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Thursday, September 22, 2005
Editorial: Learning from the past
It has been said that a people, to be able to move forward with determination and direction, should be deeply aware of the context of their past and know the dynamics of their present.
There is this saying that a person who does not look back to where he started would not know how to get to where he is going.
Similarly, a country that denies its past would not know how to reach out to its future.
Consider the report that current Philippine history books for grade six pupils do not carry anything about the Martial Law years, and so, the children do not even know who was the Filipino dictator who marshaled our country's history for close to two decades.
Such act of exclusion of a most painful chapter, if not the most ignominious phase, of our history is tantamount to a cover-up, a denial of a truth.
What might have been the motive of the Department of Education in encouraging and allowing such exclusion is an interesting aspect that our historians should look into.
For a nation's history should reflect the truth, narrate the facts of each breaking event and never for a moment shield the eyes of the citizenry to the events' unfolding.
However unsavory or disgraceful the events are, they must be told as they occurred.
Which is the reason why textbook authorities should be made to explain the rationale for the exclusion in our textbooks of a most disturbing moment in our national life.
They should clarify their obvious denial of a sad phase in our contemporary history that could have been a source of significant lesson for our youth.
Note that countries like Vietnam and Malaysia went through a bloody phase before they became sturdy nations.
Could politics have been the strong motivating force behind the negation of the Martial Law years in our history books, an assertive effort to blot out from our youth's mind the fact of the Marcos dictatorship?
The reality of the debasement of our democracy for the period of a generation is too intrinsic a historical event to be excluded from the knowledge of our growing generation. It would be cheating the youth.
It is precisely the thorough appreciation of the nation's past that should pave the way to a deeper understanding of the interlocking social, political, and economic forces of the present.
And from this, hopefully, an enlightened and clearer view of what needs to be done to ensure a better national future could emerge, and open the way for the players among the new generation to forge a more determined effort to unite and move on.
(September 22, 2005 issue)
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