In it’s 6th year anniversary, IndioHistorian has been committed to sharing a pulsating and lively history of the Philippines for our generation. When this blog began, it began as a search for my own path in my career. I was a humble HEKASI teacher then, and had nothing to show for other than that of my love for Philippine history and for teaching. But sometimes, it only takes a heart full to the brim for doors to open. I resigned from my teaching job, entered into government service, and had been a public servant ever since. My journey, if you look at the IndioHistorian blog archive, reflected my posts. And eventually, I found my niche and it blossomed into my incessant blogging about Philippine history, culture, and the people these emanate from.
Six years is a long time. But times are changing. And one can no longer afford to be neutral.
Nothing perhaps could have prepared me, as a historian and as a blogger, when history was not only assaulted in last year’s elections, but continued to be lambasted and trumped upon especially last November. A dictator responsible for the plunder of the country’s coffers and the killings of thousands, despite being fully documented by historians and by sheer overwhelming empirical evidence, was buried sneakily into the nation’s cemetery for heroes. It was perhaps the lowest point I’ve had on this blog--the first time I cried while writing a blog post, not for history per se, but for the thousands of people still seeking justice but who were symbolically shunned out, silenced and demonized. This is already beyond politics. Truth and justice are never partisan.
*Ms. Hilda Narciso and me at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Museum. She was a survivor of the Marcos regime. Read more about her here.
*Read “The Aftermath: What to Do after SC Allowed Marcos to be Called Hero”
For what is History for but for its people? Para saan ang Kasaysayan kung hindi para sa mamamayan nito? It is getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that today, Philippine history is under siege. And it should no longer be historians and academicians who should stand for truth. It requires all of us--our creative energies, our cultural bearings, our capacity to empathize and to be human once more. That’s why I love the Filipino community here on tumblr. The creativity, the artworks, the writing pieces, your likes and reblogs, empower me to continue to speak out.
This blog has been privileged to be invited last year to become part of Philippine Daily Inquirer’s ThINQ blogger network. Hence, my blog no longer only caters to the Filipino tumblr community and its regular non-tumblr traffic, but also to a wider readership.
And so, perhaps in its sixth year, IndioHistorian has a bigger fight to engage in.
It is to feel more, to empathize more, to know more, and maybe in so doing, we’d find again the nobility we’ve always had as a nation of peoples. Will you join me, dear reader?
Perhaps in Nick Joaquin’s centennial year, his words should resound for us all, to keep on remembering the entirety of our history, even if it’s the last patriotic act we have to do.
By your dust, and by the dust of all generations, I promise to continue, I promise to preserve! The jungle may advance, the bombs may fall again--but while I live, you live--and this dear city of our affections shall rise again--if only in my song! To remember and to sing: that is my vocation.
Indeed, history lives.
