DOCSLIB.ORG

The Hispanic American Philippines and the Postcolonial Disability Cultures of US Empire by Jason Coráñez B

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Hispanic American Philippines and the Postcolonial Disability Cultures of US Empire by Jason Coráñez B Crip Native Woman: The Hispanic American Philippines and the Postcolonial Disability Cultures of US Empire by Jason Coráñez Bolton A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (American Culture) in The University of Michigan 2016 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor María E. Cotera, Co-Chair Associate Professor Sarita E. See, Co-Chair, University of California-Riverside Associate Professor Deirdre de la Cruz Assistant Professor Brandi S. Hughes Associate Professor Victor R. Mendoza ©Jason Coráñez Bolton 2016 DEDICATION I dedicate this work to my parents, Charlita and James, whose love and friendship have created bonds that operate on a physics that displacement can’t bust. To David: you’ve saved me so many times; words can’t travel there. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I had a question about the world that I needed to answer. While painfully cliché that really was the reason I pursued the tiring and winding path of this doctorate. Now I have the happy task of thanking those that inspired such questioning and those that helped to reformulate it for much better ends. I’m fortunate to have gone to school where I did. I was able to assemble an amazing committee of interlocutors. Any moments of clarity, depth of thought, or intellect can all be traced back to conversations that I’ve had with each of you. Thank you so much Sarita, Maria, Brandi, Deirdre, and Victor. You’re all brilliant and I admire you so much. I couldn’t have collaborated with a warmer and generous group of scholars than you all. A special thanks and thought I must give to Dr. Jody Blanco. I don’t think that I can overstate the utang na loob I have for your mentorship and scholarship. You and Deirdre both have taught me that Hispanic Studies of the Philippines is not some permutation of colonial nostalgia but a critically understudied aspect of Philippine historiography and politics. I’d also like to thank perhaps the best cohort of graduate students I could ever hope to be a member. To Frank Kelderman, Yamil Avivi, David Green, and Liz Harmon: thank you for being so generous and engaging scholars. I can’t really quantify how much I’ve learned from you all. Muchas gracias Jennifer Garcia Peacock for being a patient teacher to me of Latina/o Studies. I think fondly about our discussions re: ¡lo rasquache! Wendy Sung--while you might punch me for saying this, I really did (do) look up to you like a big sister. I can honestly say that iii my affinity toward cultural studies can be traced back to you. And, last but not least, to Mejdulene Shomali: navigating the diaspora as scholars can be hard. To be sure, I’ve been really lost sometimes; but, you are kinda my North Star in a lot of ways. I’m fortunate to have had you as an exemplary role model on how to think and live ethically. I have an embarrassment of brilliant graduate school friends to thank. To the greatest writing group of all time: to feelings-expert Tiffany Ball, superstar Jina Kim, Yelp-elite Jenny Kwak, and poet-with-the-mostess Lokeilani Kaimana, thank you thank you thank you for reading all of my terrible prose. A special thought to Drs. Ball and Kim: I’m really glad that I could share the vagaries and miseries of the job market with you both. I’m happy to see that it’s worked out for all three of us. I’d also like to thank the critical mass of Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies graduate students many of whom I count as my own mentors even though many of them look to me as, how did you put it, an “elder.” You are all amazing. You will do amazing things. I will be super impressed by said amazingness. I will learn from it and be better for it. Michael Pascual, Meryem Kamil, Peggy Lee, Vivian Truong, Joo Young Lee, Mika Kennedy, Sunhay You, Hiro Matsusaka, Marie Sato, Lisa Jong, Matthew Chin, and Stephanie Fajardo are names that inspire a lot of hope and gratitude in me. I’m continually amazed by you all. Latina/o Studies has also been a second home to me thanks to the intellectual generosity afforded to me as a scholar who continues to be curious about the intersections of Filipina/o and Latina/os. Thank you so much to Amy Sara Carroll. You might be the smartest, most