8 - The Ghosts of Colonialisms Past and the Weight of Occupations Present

Summary

The selection of July 4 as the date for the Philippines’ official transition to independence in 1946 speaks volumes about the ambiguity of that event. The deliberate synchronization of independence days, agreed upon more than a decade ahead of time, was a reflection of the officially amicable basis for the Americans’ surrender of their sovereignty over the islands. (Indeed, as noted in Chapter 7, the previous decade’s push to set a firm timetable for the separation had been initiated by Washington.) The successful culmination of this process could serve to retroactively validate the United States’ portrayal of its role in the Philippines as sincerely benevolent, in keeping with the myth of American exceptionalism and in supposed contrast to the more exploitative and repressive conduct of other colonial powers. And just as the Philippines struck out on its own, the auspicious calendrical convergence between the two countries’ major secular holidays could serve as a reminder that their political separation did not constitute a parting of ways. Whenever Filipinos would celebrate their own independence day, they would effectively be reaffirming their ongoing historic connection to a United States to which they “owed” their own constitutional principles, political culture, and ideological values.