Reclaiming Filipino pride by rewriting our story

History, we are told, is written by the victors.

- NIGHT OWL ANNA MAE YU LAMENTILLO

For a country like the Philippines-conquered, traded, occupied, and reshaped by forces far beyond our shores-that phrase has never been merely a saying.It has been a lived reality. For centuries, our narrative was crafted not by the people who tilled our soil, built our communities, and carried our culture, but by those who claimed dominion over us. And for too long, we accepted their version of our story as the truth.

But there is a growing, urgent need to reclaim Filipino pride by rewriting our history-not with new fictions, not with convenient nostalgia, but with our own voice at the center. We must tell our story from the perspective of the Filipinos, not the victors of war or the colonizers who shaped our textbooks and dictated the terms of our identity.

Because the truth is simple: a nation cannot rise when its memory is borrowed.