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BOGOTΓ, 28 August 2025
A Filipino history professor highlighted the parallelism of anti-colonial resistance in the Philippines and Colombia in a lecture series organized for the first time by the Philippine Embassy in Bogota on 26 August 2025 for university students and young Colombian diplomats.
Dr. Mary Dorothy dL Jose, Associate Professor of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of the Philippines Manila, was invited to speak on the topic “Parallel Paths to Freedom: Anti-Colonial Resistance in the Philippines and Colombia.”
Her lectures drew interest from international relations students of the Jesuit-run Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota and young diplomats undergoing training at the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia.
Dr. Jose gave an overview of the anti-colonial resistance in the Philippines and Colombia, highlighting the role of key actors, including women. Many Filipino historians, she pointed out, failed to give proper recognition to the role of women in the Philippine revolution.
At the Diplomatic Academy, another speaker, Professor MarΓa Cristina Fula Lizcano from the Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, also stressed that contributions of women have been overlooked in ColombiaΒ΄s struggle for independence. She gave a rundown of revolutionary Colombian women as a stark reminder of their role in the resistance movement.
Dr. Jorge Enrique Salcedo, a Jesuit professor of History and Geography at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, pointed out the historico-cultural and political parallelism between the Philippines and Colombia as both nations endured long periods of Spanish colonial rule. Although separated by a vast ocean, he explained that their paths to freedom shared striking similarities in terms of origin, intellectual drive, and the complex nature of their nationalist movements.
The Philippines declared its independence from Spain on 12 June 1898 while Colombia gained her own early on in 1819 with the decisive military in the Battle of Boyaca on 7 August that year.
Philippine Ambassador to Colombia, Adrian Bernie Candolada, expressed confidence that the successful partnership of the Philippine Embassy with the Javeriana University and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Colombia will pave the way for more collaborative projects in the future.
The lecture series featuring Dr. Jose is a cultural diplomacy initiative of the Philippine Embassy with funding support from Office of Cultural Diplomacy (OCD) of the Department of Foreign Affairs and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) through its Sentro Rizal program. -END-
