Assisting a nation’s failing memory

One of my friends, Jimmy Abad, once commented that a nation can only be as great as its memory. Nothing can be more pathetic than a nation reduced to remembering nothing, or nothing truthful. When a Pulse Asia survey showed that seven percent of all adult Filipinos now remember Ninoy Aquino as a hero and an equal number recalls Ferdinand Marcos to be of the same heroic mold, one suspects that either deplorable ignorance or pitiful senescence must be at work. With adults succumbing to public idiocy or dementia praecox, how can the nation’s children avoid having their own memories blown?

With no truthful memories to fall back on, who will sing this nation’s truly noble songs? Even now, most Filipinos suffer falsified memories of avuncular or maternal colonial administrations, benign oligarchies and reassuring democratic transitions. Self-serving fiction generally substitutes for painful realities. The nation’s historic struggles against domestic tyranny and alien imperialism are increasingly forgotten and most Filipinos are unable to distinguish between their real heroes and their genuine heels.

Unscrupulous publicists are emboldened by this national confusion and they shamelessly trumpet their principals to be the ulirang ina ng bayan or the caring ama ng masa – national awards which history might be in a better position to judge and grant. (There appears to be no question as to who is the modelong tiyo ng mga Pilipino, a title most miseducated Filipino assign by default to one whose Orwellian concerns include regional security, global free trade and worldwide democratization. No wonder that in a recent worldwide survey of national opinion leaders, most of those responding – be they European, Latin-American, African, Asian, Arab, Jew, Muslim or Christian – profess much admiration for the avuncular figure in what he stands for, but also much condemnation in relation to what he actually does as a global power.)

Most Filipinos suffer poor memories of their national history because they lack reliable source materials. As a mostly politically marginalized people, they have little knowledge of what happens in the course of country’s critical issues being resolved. They are unable to access information relating to how their national leaders conducted themselves – patriotically or treasonably – in confronting situations which became crucial to the nation’s historical development. While newspaper and other media agencies may banner their crusade for conscientious public information, demonstrable media biases – at times traceable to the oligarchic structure of media ownership in this country and at other times the sheer incompetence, shabbiness and mercenary vulnerability of many media people – regrettably often disable their critical service to the public.

Media accounts are generally far too journalistic, much too sensational and often unsuccessfully confrontational to serve as reliable sources of a nation’s history. There is little sober reflection in most media productions and the main themes, the basic principles and the deeper meanings of social existence over protracted time are often neglected. While there are notable exceptions to this general observation, the welcome exceptions must not be mistaken for the regrettable rule.

There is a vital although necessarily still partial remedy to the challenge of national amnesia. National leaders who played critical roles as well as those who were simply in attendance when historic events transpired must be encouraged to write their memoirs. A national record must be inscribed by as many as possible of those who witnessed or who themselves were "history in the making."

We already have a few excellent examples of these critical aides memoires. The most recent might be former Senate President Jovito Salonga’s A Journey of Struggle and Hope, a chronicle of the nation’s organic life spanning eight decades and focusing on the nationalist struggle against forceful, alien imperialism as well as tyrannical, local authoritarianism. Across 473 pages, Senator Salonga takes his reader on a historic tour which allows for sliding into times where the likes of Tañada, Diokno, Laurel, Recto, Ninoy Aquino and Senator Salonga himself – among others – engage dark forces subverting the ever beleaguered republic. The nationalist struggle of course does not find resolution in this senatorial memoir; it continues and the volume allows its Filipino readers to remain hopeful because of the very struggle these leaders have so patriotically dedicated their lives to.

The flickering memory cells of Filipinos could be brought to full luminescence if more national actors followed the lead of Senator Salonga and a few others in making hard copies of our nation’s history. There is so much to learn particularly from those who also struggled within the bowels of the martial law Leviathan, O.D. Corpuz, Gerry Sicat, Cesar E.A. Virata, Jaime Laya, Juan Ponce Enrile have much to contribute in enlightening those who now grope in the dark as regard the nation’s most recent dictatorship.

Parallel efforts could also be undertaken by those who kept alive civil society in those formidable times. The nation’s Catholic Church, the Communist Party of the Philippines, the Moro National Liberation Front and the leading groups in business, labor, academe, military and media – all have a patriotic duty to contribute to a national historical treasury. This time truth will be this treasury’s hardest currency.