Qwertyman No. 155: Deflections and Reflections

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Qwertyman for Monday, July 21, 2025

FAR BE it from me to serve as an apologist for the Marcoses, who can easily hire half of Makati and Ortigas, not to mention Madison Avenue, to front for them. 

But speaking as a curious citizen, I’ve been wondering about the recent rash of posts online drawing attention to the unfortunate death in the United States of a member of the Tantoco clan, reportedly from a drug overdose. 

The peg was that the ongoing investigation into the disappearance and presumed murder of 110 sabungeros—which reached a climax with the explosive revelations of a whistleblower and the retrieval of possible bones from Taal Lake—was a massive ploy to deflect attention from the real issue, which was First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos‘ rumored involvement in the Tantoco case. 

That death happened in March. Contrary to allegations that it was swept under the rug, or that a media blackout was imposed by the Palace, Rappler has noted on its website that “Mainstream media outlets have reported earlier on the death of the Rustan executive, who died on March 9 at the age of 44. Examples of these news items include a March 9 Manila Bulletin article, a March 10 Philstar.com article, a March 10 GMA News Online article, a March 10 Manila Times article, a March 11 Rappler article, a March 11 ABS-CBN News article, and a March 12 Daily Tribune article.” 

So why the sudden buzz? Because a newspaper columnist known to be a Duterte trumpet very recently came out with an “exposé” claiming that, according to a report supposedly released by the Beverly Hills Police Department, First Lady Liza was among those interviewed by the police after Paolo Tantoco’s death. The BHPD subsequently declared the report to have been tampered with, pointing out that the portion implicating the First Lady had been tacked on.

But the “exposé” was touted as big news in DDS-land, proof of the veracity of which was the rattled haste with which the administration (1) trotted out a “whistleblower” in the lost sabungeros case, followed by divers dramatically fishing out sacks of bones (with the Atong Ang-Gretchen Barretto angle as a saucy aside); and (2) exhumed the long-dead issue of Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro’s Maltese passport, which he had long surrendered. A timeline put out on YouTube by a Duterte publicist “proved” that after every iteration of the “Tantoco-FL” case, a “diversion” engineered by Malacañang immediately ensued, starting with the death itself, followed by the sensational arrest of Rodrigo Duterte and his quick deportation to the Hague for trial by the ICC.

In short, a lot of labor has gone into this conspiracy theory which would have us believe that PRRD was whisked off to the Netherlands, that the lost cockfighters were suddenly found, and that Gibo Teodoro’s loyalties are questionable—just to deflect attention from the real and the most important story (since shown to be fake) that the First Lady was somehow involved in the death of a prominent Filipino family scion. It would be the cover-up of the (21st) century for Pinoys, if true—and a mountain of poop to swallow, which many of the DDS faithful apparently have no difficulty ingesting. And not just them, either—I’ve heard the “Cover-up! Cover-up!” line being echoed by some of my liberal friends.

My own pedestrian take is, so what if FL were somehow involved in the Tantoco case, nefariously or otherwise? So what if Malacañang panicked and sought to quash the news by thinking of gimmicks to overshadow it? Rodrigo Duterte still needed to be shipped off to the Hague to face justice, and he was. The missing sabungeros, more than a hundred of them, still need to be found, and they may have been. If good results come out of shady decisions, I’m thankful they did.

But let me try on that same conspiratorial hat that seems so fetching on DDS heads. It’s a loose fit on mine, but reflecting on these matters like a true conspiracist, where do you suppose all these feeds are coming from, and why? Who stands to benefit from all this disinformation, and has the wherewithal to support a network of trolls, columnists, and “political analysts” all trying to divert public attention from what should be the biggest political story of the moment—VP Sara’s impending impeachment case—to some fake cover-up? 

The Dutertes stand to benefit, of course, but the impish fictionist in me says the hand of a larger patron can’t be discounted—particularly when you factor in the Gibo subplot, which concerns a possible presidential candidate who has been very vocal in his criticism of a northern bully. (The operatives peddling the “distraction” story, not incidentally, are the same people who keep reminding us that we asked to be bullied by filing that frivolous and unfriendly suit laying claim to our own territory.)

But of course I could be overthinking, which then again becomes any aspiring and self-respecting conspiracy theorist. I’ll get the hang of it, one of these days. 

 Maybe I’ll begin with the “traitorous” tandem of Bam and Kiko—as they’re now being made out to be even by some of their staunchest supporters—signing up with the Senate majority to worm their way into DDS hearts, so maybe one of them could be Sara’s running mate in 2028 under a broad anti-Marcos alliance. Wild? Can anything run too wild in the Pinoy’s fevered political imagination?

(Image from YouTube)

Qwertyman No. 154: Politics as Melodrama

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Qwertyman for Monday, July 14, 2025

I’VE OFTEN argued that our most popular literary form isn’t lyric poetry, the short story, and certainly not the novel—it’s theater, and more specifically melodrama. Born in the West in the 18th century, melodrama weaves its spell on a suggestible audience through sensational and often ridiculous plots, exaggerated action, overblown emotion, and contrived solutions—all of which viewers happily lap up, and come back looking for more. When you think about it, it also happens to describe our politics, but more on that later.

I used to bring up melodrama when I taught playwriting and screenwriting, by way of analyzing how our Filipino sense of drama works. You don’t have to be a theater scholar or critic to observe that we Pinoys love drama, which to us really means melodrama, whether onstage, onscreen, or in real life.

Subtlety and silence have never been our strongest suit. We like to shout, to scream, to declare, to explain—and to explain some more. Take, for example, our preferred methods of murder. In Hamlet, the villainous Claudius pours poison into the king’s, his brother’s, ear. In The Seventh Seal, a knight faces Death on the chessboard. That may have been thrilling for fans of Shakespeare and Ingmar Bergman—but terribly dull and anesthetic for our kind of crowd.

No, sir, we Pinoys like our killings obvious, loud, and emphatic. Poison in the ear is for sissies. We prefer knives because they mean business, are as personal as personal can get, and they produce a lot of cinematic blood. And it’s never enough to stab someone, certainly not from behind, which would be a complete waste of dramatic possibilities. We like to announce that we’re killing someone, and to explain the reasons why: “Hudas ka, Raymundo, niyurakan mo ang karangalan ng aming angkan, kaya’t tanggapin mo ngayon ang mariing higanti ng hustisya—heto’ng sa iyo!” But of course Raymundo has to have his moment, and must raise that inevitable question: “Ano’ng ibig mong sabihin?” Whereupon our hero launches into another lengthy explanation, to which Raymundo offers an impassioned rebuttal, all to no avail, as he is stabbed repeatedly to the accompaniment of further oaths and recriminations.

