but united in the pursuit of advocating historical thinking among Filipinos. Some are categorized by the type of history they feature, some are biographical, and some emphasize even the local history on which the museum is situated. The seemingly disordered categorization of NHCP museums is due to the fact that some of these museums are housed in heritage structures that have been donated and subsequently restored and maintained via adaptive reuse by the NHCP through the years. 

Back when the National Museum of the Philippines announced that their main museum and other regional branches have waved their free entrance fees in 2017, NHCP museums have long been offering free entrance to visitors. 

Admittedly, some of these museums are still far off from that museum ideal, given the limitations of budget, lack of durability in some displays, and even a fragmented narrative presentation. Museology, as part of the field of Public History, is ALWAYS done by careful negotiation, especially when in the context of government funding, competing interests of stakeholders, and the preference of the community where the museum is situated. While it is good to set our sights on this ideal, it almost always isn’t the case. 

The very well-known Enola Gay Controversy that made it to world news in 1995 due to the planned Smithsonian exhibition of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb in 1945 should be a lesson for all museums. Politics is a contending factor, given that some museums are unavoidably political. With this tedious set-up, there could be slight distortions, some of which lay persistent even after re-modernization. Also keep in mind that these museums are maintained by the State, and since the State’s view of history changes (and at times would often be contradictory in some cases), so also would some of these exhibits presumably change. For good or for ill, changes on physical structures like museums are slow, but academic integrity is still maintained by our team. To balance off potential biases, our team in the NHCP have made sure we’ve consulted  various historians from different history departments in the academe to provide our visitors with the most updated and impartial historical findings. Also, while many of our displays and panel text remain static, our curators and guides update their historical interpretation and supplement their take w/ the most recent scholarship for the benefit of the visitors to further enhance their tour experience. There are also occasional travelling / changing exhibits that you could check out when you visit. 

We take your constructive criticism very seriously, especially when it comes to corrections. We are all but human, and we are in the pursuit of a truly representative, national, justice-driven, and inclusive historical narrative that reflects the depths & complexities of our shared histories and cultures as a nation of many peoples. 

Establishing and curating museums is hard work, and I stand in awe of our staff in all these museums, whose work cannot be quantified, but only through the smiling faces and twinkling eyes of visitors after their visit.

North Luzon Museums

Museo ni Juan at Antonio Luna (Badoc, Ilocos Norte)

*Photos courtesy of the NHCP. 

Located in the hometown of the Luna brothers, the museum is housed in a middle-class bahay na tisa which was the actual family house of the Lunas. It was acquired by the government in 1954 and restored by the former National Historical Institute (now NHCP) & Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in 1977. The museum has six galleries that talks about the life and careers of the two brothers. It also features a recreated Juan Luna studio as it would have looked like in Paris. 

Museo ng Kasaysayang Panlipunan ng Pilipinas  (Angeles City, Pampanga)

*Photos from NHCP.

The museum is housed in another ancestral house, the Pamintuan Mansion, which was constructed by Mariano Pamintuan and Valentina Torres for their son in 1890. It was purchased by Bangko Sentral but via an agreement, ownership was transferred to NHCP in 2010. The NHCP transformed the house into this museum in 2015, dedicated towards Philippine social history, which boasts nine galleries.

Museo at Aklatan ni Pangulong Diosdado Macapagal (Lubao, Pampanga)

*Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

The museum features the replica of the nipa hut that the “poor boy from Lubao” used to live in, reconstructed in 1990. It also has a small library composed of books from the late president’s personal study. 

Museo ni Ramon Magsaysay (Castillejos, Zambales)

The museum is located on the same house where the parents of the beloved charismatic president used to live in. With three galleries showing the entire breadth of his life until his untimely death in a plane crash, the museum surprisingly moves the visitor toward grief and admiration. Unflinching also was the narrative, not removing the fact that Magsaysay was closely tied to the CIA’s Edward Landsdale.

Bulacan Museums

Museo ng Kasaysayang Pampulitikal ng Pilipinas (Casa Real, Malolos, Bulacan)

*Snapshots of some exhibits of this museum. Took this photo on 30 May 2017.

