June 12 celebrations proceed as scheduled; economists, historians, and one senator disagree on the main question
Satire from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
Nation Celebrates 128th Year of Independence, Pauses to Define Terms
MANILA — The Philippines marked its 128th Independence Day on June 12 with a flag ceremony, a presidential address, a military parade, and a renewed national conversation about the nature of independence in a country that exports millions of its citizens as labour, imports virtually all of its fuel, hosts foreign military installations under visiting forces agreements, and has an economy so dollarised that local cafes post prices in both currencies and consider this entirely normal.
President Marcos addressed the nation from Kawit, Cavite, where General Emilio Aguinaldo declared independence from Spain in 1898 shortly before the United States also arrived with its own interpretation of what the Philippines should be. The president said the Filipino people have always chosen sovereignty, self-determination, and the national interest, remarks that were warmly received by a crowd assembled in front of a stage sponsored by three multinational corporations whose names appeared on the banner above his head.
Historians Offer Contextual Enrichment
University of the Philippines historians conducted their annual academic exercise of explaining to broadcast media that the June 12, 1898 declaration was not immediately followed by independence, which was instead followed by the Philippine-American War, the colonial period, Japanese occupation, liberation, nominal independence in 1946 on America’s Independence Day for reasons of symbolism that historians describe as ‘pointed,’ and several subsequent decades of Cold War-era arrangements that complicate simple narratives. The media, working to a ninety-second package format, ran the flag footage and called it historic, which it is, just not only in the way they had time to describe.
Senator Jogues, taking a break from simultaneously running for president and sitting as an impeachment judge, filed a resolution declaring June 12 a ‘profound affirmation of sovereign will,’ which all twenty-four senators co-signed in under three minutes, marking the fastest legislative action of the session on any matter not involving their own salaries.
The Overseas Filipino Worker Dimension
Independence Day is observed by approximately 1.8 million overseas Filipino workers who are abroad because the Philippine economy has not generated sufficient domestic employment at sufficient wages to keep them home, a structural condition the government describes as ‘the global competitiveness of the Filipino workforce’ when it is convenient and as ‘a challenge requiring urgent address’ when it is also convenient. The two framings are deployed in alternating quarters and have coexisted in Philippine economic policy communications for forty years without apparent cognitive dissonance.
Remittances from overseas workers totalled roughly $37 billion last year, making them one of the largest components of the national economy, a figure the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas tracks carefully and the World Bank cites in its Philippines country overview as a stabilising factor. Economic nationalists note that an economy stabilised by its absent workforce has achieved a form of development model unique in economic history, and that Independence Day is a complicated occasion for people who are independently employed in someone else’s country because their own could not find a way to keep them.
The Celebration Proceeds With Full Sincerity
None of this prevented the celebrations from being genuine. The flag ceremony at Kawit drew thousands. Children in barong and baro’t saya stood in the heat holding small flags. School choirs sang Lupang Hinirang. Veterans of conflicts this country did not choose and has not fully processed received acknowledgment that moved people visibly. The independence being celebrated is real, impure, complicated, and cherished, which describes most things worth celebrating and all things worth examining.
One elderly woman in Kawit, asked by a television reporter what independence means to her, said she has lived under several governments, some foreign and some domestic, and that the difference is real and worth the celebration, but that she hopes her grandchildren live in a country where celebrating independence is not also the occasion for noticing how many forms of dependence remain. The television reporter thanked her and used a different soundbite. She did not appear surprised. She has also lived under several television stations, and some things, she has learned, are as independent as they can manage, which is not entirely, which is enough, which is all there ever is, and the flag flies regardless.
A Note on What Was Missed
Several significant Philippine news events occurred during Independence Day week that received less attention than the ceremonies, which is how national holidays work and possibly should work. The Commission on Audit released a supplemental report on DPWH flood control. The ERC concluded a Meralco rate case with a finding described as partial. The Senate passed a resolution on something that will be in the record. PAGASA named two more storms. Mang Rudy drove Ligaya 4.1 kilometres. The luggage from Cavite has not been located. Ate Gloria cleared a drain in Marikina by hand at six in the morning before anyone was watching, which is also how independence works, most of the time, in most places, for most people who are doing it without a ceremony: early, practical, unrecorded, necessary, and pointed in a direction they chose themselves, which is the whole point, and always has been, and the flag knows it even when the ceremony is over and the crowd has gone home and the bunting is being folded by someone who has to be somewhere early tomorrow.
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SOURCE: Satirical Journalism