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HONG
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CANADA
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EUROPE
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USA
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INDONESIA
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SINGAPORE
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THAILAND
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Philippines |
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IN DEPTH: RP INDEPENDENCE DAY - View of revolt in provinces spurs revision |
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Source: Inquirer |
Author: Amando Doronila |
Date: 1999-06-13 |
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THE PHILIPPINE Centennial celebration came to an end
yesterday, which was the 101st anniversary of the proclamation
of the Philipine revolutionary government at Kawit. The
Centennial celebration left a monstrous, decaying carcass of a
white elephant--the Centennial Expo at Clark field where the bulk
of the Centennial money was poured.
In the wake of this financial disaster and the grand Centennial
parade at the Luneta, which was a fitting theatrical climax of the
celebration, Filipinos ask whether the Centennial has raised their
awareness and knowledge about their culture and history, has
aided them in the search of their identity, and has given them a
more nuanced conception about nationalism, beyond the
wallowing in an enduring sense of grievance over their colonial
experience under Spain and the United States.
The answers to these questions do not lie in the theatrical
manifestations of the Centennial. They are to be found in the
output of writings and research on the Philippine Revolution of
1896 and the events that followed it. It is the output of
scholarship that, more than anything else, that has rebuilt the
nation's memory without which Filipinos would be wandering in
a vast desert without any compass of where they came from and
of where they are heading for.
What blazed a new trail in revolutionary scholarship is that the
University of the Philippines led the effort for the rediscovery of
the Revolution by shifting the focus on the investigation of the
Revolution to local revolutionary events and personalities,
away from the well-beaten path of Manila-centered
revolutionary historology.
As pointed out by Dr. Ma. Luisa T. Camagay, professor of
history at UP, ''for a long time, the history of the Philippines has
been written and narrated in a manner whereby events
transpiring in the provinces, towns and barrios were but ripples
created by Manila, the political, economic, social and cultural
center of the country...(The) history of the country has been
told and retold with the Philippines being one monolithic
homogenous structure with Manilas as the gauge of the
national pulse. This kind of historiograpy has persisted for a
long time until an awareness of local units exhibited a dynamism
of its own.'' The materials collected from this shift of accent
through seminars and visits to local revolutionary landmarks
throw a richer and more insightful dimension on the history of
the Revolution.
The materials collected and written in the course of this research
on local history reveal a wealth of data and insights which
indicate, at least, (1) there was a nationwide revolutionary
ferment prior to the Kawit declaration, which fused into the
struggle for freedom sparked by the Katipunan rising; (2) the
short-lived Malolos government had feeble authority over the
revolutionary movements in at least the Visayas and Mindanao;
(3) the Visayan revolutionaries acted with wide autonomy in
carrying out the revolution; (4) there were tensions between
Malolos authorities and regional revolutionary governments
over political ideas; (5) in the Visayas, the Federal Territorial
Republic of the Visayas proclaimed in November 1898 in Sta.
Barbara, Iloilo, ahead of the inauguration of the Malolos
Republic in January 1899, was fuelled by federalist tendencies.
These clashed with the unitary and centralized tendencies of the
Malolos Congress where Tagalog representation
overwhelmingly outnumbered delegations from the Visayas and
the outer regions.
For example, a paper written by Jose Manuel Velmonte, a
research associate at the UP Third World Studies Center, found
that the Visayan revolutionary elites not only had sophisticated
political ideas but also resented attempts by Malolos to assert
its authority. A Tagalog military expedition sent by Malolos to
Panay to assert is presence was met with hostility. The Luzon
force led by Generals Ananias Diocno and Leandro Fullon was
regarded by the Visayan revolutionaries, led by the Visayan
supremo, Gen. Martin Delgado, as an ''invasion'' force.
Accounts like this from local history view the revolution from
the ''periphery''--not from the center that was Manila. This view
from ''below'' rather than from ''above'' is a departure from the
orthodox Manila-centered approach. The new perspective to be
gained from this revisionism is one of the more enduring
outcomes of the Centennial celebration.
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