My must-write list of 27 biographies

This is a short list of 27 biographies I would like to crank out in the coming few years. Some would have to be unauthorized or written under an impenetrable assumed name. One or two I have to weigh against the grim thought of spending the rest of my days where I can only be lonely and penniless. Here goes.

1. Manuel L. Quezon. The most recent bio of the Father of the Country goes back more than 40 years and has allowed generations of his trapo acolytes to peddle hogwash that’s their claim to legitimacy and for shoring up the discredited political system that’s an active conspiracy against the national good.

2. Emilio F. Aquinaldo. Cavite revisionists are out to prettify the indefensibly dismal record of betrayal and incompetence. They must not be allowed a free pass that will let the man reemerge from the dark depths smelling like a rose.

3. Manuel A. Roxas. At least seven authorized versions have been scrapped for the usual reasons (too many scandals political and personal to sweep under the rug), making the man who gave the Americans parity rights and military bases definitely fair game for unsparing and long-delayed scrutiny.

4. Francis Burton Harrison. An American aristocrat, he was said to be putty in MLQ’s hands, the pro-consul who coddled the ilustrado crowd and very early on ceded political and economic power they then used to form a permanent elite more authoritarian and venal than the departed colonial masters. He died in America but, as he wished, was reburied on Philippine soil.

5. Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. The real Ninoy Aquino behind the accidental sainthood created by the tragic events of Aug. 21,1983 begs to be liberated from shrine-keepers and fanciful recollections. Politics was in Ninoy’s blood and he lived by its peculiar and sometimes unsavory rules and practices. Like the Roosevelts and Kennedys, this man had feet of clay and a roving eye that cannot be denied but also cannot, in the end, dismiss his claim to greatness.

6. Joseph Ejercito Estrada. Neither hagiographies nor the demolition jobs cranked out so far can do justice to this president who, apart from Ramon Magsaysay, was the only one gifted with an overwhelming mandate by the people. That he has made a virtue and a laughing matter of his many indiscretions may be a sad indictment of Filipino culture and the way honor and dignity have been debased in our national life.  

7. Eugenio H. Lopez. The glossy authorized bio was meant to be the final word on the Frankenstein who helped create Marcos, who, in turn, cut the Lopezes down to size, only for the fallen empire to rise again to greater wealth and power after EDSA.

8. Robert MacMicking. Without his entrepreneurial genius and herculean efforts, Makati would never have risen from the cogonal wilderness and the Ayalas would have amounted to just another Castilaloy dynasty gone to seed.

9. Carlos P. Romulo. Dubbed Mr. United Nations, he literally walked with saints and sinners, some genuine heroes and others rank villains in any language. He loved talking to young people about Bataan and his phenomenal career in diplomacy and politics. His little-read insider accounts of Philippine presidents as told to Beth Day are most informative and devastating. 

10. Lucio Tan. At some point and under certain terms, the humble chemist from Naga got hitched to the Marcos machine and the Northern Luzon tobacco lobby, thus paving the road to the making of the grandest fortune from scratch since Vicente Madrigal built his coal, shipping and banking empire under Quezon’s rule.

11. Eduardo M. Cojuangco. How was this college dropout from Paniqui able to step into the shoes of Don Andres Soriano and emerge, after Don Ening Lopez, the most powerful tycoon in Philippine history, during and after Marcos?

12. Haydee B. Yorac. The lady lawyer was absolutely fearless. Powerful in her powerlessness, she knew where the bodies were buried and could have shamed the Establishment to choke on its lies and double-talk had she endured long enough to be the gadfly of gadflies.

13. Pacita de los Reyes-Phillips. Bright, beautiful and rich, she moved in the highest circles where she would not allow social conventions and hypocrisy to stifle love and desire, truly a woman of substance and defiance ahead of her time.

14. Leonardo B. Perez. The idol of student power and champion of democracy against the Quirino regime, he quickly turned into the Joseph McCarthy of the Garcia period and eventually Marcos’s guru of electoral magic under martial law. What personal demons and dark realities of trapo culture pushed this otherwise decent promdi toward brutish power and damnation?

15. Jejomar C. Binay. The unlikeliest to succeed of all Diliman boys today finds himself a mere heartbeat from the presidency, much to the chagrin of outsmarted caciques and scheming heirs of unworthy dynasties. How did he pull off this impossible trick and, most of all, will he ultimately ascend the stairs of Malacañang?

