On August 20, University President Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ announced the renaming of the Ateneo School of Government (ASOG) to the Ateneo de Manila University Benigno Aquino Jr. and Corazon C. Aquino School of Government, or the Ateneo Aquino School of Government for short. The name change is set to take place August next year.
According to ASOG Dean Tony La Viña, the proposal to change the school’s name dates back to 2007, just after he had been named dean and just before Ninoy’s 25th death anniversary. It was only in 2012, however, that La Viña decided that the timing was right.
In an opinion piece written for Rappler, La Viña said that “the rationale for this decision to rename the school is the record of public service and the example of heroic leadership that Ninoy and Cory Aquino provide for all Filipinos.” He went on to write that ASOG students can aspire to be heroic public servants, much like the Aquinos.
The Aquinos, however, may not exactly be the perfect and righteous public servants that the general public views them to be. The issue at hand goes beyond the renaming of a school. The problem lies with how we remember and, subsequently, regard significant figures in history.
There is a tendency for us to either glorify or demonize our historical figures. Although the Aquinos both played a positive role in restoring democracy and rebuilding the nation, we also have to understand that they are more than their achievements. They have had acts and made decisions that may not necessarily be in line with how they are portrayed in most historical texts.
While Cory restored the Philippines back to a democracy, for instance, her administration was far from ideal. She had a difficult time controlling the military: Her presidency was rife with coups, the most serious attempt being the 1989 coup d’etat staged by members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Blackouts were also common during her presidency, with Manila experiencing power outages that would last from seven to 12 hours. By the time she left office in June 1992, the national economy lost billions of pesos due to the blackouts.
It was during her term as well that the Mendiola Massacre occurred. This event saw the killing of 13 farmers and the wounding of several others who were all marching to Malacañang Palace to protest for land reform.
Laurels and achievements aside, there is also an inclination to limit our perceptions of historical figures to select facets. For Ninoy and Cory, the general public remembers them mostly as symbols of democracy, embodied by the signature thick, black-rimmed glasses and yellow ribbon. For two of our national heroes, Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio, a limited view is presented by their constant juxtaposition: The pen and the sword, reform and revolution. Most Filipinos are prone to dichotomizing them, instead of acknowledging that they were both catalysts in the struggle for independence from colonial rule, albeit in different ways. By generalizing these figures into metaphors and abstractions, we are not truly and fully giving them justice.
Furthermore, by boxing these individuals into the archetypes that we have set up for them, we fail to look at their actions and contributions, both positive and negative, in relation to the persons that they were and to the persons they eventually became. We limit ourselves to defining them by a single or a few acts rather than by the lives they lived as a whole. In turn, we become more disconnected from history and fail to recognize these individuals for what they are: Human.
ASOG’s vision is “transforming communities, building a nation.” While we recognize that the Aquinos were instrumental in the restoration of democracy in the Philippines, we must also remember that governance is so much more than that. Just as our heroes are more than symbols, nation-building involves more than the ideological.
Updated: Oct. 30, 2014, 5:43 PM
