Against forgetting

By

HISTORY

is a protest against forgetting, according to British historian Eric Hobsbawn. I do not know if my mother ever read any of his works, but I suppose she did not have to, because history, Philippine history in particular, was her unwavering passion. Every year, on February 4, she would retell the slope of events that led to the birth of the First Republic, the first in Asia, the fruit of the Philippine Revolution, and how the United States of America crushed it.

A born storyteller, my mother would give a stunning account of how the Philippine – American War began: Brave young soldiers, Filipinos like us, were guarding the San Juan bridge, at the agreed dividing line between the US forces and the army of the Republic of the Philippines. We were living in San Juan. In fact, we all grew up in that town (now a city), which made her history lessons all the more significant and exciting. Once she took us to the San Juan Bridge after which we all felt we had a stake in what happened before we were even born. On this site, she would say, the very first shot, which started the Filipino-American War of 1899 was fired.

I remember her words: “We Filipinos had just won our Revolution against Spain. We had established our own First Philippine Republic. We had a Constitution, a Congress in Malolos, an army, a Cabinet, we even had a university when America, whom we thought was a friend and ally, decided to conquer us. By so doing, the Americans violated its own principles of equality and liberty for all, and became just another colonizer.

“An American sentry fired at a Filipino soldier and killed him. When the shooting began, Lt. Grey sent a telegram to the Filipino generals on furlough (it was a Sunday) in Bulacan, visiting their families; it was also the wedding day of one of them. So, all the officers rushed back to join the counter-attack and gave the orders to respond to America’s challenge. The fierce battle that erupted in San Juan spread to Mandaluyong and all the way to Caloocan. The US Congress afterwards declared that Filipinos had treacherously started hostilities. It was a long and bitter war; the USA insisted on calling it an “Insurrection” and the Filipino fighters, “Insurrectos.”

My mother said it was a war that changed our nation and besmirched the image of the United States of America in our eyes. Unfortunately, most Filipinos do not even know about the Philippine-American war, nor realize the true importance of this historical event. That bloody war of conquest was declared ended in 1901, when General Funston and his troops, disguised as prisoners of war, took President Aguinaldo by surprise in his hideout in Palanan, Isabela. In truth, our anti-imperialist war was continued guerrilla-style by Generals Macario Sakay, Miguel Malvar, Lucio San Miguel, Artemio Ricarte, etc., and supported by the people.

Why is it important for us to remember that night and the battles that followed? She herself would give us the answer: Filipinos today see only signs of malaise; we seem to be lost and foundering; there is a marked collapse of standards of social conduct. We find it hard to solve our problems because we manage our affairs with sinister incoherence. That is because those who do not know the past will never understand the present; much less know how to chart our future (she often paraphrased Rizal). The Filipino-American War lasted until 1907, when the First Philippine Assembly was inaugurated by the American colonial administration. She emphasized that we Filipinos have been taught to forget that period of our history, so February 4, 1899, is a day we must always remember with our hearts and minds.

The mansions of her remembrance had solid foundations. My mother was raised when nationalism reverberated in the hearts of most Filipinos. Her maternal and paternal grandfathers, born in the middle of the 19th century, were veritable sons of the Revolution and the First Republic. Dr. Leon Ma. Guerrero, the eminent botanist, and his son Alfredo (Mommy’s father) walked to Bagumbayan from their home in Ermita to witness Rizal’s execution. Later, Dr. Leon was a delegate to the Malolos Congress and director of the Universidad Literaria. Gabriel Beato Francisco, her maternal grandpa, wrote and produced anti-American zarzuelas and was jailed after each performance.

Mother reminded us that Filipinos wrote and spoke a world language, in addition to our own languages. Our young men won prizes in painting, music, and literature in the capitals of Europe. We were Christians, civilized Asians with our own unique culture. We were a free people who had fought for our Independence and set up our own republic. In closing, she would say: “That is where we all came from, we were not naked savages the American politicians said we were. That is why we must revisit February 4, 1899, to save ourselves today. ”