16. Rogelio de la Rosa. The real-life soap opera of the De la Rosas and Macapagals of Pampanga continues to this day with the travails of the half-forgotten little lady of Veterans Memorial Hospital. This makes you want to rethink the alternative scenario of Stonehill not intervening to save Dadong’s faltering 1961 campaign and Roger antedating Erap as president.

17. Imelda R. Marcos. Chit Pedrosa has long masterfully documented the Imeldific’s rise from the flooded garage to the heights of conjugal dictatorship and ignominy at EDSA. What’s yet to be covered is more fascinating ground: what happens after the Iron Butterfly gets de-winged but crawls out of the grave like Lady Dracula? It is the stuff of pathos and perverse humor and no doubt puts our imperiled democracy under the harshest light of all.

18. Gerry de Leon. Probably the brightest and most unsung of movie directors. As a boy in Bukidnon, I was mesmerized by his now-forgotten masterpiece Hanggang sa Dulo ng Daigdig with Pancho Magalona. Portrait of the Artist as Filipino did justice to Nick Joaquin’s drama and turned me on to the torments and joys of the late 19th-century Filipino mind.

19. Teodoro Benigno. He was a passionate man and he did not mince words, which came in torrents like a waterfall when he wrote of injustice and freedom. Without him and Max Soliven, Philippine journalism has lapsed into humdrum routine that neither exults nor provokes.

20. Apolinario de la Cruz. Without his mystical cult in the mid-1800s, there would be no secularization movement, GomBurZa or Jose Rizal. Thousands joined the revolt that shook the colonial regime that defeated his ragtag army and had him drawn and quartered. His exploits turned Mt. Banahaw into a refuge of holy men and outlaws alike. Henry Aguilan, his living direct descendant, deserves to be heard.

21. Angel Baking. I met him in prison, a rebel who honored rather than dishonored the Huk revolt that fought for the heroic peasants of Central Luzon after World War II. He was a patriot whose superior intelligence and ideals were utterly wasted in the ideological conflicts of the 1950s. His story must be told.

22. Jose W. Diokno. He loved the Philippines unconditionally and never stopped fighting for self-respect and justice. Never a bigot of the left, he loved life and was curious about the world, especially technology he could hold in his hands. He would have been a master of the digital age, perhaps the best blogger and photographer for freedom we can ever imagine.    

23. Chito Madrigal-Collantes. A grand dame and heiress to a fortune worthy of Midas, she had a surprisingly wicked sense of humor that did not spare herself or her plutocratic crowd. She was our Barbara Hutton, Doris Duke and Gloria Vanderbilt all rolled into one, although she was also a clever lawyer who fended off banality and intrigues until old age and infirmity pushed her into the shadows.

24. Enrique Voltaire Garcia II. The quintessential student leader and authentic hero of our generation (he’s enshrined in the Dambana ng Kagutingan) who would have gone on to Malacañang and glory, if not for martial law and cancer which cut him off at age 30. He went down fighting and, on his deathbed, showed that courage was an attitude that physical frailty cannot ever diminish or defeat. His widow Eloy Abelarde-Zell lives in Paris and we keep the blame burning.

25. Armida Siguion-Reyna. Everything about her is operatic from coloratura voice to aristocratic good looks and volcanic temperament. Put into the service of the crusade against censorship and for free expression, these gifts almost worked to rescue a movie industry reeking with greed and irrelevance. The magic of Filipino kundiman will live forever in the digital files of Aawitan Kita, the TV show this patriotic lady hosted for 35 years.

26. Claro M. Recto. Father of post-World War II Filipino nationalism, a proud Hispanophile but incorrigibly anti-American, he was a Renaissance Man who died of a mysterious heart attack in Rome in 1960, just when the movement was taking off and needed his steadying hand to avert Marxist-Maoist as well as Marcosian hijacking.

27. Salvador Lopez. The proud liberal tradition of UP died with this great man who tried to keep the academe safe from the clutches of tyranny of the left and right varieties. He was a diplomat of diplomats and a man of the world, at home in the world’s capitals and his native Badoc, Ilocos Norte, a man of literature and political action. Today’s UP of small minds and corporate vultures will never know what it has lost.

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E-mail the author at noslen794@gmail.com.