Many people imagine that books are the products of individual authors who retreat into solitude with pen and paper (or laptop) to write, write, and write. In my case, most of my books are compilations of essays that originally appeared on the editorial page of the...

When I started collecting rare Filipiniana in the early 1980s, one could build a decent collection of books on the Philippines from the late 19th and early 20th centuries for a song. I was a college student on allowance when a Filipiniana sold for a fraction of what...

Of the many skills deployed by historians, one of the most useful is being able to talk about books they have never read. One could add to this, books they have not even physically handled. How do they do that? Historians map out the terrain of their field of...

People who fear artificial intelligence (AI) have watched too many science-fiction films about robots running a world where humans are enslaved. AI has been upon us for a long time, and it has been getting better, smarter by the day. I realized this years ago, when I...

After a special screening of the 1998 movie biography “Jose Rizal,” I hurried out of the theater as soon as the final credits started rolling to avoid being asked what the film got right or wrong. The late Marilou Diaz-Abaya caught me by the door and gave me a...

Albert F. Gudatt is a name you will not find in Philippine history textbooks. He is but one of many young men who served with the United States Army during the Spanish-American and the succeeding Philippine-American War. He stands out among the rest of the soldiers...

Fashion and history clashed in the past week: first, when Beauty Gonzalez wore jewelry repurposed from pre-Spanish Philippine gold artifacts to the 2023 GMA ball; second, when Sen. Imee Marcos wore Cordillera textiles, ornaments, and tattoos to the 2023 State of the...

Listening to the catalog of achievements and promises made in the President’s State of the Nation Address bored me. The speech just rattled on like the white noise you see on TV when the station signs off, with emphasis at important points signaled by changes in the...

Contrary to popular belief, adobo is not a Spanish dish. Filipinos have had adobo long before Ferdinand Magellan sailed into our shores in 1521. Adobo is the Philippines’. Adobo is not the name of a dish, but is a process of marinating or pickling in vinegar. During...

Bagong Pamantayang Tagalog is a Facebook page I highly recommend. It is not an esoteric page for lexicographers; its posts are relevant to anyone interested in Philippine history and languages. One post carried a screenshot from “Vocabulario de la lengua tagala”...