Test Drive Volume 1, No. 6 | Page 7

Nov . 21 - 26 , 2016

Vintage View

By Prof . Rolly Borrinaga

Rewriting history

Historical revisionism is now a worldwide phenomenon . And it had succeeded in unsettling the conventional view of history . Some of us here in Leyte and Samar are not exactly ignorant of the global trend . After all , some of the seminal works on what is now called “ regional ” or “ local ” history were about the history of Leyte and Samar .

We would like to share with our readers some other thoughts about the “ revisionist approach ” that we use in writing historical articles . These were taken from the May / June 1995 issue of Index on Censorship , a journal published in London . The whole issue was devoted to the topic “ Rewriting history ” and includes articles of similar efforts around the world ( USA , Russia , Japan , Israel , Korea , etc .).

The first quoted material is the editorial for the whole issue ; the second is the concluding paragraph of an article entitled “ Revisionism ”:

Reflectors

Reynaldo B . Almenario

Ours ,” said the late Fr . Horacio de la Costa , Filipino Jesuit scholar , historian and writer , “ is a society where justice is not conspicuous , where too few have too many and too many have too less .”

Said many decades ago , this courageous declaration remains no less valid today than the day it was written . Now as then , the Philippine situation stays as a great divide between the few rich and the destitute majority . Official government statistics , of course , belie this assertion . National poverty , said the National Statistics Authority ( NSA ), declined steadily over time : 22.9 percent of all families in 2009 ; 22.3 percent in 2012 ; and 19.1 percent in 2013 . Similarly , it said the trend in subsistence incidence ( or food-poor families )

All change on the history train

“’ Historians are dangerous , and capable of turning everything topsy-turvy . They have to be watched ,’ said Kruschev in 1956 – one of the more candid admissions that people in power try to determine the history of their nations .

“ It is a good moment to be looking at censorship in the writing of history . 1995 is a year of important anniversaries – of the end of the war in Europe , the liberation of concentration camps , the first use of the atom bomb , the signing of the UN charter , the fall of Saigon – and of the first shot fired in the American War of Independence .

“ Some of the reordering of history has been particularly unsettling . In Germany a main thrust of the anniversaries this May has been to establish the sufferings of the German people rather than the horrors of Nazism . In Russia , key material from the Central Party archive

Eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 ( First of a series )

is declining . From 10 percent in 2009 and 2012 , it was down to 10.7 percent in 2013 .

On the other hand , results of self-rated poverty surveys of the Social Weather Station ( SWS ) reveal a story in qualitative and quantitative contrast . Incorporating more basic food items than the NSA ’ s “ food basket ,” the SWS said there were 49 percent of all families who considered themselves poor in 2009 , a level that rose to 52 percent in 2012 , then slid back to 49 percent in June 2013 . Likewise , 19.2 percent of all families in March 2013 said they experienced hunger , a level that rose to 22.7 percent in June of the same year .

There thus appears a huge chasm between the official poverty and hunger statistics and those gathered by the privately run

OPINION Vanguard

has not yet been made available , despite promises .

“ In Korea , the story of the Korean ‘ comfort women ’ is only now being fully told – a story of 200,000 young girls kidnapped and coerced into brutal prostitution for the Japanese military , and brushed under the carpet for nearly 50 years by the Japanese , Korean and US governments . Now the women themselves have broken their silence …

“ The comfort women exemplify what is so disturbing about revisionist history - ( it often exposes the ) triumph of official orthodoxy , the voice of power , ( in ) obliterating the diverse voices of the people , for political ends .

“ Even where the rewriting of history is a cause for rejoicing – the defeat of authoritarianism or racism , as in Russia or South Africa – there is still the danger of a new orthodoxy .

“ One safeguard against the distortion of history is

( Go to p . 8 )

Voices

ByJun Portillo

Way too far

Armed men barged into our home and brought me to a camp . They detained and interrogated me . I was taken … just like that .” My teacher in UP proceeded to tell the experience in one of our conversations at Dunkin ’ Donuts in Tacloban . I shook my head with deep sadness fighting the urge to cry in public .

