Monday, November 05, 2007 Editorial: Bluff or question mark
OTHER than the fact that the Cinco de Novembre movement is sometimes called the greatest 'historical bluff,' it is also one of the greatest 'historical question mark.'
It was the rebel Dionisio 'Papa Isio' Magbuelas and his sun-burned farm co-workers that recognized the Aguinaldo Katipunan.
Magbuelas collaborated with the Silay-based Araneta-Lacson revolution against Spain.
A week later, when the American Flag was hoisted at the Bacolod City Hall, Magbuelas burned haciendas believed to be in cohort with what he believed to were the 'claws' of American colonialism.
The millenarian visionary Magbuelas saw by gut feeling that the new American colonizer will definitely not be better than the orthodox Spaniards.
He was not mistaken.
Negros sugar lands and forest were exploited to feed the American market in the meantime that Cuba, right across Florida, was not yet ready for the taking.
Cuba offered lesser import cost for sugar but it took a while for it to open up, thus Americans continued to teach the Indios how to watch Hollywood films, the most effective means of exploitation of the mind.
The Ilustrado Araneta-Lacson-led compromise deal with the Americans was not a mistake either.
Aguinaldo cannot assure the hacienderos of a ready market for Negros' survival.
How will the thousands of workers survived in turn without a market for the mono-crop sugar industry?
The Ilustrados had to grab opportunities otherwise hunger could have reigned all the more.
Who has the sharper vision for Negros then? The indio Magbuelas or the ilustrado Araneta, et al?
But Roque Hofilena, executive director of the Provincial Historical Council, however, said, "Whatever we make out of Cinco de Noviembre, the fact shall remain, it happened and we ought to celebrate and learn from it."
