THE SUDDEN popularity of vice presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. can be traced to our youth’s lack, if not warped, interpretation of events and lessons in Philippine history, Cielito F. Habito pointed out in his column, “A brainwashed generation?” (Opinion, 4/7/16). I think this phenomenon is being cultivated by: (1) the negative quality of governance and accomplishments shown by the post-Edsa leadership in all three branches of government; and (2) the Filipinos’ lack of appreciation of the role of history in our national life—which raises questions about the quality of instruction in our history courses.
The first point manifests in the stark reality of poor public services in Philippine society, questionable appropriation and spending of public funds, incompetent agency administrators, to cite a few causes.
But the focus of my reaction to Habito’s column is on the “culpability” of history education that our young (30 years old and below) get from our schools and universities. Habito correctly blamed the history books used by these generations.
Dr. Isagani Cruz said a lot about this in his column “Philippine history in K to 12” (Philippine Star, 9/3/15). Yet, I find his view on the comprehensiveness of history-outlined courses very limited as it did not include: (1) a review of the quality of history instruction; and (2) Habito’s critique of the quality of history textbooks used by our students.
Certainly, the “culpability” of our history writers must be highlighted but only if they have been writing history books on their own initiative, not as prescribed by the Department of Education. Historians and history teachers are not impervious to subjectivity when writing their books or teaching history lessons—and this is what Habito refers to as the “political bias on the part of [history books’] authors.”
However, it may be argued that this is not the case with an author writing history books following an outline prescribed by a DepEd books-review committee.
Thus, whether we are talking about individual decisions or group decisions, the blame still falls on the DepEd’s leadership under the principle of command responsibility.
Going back to Marcos, it is the deficient instruction and politically biased textbooks that could lead to his victory.
—VIRGILIO C. VENTURA, vcventura@yahoo.com