Archive for the Philippine History Category

Col. Irwin Ver—son of Gen. Fabian Ver and commander of President Marcos’s guards—tells of the last hours in Malacañang in February 1986. (more…)

Sixty-eight years ago this month, General Douglas MacArthur’s vaunted US 1st Cavalry Division liberated my town of San Juan, Rizal, in mid-morning. (more…)

The Bataan Legacy event will take place on Sunday, May 5 at 2PM at the Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library located at 100 Larkin St. in San Francisco, CA.  The event is a collaboration between Artis Mundi and the San Francisco Public Library and supported by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center and the San Francisco Arts Commission.

The price of peace was paid dearly by the defenders of Bataan. But their place in history has been ignored, derided, and even maligned. Five months after the war ended, the benefits for the Filipino veterans were rescinded by President Truman in 1946 and to this day have not been fully restored.  The recent decision by the ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals to reject the veterans’ claims has tipped the scales of justice even further.  Only a handful of these veterans are left and soon they will pass on without receiving recognition for their great sacrifice. - Cecilia Gaerlan

(Random thoughts about Martial Law—Part 3)

February 23, 1986. Manila. This month we celebrate the 27th anniversary of the People Power Revolution, otherwise known as the Edsa Revolution of 1986.

Led by then National Defence Chief Juan Ponce Enrile and Philippine Army General Fidel Ramos, a bloodless revolution against the Filipino Dictator began. (more…)

The “Y” generation will not know the name Primitivo Mijares but Baby Boomers like me will remember him as a brave journalist and a staunch critic of the late president Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda. It was Mijares who authored the book Conjugal Dictatorship which described how the Philippines was run with an iron fist by the couple in Malacañang during the Martial Law years.
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