I used to think that this kind of talkativeness and effusive gesturing was invented by us, until I went to graduate school and realized that it was all over the place in Restoration drama, where the likes of John Dryden had his characters indulge in copious speechifying in the name of love and honor before killing everyone onstage. I suppose a similar trend seized the French and Spanish theater, and thereby later ours, in the zarzuelas, moro–moros, and komedyas that provided us with both entertainment and education. The noisiness carried over to radio, and then to our movies, which never quite shook off the “Ano’ng ibig mong sabihin?” habit. 

And this brings us to our politics, which is not only full of sound and fury, of unbridled verbosity, but of plot twists that strain credulity and yet which manage to keep the audience on the edge of their seats, either roaring in rage, applauding in delight, laughing deliriously, or weeping in sorrow, depending on their persuasions.

The Duterte Saga, our biggest ongoing drama, is now in its fourth act—the Sara impeachment—after the Uniteam victory, the fallout, and the Digong arrest and banishment. A professional scriptwriter could not have done better than giving the VP lines like Sara’s vengeful vows, as the media reported: “I have talked to a person. I said, if I get killed, go kill BBM (Marcos), (First Lady) Liza Araneta, and (Speaker) Martin Romualdez. No joke. No joke,” Duterte said in the profanity-laden briefing. “I said, do not stop until you kill them and then he said yes.” Threatened with impeachment for that statement and for corruption, she said, “I truly want a trial because I want a bloodbath.”

To the uninitiated listener, a madwoman was merely frothing at the mouth, but to the theater-goer, she’s puffing up her feathers, going larger than life, saying outrageous things to define her character and stake out her space like a Maori dancing the haka. Her adversary, PBBM, is playing cool and coy, pretending to be occupied with work and a disinterested party in Sara’s undoing. And yet he whisks off her precious papa in the night to Scheveningen, provoking even more outbursts from the DDS faithful.

Now comes the tearful part. Melodrama moves from Olympian thunder to cloying tenderness, so our next scene, naturally, has Sara’s mom Elizabeth declaring that her estranged husband has been reduced in detention to “skin and bones.” But it’s all right, she says bravely. “And how is my son, acting Mayor Baste?” the Davao City mayor-in-exile asks in a dry croak. “He’s okay, too,” Elizabeth assures him. “His vice mayor is your grandson!” So but for the absent patriarch, all’s well in Duterteland—sort of.

Melodramas love subplots, so let’s introduce one: selling the Duterte house. Common-law wife Honeylet puts up a sign announcing the place for sale (“It’s too painful to sleep there all by myself,” she claims), but son Baste reportedly has the sign removed. Not so fast, VP Sara chimes in; Honeylet could sell her half of it but not her dad’s. Besides, where would Digong live when he returns from the Hague, if Honeylet sold the house? (Cue for hopeful, uplifting music, which tapers off into a melancholic minor key.) “Perhaps he could live with Mama Elizabeth again,” Sara muses. 

Ah, such poignant moments. No one’s been stabbed yet—expect a lot of that to happen, metaphorically, if and when the Senate finds its balls and starts the impeachment trial of VP Sara. What’s theater without traitors? Sen. Migz Zubiri has already thrown down the gauntlet by declaring the trial “a witch-hunt.” But Senator Migz, ano’ng ibig mong sabihin?

Penman No. 475: True Confessions

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Penman for Sunday, July 13, 2025

AS A collector (make that a scavenger) of old books, manuscripts, and what the market generally calls “ephemera,” I inevitably come across material neither written by nor meant for kings and presidents, but rather pedestrians like myself with things to say, perhaps secrets to whisper, likely to no one but to God and posterity.

I’m talking about diaries and journals, which people of my generation used to do (and millennials are back to doing). Worse than a pack rat, I hoard other people’s memories, some in diaries that would make people turn in their graves to know I had. I come across these often as discards or stray items among people selling and buying old books, but I find them equally if not even more fascinating than published (and therefore sanitized) material.

Back then, before computers and digital journals, New Year began with the purchase of a new diary, its pristine pages waiting to be filled with birthdays, appointments, expenses—and more interestingly, interjections of love, pain, joy, and grief, life’s highest and lowest moments. 

I myself kept diaries at one time, although the entries tended to peter out around March or April, when fatigue got the better of my enthusiasm. My most interesting one has to be my martial-law diary, which I rather presumptuously began as soon as I was thrown in prison at Fort Bonifacio; I say “presumptuously” because, at seventeen, I entertained the precious thought that somehow, someday, my juvenile musings would be worth something to someone other than my mother (I had yet to find a wife then). 

When the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci languished in a Fascist jail in the late 1920s, presumably between a meager breakfast and gazing out into the starless night, he penned lines like “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” He developed his theory of hegemony and held forth on the role of intellectuals in social change, published in his seminal Prison Notebooks.

My own teenage memoirs have survived, but instead of writing about the dominance of the ruling class or about harrowing details of torture and misery—which did happen to others—I chronicled the visits of the pretty young psychologists assigned by the military to interview us; of course we assumed they were spies, but that didn’t stop us from chatting with (more like staring at) them across a table that felt much too wide.

Indeed, for most of us more interested in the personal than the political (although arguably one will always be the other), the value of diaries lies in their true confessions, in their promise of intimacy and insight—along with, let’s admit it, the wicked thrill of voyeurism.

Among the most poignant of my inadvertent discoveries has been the diary—really more a scrapbook—of a once-famous and gifted writer (whose name I’ll leave out for now as he still has family around) who was imprisoned after the War for his stridently pro-Japanese sentiments and actions. In three languages, both typewritten and handwritten, he acknowledges receipt of his beloved’s supplemental rations—beef, fish, fruits, and coffee—but no letter yet again. “Nang buksan ko kagabi ang bayong, hanap ako nang hanap…. Na naman? Wala? Namanglaw ako nang lubos. Di yata at wala ka na naming panahon.” How many times do I have to tell you, he goes on to lament, that even for important to me than sustenance for my body is sustenance for my spirit?

I once came across a whole sheaf of journals in a ditch in front of our house, which I was inspecting because it had gotten clogged with what turned out to be a plastic bag full of papers. It had been carelessly thrown there by the home’s previous occupants or whoever cleaned it out—we had just moved in. They turned out to be the personal papers of a renowned UP professor, and as guilty as I felt about peeking into her life, I read a few pages, in which she confessed her admiration for a certain man (she lived and died a spinster)—only to remind herself, with what I could almost hear was a deep sigh of regret, that she considered herself wedded to God. I read no further, and decided to turn the papers over to a friend, a former and beloved student of hers who was the closest thing to a son.

