Friendship Day

Kyle Tam

July 4, 1946: In ceremonies held in the temporary Independence Grandstand (built in front of the Rizal Monument), the Philippine flag is raised while the U.S. flag is lowered. The flagpole in front of the Rizal Monument is thus known as the Independence Flagpole, commemorating the culmination of the quest for national independence. (source: Philippine Gazette)

In 1944, U.S. soldiers led by General Douglas Macarthur arrived on the shores of Palo armed with wrapped candy and modern firepower to liberate the Philippines from Japanese army occupation. Their arrival marked an end to a colonial era that began with the Spanish, who beat the Ilocano, Cebuano, and a thousand other dialects out of us and morphed our native Tagalog into something almost unrecognizable to our pre-colonial selves; and ended with the ouster of the Japanese, whose legacy in the Philippines includes the infamous forced march of terrified men, women, and children sixty-five miles across Bataan, depositing those who survived into prison camps.

Today, we recognize the liberation from that legacy every year on the fourth of July, Philippine-American Friendship Day. Much like the U.S. Independence Day, the holiday is an occasion to celebrate all things “American.”

Macarthur’s troops arrived ostensibly to throw off the yoke of oppression, though the U.S. army’s goals were arguably far more strategic than altruistic. Still, as they uprooted Japanese colonialism, the U.S. exhibited a softer form of power. Rather than demolishing our culture by force, the U.S. simply stressed a new set of values: a reverence for televisions in every home and a car for every family—purchasing power.

We’re good at celebrating what the liberation washed ashore with the Americans, and even better at overlooking what they left behind: the army jeeps carting around wide-eyed soldiers, fast food franchises on every corner, rampant consumerism and, of course, military bases.

The desire to Americanize has seeped into every aspect of our culture. Palmolive, Ever Bilena, or even the Western-endorsed Dove whitening soaps and creams occupy every other billboard, telling women with darker skin that they must aspire to Western beauty. Our President, Rodrigo Duterte, exhibits the same Dirty Harry-approach to politics as the current administration in the U.S.: shutting down television networks, jailing journalists, extrajudicial killings, an ineffective war on drugs—a divide-and-conquer political ethos driven by expedience and theatre.

That’s the Philippines for you. Discovered by the Portugeuse, colonized by the Spanish empire, oppressed by the Japanese army, and aspiring to replicate the American way of life.

Philippine-American Friendship Day used to be our Independence Day—the day in 1946 that we signed the documents which granted our freedom. From there we ambled towards independence on an unsure footing, still reliant on the goodwill and financial support of our American friends. It was under the dictatorial rule of  Ferdinand Marcos that this transition occurred. Marcos asserted that the intent was to celebrate our kinship with the United States, but in truth, the transition’s effect was to symbolically diminish the concept of a free and independent Philippines.

Technically speaking, on paper, we are a republic—a nation of individuals with full rights and freedoms. In practice, although we declared independence in more than sixty years ago, we’ve never really been free.

Kyle Tam is an author, dreamer, and full-time complainer from the Philippines. Her work has been published or is upcoming from Rejection Lit, Planet Scumm, and Daily Drunk among others. She has a lot of feelings about American occupation, most of them complicated. @PercyPropa