At the heart of the Philippines’ Guest of Honor program at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2025, Senator Loren Legarda joined cultural luminaries in launching Sensible Form: Essays by Patrick Flores, a collection that reaffirms the power of Filipino scholarship to shape global conversations on art, meaning, and memory.

The book’s author, Patrick Flores, also serves as curator of the Philippine Pavilion, the centerpiece of this historic role, where his vision and interpretive approach shape the country’s cultural presence on the world stage.

“This collection of essays stands apart from its disciplined clarity, its refusal of empty statements, and its persistent attention to the details that are most significant,” Legarda said.

The senator who chairs the Senate Committee on Culture and the Arts highlighted Flores’s interpretive philosophy, describing it as a rigorous engagement with vision and response.

“He views the act of interpretation, as it were, a companion to that of vision,” the senator said.

Legarda also reflected on their longstanding creative alliance, recalling Flores’s pivotal role in the Philippines’ return to the Venice Biennale.

“Years ago, he played a pivotal role in shaping our return to the Venice Biennale after a 51-year hiatus, reminding me that art’s significance lies not only in its exhibition but in the conversations it starts and the identities it affirms,” Legarda explained.

Legarda concluded with a tribute to Flores’s enduring impact on Philippine cultural discourse. “With the Sensible Form: Essays by Patrick Flores, we are given the power to see, to ask, to persist,” she said.

The launch is one of several high-profile events under the Philippine Guest of Honor program, which showcases the country’s literary and scholarly excellence to the world.