Most recently, some diaries from the late 1930s and 1940s came to me along with a medical book, and they contain nothing so revelatory, but the details of everyday life a,re always engrossing. They obviously belonged to a doctor—perhaps more than one—and while they contain medical marginalia they also carry legal notes, so the owner must have been studying to be a medico-legal person. Rather moving is the narrative in one diary of bringing a very sick mother to the hospital; I flipped a few pages and the inevitable entry appeared: “Mother died.” And there lay the stark helplessness of a doctor who could not save his own mother.

For many years now, the writer and presidential historian Manolo Quezon has been on top of an important enterprise called the Philippine Diary Project, a digitized compilation of diaries and memoirs from such notables as Jose Rizal, Ferdinand E. Marcos, Dean Worcester, and Emilio Aguinaldo all the way to the murdered activist Ericson Acosta (clearly more women need to be added to the roster).

“To me there are two holy grails,” Manolo told me. “The first is the diary of Gregorio H. Del Pilar. The diary of the American officer who led the expedition that killed him, Frederick Funston, exists but has yet to be transcribed. It was he, by all accounts, who pocketed del Pilar’s pocket diary; perhaps his papers will reveal them after a thorough search. The other is the diary of Benigno S. Aquino, Sr. The late Benito Legarda, Jr. told me that it was shown to him by one of the sisters of Ninoy, and that, in Spanish, it began, “I have been summoned to a meeting in Malacañan by the commanding general of the Japanese Military Administration…” The thing is, the last sister who had it, lost her memory and her children have not found the diary since.”

He adds that “A large portion of the Marcos diary is missing and anecdotally is said to be in the possession of a former member of his administration. For me though, what I’m seeking are diaries by Filipinos. Our own voices are woefully underrepresented. I think many were lost in Ondoy, many others have been thrown away, still more exist, but families are afraid people will take offense and so prefer to keep them secret.”

What I find from my own small collection is that whether they wrote in English or Tagalog, or used fountain pens or typewriters, our forebears recorded the smallest details such as “Auto repair 15.00” and “Won jai-alai 5-3 event.” Today we do all that with digital ink. I wonder what some digital pack rat will be remarking about us 50 years hence.

Qwertyman No. 153: Our Literary Fathers

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Qwertyman for Monday, July 7, 2025

THE RECENT announcement of the impending sale of the Solidaridad bookshop in Ermita owned and run by the family of the late National Artist F. Sionil Jose understandably triggered a wave of nostalgia for the place, the old man, his dear wife Tessie, and for a bygone era when people strolled into book stores over their lunch break or after work to browse and pick up an Updike, a Le Guin, or a Garcia Marquez—and, of course, a Sionil Jose, and get it signed by the man himself if he was luckily around. Five decades ago, as a writer for the National Economic and Development Authority just a couple of blocks away on the same street, that browser would have been me, for whom Solidaridad and the equally legendary Erehwon nearby were a godsend, an unlisted perk. 

Indeed Solidaridad and FSJ (or Manong Frankie, as we his juniors called him) were inseparably conjoined in the public’s imagination of a man who was not only our most productive and best-known novelist but also an indefatigable purveyor of great literature and critical if occasionally controversial thinking, through his journal Solidarity and his long-running column “Hindsight,” this very space I was honored to have inherited.

Like many others—even those with whom he had quarreled fiercely—I was deeply saddened when Manong Frankie passed away three years ago. It was particularly bittersweet for me because we had become quite close in his last years, after having been somewhat estranged for the longest time. 

He had taken me under his wing on a writers’ conference in Bali in 1983, in a group of young, aspiring writers finding their way in a broadening literary world. But shortly after, in an interview with National Public Radio in America where I had gone to study, I offered my rather injudicious opinion of his prose—not mine alone—which he must have gotten wind of and found disparaging, because he gave me the cold shoulder afterwards. Like other younger writers, I would bristle at his hectoring moods—which I would better understand as I myself got older—during which he lamented the seeming alienation of the Filipino writer from his or her own social and political reality. 

It was a concern we happened to share, and he began to know and appreciate me as someone who eschewed academic snobbery as much as he did, having transitioned to fiction from a background in journalism rather than the writers’ workshop system that he was deeply dubious of. In other words, we had more in common than each of us thought, and our work in the Akademyang Filipino brought us closer together. At one time I gifted him with the very first issue of Solidarity—Vol. I, No. 1—which I had found, and which he had not seen for ages; he was happy. After my speech at the Palancas in 2017, he came up to shake my hand.

Ironically, this happened at a time when FSJ, ever strongly opinionated, turned off many of his readers with his pro-Duterte sentiments, his putdowns of Nobel prizewinner Maria Ressa and others he thought undeserving of their fame, and his acerbic loathing of certain families he considered oligarchs despite their long having been supplanted by new and far more ravenous overlords. I did not share these views, and he knew that, but I think we had quietly decided that our friendship was more important than our politics. Shortly before he died, he sent me a brief letter that will be a cherished secret to keep until I myself pass on.

I didn’t learn writing from Manong Frankie; rather, I observed and admired his persistence and perseverance, literally writing to the last on what turned out to be his deathbed. I enjoyed his stories more than his novels, but in the end my own preferences don’t matter. He left a sprawling, robust, and indelible body of work that for many readers here and overseas will define Philippine literature in English for the latter 20th century. He led what our mutual friend the novelist Charlson Ong called “a well-managed life,” building a legacy partly through Solidaridad, Solidarity, and Philippine PEN which he led for a long time, apart of course from his work, and making sure he was heard when he spoke. 

His passing reminded me of the other members of his generation—his seniors and juniors by a decade or so—whom my generation in turn looked up to and at the same time, in that perpetual cycle of revolt and renewal, sought to depose. Nick Joaquin we adored as much for his prose as for his prodigious drinking (and seriously, for putting as much of his heart and craft into his journalism as into his fiction). NVM Gonzalez, who happened to have been born in Romblon (and not in Mindoro as many think) several kilometers away and forty years ahead of me, had that common touch many citified writers lost. Edilberto Tiempo I owe for urging me to return to school and devote my life to studying and writing rather than to bureaucratic servitude. 

Bienvenido Santos, twinkly-eyed and gently smiling, was my favorite of them all in terms of the quietude but also the emotional resonance of his stories, so graceful and yet so powerful. If I were to think of a literary father, it would have been Franz Arcellana, whose work may have been so vastly different from mine and yet, as my mentor in school, was the one I sought to please, slipping my story drafts under his office door and praying for his approval. Gregorio Brillantes, the youngest of them and perhaps more properly belonging to the next generation along with Gemino Abad, has been my writing hero for his superlative technique and unfailing sense of character. All these men (and women as well, for whom a separate story should be told) have taught me and my peers much, not just about the craft of writing but just as importantly the writing life, this vocation of books and words we have ddevote ourselves to for the bliss and yet also often the anguish of finding meaning in life through language.

