Constantino Foundation – Page 31 – Dedicated to a usable history, where lessons from the past are used to shape the future.

Spotlight

Merch alert!

A historian tote bag? Why yes. See more in our tent this Dec. 13 in support of QC's Maginhawa Arts and Food Festival! [READ]

Constantino Foundation Joins Maginhawa Festival: Merch, Memory, and Movement

We are part of the Maginhawa Arts and Food Festival this Dec. 13! Look for our tent - we will sell new Renato and[READ]

Constantino Foundation and DLSU Celebrate 50 Years of The Philippines: A Past Revisited

The Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center and the Department of History of DLSU, in cooperation with the Constantino Foundation, held the launching of[READ]

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The Constantino legacy exhibit just got extended: here is why you need to go

by Astig.PH

MAKATI, Philippines (Jul 2026): You have a few more weeks to catch a rare look at the love letters and personal artifacts of the couple who changed how we look at our own history. The Constantino Foundation and Yuchengco Museum officially extended the run of “Pasts Revisited: An Exhibit on a Usable History and the Romance of Renato Constantino and Letizia Roxas Constantino” until July 31, 2026.

Located at the RCBC Plaza in Makati City, the showcase focuses on the celebrated husband and wife historian duo. Organizers decided to keep the doors open longer because of high demand and the[READ]

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Pasts Revisited

Apolinario Mabini

Timely words to weigh from the great Apolinario Mabini as our people help one another face flooded days of adversity.

#APastRevisited #constantinofoundation

July 23, 2025|

Events

Videos

Stories

What remains of Carlos Fressel?

What remains of Carlos Fressel? There are several answers to the question. Among them is a reminder to Filipinos about the value of our fascinating past and why history should not be treated as the domain of historians alone. At the base of an elegant pillar in the parish of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Sta. Mesa Manila, a curious churchgoer will find an interesting marking [...]

The Electrician and the Tram

AN Armenian invocation comes to mind, Djamangeen gar oo chagar. Once upon a time, there was and there wasn’t. It’s a fitting notion to chew on when you weigh the story of a large lot along F.R. Hidalgo in Quiapo district, framed on two sides by esteros that are today more sewage than canal, waterways that once witnessed the rise of the country’s first modern power station, La Electricista—The Electrician. [...]

Street names and the persistence of memory

Life reveals far greater pleasures when we use our sense of curiosity more often. This is so for travelers and it’s something any Filipino can enjoy when they start asking about the origins of street names. For instance, Magsaysay Boulevard was named after The Guy, Ramon Magsaysay, one of the country’s more popular presidents. [...]

Our perfumed history

Chandler Burr dwelled on “the mystery of smell” in his intriguing 2004 book, The Emperor of Scent. “We understand the human sense of vision,” Burr wrote, “intimately down to exactly which vibration of a particle of light caught in the vision receptor in the retina will make us see exactly which color… We know hearing in exquisite detail, can predict with absolute accuracy which air vibration in the cochlea will create what tone. But of smell, we do not know, cannot predict.” [...]

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"Thank you for having us ... We truly enjoyed ourselves. The exhibit was very inspiring, beautifully presented and so insightful. We were all so impressed. Hope we can use some of the material in our Women’s Museum. ❤️"

Mayor Joy Belmonte
Quezon City Governor, On her visit at Letizia: A Life in Letters Exhibit
2025 July 30
“A Past Revisited was both a revelation and a challenge. It made us see the familiar narratives of Philippine history in new and unsettling ways. It invited us to ask deeper questions—about power, about colonial legacies, about the struggles and aspirations of our people. And it also gave us a sense of responsibility: to carry history forward not just as memory, but as a guide for action and transformation.”

Dr. Chas M. Navarro
Commissioner, National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP)
On his remarks at the launch of the 50th Anniversary Special Edition of The Philippines: A Past Revisited
2025 Aug 29
“Good read. At aliw. Ito ang kahapon na masarap balikan!”

Cherylle Lara Raguini
Subic civic leader, commenting on the foundation essay in ABS-CBN,
“Street names and the persistence of memory,” June 2024
“Taos pusong pagpapasalamat ng angkang Orosa for your inclusion of our Beloved Maria Y. Orosa in this PUP mural. Renato Redentor Constantino, we are ever grateful for this honor and recognition. Our forebears knew each other. Mine spoke highly of the Constantinos!”

Evelyn Orosa del Rosario Garcia
Great grand niece of Maria Y. Orosa and author of National Book Award winner
Appetite for Freedom: The Recipes of Maria Y. Orosa, with Essays on Her Life and Work.
“Frequented the area in the early ’80s because of Popular Bookstore (small door, beside the gate of Mapua High School), the only one that carried engineering books required for our course. It was still Martial Law… One buys … dangerous reading materials afraid of the Secret Marshals who were then infamous for salvaging (tokhang in the time of tatay digong) petty criminals and activists. Across Mapua High then was a parking lot of mini buses – now the Manila Grand Opera.”

Melvin Purzuelo
Iloilo environmentalist, commenting on the foundation’s history article in BusinessMirror,
“Cycling through the fabled history of an opera house, now a hotel,” June 2024.
“Yes, third time [sila/Inang Laya] pumunta at kumanta sa rally sa Dasmarinas town plaza, sa parish church sa our Lady of Perpetual Help sa Dasmariñas Bagong Bayan and sa martsa rali ng mga maralitang lunsod from Dasmariñas to Bacoor na hinarang sumama at di sya [Karina Constantino-David] umalis hanggang kinabukasan.”

