IF I were to be considered a mother for writing a biography of Dr. Jose P. Laurel, then Nation Above Self is a child come into the world after so much pain from delivering my firstborn.

Writing has not been a particularly rewarding field of endeavor for me. My father would have preferred me persevering in the engineering course at the Mapua Institute of Technology in which I had gone as far as fourth year. But sometime in the mid-1960s, I began associating with young intellectuals from the Lyceum of the Philippines University, discussing on the lawn of Fort Santiago philosophical thoughts and literary principles.