The museum used to be located within the NHCP Central Office building along Kalaw Street, Ermita Manila. It has since been moved to the historic Casa Real, in Malolos, a structure that dates back to 1767 and restored in 1982. The museum offers interactive LCD displays, highlights on the West Philippine Sea issue, and touches on the evolution of Philippine politics and civic engagement. 

Museo ng Republika ng 1899 (Barasoain Church Historical Landmark, Malolos, Bulacan)

*The front facade of the Barasoain Church. I took this photo on 30 May 2017.

*This is the museum’s life-sized diorama feature of the signing of the Malolos Constitution at the Barasoain Church. Took this photo on 30 May 2017.

The museum features a lights-and-sounds style presentation, housed in the historic Barasoain Church in Malolos where the Malolos constitution was drafted and where the senior leadership of the First Philippine Republic performed their duties. 

Museo ni Marcelo H. Del Pilar (Bulakan, Bulacan)

*Photos of the monument and gravesite of Del Pilar, and a life-sized diorama in the museum, on 30 May 2017.

Re-modernized in March 2016, the museum is right on the site of the town where the great editor of La Solidaridad was born. Del Pilar’s remains are also reinterred there in 1984 making the site a national shrine. 

Museo ni Mariano Ponce (Baliuag, Bulacan)

*Photos taken at the opening day of the museum by NHCP photographer Jovan Soriano.

This is NHCP’s newest museum to date, opened last 23 May 2019, on the occasion of Ponce’s 101st death anniversary. The museum stands on the site of the burnt-down Ponce house. The museum interestingly tackles the link of the First Philippine Republic with Japan and the Pan-Asianism movement. Ponce was friend and ally of Sun Yat-sen, the first president of the Republic of China, and other Asian leaders. He also campaigned for the republic’s recognition among Asian neighbors. 

Metro Manila Museums

Museo ni Jose Rizal, Fort Santiago (Intramuros, Manila)

*Photo of the museum from the central plaza of Fort Santiago, Intramuros, courtesy of NHCP.

*Photo of the gallery last 18 March 2019, featuring “The Martyrdom of Rizal” by National Artist Carlos Botong Francisco. The painting is supplemented by its tactile depiction on a reader rail for the appreciation of the blind.

Located at the site where Rizal was held before his execution on 30 December 1896, this museum is one of the most popular museums of the 27 NHCP museums. It showcases a narrative of Rizal’s life and achievements, and even displays some of his actual possessions. Famous award-winning paintings depicting Rizal’s life decorate the galleries. 

Museo El Deposito (San Juan City)

*Photo by Ed Geronia of Spot.Ph

*Photo of the museum’s scale model of the entire Pinaglabanan Memorial Shrine, with a glimpse of the old water reservoir underneath, 15 February 2019.

Perhaps the first historic waterworks museum in the country, this museum is at the site of the El Deposito de Agua, the water reservoir that was connected to Intramuros and nearby arrabales. The museum also showcases objects that were excavated underneath the reservoir, depicting specific historic periods that go beyond the Spanish period. 

Museo ng Katipunan, Pinaglabanan Memorial Shrine (San Juan City)

*Photo of the museum last 12 January 2017.

Photo of the museum’s interior, courtesy of NHCP.

Located just beside the Museo El Deposito, this museum highlights the history of the Katipunan, the exploits of Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto, Gregoria de Jesus and others who led the underground revolutionary movement against Spain. 

Museo ni Manuel Quezon (Quezon City)

*Photo of the Quezon Memorial Shrine, 7 October 2019.

Housed in the iconic tall spire designed by Federico Ilustre, known as the Quezon Memorial Shrine, the museum was re-modernized on Quezon Day 2015 and reopened to the public. It highlights personal items of the late president of the Philippine Commonwealth and his family, and is composed of five galleries that tell of his life and enduring legacy. Manuel Quezon’s and First Lady Aurora Quezon’s remains are interred here.

Museo ng Pampangulong Sasakyan (Quezon City)

The museum is perhaps the most sought-after museum among the 27, based on the number of visits per month. The museum features the cars that have once transported the most powerful leader of the land on the road, and other vehicles of historic significance that have been turned over to the NHCP. It features the technology behind the cars, and the protection and comfort accorded them by the people. 

