Throughout 14 years of martial law, Filipino Heritage was black balled by Marcos and his coterie of intellectuals. As editor in Chief of Filipino Heritage, allow me to reminisce, because it has dawned on me that, after over three decades, nobody else will.
A new generation of youth today remains blissfully unaware of the true nature of Marcos’ New Society. It was not just corrupt politicians with the military and the CIA who lorded it over the country during Martial Law. A good many—who on the surface saw themselves as decent people—were involved, vocal nationalists and scholars included. They made it all happen and were very much part of it all. Like Lady Macbeth, the stain of guilt will not wash off from their hands.
Yes, of course they will tell you, that they were there to keep things strictly professional, and that without them things would have been much worse. In the end they practiced a type of cultural mores that they continue to practice to this day; a professional style by which the self-serving personal and political agenda willfully overpower scholarly merit and objectivity. Thriving on hidden political connections and clever image-making, they hide behind a mask of respectability, while always ready to pounce on occupational glory or any bonanza that presents itself to their personal advantage.
A double spread portraying the cast of characters from Rizal's Noli Me Tangere by artist Carlos Valino
My sense of outrage has long dissipated itself, but I remain puzzled about the negative treatment of Filipino Heritage. If indeed the objection to Filipino Heritage when it first appeared was it’s accuracy and validity then surely that learned and highly articulate intellectual circle of Marcos and Imelda would have engaged in scholarly open debate and critiqued the work point by point right then and there. After all they not only enjoyed access to media, they controlled all of media. Instead they silently, underhandedly, guerrilla style, sabotaged the venture. This was made immediately obvious to me and the Australian publishers when the official book launch of the series was shut down by what was claimed to be electrical power failure inside the Cultural Center of the Philippines. They literally turned off the light on Filipino Heritage.
With all the resources at their command, these Marcos altar boys could have easily responded by coming up with a superior product to demonstrate that Filipino Heritage was not up to scratch. In the end, all the Marcos bright boys could come up with—after years of lavish expense— was a failed, pathetic, book series entitled Tadhana, whose authorship was fawningly attributed to their idol: Ferdinand Edralin Marcos.
My experience with Filipino Heritage provided me with actual personal insight into the machinations of the New Society and the historians, writers and scholars who were very much a part of it. Today, like Imelda, some refuse to go away. That same cavalier attitude about scholarly matters lingers as the cultural dynamics in the country to this day. This is the reason why I am compelled to continue writing against this legacy of the New Society. Somebody has to say it.
Filipino Heritage was intended as a part works series to appear weekly as a supplement to the Manila Times. The originator was an Australian Publishing house called The Hamlyn Group. They had successfully produced Australia’s Heritage and New Zealand’s Heritage in previous years.
The Hamlyn Group approached the Manila Times and it’s publisher, Chino Roces, then asked me to serve as the project’s editor-in-chief. I visited Sydney and New Zealand to familiarize myself with the previous ventures and immediately got started. The first step of course was to map out material that would provide the best information and the most meaningful narrative. I opted to end the 104 part series (to appear in weekly installments over two years) in 1946 when the Philippines formally gained independence rather than carry it to the present (at the time very early 1972) where the project could get embroiled in the political frenzy of the times.
After careful consultation, I chose the following to serve in the Board of Advisers: Chairman,Carlos P.Romulo Secretary of Foreign Affairs, members Godofredo L. Alcasid Director of the National Museum; Horacio de la Costa SJ General Assistant and Consultant to the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Robert B. Fox technical assistant on anthropology, office of the president National Museum; Lucrecia Kasilag, Director, Theater of The Performing Arts, Cultural Center of the Philippines; Benito Legarda Jr., Special Assistant to the Governor On Economic Research, Central Bank of the Philippines, Jose Maceda, professor of Philosophy and Political Science, University of the Philippines, Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, Journalist Expressweek, Carlos Quirino, Consultant Museum of Philippime History and Icongraphic Archives; Louie O. Reyes, President of Vera Reyes Press, Inc., Liceria Brillantes Soriano, Director of Public Schools.
As you can see from the line up, they all carried impressive credentials. These members proved to be enthusiastic and active participants in the planning of the series and in the choice of authors. Scholarly and impartial, the board not only suggested a meaningful cross section of subjects and viewpoints covering the entire series, some actually wrote for the series. Our method was to pinpoint essential topics and then pick the most eminent expert to write on it. The publishers, The Hamlyn Group, gave us a completely free hand and never meddled in the editorial contents.
