IN Defense of Ella Cruz
In my training as a philosophy graduate student, I always consider myself very lucky to have been given the chance to study and do research work on the highly controversial German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Though I later abandoned my fancy on this very interesting philosopher, he remains to be an influential thinker in shaping my views on things, particularly Nietzsche’s epistemic approach which is widely known as “perspectivism.” The perspectivist method allows me to look at myself on a seemingly objective manner by recognizing that my views could be based on personal convictions. Nietzsche famously says that “Convictions are prisons.”
The spotlight now put on Ella Cruz is obviously politically motivated. The actress recently signed up to play the role as the young Irene Marcos in the film “Maid in Malacañang.” She was asked in a virtual interview about her opinion of history in which she answered without qualms that “history is like “tsismis” (gossip). It is filtered at “may dagdag” (filtered with addition). The interview went immediately viral, as it was soon picked by critics and newsmen. Through her efforts, she became known to be a self-made celebrity thru dancing and vlogging, but I think it never made her more popular compared to what happened recently. In short, there was intention to mock her in public by making her look ignorant because of her opinion. If she had not been identified to be pro-Marcos (for that unprecedented acting role), I think that the effect would have been otherwise.
In my opinion, there are already some celebrities doing the same comments. Think for example of Lourd de Veyra’s show and slogan: “History: Tsismis noon, Kasaysayan ngayon” (What used to be gossip is history now). With de Veyra’s playful personality, he has never been questioned about his TV show. On top of that, de Veyra is a Palanca Awardee for many years for his excellence in poetry, and a graduate of Manila’s top universities. But Ella Cruz is very young and obviously not even an academic persona, yet she is being vilified with vitriol online. But her critics appear to be elitist.
During the presidential campaign of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., the question about historical revisionism was much a topic as a popular discourse for Marcos’ critics. The critics accused the Marcos supporters of revising history with utter disregard on the Martial Law atrocities and the alleged abuses on human rights. In one of the conferences I attended, a friend of mine who happens to be a History professor in Mindanao made this surprisingly much daring claim: “There is no history! How can we revise history if such history is non-existent?” Having known him much longer, I understand that my friend, who has published a book recently on Philippine history, did not mean it literally, but instead figuratively in jest to imply that Mindanao History had been excluded, if not absent in the national picture. Philippine History as it is known today is predominantly written in the perspective of Manila scholars and historians. Much of the Mindanao affairs were missing.
I think the much more accurate scholar to be mentioned here is Edward Hallett Carr. I am yet again very lucky to have known another history scholar and friend who introduced to me E. H. Carr’s book, “What is History?” published in 1961. Today, many Filipinos including some academicians are scandalized with the idea of “historical revisionism,” or what was deemed as a “partisan historical distortion” that favors the Marcoses. Likewise, E. H. Carr’s views on history would surely scandalize some epistemologically and historically conservatives. For several years, Carr’s work was accused of espousing historical relativism. Allow me to explain Carr’s complicated position through an analogy of the supermarket. Otherwise, I will not be able to discuss this briefly if not through an analogy. A buyer enters a supermarket and selects from available goods and confusing brand labels. With a limited time and budget in hand, and as a matter of convenience, the buyer tends to select which goods are most useful and direly needed, and disregards those that are not of necessity. For Carr, historians relate to historical facts this way. Historical facts can only have value or significance the moment they are chosen, used, or emphasized. Otherwise, they are like unselected goods left at the cashier or pushcart for the store managers to keep. From that, we can infer that there is much of Philippine history that are left unsaid or unwritten like the unsold goods at the grocery store. They may have value only depending on the intentions or motives of those who will eventually use it, or of such narrative. Ella Cruz’s contention, therefore, that history is like gossip accidentally have a good and sound philosophical or theoretical support. It is just the mockery or bashing that happens to be selective.
