2009 | art direction, print

Winner of the 2009 Applied Arts Student Awards for Best in Editorial Design (Single), and a finalist for the 2009 Salazar Student Awards for Best in Print.

Ibarra’s Historical Almanac is a short history of the Philippines, illustrated by pieces of literature specifically written during or about each episode in time. Highly subjective, it is a collection of texts to encourage the Filipino narrative from the Filipino perspective.

Especially as a post-colonial nation where history is judged and recorded according to the elite’s perspective, it is a necessity to hear the stories from the eyes and ears of those who actually lived it. We need to start telling our stories according to our standards, and not from the foreign perspectives of the Others.

Through this, Ibarra’s then becomes a call to action, for the new generation of Filipinos, born into privilege and education. As we all find ourselves growing into adulthood and becoming a more significant age for change, is it not our responsibility to carry on and begin to narrate Philippine history ourselves?

The books when laid out according to the timeline spell out, “Don’t expect thanks and laurels—crowns of laurels and flowers are the inventions of free people. But perhaps your children may gather the fruit of what their father planted.” (Rizal to Blumentritt)