WE sometimes equate Christmastime in the Philippines with José Mari Chan’s iconic song “Christmas in Our Hearts” and, for two decades now, the annual ABS-CBN Christmas station ID. In general, the Filipinos’ response to the creative messages of this media giant accounts for the adeptness of its owners, the Lopez family, to create effective narratives and messages that will touch the Filipino heart. This is a product of a long history.

For good or bad, that history was never hidden. If there’s one thing about the Lopezes, they had their own library and museum, which is open to researchers. Based on these files and many others, historian Alfred McCory published in 1993 a very critical history of the Lopez family titled “Rent-seeking Families and the Philippine State: A History of the Lopez Family” in “An Anarchy of Families: State and Family in the Philippines.” It basically tells the story of how the clan sought “rent” or furthered their businesses by forging connections with political leaders (and sometimes that very strength is what put them in trouble). The author argues that the story of the Lopezes tells the story of how weak the Philippine state is because presidents only last a few years and despite several conflicts with some of them, the family pretty much prevailed in the end.

After a few years, by the turn of the millennium, Raul Rodrigo and Oscar M. Lopez wrote the hefty two-volume but surprisingly readable boxed set, “Phoenix: The Saga of the Lopez Family, 18001999,” which will be followed by the huge art book “Undaunted: The Lopez Legacy, 1800-2010” also by Rodrigo, which can be a companion volume to “Phoenix” because it is illustrated with a thousand mostly hitherto unpublished photographs and updates the family history until 2010. All were commissioned by the Lopez Foundation.

Comparing the contents of these works makes you realize how you can pretty much tell the same story with a different lens. McCoy’s work is obviously critical, and Rodrigo’s understandably admiring. Yet, all tried to be fair, pointing out their missteps and achievements. That the Lopezes were able to keep books is already admirable against the context of how hard it is to get sources, especially about the history of journalism and broadcasting in the Philippines. It also demonstrates how it is OK now to appear to be partial in writing history as long as one is upfront and honest about it and does not pretend to be otherwise. The key is fairness, laying the many sides of the story on the table.

The saga of the Lopez family began in the province of Iloilo with the man considered to be the patriarch of the first generation, Basilio Lopez, who married Maria Sabina Jaranilla Jalandoni in the 1830s and built a trading business in Panay at the time of huge economic changes brought about by the end of the Spanish monopoly of the Galleon Trade and the opening of Philippine ports to foreign traders. It was also the time when the British businessman Nicolas Loney developed the sugar industry in Iloilo. Basilio became a cabeza of Jaro town and eventually gobernadorcillo. He had 16 children, one of whom was the first Eugenio J. Lopez, who also became gobernadorcillo of Jaro and helped lead the fight during the Philippine Revolution in Iloilo.

Eugenio had 14 children, which included Maria, who became a business leader; Gil Lopez, who