CURRENTLY going on at the Ayala Museum is an exhibit on President Elpidio Quirino, the third postwar President of the Republic after Sergio Osmeñã and Manuel Roxas. Its title is “Defining Quirino” and after 125 years (born November 16, 1890) in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, it has the neutral, factual, perspective-imbued review of a president who was reviled in his time for certain media-sensationalized incidents while in he was in Malacañang.

The media pumped up stories of a P5,000 bed which was big money in those days and a so-called golden chamberpot. The bed was left in Malacañang when Quirino’s term ended and seems to have disappeared some time during Martial Law. The golden chamberpot has never appeared as its glittering definition. Which brings out the fact that not everything one reads in black and white is necessarily true or in perspective, specially when it comes in the daily paper that is covering politics exclusively by personalities rather than issues.

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