DURING THE celebration of the National Heroes Day on August 26 at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, President Bongbong Marcos discussed the value of remembering the heroes who fought for the country’s independence and preserving their legacy of patriotism and nobility.
He continued by reminding everyone that although our national heroes’ bravery set the stage for our country’s freedom, they had to pay it with their own peace, their own rights, and even their own lives.
Don’t you just find it ironic that the President is once again challenging the Filipinos to acknowledge the significance of our nation’s history and pass it on to the youth, and reminding everyone that heroism “is not confined to history books”?
Quite frankly, remembering the lessons of the nation’s history is not one of the President’s strongest suits, together with the entire Marcos family and their army of historical revisionists, apologists and fake news peddlers.
Remember how the Marcoses’ return to power rode high on a wave of disinformation which started upon their return from exile in Hawaii? I have to give it to their strategists for tapping the various social media platforms to condition the minds of a new generation of Filipinos who rely heavily on TikTok, Youtube and other content providers for their source of information. They were able to pry on the GenZ who were either simply gullible, or just too preoccupied not to verify the information they were being fed, or both.
I remember how I had to argue with a handful of high school teachers, handling Araling Panlipunan at that, who insisted that the Marcos years were the nations’ golden age in terms of economic development, infrastructures, dollar reserves, employment, etc. When I presented them the various economic indices to refute their claims, they insisted with their own distorted version of facts and sanitized version of history, and simply called me a “dilawan.”
To date, we are yet to receive a categorical statement from any of the Marcoses regarding the human rights abuses, repression and atrocities during the dictatorship. Even Senator Imee Marcos, who served as the national chair of the Kabataang Barangay, continues to claim she did not know anything about the human rights abuses during her father’s dictatorship, and argues that she was “too young” to know. Despite the ruling of the Hawaii court rendering judgment against her, Sen. Imee continues to play innocent to the death of then student leader Archimedes Trajano at the hands of her own bodyguards.
In the same speech, the President listed the contributions of various sectors whom he considers the modern-day heroes. The list includes health care workers who, according to Marcos, “put their lives at stake for others.”
But just as the President was extolling the sacrifices of our health care workers, members of the Alliance of Health Workers were gathered at the Philippine Children’s Medical Center in Quezon City, protesting for a living wage, job security, mass hiring of workers and the release of their unpaid benefits. They also demanded for an increase in the budget for public hospitals all over the country. Talk about saying one thing, but doing the exact opposite.
I couldn’t agree more with the President when he called on all Filipinos to be “heroes in their own right” in the spirit of shared responsibility. What a way to end an inspiring message – true heroism is in the heart of every Filipino.
Maybe we can ask the President to set the example and let that heroism he is talking about to shine from the hearts of all the Marcoses? What about returning their ill-gotten wealth to the Filipino people? What about divulging their billions of deposits stashed in some offshore banking units? What about issuing a sincere public apology to grieving families of the thousands of desaparecidos and victims of abuses and torture during their father’s dictatorial regime? What about not flexing their political muscles to overturn the court rulings against them? What about telling their trolls to stop spreading the vile lies and disinformation that achieves nothing but division among Filipinos? Wouldn’t it be the ultimate measure of heroism if the President simply tells the plain truth and then walk the talk?
