We say we are proud to be Filipino.
We sing the national anthem with our hands over our hearts.
We post old photos on Independence Day.
We say “never again” every February, then forget it by March.
We tell foreigners about our resilience like it’s a badge of honor, not a wound.
We say “Mabuhay ang Pilipinas” — but we’ve long buried the soul of this country under tarpaulin and concrete.
Because let’s stop pretending:
We don’t respect our history and culture as a nation.
We don’t know it. We don’t teach it properly. We don’t protect it. We barely remember it unless it’s profitable, Instagrammable, or politically convenient.
We wear the mask of pride but speak with the accent of shame.
Our History Has Been Reduced to Trivia — and Even That We Get Wrong
Ask the average Filipino who Gabriela Silang was.
You might hear: “Ah, parang asawa siya ng bayani, right?”
(“She was the wife of a hero, right?”)
She led a revolt. She led an army. She was executed.
Ask about Bonifacio. You might hear:
“Revolutionary? Pero di ba Rizal talaga ‘yung hero?”
(“Wasn’t Rizal the real hero?”)
Bonifacio died betrayed by the very revolution he helped build.
We know their names.
We don’t know their pain.
We don’t know their fights.
We don’t know how they were sanitized for our comfort.
We turn them into statues, then walk past without looking.
We put them on money, then use those bills to pay for imported goods and imported dreams.
We name streets after them, then elect the very people they would have fought against.
We Parade Culture, But We Don’t Protect It
We wear the barong like it’s a costume.
We recite Florante at Laura with no idea who wrote it or why it matters.
We force students to perform folk dances — then laugh when they do it “too seriously.”
We host cultural expos for photos — not preservation.
We let entire languages die out quietly while promoting English-only schools like it’s progress.
I’ve seen towns throw heritage festivals with neon signs and K-pop blasting in the background.
I’ve seen ancestral homes—stone, wood, history in their bones—left to rot because the family migrated abroad and no one cared to preserve it.
Baybayin is beautiful, so long as it’s tattooed and trendy.
Our textile traditions are stunning, so long as they’re on a tote bag in a mall.
We love culture, but only when it’s curated for us.
We’ve Bulldozed Memory in the Name of Modernization
I once stood in front of a building in Manila that survived the war. It had bullet holes. It had grace. It had stories in its walls. A week later, it was gone. Replaced by a fast food chain.
That’s how we treat memory here.
The post office burned down and people posted selfies in front of it.
Escolta crumbles while we romanticize it with hashtags.
The old train stations rot while we fight over MRT maintenance.
Our landmarks are not maintained.
Our libraries are not funded.
Our archives are not digitized.
And the stories of our grandparents are buried with them—unrecorded, unloved, unheard.
This country is full of ghosts. But no one’s listening.
We Don’t Just Forget the Past — We Rewrite It When It’s Inconvenient
Ask about Martial Law, and you’ll hear: “Disiplina ‘yan. Wala pang traffic noon.”
(“That was discipline. There was no traffic back then.”)
As if that justifies the thousands tortured, the media silenced, the billions stolen.
Ask about the Marcos dictatorship, and you’ll hear:
“Maraming naitulong ‘yan. May mga proyekto siya.”
(“He helped the country. He built infrastructure.”)
As if progress only counts if it’s measured in concrete, not in lives destroyed.
We watched the dictator’s son return to power on the shoulders of TikTok misinformation and revisionist YouTube videos — while the education system stood still, too underfunded and too afraid to tell the truth.
History has become a weapon.
Truth is now called “bias.”
Memory is now “political.”
And our silence? It’s compliance.
Even Our Heroes Wouldn’t Recognize the Nation They Died For
Bonifacio was killed by his own countrymen.
Mabini was sidelined because he wouldn’t bend to U.S. rule.
Rizal’s writings are censored in practice, even as we build monuments in his name.
Lorena Barros, Lean Alejandro, Chino Roces, Macli-ing Dulag — names you won’t hear in classrooms, though they were willing to bleed for truth.
What would they say, if they saw us now?
Would they recognize a country that builds roads but forgets the blood spilled to claim the land?
Would they recognize a people so easily impressed by strongmen, by gimmicks, by influencer governance?
Would they understand how we scroll past injustice and only speak when it’s trending?
They would not see the country they imagined.
And maybe that’s the cruelest betrayal of all.
Why Does This Hurt So Much?
Because I love this country. I love its stories.
I love the quiet dignity of old Filipino houses.
I love the words of Amado Hernandez, the defiance of Lorena Barros, the integrity of Ninoy’s last letter.
I love our languages, our oral traditions, our unsung heroes.
And I am tired—so, so tired—of watching this country bury what makes it beautiful.
We Still Can Choose to Remember
This isn’t hopeless.
There are people preserving Baybayin.
There are teachers rewriting their syllabi.
There are youth creating zines, podcasts, documentaries.
There are elders still willing to talk—if we would only ask.
But we must stop waiting for culture to entertain us.
We must stop treating history like PR.
We must stop outsourcing our memory to those who profit from our ignorance.
We Don’t Respect Our History and Culture as a Nation. But We Can Learn To.
We can listen.
We can read.
We can remember.
We can protect what’s left.
We can teach our children more than just “Mga Bayani ng Pilipinas.” We can tell them why they mattered—and how they were betrayed.
We can stop electing people who spit on the very ground our heroes died on.
We can stop confusing forgetting with healing.
We can start honoring the dead not just with flowers, but with action.
We can stop letting our history be rewritten—and start writing it ourselves.