Category: Articles

Author’s Foreword  This book is unfinished. The Filipino people shall finish it for me. I wrote this volume very, very slowly. 1 could have done with it In three months after my defection from the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos on February 20.1975. Instead, I found myself availing of every excuse to slow…

My curiosity was piqued by this June 1930 issue of Philippine Magazine with a cover painting deviating from the usual Filipino scenery or subject. This painting entitled “In Doubt” by Enrique Liborio Ruiz is that of a young woman seated on the ground, wearing attire with paisley and floral patterns that would have been worn…

I’ve owned this very rare Zorrilla Theater programme for many years now and will eventually be donated to my favorite Ortigas Library. This programme (in Spanish and English) has an anarchy of Art Nouveau fonts used for the advertisers, overshadowing the opera notes of Il Trovatore, performed by the Compania De Opera Italiana in Manila…

Picture postcards from the first two decades of the 20th century are among the most striking souvenirs from the past that link the Philippines and the United States. Hundreds of thousands of Philippine cards were printed or made directly from photographs. Thousands were sent through the mail, but possibly, even more, were kept as souvenirs…