Briones: Let’s review all the presidents’ tenures

incoming Education Secretary Leonor Briones PHOTO BY JOVIC YEE

SEN. FERDINAND “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s popularity and near victory in the recent vice presidential race has prompted calls for a review of how Philippine history textbooks depict the controversial 20-year rule of his namesake father.

Incoming Education Secretary Leonor Briones agrees, but would take things a step further. She would welcome a review of all the presidential administrations.

“We should review the coverage of all the administrations. Not all the administrations have been examined fairly. As they say, history is written by the victors. If we look at the Marcos period, then we should look at all the other periods,” Briones told reporters in her first press briefing on Monday.

She cited as an example President Elpidio Quirino, who was hounded by corruption allegations during his term from 1949 to 1953.

“Now assessments show he was clearly a very good administrator. The stories could have been exaggerated,” Briones said of Quirino.

Briones, a former national treasurer, said that since President-elect Rodrigo Duterte announced her appointment as education secretary, she had received calls pushing for a review of the history books and their revision, specifically with regard to the martial law era of 1972-1986.

Bonifacio Ilagan, convener of the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacañang (CARMM), said on Tuesday that while they “quite agree” with Briones’s position, there should be an “extended chapter” on the elder Marcos’s rule because of the enormity of the crimes committed against the people and the country.

“We quite agree for the simple reason that every administration has its share in the obfuscation of real history. Each has its share in the degeneration of values and misunderstanding of history, especially with the just struggles of our people,” Ilagan told the Inquirer in a phone interview.