THICK books often go unread. Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” or Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time” remain on my bucket list. The Oxford English Dictionary and the 55-volume Philippine Islands by Blair and Robertson will never be read cover to cover but have at least been dipped into for work and reference. What is it with hefty books that make us groan? “Subversive Lives: A Family Memoir of the Marcos Years” (Anvil, 2012) by Susan and Nathan Quimpo arrived in my office a few weeks ago, and all 468 pages of it turned out to be an engaging read.
Susan and Nathan Quimpo neatly arranged the essays into thematic and chronological chapters that can be read in any order. All are narratives from different points of view that remind us of the proverbial blind men describing an elephant from the various parts each one had at hand: tusk, trunk, ear, body, leg, tail and penis. One can describe this book as different strands of silk, irrelevant and monochromatic by themselves but woven together turn into a vibrant tapestry brought together by one family’s experience of a period in Philippine history referred to as: the martial law years, the Marcos years, the Marcos [conjugal] dictatorship, or the Marcos regime, depending on who is telling the story.
Historian Vicente Rafael introduces the book with these lines: “There are no monuments to communism in the Philippines. Instead, there are numerous statues of nationalist figures. Whereas it is common, perhaps even essential, to commemorate national heroes, the nation seems unable and unwilling to acknowledge those whose nationalism was colored by communism.” Textbook history is often told in black and white, with heroes in tandem like Rizal and Bonifacio or Ninoy and Cory. Villains can be identifiable, like Aguinaldo and Marcos, or armed groups: the Spanish, the Americans, the Japanese, the Huks, the Abu Sayyaf. Like fairy tales, Philippine history begins with “once upon a time.” It narrates a land and people seemingly foreign to us. Unlike fairy tales, however, our history continues to evolve. It has no happy ending, leaving us with the dim hope of living “happily ever after.”
In a past life, I added the name of Pedro Abad Santos to a list of historical markers for fabrication because I felt that Jose Abad Santos hogged all the attention. Jose Abad Santos’ name is on streets and school buildings; his face looks at us from the P1,000 Philippine bank note. The ascetic-looking Pedro Abad Santos, who resembles Leon Trotsky, remained hidden in a closet like a dark family secret.
A commissioned biography of Jose Abad Santos by Nick Joaquin remains unpublished, not for lack of funds or interest, but because somewhere in the end Joaquin suggests that the Japanese executed Jose because they had mistaken him for Pedro. This prompted me to follow up on the historical marker to be fabricated in metal and installed in the remains of the house where Pedro Abad Santos was born in San Fernando, Pampanga. But some functionary in the National Historical Institute had dropped Pedro Abad Santos from the long list, assuming I would be too busy to remember. I was initially given technical excuses like: the annual quota of markers had been exceeded, or the house where Pedro was born was recently demolished, etc. When confronted, the said official gave the real reason for the omission: “Pedro Abad Santos is a communist.” I glared and shot back: “So what? Does that make him any less historical than his brother?”
In retrospect, and in reply to Vince Rafael, one reason we have no communists in the roster of heroes is that the present Pantheon of Heroes is determined by the state: through textbooks approved by the Department of Education, through monuments erected on public land using public funds, through commemorations initiated by a national government agency responsible for history. Communists are considered enemies of the state and will never be commemorated by a system of government they seek to overthrow. Had their armed struggle succeeded, history would have been written differently and we would have a different set of faces on monuments, coins, bank notes and textbooks, and different names on streets, parks, school houses and public buildings. That is another what-if question for history class, but the Quimpo book that details the siblings’ involvement in the anti-Marcos struggle through the Communist Party warns us that had they succeeded, the Philippines would have had to endure a government worse than that under Marcos.
Here’s a second reason why there are no communists in the Pantheon of Heroes: Historians work with documents. Nationalist historian Teodoro A. Agoncillo once declared, “no document, no history!” Documents believed “subversive,” whether in the Marcos years or during the Philippine Revolution of 1896, were hidden and forgotten or, worse, destroyed. Copies of Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere” were read in the toilet, buried in the garden, or destroyed by owners fearing a raid. During the Marcos years, the Quimpos hid “subversive” documents under floor boards, up in the ceiling, and in the toilet tank. With fears of a raid, the papers were burned.
Nathan Quimpo shrugs when he recalls those years, and to the wagging finger of historians he exclaims: “Sayang (What a pity)!”
Why are certain figures and events left out of history? The explanation for these silences and omissions underscores that it is not enough to know history; one must also discern how and why history is written.
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