BOOK REVIEW
“ THE PHILIPPINE WAR 1899-1902: A PRO IMPERIALIST BOOK IN THE POST MODERNIST TIME
By Arturo P. Garcia
Author Brian McAllister Linn in his book, “The Philippine War,
1899-1902 “ (427 pages) explains how he draws his conclusions on how
the United States won this war or how the Filipinos lost this.
But his questions remained, and this focused to the so-called myth of
on how the United States won the war: “ by civilizing Filipinos with a
Krag remains resilient.” That is why he took pains to dispute this
fact.
As an American author, he calls for a “ reevaluation
of military operations” (maybe calling a good war) during the
Philippine War. He calls it “ long overdue”. He calls for “ a study of
the war, stripping it of ideological blinders so it can offer great
insight into complexities of localized guerilla war and indigenous
resistance to foreign control.”
Yet like all the academics, in
his bibliography he calls historical writing as often summarized as”
explaining what happened and why. But he says, in the case of the
Philippine –American conflict the “what happened was subordinated to
the “ why”
That is a tacit admission he used Imperialist or
American works, army records and used Filipinos sources or the
participants sources that he called as” limited”.
He was
really convinced that’s the “Filipino side awaits a scholar. “ For him,
the works of Filipino scholars as a rich source of the war history of
the Filipino American War is never enough.
He admitted that he
used mostly American books and war records and used the Filipino
sources as secondary or not at all. He just mentioned them as
perfunctorily as a scholar does but never gave the Filipino side merit
for their heroic struggle.
Using the successful American
Revolution as an example, he chided the Filipino side for “not having a
Natahnael Greene who can combine partisan with regular to achieve
campaign or strategic goal.”
He said that “the
revolutionaries fought a holding action, the best they can hoe for was
their opponents would tire.” He called it “ a short sighted policy.
As usual, blaming the individual leadership, he heaped all the blame to
General Emilio Aguinaldo. Praising the Imperialist, he said” What gave
the Americans military forces was not their numbers but their
effectiveness. Part of these had to do with weapons.”
He never
admitted that the Philippines was the first American Vietnam. The only
difference is that America lost the Vietnam War (1954-1975) as they
lost the Korean War (1950-1954) so they cherish their victory over the
Filipinos as a precious one.
The writer was so cruel and very
vicious to the greatest Filipino general- Antonio Luna. His few pages
that mentioned the gallant defense and offensives of the Army of the
Republic led by Luna was riddled with innuendoes from all his enemies.
He never mentioned that Luna gave the Americans a hard time and broke
the boast of the Americans that they can beat the Filipinos within “one
week” It took them sixteen years to subjugate the Philippines and the
myth that they destroyed the Filipino resistance within four years is
the myth that Linn is trying to perpetuate up to know.
But what can we expect on the jaundiced eyes of pro-Imperialist authors like Linn.
He readily brushed aside that the Filipinos lost more than a million
people fighting for their own Republic, which he conveniently called
another myth.
He might be right because one lasting legacy
that the Americans left us is that there is no study of Filipino
military history even its prime military school-the Philippine Military
Academy (PMA), has no nationalist orientation much more the study of
the Philippine military history
They are just good in just
changing names like the naming the PMA Camp Henry Allen to Fort
Gregorio Del Pilar as they did to Camp Murphy to Camp Aguinaldo and
Fort McKinley to Fort Bonifacio.
Thus, it is incumbent for
Filipinos and Filipino Americans to study their own history and rewrite
it in the own perceptions. Until then, authors like Linn will run amuck
and brand themselves as authorities on the history of Filipinos.
They will continue to treat us as “lost souls” as the Spanish
conquistadores wrote the history of the Philippines filled with
heretic, bandits and witches as they Christianized and turned Filipinos
as civilized people.
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