Kabataang Makabayan Bikol supports the people’s opposition of DepEd’s plans to remove the names of the Marcoses in discussing Dictatorship in school curriculum throughout the country. This directive is exceedingly revolting. It is not enough for the Marcoses to hawk disinformation on social media and the mass media. Now, they want to institutionalize and normalize historical revisionism. This is a heavy blow not only upon the victims of the more than a decade-long martial law of Marcos Sr. but the debasement of knowledge and further stunting of the intellect of the new generations of youth.

The Marcoses are masters of repackaging, weaving lies and bending history. From the very start, colossal amounts of resources went to their image-building and the whitewashing of their endless crimes against the Filipino nation. Now that they are back in power, they grow ever more hostile in revising history. There are the various schemes such as the removal of all mentions and topics on martial law from the curriculum, the censorship of progressive and revolutionary books and readings detailing the country’s history and the repackaging of Marcos Sr.’s projects under Marcos Jr. They are creating a dangerous and misleading trend that ‘history is just hearsay’ and that truth is mutable depending on whose perspective and narrative. But contrary to their ploys, there is only one truth especially for those who first-handedly suffered the hardships, pain and darkness of Marcos Sr.’s martial law.

It is the duty of the present generation to defend the integrity of history and champion the truth. In an era of rampant and systematic disinformation led by the reactionary government itself, silence and neutrality are crimes. To forget history is to wound the victims of state violence and their families once more. The current generation must remember that all liberties they enjoy today are borne out of the life-and-death struggles of those who came before them.

More so, the censure of truth and subscription to the twisted idea that reality is only based from subjective perceptions is tantamount to censure of knowledge and the regression to nescience. Civilization has journeyed far from primitive knowledge and callowness. These leaps have been reached through tireless and relentless struggle of scientific ideology versus ignorance. This struggle is still happening to date. Anyone who desires genuine progress faces the duty of defending knowledge.

The youth and Filipino nation must remember that lies and ignorance are weapons of the oppressors to tether the people to perpetual slavery. This must be fought and shattered with the truth and knowledge that the oppressed and exploited must arm themselves with.