MANILA (UCAN): On October 24, the Catholic Historians’ Association of the Philippines [CHAP] criticised a module of the Department of Education that called the martial law period under late dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, Sr., as “period of the ‘New Society’.”
The New Society [Bagong Lipunan] was the name given by Marcos Sr., to his martial law government.
Historians alleged that the Department of Education, under vice president, Sarah Duterte, was attempting to soft-pedal the martial law period by giving it a different name.
“This is a form of historical revisionism. By renaming the martial law period, something that has existed in our books for decades, the government is rebranding Philippine history,” Jessel Ubania, historian and member of CHAP, said.
Duterte said that the term ‘New Society’ was not an attempt to revise history.
However, Vladimer Quetua, the chairperson of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, said, “Clearly these, and all other periods presented in the module are not programs of the government but terms that characterise the socio-political contexts of the time periods discussed. It only follows that martial law should have been used instead of ‘New Society’.”
He said the teachers “in the spirit of truth-telling” should call the dark days ‘martial law’ and not by any other name.
