After the heated public debate over the airwaves, the provincial government of Leyte will still throw a fiesta on March 10, 1997. The date will no longer be commemorated as the 80th Leyte Founding Anniversary. Instead, it will mark the launching of the Leyte Centennial Celebration. A different name for a similar frenzy.

According to an official press release from the Leyte Provincial Media Center, Leyte Governor Remedios Petilla has "approved a low budget but interesting celebration to be highlighted on March 10 with the launching of the province’s year-round commemoration of the Philippine Independence achieved in 1898."

The new activities for the March 10 fiesta include a "flag caravan around the province, information and advocacy campaign, the opening of the Centennial Museum, ... the Search for the Most Outstanding Municipal Centennial Chapter, (and) the raising of logos of the 41 towns of the province at the Capitol Grounds."

The Leyte Investment Promotion Center, a project of the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Council, will also be inaugurated on March 10.

Invited guests for the celebration include former Vice-President Salvador Laurel, the chairman of the National Centennial Commission, and Mrs. Gloria Angara, the chairperson of the Philippine Centennial Movement.

Three weeks ago, I disputed the March 10, 1917 date which was selected as the foundation day of the Province of Leyte. That date has since been discredited and totally refuted over various radio programs in Tacloban.

But just after the proposed anniversary was cancelled by Gov. Petilla, the provincial government scheduled the launching of Leyte’s centennial celebration on March 10, the same date originally intended for the founding anniversary. For whatever motive, there must be a show on that day, even if it comes under another title.

When I disputed the proposed March 10 anniversary, I argued that the date was wrong and the listening public and concerned local intellectuals helped me out with their opinions and additional proof. This time, I argue that 1898 was a shameful year for the provincial officials of Leyte to commemorate with appropriate centennial ceremonies.

The year 1898 has a blank page in Leyte’s official history. And for a logical reason. The greed and ambition that were flagrantly displayed by the elite Leyteño officials that year, their betrayal of the trust of the Leyteño masses, and their unconditional sell-out of the patrimony of the province to the Aguinaldo government could not be covered up by any self-serving claim about good intention and nationalistic fervor.

A blank page was therefore better than a weak alibi that could not withstand the test of time.

In May last year, the Philippine Daily Inquirer published my reflections on the Philippine centennial celebration and the missing events in Leyte in 1898. In an article titled "No reason for Fernan’s complaint," I wrote:

"... Belinda Olivares-Cunanan ... commented on Sen. Marcelo Fernan’s privilege speech decrying the myopic focus of the forthcoming centennial celebration of the Philippine independence in 1898.

"Actually, Senator Fernan need not envy the Tagalog declaration of Philippine independence. Their word did not arise from a totally successful deed. During revolutionary crunch time in 1898, the Visayans did their part. For instance, in Leyte and Samar, Katipunan-type peasant revolutionaries (the "Dios-dios") independently succeeded in driving out the Spaniards from these islands and caused the replacement of Spanish officials with "qualified" (elite) natives. (These freedom fighters would be known in history and local tradition as the Pulahanes.)

"The Tagalogs failed to achieve the same feat as the Visayans; their leaders chose to be exiled in Hong Kong. They later declared something which they had not quite achieved yet. So why should the rest of the nation heed their rhetoric now? Let the noisy non-achievers celebrate ‘independence’ by their lonesome.

"Perhaps, Senator Fernan might be more interested in the Tagalog ‘purchase’ of the appointive provincial officials in the Visayas to support Aguinaldo’s leadership following the 1898 declaration of Philippine ‘independence.’ For example, the family wealth of a certain clan of Barangay Villalon, Calubian, Leyte, is believed to have been built on Aguinaldo’s revolutionary funds alloted to one of its members who became a prominent politician and official during the American regime.

"This man presumably used some of his revolutionary funds to bribe Leyteño provincial officials to support Aguinaldo’s leadership. Thus, in a meeting in Tacloban on Dec. 16, 1898, the participating officials consented to give their full support to ‘Aguinaldo’s untiring and heroic effort.’

"Note that the Leyteños first drove out the Spaniards before their appointive officials pledged allegiance to Aguinaldo’s government. The latter’s imprimatur opened Leyte weeks later to the influx of Caviteño sub-colonizers who married children of local elite families and later capitulated to the Americans."

In a related letter published earlier in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine, I wrote:

"The history of Leyte shows that while Filipino peasants wanted complete freedom from colonial rule, the local elite just wanted to rule, whoever the super master.

"Leyte eventually became the ‘showcase of American benevolent assimilation.’ Under American rule, the first concrete public building to be constructed was the provincial jail, a low building beside the majestic Leyte Provincial Capitol which was built much later ... Among the prisoners in the early years of American occupation, at least half were peasant-types who were convicted of political crimes (like ‘banditry,’ sedition, and their variants)."

Almost 100 years ago, the Leyteño elite at least had the basic decency not to claim for their social class the independence that the mass-based Pulahan Movement had won for the province around August 1898. Now that same sense of decency is almost gone.

On March 10, the elite elements in the provincial government will present a grand spectacle, complete with flags and logos. The forthcoming revelry should remind us of a similar provincial meeting on December 16, 1898. That day, the appointive provincial officials and representatives from different Leyte towns - for some bribe, of course - unconditionally abdicated the patrimony of Leyte to the Caviteños, who, on our behalf and without our consent, later surrendered the province to the Americans.

That event was the Leyte elite’s only claim to a centennial celebration. Surely, it was shameful moment and not a proud one to commemorate. Yet the show must go on. History is coming to a full circle.

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