Manong Frankie has passed on and soon so will his fabled bookshop, but his words, as well as ours, now have a life of their own.

Qwertyman No. 152: A Probinsyana from Paoay

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Qwertyman for Monday, June 30, 2025

IT WON’T officially be out for another couple of weeks, but I’m happy to announce the publication of my latest book, the biography of one of the Philippine judiciary’s most fearless and remarkable women, former Supreme Court Justice and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales. Begun during the pandemic, Neither Fear Nor Favor: The Life and Legacy of Conchita Carpio Morales (Milflores, 2025) traces the journey of a probinsyanafrom Paoay, Ilocos Norte to the country’s highest court, followed by an even more distinguished period of service as “the people’s agent” at the Office of the Ombudsman.

I’ve written a number of biographies of outstanding Filipinos before—among them the accounting titan Washington SyCip, former UP and Senate President Edgardo Angara, and the renowned economist Leonides Virata, as well as the revolutionary Lava brothers—but this was different in many ways. 

Foremostly, it was because my subject was a woman working her way up a heavily male-dominated system, constantly challenged to adhere to her fundamental values and principles in an environment of corruption, intimidation, and political accommodation.  For the men—given that they had the talent and the grit, and possibly the right connections—success was practically a given; for such women as Conchita, proving oneself worthy was often doubly difficult.

Since the Supreme Court of the Philippines was established in 1901, almost 200 justices have been appointed to that exalted bench; only 18 have been women as of 2023, and it wasn’t until 1973 that the first female justice, Cecilia Muñoz Palma, took office. After Morales was appointed to the SC by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2002, among the first cases to fall on her lap was the impeachment of no less than Chief Justice Hilario Davide, brought on by pro-Estrada congressmen who believed Davide had misused the Judiciary Development Fund. A fellow Justice approached the novice to ask her pointblank, “Chit, do you think you can handle this?” Inhibiting herself from the case would have been the prudent option, but she took it on, and wrote the decision disposing of the complaint.

She would soon be known for her fierce independence. Despite death threats—a grenade was once left outside her Muntinlupa home, along with a threatening message—she worshiped no sacred cows, spared no one from judicial scrutiny when the situation demanded. This was even much clearer when she retired from the Supreme Court and was appointed Ombudsman, in charge of investigating and prosecuting high-profile cases of graft and corruption in government. Among the cases that crossed her desk were those against PGMA, President Noynoy Aquino, former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, and former Vice President Jejomar Binay.

While most of a Justice’s or Ombudsman’s work is done quietly, away from public view, occasionally they come into the limelight even against their wishes because of our fraught political environment where issues often end up in court. One such case was the 2011 impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona, a highly significant and contentious case that centered on serious allegations of corruption and betrayal of public trust. 

Then the Ombudsman, Morales engaged a former Supreme Court colleague, Serafin Cuevas, in what came to be known as the “battle of retired justices. “I had been summoned as a hostile witness by the defense,” Conchita recalls. “I sensed that the defense wanted to embarrass and humiliate me even. They thought that my alleged opinion that Corona had millions of dollars in undeclared deposits had been based on the three complaints filed before the Office of the Ombudsman. But it was the Anti-Money Laundering Council that had furnished me with the CJ’s record of bank transactions. I had requested their assistance as reported by the media even before I was summoned to testify. The three complaints filed at the OMB never mentioned any dollar deposits. If the defense counsels had been insightful enough, they should have figured that out.” Corona was eventually impeached on a vote of 20-3.

Her confrontations with former President Rodrigo Duterte—a distant relative, through the marriage of her nephew Manases Carpio to presidential daughter Sara—were also the stuff of theater. At the 2016 wedding of Manases’ brother Waldo, the President and the Ombudsman walked down the aisle together arm in arm—he in a cream barong and she in a bottle-green gown—and appeared friendly, making small talk. The cordiality would not last long.

One year later, in October 2017, President Duterte challenged Conchita to resign as Ombudsman, claiming that she had exercised “selective justice” in asking her deputy, Arthur Carandang, to investigate his unexplained wealth. Duterte suspended Carandang, and threatened to impeach Conchita. “Resign now,” he told Morales, “at kung hindi, huhubaran kita!” The last line—which literally translates into “or else I’ll strip you naked”—was egregiously coarse, but came as no surprise to audiences familiar by this time with Duterte’s tough-guy and often misogynistic language.

Morales promptly hit back, vowing not to be intimidated. “If the President has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear,” she coolly told a press conference.

What most people never saw was Conchita’s lighter side. The first time she went to Broadway in 1981, she watched Evita with her sister Vicky. Before watching, they had dinner at Gallagher’s, where the size of the steaks made Conchita’s eyes pop. She couldn’t finish her portion and, ever the Ilocana, wanted to have it wrapped to take home. Her sister told her not to do that, so Conchita went to the ladies’ room, got some tissue paper, and wrapped the steak. The following day, they went to Washington, where they went to dinner and had shrimp cocktail. Conchita then took out the previous day’s steak to the shock of Vicky, who said, “Don’t bring that out. Don’t embarrass me!” The steak ended up in the wastebasket. 

Lawyer Ephyro Amatong and others who trained with her were privy to Conchita’s moods and modes. “When she was in her ‘Justice’ mode, she was very strict, very sharp, very hard to read, with an incredible poker face. I knew lawyers like the co-head of litigation at a big firm who thought that she was scary,” Eph says. “But while she could be reserved, she could also be very charming and accommodating. She had a great sense of humor. I remember when she had to attend an en banc meeting or when she had a ponencia for deliberation, just before she went out the door, she might be laughing or making jokes about the grilling she might get, or mention what she was wearing and how fashionable she was. But once the door opened and once she stepped out, her ‘Justice’ face came on, ready for battle.”

You can read more about this feisty Filipina, the Ramon Magsaysay awardee for public service in 2016, in the book. Neither Fear Nor Favor: The Life and Legacy of Conchita Carpio Morales will be available on Shopee and Lazada or from milflorespublishing.com very soon.

Qwertyman No. 151: For Don, a Meditation

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Qwertyman for Monday, June 23, 2025

(Photo of Los Cabos by Kurt Nichols)

I WAS looking for a topic for this column last week when it occurred to me that I had been staring it in the face, in the news and in the Facebook feed that, like for many, my days begin and end with. It was the omnipresence of death, in its many forms and guises, swift and slow, painless and agonizing, arriving on whispery feet and crashing through one’s roof or window. 

