Political Conjuncture and Scholarly Disjunctures: Reflections on Studies of the Philippine State under Marcos

Abstract

This professorial address contends that a scholarly, systematic, and impartial study of Marcos’s authoritarian rule is necessary, given the highly politicized interpretations of the past bequeathed to younger generations through textbooks and social media as well as the Philippine academic community’s general inability to analyze the defunct regime and to influence public discourse and shape public history. Social scientists must tap new sources of information, such as the Marcos Papers, to produce truthful and nuanced narratives of the past, even as they must endeavor to understand the Marcosian social fantasy and the sources of Filipino authoritarianism, which can illumine both the past and the present.

KEYWORDS: MARTIAL LAW • PUBLIC HISTORY • SOCIAL FANTASY •HISTORIOGRAPHY • REVISIONISM