We mourn with the writing community the passing of Amadis Guerrero, who chronicled the travails and joys of this strange nation, such as this account we share on the sorrows and laughter of the Left, EDSA, and what the future – then – held for people active in the struggle for change. Thank you, Amadis, for your abiding curiosity, your faith in our people, your humor, your insights, the lightness of your touch.

We celebrate the 25th year of the #IYAS National Writers Workshop, which is now well underway. The silver anniversary homecoming is just days away! This year’s selected writers are once more having a grand time, because in #IYAS, they are challenged and encouraged, and their voices get even more lift using wings they were born with. Through the tireless work [READ]

This event is tomorrow, a provocation we hope that is fit for the 25th year of such a generous, loving, fierce, and cerebral national writers workshop, one that covers writing in several languages, in poetry, essay, short story, and so on and on and on, organized by the University of St. La Salle (USLS) in partnership with the DLSU Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center (BNSCWC). Mabuhay #IYAS!

Friends across oceans? Yes! What a lovely time spent with Lito and AA Valerio, and their inquisitive son, Teo. They dropped by the Constantino Foundation compound in late April. They were spending a few weeks in the Philippines on holiday, much of it spent visiting family in Davao. But they were also looking for a copy of the newly released 50th anniversary edition of The Philippines: A Past Revisited (APR). We both laughed at the effort by a few sellers to pass off ridiculously priced versions – used frayed copies of APR selling at P1,500-1,800, which people were actually buying, when they could have purchased the latest new hardbound edition at P699, and the newly released softbound version, the 24th printing with a new introduction, at P599.

We exchanged a lot of stories. Romance, university days, friendships, social struggles and political debacles. It was a [READ]

Fellows! Filipino writers are central to the task of nation-building and protecting the nation, and IYAS stands out for its role in supporting our people’s forest of writers thrive, so that they may question, shape, reimagine, inspire, and provoke change among our people. Mabuhay, IYAS 2026 Fellows, and congratulations to the wise and tireless folks organizing and shepherding the workshop!
See you all mid-May!

Renato Redentor Constantino, The Poverty of Memory: Essays on History and Empire (FNS-2006), p. 52-55

Nothing New in the World
The winding path the United States took to September 11th.

“Memory says, ‘I did that,’” Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote. “Pride replies, ‘I could not have done that.’ Eventually, memory yields.”

Three years ago in America, on September 11, airplanes fell from the sky and thousands died. Countless numbers mourned the mass murder. Countless mourn still. On the same day 31 years ago, the sky fell in Chile when the democratically-elected Allende government was overthrown in a bloody coup staged by the American government. Who mourns the Chilean sky?

Remembering is a political act, wrote Boston Globe columnist James Carroll. “Forgetfulness is the handmaiden of tyranny.”

In 1953, the United States engineered a coup in Iran which ousted the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh — an Iranian colossus who happened to live in a frail [READ]

Lester Rodriguez, distinguished artist from Binangonan, begins the day with a watercolor workshop with Sagay youth. It’s a great platform – later, we’ll lead a workshop with teachers on how to use art in appreciating and interrogating history and science.

Sunrise just before the 13th Nature Encounter Arts Month Celebration opens in Sagay, Negros Occidental. Themed “Duta, Tubig, Hangin,” the festival was initiated in 2013 by the celebrated artist Nunelucio Alvarado. Festivities commence early morning at the coastal spot of Kape Albarako, with body painting, dancing, performance art, and kites flying against a backdrop of the open sea. Led by Pintor Kulapol and other local artist groups, films will be shown with dances and visual art exhibits. A number of art and history appreciation sessions will be held with local teachers, which the Constantino Foundation is contributing to.

Photos © ConstantinoFoundation.