There is something uncanny about August 21 in Philippine history. Three pivotal events took place on this date, each profoundly altering the country’s political and social trajectory.

On August 21, 1901, the SS Thomas arrived in Manila carrying nearly 500 American teachers. Known collectively as the Thomasites, they were sent across the archipelago to teach English and introduce American educational and cultural institutions. Their arrival helped establish the Philippine public school system—and made education a powerful instrument of American colonial rule, helping displace Spanish influence and consolidate the new colonial order.

Seventy years later, on August 21, 1971, two grenades exploded during the Liberal Party’s miting de avance at Plaza Miranda, killing and wounding civilians and seriously injuring opposition leaders including Senators Jovito Salonga, Gerry Roxas, and Eva Estrada-Kalaw.

The bombing became a watershed in the country’s slide toward authoritarianism. The Marcos administration blamed communist forces, while the opposition accused Marcos of orchestrating the attack. Decades later, some cadres of the Communist Party of the Philippines revealed the party’s involvement. The bombing was followed by Marcos’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and, a year later, the declaration of martial law.

Then came August 21, 1983.

Opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., returning after three years of exile in the United States, was assassinated at the Manila International Airport. His death galvanized public outrage and transformed resistance to the Marcos regime into a mass movement.

Three years later, the EDSA People Power Revolution brought the Marcos dictatorship to an end.

Three August 21s. Three turning points.

One marked the consolidation of a new colonial power. Another foreshadowed the death of Philippine democracy. The third became the spark that helped awaken a nation against dictatorship.

For Filipinos in the diaspora, August 21 is more than a date to remember. It is a reminder that the Philippines we know today was shaped by moments of profound disruption—and by generations of Filipinos who responded to those moments with resistance, courage, and an insistence that the country’s future could be different from its past.

To learn more about these three events, see our Read It Again stories below.

But first our lineup of new stories for this week:

Overseas Filipino Achievers, Part 7 by Mona Lisa Yuchengco

When the AFAM Was Me by Maria Antonia Bosa Van Espen-Boonen

Riding to Save: An OFW’s Scooter Life in Dubai by Michael G. Lucero

From Small-Town Rotunda to Big-Time Rialto by Trish Muyco-Tobin

[Read It Again]

The Thomasites, America’s First ‘Peace Corps’ Volunteers by US-Philippines Society

August 21 Stories
The Ghosts of Plaza Miranda by Gregg Jones
August 21, 1971: A Testament to My Immaturity by Mila D. Aguilar

Ninoy's Final Journey by Ken Kashiwahara

[Video of the Week]

Mountain of Youth

In The Know

This Bay Area city became a Filipino American haven. Now many can’t afford to stay
https://www.newsbreak.com/share/4833408878530-this-bay-area-city-became-a-filipino-american-haven-now-many-can-t-afford-to-stay

12 remarkable Fil-Am elders and their enduring legacies
https://usa.inquirer.net/206665/12-remarkable-fil-am-elders-and-their-enduring-legacies

A Filipino family: The Dantes squad
https://www.manilatimes.net/2026/08/09/the-sunday-times/filipino-champions/a-filipino-family-the-dantes-squad/2401402

The truth about the ‘demonic’ Filipino bird our ancestors feared
https://radar.ph/the-truth-about-the-demonic-filipino-bird-our-ancestors-feared/

At QC's Carinderia Sefali, A Filipina Cooks Palestinian Dishes The Way Her MIL Taught Her
https://www.spot.ph/eatdrink/the-latest-eat-drink/carinderia-sefali-quezon-city-a3284-20260408-bsc?

At the beginning of 2020, our world was still what we had known it to be. Our daily routines were simple: work; play; love; travel; enjoy.

Two weeks into the year, the Philippines suffered its first major tragedy, but it was localized. Taal Volcano erupted, spewing tons and tons of ashes that turned some parts of Batangas and Cavite gray, forcing large-scale evacuations and rendering farms and orchards dead.

And then Covid-19 happened towards the end of January and, just like that, the world as we knew it was completely upended. Within a few weeks, lockdowns would be imposed in almost all countries, businesses destroyed, international travel banned, and mass deaths became the norm.

We're now on the 8th month of the pandemic and the end is nowhere in sight. In the Philippines, 80 health care groups representing 80,000 doctors and a million nurses have petitioned the government for a "timeout" to recalibrate its strategy (or the lack of it) in fighting the virus because the entire health care system is now in danger of complete collapse, its frontliners exhausted to their human limits.

The US is not doing any better. The country is on top of the list in covid infections in the entire world and every day, records are broken for new cases. Toiling at the forefront, side by side with the doctors and other health care workers are the 150,000-strong Filipino nurses scattered in most states but mainly in California and New York, where they make up about 20 percent of the labor force caring for coronavirus patients. Do a Google search and you'll see many reports on how Fil-Am nurses have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Watch our Video of the Week -- a CBS news report by Fil-Am journalist Elaine Quijano on precisely this topic.

Our story this week on Zenei Cortez, the president of the California Nurses Association and co-president of National Nurses United, the US' largest nurses' union, is both a call to action and a tribute to these heroes of the moment, many of whom are our kababayans. PF Correspondent Cherie Querol Moreno reports.

Writer and long-time activist Bonifacio P. Ilagan gives us a capsule post-mortem on the real state of the nation, following President Duterte's address last July 27.

And, if you haven't yet, register for Positively Filipino's webinar on "Immigrants in the Time of Racial Unrest, the Pandemic and Trump" featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Jose Antonio Vargas and veteran immigration lawyer Lourdes Tancinco. The webinar happens on Monday August 10, 6pm PST/ 9pm EST (Tuesday 9 am Manila time). Here's the link: bit.ly/ImmigrantsRacialUnrest.