innovative, courageous scholar-human-artist I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. My first publication benefitted immensely from your expert and meticulous reading. I was touched by your generosity and am inspired by your commitment to a conciencia fronteriza. Thank you to Colin iv Gunckel who authored my first foray into Latina/o Studies at Michigan and for recommending me its graduate certificate program! Muchas gracias a Iván Chaar-López, Orquidea Morales, Mary Renda, and Kris Klein Hernández for being so willing to entertain a Filipino Studies perspective. I’m very lucky to have had the support of two Ethnic Studies collectives for my work. Much of this work was inspired by my time in Quezon City at the Ateneo de Manila University. To my Advanced Filipino Abroad Family (AFAP), I really couldn’t have chosen to learn Tagalog with a more loving, fun, and crazy group. I think about our humid city-trotting with a lot of fondness and affection. Maraming salamat especially sa Kagawaran ng Panitikan Pilipino. Thank you to Professors Mike Coroza, Ruth Elynia Mabanglo, Richard Guzman, Oscar Campomanes, Teresita Ramos and Alvin Yapan for your kagandanhang loob and your commitment to Filipino language. And maraming salamat sa Nikka Osorio and Yol Jamendang- -you all taught me good! The seeds of this project were sown in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where I intentionally persued a Jesuit education, which, contrary to popular opinion, constantly pushes me to think more radically about my scholarship and the creation of knowledge as a service to others. I’d like to thank the Foreign Language and Literature Department for nurturing my, at the time, weird interests in feminist critique and Filipino literature. Quiero agradecerles especialmente a Professors Eugenia Afinoguénova, Jason Meyler, Todd Hernández, Armando González-Pérez, Belén Casteñeda, Dinorah Cortés-Vélez, Anne Pasero, and Julia Paulk. I’d also like to thank Professors Teresa Tobin and Sara Gendron for teaching me about the philosophies of feminist thought. Also: to Dr. Jodi Melamed, thank you for pushing me to think about Spanish literature in the space of Ethnic Studies. While I can imagine having done graduate work in a Romance v Languages program, I am glad that you taught me about Ethnic and American Studies. This project greatly benefits from your critical mentorship at a very critical time (which basically feels like approximately 1000 years ago at this point). My parents met near a military base in the Subic Bay, Philippines. Born in the twilight of the era of martial law and with a migration characterized to me as an escape from violence, it seemed that I was always destined to form words in languages that conjured such violent pasts. Like returning to a place I’ve never been, Olongapo City was my place of birth and the origin point of this project. Nevertheless, my white Nebraskan father, a US Naval offier, and my brown mother, hailing from the ironically named MacArthur Leyte in the Visayas, demonstrate that something beautiful, like love, can emerge from the intersection of US militarism and compromised Philippine sovereignty. They taught me to love. They taught me to think. Everything is their fault and I love them for it. I often daydream that my siblings and I are part of a third world liberation strike force like the X-Men but better. To Danica, Brandilyn, Jeffrey, and Ashley, I thank you for putting up with me. Even though you’ve made fun of me for being the “Golden Child” that, perhaps wanted too much, I entrust these words as a “making-sense” of a cultural and linguistic distance, which, perhaps made us want too little or demand less than we deserve. To my Aunt Dianne Smith, the career military officer: while my insights on US colonialism are controversial, I know that you’ll read them with patience. Know that I wrote them with a lot of gratitude for your knowledge, material, and emotional support over the years. You really have inspired me to be very exacting in this work. Thank you. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................................................................... iii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................... ix INTRODUCTION: .................................................................................................................................... 1 Bayani ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 1 Filipino intellectual culture and the crip native woman .................................................................................. 15 Filipino Studies .................................................................................................................................................................. 24 CHAPTER I The Philippines to Fanon: National Crip Cultures ........................................... 33 Postcolonial Cripistemology and the Postcolonial supercrip .......................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Headstart for the Philippines Cultural Notes