“A screaming comes across the sky,” the line with which Thomas Pynchon famously begins his novel Gravity’s Rainbow, was how death and destruction came last week to hundreds in Kiev, Tehran, and Tel Aviv, in missiles and drones designed and manufactured for but one purpose: to deliver death by inexact algorithm to place-names plotted on digital maps. 

In India we marveled at the horror and the mystery of one survivor escaping a catastrophic plane crash barely a minute after take-off: a moment when most of us would have just begun to fidget with the entertainment controls, wondering whether to take in a comedy or a thriller for the next two hours and what the meal choices will be. 

In Minnesota, a MAGA gunman stalked Democratic lawmakers and their families, shooting four and killing two on a long list of intended targets—murders that a Republican senator reflexively attributed to “Marxists not getting what they want.”

Most appalling was the report of Israeli tanks firing into a crowd of Palestinians lining up for food in Gaza, an incident that led to about 60 deaths and more than 200 wounded, for which the Israelis apologized with this statement: “The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible to them while maintaining the safety of our troops.”

As if the news isn’t enough, every time we scroll through our social media accounts, more deaths emerge, in the now-familiar solitary-candle meme and in the garlanded portraits of the recently departed. Facebook has become our new obituary page, our book of condolences, our virtual wake. The friend or the kinsman in us takes the loss with the requisite pain and grief; the enemy with muttered thankfulness, or more rarely forgiveness; the human with relief, that we are reading and not being read about.

Death in the news is meant to outrage us, and it still does, at least for a while, especially senseless and preventable death, willful murder, and patent genocide. But sadly we can only take so much, even with the keenest of consciences; there is something in our brains, a control or shut-off valve, that says “Enough” and leads us back into the immediate and comprehensible present, back to chocolate cupcakes, Torx screwdrivers, tomorrow’s court hearing, and Lola’s birthday. This, we remind ourselves, is life, the only one we have, our chief responsibility above all others to live and to give meaning to. 

We try to make sense of death as much as we do of life, and for those of us of a certain age, that means the acceptance of its inevitability. I suspect that those of my generation who came of age under martial law and fought it, who saw dozens of our comrades die, can do that with more equanimity than most, never having expected to live beyond twenty-five; every year and decade since has been a grace note, a blessing we have been careful not to waste. We are lucky to have come this far, and can leave without regret.

The Buddhists have what they call maranasati, the practice (says Google, meat-eating me being decidedly non-tantric) of contemplating one’s own mortality to cultivate mindfulness, reduce fear of death, and appreciate the present moment. The practical Swedes have döstädning, celebrated in The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson, a Nordic Marie Kondo who advises us to downsize and clean up our mess before we croak to save some grumpy nephew the trouble of sorting out which things go to the trash and which go to the resale shop. 

Speaking of which, my devotion to Japan-surplus stores and their wonderful bargains is tempered by the knowledge that most of these items were likely made available by the peculiarly Japanese practices of hikikomori, or withdrawing from society and living alone, and the even sadder kodokushi or “lonely death,” where the bodies and belongings of the forgotten might be found days after their passing. But then, as a collector of vintage fountain pens and antiquarian books, I am well aware that these precious objects have passed through many lives and survived their owners, and will certainly survive me, which is strangely reassuring. They offer proof of an afterlife—maybe not paradise, but the life of the people and things you leave behind.

In a way, death’s predictability (or the illusion thereof) is comforting, because we think we can therefore prepare for it, as for the coming of a friend who will lead us away by the hand, down to the smallest detail. Despite her surprisingly good health, my 97-year-old mother has written out her DNR instructions, and a year ago we made a light-hearted trip to the mall to pick out her funeral dress, in a deep, pacific blue. Well before my father died of an aneurysm almost thirty years ago—he was a chain-smoker and a candidate for early passage—I had written out a scene in my first novel where the protagonist comes home to his father’s wake, which was my way, the privilege of imaginative writers, of cushioning the real pain when it struck; when it did, I still wept like my father’s child.

I’m writing this because I’m actually not very good at dealing with death and processing grief, as detached or as flippant as I may sound about it. I avoid or don’t stay long at the wakes of friends because I tend to say the lamest things. 

Last week I lost good friend—a high-school classmate named Don Rodis, brother to lawyer Rodel and producer Girlie, whom more people know—our Philippine Science High School batch’s livewire and indefatigably perfect host, to those visiting him in San Francisco. On vacation with his family in Los Cabos in Mexico, Don was strolling on the beach when a rogue wave known by the locals as the mar de fondo caught and swept him out to sea. Despite a massive search, his body has yet to be found. We are all stunned and awash with grief, but what struck me was how pretty that beach was from all the pictures, how blue and inviting its waters. And now I’ll say a stupid thing, for Don: rather than dying from a rocket to your head, or rotting from within, or freezing alone in Yamagata, sometimes we die in beauty’s arms. 

(Don Rodis, 1954-2025, with his wife Jocelyn)

Qwertyman No. 150: Let the Curtains Rise

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Qwertyman for June 16, 2025

UNLIKE MANY newspaper columnists, I don’t have much of a political or business network, being a not-very-sociable recluse who prefers to play poker with a few regulars and going out on dinner dates with the wife than to clink glasses with the cognoscenti. 

But every now and then I get a seat at the table with people who seem to truly know what is going on—political operatives and operators with the inside track on where people really stand and who’s in bed with whom, and bankers who find themselves serving as confessors to clients pouring out their tales of woe (e.g., the going rate of commissions on government contracts). 

As the fly on the wall with little to contribute but my amazement and credulity, I leave such meetings often profoundly depressed but also grateful to be more of a fictionist than a journalist, a writer who fancies the eternal verities of life instead of someone who has to gulp and swallow the unreportable.

Last week, I sat down to one of these powwows with a group of eminently connected friends whose identities shall go unmentioned, and the talk of course quickly went to VP Sara Duterte’s impeachment, and to the twists and turns the process has taken from the House to the Senate and back to the House again. The consensus among these pundits—who all come from different political persuasions—was that (1) Sara was guilty as hell of something or other; (2) but the trial wouldn’t take place; and (3) even if it did, she would surely get off the hook. 

The reasoning was that, as the last elections showed, the Dutertes were still surprisingly strong, and that the old man Digong’s banishment to the ICC only galvanized his base; therefore, Sara remained a viable candidate for 2028 (barring her impeachment and perpetual disqualification). If the administration slate had done better and had a lock on the numbers, that impeachment and Sara’s future would have been moot. 

