When I am with Filipinos abroad I notice we tend to compare ourselves with the "foreigners." I was with a group of Filipinos in the University of Michigan discussing the habits and customs of these white "foreigners" when it suddenly struck me – we overlooked the fact that we were aliens in a foreign country. We were the foreigners! These reminded me of countless columns I have built on travel accounts of the Philippines from the late 16^th to the early 20^th centuries, written by foreign tourists who saw us from their own built-in perspective. They were the foreigners in the Philippines but probably saw us as "foreigners" too. For example, Antonio de Morga, writing in 1609, described Filipinos having a taste for rotten beef and stinking fish. It took three centuries and a certain Jose Rizal to annotate Morga and explain that the stinking fish was the Philippine delicacy bagoong, that it may smell bad to a foreigner but was fermented, not rotten. I often wish to find more historical sources written by Filipinos or from a Filipino viewpoint, but then that is asking too much.

The constant search for a Filipino voice from the past has made me look up Filipinos lost in history. Researching on early archaeology in the Philippines in the Newberry Library in Chicago, I came across biographical notes on a certain Ismael Alzate written in 1887, the year Rizal’s "Noli Me Tangere" was completed, also the year when Filipinos were exhibited in the "Exposicion General de las Islas Filipinas" in Madrid.

At the time of the exposition, Alzate was 39 years old, one of the "distinguished natives" from Bucay, Abra. His house was reputedly the biggest and best in town and he shared it with his wife, Maria de los Dolores Austria from Vigan. They had three daughters: Romana, Consuelo, Loreto and a son named Onofre. At one time he lent his Bucay home to serve as the town convento and moved his family to his hacienda in Dumapac. For this, Alzate got special privileges from church authorities such as having his youngest child baptized by the Apostolic Missionary of Lepanto, Tiagaw and Bontoc, Fray Rufino Redondo. Alzate celebrated this baptism by constructing in three days a hermitage where the solemn mass was held, enlivened by music by the bands of Bucay and Bangued. Aside from donations of cash and kind he is best remembered for donating an image of the Savior to a church. One wonders whether this image is still in Abra or in some private collection in Manila.

Alzate was one of the prominent Filipinos in the Madrid exposition of 1887 not as an exhibit but as an interpreter. A year before the exposition, the governor general summoned Alzate to Manila and commissioned him to find "characteristic types" of people from Abra, Lepanto and Bontoc to be exhibited in Madrid. He was the most qualified man for the job for he not only knew the languages and cultures in these areas, but had visited these peoples when he served in the Spanish military. He had previously served in many military expeditions in Guinaang between Abra and Cagayan where his bravery was rewarded with a pension and a medal. Alzate rose from the ranks, serving in his town first as quadrillero and later joining the expeditions in Balatoc, Lubuagan, Dananao, Mainit and Guinaan. These areas were unpacified and dangerous yet Alzate saw action here as sergeant for six years and lieutenant for 10. Alzate shifted quickly from military to civil services and became gobernadorcillo for three terms and a local judge for his town with jurisdiction extending to nine adjacent rancherias. Alzate was thus addressed with the honorific "Don" and was known not just as Don Ismael, gobernadorcillo and teniente de cuadrilleros, but the bane of murderers, cattle and carabao rustlers. He was also known to defend the lowlands from the frequent incursions of Cordillera peoples.

In April 1878 he captured robbers in the forests of Bucay who had sacked the village church. With information from spies and suitable firearms, he was able to arrest the robbers and recover all the stolen money and goods. From 1868-1871 he joined military expeditions into the land of the Igorots, sometimes providing material assistance and earning a "Cruz blanca del merito militar". From 1873-1878 he donated grain to famine-stricken areas in Abra and initiated a school in Tiagan to bring "civilization" to the land of Igorots, hoping that education would inculcate obedience to the Spanish colonial government.