For the editorial staff, I gathered together the historian and former National Library Director Carlos Quirino and noted writer Gilda Cordero Fernando to serve as associate editors (the former to monitor the accuracy of the history narrative, the latter to add style to the language) with Manuel Gutierrez and Godofredo Burce Bunao as sub editors; For book design artists Ben Cabrera (Bencab) and Porfirio Castañeda were art directors, Felice P. Sta Maria and Antonia L. Brucelas, picture reseachers. Corazon S. Alvina, was production manager, and Ma. Scorro E. Honorio, business manager.
Left to right, back row: Remigia Trillana, secretary; Remedios H. Reyes and Corazon Santuile, typists; Ma. Socorro E. Honorio, business manager; Corazon S. Alvina, production manager; Godofredo Burce Bunao and Manuel C. Gutierrez, sub-editors; Pepito Friameza, paste-up artist. (Missing are layout artists Bencab and Porfirio Castañeda.)
Seated: Carlos Quirino, associate editor; Alfredo Roces, editor in chief; Gilda Cordero Fernando, associate editor;
Front: Ben Laxina, photographer; George Leonero, messenger; Antonia Brucelas, pictures researcher; Felice Sta. Maria, pictures editor; and Felice's dog, Dennis.
What joy to note that since then, Carlos Quirino and Bencab gained distinctions as National Artists, Cora Alvina is currently director of the National Museum, while Gilda Fernando got into publishing books (GCF Books) essentially derived from, or directly inspired by, Filipino Heritage. Gilda and Bencab even teamed up in one GCF opus entitled “Being Filipino”.
I also like to think that Bencab's subsequent Larawan series (first exhibited in late 1972) had a little bit to do with his exposure to Filipino Heritage. Bencab stayed only long enough to design the first volume after which he returned to London, Porfirio took over volume two, and subsequently with the termination of the editorial phase, I found myself having to complete the book design of the remaining 8 in Singapore. I personally learned much from Filipino Heritage, immense knowledge that I have made use of since; I only hope others working with FH may have also acquired some worthwhile ideas.
Bakya art that surfaced during the Japanese Occupation. We had a lot of fun picking out topics of cultural interest
About 186 contributors covered 593 topics in 2,800 fully illustrated pages. It took 3 years to complete the editorial work which started early in 1972; however, subsequent production and design work only allowed the last volume to see the light of day in 1979 extending my own actual years of labor on this project to six. It transported me to Sydney, Australia.
Off the top of my head, among eminent contributors: historians Teodoro Agoncillo, Gregorio Zaide, Horacio de la Costa SJ, Cesar Majul, Carlos Quirino, Pedro Galende OSA, Benito Legarda Jr. ; anthropologists Robert Fox, Harold Conklin, Wilhelm Solheim, William Henry Scott, John Schumacher SJ, Fernando Zialcita, Antoon Postma SVD, Alfredo Evangelista; writers Nick Joaquin, Gregorio Brilliantes, Gilda Cordero Fernando, Ninotchka Rosca; artist illustrators Cesar Legaspi, Carlos Valino, Bencab, Porfirio Castañeda, Manuel Baldemor. I know I have missed many more important names so I hope they will forgive the oversight.
An essay by Nick Joaquin
These series of paintings showing the entire scope of Philippine history was painted by Cesar Legaspi. It was intended as a giveaway large poster with the series but it was never published. I featured it in the monograph on Legaspi. They are in my collection.
Illustration specially made for FH by Bencab.
So what story does Filipino Heritage have to tell? Part of it I can tell you from personal knowledge but part of it remains a mystery to me. Barely months after the editorial work began President Marcos declared Martial Law September 23, 1972. For public consumption, and the New Society’s record, the date was pushed back to September 21 just to suit Ferdinand’s lucky numerology. I cite this minuscule historical item precisely to point out the Marcos Regime’s policy of writing “their” history as it suited the powers that be, and that these learned historians were happy to play along with factual history. Some people remain of the belief that the date is September 21 and not 23. This is the wall that Fiipino Heritage crashed into. The FH history was not the manufactured version they wanted to impose.
