Book on RP First Ladies launched

A book of essays, photographs and oil portraits depicting the character and styles of all 12 Philippine First Ladies and the roles they played in their time will be launched today, 6 p.m. at the Grand Ballroom of the Shangri-La hotel in Makati.

The book, titled "Philippine First Ladies: Portraits," is a collaboration between the Philippine-based Spanish journalist Jose Rodriguez and his wife, Lulu Coching, the portraitist herself of presidents and First Ladies, and is published by the Tantoco-Rustia Foundation. It is Rodriguez’s second book on a Philippine subject – the first was "Cronicas" (2002), his random recollections of more than two decades as chief correspondent for the Spanish news agency, EFE, in the Philippines for all of Southeast Asia.

The special guests at the launch are the families of the First Ladies and, in a few cases, the First Ladies themselves.

Rodriguez was launched into the undertaking by a "fascination [at] the special sort of matriarchal society the Philippines is generally regarded to be – indeed conceded to be by its own men," he says in the foreword.

Each essay – on each First Lady – is illustrated by period photographs and "portraiture by the matriarch in my own little kingdom," he says, describing his wife and now book collaborator. "In fact, she was crucially, if incidentally, instrumental in raising the first idea of doing this book. She was commissioned by the Cabinet Ladies Foundation (2000) to do the portraits of the First Ladies that would hang in Malacañang Palace. In the course of her research for the commission, she turned up materials that we both found rich and interesting for a collection of textual portraits as well."

He says the book "does not pretend to be a history manual – that is something that would have required a far greater effort of research and definitely far more words to build. It only gives each subject at most a few thousand words, written from interviews with family, friends, and associates – and, of course, with her herself, in the very rare case that she was living still or otherwise available – and from a perusal of publications and documents that shed light upon her ascendancy."

All he has tried to do, he says, is "to put these First Ladies in the context of their role in shaping the history of the nation, without overlooking the details of character that have made them human too."

It took Rodriguez almost two years to work on the book. The Tantoco-Rustia Foundation has undertaken the publishing of the book as it is – uncommissioned.