I was introduced to the works of Jaymee Siao by my Humanities instructor back in college. Her essay on monuments, billboards, and footbridges was an assigned text for that class. That essay (whose title I forgot, unfortunately) opened my eyes to the possible functions of these three commonly overlooked objects that make up Metro Manila’s urban landscape. That essay made me admire Siao and her interpretations of Philippine culture. (Later on, I would formally meet her since she served as a guest editor for the literary folio of the campus paper for which I was a staffer. How I wish I officially became her student. I’ve heard lots of great things about her and her teaching styles through students from UST’s Literature program.)

Her book, Enshrining the Nation, isn’t far from that essay content-wise. Just as that essay critiques monuments, so does this incisive work. We can even say that this book is an extension of that essay. Here, she manages to survey, question, and ultimately provide insights about monuments in the Philippines. She begins with sharing examples of the many forms of monuments from the precolonial to the postcolonial periods, then she interrogates the purpose of these monuments to Filipinos in relation to collective memory. Personally, I’m a little on the fence about how majority of the chapters were written. Siao, however, manages to compose an accessible yet elevated conclusion by the end of the book. From what I understood, she claims that monuments, despite their intended purpose of remembering, have meanings that depend on the interpretation of the people for which they are made. These people, in return, can use these monuments to shape their nation.