Filipino Heritage ultimately appeared in print as a ten volume series, and despite the hostile atttude of the Marcos regime, when the first volume appeared it gained an award from the Citizen’s Council For Mass Media’s (CCMM). When the Hamlyn Group splintered in the 1980’s, the ownership of the project was placed in limbo where it remains to this day.
Below is an extract where I mention Filipino Heritage from a published essay entitled “Dioskodai Diospora” anthologized in a book “Life On The Cusp” edited by Rita Ledesma and Mert J.Loinaz (Anvil, 2003).
Sometime in early 1972, I had been asked by Manila Times publisher Chino Roces to serve as editor for a project between the Manila Times and an Australian publishing house called The Hamlyn Group. A rainbow in the sky might as well have leapt down and curled itself on my lap, so surprised was I at such a divine gift. It was tailored to my interests and expertise. The venture was to be a handsomely illustrated, parts-work series on the entire history and culture of the Philippines, covering everything from the stone-age in the Philippines to 1946 when the Republic became independent. Over two years, 102 parts were to appear in weekly instalments with the Manila Times.
Given a completely free hand by the Australian publishers, who never ever meddled with the editorial contents and work, I titled the series Filipino Heritage and put together a formidable board of advisers consisting of the leading experts from various segments of Philippine culture, such as historian Horacio de la Costa S.J. and anthropologist Dr. Robert B Fox. Secretary of Foreign Affairs Carlos P. Romulo agreed to serve as chairman. On 23 September 1972, my dream job was overtaken by a sudden rush of events. The night President Marcos declared Martial Law, the project fell into the abyss. The Manila Times was shut down, it’s publisher Chino Roces, jailed. Nevertheless, going by the Pollyanna notion that President Marcos was a reasonable man who would see merit in the project, the Hamlyn Group believed that the publishing venture was still viable. Since there were no newspapers around (except for the Manila Bulletin), the series was then repackaged into a 10 volume book set.
I spent the first two years of Martial Law putting together Filipino Heritage. Once the project had reached a stage where we had something to present, which was about a year down the track, it became necessary to obtain some kind of approval from the New Society. Through Manila Bulletin publisher Gen. Hans Menzie, who had served as presidential aide to Marcos, a meeting with the President was arranged. The Australian publishers flew over for a courtesy call to Malacañang to explain the project. With the Manila Times obviously in the Marcos blacklist, prudence ruled that I absent myself from that meeting. The publishers were aware that I had been highly critical of Marcos in my daily columns just before Martial Law. In fact, on instructions from my publisher, Chino, a few days before Martial law, mine was the anonymous hand that had written that unprecedented pooled editorial critical of Marcos which simultaneously appeared in all the major newspapers just before Marcos seized power with the support of the military.
It was Kevin Weldon, the managing director of the Hamlyn Group, who later gave me a vivid account of that Malacañang meeting. President Marcos, so Kevin recounted, had a good look at the sample work we had dummied up. Perusing the names in the staff box, he spotted my name as editor in chief. Said Kevin: “That’s when his face turned purple. He kept screaming louder and louder “Roces! Roces! Roces!”. General Menzi kept interjecting, ‘This is the one with the beard! The one with the beard!’ I guess Menzi brought up my dark beard to distinguish me from Marcos’s arch enemy, my cousin Chino, whom he had already locked up. I have no reason to think Kevin dreamed up this story as he was not too amused with me when he told it.
Next thing we knew there was this letter from Malacañang, signed by Presidential Assistant Juan Tuvera saying that the editor in chief of Filipino Heritage was to be President Marcos. Well, hello? The President of the Philippines under Martial Law wants to be editor in chief of our publication? Shaking off my bewilderment, I approached Kevin Weldon and I said to him: “Kevin, if you make Marcos editor in chief, you will sell a million copies easily because all the public school libraries would be required to buy a set. So, I will step down. ”
But by this time, Kevin seemed somehow to have taken this whole affair as a political and moral struggle instead of a business. To my surprise, without a millisecond’s hesitation, he snarled: “No, you are editor and that’s how it stays.”
Very brave indeed, but how do you publish and release the series of 10 books right at the terrifying ascendance of Martial law, without bringing down all hell from the new Cyclops on the mountain? The only strategy I could think of was to get the merits of the project and the credentials of the writer-contributors out to the public, on the desperate notion that this would make it harder for the Marcos dictatorship to stifle a highly scholarly work that carried no obvious subversive political agenda. The plan was to win the support of the historians and scholars (many of whom had written for the series), and of school teachers as well, by making them aware of the scope and contents of the publication. After all, nothing of this magnitude involving Philippine history and culture had been attempted before.
