By Karapatan
One of the biggest acts of historical deception was to designate Emilio Aguinaldo’s declaration of Philippine Independence from Spanish colonization on June 12, 1898, as Araw ng Kalayaan, or Philippine Independence Day.
Such an act disregards the fact that barely six months after Aguinaldo’s declaration, the Philippines and other colonies of Spain were ceded to the newly emergent US imperialist power in the Treaty of Paris of 1898.
It negates the fact that the US waged a brutal war of suppression against Filipino revolutionaries who threw off the Spanish yoke and refused to be subjected to a new colonial master.
It glosses over the fact that after the US ended colonial rule over the Philippines in July 1946, there began a period of neocolonial rule that has seen the US dominate the country’s economy, politics and culture through a series of puppet regimes.
To date, the farce of marking the 12th of June as Philippine Independence Day continues, and ironically at a time when Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s regime has pushed the boundaries of puppetry not only by reaffirming unequal pacts like the RP-US Mutual Defense Treaty but more recent ones like the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement through which the US maintains a network of quasi-bases where it is able to sustain the rotational presence of US troops and war material.
The Marcos Jr. regime’s most obsequious act of puppetry is to recklessly endanger Filipino lives for the sake of pandering to the US’ warmongering maneuvers against China in the Asia-Pacific.
For as long as the Philippines remains a US neocolony led by puppet presidents, June 12 will remain a bogus day of independence, and the freedom it symbolizes as torn and tattered as the leftover buntings and flaglets waved to mark the day.