Evil has a name

There is a law against erasing/denying/changing history.

Context: The shocking and worrisome content of the letter—of acquiescence, I call it—from the Department of Education’s (DepEd) Bureau of Curriculum Development to Undersecretary for Curriculum and Teaching Gina O. Gonong:

“This is in compliance with the Curriculum and Teaching Management Committee’s (CT ManCom) directive to the Bureau of Curriculum Development to change ‘Diktadurang Marcos’ to ‘Diktadura’ found in Quarter 3 of 2023 Matatag Grade 6 Araling Panlipunan Curriculum.

“The said directive to change the abovementioned nomenclature was made even after the arduous process of review and revision was done under the guidance and scrutiny of experts, the review stakeholders, and the public, and the launch of the Matatag curriculum.

“In view of the foregoing, this Bureau respectfully transmits the attached curriculum guide.”

This was signed by one supervising education program specialist and three senior education program specialists and noted by three DepEd bureaucrats.

This is plain and simple deodorizing and expunging the curriculum of the painful realities in this nation’s historical past. It is also a way to anesthetize and desensitize the minds of the young into believing that all was well in their elders’ past. If I may digress, the elders of my baby boomer generation harked back to the past with stories and images about “peacetime” and “the Japanese occupation/tiempo Japon,” eras that marked their own coming of age. And about bayonets that caught babies in midair. The stories gave me nightmares but also a sense of what was evil.

One of the prompt reactions on this non-naming came from Judy Taguiwalo (whose short-lived stint as social welfare secretary under former president Rodrigo Duterte was a wake-upper) who refused to give the Voldemort privilege to the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. Voldemort is the villain in “Harry Potter” books and movies, the “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.” But in effect, Taguiwalo, she was likening the late dictator to him-who-must-not-be-named. A double entendre there. Taguiwalo, a former political detainee/survivor of the Marcos dictatorship, strongly emphasized that “the Marcos dictatorship is a truth that cannot be and should not be denied. How would the people and particularly the children know who was responsible for the atrocities of martial law if Marcos is not named?”

Evil has a name, a face, a voice. It must be exposed and made known. Whenever I have to mention the Holocaust, for example, I never simply say Nazi Germany, I say Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany, my way of excoriating the mustachioed führer and excluding the innocent German people, particularly, the German Benedictines nuns who arrived in Manila 117 years ago on Sept. 14, 1906, to educate many of us in intellectual and moral uprightness, the way of ora et labora, and the sound of Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven. (I digressed on purpose.)

Naming the evil and naming the one who inflicted it can be liberating, in the same way that naming the pain is a way to surface it from the depths where it festers. Naming the evil is also a way of slaying it in all its forms with a shout-out, “Never again!” And to move on from there.

As argued by House Deputy Minority Leader and ACT Teachers party list Rep. France Castro, “The decision to remove ‘Marcos’ from the term ‘Diktadurang Marcos’ is a clear revision of history and an insult to the countless victims of human rights abuses and atrocities committed during the martial law period … a blatant attempt to whitewash the crimes … ” She considered it a violation of Republic Act No. 10368 or the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013. She cited Section 27 that ensures the teaching about martial law atrocities, the lives and sacrifices of human rights violation victims in the basic, secondary, and tertiary curricula.

So there, there is a law that is being violated. There is a law that should be enforced. There is a law against revision of history. And who could be found guilty of this if not our educators? What a shame.

There will be a mobilization (Kilos Protesta Kontra Pandaraya) in front of the Commission on Elections headquarters in Intramuros, Manila, on Sept. 21 at 9 a.m. This is to compel the election officials to come clean on the alleged rigging of the 2022 national elections and to protest its inaction. The TNTrio, with support from retired military and police officers, is spearheading the event. Remember: In God’s time, what is hidden will be laid bare.

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