Apolinario Mabini

APOLINARIO MABINI

By Anton Antonio

September 27, 2015

Social media is abuzz with features on the movie “Heneral Luna”.  What is quite disturbing was an inquiry, perhaps innocent and sincere, from a netizen who asked why Mabini was seated throughout the movie.  More worrisome is a comment from another netizen who said that that could have been the script.  These narratives could only come from Millennials who could have been absent from school when their teacher discussed the life and time of Apolinario Mabini. 

There are also some of us who are of the opinion that history books focus too much on the life and martyrdom of Dr. Jose Rizal (our National Hero) and relegated the rest (like Andres Bonifacio, Juan and Antonio Luna, Emilio Aguinaldo, Gregorio del Pilar, and many others) to supporting roles especially the period of struggle against Colonial Spanish and American rules.  Scores of other heroes also come from the World War II and Japanese occupation period.  Again, their contributions history books pale in comparison to the attention given to Rizal. 

If this apparent lack of knowledge and information is caused by an inadequate educational system, it probably will be a good idea for social media citizens to augment things by posting more information on our heroes (and other noteworthy historical facts and information) on platforms such as Facebook.  For example…

“Apolinario Mabini y Maranan (July 23, 1864 – May 13, 1903) was a Filipino revolutionary leader, educator, lawyer, and statesman who served as the first Prime Minister of the Philippines, serving first under the Revolutionary Government, and then under the First Philippine Republic.  Mabini performed all his revolutionary and governmental activities despite having lost the use of both his legs to Polio shortly before the Philippine Revolution of 1896.  Mabini’s role in Philippine history saw him confronting first Spanish Colonial Rule in the opening days of the Philippine Revolution, and then American colonial rule in the days of the Philippine-American War.  The latter saw Mabini captured and exiled to Guam by American colonial authorities, allowed to return only two months before his eventual death in May 1903.” (Wikipedia)

 More often, we have the tendency to depend on government to provide things for us… which is always inadequate and late (if at all it does indeed come).  In this case --- misinformation or the lack of information on Apolinario Mabini --- netizens could better throw-in their two cents worth of stock knowledge just to help create a database of information on social media for everyone to access.  Besides, at present, there is already an overflow of information in the Internet… all we really need to do is use our favourite search engine and research on anything (in general)… and (in particular) Apolinario Mabini.

Thoughts to promote positive action…

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REFERENCE:

Wikipedia, (2015). “Apolinario Mabini”.  Retrieved on September 27, 2015 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apolinario_Mabini