*Photo of the museum interior, 18 August 2018

Museo ni Apolinario Mabini, Polytechnic University of the Philippines (Santa Mesa, Manila)

The museum is located at the PUP campus. The highlight is the Mabini bamboo-and-nipa hut which was the very place where Apolinario Mabini in 1903 died due to cholera. The hut has been moved around finally settling on campus. The museum, just beside the hut, contains a summary of his life and legacy, and even a recreated hammock upon which Mabini used to be transported.

South Luzon Museums

Museo ni Emilio Aguinaldo (Kawit, Cavite)

*Photos from NHCP.

The museum is housed in the historic Aguinaldo Mansion (w/ art noveau & art deco detailing) where the independence of the Philippines was proclaimed from its balcony window on 12 June 1898. The museum houses the Aguinaldo collection, with four galleries that highlight his life and legacy as the revolutionary leader and president of the First Philippine Republic.

Museo ni Baldomero Aguinaldo (Kawit, Cavite)

*Photo from NHCP.

Dedicated to the first cousin of President Emilio Aguinaldo, the museum features Baldomero’s achievements as revolutionary general, and after the Philippine-American War, as leader of the Asociacion de los Veteranos de la Revolucion Filipina. The museum is housed in the Baldomero Aguinaldo house built in 1906.

Museo ng Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio (Maragondon, Cavite)

*Photo from the museum’s facebook page.

The house where the museum is laid witness to the trial proceedings of the military tribunal on the Bonifacio brothers who were accused of treason in 1897 after the Tejeros Convention. Sentenced to death, the brothers were executed at Mt. Nagpatong, in Maragondon, Cavite. The museum, composed of five galleries give a well-rounded narrative of the controversial trial and its historical context.

Museo ni Jose Rizal (Calamba, Laguna)

*Photo taken on 11 June 2017. 

Housed in a rebuilt bahay-na-bato where the original site of the Rizal house was (this was also where he was born), the museum features six galleries that show the life of Rizal, from his childhood and his family life, to his travels and studies abroad, up to his return to Manila in 1892. The museum boasts unique Rizaliana memorabilia.

Museo ng Libingan sa Ilalim ng Lupa ng Nagcarlan (Nagcarlan, Laguna)

*The museum’s interior, from the NHCP Website.

Having been the only cemetery museum in the 27 museums of NHCP (and possessing the longest name as well), the museum is housed in a building fronting the historic octagonal-shaped cemetery that dates back to 1845 and features the only known underground crypt in the country. The museum talks about heritage conservation that was implemented on the site.

Museo ni Miguel Malvar (Santo Tomas, Batangas)

*Photo of a sculpture piece of General Miguel Malvar on horseback, displayed in the museum, 11 June 2017.

As one of the last  Filipino generals to surrender to the Americans in the Philippine-American War, Miguel Malvar’s life highlights the role of a family man and leader at the time of revolution. The museum showcases three galleries that showcases his personal life as well as his memorabilia.

Museo ni Apolinario Mabini (Tanauan, Batangas)

*Photos of the exterior and interior of the museum, courtesy of ASEMUS.

In terms of its sheer size, it’s one of the largest museums among the 27. Fronting the museum is the actual resting place of Apolinario Mabini’s remains, replete with two spires designed by National Artist Juan F. Nakpil. The museum seven galleries that showcases his achievements as the great constitutionalist, thinker, and leader of the First Philippine Republic. If you want an overview of the Philippine-American War, this museum delivers it.

Museo nina Leon at Galicano Apacible (Taal, Batangas)

*Photo courtesy of NHCP.

The museum is housed in the Leon Apacible house where it documents the Apacible brothers’ efforts in securing both international recognition, and internal cohesion for the First Philippine Republic. With five galleries exhibited, it features the life and times of the two and their lasting legacy. 

Museo nina Marcela Mariño at Felipe Agoncillo (Taal, Batangas)

*Photo courtesy of NHCP.

This is the only museum in the 27 that features the life and legacy of a married couple who did so much for the revolutionary movement and establishment of the First Philippine Republic. Marcela is known as the one who led the sewing of the Philippine flag, while her husband Felipe was the first diplomat of the country, appealing to the international community to recognize Philippine independence. The museum is quite text-heavy, having seven galleries all in all.

Museo ni Jesse Robredo (Naga City)

*Photo taken on 17 August 2019, before the museum grand opening. 

