JULIA HERNANDEZ · OPINION · 2 min read · April 01, 2024

In September 6, 2023, specialists from the Department of Education (DepEd) Bureau of Curriculum Development (BCD) issued a memorandum to Gina Gonong, DepEd Undersecretary for Curriculum and Teaching, to remove the name “Marcos” from its Grade 6 Araling Panlipunan curriculum. Starting the A.Y. 2026-2027, what was “Diktadurang Marcos” would become “Diktadura”, once approved under the Matatag curriculum.

The memo circulated in the media, and officials were quick to respond. One of whom was Jocelyn Andaya, then-BCD director. She stated that the memo only provided recommendations and would need to “undergo a vetting process during the pilot implementation of the revised curriculum.” In this proposal, the students will discuss the Marcos dictatorship in the third quarter under the lesson “Mga Hamon at Tunguhin Bilang Isang Malayang Bansa (1946-1986)” which, according to Andaya, aims to focus on historical themes rather than specific names or presidential terms. The directive stated that the decision “was made even after the arduous process of review... under the guidance and scrutiny of experts.”

“No one ordered this. It was a collective decision,” said Andaya last September 12 in a radio interview. DepEd clarified that the proposal was not politically charged and that teachers are free to mention Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. (FEM).

However, is their defense reasonable enough to approve the proposal? The short answer is no. The memo is a calculated move to clean not just Marcos Sr.’s name but the name of the entire Marcos family. How could it not be politically charged when the concealment of crimes and atrocities under FEM’s administration would enhance the current president’s future reputation? The “collective decision” that they made was done so without any empirical data to support their proposal but as a means to glorify the dictatorship and, at the very least, remove accountability from the president’s father, who ordered 3,257 extrajudicial killings and closed private media outlets. A man known for the billions of ill-gotten wealth, and who took absolute power over the government when he declared Martial Law in 1972. As the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law (CARMMA) stated, “Semantically divorcing the Marcoses from the term ‘dictatorship’ — in a curriculum, no less — is obviously a calculated and sinister plot to absolve the Marcoses of their brutalities during their despotic rule, especially among our youth.” Separating his name from his actions, learning “diktadura” and not “diktadurang Marcos” is an insult to his victims and an injustice to the country’s youth.

The memo’s implementation, even a pilot testing, if it were to be approved, is a crime. The mere action of signing, more than that, writing the letter is a direct hit to disregard Republic Act No. 10368, which provides recognition and documentation of human rights violations during the Marcos Regime. The law stipulates that both the DepEd and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) “ensure that the teaching of Martial Law atrocities, the lives and sacrifices of Human Rights Violations Victims (HRVV) in our history are included in the basic, secondary, and tertiary education curricula.” The memorandum is a blatant attempt to rewrite history and change the way Filipinos view the Marcos name by creating an entire generation that was not taught the name of the man behind the 34,000 tortured Filipinos. The rehabilitation of the Marcos name is the demolition of the laws created to protect all the HRVV.

Forgetting the man behind the dictatorship is forgetting history itself.