Michael Tan
… More than the holiday we observe today as Independence Day, June 12 speaks of a people in search of ourselves. More, then, than that once-a-year celebration, we need to learn more about how we have struggled, for more than a hundred years, for independence, with so much untaught in schools and, just as importantly, so much to unlearn, as in the idea that we were “granted independence.”
Heres’ my take on what “Independence 101” could be in the K-to-12 system, which provides for Philippine history in both senior high school and college… Read on
MANOLO QUEZON: “Looking backwards”
A Filipino abroad, Irineo B.R. Salazar (who is the son of the formidable historian Zeus Salazar), recently identified that “the trouble and the danger is the direction which anticolonialism and antielitism has taken in the Philippines… [The President] is just a symptom of profound national inferiority complex which shows itself in intentional rudeness, proud ignorance and brutality. Defiance against the old conditioning to be meek and obedient to the masters, but also wanting to be the masters now—including the right to contempt and murder.”
Here, in a nutshell, is the new that was born while everyone kept their sights on the past.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/121916/looking-backwards
RICHARD HEYDARIAN: “National independence: Rizal vs Duterte”
https://opinion.inquirer.net/121902/national-independence-rizal-vs-duterte
FEDERICO PASCUAL: “Call for patriotism, not independence”
In this year’s Independence Day celebration, this plain citizen’s dream – call it delusion if you will – is to see a burst of fierce patriotism among our people and especially our leaders. Let national interest, not personal gain, be our guiding light.
The enemy is already gobbling up bits and pieces of our fair country with the connivance of traitors in our midst.
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2019/06/13/1925971/call-patriotism-not-independence
ALEX MAGNO: “Regurgitated”
The discourse on independence must now focus on what we need to do to be capable of self-determination. Freedom is never the outcome of a failed state. Only a nation with a strong and functioning civil order deserves independence.
Therefore, the discourse on independence should now evolve into a discourse on the quality of governance. It is time to liberate the discussion of self-determination from the mythology of malignant foreign influences. We need to reflect more seriously on building up our domestic capacity. Only that will enable self-determination.
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2019/06/13/1925970/regurgitated
JARIUS BONDOC: “Bonifacio, Aguinaldo, Malvar’s recruitment for the Revolution
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2019/06/12/1925745/bonifacio-aguinaldo-malvars-recruitment-revolution
JARIUS BONDOC: “Our forefathers died for the flag”
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2019/06/14/1926268/our-forefathers-died-flag