Truth and Lies about the Philippine-American Century

Abstract

This book takes its title from a catch phrase that appeared in several Manila newspaper articles of July 1996 covering the semicentennial commemoration of formal independence and Philippine-American Friendship Day. On July 4, 1946, officials representing the governments of President Manuel Roxas of the Philippines and President Harry Truman of the United States convened in the city's Luneta Park to end forty-eight years of American colonial rule, inaugurate the Philippine Republic, and pledge future cooperation between the two nations. Fifty years later, American and Filipino officials gathered in the same spot to reenact the historical proceedings. During one part of the ceremony, as the Philippine flag was raised and the American one lowered, the two banners intertwined for several moments. As reported in the Filipino media, many audience members took the entangled flags to indicate an alternative, messier version of the past. Newspapers reported the ceremonial glitch with comments on Filipinos' love-hate relationship with America, and America's neocolonial hold on Philippine sovereignty. The anecdote illustrates Sharon Delmendo's objective to understand the complex connections between the Philippines and the United States. She tells a story of two nations drawn into conquest, invasion, insurgency, military alliance, and economic dependency from the late nineteenth century to the present. The author argues that, over the last century, the Philippines and the United States forged a mutually constitutive relationship in which they asserted their national integrity through and against one another. Notwithstanding the oft-celebrated Philippine-American alliance, Filipino and American nationalists alike have taken pains to deny altogether the historical entanglements between the two countries. The book is valuable for articulating one of the central guiding questions of Filipino studies, a field that has expanded in