    TA 0001 5 HEADSTART FOR THE PHILIPPINES " ... - .......- = - - . _ _ t' A . , ..... _ -. - . ' ':~"" &'t • :. - - '!:...;..-..... -....~: CULTURAL NOTES DEFENSE LANGUAGE INSTITUTE, FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER HEADSTART FOR THE PHILIPPINES CULTURAL NOTES FIRST EDITION FEBRUARY 1985 DEFENSE LANGUAGE INSTITUTE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER ACKNOWLEDGMENT Photographs provided by the Northern California Philippine Ministry of Tourism, San Francisco, CA. ii CONTENTS Geography 1 Climate 2 People 2 History 4 Language 9 Religion 10 Family Life 11 The Filipina 12 Courtesy and Custom 14 Arts 15 Food and Restaurants 18 Alcoholic Beverages 19 Sports 20 Holidays 21 Sightseeing 23 Shopping 26 Transportation 27 Driving 28 Health 29 Currency 30 Telephone Service 30 Household Help 31 Bibliography 31 iii SOUTH SATA N£S PAOV, ; "-~ATANC IS . • • QBA8UYAN IS. CHI NA o P \locos Sur SEA LUZON PACIFIC Sur OCEAN CALAMIAN GROUP SULU SEA MINDANAO SEA Republic of the Philippines GEOGRAPHY A few degrees above the equator and several hundred miles from the Asian mainland, the Phil­ ippines lie scattered north to south for a thou­ sand miles and east to west for seven hundred. Eleven of the more than 7,107 islands and islets, only 700 inhabited, account for 96 per­ cent of the land. The islands of the archipel­ ago fall into three groups. The northernmost includes Mindoro and Luzon. Luzon, where Manila is located, is the center of government and the most heavily populated and industrialized sec­ tion of the country. The eight central islands of the Visayan group--Samar, Leyte, Cebu, Bohol, Negros, Panay, Masbate and Palawan--are second in development. To the south lie Sulu and Min­ danao with vast but relatively unexploited agri­ cultural and mineral potential.
    [Show full text]
  • Priestly Formation in the Asian Contexts
    173 ❚Special Issues❚ □ Priestly Formation in the Asian Contexts Priestly Formation in the Asian Contexts: Application of the Church’s Teachings to the Philippine Church and Society* 1 Fr. Rodel E. Aligan, O.P. 〔Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, Philippines〕 A. The Philippine Situation as a Catholic Nation 1. Evangelization Context 2. Socio-Cultural Context 3. Economic and Political Context 4. The Present Situation of the Catholic Church in the Philippines B. Priestly Formation in the Philippine Context: Application of the Church Teachings to Philippine Church and Society 1. Circumstances of Present-Day Asia 2. Priesthood in the Asian Contexts 3. Priesthood in the Philippine Context 4. The Vision-Mission Statement of the Church in the Philippines 5. Nine Pastoral Priorities of the Church in the Philippines in the Light of PCP II and the National Pastoral Consultation on Church Renewal 6. New Pastoral Priorities of the Church in the Light of the New Evangelization in the Philippines 7. The Implications of the Pastoral Priorities to Priestly Formation in the Philippines 8. The Role of Inculturation on Filipino Priestly Formation *1이 글은 2015년 ‘재단법인 신학과사상’의 연구비 지원을 받아 연구·작성된 논문임. 174 Priestly Formation in the Asian Contexts More than twenty years ago the Philippine Church held the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines on January 20-February 17, 1991, the first being held 38 years ago (1953). It was to take a stock of where the Philippine Church was; to look at where it was going; to reanimate its life in Jesus Christ; and to unite all things in Him.1 During its conclusion after four weeks of discerning it was hoped to be another Pentecost; Christ descending upon the Filipino people, going forth spirited to renew the face of the world ― the Filipinos world first, and through this little world, the wider world of Asia and beyond, giving of ourselves unto the renewal and unity of God’s creation.2 PCP II in the Spirit has looked back in wonder over the Filipinos’ journey as a Christian nation.