Perhaps the most well-designed museum of the 27, the museum is dedicated to the exemplary leadership of former Naga City mayor, DILG Secretary, and Ramon Magsaysay awardee, Jesse Robredo, documenting his simple beginnings, his rise to leadership, and ending in his untimely death. The museum building is a green architecture building, equipped with an auditorium. 

Visayas and Mindanao Museums

Museum of Philippine Economic History (Iloilo City)

*Exterior of the museum showing the Edificio de Ynchausti y Cia, from Good News Pilipinas website.

The old Ynchausti y Compañia Commercial House built in 1905 and restored by NHCP in 2018 was adaptively reused as a museum that opened early this year. True to the structure’s history, the museum is dedicated to documenting the ebb and flow of the Philippine economy in Philippine history and the aggregate efforts of people pushing towards progress. With thirteen galleries all in all, it is one of the largest museums among the 27.

*Photo taken on 10 February 2019 prior to the museum’s grand opening.

Museo ng Pamana at Kasaysayang Boholano (Loay, Bohol)

The lone NHCP museum that is focused on the local history of its community, the museum is housed in the historic Escuela de los Niños y Niñas Buildings beside the Loay Church and Casa Tribunal in Loay, all of which were destroyed in the 15 October 2013 earthquake, but was completely restored in 2017 by the NHCP.

Museo ni Jose Rizal (Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte)

*Photos from NHCP, dated 19 June 2016. 

The only NHCP museum in Mindanao to date, the museum stands on the former 34-hectare farm land Rizal purchased from the money he won through lottery while exiled by the Spanish authorities to Dapitan. Rizal’s ingenuity is showcased through the four galleries that exhibited specimens he examined, tools he used, sketches and maps he drew, that developed the community there at the time.

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Want to have a history museum challenge? How about visiting all of them in your lifetime? Make your museum experience historic! 

Like the NHCP Museums Facebook fan page for more updates on these museums. 

The Battle of Leyte Gulf, to date, is the largest naval battle in recorded history. No other naval battle waged has had more ships (300 ships on the American side, 67 plus ships on the Japanese side), involved so much personnel, and engaged on a wide area of sea, than this battle. The significance of this battle was so much so that Japan’s Emperor Hirohito, while conversing with his aide-de-camp, Col. Tadahisa Nakamura, called this battle a decisive one that would “give a telling blow to the enemy” and force the Americans to a “compromise settlement.” Indeed, the Japanese were already pushed into a corner, for they knew that once the Allied forces gain a foothold on the Philippines, the oil supply line from Indonesia, and Philippines, to Japan that sustained their war machine would be compromised. Moreover, the Philippines could become launching point to stage an eventual Allied invasion of Japan. Even when the Japanese forces in and around East and Southeast Asia were spread too thin, defeat was not an option. And desperate times called for desperate measures. 

*The Battle of Leyte Gulf map as featured in The Sunday Magazine, 23 April 1967 issue. Courtesy of the Presidential Museum and Library.

While the Filipinos on this battle was on the backdrop, our country’s role in such a decisive naval battle could never be underestimated. While the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Allied forces battled it out at sea, equally important was the grueling effort of the 3,500 Filipino guerrillas in pushing the Allied advance on land, which added more impetus to the naval victory.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf was not limited to the area of Leyte Gulf. It had four engagements: (1) The Battle of Cape Engaño, (2) the Battle of Sibuyan Sea, (3) the Battle off Samar, and (4) the Battle of Surigao Strait. 

As early as 17 October 1944, the Japanese forces have already detected the approaching armada of Allied ships going straight for Leyte. As foreseen by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff during their planning, all the Japanese forces from the north, southeast and east of the Philippines converged in the Visayas area to meet the advancing U.S. fleet., even as the Leyte Landing was successfully implemented on 20 October 1944. 

*Japanese battleships in Brunei just before the Battle of Leyte Gulf. From left to right: the Musashi, the Yamato, a Japanese cruiser, and the Nagato. Courtesy of the Plaza Cuartel Museum.

*Japanese aircraft carriers Zuikaku (left) and Zuihō (right) try to evade the attack of Allied bombers in the Battle of Cape Engaño. Courtesy of the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command.