But with the tide seemingly shifting Sara’s way—remember, she doesn’t need as many senators to acquit her as those required to convict her—then it may prove opportune for some senators to straddle the fence under cover of impartiality and assure their political future under Duterte 2.0 by at least keeping the door open for the lady. A more impish conjecture had it that this “remand” maneuver—which seems to have taken everyone by surprise except its chief instigator—provides an interlude during which certain crucial negotiations can take place. “It always comes down to money,” concluded one of our cohort. It was in everyone’s best interest not to have a trial, said another, because it would open a Pandora’s box of embarrassing revelations that would make Sara’s alleged transgressions look as petty as, well, Piattos.

Finally, the little Quixote in me had to speak up, and all I could say was, “If there’s no trial, there’ll be big trouble.” Feeling a bit bolder, I added, “And it’s not even just about winning, but holding people accountable—not just Sara but the senators as well.” Cynicism, I thought, was the real enemy in matters like these; we can’t let ourselves be paralyzed by cold reality, and it’s surprising what a little hope and even folly can do to change that reality.

Exactly what I had in mind when I said “big trouble,” I have to admit I wasn’t too sure of. I know people have been talking about an “Edsa IV” (let’s put that in Roman numerals to make it look more historic). But while I like the sound of it and would probably join the angry mob marching to the Senate to the beat of “Do You Hear the People Sing,” there’s an inherent problem or two with this “Edsa IV” scenario. 

Edsas are usually aimed at shaming and shooing someone out of office, but who would we be up against this time? Certainly not BBM (about whom more, later), who’s been enjoying a free ride on the center-left’s campaign against the Dutertes. VP Sara? She’s beyond shame and will never quit. SP Chiz Escudero? It would flatter him too much to be rallied against; besides, if you counted all the needles already being stuck into his homunculus by the enraged public, he’d look like a porcupine. Also, Edsas work when they reach a turning point, like when the Army decides to go south when they’re being ordered north; no such tactical possibilities here.

So it looks like we’re going to be stuck with the notion of a trial, which I believe will happen despite all the noises to the contrary because—take note I said this—we Pinoys can’t resist putting on and watching a good show and this impeachment promises to be a blockbuster of a melodrama. One way of framing it would be to present a beleaguered princess on the dock, invoking an exiled father and suffering the wrath of a cousin who usurped the throne; or, a comely damsel is revealed to be a hissing and slithering snake-witch when sprayed with the Holy Water of Truth by the village elders. There will be ample opportunity for all players to emerge as heroes or villains in this unfolding narrative.

And then there’s BBM, whose coy “hands-off” pronouncements no one at our table would take at face value. Even as I fought off cynicism, I reminded myself how we fictionists and dramatists sometimes have to be even more cynical than the most hard-bitten journalist to do our work well. We work with human nature—not with data, like good social scientists do, which is also how and why we can make people cry and laugh like the best scholars can’t. We have to see both the best and the worst in our characters to understand them thoroughly. “Ask yourself,” I often tell my writing students, “what does your character most strongly desire? What can he or she least afford to lose? In their moments of direst need, what do they pray for? If you can answer that, then you know who they are.”

So I asked myself: what does BBM want? To survive and prosper, of course—and then again, whether he’ll admit it or not, as a character in a play, he will want redemption, if not for the family name then for himself, to be a Marcos and yet be his own man. What does Sara want? Survival as well, of course, and exoneration—and beyond that, as she has made abundantly plain, revenge for betrayal and willful injury. 

I may not know that much about politics or business, but this has moved to the realm of theater. Mark my words, those curtains will be rising soon.

(Photo by Ted Aljibe/AFP)

Qwertyman No. 149: American Idiocracy

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Qwertyman for Monday, June 9, 2025

IN HIS controversial but surprisingly popular 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind, the philosopher Allan Bloom lamented what he saw to be the decline of intellectual inquiry in America, indicting its universities for failing their students by promoting “relativism” over the time-honored values embodied by the “Great Books” of Western thought. “The consequences of the abandonment of the quest for the best are far-reaching and destructive,” Bloom intoned. 

Bloom was no flaming liberal; in fact, he was anything but—a true conservative who disdained rock music for its overtly sexual messages and its narcotic effects on the young (imagine what he would have said about TikTok). But his book and its arguments struck a responsive chord in many Americans—half a million of them bought hardcover copies—who were worried that the counterculture that had crept across American society since the tumultuous 196os had weakened it from within and had dulled the blade of American exceptionalism—the rock-solid article of faith that America was, or had to be, No. 1 in everything, because of its unique history and attributes.

That sounds a lot like “Make America Great Again,” although MAGA wasn’t driven by a longing to study Plato, but by deep-seated, grassroots-level grievances and prejudices. One wonders how Allan Bloom, who died in 1992, would respond to the political situation today, which on the surface mirrors some of his concerns, but only just so: a conservative President has declared war on America’s liberal universities, for all the wrong reasons, leading up to the “far-reaching and destructive consequences” that Bloom bewailed. 

Of course, Donald Trump is no Bloomian or even Reaganite conservative; all he seems to be about is unbridled power and money, and testing the limits to where they can go. “Trumpism” has been described as a mash of nationalism, populism, and industrialism, with a generous dollop of pettiness and egotism. 

Sometime last April, messaging on Truth Social (with a shift key typically gone berserk), Trump attacked Harvard University, claiming that “Harvard is an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institution, as are numerous others, with students being accepted from all over the World that want to rip our Country apart. The place is a Liberal mess, allowing a certain group of crazed lunatics to enter and exit the classroom and spew fake ANGER AND HATE.” 

Shortly after, he ordered the federal government to withdraw more than $2 billion in funding for research grants to Harvard, and sought to cancel its ability to enroll international students. Trump wasn’t alone in declaring war on American academia. Years earlier, his VP-to-be JD Vance had told the National Conservatism Convention that “Universities in our country are fundamentally corrupt and dedicated to deceit and lies, not to the truth…. We have to honestly and aggressively attack (them).”

Not surprisingly, Harvard and a cohort of other leading universities have fought back, taking the administration’s tack as a frontal assault on academic freedom—and, more strategically, on America’s albeit waning intellectual leadership.

MAGAworld’s anti-intellectualism is interesting, because it draws on a long and dark tradition of tyrants from Franco’s Spain to Pol Pot’s Cambodia waging war on scholars—to cite only the most visibly horrifying examples under which hundreds of thousands of intellectuals were massacred. Mass murder makes the withdrawal of grants and visas seem benign, but they come from the same deep mistrust of critical thinking, contrary opinion, and the alien element. Dictatorships thrive on herd mentality and unquestioning obedience, both anathema to academia.

