How do Filipinos remember their history? A descriptive account of Filipino historical memory

• Main Authors: DULAY, Dean C., HICKEN, Allen, MENON, Anil, HOLMES, Ronald
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
• Subjects: colonization; Ferdinand Marcos Sr.; historical memory; martial law; People Power; Philippines; Asian Studies; Political History; Political Science
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3745; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/5003/viewcontent/FilipinoHistory_av.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

How do Filipinos remember their history? To date this question still has no systematic answer. This article provides quantitative, descriptive results from two nationally representative surveys that show how Filipinos view three of the country's major historical events: the Spanish colonization of the Philippines; martial law under President Ferdinand Marcos; and the 1986 People Power Revolution. The descriptive results include several takeaways, including: first, the modal response towards all three events was indifference (versus positive or negative feelings); second, positive feelings towards martial law were highest among those who were alive at that time; third, the distribution of feelings towards these historical events was similar across individuals with different educational achievement; and finally, a surprising proportion of respondents expressed positive feelings towards both martial law and People Power. We discuss the potential limitations of our study and conclude by considering the implications of these results for the Philippines' contemporary politics.