Carta de recomendación
Dublin Core
Title
Date
Description
Antonio Luna y Novicio (1866-1899) is well known for having been the Commanding General of the Philippine Army from 1898 until his death in 1899, as portrayed in a famous Filipino film, Heneral Luna (2015). Before being active in the Filipino army, Antonio Luna lived in Madrid where he was completing his studies in Pharmacy. There, he wrote for La Solidaridad, the newspaper of an organization of Philippine people living in Spain led by José Rizal. The newspaper was founded to increase Spanish awareness of the Philippines and to advocate for reforms in the colonial system. There, Antonio Luna wrote a serialized account of his travels in Spain under the pen-name Taga-Ilog, in which he discussed Spanish customs and idiosyncrasies with ironical criticism as a reply to colonialist accounts published by Spaniards about the Philippines, such as Quioquiap’s book Filipinas: Esbozos y pinceladas (1888).
These accounts of Spain published in La Solidaridad were later bundled and published as a travel book called Impresiones (1891). In this particular account, Antonio Luna describes his meeting with Sr. D. Gregorio upon his arrival in Madrid. Both hold different opinions on the young Filipinos in Spain with Sr. D. Gregorio warning Luna about these "lost" souls and Antonio Luna having hope for his compatriots. In the end, when it is revealed that Sr. D. Gregorio's stories are not entirely truthful, it can be indeed understood that Luna's account is also a response to racist travel stories.Source
Luna y Novicio, Antonio. “Carta de recomendación.” La Solidaridad II, num. 28, March 31, 1890, pp. 75-77. Held at Filipinas Heritage Library of the Ayala Museum.
Relation
Feced y Temprado, Pablo. 1888. Filipinas: esbozos y pinceladas por Quioquiap. Manila: Establecimiento tipográfico de Ramírez y Compañía.
Tarog, Jerrold (dir.) 2015. Heneral Luna. Action, Biography, History. TBA Studios, Artikulo Uno Productions.
Taga-Ilog (Antonio Luna y Novicio). 1891. Impresiones. Digital edition from the original first edition published in Madrid, Imp. de El Progreso Tipográfico. Alicante : Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2013.Vallejo, Benjamin Jr. 2017. “Antonio Luna, science and the emerging Filipino national identity.” Diliman Review 61, no. 1. 2017. Pp. 88-108.