It’s not as if Trump and Vance never went to good schools. Trump went to Wharton and Vance to Yale Law; whether they learned something worth their tuition is another matter. Political instinct, not intellect, drives these men. 

Right now, that instinct is telling them that culture (or its reversal) is more important than anything else—specifically “woke” culture, the greatest threat to the hegemony of straight white men: civil rights, women’s empowerment, abortion rights, gay and gender rights, minority representation, affirmative action, Black heritage, environmental protection, and internationalism, among other values espoused by the liberal Establishment and its bastions like Harvard. 

The collateral damage of this insane and reckless urge to reshape America in Trump’s own image has included truthfulness, justice, accountability, sound science, and, ironically, America’s own long-term economic and academic well-being. MAGA’s success will be America’s diminution from the intellectual powerhouse that has accounted for more than 70 percent of all Nobel Prize winners (about 30 percent of them immigrants to the US) to the fools’ paradise contemplated in the 2006 movie Idiocracy—a comedy that won’t be so funny when it materializes.

Trump’s insistence on characterizing foreign students as potential terrorists and troublemakers will be particularly counterproductive, as it will banish many of the world’s best young minds to more receptive climates, and erode America’s influence on global thinking. 

That may not necessarily be a bad thing, as it reminds everyone that the US has no monopoly on excellence, and never really did. But as a two-time Fulbrighter who, like thousands of other pensionados to America, look back with gratitude and not a little pride on that opportunity to imbibe not just new knowledge but America at its welcoming best, I cannot imagine anything stupider than this willful squandering of American goodwill and soft power for the price of a few missiles. 

It will not even be Donald Trump & Co. who will pay that price, but generations of Americans down the road who will recall this period of infectious lunacy with bewilderment and regret. They will have no one to blame but their red-capped grandparents, who thought that trusting a despotic dunce with all that power was a bright idea. (And I know how much that statement smacks of the elitism that Trumpers hate, but tell me it isn’t true.)

Qwertyman No. 148: Pondering the Inconceivable

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Qwertyman for Monday, June 2, 2025

IT SOUNDS like wishful thinking at the moment, but is there even a faint possibility that—in the aftermath of the midterm elections and looking ahead to the next big one down the road—President Bongbong Marcos might be willing to back a progressive candidate to take his place? And would liberal (with a small L) forces accept his help?

Just a few years ago this idea would have been totally preposterous, the relationship between the two sides being one of utter incompatibility and mutual revulsion. Marcos (more the name and what it stood for than Junior himself) was seen as the devil incarnate, while BBM would have deemed unforgivable his family’s ignominious banishment into exile in  Hawaii.

During the May 2022 election, Leni Robredo’s partisans (myself among them) made sure our people remembered the trail of blood and misery that martial law left behind, and the Marcoses’ unpaid debts to the treasury, and to the nation itself.

His election victory was met with profound disbelief and distress; we felt unmoored and stunned for a brief spell (much like the Democrats today, reeling under Trump’s relentless barrage of idiotic but effectively discombobulating executive orders). We took refuge in the certainty that this administration would quickly self-destruct from BBM’s incompetence and from its own internal contradictions—a prediction that has now partially come true, albeit with the most unexpected ramifications.

The spectacular collapse of the “Uniteam” was predictable; it had always been a marriage of convenience, seemingly forged to install BBM as a seatwarmer for VP Sara and the eventual restoration of the Dutertes in Malacañang. No one knew that better than BBM; there was talk (as there will always be, in this country of gifted storytellers) that the Dutertes weren’t even going to let him finish his term, but find a way to ease him out earlier so Sara could do a GMA and rule for longer than six years. So, went the buzz, BBM beat her to the draw by getting her impeached in the House (for good reason) and packing her father off to the Netherlands (for even better reasons).

Now comes the tricky part, which is getting Sara impeached (and struck out of the presidency for good) in the Senate—a newly reconstituted Senate that needs only nine of its 24 members to resist, and thereby keep the Dutertean dream alive. That court will convene sometime this month, with the outcome far from predetermined, but apparently leaning, at the moment, toward acquittal. Two administration senatorial bets—Imee Marcos and Camille Villar—jumped ship, making a crucial difference; the current pro-Sara tally now runs to a comfortable 11, if both Cayetanos, both Villars, and both Estrada siblings (now you see why dynasties are a bad idea?) see a longer horizon for their political futures with Sara on top. 

However, as they say, it ain’t over till it’s over, and the same opportunism that led to this tangle could just as easily turn it around within weeks or months, however long the impeachment trial is going to take. Observers note that at the last big impeachment trial—that of the late Supreme Court Justice Renato Corona—the odds were hugely in his favor at the start, but compelling evidence eventually made it not only unreasonable but politically untenable to acquit him at the end (although notably, his faithful supporter Senator BBM survived and even prospered). A strong prosecution—and, let’s admit, some backroom wooing and strong-arming—could yet land Sara in political limbo.

And that had better happen, because as BBM well knows, if the impeachment fails, his party has no candidate from within strong enough to take on the Dutertes. His apparent anointed, House Speaker Martin Romualdez, has about as much charisma and appeal as a thawed-out tamilok. Apart from the surprise victories of Bam Aquino and Kiko Pangilinan (about which more, later), the one big takeaway from the midterms was the continued strength of the Duterte forces on a national scale, never mind their isolation in Mindanao. An unverified post-election report (again, from the Bureau of Speculation) claimed that in a survey of early votes cast by the military and police, the Duterte slate scored a perfect ten. Why? Well, didn’t PRRD fatten the military, doubling their salaries and raising their retirement benefits? And aside from the mediagenic generals and admirals, who really wants to fight China in the West Philippine Sea? (Not my opinion, folks, just passing it along.)

If and when Sara wins, BBM and the Marcoses may find themselves taking another flight out in the night for parts unknown. The “bloodbath” Sara promised won’t be at the trial, but in its aftermath.

So we return to my first question: can and will BBM find it in himself to support a progressive and acceptable candidate from the middle forces, someone like Sen. Risa Hontiveros? If he insists on fielding his own man and the center-left puts up their candidate, it won’t take a political scientist to figure that as things stand, in a three-cornered fight, Sara will win. The Marcoses will be history (again) and the progressives crushed even more.

An argument can be made for the once-unthinkable. Against all expectations, BBM has done the right thing in de-Dutertizing government, (largely) stopping tokhang, and taking a firm stance for Philippine sovereignty in the WPS. On these issues, we can unite, at least for the time being. It will not be idle thinking to suspect that Bam and Kiko won not by divine miracle but with some backhanded nudge from the administration, who needed them to shore up its Senate votes (Bam, after all, was carried by the INC—as was Marcoleta, so it evens out). BBM’s Cabinet revamp shows signs of sensitivity to expectations and keenness on delivery, if only to shore up his administration for 2028.