Ian Yaun
March 19, 2024
"... A Past Revisited sparked a different kind of revolution, one that urged Filipinos to view history through our own eyes and experiences. Thank you very much to our dear friend, ABS-CBN’s Karmina Constantino, a resident of San Juan, for inviting me to be part of this historic occasion."

Mayor Francis Zamora
San Juan City Governor , On his speech at APR 50th anniversary edition launch at NHCP Museo El Deposito
2025 August 29
“At a low point in my life, I received a note from Letizia Constantino, unsolicited advice that encouraged me to keep writing. I never got to thank her personally for that pat on the back; this column is belated gratitude.”

Ambeth R. Ocampo
Historian, An excerpt from his column in Philippine Daily Inquirer
"Letizia Roxas Constantino, historian", 2025 June 06
“One of the most towering texts of nationalist historiography — co-authored by Letizia Constantino, whose voice carried the struggle for true independence into classrooms and beyond.”

Michael “Xiao” Chua
Historian , On his column at The Manila Times
“Letizia Constantino: Nationalist historian, wife and mother” 2025 June 17
“Mabuhay ka RC. Patuloy namin ikaw inaalala at ipinagdadasal sa lakbay mo ngayon. We will continue our conversations with family, even while you have left us. You will forever live in our hearts and we celebrate your life fully!”

Loretta Ann Rosales
Former member, House of Representatives
and former chair of the Commission on Human Rights
“Thank you very much, Constantino Foundation! It was a lovely afternoon spent learning about history, poetry, art, climate change, street names, the bicycles in revolution, kickass heroines, and much more! Renato Redentor Constantino’s talk and Renato Senior’s book A Past Revisited really got under my skin. Maraming salamat!”

Gege Cruz Sugue
Flips Flipping Books book club, 12 August 2024
“My first brush with Renato Constantino was through Mr. Herman Rochester, our 4th year high school adviser, who lent me his Miseducation of the Filipino. From then on I was hooked. In college, I encountered Parents and Activists, which helped me understand my parents’ objections to my activism, then his books A Past Revisited and A Continuing Past which made me learn history in a way that I was never taught in my elementary and high school years. His and his wife Letizia’s many articles, pamphlets, books and publications were guiding lights that stirred up the makabayan and palaban in me. Theirs was a writing that was nakakapagmulat at nakakataas ng pag-unawa.”

Teddy Casiño
Former Bayan Muna Representative, Facebook post
11 June 2026
“Renato and Letty kept the fire burning for country and people, fueled by their abiding love for each other and the cause they both pursued with single-minded devotion. In this sense, Renato and Letty may well be considered among the principal characters in one long epic love poem about the birthing of a free and caring society, still unfinished to this day.”

Dr. Rosalinda Pineda-Ofreneo
biographer, at the Pasts Revisited exhibit opening, Yuchengco Museum,
11 June 2026
“We have been so wonderfully blessed in the past week by the presence of tremendously inspiring people, one of them, the one who likes to “shake trees”, is Sir Renato Redentor Constantino who moved the entire plenary to feel, think, and act… people couldn’t help but share and talk about the presentation. I told Sir Red that by the second day of the event, people realized there were ‘deeper commitments than professionalism.’”

Floraime Pantaleta
Executive Director, Ateneo Zamboanga-Mindanao Institute

Spotlight

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Spotlight

The Foundation

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Teacher Support

Pasts Revisited

Apolinario Mabini

Events

Videos

Stories

"Thank you for having us ... We truly enjoyed ourselves. The exhibit was very inspiring, beautifully presented and so insightful. We were all so impressed. Hope we can use some of the material in our Women’s Museum. ❤️"

“Good read. At aliw. Ito ang kahapon na masarap balikan!”

“Taos pusong pagpapasalamat ng angkang Orosa for your inclusion of our Beloved Maria Y. Orosa in this PUP mural. Renato Redentor Constantino, we are ever grateful for this honor and recognition. Our forebears knew each other. Mine spoke highly of the Constantinos!”​

"... A Past Revisited sparked a different kind of revolution, one that urged Filipinos to view history through our own eyes and experiences. Thank you very much to our dear friend, ABS-CBN’s Karmina Constantino, a resident of San Juan, for inviting me to be part of this historic occasion."

“At a low point in my life, I received a note from Letizia Constantino, unsolicited advice that encouraged me to keep writing. I never got to thank her personally for that pat on the back; this column is belated gratitude.”

“One of the most towering texts of nationalist historiography — co-authored by Letizia Constantino, whose voice carried the struggle for true independence into classrooms and beyond.”

“Mabuhay ka RC. Patuloy namin ikaw inaalala at ipinagdadasal sa lakbay mo ngayon. We will continue our conversations with family, even while you have left us. You will forever live in our hearts and we celebrate your life fully!”

“Taos pusong pagpapasalamat ng angkang Orosa for your inclusion of our Beloved Maria Y. Orosa in this PUP mural. Renato Redentor Constantino, we are ever grateful for this honor and recognition. Our forebears knew each other. Mine spoke highly of the Constantinos!”