my ramblings and other stuff on history and the Filipino

Rizal was ‘anti-Revolution’ and that Bonifacio was a leader of the Katipunan who strongly believed that the only way to free the Filipino people was through a bloody battle with the Spaniards. I don’t know much about Aguinaldo except that he was educated, rich and was the first president of the Republic of the Philippines. And I don’t even know if Philippines was really a republic then. I still don’t have a clear picture of the timeline as to when the Spanish rule started, when it ended, when the Japanese invasion took place and when our American ‘brothers’ came into the picture and how and why they remain to be ‘in the picture’.

            I knew from my dad who constantly persuaded me to read ‘In the Image of the Filipino people’ by Agoncillo that the Bonifacio brothers were actually murdered by their Katipunero brothers who supposedly were fighting for the same cause and were under the same organization and who supposedly had the same ideals, goals and beliefs as the Bonifacio brothers.

            Only until recently had I been made aware that the image of Bonifacio as a member of the lower class Filipino and a person who was ruled only by the desire to kill and get even with the Spanish for all their injustice and exploitation was jaded. It is infact a fact that Bonifacio was educated. He was the first person to translate the last poem of Rizal from Spanish to Tagalog. He worked as a clerk for a British company. And he also had composed songs and wrote poems. These were characteristics which could not be attributed to an uneducated ‘macho’ man. Bonifacio actually deserves more respect than what the elementary and high school and even sad to say college education was giving him. He deserves more reverence. He deserves to be known more.

            Until this very day, I have not changed my mind so much why I believe that Bonifacio was a much better person than Rizal. In all honesty and fairness, I stand on my belief that Bonifacio deserves more respect as a Bayani than Rizal does. But I also stand on my believe that Bonifacio can never and should never be the National Hero of the Philippines. Why? Because the person who is Bonifacio – his history, his death – shows so much of the ill that has gotten into the Filipino people. The cancer that is corruption. Bonifacio was murdered by Filipinos and for that reason alone, he could never be proclaimed as the National Hero of the Philippines. How can you let him habe that position when his death is so controversial and so sad that everytime one would inquire about how his life ended, we would never be able to explain that our Hero – the demi-god who was Bonifacio was killed by his brothers. How can we explain that the person we revere and look up to so greatly have fallen as a victim to the corruption, greed and the desire for power – which is actually universal. The death of Bonifacio has the correct ingredient for him to be proclaimed a hero-but not as a national hero, and not for the Filipino. Because the drama that surrounds his death is a drama that shows how ignorant we were and how we cared so much of ourselves to the extent of eliminating a good leader by someone who is so greedy for power.

            I know that one day I have to end my ignorance on Aguinaldo. He is worth more space in my brain that what I have used for him. We have to accept the truth – he is a major player in our history. For Christ’s sake he was the first Filipino president. There a certain mystery to him to which I have to find the answers or the explanation for. I have yet to better understand who he was and why did he have the desire or the idea to get rid of Bonifacio – if he actually did.

            Honestly, I do not know much. I am ignorant and at the same time innocent. Ignorant because at this time and age, there is no excuse for not learning what it is you want to learn. There is no excuse for not being able to answer you questions and inquiries. There is no excuse in being left in the dark when all the information needed to get yourself to the light is accessible to you. But I am also innocent. Innocent because some of the authors and historians and people who were given the opportunity to establish a truth failed to remove their own bias. Innocent because I have no other choice but to look deeper into the answers of my questions and evaluate if they are correct and if they are true and if they are just.

            History is basically, for me, the account of events and of people from the past based on how the winner sees them to have happened. History is a game for winners. Very rarely do you find the losing team’s book published or taken as the truth. There is so much ‘politics’ in history. And due to this politics, one can be made innocent. Innocent because they never had the chance or will never have the opportunity to learn of the truth.

            I want to relieve myself from this ignorance and innocence. I want to believe my own history. I want to find answers to my questions. And my real goal in doing so is for me to, in the end, find the correct reasons to be proud that I am a Filipino.

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            I am not that stupid to start looking down at people who choose to leave the country for a better chance in life. I am not that stupid to condemn them for their choices. I am well aware of the hardships that people encounter in the Philippines – from having a minimum wage below the expense requirements of everyday life to graduating from college in order to land a job at no where else but the call center and practically not applying what you had to study in your four or five (or more) years in college.

            I do not blame these people for wanting more that what they can get in this God-forsaken country. I do not blame them for choosing to obtain what they deserve even if it means being exploited or serving a country which is not their own.

            But there is something I condemn about these thousands of people who choose to leave the Philippines and go to another country for a better life. I condemn them for wanting to forget where they came from. I condemn them for forgetting their culture and adapting the culture of their ‘new home’. I condemn them for their lack of love for our country.

            Ideally, what I would like to see are Filipino people going out of the country – working even if it meant being exploited – but acquiring all knowledge they can get and amassing all wealth available to them and going back to the Philippines to try to encourage change. To use what they have learned and what they have experienced to change the present situation of things and to make the quality of life in the Philippines better than what it was before. To remove the necessity of leaving the Philippines for a better opportunity, for a better future. I want to see Filipino people with the desire and conviction of using their knowledge and their wealth to eradicate all and any form of corruption, injustice, unfairness and most especially abuse. I want to see these learned, experienced and wealthy Filipinos go back to the Philippines and bring back to their country what they owe it – their identity, their life and themselves.

            We must not forget that our history – where you came from and who you were – are a part of who you are and where you are going to be. And if we decide to cut all our ties with our history, if we decide to forget our culture, if we decide to forget the Philippines then I must agree with Rizal – you smell like bagoong. Even worse. You are the maggots that feed on the rotten bagoong.       Go ahead. Make a future for you

rself. But never forget your past because you are not getting where your going if you don’t know where you came from.

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            I want to write a book. I want to write a history book. I want to publish a book which you do not have to buy and I want that book to be in every poor Filipino’s house. I want them to read that book while they are taking a shit, I want them to read the book while they are waiting for the next passenger to ride their tricycle, I want the children to look at the pictures on the book and be able to make up in their minds the story that is in the book. I want to book to be a means for the poor Filipino farmer to understand what he is and what his country has been through. In the end, I want all these poor Filipino’s to be proud that even if they are just a simple street vendor, a prostitute, or a tricycle driver they are Filipinos and they belong to a great, fierce and brave race.

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            When people ask why I waste so much time reading Hollywood or showbiz news, it is either I try to explain myself to them or ignore them. I am not wasting my time. What is a better way of getting a person to listen to something he is unfamiliar with than talking first to him about the juicy gossips of the entertainment world which he probably is so familiar with and then taking the conversation into a deeper level.

            Let us not forget how the Filipinos are so interested in show business. Remember, who was our thirteenth president? He would not have been appointed to that office if I am wrong on this idea. 

 

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There is something so equal and democratic about dying – F. Sionil Jose