TEACHING OF MARTIAL LAW ERA TO BE INSTITUTIONALIZED IN NEW
DIRECTION
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[PHOTO- A PAGE FROM MARTIAL LAW HISTORY. The dictatorship was
practically on its last legs when the usual suspects in the Marcos opposition
led yet another protest march on Oct. 7, 1984. In a little over a year, People
Power on Edsa would stun the world. From right: Etta Rosales, Ben Cervantes,
Lily de las Alas-Padilla, Cory Aquino, Wigberto Tañada, Lorenzo Tañada, Ramon
Pedrosa, Ambrosio Padilla, Rashid Saber (a Muslim activist) and Noel Tolentino (
an Ateneo moderate) . They marched from Santo Domingo Church on Quezon Blvd
Extension in Quezon City to Welcome Rotonda, on the boundary with Manila, where
a reception party of riot cops dispersed them. INQUIRER
PHOTO]
MANILA, SEPTEMBER 24, 2012 (INQUIRER) By
Leila B. Salaverria - Everyone, from President Benigno Aquino III down to the
most miserable of the victims of military rule, feels strongly that the teaching
of the martial law period in the country's history should be institutionalized.
But how to go about it is something that divides educators, historians,
social activists, human rights advocates and lawmakers.
For Education Secretary Armin Luistro, students should not be told
straight out that martial law was good or bad, they must make that decision for
themselves.
In fact, he said this was the new direction that the Department of Education
(DepEd) is adopting in teaching about that 14-year period when the dictator
Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial rule, taking for himself all the powers of the
state and arresting and jailing everyone who opposed him and even those who he
only thought were opposing him. There was the dreaded Preventive Detention
Authority.
According to Luistro, the DepEd is veering away from the current
textbook-based approach where the students "imbibe the biases" of the historian
that authored the book.
In this new method, Filipinos will have to make their own conclusions about
martial law based on what they have read and researched even beyond the
textbooks, he said.
"If you already teach judgment or interpretation, I don't think that's
education," Luistro said.
Beyond textbooks
At present, the students, especially those in high school, where there is
wider discussion of martial law, base their knowledge on what is in the
textbook, he said.
In the new method he is espousing, students will be taught the facts about
when, how and why Marcos proclaimed martial law. They will learn historical
realities, what are the programs he implemented during the period, and the
opposition to his rule.
But they will also be taught to look at other primary sources where they can
dig up more information about what happened during that period, and which can
include the disappearances or killings, Luistro said.
They will be taught to reflect about how all those events have shaped their
lives and communities, he said.
In so doing, they can come to their own judgment of how martial law went,
Luistro said.
He said not everyone would come to the same conclusion about martial law.
"History has a positive and negative aspect, and depending on where you
stand, it will look positive or negative," he said. "So if we want to ask, 'Was
Marcos a great President?' we will let the child arrive at that conclusion."
Textbooks inadequate
Historian Dr.Maria Serena Diokno (photo), chair of the
National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP), also believes that
children should be taught about the experiences of everyone, so that they could
make their own judgments about martial law.
In fact, in fulfilling the NHCP's new task of collecting and imparting
martial law stories, the pronouncements that Marcos made in the
government-controlled television stations should also be included, she said.
"I want children to learn about what he said and make their own reactions,"
she said.
But Diokno said the textbooks in current use were inadequate for teaching
martial law, which she said was partly the reason why there is a lack of
understanding about it.
The textbooks are lacking in facts, filled with errors, and have a biased
perspective, she said.
Teaching of atrocities
Lawmakers from the Akbayan party-list group, however, want the government to
use a more direct approach, by requiring the teaching of martial law
"atrocities" in all school levels.
Akbayan's main argument is that the cruelty of this dark chapter in the
country's history under Marcos has eluded the collective memory of Filipinos.
Akbayan House member Walden Bello disagrees with Luistro's value-free
approach, saying that teaching martial law "must have a point of view."
"Truth can't be separate from ethics," he said, adding that there are
universal standards of human rights that have to be considered as well.
Bello noted that in other countries, the teaching of fascism, the Nazi period
and apartheid had a value judgment, and that these were considered dark periods.
Dictatorships are also regarded negatively in the world, he added.
There must be an overall judgment in teaching martial law, especially the
questions of dictatorship, corruption and economic development, he said.
The positive aspects of that period could be included in the lesson as well,
he said.
The teaching of history should be nuanced and not simplistic, he added.
Academic freedom could still come into the picture because students should be
free to dispute the teachings, Bello said.
For all school levels
Akbayan has filed a House resolution asking the NHCP, the DepEd, the
Commission on Higher Education, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), and the
National Youth Commission to form a task force to draft the guidelines for the
teaching in all school levels of the atrocities committed during martial rule
under Marcos.
Without any official version of events, history may repeat itself, with dire
consequences, it said.
"Democracy will again be threatened should the people fail to recognize the
malevolent elements on which the Marcos dictatorship was founded," read the
resolution, filed by Akbayan lawmakers Bello and Kaka Bag-ao.
Accurately stressing the facts of martial law in all school levels was needed
to inculcate the values of democracy among the youth, it said.
