By Luis V. Teodoro
Two years ago former University of the Philippines President Onofre D. Corpuz lamented the absence of a standard account of the 1986 Revolution. "What histories we have of the Revolution are grossly inadequate," said Corpuz.
Without an adequate history of "that epic and noble struggle," continued Corpuz, "how can we know the spirit of 1896, so that we can honestly resolve to keep that spirit alive?"
The Philippines celebrates the centennial of the Republic on June 12, 1998. That date marks the declaration of Philippine independence at Kawit, Cavite, two years after the Philippine Revolution of 1896 broke out and dismantled Spanish power over the Islands. The United States, embarking on its by now 100 years' venture into imperialism, prevented the realization of that independence by conquering the country and keeping it as a colony until 1946, when it "granted" independence on July 4 that year. The Philippines marked independence day on that date until 1962, when then President Diosdado Macapagal changed the date to June 12.
A National Centennial Commission was established three years ago to prepare for the June 12 centennial this year. The commission has not spared expense in getting a centennial logo popularized, together with a centennial slogan ("Kalayaan: Kayamanan ng Bayan"-- Freedom: the People's Wealth).
There's also a literary contest, the first prize winners in which will receive P1 million each in the various categories of screenplay, novel, three-act play, poetry and essay. The commission has encouraged the showing of the flag, and, judging by the booming business of the flag-making houses, has succeeded beyond its wildest expectations.
The flag indeed waves from even the unlikeliest places, including the tops of TV antennas, and even some cemetery mausoleums. Aside from the Philippine flag itself, the centennial flag appears to be popular as well , and so are the 10 flags in a set called "The Evolution of the Filipino Flag," among which, by the way, is the black skull-and-crossbones flag of revolutionary Gen. Mariano Llanera, the only flag that strays beyond the usual blood red and white of the Katipunan flags-- and which, recalling the international symbol of piracy, seems totally unsuitable to represent the struggle for independence. That flag, nevertheless, disconcertingly waves from the flagpoles of government offices, private homes, and city streets.
Government employees have also been told to wear centennial dress -- barong Tagalog (the Filipino formal shirt) for men and baro't saya ( a puffed-sleeve blouse and long skirt) for women, with the more adventurous experimenting with various combinations by throwing together kimona (a sheer blouse) and Muslim malong (a wrap-around relative of the South Sea sarong), or camisa de chino (a collarless shirt inspired by the Chinese blouse) and tapis (a piece of cloth wrapped over a skirt). Save for the computers, some government offices look like 19th-century settings, so earnestly have government employees taken to the order to wear the Filipino dress (don't call it a costume!).
June 12 itself will be marked with day-long civic and military parades, and a centennial ball in Malaca–ang, the presidential palace where Spanish and American governors general as well as Philippine presidents have resided.
But the festivities won't end on that date. President-elect Joseph Estrada will be inaugurated as the country's 13th President in Barasoain Church, Malolos, where the first Filipino Constitution was drafted. There is, in short, everything for everyone-or almost everything.
Conspicuously absent in all the hoopla is any attempt to provide the narrative Corpuz said is missing-- or even, just to start with, a coherent summary of what the Revolution was fought for and the Republic founded. You can get a sense of almost everything in the centennial brouhaha, except what's really important, among them what Andres Bonifacio, Manila's proletarian hero and founder of the Katipunan, which began the war against Spain when it was discovered in 1896, fought and died for a hundred years ago.
Instead, in the name of the centennial is everything being hawked, including a concert series by Mexican soap opera actress Thalia. Her visit is being billed by the TV station sponsoring it as "The Centennial Visit," although there's no visible connection between Thalia, star of the long-running and extremely popular 1996-97 soap opera "Mari Mar" and the centennial-except, possibly, the fact that Spain governed the Philippines during the colonial period from the viceroyalty of Mexico, which might be stretching the Thalia connection too far.
Only one Manila newspaper has been trying to, one supposes, provide some awareness of what the whole thing was all about, via a hundred-article commission to pop historian Ambeth Ocampo, whose series began 100 days before June 12.
Ocampo has been criticized for emphasizing such details as what the dinner menu was in the evening celebrations of June 12, 1898, but that may not be what his accounts can be faulted for, the details after all being necessary for us to get a sense of the landscape of historical events.
What Ocampo's accounts suffer from is a lack of coherent theme; instead they flit from one subject to another without any visible attempt to link them. Also conspicuous for one so focused on the details are the specifics: for example, what did the revolutionaries want exactly, since that's the only way we can judge, a hundred years later, whether the Republic as it has survived has been true to those purposes.
It won't do to say that Bonifacio and those others every schoolboy knows by rote as "the heroes of the Revolution" wanted "freedom from Spain," because that wasn't all. If that were all and everything, then we can all rest easy, that having been realized on the eve of the American conquest. The Revolution after all wanted more: prosperity, yes, but also the flowering and recognition of the dignity of the inhabitants of the Philippines; independence of course, but also the right of Filipinos to shape their destiny; and justice, certainly, but justice both social as well as in its simplest, day-to-day form. Then there are the peasants who rallied to its cause and died by the thousands fighting for it, driven by the hunger for land and the hope that the tenancy system Spain established and that had denied them land and turned them into tenants would finally come to an end.
One would have hoped that, as with any other anniversary, the centennial would be an occasion for assessment, for rediscovering and restating the goals of Philippine society, and for establishing how near--or how far-- the country is from those goals. But the goals as defined when the Revolution made the Filipinos into a nation not being clear, how can such an assessment be intelligently made?
Of course the hoopla makes it seem as if everyone knows where the country is going and how far it still has to go. But that's just what it seems like. When you look beyond the flag waving, the wearing of the Filipino dress, the fireworks and the balls on June 12, there's not much to see, and that's a pity because no country can go far if it's not clear to everyone where it's supposed to go.
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