The battle engagements have had a lasting impact on the overall Pacific theater of the Second World War. In one way or the other, turning points within the battle were quite symbolic. For example, three greatest ships in the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) at the time were the humongous Yamato-class battleships symbolizing the Japanese might at sea. In a momentous moment, one of these, the Musashi, was sunk off the coast of San Francisco, Quezon Province in the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea.

*Yamato-class battleship Musashi under aerial attack by the U.S. Navy Task Force 38 at Sibuyan Sea near Romblon. Courtesy of the U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation.

*Map chart of the Battle of Surigao Strait depicting the evolution of the engagement, charted as of 25 October 1944. The accuracy of the map is not guaranteed, the original being painted on a window shade, 6x7 ft. Courtesy of the U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command.

*As Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku sinks after an air bombing in the Battle of Cape Engaño, the Japanese navy soldiers salute to the lowering of the Japanese Rising Sun flag, as the ship ceases to be the flagship of the fleet. Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

In another turning point in the battle was having the very ships that were bombed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in 1941 by the Japanese be deployed for engagement in the Battle of Surigao Strait. These newly repaired ships at the forefront of battle was a symbolic gesture to exact vengeance. With the exception of USS Mississipi (BB-41) in this battle, the USS Maryland (BB-36), USS West Virginia (BB-48), the USS Tennessee (BB-43), the USS California (BB-44), and the USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) were all there in Pearl Harbor.

*The USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) leads the USS Colorado, USS Louisville, USS Portland, and USS Columbia into Lingayen Gulf in January 1945. Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

It was also at the Battle of Leyte Gulf that in an act of desperation, the Japanese implemented the Kamikaze suicide pilots unit or the Tokubetsu Kōgekitai. The kamikaze or the “divine wind” was an allusion to the typhoon that drove away the Mongol invasion force from Japan in the 13th century. With a great loss of experienced pilots at this time of the war, the surviving Japanese pilots were so inexperienced compared to their American counterparts that the Japanese have given up on any chance of attacking their opponents by air. Believing that this was the last ditch effort to turn the tide in their favor, the Japanese pilots crashed themselves and their planes willingly onto the U.S. battleships and aircraft carriers. Implemented from the airstrip in Mabalacat, Pampanga and Cebu, five kamikaze planes were able to damage five American ships, but only one, the USS St. Lo, sunk because of it. 

*The USS St. Lo explodes upon the impact of a Japanese kamikaze plane on its hull, creating a fireball that rose to as high as 300 ft. Photo taken by a cameraman aboard USS Kalinin Bay, courtesy of the U.S. Navy archival photo collection. 

After the battle, it was clear that Japan had lost domination over the sea, contributing to their impending defeat in 1945.

Senior British Army officer and military historian J.F.C. Fuller said:

Meanwhile, Filipino historian Ricardo T. Jose, an expert on the Second World War in the Philippines, wrote: 

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*Back in 2014, in commemoration of the battle’s 70th anniversary, a series of 9 infographic maps were released via the Official Gazette to feature a blow-by-blow account of this historical event. Graphics design done by artist Derrick Macutay, and researched by me and military historian Jose Antonio Custodio. These are still up on the Malacañang page.

Below is the 4th infographic of the series we did. Please feel free to use these as teaching aid to your kids/students. 

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The turn of the tide had long been coming. It began when the plan of the Empire of Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor in Hawaii was implemented on 8 December 1941 (2:30 am Philippine Time). This was to remove the possible reinforcements out of the way that would have defended the Philippines from a Japanese invasion. 

The Filipinos, at the onset, believed that another foreign occupation would not succeed, given the shared belief in the might of America. But as history had unfolded, this belief was smashed to pieces, as the unthinkable happened. Manila was declared an open city, and by New Year’s Day of 1942, Manila had been occupied. One after another, defenses fell. Bataan had fallen. Corregidor fell last. President Manuel Quezon and a number of his Cabinet was moved to safety via submarine to the United States mainland. The Bataan Death March, gruesome in its way of punishing the surviving Filipino and American soldiers in the months-long siege, violating the Geneva Convention, had marked upon every Filipino’s mind the cruelty of the invader.

Local government units scrambled, being forced into submission. But if there was one thing that the Filipinos shared, it was that deep resentment and resistance from the invaders, whom one time or the other, were foreign in every way to the Filipino way of life—from language, to culture, to ways of thinking. And if such a resistance was deep in the Filipino mind, the Imperial Japanese occupiers would find such an enemy that could not be seen or touched hard to defeat. One could even hear it, even upon the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo in Manila in 1943. Spectators were instructed to shout, “Banzai!” People instead shouted, “Bangkay!” 