    [Show full text]
  • Colonial Contractions: the Making of the Modern Philippines, 1565–1946
    Colonial Contractions: The Making of the Modern Philippines, 1565–1946 Colonial Contractions: The Making of the Modern Philippines, 1565–1946 Vicente L. Rafael Subject: Southeast Asia, Philippines, World/Global/Transnational Online Publication Date: Jun 2018 DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.268 Summary and Keywords The origins of the Philippine nation-state can be traced to the overlapping histories of three empires that swept onto its shores: the Spanish, the North American, and the Japanese. This history makes the Philippines a kind of imperial artifact. Like all nation- states, it is an ineluctable part of a global order governed by a set of shifting power rela­ tionships. Such shifts have included not just regime change but also social revolution. The modernity of the modern Philippines is precisely the effect of the contradictory dynamic of imperialism. The Spanish, the North American, and the Japanese colonial regimes, as well as their postcolonial heir, the Republic, have sought to establish power over social life, yet found themselves undermined and overcome by the new kinds of lives they had spawned. It is precisely this dialectical movement of empires that we find starkly illumi­ nated in the history of the Philippines. Keywords: Philippines, colonialism, empire, Spain, United States, Japan The origins of the modern Philippine nation-state can be traced to the overlapping histo­ ries of three empires: Spain, the United States, and Japan. This background makes the Philippines a kind of imperial artifact. Like all nation-states, it is an ineluctable part of a global order governed by a set of shifting power relationships.
    [Show full text]
  • "Patria É Intereses": Reflections on the Origins and Changing Meanings of Ilustrado
    3DWULD«LQWHUHVHV5HIOHFWLRQVRQWKH2ULJLQVDQG &KDQJLQJ0HDQLQJVRI,OXVWUDGR Caroline Sy Hau Philippine Studies, Volume 59, Number 1, March 2011, pp. 3-54 (Article) Published by Ateneo de Manila University DOI: 10.1353/phs.2011.0005 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/phs/summary/v059/59.1.hau.html Access provided by University of Warwick (5 Oct 2014 14:43 GMT) CAROLINE SY Hau “Patria é intereses” 1 Reflections on the Origins and Changing Meanings of Ilustrado Miguel Syjuco’s acclaimed novel Ilustrado (2010) was written not just for an international readership, but also for a Filipino audience. Through an analysis of the historical origins and changing meanings of “ilustrado” in Philippine literary and nationalist discourse, this article looks at the politics of reading and writing that have shaped international and domestic reception of the novel. While the novel seeks to resignify the hitherto class- bound concept of “ilustrado” to include Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), historical and contemporary usages of the term present conceptual and practical difficulties and challenges that require a new intellectual paradigm for understanding Philippine society. Keywords: rizal • novel • ofw • ilustrado • nationalism PHILIPPINE STUDIES 59, NO. 1 (2011) 3–54 © Ateneo de Manila University iguel Syjuco’s Ilustrado (2010) is arguably the first contemporary novel by a Filipino to have a global presence and impact (fig. 1). Published in America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and in Great Britain by Picador, the novel has garnered rave reviews across Mthe Atlantic and received press coverage in the Commonwealth nations of Australia and Canada (where Syjuco is currently based).
    [Show full text]
  • The La Solidaridad and Philippine Journalism in Spain (1889-1895)
    44 “Our Little Newspaper”… “OUR LITTLE NEWSPAPER” THE LA SOLIDARIDAD AND PHILIPPINE JOURNALISM IN SPAIN (1889-1895) Jose Victor Z. Torres, PhD De La Salle University-Manila [email protected] “Nuestros periodiquito” or “Our little newspaper” Historian, archivist, and writer Manuel Artigas y was how Marcelo del Pilar described the periodical Cuerva had written works on Philippine journalism, that would serve as the organ of the Philippine especially during the celebration of the tercentenary reform movement in Spain. For the next seven years, of printing in 1911. A meticulous researcher, Artigas the La Solidaridad became the respected Philippine newspaper in the peninsula that voiced out the viewed and made notes on the pre-war newspaper reformists’ demands and showed their attempt to collection in the government archives and the open the eyes of the Spaniards to what was National Library. One of the bibliographical entries happening to the colony in the Philippines. he wrote was that of the La Solidaridad, which he included in his work “El Centenario de la Imprenta”, But, despite its place in our history, the story of a series of articles in the American period magazine the La Solidaridad has not entirely been told. Madalas Renacimiento Filipino which ran from 1911-1913. pag-usapan pero hindi alam ang kasaysayan. We do not know much of the La Solidaridad’s beginnings, its Here he cited a published autobiography by reformist struggle to survive as a publication, and its sad turned revolutionary supporter, Timoteo Paez as his ending. To add to the lacunae of information, there source.
