There are medical terms for the word: Alzheimer, senility, amnesia. The medical equivalent for the word simply means a disease involving forgetfulness, the inability to recall even recent past events. People who suffer the disease live in the here and now.
We seemed to be a nation short of memory. Most of us have been part of the EDSA revolution in 1986. Our roles may have differed. For sure, that event could not be easily obliterated considering that it was the people’s victory of unshackling from the Marcos dictatorship. It was the first peaceful revolution that toppled a dictator, a historic event which was later on replicated in Germany, in Rome, and in other former communist’s regimes in Eastern Europe.
It was supposed to be the finest hour in our history. Yet, we forget.
Just after three presidents – Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Erap Estrada – we again sulk in the corners and allow Gloria Arroyo to exercise emergency powers to smother her political foes, let General Palparan conduct extra-judicial killings, tolerate the PGMA cronies, notably the First Gentleman, to pillage our economy, and ratify the Anti-terrorism law which violates the fundamental freedom of liberty provided for in our charter.
The 1987 Constitution tried to exorcise and clip the draconian powers of the executive. However, exorcism cannot be done in the books. The charter is only the tool. The people ultimately should wield the powers.
Yet we do not wield. We simply forget.
Before the senate, scams after scams have been investigated. The fertilizer scam, hello Garci tapes, the ZTE $300 million overpriced-contract, ad infinitum. But where is Jocjoc Volante, Commissioners Garcillano and Abalos, and Jose Pidal now? Instead of prison, they are just there in the golf courses, plotting for more scams.
Where is our initial howl of protest? We simply forget.
More than a year ago, a law student from Xavier University, Tamtam Edpan was mercilessly killed. Until now, the assailants are unknown. Last year, and last month, our city was flooded, and during the calamity, the airwaves were shut with calls for saving the forest, and stop logging and mining in the watershed areas. Last December, a civilian, Roberto Martinez was murdered, and Police Chief Genabe, even when the corpus delicti was found, refused to investigate because no one complained. We puked at the shallowest of excuse the police chief offered.
But easily, we forget.
Even as the proposed bio-ethanol plant in our watershed areas in barangays Mambuaya and Bayanga, was heavily criticized just last week, the issue is dying a natural death, and one day, we will wake up, with the ever present danger of cyanide contamination in our faucets.
Perhaps, our collective memory is bound to be short-lived. The Spaniards and Americans erased our common history, and cannibalized whatever national identity we had. We are a smorgasbord of many cultures that ultimately, we are left with none. We are little brown Americans but not quite. Others ape the Spanish Dons but ended up being indolent.
The native culture which predated the coming of Spain and later by the Americans was supplanted by things foreign. Even our history is written in the prism of two Americans – Blair and Robertson.
As a nation, we tend to forget easily the scams and scandals, and even the lessons we learned at Edsa. Forgetting all things good and bad would lead us to nowhere. If we have to move forward, we should learn from the lessons of the past. Otherwise, we will be perpetually in the starting line.
The soul of a nation lies in the common history that we associate with and embrace together as our own, individually and collectively. Our collective history is what makes us one nation.
As a person, what make us distinct would be our memory, a stream of consciousness from the past, present, and the projection of the future. As a nation, have to remember our common suffering and our shared triumphs. If we easily forget recent events, we cannot expect a recollection of the past. Without this recollection, we are a group of people but not a nation.
