The Author

of "Veneration without Understanding":

Renato Constantino

(1919 – 1999)

“Veneration without Understanding” is an essay first delivered as the Third National Rizal Lecture during the commemoration of Rizal’s death at the close of 1969.  It was subsequently reprinted in pamphlet form and then, in 1970, a chapter in the book Dissent and Counter-Consciousness.

The context was during the turbulent period of the Vietnam War, opposed by many students in the United States, the Philippines, and elsewhere.  The war reminded Filipinos of the colonial mentality of the United States and the Philippine’s own conflict between the Katipunan and the U.S. army and then civil administration at the turn of the twentieth century. 

In his youth Constantino was aware of the struggle both against American occupation and then Japanese subjugation.  He fought as a guerilla soldier in the Raymunda Guidote unit against the Imperial forces of the Rising Sun. 

In his late twenties Constantino served the Philippines as the executive secretary of the Philippine Mission to the United Nations in various capacities.  Subsequently he became the youngest foreign affairs officer in a Class II rank, advising the Philippine Secretary and Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs.  The McCarthy crusade against anyone conceived of as having Communistic sympathies forced Constantino from his position and, indeed, made life difficult in his own native land.

To Constantino, Rizal, the ilustrado scholar and educator bent on slow reformation, provided a more convenient role model for the Americans than those who would take up arms against occupying forces.  For all his admirable qualities, Constantino would not accept Rizal as the premier hero of the Filipino tao or common man.

To both his friends and detractors, Constantino constantly championed Philippine nationalism and opposition to the privileged.  Given to class analysis, he upheld the subjugated. His interest in history set his interpretation of the struggle of the underclass against the vested interests of both the Philippines and of the world.  His enemies included the likes of Manuel Quezon, Ferdinand Marcos, Fidel Ramos, and Corazon Aquino whom he saw as puppets of American power.

He and his wife, Letizia R. Constantino, a niece of the late President Manuel Roxas, were both scholars with similar views of a democracy with socialist content; their lives were devoted to their vision of the world.  Among Constantino’s noted works often read by nationalistic Philippine students are the following:

Recto Reader, Excerpts from the Speeches of Claro M. Recto, ed. Constantino (Manila: Recto Memorial Foundation, 1965).

The Filipinos in the Philippines and other Essays (Quezon City: Filipino Signatures, 1966).

The Making of a Filipino: a Story of Philippine Colonial Politics (Quezon City: Malaya Books, 1969).

Dissent and Counter-consciousness (Quezon City: Malaya Books, 1970).

The Philippines: A Past Revisited. Letizia R. Constantino and Renato Constantino (Quezon City: Tala Publication Services, 1975)

Philippines: A Continuing Past. Letizia R. Constantino and Renato Constantino (Quezon City: Foundation for Nationalist Studies [distributed by Popular Book Store], 1978).