8/14/2019 Free Press 101st Anniversary Editorial

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A Hundred and One

The FREE PRESS celebrates its 101st anniversary in this issue. We also take thisoccasion to pay tribute to the late President Corazon Aquino. Cory!the privatewoman who was thrust out of her domesticity to the arena of politics, the prisoncells of the Marcos regime, the parliament of the streets, the leadership of thePhilippines and the world stage. Manuel L. Quezon IIIs Filipino of the Centuryis an inspired retelling of this now-legendary storyone that resonates even amidthe flamboyance and machismo prevailing in our culture, as the late FREE PRESSeditor Teodoro M. Locsin pointed out in his eloquent editorial on Mrs. Aquino. Thehighlight of Mrs. Aquinos international acclaim is, of course, her triumphant1986 address to the US Congress, which we reprint here.

A tribute to Mrs. Aquino also serves as a tribute to her martyred husband, Sen.Benigno Aquino Jr., whose association with the FREE PRESS is underscored by Locsinbeing thrown in jail together with Aquino (and nine other critics of the Marcosregime) in 1972. Teodoro L. Locsin Jr.s interviews with Aquino are fascinatingchamber pieces that hint at Marcoss impending dictatorship. Another cellmate ofAquino and Locsin Sr. is the brilliant political analyst Napoleon G. Rama, whosearticle on martial law has unfortunately become more relevant in our time. Withthe articles by Rama and Locsin Jr., we also reprint the classic politicalcartoons of former FREE PRESS art director E. Z. Izon.

Former FREE PRESS executive editor Gregorio C. Brillantes wields his lyricaljournalism as he takes a retrospective look at Rolando Galman, the much-overlookedcasualty in Aquinos assassination in 1983. We also look back to the body of workof the FREE PRESS and some of the writers who helped shape it. The Ruling Money,by the late associate editor Nick Joaquin (writing as Quijano de Manila), is anexhaustive business story as only he could write itand a departure from hisreporting on politics, history and pop culture. Kerima Polotans The Woman ofFashion is a quiet critique on the thriving bourgeois scene of the Sixties andits devotees at the time. Then theres the other side of that milieu, lauded byJose F. Lacabas now immortal Notes on Bakya, an inventive variation on SusanSontag that counsels against elitism in art and culture. Finally, here too isAquinos soul-searching poetry, written during his eight years in prison. Thethemes are familiar to victims of political persecution like Lacaba, Locsin, Ramaand this magazine, which was padlocked on the eve of martial law and revived intime for Corys historic presidential campaign.