Friday, August 12, 2011

War of Words Has Replaced War of Annihilation

PHILIPPINE VILLAGE VOICE/The Filipino Web Channel - Redefining Community News

Currents & Breaking News
Volume 5, Issue No. 19
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail.com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . . . . .

The News UpFront: (TOP STORY) as of Friday, August 12, 2011
~ The war of annihilation at the turn of the 20th century had ended more than a 100 years ago but the war of words as to how to categorize it has not abated. A youth group in Toronto called Kamalayan has that verbal discrepancy underscored as it conducts an awareness campaign of Philippine history. Last week, Kamalayan put up a booth at a popular square in downtown Toronto where volunteers explained ancient and contemporary Philippine history in hopes of educating those who cared to listen.

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A poster mounted on an easel shows a Filipino child on display in the United States. It's like a "human zoo," says Alex Felipe of the show.

CREATING AWARENESS OF PHILIPPINE HISTORY
Philippines Says It's 'War'; US Insists It's 'Insurrection'


By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Member, Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) and National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada (NEPMCC)


TORONTO - In the eyes of Filipinos, the bloody armed conflict at the turn of the 20th century between the Philippines and the United States was a full-scale war.

Americans, on the other hand, perhaps embarrassed by their failure to "pacify" the islands after they took over from Spain in 1898, called it an "insurrection", which implied acceptance of and subservience to US authority.

In the name of "pacification" one entire village in the central Samar province was turned into a "howling wilderness", as described by the American general who implemented the campaign that saw the massacre of thousands of Filipinos from 10 years up.

The telling and re-telling of this sad chapter in Philippine history vary from American mouth to Filipino mouth, as it is from many US and Philippine history books.

But the truth has not been contested - the conflict had claimed casualties in the hundreds of thousands, or upwards of one million people.

In Toronto, a Filipino youth group is conducting a Philippine history awareness campaign through workshops and community outreach. The latest was at the Filipino Making Waves Festival in Yonge-Dundas Square during the two-day weekend (Aug. 6 and 7, 2011).

"The goal is to tell Filipinos about their history," says Alex Felipe, co-organizer of Kamalayan (awareness), in an interview. "The history I tell is from the point of view of the masses of the people in the Philippines."

Alex Felipe, co-organizer of Kamalayan.
 "Often, a lot of the history that I give is a little bit different from the mainstream. That's not to say that I don't give also the mainstream history. I will also give that and put it in context with the more progressive versions of the history," Felipe stresses.

Kamalayan's booth at the festival had attracted curiousity from a mix crowd of onlookers and history buffs because of the huge photographs mounted on easels showing American atrocities during what the Americans called Philippine Insurrection of 1899-1902 and which Filipinos referred to as Philippine-American War.

The US colonized the Philippines after Spain - the country's imperial colonizer for more than 300 years - sold the islands for $20 million in 1898, the same year Filipino revolutionaries declared independence. On July 4, 1946, the US granted the Philippines its own version of independence.

(This Currents & Breaking News may be posted online, broadcast or reprinted upon request by interested parties. Permission by the author and the editor must be obtained before any re-posting online or re-publication in print or re-broadcast. Copyright by Romeo P. Marquez, Editor, Philippine Village Voice, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Volume 5, Issue no. 19, August 12, 2011. Email at: TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail.com, PhilVoiceNews@aol.com or CurrentsBreakingNews@gmail.com).

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1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT74cbxq6ak&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
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At Vimeo:
1. http://vimeo.com/16962555
2. http://vimeo.com/user41447

For other stories, please visit:
1. http://currentsbreakingnews.blogspot.com/  
2. http://torontonewsroom.blogspot.com/
3. http://timecircumstance.blogspot.com/
4. http://travelsthemes.blogspot.com/  
5. http://gotchajournalist.blogspot.com/  


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