Cigarette labels as history lesson

Last of 2 parts

I WILL start with an erratum for last week's column. The published column stated, "Like what a historian should always do, Ocampo did not just dwell on the trivialities of the designs and all but contextualized the importance of tobacco in our life as a people." I was actually referring to lawyer Saul Hofileña, Jr. because I was citing the book he authored, Vestments of the Golden Leaf: Cigarette labels during the Spanish and American colonial periods in the Philippines, the source of these series of columns. The confusion happened because I mentioned another historian, Ambeth Ocampo, earlier in the column. This would explain why some readers inquired in a major bookstore if they had Vestments of the Golden Leaf "by Ambeth Ocampo." I am sorry for the inconvenience that this caused.

So again, Vestments of the Golden Leaf, authored by Saul Hofileña, Jr., discusses the symbolism in the various cigarette labels at the turn of the 19th to the 20th centuries, which describes a time of transition for our people and illustrates the nascent story or birth of our nation. Hofileña's obsession with symbols made him eventually venture into creating ideas for artworks done with Guy Custodio which tell the story of the Spanish colonization in an allegorical way, pieces that were featured in two National Museum exhibits a few years after he wrote the book, but that is another story.