Memories of the Anti-Marcos Movement

Abstract

The Bantayog ng mga Bayani [Monument of Heroes] is a memorial centre in Manila dedicated to the memory of individuals who resisted the dictatorship of the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos. This article examines history as represented in this memorial centre. Through an examination of its museum and the debates concerning whom the Bantayog should honour as heroes, it analyses a key historical tension in the representation of the Marcos period: an ambivalence regarding the anti-dictatorship struggle of the organized Left. It also examines the class-based nature of historical memory in the Philippines, arguing that class positions inform who and what is remembered.

Understanding the Unforeseen Consequences of an Incomplete Transitional Justice Ecology in the Philippines

“…The Monument of Heroes ( Bantayog ng mga Bayani ), which is dedicated to the memory of those who resisted the Marcos dictatorship, is arguably the most important initiative in this domain and the only one to have roots going back to the Marcos dictatorship. It is organised around the explicit ‘never again’-objective of reminding the Filipino people of the horrors of dictatorship (Claudio, 2010: 38). As an observer argued,You know, we never had the Truth Commission here […] maybe the idea was to have an independent initiative because it would mean that whoever came to power, that initiative would then be independent, not the object of any kind of, you know, change in politics depending on the change in administration.…”

Veiled apologetics and insurgent nostalgia: Sociogenesis of contested memories of the Marcos dictatorship

“…To explain such divisions, past studies have argued that broad 'governing scripts' favoring 'strong presidents' in a 'weak state' may explain the Filipino electorate's revived proclivity for strongmen in the context of nascent democracies (Teehankee, 2016). Other politico-cultural explanations suggest that the unity of democratic transition was a myth, arguing that its prominence was limited to middle-class citizens, while silent on longer histories of resistance by the working class (Claudio, 2010). Still other frameworks have documented coordinated political operations, especially in recent elections, to rehabilitate the Marcos dictatorship across various media and boost the electoral candidacies of the late dictator's children (Ong, Tapsell, & Curato, 2019).…”

“…Following democratic transition, mnemonic consensus over collective traumas inflicted by formerly authoritarian states is hindered by contests for power amid structural upheaval (Fukuoka, 2015;Montiel, 2010). Building on past studies focused on broad cultural influences or top-down political operations (Claudio, 2010;Teehankee, 2016), this work views contested memories through the lens of social representations of history (Jovchelovitch, 2012;Liu & Hilton, 2005). More specifically, we harness the concept of sociogenesis to investigate how institutional and informal semiotic spaces mediate the formation of contested memories (Duveen & Lloyd, 1990;Veltri, 2015).…”

Time, memory and historical justice: An introduction

“…In the course of training, members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines killed the Muslim recruits who had attempted a mutiny. Critics of Marcos temporarily drew attention to the Jabidah Massacre as a way of attacking his regime, but in the transition from Marcos to a more democratic system it was crimes against the people more broadly that were remembered alongside a triumphant narrative of how all Filipinos had joined together in a ‘people power’ movement to overthrow Marcos (Claudio, 2010).…”