If we examine the origin of the phrase Veritas vos liberabit, it’s a variant of Veritas liberabit vos (The truth shall set you free), in Chapter 8:32 of the Gospel of John wherein Jesus was addressing a group of Jews.
If people are to become disciples of Jesus, they would know the truth of their condition being slaves to sin, and the truth about Christ and Jesus would set them free. Believers would be freed from their bondage of sin, and brought into the family of God.
In modern parlance, people love to modify this quote as “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” On the humorous side, Jim Carrey shouts this line in a manic fit in the movie Liar Liar, where he plays a lawyer who must always tell the truth.
Do you know that truth has many faces? Your truth, my truth, his truth, their truth, indeed, as of today, there is so- called “alternative truth” which befuddles any issue.
Thirty one years after the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution that ended Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship, the truth of its impact on the nation and to the world has been eroded.
The truth lies in those who remember and have never forgotten the feeling of pride — as it was a shining moment for the Filipino people tired of oppression and dictatorship — ousting a dictator by peaceful means, by sheer determination.
There were victims of torture and abuse — from students to opposition leaders — foremost of which was the late Sen. Benigno Aquino of Tarlac.
If anyone has to be blamed for the phenomenon of revisionism, it is the collective responsibility of those who survived the 20 years of the Marcos regime, and the Department of Education for failing to inculcate the lessons learned from EDSA.
The current administration has declared that everyone should “move on!”.
But isn’t this contrary to our national hero Jose Rizal’s salawikain that we memorized: Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinangalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan. (He who does not look back from where he came will never reach his destination.)
Have Filipinos truly looked back and learned from what People Power can actually accomplish?
The lack of a programmed and systematic framework to institutionalize the lessons of the EDSA People Power of 1986 has resulted in a vacuum, thus, “alternative facts”peddled by the unbridled social media pundits, even peddling the Martial Law era as the country’s golden age. Oh, really now.
Historian Michael Charleston “Xiao” Chua earlier lamented the textbooks barely touched on the Marcos dictatorship’s abuses. Instead, Martial Law was deodorized to erase the legacy of the conjugal dictatorship; when the Marcoses were engaged in “mining” (this is mine, that is mine, over there is also mine….), when all big corporations from the giant network ABS-CBN to the Central Azucarera de Bais Inc. were infiltrated and controlled by the Marcoses, their family, relatives and their cronies.
But today, the truth will set us free! as we remember and vow, Never Again!
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Author’s email: whelmayap@yahoo.com
