A sordid and painful tale
A sordid and painful tale
Updated 09:45pm (Mla time) Oct 05, 2004
By Ambeth Ocampo
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the October 6, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
NEWSPAPERS are often described as "history in a hurry." Today's current events become tomorrow's history.
Whenever I read old newspapers, some from as far back as the late 19th century, it is natural to compare and contrast them with the papers of today. For example, we all learn about the Reform or Propaganda Movement in school, and our textbooks emphasize the efforts of the fighting newspaper La Solidaridad. The bylines in this newspaper are like a roster of heroes: Jose Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Graciano Lopez Jaena, Antonio Luna and Mariano Ponce.
When I first came face to face with an actual copy of Solidaridad, I was surprised, and somewhat disappointed that it wasn't a daily and wasn't broadsheet. It wasn't even the size of a tabloid. By today's standards, the fortnightly Solidaridad would be considered a newsletter. This simple experience made me realize that reading historical sources requires shifting gears, that you take the past on its own terms and not read about the past with the hindsight, bias and comfort of the 21st century.
Aside from physical size, of course, there is the editorial slant. Why are some articles printed and others rejected? Why do the articles sound the way they do? Evaluating content is something we do for any newspaper new or old, but reading the Inquirer today makes me wonder what a future historian will see and say about our times. What will future historians make of the explosive (I would say, libelous) Gretchen Barretto interview in the Inquirer last Saturday? If it is any indication of readership that crosses boundaries, my jaded, 79-year-old father, who isn't interested in show biz or society gossip, recommended that I read it after one of his golf cronies told him that expatriate Pinoys who read the Inquirer on the Net got the news even before we get our newspapers here in the Philippines. I only read the paper on Monday because I spent the weekend in Odiongan, Romblon, where I had no television and newspapers to distract me from a reading seminar I participated in.
While I have always had a nose for scandal in history, I find that the primary sources are often discreet, the secondary sources silent on things that make our heroes human: Juan Luna murdering his wife and mother-in-law in a jealous rage; Jose Rizal and the women he left at every port he visited; Gregorio del Pilar and the different letters and perfumed embroidered handkerchiefs found on his body in Tirad Pass, etc. When there is little or no material, the historical vacuum can be filled with malice and conjecture: Apolinario Mabini and the sexual cause of his paralysis; Antonio Luna leaving a bag filled with revolutionary funds with a certain Ysidra that became the source of the Cojuangco fortune; Andres Bonifacio having a love-child in a place appropriately called Libog, Albay; Rizal's one-night-stand in Vienna that resulted in Adolf Hitler. Unlike urban legends that have a strand or semblance of truth somewhere, historical myths are more enduring. The more outrageous and the crazier the story the more people want to believe it, like that yarn about Rizal being the father of Hitler.
Reading the Gretchen Barretto interview made me wish journalists were more forward a century ago so that we would not be left guessing. For example, the closest we can get to Gretchen's plight (real or imagined) is Josephine Bracken who was not accepted by Rizal's family, with the exception of one or two sisters. After Rizal's death, she sued Teodora Alonso claiming that the family cheated her of her inheritance that included all of the Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo paintings in Rizal's modest art collection, the library he left in Hong Kong in the care of Jose Ma. Basa, and some cash. She gave two interviews to the Hong Kong press in 1897 regarding her military exploits in Cavite that are quite doubtful. Not much is said about the cold shoulder treatment that she mentioned in a letter dated Aug. 13, 1896. Rizal was en route to Cuba from Dapitan, he had a stop-over in Manila but was not allowed to disembark so Josephine tried to send all of her lover's bilin that included lansones, collars, cuffs, mangoes, cheese etc. In this rather sorry letter she wrote:
"...Ah! My dear I am suffering a great deal with them [Rizal's family] in Trozo, it is quite true they ought to be ashamed of me as they say in my face & in Presenance (sic) of Sra. Narcisa & their children because I am not married to you. So if you heare (sic) that I don't go to Trozo any more, don't be surpized (sic)...If you go to Spain [and find] any one of your fancy you better marry her, but deare heare (sic) me better marry than to live like who we have been doing. I am not ashamed to let people know my life with you but as your dear Sisters are ashamed I think you had better get married to some one else. Your Sister and your Father they are very good and kind to me."
Earlier Rizal had written a letter of introduction for her stating that he wished that she be treated well as he cared for her.
We will never know what Rizal's mother thought of Josephine because she was not interviewed by the Inquirer, but from various pieces of correspondence we try and piece together a sordid tale that was too painful to record in the 19th century but comes so easily in our time.
