Two independent bookstores in Manila were recently spray-painted with graffiti accusing their owners as supporters of the communist rebel group New People's Army (NPA).
The biggest irony of it is that one of these bookstores - the Solidaridad - was owned by the late F. Sionil Jose, who, before he died earlier this year, was called out for his support of the Duterte administration.
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Meanwhile in the United States, academicians and school officials are becoming more and more concerned about a push to ban certain books that, according to critics, are “too sensitive” for children to read.
The thing is, most of these books carry deal with topics like racism, sexual identity and even historical events.
Educators are convinced that book-banning will create "significant damage" to open discourse and learning.
"We are a government, a society that purports to protect freedom of speech, the freedom to access information to make up our own minds, to engage in a broadly liberal education," an official of the American Library Association was quoted by the BBC. "And we're now finding that we have a movement to shut down that conversation, to deny those rights, particularly to young people."
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The redtagging of bookstores, to me, is a sign of a growing push by certain elements in our society to promote ignorance and turn the public against education.
The line being pushed by the “Marcotards” is that Tiktok and YouTube videos peddled by pseudo-historians who offer a blatantly favorable view to the Marcoses are more reliable than the textbooks written by those who have actually lived during the Martial Law years.
In fact, even esteemed historians like Ambeth Ocampo and Xiao Chua are now being branded as “dilawan” and “bias” (that’s “biased,” for heaven’s sake!) for presenting a more nuanced view of Philippine history.
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What’s worse is that these supporters are reinforcing a deeply-rooted disdain for education that centuries of colonialism have implanted in the Philippine psyche.
I remember this scene in Cesar Montano’s 1990s biopic about Jose Rizal, where Rizal’s character had a chance to talk with a young boy who served him meals in prison.
During their talk, that boy said that Rizal’s hunger for knowledge had only landed him in trouble with the authorities. His parting shot:
“Tingnan ninyo ako: walang alam, kaya walang problema.”
While this part of the movie is clearly fiction, it mirrored Rizal’s observations that the Spanish colonizers have reinforced in the Filipinos’ minds that ignorance is the best way to get around life and that knowing too much will lead to certain death.
Unfortunately, that kind of thinking is being advocated by supporters of Marcos Jr.
Smart-shaming and pride for ignorance are now a common trait among many of their pack.
Here’s my own parting shot, to quote Burmese prime minister U Nu:
“How can a country abounding in ignoramuses and Mr. Zeros ever progress?”