    [Show full text]
  • Adelaidean Volume 17 Number 10 December 2008
    FREE Publication December 2008 | Volume 17 | Number 10 inside this issue 8 Cricket ball Family unit set in Stone Age quality takes a knock 10 South Australian Engineering of the Year Awards A study by a University of Adelaide sports engineer shows that not all cricket balls are consistently manufactured, causing quality issues and potentially having major 15 implications for cricket matches. Creative writing student The research, conducted by wins literary prize the coordinator of the Sports Engineering degree program at the University of Adelaide, Associate Professor Franz Konstantin Fuss, studied fi ve models of cricket balls manufactured in Australia, India and 17 Pakistan. The study looked at the methods Penguins’ not-so-happy of construction, stiffness, viscous ending discovered in DNA and elastic properties, and included changes to the balls’ performance under compression and stress relaxation tests. Dr Fuss found that the model manufactured in Australia – the Kookaburra Special Test – was the only cricket ball manufactured consistently. The other four models were found to have inconsistent “stiffness”, which can play an important part in how a ball reacts when struck by the bat. “In contrast to other sport balls, most cricket balls are still hand-made, which may affect the consistency of manufacturing and thus the properties of a ball,” Dr Fuss said. story continued on page 18 Adelaidean Adelaidean is the offi cial newspaper of the University of Adelaide. It provides news and information about the University to the general public, with a focus on Life Impact. Circulation: 11,000 per month From the Vice-Chancellor (March to December) Online readership: 90,000 hits per month (on average) www.adelaide.edu.au/adelaidean Editor: The world is defi nitely getting smaller.
    [Show full text]
  • Nationalism, Citizenship and the Politics of Filipino Migrant Labor ROBYN M
    Citizenship Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2002 Migrant Heroes: Nationalism, Citizenship and the Politics of Filipino Migrant Labor ROBYN M. RODRIGUEZ The Philippine state has popularized the idea of Filipino migrants as the country’s ‘new national heroes’, critically transforming notions of Filipino citizenship and citizenship struggles. As ‘new national heroes’, migrant workers are extended particular kinds of economic and welfare rights while they are abroad even as they are obligated to perform particular kinds of duties to their home state. The author suggests that this transnationalize d citizenship, and the obligations attached to it, becomes a mode by which the Philippine state ultimately disciplines Filipino migrant labor as exible labor. However, as citizenship is extended to Filipinos beyond the borders of the Philippines, the globalizatio n of citizenship rights has enabled migrants to make various kinds of claims on the Philippine state. Indeed, these new transnationa l political strug- gles have given rise not only to migrants’ demands for rights, but to alternative nationalisms and novel notions of citizenship that challenge the Philippine state’s role in the export and commodi cation of migrant workers. Introduction In 1995, Flor Contemplacion, a Singapore-based Filipina domestic worker, was hanged by the Singaporean government for allegedly killing another Filipina domestic worker and the child in her charge. When news about her imminent death reached the Philippines, Filipinos, throughout the nation and around the globe, went to the streets demanding that the Philippine government intervene to prevent Contemplacion’s execution. Fearing Philippine– Singapore diplomatic relations would be threatened, then-Philippine President Fidel Ramos was reluctant to intercede despite evidence that may have proved her innocence.
