si luna, si goyo, at si … quezon?

kung sabagay, antihero naman silang tatlo in real life.  as in, lacking truly heroic attributes.  for all their dramatics in reel life, neither luna nor goyo nor quezon is in the league of jose rizal and andres bonifacio.

one thing, however, that rizal and bonifacio, luna and goyo have in common is that they were killed, they died, for country in the prime of their revolutionary lives.  rizal in 1896, bonifacio in 1897,  luna and goyo in 1899.  freedom was non-negotiable.

quezon, who was 3 years younger than goyo and lived to a relatively ripe old age of 66, did not take part in the 1896 revolution (his family in baler is said to have remained loyal to mother spain), hardly engaged in military battle in the fil-am war, and post-fil-am war was principal collaborator in the, sadly, successful campaign to suppress the nationalist clamor for immediate independence from america. [Michael Cullinane. Ilustrado Politics: Filipino Elite Responses to American Rule 1898 to 1908. Ateneo de Manila Press, 2003; Alfred W. McCoy. Policing America’s Empire: The United States, The Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State. University of Wisconsin Press, 2009]

kumbaga, quezon was america’s boy all through the american occupation and the commonwealth — he came to dominate and shape local and national politics to his liking, creating the template for political ops, with the approval, of course, if not with some maneuvering on the part, of imperial america.  this is not to say that quezon does not deserve a film, he absolutely does, he was quite a colorful figure, on so many levels. but he belongs to another time in our history.  he belongs in a different trilogy.  or puwede ring stand-alone.

but wait.  the quezon film daw will cover the 1935 elections where quezon trounced aguinaldo in the run for president of the commonwealth.  so, iyun na mismo ang thread of the trilogy?  a three-punch swing at aguinaldo for ordering the execution of bonifacio, i suppose, and for selling out to spain with the pact of biak na bato, i guess, and for naively trusting that the americans would withdraw once the battle against spain was won?

in fairness, after luna and goyo, aguinaldo deserves his day in court.  let’s hear his side of the story.  why did he have to have bonifacio killed?  why was it so difficult giving bonfiacio credit where credit was due him.  what made it so impossible for him and bonifacio to get their act together, that is, to work conspire fight together against a common enemy?  what was he thinking when he agreed to stop fighting spain?  how surprised was he by the treaty of paris whereby america bought the philippines from spain for $20M?

we don’t need more historical fiction.  we need facts and intelligent conjecture.  we need to learn from our history — not just from juicy details but from the big picture that reveals the patterns we need to break away from so we can blaze new trails.