Do different perspectives or experiences of history influence the collective memory of the Filipino people?

Different viewpoints play a significant role in shaping the collective memory of a society. According to Jeffrey Olick in his essay, From “Collective Memory” to the Historic Sociology of Mnemonic Practices (1998), he states that ‘the past is not preserved but is reconstructed based on the present’. This suggests that the prevailing thoughts and beliefs within a community influence how the past is portrayed and reconstructed. In essence, the collective ideas and perspectives of a community tend to shape the way history is remembered and understood.

One example that clearly illustrates this concept is our experience of the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly during the initial months of quarantine. For some, the early months of 2020 were a time of slowed pace, offering leisure for hobbies like making Dalgona coffees or dancing on TikTok. It was a period where the world seemed to quiet down. However, this collective memory wasn’t shared by everyone. Those who experienced the loss of loved ones early in the pandemic or had to halt their studies, faced job layoffs, or suffered financial setbacks would have a different perspective. While the world seemed to decelerate for others, their own lives were profoundly disturbed, leaving them with the sensation that the rest of the world surged ahead even when their lives came to a halt, creating a stark contrast in the pace of life when recalling memories from the early lockdown of 2020.

This applies equally to those who directly lived and experienced Martial Law, Typhoon Yolanda, or Duterte’s War on Drugs, as opposed to those who merely heard accounts or saw it through the news. The distinction between firsthand experience and secondhand recollection — sometimes these instances also serve to illuminate the nuances within our collective memory.

In such cases, it is inevitable as memory is always contested and competing, that is also why our historians thread difficult paths in exploring historical accounts. The past itself is not simply a well-kept narrative; some are lost or are left unrecorded, in its entirety — it is a collection of complexity, and may be chaotic and uncoordinated at times, but I guess the study of history is essentially about making sense of that mess, creating and discovering meanings and patterns from the vastness of human past — to more or less authorize an accurate account of the past.

Olick, J. K., & Robbins, J. (1998). Social Memory Studies: From “Collective Memory” to the
Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 105–140.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/223476

— Paper I did for PI100, Nov 2023