THE lives of writers Renato and Letizia Constantino as husband and wife were so intertwined that they also found a common cause to work together in advancing national freedom, social liberation and durable democracy.
It was a relationship whose essence could be described, to borrow the John Coltrane tune, as “a love supreme” — transcending romance and embracing love of country.
Their most prominent collaboration — “Vol. I: The Philippines: A Past Revisited,” and “Vol. II: The Continuing Past,” which became primary reading history textbooks — is the backdrop of an art and cultural exhibition of all things Renato and Letizia, ongoing till July 11 at the Yuchengco Museum in Makati
Mounted by the Constantino Foundation, the exhibit “Pasts Revisited” shows letters, photos, never-before-seen manuscripts, rare artifacts, artworks, and sundry objects that reveal facets of the persons behind the bylines people saw only in newspapers and books.
From the exhibit notes, the uninitiated learns that Renato — born in 1919 — was a journalist from his youth until his death in 1999. While a student at the University of the Philippines Diliman, he became the youngest editor of the Philippine Collegian.
Letizia — born in 1920 — was the only child of Judge Mamerto Roxas (elder brother of Philippine President Manuel Roxas) and Mercedes Fuentes, and would’ve been a concert pianist had she not met Renato.
Their first meeting was not so nice.
In her unpublished biography, Letizia wrote about being invited, with her friend, Ruby, to write for the Collegian: “We were given our own column on the society page. This must have been because Ruby’s father, a UP alumnus, was a popular political figure among the students. Actually, I did the writing. One day, I went to the Collegian office. A young man opened the door. I gave him my name and asked why our column was missing in the latest issue. He brusquely replied: ‘We have canceled the society page.’ The antipatico was Renato Constantino. I had seen his face in the Collegian.”
After serving in the anti-Japanese intelligence corps in World War II, Renato’s nationalist views developed while in New York to help lead the Philippine delegation to the United Nations from 1946 to ’49, and as counsellor, the third highest position at the time, at the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Advocating for an independent policy, he was tagged by the US State Department as “a menace to the interests and a political radical.”
Renato quit writing for the Manila Chronicle when the publisher asked him to tone down his criticism of then-president Ferdinand Marcos Sr. He was placed under house arrest upon the declaration of martial law.
At the exhibit, displayed on a high, multilevel shelf are samples of the dozens of books and pamphlets Renato wrote on history, political economy, and social criticism, including “The Miseducation of the Filipino,” “Roots of Subservience,” “Parents and Activists” (with a Filipino translation), and “Veneration Without Understanding.”
In Renato’s writings — as well as in other books that the Constantino Foundation promotes — readers are provoked to contemplate issues that ring true today: What keeps our people poor and disempowered? Is democracy just about elections? Shouldn’t it also cover people’s access to affordable health care, food, education and transport built for the many instead of a few? How can our past help explain why our political institutions and leaders seem to mostly serve the interests of a tiny minority?
If Renato was the author, Letizia was his editor.
From the exhibit notes: “Few know that much of what Renato wrote went through Letizia, who was a stickler for concision and clarity. She was sharp, her mind a scalpel that cut out entire sections or rearranged and rewrote paragraphs. Renato considered drafts ready for publication once he knew Letizia had gone through it, which sometimes made her anxious.”
Says an excerpt from the exhibit notes: “In their collaboration, none were spared: mendicant leadership, foreign interference, corruption, anti-people economic policies, development aggression, the ahistorical Left. For Renato and Letizia, democracy becomes durable only when Filipinos, guided by lessons from the past, forge their own destiny.”
Letizia recalls their work process in a diary entry while she and Renato were writing “The Continuing Past”:
Dec. 23, ’76
“It’s strange — and for me often a cause for worry — though R is definitely the principal, or should I say the real author, I often revise what he writes, even his opinions, but he seldom changes or discards what I write. The same was true with Vol. I. It is a great responsibility for me, and dangerous, I think, that he should place such reliance on my views because I am poorly read and ignorant, compared to him.”
Jan. 5, ’77
“I’m still struggling with the collaborators. It is my impression that my revision of draft 4 of Chapter V will emerge as more strongly critical of the collaborators than R’s draft. Some of my judgments contradict R’s views. Let’s see who prevails.”
She also waxes poetic, with a bit of humor:
June 20, ’77
“He reads, I write
He thinks, I organize
His the forest, mine the trees
His the skeletons, mine the flesh
His the larger dimensions, mine the subsidiary insights
(He is inspired; I perspire).”
Another excerpt from the exhibit notes: “That his name was more prominent was a decision made by the couple, to shield her from persecution during the 1950s and ’60s, when, in Renato’s words, “the slightest nationalist articulation meant solitary confinement” and when anti-imperialist writing critical of the US was considered heretical and dangerous. Later, when the narratives they advanced gained broader influence, Letizia would become a sought-after public speaker, publishing essays of her own, including eight volumes of ‘Issues Without Tears,’ written to supply teachers and students with progressive content.”
Renato was often photographed with a tobacco pipe dangling from his mouth. Also in the exhibit is his pipe collection, as well as paintings gifted to the Constantino couple by Vicente Manansala, Malang, and Araceli Dans. One artwork was given in exchange for one of Renato’s pipes.
Usable history
More artworks show some of the foundation’s initiatives to promote the concept of a “usable history” — to encourage Filipinos to regard lessons from the past to shape their present and realize a sustainable and fair future.
At the center of the visual gallery is “Alas ng Bayan,” which depicts the unbroken line of Filipina heroism through the lives of five women heroes: Gregoria de Jesus (“Lakambini” of the Katipunan), Apolonia Catra (woman officer in Gen. Macario Sacay’s armed forces), Remedios Gomez-Paraiso (“Kumander Liwayway” of the Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon or Hukbalahap), Ma. Lorena Barros (founding chair of the Malayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan or Makibaka), and Gloria Capitan (anti-coal activist).
Coinciding with the exhibit is the launch of the 50th anniversary edition of “A Past Revisited” with a new introduction written by Renato’s grandson, Renato Redentor Constantino, managing director of the Constantino Foundation.
Quoted is a love letter from Letizia to Renato, written four months before the Japanese invaded the Philippines and two years prior to their marriage:
Sept. 7, 1941
“Dear Rene,
“I’ve been good today. Since I woke up this morning, I forgot you for only an hour… and that’s because of my second love, my concerto. My teacher and I played it on two pianos for the first time this morning, and it was beautiful. It did something to me, hearing all those sounds blend, hearing one piano answer another, urging each other faster, faster to a brilliant finale. It left me exhausted… I’m still thinking of you. You’re the hardest person to get rid of…
“Darling, I miss you — to hell with the army — please come home.”
