This year, we celebrate the 125th Independence Day of the Philippines. June 12, 1898 is considered the first since Emilio Aguinaldo signed the “Acta de la proclamacion de independencia del pueblo Filipino.” This was after Spain fled. However, most probably remember the clarification in History class, that the Philippines was not free for long after this declaration. In fact, the short period that seemed like independence was just waiting time as Spain sold the country to America. Not even a year of independence and we were colonized again. 

The date we consider as Independence Day has been controversial since time immemorial and it will certainly continue to be. It’s a tricky thing to answer, but the trickier question seems to be, have we ever really been free? 

It sounds like a philosophical question, but it is also political. More than a century has passed since, yet we still find ourselves plagued with the same (or even worse) sociopolitical issues. While we continue to celebrate Independence Day, it is also important to remember that we have not been liberated. The same problems have just been translated to the more complex language of modernity.

Executions of those who fight for liberation have been translated to extrajudicial killings. Colonialism has been translated to imperialism. The exploitation of resources and the environment has been translated to the extreme impacts of climate change. We continue to bear the brunt of the effects of colonialism, and more.

Unfortunately, true liberation means more than just picking a date when we commemorate Independence Day. After all, freedom demands to be continuously fought for. Especially in a country that coddles foreign powers and is vicious to its own people.

There are many aspects that go into our lack of liberation, some of these being the state of human rights, education, and our environment.

It appears as if the state has no problem violating human rights, especially of those who choose to fight for genuine liberation. Extrajudicial killings are not new or few in the Philippines, many victims of this phenomenon being activists. In February of 2022, news broke out that five individuals who were variously Lumad teachers, community volunteers, and human rights defenders were killed in Davao de Oro. They are now referred to as the New Bataan 5. The AFP claimed that they were killed in an encounter with the NPA but the NPA denied this. Those who were killed were not armed rebels.

Duterte’s anti-poor war on drugs also added at least 6,252 victims to the EJK statistics as of May 31, 2022. This war has not ended under Marcos Jr.’s current administration.

Some we find killed, and some we have not found at all. Another common human rights violation in the Philippines are enforced disappearances. Many activists, peasants, workers, and organizers have been abducted by the state force as a form of political repression. Bazoo de Jesus and Dexter Capuyan were just disappeared last April. 

There are also those we call political prisoners who have been jailed for their political stance. This is how Reina Nasino lost Baby River. Authorities refused to let a mother care for her sick child.

Those who suffer these human rights violations are also red-tagged to justify violence against them. They are called communists, or rebels, or terrorists for fighting for liberation. In our country, they equate fighting for liberation with terrorism.

In the aspect of education, the Philippines is also not doing so well. According to Sara Duterte’s Basic Education Report (BER) last January, the Department of Education faces many challenges in delivering basic education to Filipino students. Among other things, there continues to be a lack of school infrastructure and resources. We can also hark back to the struggles of teachers as they lack support. Remember what happened to laptops for public school teachers? They ended up being sold to retail stores instead of going to teachers.

In the middle of all of this, many Lumad schools were also shut down. In 2019 alone, 55 Lumad          schools were forced to stop operating. As an attempt to justify these shutdowns, specifically the Salugpungan schools, Sara Duterte red–tagged the volunteer teachers. According to her, they had links with terrorists. The Lumad schools also suffered harassment from the Duterte administration, with Duterte himself threatening to bomb the schools. 

Amidst all of this flak, it is important to remember that these schools exist solely to help Lumad children who want to learn and complete their education. They are taught what is expected of in basic education as well as sustainable agriculture, and indigenous arts and culture. They learn that liberating themselves starts with education. Why is the government so against this?

Systems and institutions that are supposedly there to free us, such as human rights and education, continue to fail and oppress us. But even at the very basic level of the environment, we are chained and unfreed. Related to the closing of Lumad schools, indigenous peoples in our country who are in the frontlines of environmental defense are continuously red-tagged and violated. They are driven out of their ancestral lands so that their resources can be exploited by foreign companies. 

According to a report by Global Witness in 2022, the Philippines remains to be the deadliest country in Asia for land and environmental defenders. In the last decade, 270 of them have been killed. In 2022 alone, 19 defenders were killed, most of them being indigenous people.

Amidst all of this, we continue to feel the most intense impacts of climate change. The summer heat was almost unbearable. PAGASA has also warned that El Niño may develop from June to August of this year. It can also persist until next year. Not only that, we are also bearing the brunt of extreme rainfall and intensified typhoons. With dwindling trees, we continue to be more and more prone to rising floods. Our coastal communities are also more vulnerable to storm surges. Our small islands, meanwhile, are facing the threat of disappearing completely with rising sea levels. We experience these effects in extremes as a small country composed of many islands surrounded by the sea. Yet we do not find our government prioritizing climate justice.

We are celebrating the 125th Independence Day, but we still find ourselves unfreed from our long-standing chains. Independence Day continues to be a mere holiday. We can only celebrate real independence when we are genuinely liberated from the systems and chains that confine and oppress us. – Rappler.com

Tony La Viña teaches constitutional law at the University of the Philippines and several Mindanao law schools. He is former dean of the Ateneo School of Government.

Bernardine de Belen graduated from the Ateneo de Manila University with a Creative Writing degree. She works at the Manila Observatory as a research assistant.