    [Show full text]
  • On Lav Diaz‟S a Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery
    ―Textual Mobilities: Diaspora, Migration, Transnationalism and Multiculturalism‖ | Lullaby of Diasporic Time: On Lav Diaz‟s A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery Christian Jil R. Benitez Ateneo de Manila University Philippines [email protected] Abstract Lav Diaz is a Filipino independent filmmaker notable as a key figure in the contemporary slow cinema movement. Of his oeuvre, one of the longest is A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery (Filipino: Hele sa Higawang Hapis), a 2016 epic film that runs for 8 hours, orchestrating narratives derived from what are conveniently sung as mythology (i.e., Jose Rizal‘s El filibusterismo and Philippine folklore) and history (i.e., Philippine history and artifacts). The movie competed in the 66th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Alfred Bauer Prize. This success has earned Diaz‘s the spotlight in the Filipino mainstream culture, enabling the film to be distributed to and showcased in mainstream platforms, albeit primarily garnering attention from the Filipino audience for its runtime and international attention. The movement of the film, as a text, from the local Philippines toward the international and returning home, incurs in it a textuality that disrupts the phenomenology of time diasporically, scatteringly: that as much as its 8-hour languor ―opens new perspective in the cinematic arts‖ according to the international rendition of this time, it is also the 8-hour whose value in the Philippine time is that of a day‘s labor, and thus the exoticization of its cinematic experience as a ―challenge,‖ having to endure an entire working day of slow cinematography. This diaspora of time is of no cacophony; on the contrary, it is the lullaby, sorrowful and mysterious, that finally slows Diaz in to become a filmmaker attuned to both the spaces of the local and the international.
    [Show full text]
  • The Independence Mission 1919: Independence Lies Ahead
    THE INDEPENDENCE MISSION 1919: INDEPENDENCE LIES AHEAD HONESTO A. VILLANUEVA * THE FILIPINOS HAD COOPERATED WHOLEHEARTEDLY IN THE WAR efforts of the United States in the First World War. Independence agitation was suspended temporarily. But when hostilities ended, the silence that they had imposed upon themselves became useless. Once again the demand for liberty and independence took a new form of vigor with the creation of a Commission of Independence on November 7, 1918 by the Philippine Legislature. The duty of the Commission was to study and make recom- mendations as to the proper steps to be taken to secure independence from the United States.1 The Filipino people understood the then prevailing trend of interna- tional politics and the principle of self-determination which was popular during the Wilson administration. The Philippine Legislature therefore sent a special independence mission to Washington, D.C. 2 Governor General Harrison informed the War Department that the Philippine Legislature in their joint resolution on November 11, 1918, authorized the sending of a Commission to the United States composed of the President of the Senate, the Secretary of Commerce and Communication, Senators and Representa- tives and a small group of businessmen. The resolution reads: "The special task of the Commission during its stay in the United States will be to endeavor by every means in its power to advance the excellent relations and mutual confidence now existing between the Americans and the Filipino people and to encourage the further development of the commercial relations between both countries on a broad liberal and permanent foundation." ... The Governm General further requested: "Please give me your views on the subject.