Unparalleled violations
The CHR supports the Akbayan proposal. CHR Chair Loretta Rosales said this
would help promote and protect human rights in the country.
"The Marcos dictatorship was marked by unparalleled human rights violations.
No less than an institutional teaching of its history is needed to remind the
people of the need to safeguard their rights against systemic abuses and to fend
off attempts to curtail their rights in the future. Historical truth is a
powerful weapon in this regard," Rosales said.
According to Bello, the younger generation has not fully grasped the scope of
the martial law period. Worse, some of them are even beginning to think that
Marcos' strongman rule may be what the country needs, he said.
"I must say that's worrisome because young people don't really know what
happened and their sense is, there was this person who has a strong personality,
and they sense this is the way to go instead of being tied up in what they
consider to be the intricacies and difficulties of the democratic process,"
Bello said.
Marcoses are back
[REP. IMELDA MARCOS]
Another cause for worry is the short memories of Filipinos, he said. He noted
that the Marcoses are back and in power, a fact that puzzles even people from
the international community.
In its resolution, Akbayan pointed out that during martial law, records show
that there were 3,257 murders, 35,000 torture incidents and 70,000
incarcerations.
"[Marcos] practically destroyed all institutions of democracy and clamped
[down on] people's rights in order to install a new societal order founded on
fear, repression and tyranny," it said.
These events are in danger of being forgotten so that the government must do
its part in perpetuating the truth through the mandatory teaching of martial law
atrocities, Bello said.
"You have to organize the passing down of knowledge from one generation to
another, and you cannot leave that to tradition, to the private sector or the
individual. Since it was such a traumatic period in our history, it's very
important that it be transmitted in an organized fashion," he said.
People are free to dissent with the official version of events, but what is
important is that the subject be taught in school, Bello said.
Appreciation of freedoms
The NHCP said it supported the Akbayan resolution. "I don't see any problem
with including it in the curriculum. The idea is to have a deeper discussion so
that we will have an appreciation of our freedoms," said Ferdinand Llanes, NHCP
commissioner and University of the Philippines history professor.
"We need that because 40 years after the declaration of martial law, our
youth are not aware of the human rights violations committed during that dark
period of our history. There were 70,000 jailed, tortured and killed. How do you
account for it?" Llanes said.
He said highlighting the martial law regime would teach the youth "to
appreciate our civil liberties like freedom of speech and assembly without fear
that you will be arrested and tortured."
Llanes said martial law gave birth to social ills that the government is
still trying to resolve such as the high foreign debt and the ill-gotten wealth
of the Marcos family.
Rampant revisionism
Max de Mesa of the Philippine Association of Human Rights Advocates (Pahra)
said the need to teach the youth about martial law was all the more necessary
because in the vast, free worldwide web, videos are circulating disputing
certain events during the Marcos regime and downplaying the first Edsa People
Power Revolution of 1986.
De Mesa said videos on YouTube, uploaded by users named PangulongMarcos and
PinoyMonkeyPride, glorified the Marcoses and contended that the 1986 Edsa
revolution was just a myth.
The video from PangulongMarcos also listed Marcos' economic accomplishments,
and also implied that Marcos had no reason to order the assassination of Sen.
Benigno Aquino Jr.
It said the Edsa revolt was filled with "hakot (bused-in) crowds," communists
and just curious civilians, and the 2 million to 3 million Filipinos that
attended it were just 2 percent of the population. It further claimed that the
revolt was peaceful only because Marcos himself ordered the Marines not to
attack, and that the media just mythified the revolution and demonized
everything to do with Marcos.
The video from PinoyMonkeyPride also said the media, owned by oligarchs, just
propagated the myth of people power and Cory magic so that the rich could stay
in power. The video also criticized the supposedly poor work habits of President
Aquino.
De Mesa noted that the videos were well-produced and looked professionally
made, with sleek graphics.
He said Pahra showed one of the videos to a group of students, presenting it
without any context or commentary. It then sought the students' comments. The
general reaction from the latter was that Marcos appeared to be a good President
based on the video, and the students even asked what all the fuss was about.
"That is what we saw as dangerous. That was rewriting history. Those students
were post-martial law babies," he said.
He said his group later told the students about the other things that
happened during martial law, particularly the human rights violations.
Forgetting the horrors
De Mesa said Filipinos' historical sense might not be as sharp or substantial
yet, hence the tendency to forget the horrors of martial law.
At the same time, there are people whose main concern is survival and this
may be why they fail to see the dark side of martial law that had a profound
effect on the lives of many others, he added. Others remember martial rule for
the limited street crime, or the seemingly quiet surroundings.
De Mesa said what Pahra wanted was for the schools to teach a human rights
subject, and include in the discussions the horrors that took place during the
dictatorship.
He said this would not necessarily constitute bias against one
administration, but would just be imparting to students a piece of Philippine
history.
"If Marcos would say no one was tortured, and we're able to produce evidence
that it happened, this has to be looked into by the youth. They must find out
what happened. Otherwise, they might be unwittingly be glossing over or
contributing to the culture of impunity," he said. With a
report from Erika Sauler
Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2012 by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
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