WHAT’s wrong with
these guys? Claiming to be the “guardians of historical truth,” they pounced on
a remark of actor Ella Cruz in an interview to promote a not-Yellow
film “Maid in Malacañang,” about the Marcoses’ last days in power.
Cruz said: “History is
like tsismis. It is filtered and dagdag na rin… Andoon na iyong idea, pero may
mga bias pa rin talaga.” Historian Ambeth Ocampo, the famous collector of
historical trivia, was livid and pontificated, in a Facebook post:
“Don’t confuse history and chismis. History may have bias but it is based on
fact, not opinion. Real History is about Truth, not lies, not fiction.”
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In the first place, it
is inexcusable for an academic to use a straw man argument. Cruz did not say
history is tsismis (gossip).
What Cruz said was:
“History is like tsismis.” Apparently Ocampo is incapable of understanding the
English word “like,” and much less the concept of “analogy.” I can only imagine
what Ocampo would think of the late great comedian George Burns’ quip:
“Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope.”
Cruz was not saying
that history is tsismis which obviously it isn’t. She said that it has
characteristics like gossip, in that certain kinds of gossip prove true, while
others prove false. There is gossip that is filtered and enhanced (“dagdag”),
just as “history” — an interpretation of the past — changes. What’s wrong with
that?
Thucydides
What Cruz is saying is
what actually has been the basic principles of good historians like Edward
Carr (who wrote What is History) and more recently by professor James
Banner who wrote a very enlightening piece in the magazine of
the National Endowment for the Humanities: “Ever since Thucydides
dismissed Herodotus, historians have differed about the past. “
One of the important
insights in this piece, which Ocampo and Marcos-hating academics seem
astonishingly clueless about, is the following:
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“A fundamental feature
of historical thought is the distinction between ‘the past’ and ‘history.’ What
we call ‘the past’ is just that: It’s what happened at some point before now.
Once it occurs, ‘the past’ is gone forever — beyond repeating, beyond reliving,
beyond replicating.
It’s recoverable only
by the evidence, almost never complete, that it leaves behind; and that
evidence must be interpreted by individual humans — historians principally, but
archaeologists, anthropologists and others.
History
Distinct from “the
past” are the narratives and analyses that historians offer about earlier
times. That’s what we call “history.” History is what people make of the
forever-gone past out of surviving documents and artifacts, human recall, and
such items as photographs, films and sound recordings.
Indeed, history is
created by the application of human thought and imagination to what’s left
behind. And because each historian is an individual human being — differing by
sex and gender; origin, nationality, ethnicity and community; nurture,
education and culture; wealth and occupation; politics and ideology; mind,
disposition, sensibility and interest, each living at a distinct time in a
distinct place — as a community of professionals, they come to hold different
views, have different purposes, create different interpretations, and put forth
their own distinctive understandings of ‘the past’.”
What is disappointing
in the views of Ocampo and academics who blindly rushed to defend him is that
they denigrate gossip, calling it the antithesis of “Real History,” in caps as
they like to type the term.
Gossip though is among
the raw materials of historical writing, at the same time that in many episodes
in the past, it affects history in a profound way.
Aquino
For instance, the
Yellow history is that after spending three years in Boston, disguised as a de
facto academic (he wrote nothing the entire time he was there, nor even read a
single book, according to an academic who shared the office with him ), Benigno
Aquino, Jr. one morning suddenly decided to return to his country, to lead the
opposition in fighting a decaying dictatorship.
The truth though is
that Cardinal Sin spread the gossip that Marcos was seriously sick of
lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune disease, in 1983. Told about it, Aquino was
convinced to return to the Philippines, as he thought his time had finally come
to capture power. (See my column accessible at
https://rigobertotiglao.com/2020/08/24/ninoy-the-filipino-is-worth-dying-for-or-is-it-the-presidency)
That rumor was partly
true and partly wrong. Yes, Marcos was sick, but not of lupus. His kidneys were
malfunctioning that required his son, the present president, to donate his.
That extended his life for five more years.
The role of gossip in
history is in fact the subject of a book written by several historians, titled
When Private Talk Goes Public: Gossip in American History, on how gossip
changed US history during certain episodes. A review of the book written by its
editors pointed out:
“Gossip is political.
It occurs across all the levels of politics, from the personal and domestic
through the local and communal to the national and international. By making
private information public, gossipers aim to direct public opinion, shape
alliances, and determine reputations.
Reputations
“If the content is
flattering, gossip can enhance reputations, but if it is not, gossip can
destroy them. Gossip can be wielded by the less powerful to assail the powerful
in society, or used by social and political elites to expand or defend their
power. However used [or abused], gossip has consequences, and has had impact on
people, events, and developments in the past.”
What is surprising is
that it is our historians still infected by the Yellow virus like Ocampo, who
have vehemently pounced on that actor’s off-the-cuff remarks on gossip and
history.
I say so since the
Yellows have been the masters of rumors-turned-fake-history. Many misdeeds
attributed to the Marcos regime they hate are in reality pure gossip,
deliberately spread by imaginative Yellow propagandists.
Three of these I will
discuss on Wednesday, which I will prove to be pure gossip are: 1) The claim
that Manuel “Boyet” Mijares — son of Primitive, Marcos’ top propagandist who
defected to write a vitriolic book against the Marcos couple — was deliberately
thrown off a helicopter by the strongman’s goons; 2) that there was a
conspiratorial Rolex 12 that planned and executed martial law; and 3) the fake
Jabidah and Malisbong massacres of Muslims.
Quoted
fully from Mr. Rigoberto Tiglao’s column
The
Manila Times
July
18, 2022
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