Another friend also endured the long and grueling interrogation . He had gone through harrowing mental and physical torture . He was also taken without warrant of arrest from where he lived , brought and detained somewhere , tortured , and imprisoned in a camp together with many other political detainees .

Just hours after suspension of the writ of habeas corpus by then president and soon-to-be dictator Ferdinand Marcos , thousands of Filipinos across the country were forcibly taken to a camp or to a safe house out of nowhere to be interrogated or tortured or killed or all of that .

In Hinunangan , Southern Leyte , a farmer was taken from his house , thrown into a jeep and dragged to a safe house . “ Even before they started questioning me , they beat me up because , they said , they wanted to introduce themselves to me …” stated the farmer in a court testimony . The worst was yet to come .

Ron de Vera ’ s mother was also taken and detained when he was a child . Ron now works for Amnesty International . His parents went underground to evade martial law but his mother , Adora Faye , was arrested . She was stripped , beaten and raped . She got pregnant and was forced to undergo abortion .

Even people who refrain from involvement were not spared . Such is the story of Josephine Dongail , employee

7

of Development Academy of the Philippines . She was detained because of her workrelated association with Horacio Morales who was then vice president of DAP before going underground .

By the time martial law was over , 70,000 Filipinos were arrested , 35,000 of them were tortured and 3,257 were killed . The count is from American historian Alfred McCoy . Behind the numbers are ordinary folks who went through extraordinary ordeal in the hands of people who did it with impunity .

There was no legal process whatsoever . Well , there was a process . Good people , cream of the crop of their generation , principled citizens were taken from their homes , detained and then subjected to abomination . These was all made possible because of a legal ploy - suspension of Habeas Corpus .

When the possibility of the suspension of habeas corpus was brought up in the national conversation and with the burial of Marcos at the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani today as I write this , I was immediately reminded of those stories heard first hand and the stories read or heard from others .

Habeas Corpus is a writ ( court order ) that commands an individual or a government official who has restrained another to produce the prisoner at a designated time and place so that the court can determine the legality of custody and decide whether to order the prisoner ’ s release .

Our president ’ s determination to eliminate the drug problem is admirable . Legal arrests of suspects are commendable . But killing drug suspects while in prison , whoever killed them , is going too far . Suspending Habeas Corpus , even just thinking about it , is going way too far in the wrong direction . #

SWS . It is difficult to judge which estimates are more realistic , given the differing methodologies employed by both statistical agencies . The implication of such disparity can be significant , even confusing , when it comes to making realistic targets on poverty reduction measures . This suggests that a common definition of poverty , let alone extreme poverty , need be crafted and a more rational survey methodology collectively designed .

This essay will go by Wikipedia ’ s definition of extreme poverty as “ severe deprivation of basic human needs , including food , safe drinking water , sanitation facilities , health , shelter , education and information .” More than this , the global definition should incorporate “ severe deprivation of peace and political freedom ” to which every human being is entitled . Deprivation of peace can be quantified by the number of people enveloped by internal conflicts or foreign invasions , and deprivation of freedom by a similar number of people under dictatorial or martial rule .

Meanwhile , the 2013 official Philippine poverty incidence estimate was 19.1 percent of all families , or around 3.73 million families involving some 18.7 million people . Eradicating this much poverty by end of 2030 would mean lifting at least 237,695 families a year ( 1.19 million people ) above the poverty line , beginning in 2015 . How do we propose to achieve this milestone ?

It is interesting to note that Fr . de la Costa described the Philippine situation as an issue of inconspicuous justice . Indeed , citing the IMF et al as data sources , Prof . Tadem wrote that , in 2011 , the poorest 10 percent shared but 2.2 percent of total income or consumption , while the richest 10 percent partook of 33.4 percent ( Philippine Daily Inquirer , May 4 , 2014 ). In the same year , the richest 40 Filipino families , said the former national economic planning secretary , Dr . Cielito Habito , received 76 percent of the growth in gross domestic product . Clearly then , the Philippine problem , or the global poverty problem for that matter ,

( Go to p . 8 )