Indio:Bravo//

Apology for posting: AQUINO COJUANGCO: FACTS THEY DONT WANT YOU TO KNOW

I apologize for the sudden deletion of this post. While this video has been circulating and has caused many Filipinos to think this over, I’m deleting this since I am a historian and I am committed to truth. Half-truth is still not truth. After a day of researching and talking with some fellow historians, yes, there are several errors in this video, some of which a colleague of mine pointed out in his critique on facebook here.

While I still do believe that we have a feudalism/padrino system that has to be crushed by empowering Filipinos through education, it is clear that the video indeed is promoting a sort of propaganda which I increasingly saw when I showed the video to some of my friends. I irked at the end of the video (backmasking and the A-C infinity sign) but disregarded it since some ‘facts’ as the assassinations were true. Good graphics and visual effects can gloss over the nuances, exaggerate some bad decisions and compromise this principle: History is not that simple as we think it is. There are several factors leading to an historical event. Which is why the study of history is always changing. There are new evidences that would turn up, new facts that make the former facts obsolete. Putting a blame on a person may be a sound argument if and only if we have direct corroborated evidence that this is so. Actually when I first saw the video I was looking for a long list of citations which I couldn’t find.

So I apologize dear followers, for needlessly posting this on my blog. The problem of feudalism is here in our midst, seen in the dynastic political families that we have… let us not close our eyes. Let us also use the right weapons, not through demeaning personalities or by becoming a mob to pull down powers, but by exalting truth so all eyes (even those that refuse to see) would see. That is how Rizal would do it.

If you have watched the video, take it as a grain of salt. If you were shocked at many of the ‘facts’ in the video, research, get to the bottom of it, see for yourself if these ‘facts’ are really ‘facts’. All have biases, even us historians. Let us not imbue a herd mentality—an after-effect of the feudalism we are trying to go against.

Truth, truth at all costs.