Deep into the mountains were a complex network of Filipino guerrillas, spies, and liasons linking the belegueared underground movement to the President of the Philippines, in self-exile in the U.S., who, while on his deathbed, dreamt of having to see a liberated Pilipinas before his passing. But this was not meant to be when Quezon died on 1 August 1944. Sergio Osmeña, Vice President, assumed the Presidency of a yet to be liberated homeland. 

It took meticulous planning through this network of patriots deep in the hinterland of the Philippines to know the conditions that would be apt for a comeback. With the Japanese on the retreat in the Pacific, with victory upon victory achieved by the Allies in the Battle of Midway (4-7 June 1942) and the Battle of the Philippine Sea (19-20 June 1944), a wide window was opened for the Allies to attack the oil supply lines of the Japanese that stretched from Sumatra to the Philippines towards Japan. The Allied forces were faced with two choices—to attack Taiwan and skip the Philippines, or attack the Philippines from Mindanao. Field Marshal of the Philippine Army, Douglas MacArthur, as part of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, made sure that the only option would be to liberate the Philippines first. It was U.S. Admiral William Halsey’s suggestion to attack Leyte due to its weak defenses and the stretched undermanned Japanese personnel. It would also surprise the Japanese who were expecting the attack on Mindanao. 

*The strategy map with notes, followed by the Allied forces prior to the Leyte Landing. The map was featured in the New York Herald, 1944.

Ruperto Kangleon, the guerrilla leader of Leyte, became a very important figure in the resistance, as he rallied the guerrillas, communicating with the Allies, to set the stage for the historic landing. A tropical storm coincidentally landed in Leyte on 16 October 1944, and as if Divine providence would have it, the typhoon winds removed all the concealed Japanese installations. And the strong winds that it brought cleared the skies for a good weather for the scheduled landing. 

On 14 October 1944, Filipino guerrillas transmitted to the Allies that there were no underwater obstacles on the beaches between Abuyog and Tacloban, but Surigao Strait was still full of mines. On the 16th, select American soldiers and Filipino guerrillas covertly implemented minesweeping operations, clearing the stage for the landing. The Japanese in the area were quick to resist upon finding out the operations, threatening to slow down the mission. Meanwhile, Japanese navy forces from Taiwan and Brunei began to converge towards Leyte in a desperate attempt to stop the landing. On the 17th, American warships and transports headed straight toward Leyte. 

At 9:00 am of 20 October 1944, the stage is set for the landing. Allied forces poured in, as Filipino guerrillas fought valiantly on the ground like there was no tomorrow. 

*USS Pennsylvania bombing the beach of Leyte prior to the landing, 20 October 1944. Photo from the World War II History Gallery.

*Aerial view of the landings in Leyte on 20 October 1944, taken by SOC Seagull from USS Portland (CA-33). Courtesy of the Presidential Museum and Library.

*Field Marshal Douglas MacArthur and newly-assumed President Sergio Osmeña, on board a landing craft en route to the Palo beach, in the afternoon of 20 October 1944. Photo from the World War II History Gallery.

And on this historic day, in the light of the bright afternoon sunset, the newly assumed Philippine president Sergio Osmeña, together with Field Marshal Douglas MacArthur, landed on the Red Beach at Palo, Leyte. 

*On this photo taken at approximately 4:00 pm of 20 October 1944. On the extreme left is President Sergio Osmeña. At the center, General Douglas MacArthur. Courtesy of the Presidential Museum and Library.

*Douglas MacArthur inspecting the Palo beach after the successful operation on 20 October 1944. Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

On that very day, the Commonwealth government was re-established on Philippine soil. But the battle is far from over.

*Ruperto Kangleon, on the footsteps of the Leyte Capitol in Tacloban, upon the declaration of the liberation of Tacloban, Leyte, 23 October 1944. Photo from the U.S. Department of The Navy - Naval Historical Center. 

In commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Leyte Landing.

*Infographic above by the PCDSPO 2014 (Researched by the undersigned, and historian Jose Antonio Custodio; Graphic by artist Derrick Macutay).