    [Show full text]
  • Philippine Studies Ateneo De Manila University • Loyola Heights, Quezon City • 1108 Philippines
    philippine studies Ateneo de Manila University • Loyola Heights, Quezon City • 1108 Philippines Bibliography John N. Schumacher, S.J. Philippine Studies vol. 58 nos. 1 & 2 (2010): 297–310 Copyright © Ateneo de Manila University Philippine Studies is published by the Ateneo de Manila University. Contents may not be copied or sent via email or other means to multiple sites and posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s written permission. Users may download and print articles for individual, noncom- mercial use only. However, unless prior permission has been obtained, you may not download an entire issue of a journal, or download multiple copies of articles. Please contact the publisher for any further use of this work at [email protected]. or [email protected]. http://www.philippinestudies.net Bibliography John N. Schumacher, S.J. Books 1970 1. The Catholic Church in the Philippines: Selected readings. Quezon City: Loyola School of Theology. 313 pp. Mimeographed. 1972 2. Father José Burgos: Priest and nationalist. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. xvi, 273 pp. 1973 3. The Propaganda Movement: 1880–1895. The creators of a Filipino consciousness, the makers of the revolution. Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House. xii, 302 pp. 1974 4. Philippine retrospective national bibliography: 1523–1699, comp. Gabriel A. Bernardo and Natividad P. Verzosa, ed. John N. Schumacher, S.J. Manila: National Library of the Philippines; Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. xvi, 160 pp. 1976 5. (With Horacio de la Costa, S.J.) Church and state: The Philippine experience. Loyola Papers 3. Manila: Loyola School of Theology. iv, 64 pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Death by Garrote Waiting in Line at the Security Checkpoint Before Entering
    Death by Garrote Waiting in line at the security checkpoint before entering Malacañang, I joined Metrobank Foundation director Chito Sobrepeña and Retired Justice Rodolfo Palattao of the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan who were discussing how to inspire the faculty of the Unibersidad de Manila (formerly City College of Manila) to become outstanding teachers. Ascending the grand staircase leading to the ceremonial hall, I told Justice Palattao that Manuel Quezon never signed a death sentence sent him by the courts because of a story associated with these historic steps. Quezon heard that in December 1896 Jose Rizal's mother climbed these steps on her knees to see the governor-general and plead for her son's life. Teodora Alonso's appeal was ignored and Rizal was executed in Bagumbayan. At the top of the stairs, Justice Palattao said "Kinilabutan naman ako sa kinuwento mo (I had goosebumps listening to your story)." Thus overwhelmed, he missed Juan Luna's Pacto de Sangre, so I asked "Ilan po ang binitay ninyo? (How many people did you sentence to death?)" "Tatlo lang (Only three)", he replied. At that point we were reminded of retired Sandiganbayan Justice Manuel Pamaran who had the fearful reputation as The Hanging Judge. All these morbid thoughts on a cheerful morning came from the morbid historical relics I have been contemplating recently: a piece of black cloth cut from the coat of Rizal wore to his execution, a chipped piece of Rizal's backbone displayed in Fort Santiago that shows where the fatal bullet hit him, a photograph of Ninoy Aquino's bloodstained shirt taken in 1983, the noose used to hand General Yamashita recently found in the bodega of the National Museum.
    [Show full text]
  • The Development of the Philippine Foreign Service
    The Development of the Philippine Foreign Service During the Revolutionary Period and the Filipino- American War (1896-1906): A Story of Struggle from the Formation of Diplomatic Contacts to the Philippine Republic Augusto V. de Viana University of Santo Tomas The Philippine foreign service traces its origin to the Katipunan in the early 1890s. Revolutionary leaders knew that the establishment of foreign contacts would be vital to the success of the objectives of the organization as it struggles toward the attainment of independence. This was proven when the Katipunan leaders tried to secure the support of Japanese and German governments for a projected revolution against Spain. Some patriotic Filipinos in Hong Kong composed of exiles also supported the Philippine Revolution.The organization of these exiled Filipinos eventually formed the nucleus of the Philippine Central Committee, which later became known as the Hong Kong Junta after General Emilio Aguinaldo arrived there in December 1897. After Aguinaldo returned to the Philippines in May 1898, he issued a decree reorganizing his government and creating four departments, one of which was the Department of Foreign Relations, Navy, and Commerce. This formed the basis of the foundation of the present Department of Foreign Affairs. Among the roles of this office was to seek recognition from foreign countries, acquire weapons and any other needs of the Philippine government, and continue lobbying for support from other countries. It likewise assigned emissaries equivalent to today’s ambassadors and monitored foreign reactions to the developments in the Philippines. The early diplomats, such as Felipe Agoncillo who was appointed as Minister Plenipotentiary of the revolutionary government, had their share of hardships as they had to make do with meager means.
    [Show full text]