Updated 09:45pm (Mla time) Oct 05, 2004
By Ambeth Ocampo
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the October 6, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
NEWSPAPERS are often described as "history in a hurry." Today's current events become tomorrow's history.
Whenever I read old newspapers, some from as far back as the late 19th century, it is natural to compare and contrast them with the papers of today. For example, we all learn about the Reform or Propaganda Movement in school, and our textbooks emphasize the efforts of the fighting newspaper La Solidaridad. The bylines in this newspaper are like a roster of heroes: Jose Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Graciano Lopez Jaena, Antonio Luna and Mariano Ponce.
When I first came face to face with an actual copy of Solidaridad, I was surprised, and somewhat disappointed that it wasn't a daily and wasn't broadsheet. It wasn't even the size of a tabloid. By today's standards, the fortnightly Solidaridad would be considered a newsletter. This simple experience made me realize that reading historical sources requires shifting gears, that you take the past on its own terms and not read about the past with the hindsight, bias and comfort of the 21st century.
Aside from physical size, of course, there is the editorial slant. Why are some articles printed and others rejected? Why do the articles sound the way they do? Evaluating content is something we do for any newspaper new or old, but reading the Inquirer today makes me wonder what a future historian will see and say about our times. What will future historians make of the explosive (I would say, libelous) Gretchen Barretto interview in the Inquirer last Saturday? If it is any indication of readership that crosses boundaries, my jaded, 79-year-old father, who isn't interested in show biz or society gossip, recommended that I read it after one of his golf cronies told him that expatriate Pinoys who read the Inquirer on the Net got the news even before we get our newspapers here in the Philippines. I only read the paper on Monday because I spent the weekend in Odiongan, Romblon, where I had no television and newspapers to distract me from a reading seminar I participated in.
While I have always had a nose for scandal in history, I find that the primary sources are often discreet, the secondary sources silent on things that make our heroes human: Juan Luna murdering his wife and mother-in-law in a jealous rage; Jose Rizal and the women he left at every port he visited; Gregorio del Pilar and the different letters and perfumed embroidered handkerchiefs found on his body in Tirad Pass, etc. When there is little or no material, the historical vacuum can be filled with malice and conjecture: Apolinario Mabini and the sexual cause of his paralysis; Antonio Luna leaving a bag filled with revolutionary funds with a certain Ysidra that became the source of the Cojuangco fortune; Andres Bonifacio having a love-child in a place appropriately called Libog, Albay; Rizal's one-night-stand in Vienna that resulted in Adolf Hitler. Unlike urban legends that have a strand or semblance of truth somewhere, historical myths are more enduring. The more outrageous and the crazier the story the more people want to believe it, like that yarn about Rizal being the father of Hitler.
Reading the Gretchen Barretto interview made me wish journalists were more forward a century ago so that we would not be left guessing. For example, the closest we can get to Gretchen's plight (real or imagined) is Josephine Bracken who was not accepted by Rizal's family, with the exception of one or two sisters. After Rizal's death, she sued Teodora Alonso claiming that the family cheated her of her inheritance that included all of the Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo paintings in Rizal's modest art collection, the library he left in Hong Kong in the care of Jose Ma. Basa, and some cash. She gave two interviews to the Hong Kong press in 1897 regarding her military exploits in Cavite that are quite doubtful. Not much is said about the cold shoulder treatment that she mentioned in a letter dated Aug. 13, 1896. Rizal was en route to Cuba from Dapitan, he had a stop-over in Manila but was not allowed to disembark so Josephine tried to send all of her lover's bilin that included lansones, collars, cuffs, mangoes, cheese etc. In this rather sorry letter she wrote:
"...Ah! My dear I am suffering a great deal with them [Rizal's family] in Trozo, it is quite true they ought to be ashamed of me as they say in my face & in Presenance (sic) of Sra. Narcisa & their children because I am not married to you. So if you heare (sic) that I don't go to Trozo any more, don't be surpized (sic)...If you go to Spain [and find] any one of your fancy you better marry her, but deare heare (sic) me better marry than to live like who we have been doing. I am not ashamed to let people know my life with you but as your dear Sisters are ashamed I think you had better get married to some one else. Your Sister and your Father they are very good and kind to me."
Earlier Rizal had written a letter of introduction for her stating that he wished that she be treated well as he cared for her.
We will never know what Rizal's mother thought of Josephine because she was not interviewed by the Inquirer, but from various pieces of correspondence we try and piece together a sordid tale that was too painful to record in the 19th century but comes so easily in our time.
posted by Dante at 12:00 AM
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