The piano at the lobby of our college building has been a source of pleasant surprises for me. It is normal to hear someone struggle to play a rendition of a popular song or just hit the keys randomly. But on a good day, some unknown prodigy would go there and play Chopin, Beethoven, or Debussy. It is heartening to know that these architecture and fine arts students are also gifted in music, the kind that does not require big screens or loudspeakers.
But there were bad days as well. Recently, for example, as I was preparing my things at the parking area, I heard someone play pop songs and a few musical hits with friends singing along loudly. It was okay until they started to sing the Philippine national anthem. The pianist played it quite well, but the singing was so bad. The girls were singing it loudly and deliberately out of tune, laughing at the same time. It was a mockery of the anthem.
They managed to complete the song, which reverberated throughout the entire building. It must have been disorienting to those who just arrived. It sounded as if a flag ceremony was being held somewhere in the building. But it became immediately obvious that the singers were just making fun of it.
These must have been the same students who earlier watched Jerrold Tarog’s film Heneral Luna. That film recently became controversial on social media after that post of a student who wondered why the actor who played Apolinario Mabini just sat on his chair the whole time. Did that student miss that lesson on Mabini being the Sublime Paralytic? Or was she ever taught about him at all? It makes you wonder what else students don’t know about our nation’s past.
The truth is, there are more important facts in history than Mabini’s physical disability. What conditions gave rise to the Katipunan Revolution in 1896? What led to the Philippine-American War?
More than knowing dates and names of places and people, students should have a sense of causality or how certain conditions gave rise to important events and ideas.
In other words, what is important is the sense of narrative or the story in history. Which is what makes films like Heneral Luna important: by providing interpretation, historical movies help restore the narrative of past events in the public mind. It is therefore not the what’s, when’s, and who’s, but the why’s in history that really matter.
Historical awareness creates an appreciation for artifacts, relics and other important remains of the past. It enables people to see the value in all things connected with history. The worst symptom of ignorance of history is when we, as a people, just tolerate or become indifferent to the destruction of our heritage.
It happened many times before in this country. We allowed historic buildings to be destroyed or heritage sites desecrated. Our collective amnesia allows past mistakes to be repeated as when we let former tyrants regain power during elections and to rewrite history in their favor.
And in this case, forgetfulness is just as bad as ignorance. We blame young people for their ignorance of past events. But for those of us who are much older, it’s not only ignorance but our tendency to forget the events and lessons of history that is equally worse.
There is an ongoing campaign in social media to promote a historical revising of Martial Law as a period of discipline, order and prosperity in the country. The dictatorship is being justified as necessary for the defense of the State against the threat of communism. For a brief period, the country had a strong State that could impose its laws. Never mind if people were deprived of the most basic rights, what mattered was that there was prosperity and discipline.
And so we bash that kid who wondered why Mabini never stood up in the film. Yet, we are also willing to bring back Martial Law or elect a strong leader who can restore order and discipline as it was during the dictatorship.
Our students are so free they could mock the national anthem. I’m sure they could sing it better at gunpoint if times were different.