‘Given the unanimous approval of the House, we hope that the Philippine Senate will give HB 09850 the urgency needed, even as the Chinese Communists and their sympathizers fret over the debut of the AUKUS.’
WE should prevent the rise of new Hitlers: The ultimate defeat of Hitler and the re-establishment of international law go together… In the pursuit of these objectives there must be a disinterested purpose to keep the highways of the sea free from bandits… safety and our prosperity in the world of the future lies in a stern insistence upon the principle of the freedom of the seas, the assurance of equal opportunity for world trade.” [Frank Knox (U.S. Secretary of the Navy), “World Peace Must Be Enforced,” Delivered before the American Bar Association at Indianapolis, Indiana, October 1, 1941]
We revive this message of 80 years provenance as a paean for the approval of House Bill 09850 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEyHH0HSxig time frame: 1:26:21 to 1:34:43) last September 7, 2021 in the bigger chamber of the Philippine Congress and as an alarum to the 2021 International NGO Conference on History and Peace in Seoul.
We (Hunters-ROTC Historical Society) have already informed National Historical Commission of the Philippines Chairman Dr. Rene R. Escalante and Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana, among others, that this passage on third reading of HB 09850 is the culmination of our joint efforts to push forward the study of Philippine history closer to current events.
We began this project with our presentations on Philippine military history at the Camp Aguinaldo Theater under the auspices of PVAO during Veterans Week of 2019. This was followed by four seminars held in the first and second quarters of 2019 at the Philippine Military Academy, University of Luzon (Dagupan), Pangasinan State University, and the Maritime Academy of Asia and the Pacific, and then the meeting with the AFP Reserve Command on the bill to revive universal ROTC. Considering the positive response and interest of both the students and the university officials as well as the problem posed by the Reserve Command regarding contextualizing ROTC training in liberal-oriented universities, the HHS moved to re-check how the legislative approach was still viable.
In this regard, we heartily acknowledge the spade work done by the staff of Rep. Christoper Belmonte with whom we crafted a draft bill to teach WWII at the secondary level. Rep. Belmonte then invited Rep. Manuel Cabochan to co-author the bill which was filed as HB 5123 on October 08, 2019. This was taken up in the Committee on Basic Education under Rep. Roman Romulo. Committee chairman Rep. Romulo thought higher education was a better target, so he then filed a companion bill HB 5791 on December 11, 2019 which was then taken up in the Committee on Higher Education under Rep. Mark Go.
We give great credit to Rep. Mark Go who, despite the pandemic, pushed through with hearings on the proposed bill which ended up as HB 09850. We thank him and his committee members for their persistence and we hope for their continued support in this effort, as the bill navigates through the Senate.
We thankfully congratulate Rep. Roman Romulo as HB 09850 propels the study of Philippine history and re-opens the field to the following areas: World War One, immigrant workers in the US, racism, postwar economic reconstruction, legislative histories, the evolution of private property, just to name a few blind spots.
We salute Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana and his Usec. Reynaldo B. Mapagu (Civil, Veterans and Reserve Affairs), even as we ask: Can the peace be won? “The parallels between 1914-1919 and 1939… when peace shall be written are only too obvious. Will those parallels carry through into and beyond the next Versailles? What assurance have we against a repetition of that tragic aftermath?” [Henry P. Van Dusen (Professor, Union Theological Seminary, New York City), “The Great Necessity,” British Broadcasting System, London, September 28, 1941]
Given the unanimous approval of the House, we hope that the Philippine Senate will give HB 09850 the urgency needed, even as the Chinese Communists and their sympathizers fret over the debut of the AUKUS.
We reviewed the policy process relevant to HB 09850 for the guidance and information of Mikio Oishi (Associate Professor in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, Asian University for Women, Bangladesh), Lau Kinchi (Professor at LingNan University, Hong Kong), Kavi Chongkittavorn (Senior Fellow, Chulalongkorn University Institute of Security and International Studies) and the other presenters at the 2021 International NGO Conference on History and Peace in South Korea. We need not remind Youk Chhang (Director, Documentation Center of Cambodia), Pham Van Thuy (Vice Dean, Faculty of History, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi), and Naoko Jin (President, Bridge for Peace, Japan), among others, that Liberties can be lost as well as won:
“Today in the face of international calamity–in the face of world confusion and hopeless despair…The choice then that our people have is between three general types of governmental structure. One–a decentralized government; two–a government based on a distribution and balance of powers; and three–a centralized or autocratic government.”
[George F. Barrett (Attorney General of Illinois), “The Future of Our States and Cities in Our Governmental Structure,” Delivered before the National Association of Attorneys General at the House Chamber at the Indiana State Capitol in Indianapolis, September 30, 1941]
Along with Suwit Laohasiriwong (Chairman, Khon Kaen for the Future Foundation, Thailand), Myo Win (Executive Director, Smile Myanmar), and Sandip Kumar Mishra (Professor, Center for East Asian Studies, Jawaharial Nehru University in India), we wonder: “What has happened to our world? What has become of human wisdom and human kindness? Whither has our civilization vanished? What does it all mean and what will be the end of it all?”
The answer: “Only two world camps confront each other today, representing two basic tendencies. And in our camp–the camp of all who would be free–you will find white men and black men and yellow men; hyperboreans and antipodeans; orientals and occidentals; monarchists, republicans and communists; democracies and dictatorships; Jews, Confucians, Christians and Mohammedans–all in one camp, united in resisting the philosophy of human slavery and the program of human degradation.” [W.J. Cameron (Ford Motor Company), “The Outlook,” Broadcast over the Nation-Wide Network of the Columbia Broadcasting System from Detroit, September 28, 1941]
We (HHS President Rhett G. Daza and colleagues) sincerely wish for the full recovery of Earth from the Wuhan Outbreak.