He’ll never publicly admit it, but if BBM is truly intent on some measure of redemption for the Marcos name and on making his own mark on the presidency, this could be his historic opportunity. He will do well to support the progressives; it will be an easier and more logical switch than for the progressives to support an anointed trapo. BBM can take a free ride on the idealism of the middle forces, who are his best buffer against both Left and Right extremes.

But then again, all this comes to you sponsored by Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, makers of the Everlasting Gobstopper and other fabulous confections.

Penman No. 474: Looking Back and Letting Go

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Penman for Sunday, June 1, 2025

AS ANY friend who’s had the privilege of being invited to his Makati home quickly realizes, Ambeth Ocampo is more than the engaging public intellectual we all know, whose Looking Back series has made history come alive for young Filipinos. He’s also an inveterate collector of rare Filipiniana—books, ephemera, art, and historical objects—all of which come with the territory he works in. 

There have been many Filipinos of a similar bent—the legendary Alfonso Ongpin and the late Ramon Villegas come to mind, as well as the more contemporary Jimmy Laya, Melvin Lam, and Edward de los Santos, among others—but the way Ambeth has amassed his collection is noteworthy on its own, as it folds the personal almost imperceptibly into the professional. 

It comes pretty close to the classic prescription for murder—means, motive, and opportunity—all captured in his classic story of how he stumbled on and picked up Emilio Jacinto’s silver quill, a writing prize, from an antiques dealer who didn’t bother to learn what it was and let it go for its scrap value. (Having as much of Ambeth’s desire for antiquarian junk but with much less knowledge and certainly less means, I’ve often joked, between the two of us, that Ambeth’s the scholar and I’m the scavenger.)

Jacinto’s quill, along with a trove of other historical treasures from Ambeth’s personal collection, will be up for auction on June 7 at Leon Gallery. They include Juan Luna’s silver belt, Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo’s walking stick, an official copy of the Malolos Constitution, Philippine maps from 1616 and 1647, and the Noceda and Sanlucar Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala from 1860, among many others.

Knowing how precious these objects were, I had to ask Ambeth more about them, and this is what he said.

What made you think of selling these treasures now? Surely it can’t be easy letting go of them after being their caretaker all this time?

Over the years, I have come to the realization that collecting is not the hobby it used to be. As a boy I collected stamps and learned geography, history, and the culture of foreign countries in the process. I was fortunate that my father’s company had an international correspondence, so every week his secretary would send me a batch of envelopes to sort out.

I started collecting Filipiniana books in the 1980s, stocking up from the National Bookstore Quezon Boulevard branch bargain bin where I completed my Nick Joaquin essay collection because they cost one peso each. After school, I went to the Heritage Art Center in Cubao that I learned only years later was the site of the old Philippine Art Gallery. It was a ramshackle grouping of rooms upon added rooms made from old house parts that Mario Alcantara, the owner, bought from mambubulok. I had a favorite nook where I did my homework and when bored I would explore the rooms that I think gave me an eye for art and the ability to choose what I thought was good or not.

Looking back my collecting, and my life, has been the happy intersection of skill and opportunity. Napoleon once said “ability is nothing without opportunity.” I have always seen collecting as a responsibility. Collecting significant Filipiniana is not a hobby. It is not an investment. Collecting is a responsibility, the collector a steward who preserves the collection for the next generation. 

The objects I put at auction have enriched my life in many ways and I think they will enrich the life of their next steward. Some of the lots like the Malolos Republic one-peso banknote and the printed copy of the Malolos Constitution have been tucked away in a drawer. If I drop dead tomorrow these might be carelessly thrown away as trash. They should go where they are better appreciated. Collectors de-accessioning keeps the market alive and buzzing.

Let’s get this out of the way: it’s none of our business, but what will you do with the money?


Since I am not a dealer the material reward does not really factor in the equation. I have sold other things before at cost or even at a loss, just thinking that my gain was the enjoyment I got chasing after them and acquiring them. What will I do with the proceeds? When I started selling my rare Filipiniana I thought that instead of having shelves of books, maybe I should just sell and use the proceeds to buy one or two incunabula or samples of early Philippine printing from 1593-1640. Instead of caring for a whole library I will just care for half a dozen very important books.

How did you start out as a collector of historical objects? How and where did you find them? Aside from Jacinto’s pen, what was your most serendipitous find?

Collecting historical objects came naturally from my work as a historian. I would find things in used bookstores and when supply was still plentiful in the Ermita antique shops. One of the serendipitous finds was the cedula or residence certificate of a certain Julian Felipe, a musician from Cavite. It was in a heap of old papers, initially priced at one hundred pesos. I haggled it down to fifty, paid, and ran away. 

Another time my favorite antique dealer brought a “European painting” of a Virgin and Child to my home. I looked at it and knew it was Philippine. When I opened the frame to inspect the painting, hidden under the frame was the signature of the Filipino master Mariano Asuncion (1802-1855). The silver belt of Juan Luna and the bank draft in his name were acquired from Mario Alcantara. It came with the famous trove of paintings inherited by Grace Luna de San Pedro that are now in the National Museum. While everyone was going wild over the paintings, I spent many afternoons browsing the boxes of memorabilia that included the bloodied uniform Antonio Luna wore when he was assassinated, the palettes and brushes of Juan Luna, the memorabilia, some architectural plans of Andres Luna de San Pedro, and much more. I offered to buy the palettes and brushes and the painter’s smock but Mario said these were destined for the National Museum. There was also the last letter Juan Luna wrote to his son from Hong Kong, written a day before his death, not only was this letter significant, Luna did a watercolor of Hong Kong Harbor on the first page of the double-sided letter. All I could afford was the silver belt that came with Luna’s black suit that Mario said was also destined for the National Museum. Unfortunately, the Heritage Art Center burned down and with it all these memorabilia.

Do you or can you separate the collector from the scholar? Did the collecting happen naturally as a consequence of the scholarship?

The collecting grew and was enriched by my research and scholarship. If I had a PhD in Math I probably would not have recognized these odds and ends now considered treasures. I have been divesting over the years. A large part of my Filipiniana collection was donated to the Center for Kapampangan Studies, Holy Angel, Pampanga. All I keep at home are the books I need for work for teaching, lecturing, and writing, but now that I am retired from Ateneo (but still employed on a post-retirement appointment) it is easier to let go. 

The full catalog of Leon Gallery’s Spectacular Mid-Year auction can be accessed on its website at https://leon-gallery.com.