Second of a series

LAST June 6, 2026, I was invited by INCTV for an interview for its program “ATM: At the Museum” regarding the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) Museum in Quezon City as a “mejora.”

The Spanish verb “mejorar” was inherited from the Late Latin “meliorare,” which is a verb based on the Latin word “melior,” which means “better.” It is related to the English word “ameliorate” and means “to make better, improve” and “to enhance,” as well as “to improve; get better; get well.” Mejora (noun; mejoras, plural form) means “improvement, improving, amelioration, betterment, refinement” and “enhancement, enhancing, upgrade, upgrading.”

I wrote in last week’s column (“Mejoras,” TMT, June 12, 2026) that mejora/s appeared in the Spanish civil laws as far back as “Leyes de Toro” (Laws of Toro) circa 1505. The word mejora/s is often used in the context of property matters, particularly regarding improvements made on the property in question. However, the Tsinoy author of “El progreso de Filipinas” (1881), the 19th-century ilustrado lawyer Gregorio Sancianco used the term mejoras in the context of “[immediate] improvements in the material and moral lives” of the Filipinos.

I likewise showed that the central theme of Jose Rizal’s writings is the same notion of improvement/development (in the material and moral lives of the Filipinos). Similarly, Andres Bonifacio couched his revolutionary polemics in the language of the (unfulfilled) Spanish promise of improvement/development — i.e., the “civilization” — of the Filipinos.

I add here that the same theme of improvement/development is present in Juan Luna’s 1884 famous painting “España y Filipinas” (Spain and the Philippines), also known as “España llevando a la gloria a Filipinas” (Spain ensuring the glory of the Philippines) or “España guiando a Filipinas” (Spain leading the Philippines).

It means that among the ilustrado generation of Rizal, Bonifacio, Luna, Sancianco, et al (in the 1880s-1890s) was a shared single-minded obsession with the Philippine developmental agenda, represented in certain quarters by the term “mejora/s.”

In my article for the Kaningningan journal published in 2022 about Republic Act 1425, or the Rizal Law, I referenced the explanation of the great Filipino historian Reynaldo Ileto that Rizal’s life, works and writings had a tremendous influence on the generation of ardent nationalists Jose P. Laurel (born 1891) and Claro M. Recto (born 1890) — sponsors of the law in the Senate in 1956. During their formative years, Laurel and Recto’s generation committed to memory the most important writings of the heroes of the 1896 Revolution as the bedrock of Filipino nationalism that manifested itself during the subsequent American colonial era, Japanese occupation period and the early years of the Third Philippine Republic post-1946.

It occurred to me while museum director Br. Cornelio “Jun” Cortez Jr. and Br. AJ Abelita toured me around the INC Museum — with the pop-up exhibit for INC founder Br. Felix Y. Manalo’s 140th birth anniversary is still on display — that Br. Felix (born on May 10, 1886) also belonged to the same generation as Recto and Laurel. Moreover, historian and fellow Manila Times columnist Dr. Xiao Chua has, in our previous tour of the former INC museum inside the organization’s Templo Central in Quezon City, highlighted the conspicuous influence of Rizal in Br. Felix’s old office, as recreated by the museum. Br. Jun Cortez, for his part, showed me a section of the museum that displayed the previous volumes of Pasugo: God’s Message magazine of the INC, where Rizal and Bonifacio were featured many times in the cover over the years.

Br. Felix, as with his contemporaries Recto and Laurel, were heavily influenced during their formative years by the nationalism of Rizal and the generation of the 1896 Revolution. Said Ileto of Recto and Laurel: “The senators belonged to a generation that... had been inspired to follow the example of Rizal by reading his works.”

Br. Felix, for his part, flexed his intimate familiarity with the writings of Rizal (and the generation of the1896 Revolution) by prominently displaying in his old office the novels of the national hero.

Now that I think about it, there are some parallelisms in the trajectory of the careers of these prominent figures who belong to the same Rizal and the 1896 Revolution-inspired generation. When Br. Felix founded against all odds the INC as a Filipino church in the long shadow of the dominant (Spanish) Catholic Church in the Philippines in 1914, Recto had just obtained his law degree from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in 1913. Recto would later gain prominence as a passionate fiscalizer at the House of Representatives for the opposition Democrata party beginning in 1919, no small feat given the looming political presence of then-Senate president Manuel Quezon.

Laurel, for his part, received his law degree from the University of the Philippines in 1915, followed by a Master of Laws degree from UST in 1919 and a scholarship to Yale University for his Doctor of Juridical Science degree in 1920, before serving as interior secretary and notoriously figuring dead-center in the so-called Cabinet Crisis of 1923 during the incumbency of Governor General Leonard Wood. Unfortunately for Recto and Laurel, their political destinies were overshadowed by the larger-than-life political career of Quezon. Providence made the two nationalists wait until the Japanese occupation and post-independence period to put their stamp on Philippine public life.

To be sure, it was during the American colonial period (1898–1946) that the notion of mejora/s in terms of public improvements — infrastructure projects, for certain — began to gain greater traction. American proconsul “Caminero” (W. Cameron) Forbes, for example, distinguished himself as an aggressive road-builder during his long service in the Philippines as member of the US Philippine Commission and later as governor general (1909–1913), embodying the spirit of mejora/s that echoed the will of Rizal and the generation of the1896 Revolution, against which the performance of (future) Filipino politicians were frequently measured.

With very modest resources at the time, Br. Felix also thoroughly exhibited this zeal for mejora/s, particularly in the construction of the early INC religious structures that have already become iconic architectural edifices at present.

To be continued