The Philippines has not really been truthful, forthright and candid on the accounting of the past. The Zaide textbooks on history, for one, generally framed history as a succession of events — chronology as history. The brutalities of the occupation periods, from the Spanish to the American occupations, are written as some passing and totally acceptable chapters in our history. The history of heroes focused on the personal attributes not on how much they suffered from the nastiness of the conquista and the multi-pronged acts of subjugation.
The focus on subdued heroism — if there was any heroism at all — was on the heroism of the Ilustrado class and not the revolutionary proletariat like Andres Bonifacio. The inordinate focus on Jose Rizal had a side agenda, to diminish and obscure Gat Andres et al.
The generation that got their basic Philippine history from the Zaide books, this was the damning result, failed to imbibe the great and inspiring lessons on heroism, love of country and sacrifice. One reads history to appreciate the heroic deeds of the past and the steadfast courage and dedication to the Motherland of our forefathers — to instruct ordinary citizens and make them remember the heroes and their struggles. Those dear lessons are missed in the sanitized Zaide textbooks.
Yet, for the young disenchanted with Zaide’s staid and selective rendering of heroes and heroism, alternative books were available. Teodoro Agoncillo, falsely accused of writing history from a Marxist lens, rescued Andres Bonifacio from the subtle vilifying he suffered from the Zaide-oriented historians. Thus, his definitive book, Revolt of the Masses, shattered the version that it was the Ilustrado that led and staffed the revolt against Spain. It truly restored Bonifacio’s role as the true and pure revolutionary.
Renato Constantino, though essentially a journalist, amplified the thesis of Agoncillo through thin but trenchant pamphlets on the miseducation of the Filipinos.
Toning down and taming the anti-imperialist character of the Philippine struggle is definitely mainstream and has a long history.
Even that has not prepared us from Mr. Enrile’s recent rendering of the martial law period. Had he tweaked the history of that dark, bloody and ruthlessly corrupt chapter by just a tiny, wee bit, his act would have been forgivable, given his age and his tenuous legal status (he was a central figure in the P10-billion Napoles scam).
But his fresh, and ever-changing version of martial law, was so unhinged from reality that it now ranks very near the Holocaust denial as one of the most egregious attempts to whitewash history.
Did Mr. Enrile outlive most of his contemporaries to punctuate his colorful life with the most outrageous lies and a whimper? Even the powers-that-be that Mr. Enrile wanted to reach with his prevarication message were so shocked with his version of martial law that they had to rebuke, timidly, of course, Mr. Enrile.
There is a law that compensates the victims of martial law abuses, said presidential spokesman Harry Roque Jr., whose roots was human rights lawyering. Even a certified Palace flack like Mr. Roque could perhaps not believe that Mr. Enrile would stoop down to that level of lie peddler. The Bantayog ng Mga Bayani, while standing lonely and forlorn and forgotten, stands firmly as a memorial to the prominent names murdered, assassinated and tortured under martial law.
What about the name of the faceless, nameless victims? Like young poets, journalists, lawyers, doctors, union leaders and peasant organizers?
What about the “sons of grocers,” the women activists, the community activists from the far-flung barrios and the urban slums?
What about the young Archimedes Trajano?
What about, this is now personal, the one who typed this piece?
It was 1976 and I was working as a clerk-researcher at a small government agency by the Manila Bay, where many government entities known as the “turf“ of Mrs. Marcos were based. One day I got this urgent letter from personnel. You are fired. The basis was a NISA file that said I was a “ threat to national security.” I was then below 100 pounds and my earthly possessions were a few books, three pants and six threadbare shirts. My last participation in an organized protest against martial law was in early September 1972. From 1972 to 1975, my activities were confined to three — plowing the paddies, pasturing carabaos and drinking gin bulag at night, after the brutal farm labor was over.
The firing, I took in stride. But a NISA “ invitation “ came through personnel on the day I cleared my ancient desk, the last day of work.
The “ invitation” was the standard code word for interrogation and for two days the NISA people took liberty of whatever dignity was left in me. It was a horrifying experience but what I suffered was a million times bearable than what the others suffered.
Decades after that dark period, you see Mr. Enrile on Bongbong Television, mocking the lives lost, sneering at the national opportunities squandered, and writing a version of history that is as egregious as the denial of the Holocaust and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
A life that he designed to end with a bang now ends with lies and a whimper.
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