SENATORS Paolo Benigno Aquino 4th and Risa Hontiveros have issued a scary warning: Beware of those who would revise Philippine history in order to reflect an alternative reality to the one the Yellows have been pushing for more than three decades.
Of course, they didn’t quite phrase their warning that way. But they might as well have.
“Teachers should be provided with books that have a wider perspective on history, not just [a]one-sided perspective,” Aquino said – and Hontiveros echoed – in interviews this week. They were referring to reports that textbooks used in certain schools supposedly only discussed the merits of the administration of Ferdinand Marcos.
Of course, both senators, known keepers of the Yellow political flame, were silent on reports years back that some textbooks extolled only the alleged heroism of slain Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. and the purported saintliness of his wife, the late President Corazon Aquino.
Apparently, these earlier textbooks, which caused a furor when they were released for their obvious attempt to glorify Ninoy and Cory, met the requirements of the senators for giving a wider perspective of Filipino history. Never mind if, apart from the dwindling number of Yellows among us, no one seems to believe the long-running tale of the Aquino couple’s all-around patriotism and virtuousness anymore.
This is certainly not the first time that people have accused the Marcoses of monkeying around with history in the hope that future Filipinos will look kindly upon their long and controversial reign. But the fact remains that the Aquinos were also guilty of the same attempts at official hagiography, of burnishing their own image with a view to winning the hearts and minds of people who have otherwise no other way of knowing who they really were or what they really did when they held the reins of power.
For instance, the history-conscious Yellows who are always quick to defend Ninoy and Cory never mention the fact that Ninoy’s father was convicted of the crime of collaborating with the Japanese invaders immediately after World War 2. And please don’t reply that what happened in the last world war was unimportant, if you are perfectly willing to expound on the alleged fake war medals that Ferdinand Marcos supposedly received for his heroism back then.
But I sense an urgency in the Yellows’ desire to maintain the “Marcos bad, Aquino good” narrative because they are now obviously so concerned that this version of history is in dire danger of being overturned and exposed as a lie. And with the ascension of Rodrigo Duterte to the presidency, there is an excellent chance that history will no longer be written with the backdrop of the Aquino-Marcos rivalry in place and the victimhood and phoenix-like comeback of Ninoy and Cory as the recurring theme.
On the other hand, there are still enough people around who remember Marcos’ reign with a nostalgic fondness and who remain thankful for his accomplishments in office. But because the Yellow playbook calls for nothing less than the total annihilation of such notions of goodness and performance during the Marcos years, the Aquino fan base will never allow even a passing acknowledgment of them.
Besides, as I’ve already said, this is really a battle for the future and how to secure it for the Yellows. An entire generation of Filipinos has already emerged that has no direct experience of either the Marcos or Aquino years except for Noynoy, whose feckless reign was so unremarkable that even the most Yellow of historians must be banging their heads just to find something good to say about him.
This is why history is important, especially to the threatened Yellows: They must make sure that young people who knew neither Ferdinand Marcos nor the elder Aquinos do not stray from the party line and continue believing their largely discredited pseudo-historical Yellow fairy tale.
Most professional historians will say that it is way too early to pass judgment on the veracity of either narrative. They point out that at least 50 years must pass before any historical event or series of historical events can be assessed with a clear eye, without the influence of surviving propagandists of either camp.
But then, it’s not really all about history but propaganda, which is its common precursor in this country. After all, to take just one more contentious example into consideration, the unceasing denigration of the role of Emilio Aguinaldo in Philippine political history, in a bid to deify his rival Andres Bonifacio, has made people believe even the most unverified reports about the alleged traitorous compromising by the former and the romantic patriotism of the latter.
The historical truth may be somewhere in between — and can only be clearly seen when the partisanship has abated and both evidence and latter-day scholarship have been considered. Marcos did good in some very important respects but he also erred and was even completely bad in others; the same can be said of Ninoy and Cory, no matter how hard that is for the Yellows to accept.
But insisting that only one historical side is correct and righteous while the other is completely evil is no way to write history, whoever is in charge of that task. And right now is definitely not the time to say that only one perspective is the right one, unless one is willing to engage in an endless, ultimately pointless debate with others who hold a contrary belief.
After all, just to put this argument in the context of today’s headlines, there will always be people who will say that Marcos’ declaration of Martial Law in 1972 was the worst thing to have happened to this country. And there will always be an equal (at least) number who will insist that it was heaven on earth while it lasted.
What’s clear is that political dogmatism, especially of the pernicious Yellow kind, is always going to be wrong. And you don’t even have to listen to the panicky, partisan perorations of Bam Aquino and Risa Hontiveros to know that this is true.
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