RENATO, Author at Constantino Foundation

Filipinas in history as Superheroes? Oh yes. See them reimagined in an exciting new exhibit in Quezon City! #FightLikeGirls!

Alas ng Bayan 2.0 is a riveting new contribution to an exhibition series celebrating the unbroken line of Filipina heroism in our people’s past, from the 19th century to the present.

First launched in 2019, the Alas ng Bayan exhibit is a history-through-art initiative of the Constantino Foundation in cooperation with the Tandang Sora Women’s Museum and 350 Pilipinas. The exhibit seeks to reintroduce the Philippine past and femtinism as young Filipinos respond to the worsening state of national forgetting, maldevelopment, and the climate crisis. The exhibit hopes to generate interest in sectors not normally active in national and social issues by offering notions of citizenship, nationhood, and activism in the face of multiple emergencies hammering the country today.

Alas ng Bayan 2.0 is a reinterpretation by the artist Billy [READ]

RENATO2025-10-03T11:23:41+08:00October 3, 2025|

We Can Choose Honor

A sense of honor is one of the simplest lessons our nation’s mightiest heroes can impart. But it’s a teaching we can absorb only by remembering better, by wielding our usable past.

This month marks the 114th year since Jose Abad Santos, the nation’s fifth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, passed the Bar Exams in October 1911. The occasion is an auspicious reminder, for we cannot avoid the subject of law given fresh revelations of plunder perpetrated, yet again, by the country’s so-called lawmakers, in connivance with criminals in the bureaucracy and private contractors.

Part of a storied family in Pampanga, at 10 years-old Jose Abad Santos served as a courier to the fledgling forces of the Philippine Republic during the Philippine-American War. His father, Don Vicente, was tortured and killed by Spanish authorities, who dragged his lifeless body from town to [READ]

RENATO2025-10-02T12:19:37+08:00October 1, 2025|

As Renato Constantino and Letizia Roxas Constantino often counseled, everyone will benefit from a deeper and more dynamic understanding of history, especially those who identify with the Philippine Left. #apastrevisited

RENATO2025-09-30T16:06:28+08:00September 30, 2025|

Mark Your Calendars: A Past Revisited Book Launch & History Forum – October 3!

As part of the preparations for the arrival of Severe Tropical Storm Opong—with classes and government work in several areas of Luzon already suspended for Friday and Saturday, September 26–27—the Book Launch of The Philippines: A Past Revisited (50th Anniversary Special Edition) and the History Forum scheduled for tomorrow, September 26, 2025, at UP Manila will be postponed.

🗓️ New Date: October 3, 2025 (Friday)

⏰ Time: 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

📍 Venue: Little Theater, Rizal Hall, College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), UP Manila

👉 We encourage everyone to register early.

👉 Those who have already registered are requested to register again to confirm attendance.

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. Please stay safe, and we hope to see you on October 3rd!

RENATO2025-09-30T21:00:03+08:00September 25, 2025|

“The Philippines: A Past Revisited” at Fifty: From Rolling Stone Philippines to the Frankfurt Book Fair 2025

The Philippines: A Past Revisited by Renato Constantino and Letizia Roxas Constantino is featured in the September 2025 print edition of The Rolling Stone Philippines (Arts & Culture Issue), coinciding with the book’s 50th anniversary.

First published in 1975, the volume has been described as “a landmark text in Philippine historiography”, one that “moves beyond colonial narratives” and “foregrounds the struggles of ordinary Filipinos.” Through its framing of history as “a usable past,” it continues to serve as a critical resource for understanding the present through the lens of the past.

This feature precedes the book’s presentation at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2025, where the Philippines is Guest of Honor. The international stage offers an important platform for revisiting the Constantinos’ contribution to historical scholarship and for situating Philippine history within broader global conversations on memory, nationhood, and cultural identity.

Fifty years after its publication, A Past Revisited endures as a key reference [READ]

RENATO2025-11-15T00:30:49+08:00September 25, 2025|

You’re invited!

Join us for the launch of the 50th anniversary edition of The Philippines: A Past Revisited—a landmark work by Renato and Letizia Roxas Constantino, whose partnership shaped generations of critical historical thought.

🗓️ September 26, 2025

⏰ 3PM–5PM

📍 Little Theater, UP Manila (Rizal Hall, College of Arts and Sciences, Padre Faura St., Ermita, Manila)

UP students, faculty, and alumni may present their UP ID at the venue. All other guests are requested to register via this link:

🔗https://forms.gle/8zbDqtbp338ULqyf8

Please see the attached materials for full event details and registration instructions.

RENATO2025-09-22T23:51:14+08:00September 22, 2025|

Lean Alejandro

September 19 marks the 38th anniversary of the murder of Lean Alejandro, the young activist who helped bring down the Marcos dictatorship and whose heroic life we should be celebrating rather than merely marking the brutal manner of his passing.

Lean will one day loom large in Philippine history because, like so many who fought for our country and people, he dedicated his life to establish the full possibility of democracy in our nation, without any expectation he would be around to enjoy the fruits of the struggle.

Lean was a selfless youth leader brimming with ideas, his imagination fired by the dreams of his people, a people who have long longed for peace, prosperity, and the space to celebrate life’s simple joys – for working Filipino families to enjoy enough leisure time, to cook for friends and family, to read fiction, philosophy, and poetry, to play ping pong and support other [READ]

RENATO2025-09-22T23:36:52+08:00September 19, 2025|

The historian Renato Constantino was a pioneering intellectual who called for a full transition to renewable energy in 1979 to establish energy security and to protect the people from volatility and ecological collapse. #RenewableEnergyNow #Visionary #apastrevisited

RENATO2025-09-18T16:43:00+08:00September 18, 2025|

TIMELESS INTELLECT: Constantino foundation reissues late historian’s book on 50th year

by Eneri Eidref Trinidad and Karyl Alexandra Ipac

Honoring the legacy of the late Filipino historian Renato Constantino and his infl uence in the study of Philippine history, the Constantino Foundation kicked off a history forum and launch of the 50th anniversary special hardbound edition of The Philippines: A Past Revisited held in Rosh Hotel Manila on August 26.

The relaunch of A Past Revisited drew a crowd of invited guests, some of whom are undergraduate students of the University of the Philippines-Manila (UPM), in the Colleges of Pharmacy and Public Health.

Originally published in 1975 during the Martial Law regime, the book tackles Philippine history in a nationalist stance, focusing on the Filipino struggle during the Spanish and American colonial rule.

Bernard Karganilla, a history professor at UPM and a close colleague of Constantino, formally opened the event with a warm welcome and delivered [READ]

RENATO2025-11-15T00:30:49+08:00September 18, 2025|

Renato Constantino

The historian Renato Constantino passed away 26 years ago on 15 September, the very birthday of his son, RC, who designed the iconic cover of The Philippines: A Past Revisited. The book continues to be a mirror, a hammer, and a torch, as an academic recently noted. Indeed, the concept championed by Constantino – a usable past – is most useful today as we witness open thievery on display alongside the dominance of greedy dynasties treating the country’s treasury as their private piggy bank.

Where did all this begin? In many places, for sure, but there’s also one occasion that should always pop out. On 13 September 1907 the American forces occupying the Philippines hanged the last great resistance leader, the Filipino revolutionary Macario Sakay. He was a Katipunan original who fought Spanish colonialists alongside Andres Bonifacio. [READ]

RENATO2025-09-22T23:37:40+08:00September 15, 2025|

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