Soledad Salvador came from a family that had been tenant farmers in Ilocos Norte for many generations. By working as a housemaid then as a parish worker, she pinned her hopes for a better life on getting an education. Sympathetic church people helped her along, and she was able to graduate from college with a…
Salvador Leaño was a World War II veteran, soft-spoken, but unafraid to stand up for what he believed in. He was a teenager when he joined the war against Japan as a freedom fighter. He was a high school graduate who was teaching in elementary when the war broke out. After the war, he took…
Nilo Valerio wanted to be a priest, probably because he was inspired by two uncles who were priests (one of them a bishop), and his own father, who was a former seminarian and who raised his six children in piety. He had the disposition for it, being a quiet and serious boy, happy to spend…
Resteta Fernandez was a passionate girl, articulate and fond of debates. Her father was a carpenter and could barely afford to send his children to school. Nevertheless he tried to help his daughter, an honor student, to study some more after graduating from high school. When this became obviously difficult, Resteta, Res, gave up college and…
The case of Florencio Pesquesa, a workers’ union leader who disappeared in 1979, illustrates how under martial law, powerful forces colluded with each other in suppressing people’s rights and covering up abuses against the defenseless people. Pesquesa was born in Canlubang, Laguna, where thousands of workers toiled on huge tracts of land to produce the…
Benedicto Pasetes was the eldest of seven children of a soldier couple, a US Army veteran of World War II who survived the Death March, and a nurse in the Philippine Army. After the war the elder Pasetes worked at the Bureau of Animal Industry while his mother went into the real estate business. The family lived…
Playwright, director Boni Ilagan wrote this powerful story about six of the Southern Tagalog 10 – Rizalina, Gerry, Jessica, Cristina, Bong, and Ramon.
Cory Aquino was born to a landed family, said to be one of the richest Chinese mestizo families in the country. She was educated from grade school to college in exclusive Catholic schools in the Philippines and the United States. After college, she returned to the Philippines to study law, but gave it up on…
Ramon Jasul was the fourth child of a middle-class family from Lucban, Quezon. He was bright and diligent and showed strong leadership qualities. He was corps commander in his senior year in high school and contributed to the high school paper, The Banahaw. Jasul had a questioning mind, refusing to accept things as they are. “What is…
Evelio Javier was a bright young lawyer who at the age of 29 defeated an entrenched incumbent and became the youngest provincial governor in the Philippines. Throughout martial law he steadfastly maintained his political independence from the Marcos regime. This independence cost him his life. Javier studied at the Ateneo, where he finished high school and…
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