Of the many small sculptures made by Rizal, two came to mind after I watched “GomBurZa”: First is a statuette of soft “batikuling” wood representing the “Sacred Heart” that Rizal carved when he was a high school boarding student at the Ateneo Municipal; the other,...

In the film “GomBurZa,” the recollect superior remarked they were used to frame the three priests. Like an oracle, he predicts that history will not be kind to the friar orders in this matter, that the name of the Spanish governor general who sealed the fate of...

Filipinos are said to have the longest Christmas season in the world. It begins in September when Jose Mari Chan’s “Christmas in Our Hearts” can be heard in malls. This may not be a subliminal trigger to buy or plan to buy Christmas gifts but the season runs through...

After watching “GomBurZa,” I reviewed the secondary literature that must have been used as the basis for the screenplay. Of course, the most numerous and authoritative were written by the Jesuit historian Fr. John Schumacher SJ, who unfortunately did not live to see...

Fake news is not new, it is as old as history. No less than The New York Times of Sept. 22, 1897, carried the article “To avenge her husband; The Widow of Dr. Rizal here to secure aid for Patriots in the Philippines. Her Work in Philadelphia …” In pre-internet times,...

Natividad is such a common Filipino surname that we forget that it comes from the Spanish word for “nativity.” In English, nativity can refer to three things: the process of being born, the birth of Jesus Christ, or a “nativity scene” that has Jesus in a manger,...

If I were officially consulted for the “GomBurZa” film, now attracting attention due to its bumper harvest of Metro Manila Film Festival awards and rave reviews, Pepe Diokno, the director, might get confused. History is not “tsismis” or “Marites.” When historians come...

I risked catching COVID or the flu on Christmas Day by watching two entries to the Metro Manila Film Festival with storylines drawn from Philippine history. Both films had Piolo Pascual playing a 19th-century Filipino priest. Both film titles are surnames. Gomburza...

What do I want for Christmas? More shelves than books. On or around Christmas, I am hard-pressed to write a column on a topic I have not covered in the 38 years I have been writing. My go-to references are: the 25 volumes of Jose Rizal’s collected writings, the five...

One hundred and twenty-six years ago today, the Pact of Biak-na-Bato was signed. If you have forgotten or were absent when this was discussed in Araling Panlipunan, this was the truce between the Spanish colonial government, represented by Pedro Alejandro Paterno, and...