Leon Ma. Guerrero: 20th-Century Man
LMG, an anthology of writings by and about Leon Ma. Guerrero, was finally launched last Saturday, the 19th of June, at the newly renovated Powerbooks in Greenbelt 4, Makati. The date was chosen for its cultural-historical significance, and if I have to tell you kids what June 19 is the anniversary of, you are flunking Philippine history.
Mr. Guerrero, the subject and co-author of the book, is best known to the current generation as the author of The First Filipino, the biography of Jose Rizal, and of the English translations of Noli Me Tangere and El Filibus-terismo, two books that triggered the Philippine Revolution of 1896. Our nation as we know it would not exist if it weren’t for those two books. This is an important point to make in 2010, when the very existence of books is threatened for lack of readers, and a point Guerrero would probably agree with. LMG, the book, reminds us of the power of the written word not just to record but to shape the course of history.
I say “finally” launched because this book has been at least three, four years in the making (and many more in the thinking). Three years ago David Guerrero, who heads the ad agency BBDO-Guerrero and publishes the annual literary journal Manila Envelope, mentioned that he was putting together an anthology about his father. At the time it was a coffee-table book, copiously illustrated, designed by Andy Maluche. The research was extremely thorough: Alexander Umali had unearthed scads of material on LMG, from news clippings to the letters and memoirs of his contemporaries and photos of his brilliant diplomatic career. I learned that Leon Maria Guerrero had not only been present at every pivotal moment in this nation’s history in the 20th century, he had also written eyewitness accounts in elegant, often elegantly- furious, prose.
Leon Ma. Guerrero of the Ermita Guerreros had been a debater, a journalist, a radio commentator; a lawyer — he prosecuted Ferdinand Marcos in the Nalundasan murder case, a soldier fighting the Japanese in Bataan, an aide to President Laurel — an assignment which put him in Japan at the height of the Allied bombardment in World War II; a staunch ally of the nationalist Claro M. Recto; an ardent proponent of the Filipino First policy; an astute foreign affairs official who stood up to what he perceived as American bullying at the United Nations; and a diplomat who warned against the rise of apartheid in South Africa. For defying the pro-American establishment in the 1950s, he was “exiled” to a series of ambassadorships: the United Kingdom, Spain, India, Mexico and Yugoslavia.
He is best remembered by our parents’ generation as the first Philippine Ambassador to the Court of St. James in the 1960s. Guerrero cut a dashing figure in London; he was the first Filipino many of the natives had ever seen, and his urbanity, erudition and cosmopolitan world-view made an excellent impression. A news feature reprinted in the book recounts how the Ambassador had spent the London embassy’s annual budget on an event showcasing Filipino folk dances — a grand gesture that netted the desired results. It was the first time royalty had ever attended an evening of folk dancing, and this was duly reported by the British press.
“There is no nationalist more fervent than the expatriate, who sees his nation with all the enchantment lent by distance and absence; and there is no expatriate more nationalist than an ambassador of whom it might be said that he is almost a nationalist by occupation, a professional nationalist,” Leon Ma. Guerrero wrote.
Meanwhile he was working on The First Filipino and the Rizal translations, which remain the bestselling English versions of Noli and Fili.
Oddly enough, none of Guerrero’s own works were present in that early draft of the LMG book. The subject needed to be heard in his own words. We agreed that the anthology had to include excerpts from his writings.
But which writings? LMG wrote so much, and so eloquently. His sister Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil, one of our finest prose stylists, points out that Leon had written what was probably the first English novel by a Filipino. (It was called His Dishonor the Mayor, and its author was not especially proud of it.)
David then produced fat envelopes of clippings of his father’s newspaper and magazine articles, and a thick typescript, single-spaced on yellowing bond paper. It was Leon Ma. Guerrero’s diary of wartime Tokyo. The Tokyo diary is a stunning piece of work: a pitiless yet deeply humane account of the horror of war. That had to be in the book, along with his passionate Filipino First arguments, his speeches on foreign policy, and his funny-but-sad piece of alternative history in which Jose Rizal runs for president of the Philippines... and loses.
By the time the Guerrero pieces were incorporated into the manuscript, LMG the coffee-table book had grown as large as a coffee table. Book designer Yodel Pe noted that LMG’s writing has to be read by a contemporary audience, and in order to be read a book must be portable. The result is the handsome volume — the photo of LMG on the cover calls to mind today’s Prada ads — that is now available in Powerbooks and National Bookstores.
“This is a man who walked tall,” David writes in his introduction. “He promoted our country with wit and style. And yet, to use his words ‘he was not perfect, he was not always right, but I trust that those who read his story of his life will perceive that his humanity is precisely the secret of his greatness.’”
It is said that the present generation is too obsessed with style to bother about substance. LMG was a person of substance who couldn’t help but be stylish.
