ABSTRACT
The Philippines has been occupied three times, but the dominant narrative of the Spanish colonization has always been filtered by Catholic scholars, while the Americans have consistently been portrayed as a benign visiting power that liberated the country first from the Spanish, and then from the Japanese. As part of this selective and depoliticized approach to their national history, pupils are taught little about the war of liberation fought against the Americans from 1899 to 1902, and discussion of the critical views of the national hero (who inspired the war of independence against the Spanish) towards the Catholic Church has generally been avoided. In marked contrast, the Japanese, who occupied the Philippines from 1942 to 1945, are portrayed as brutal invaders and aggressors. Nevertheless, the portrayal of the period of Japanese occupation has not been used to create a ‘historical narrative’ focused on constructing a unified sense of Filipino national identity.
