Americans broke Filipino hearts when they criminalized the renewed Katipunan movement, double-crossing and murdering the President of the Tagalog Republic in 1907.

Americans continue to break Filipino hearts when they dismiss the Philippine Revolution and the Filipino War of Self-Defense as mere insurrection, producing schoolbooks that gloss over the US military’s massacre of Sama-renos in 1901.

Filipinos mend their hearts when they gather for monthly afternoon discussions at the Museo ng Maynila (formerly the Army-Navy Club) where history enthusiasts and historians like Jaime Veneracion, Manila Studies mavens like Prof. Leonardo Estacio, PLM and CCM students, and city officials led by Gemma Cruz-Araneta share insights and information on the Philippines’ past, present and future.

At Manila’s Tertulia No. 3, February 4, 2008, Renato Redentor Constantino presented the connections of art and public space, memory and liberty, current events and public policy. Offshoot: the City of Manila through Mayor Alfredo S. Lim will build a monument of Macario Sakay, patriotic barber of Tondo, comrade of Andres Bonifacio and president of the Tagalog Republic, in September.

Filipinos mend their hearts when they attend the Dean’s Roundtable, a monthly forum sponsored by the UP Manila College of Arts and Sciences. Last February 5, Dean Reynaldo Imperial re-introduced the heroes and villains of the Philippine-American War in Samar.

In his research, Dr. Imperial underlined the role of the Katipuneros and Revolutionaries who commanded the Filipino forces. One such commander was General Vicente Rilles Lukban and he primed the Samar combat zone with production cooperatives and politico-military briefings. In one stirring instance, Gen. Lukban alerted the islanders:

"Liberty and independence being pure ideal we are all pursuing, join me in the field so as to expedite those deceitful Yankees, for they have come with the intention of exterminating us later, as they have exterminated the Indians of North America...and rather have this happen to us, before a large number of Americans arrive, let us hurl ourselves against those who are already here, let us wage a war against heartless vandals."

Filipinos mend their hearts when they dramatize the Philippine Saga, recreating the highlights of the Filipino struggle for self-determination. At the 1st DSS UP Manila Costume Play, February 8, 2008, student nurses and development studies majors donned period costumes to depict personalities like Rosa Henson and Mariannet Amper.

They were joined by the New Worlds Alliance (Star Wars Philippines, etc.), CosPlay.ph, and Buhay na Kasaysayan aka Philippine History Re-enactors, whose members proudly wore the uniforms of the Philippine Army that stalemated the American invaders of 1899-1914. They came as tiradores del muerte and Morong Battalion, freely mingling with Palpatine’s stormtroopers, Federation officers of the Star Trek series, and the knights of Warcraft.

Americans broke Filipino hearts when they made Mabini’s motherland a laboratory of counter-insurgency, incorporating lessons from special operations, from the ignoble capture of Aguinaldo in 1901 and the CIA psy-war in the 1950’s, into field manuals for use in the rest of the world.

Filipinos mend their hearts when they organize peace campaigns and defend national sovereignty, eschewing war as an instrument of national policy and constitu-tionalizing freedom from nuclear weapons and the protection of consumers from substandard commodities and unfair trade practices.