I approached Lucrecia Kasilag, President of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, (she was a member of our board of advisers) to lease to Filipino Heritage for an official launch, the top floor of the Cultural Center of the Philippines where art dealer Potenciano Badillo’s Muslim artifacts where displayed.We went to great expense and much effort to have marvellous photographs from the books, blown up and exhibited. Samples of various sections of the first volume had been printed as giveaways. All the leading historians, school officials, and scholars, had been invited. Kevin Weldon himself along with two other top executives from the Hamlyn Group had flown over just for the grand occasion.
When we got to the Cultural Center lobby the evening of the launch, we found the lights curiously dimmed and the escalators immobilized. Valiantly, if somewhat puzzled, we clambered up the three flights to the exhibition hall only to find the place in total darkness. There was a brownout, we were advised by CCP’s officials. Those things happen often in the Philippines of course, so we sort of stood around waiting for the power to return, or for the CCP’s emergency generators to hum. I could hear muffled sounds of a play or some musical function going on in the CCP’s main theater, so I knew the power shortage we were experiencing was not total. Meanwhile, the exhibition room which was teeming with shadowy guests in the blackness, was getting hotter and stuffier. After about an hour of marking time in limbo, one of the CCP officials, Tony Quintos, timidly sidled up to me and in conspiratorial sotto voce said: “It’s not really a power failure, Ding. We got a call from Malacañang saying we have to close this show down. Putting out the lights is all King Kasilag could think of to comply with the order.”
Something stirred in my guts. I can’t tell you in words how let down I felt then because to this day I try to repress that evening’s trauma. Had I been at least warned of a fabricated power failure, I could have brought candles and flashlights. At the time, I regarded some of the officials of the Cultural Center as personal friends.
A few scholars and school officials whom I numbered among my friends before Martial Law did not bother to show up; either because they had been tipped off that the launch would be suppressed or because they did not want to be seen as part of it. Of course we tried to make the best of a calamity. Whistling in the dark, as they say. With a pinch of candlelight, we carried on with the ceremonies. Our guest of honor, the Under Secretary of Education waxed eloquent in praise of the project, the poor man blissfully unaware that Marcos and his men had given the project an ominous “no”. To the barely visible audience, I mumbled something about being reminded of Mark Twain’s essay “To a Person Sitting in Darkness” as I apologized for the bleak ceremony and launch caused by “the failure of power”. I doubt if a single soul understood that I was not referring to electrical power.
Off we stumbled down the darkened, inoperative escalator and out into the street for some clean sea air. Kevin consoled us with dinner at a nearby restaurant. As I sat there beside him, Kevin eyeballed me and said emphatically: “I want you to get every single item of Filipino Heritage material out of this country and to our office in Sydney first thing tomorrow.” Finally, the coin had dropped for Kevin. He now realised how deadly the game could get under Martial Law. But he wasn’t buckling under. Instead, he was making sure the Marcos tsutsuwas would not get their scheming hands on Filipino Heritage for their own propaganda ends. Marcos and his clandestine, generously financed, think-tank of academics would, in fact, later set up throughout the decades of Martial Law years their own version of Filipino Heritage which they called “Tadhana” with— you guessed it—Ferdinand Marcos as author no less. Would you believe that the Cultural Center still billed Filipino Heritage for the rental of the exhibit that never was? We paid through the nose.
That’s how I ended up in Australia. I asked Kevin to help get me a permanent residency. In any case, to publish Filipino Heritage the way my staff and I had structured, edited, and designed it, I had to be in Sydney. I ended up single handedly working on the production, and literally designing seven volumes as well, during months-long sojourns to Singapore where the printing was done.
The story did not end there because when the ten volume series was finally released it got the pariah treatment from Marcos and his cultural sacristans.
To this day, no friend or foe has ever come to me to express his or her sympathies, for that sinister sabotage of the project. To this hour, no scholar or writer, despite some having gained (as contributors to Filipino Heritage) crucial material and intellectual sustenance in that first dark hour of Martial Law, has written or voiced an opinion, good or bad, about the treatment of Filipino Heritage. It’s a silence that counterpoints the thunder of patriot drums and the pizzicato of nationalist bandurias.
——Filipino Heritage——
