We are always celebrating “Independence” Day — or rather the date we would like to think the Philippines won its independence. I do wonder though why we continue to propagate the notion that we emerged from the year 1898 the winners. Last I heard, winners get to rule. Last I heard, we did not get to rule ourselves since that year until the 4th of July 1946. So which of the two dates then is our real Independence Day? Is it the 12th of June 1898? Or is it the 4th of July 1946?
The answer to those questions does not really matter. With the benefit of hindsight, we can easily see that the decades that followed 1946 were really no different to the decades that followed 1898. There has never been anything about the Philippines that could even remotely be considered “Independent”. For what exactly are Filipinos “independent” from?
