Revisiting the women of Malolos

STUDENTS taking the college-level course on Jose Rizal know, or at least have heard, about a letter he wrote to the young women of Malolos town, north of Manila, in 1889. Unfortunately, most students are too bored to actually read through this lengthy letter published in the newspaper La Solidaridad. All we know is that, on Dec. 12, 1888, the Spanish governor general Valeriano Weyler made a day-trip to Malolos and was presented with a sealed letter, signed by 20 women of the town, (not 21 as stated in other sources) requesting permission to open a night school where they could learn Spanish. Since this simple act went against the wishes of the powerful parish priest, the event was featured by Graciano Lopez Jaena in La Solidaridad on Feb. 15, 1889.

Later, Rizal wrote the famous letter in Tagalog, a quite significant deviation since most of his writings were in Spanish. The late historian Teodoro A. Agoncillo once told me about the possibility that the historic letter to the young women of Malolos was not written by Rizal but by Marcelo H. del Pilar. This disturbed me for years until I went through the evidence to conclude that Rizal did write the letter and that Del Pilar merely edited it for publication. Those who read this letter will surely be left with many questions and we are fortunate to have Dr. Nicanor G. Tiongson, dean of the University of the Philippines School of Mass Communication, former artistic director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and briefly chairman of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, who has finally come up with a hefty and definitive book on the subject: "The Women of Malolos" (Ateneo de Manila University Press 2004).

While the book can definitely be judged by its beautiful cover, designed by the painter Rafael del Casal, the contents not only enlarge our knowledge of the Rizal letter but also, more importantly, it has given us the names of these courageous women, and some faces to remember them by. In a judicious use of both archival material and interviews, Dr. Tiongson provides a picture of the lives of these women while simultaneously narrating the story of Malolos from the Spanish period to the Filipino-American War. Although I had been asked to do a similar book a number of times before, I always declined since Dr. Tiongson had written an obscure but definitive essay on it years ago. The present book is an expansion of that essay. Tiongson is from Malolos and, more importantly, he is related to all of the women he is writing about. Both subject and author are so well matched such that the resulting work provides for an engaging reading, something that cannot be said about other books by academic historians. History is simply too important to be left to historians.

Having done similar research, I know how difficult it is to coax material from libraries and archives, how tiring it is to read dates of birth and death off tombstones, and how enjoyable, but unwieldy, interviews can be. For me, research is the fun part, sitting down and writing it all up is the real task. It is quite amusing that when Tiongson, a senior academic, uses interviews he comes up with oral history. When I engage in the same enterprise, critics describe my work as "tsismis" [gossip]. With this book Tiongson has elevated gossip to oral history.

Once I interviewed a descendant of Andres Bonifacio's widow, Gregoria de Jesus, who asked me to describe what the Supremo wore. This was simple: straw hat, white camisa de chino, red neckerchief, red pants and a bolo. She asked me if I knew how the pants were called. When I couldn't answer she supplied a clue in the first letter "K." So I answered hesitatingly, "karsonsilyo" (Wrong! This was underwear.) "Khaki?" (Wrong! Khaki is brown not red.) Correct answer was Kundiman.

I was asked again, "What was the color of Bonifacio's pants?"

"Red," I answered.

Then she asked, "If you are going to the revolution will you wear red pants?"

"Why not?" was the retort I wanted to give, but the question made me realize that if Bonifacio did wear that dazzling white camisa and screaming red pants, he would have gotten shot immediately. Oral history made me realize that the stereotype image of Bonifacio is wrong. Commonsense dictates no red pants, but then in this country commonsense is not common.

On Saturday we celebrate yet another Independence Day. Spoilsports will question the date, June 12, and insist on July 4, unable to see significance rather than the date. Perhaps, we should look beyond the men who dominate our history and remember these 20 women, who, in their own way led us closer to independence:

Elisea Tantoco Reyes (1873-1969), Juana Tantoco Reyes (1874-1900), Leoncia Santos Reyes (1864-1948), Olympia San Agustin Reyes (1876-1910), Rufina T. Reyes (1869-1909), Eugenia Mendoza Tanchangco (1871-1969), Aurea Mendoza Tanchangco (1872-1958), Basilia Villariño Tantoco (1865-1925), Teresa Tiongson Tantoco (1867-1942), Maria Tiongson Tantoco (1869-1912), Anastacia Maclang Tiongson (1874-1940), Basilia Reyes Tiongson (ca 1860-ca 1900), Paz Reyes Tiongson (ca 1862- ca 1889), Aleja Reyes Tiongson (ca 1864-ca 1900), Mercedes Reyes Tiongson (1870-1928), Agapita Reyes Tiongson (1872-1937), Filomena Oliveros Tiongson (ca 1867-1934), Cecilia Oliveros Tiongson ( ca 1867-1934), Feliciana Oliveros Tiongson (1869-1938) and Alberta Santos Uitangcoy (1865-1953).

Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu