The\nMarcoses want Philippine history revised to portray the late dictator Ferdinand\nMarcos Sr. as a hero and a good leader, and to escape accountability for the\nfamily’s atrocities and economic plunder during Martial Law. The recent\nproposal of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. for the revision of\nhistory books is aligned with the scheme for the complete return of his family to\npower. This historical revisionism should not be allowed to aggravate current\nlearning that distracts from promoting historical and social awareness among\nthe youth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\npushing to revise history, the Marcoses are evidently basking in the successive\ncourt victories they have been securing under the current administration. They\nhave been enjoying freedom and have even been installed in government, as if\ntheir crimes against the Filipino people have been forgotten. These follow the Duterte\ngovernment-sanctioned hero’s burial for the late dictator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet\nthere have been court decisions damning the Marcoses. Thousands of human rights\nviolations victims during Martial Law have won in the class suit filed in the\nUS Federal court in Hawaii in 1995 seeking indemnification. They received\ncompensation, albeit insufficient for all the suffering, from the ill-gotten\nwealth of the Marcoses. Imelda Marcos has also been found guilty by a\nSandiganbayan court of seven counts of graft on November 9, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Filipinos also remain burdened by the neoliberal policies\nwhich the Marcos regime started to implement. Case in point, many students and\nparents today continue to suffer from the commercialization of education as a\nresult of the Education Act of 1982. Filipinos continue to suffer a government\nburdened by debt, while the Marcos family and their cronies enjoy the fruits of\nill-gotten wealth including from dictatorship debt. Since the Marcos regime\nbegan implementing neoliberal economics, the agriculture and industrial sectors\nof Philippine society have headed downhill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To\nsay that schools have been teaching children lies with the discussion of\nMartial Law mocks the collective experience of civil, political, economic and\nsocial rights violations against the Filipino people during the dark days of\nthe Marcos dictatorship. All the materials that narrate this part of history\ncontribute to forming students’ consciousness and resolve to value democracy and\nto disallow all attempts to undermine it. There are forums and discussions,\nseveral books and writings, as well as multimedia materials featuring the\naccounts of Martial Law survivors. There are also Filipino historians,\neconomists, academics and those from other fields, discussing Marcos’\natrocities and economic plunder. Schools may also visit the Bantayog ng mga\nBayani in Quezon City, a “memorial center honoring those individuals who\nlived and died in defiance of the repressive regime that ruled over the\nPhilippines from 1972 to 1986.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As\nteachers and members of the Educators’ Forum for Development (EFD), we push\nthat rather than revise history, the education sector must continue to include\nMartial Law in the curriculum and provide students with corresponding\nhistorically accurate books and other educational materials. We stand by the\nproven accounts of thousands of human rights victims during martial rule, and\noppose any attempt to muddle the truth. Revising the truth about Martial Law and\nteaching the untruth in schools, as proposed by Bongbong Marcos, will diminish\nthe Filipino people’s historical and continuing movement and struggle against\ntyranny and fascism, and present to the youth a distorted image of leaders and\nan ill concept of governance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nteaching of history is integral to the study of the Filipino identity. A\nstudent equipped with the lessons of the past would more likely use a critical\nlens in understanding the present and discerning what must be avoided in the\nfuture. A critical student has a correct sense of history which includes both\nthe glorious and the abhorrent. A critical student knows that being a\ngovernment official is not an entitlement for abuse but a responsibility to\nserve the best interests of the people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Historical\nrevisionism has no place in any school. Let us continue to teach the truth\nabout Martial Law. The need to do so never wavers. A government upholding\nneoliberal policies unopposed will spawn authoritarian rulers or dictators bent\non pursuing and furthering an economic path favoring the few rich and powerful.\n###<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Photo from Kodao Productions<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NETWORKS<\/p>\n In pushing to revise history, the Marcoses are evidently basking in the successive court victories they have been securing under the current administration. They have been enjoying freedom and have even been installed in government, as if their crimes against the Filipino people have been forgotten.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":8938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-withbanner.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[2048,547,961],"tags":[347,2139,118,686,315,689,1972,156,2047],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8936"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8936"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8939,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8936\/revisions\/8939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}