TOMORROW, July 4,is the Independence Day of the United States and, if not for Diosdado Macapagal’s timely intervention, it would have been Philippine Independence Day too instead of June 12.
There is a minority that to this day refuse to accept the Filipino declaration of independence from Spain from the window of Emilio Aguinaldo’s house on June 12, 1898 as the proper date of our independence. For these people our independence should still be July 4, 1946, when the US finally “recognized” the independence of the Philippine Islands. As a compromise, July 4 is still celebrated in the country as Philippine-American Friendship Day.
The debate on whether we should remember June 12 or July 4 seems trivial and irrelevant today, but it illustrates the way in which the past relates to the present, or how history forms people into a nation.
Significant dates, events and people we tend to forget. This is why we have an aid to memory in street names. If you look at Makati, you will notice that the posh districts, with the exception of Forbes Park (named after US Governor William Cameron Forbes who is also remembered in a Manila street often pronounced “Por-bes”), relate to the history of Spain in the Philippines: Magallanes is Ferdinand Magellan; [Miguel Lopez de] Legazpi was the first governor general of the Philippines, founder of Spanish Manila; [Andres de] Urdaneta was the Agustinian friar who served as pilot of the Legazpi expedition, and [Gomez Perez de] Dasmariñas was the seventh governor general of the Philippines who was murdered by Chinese mutineers. There is a unity in Makati’s street names and names of districts that have been disturbed by some changes, like Buendia which is now Puyat and Pasay Road which is now Arnaiz. Fortunately, people still refer to these by their old names.
If only memory can be more persistent in older places like Manila and Intramuros where the order and sense of street names have been upset by short-sighted changes. Worse, some of the personages memorialized are not even historically significant.
There was an unsuccessful move to rename España Avenue in Manila on the grounds that we should not remember four centuries of subjugation under Spain. Fortunately, there was a deed of donation for the land that stipulates that the avenue should be named España.
The two other Manila streets constantly threatened with change are Taft and Harrison. Both were US governors-general in the Philippines. Both are historically significant.
Francis Burton Harrison (1873-1957) is best remembered today by F. B. Harrison Street or Harrison Plaza. He served as governor general from 1913 to 1921 and served as a consultant to a string of Philippine presidents, starting with Manuel L. Quezon.
Harrison wrote out his memories and impressions in the book “The Cornerstone of Philippine Independence: A narrative of seven years” (1921). I picked it off the shelf, hoping to find something relevant for Philippine-American Friendship Day but was caught by a chapter on Filipino lawmakers that makes us compare the past with the present:
“All of the members of both houses, except those appointed for the non-Christian territories, are highly educated men, and for the most part are university graduates. There are as yet very few members educated by the American public school system and, consequently, the debates are always in Spanish. English will come into use as the younger men come into the front. Representative Eulogio Benitez, in the session of 1920, made the first speech ever delivered from the floor of the House. The manners of the members are above reproach, and the presiding officers are seldom obliged to order the participants in a debate. The speeches are eloquent, and often full of allusions to history and literature. In fact, the Anglo-Saxon must often bewail the fact that the oratorical talent of the Filipino is so much more pronounced than his own. Even among the school-boys, and in the remote provinces one usually hears a more eloquent public speech than the average American can achieve. It must be admitted, however, that in this nation of orators the chaff is, by the audience, usually separated from the wheat, and mere histrionic oratory accompanies little more than entertainment.”
Harrison then enumerates the defects of the Philippine Legislature then which he optimistically thought could be corrected because they were borne of inexperience.
First was the habit of voting with the leader, with a minority weak in numbers and uncertain of its rights.
Then there was the habit of not publishing bills during and after passage so that there is little or no public debate or reaction to the new laws.
Harrison said the worst habit of the legislature then was the practice of withholding most the measures till the last night of legislative session to avoid debate and opposition.
Thus, “many members in those last crowded and exciting hours, hardly know what they have passed or what they are voting upon.”
Reading Harrison today, 82 years since the book first saw print, can only emphasize the continuing relevance of the past. It is hoped that F.B. Harrison Street will remain for a long time.
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