Hello, I am from the Philippines and I am very concerned about historical revisionism.
Just a background, we recently held our elections and the person who won was the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Now I am not a historian myself, but all I know is that he stole around 10 billion USD in his time as president while also killing and torturing thousands of people when he declared Martial Law. I didn’t have second thoughts about it because… why would I doubt history?
Don’t take my word for it, but I believe one of the reasons he won is disinformation. Tiktok, Facebook, and Youtube was used to give alternative views on history - such as them being framed, them being rich prior to joining politics, but most importantly the Marcos Era being referred to as a golden era in the Philippines.
Right now there are news circulating that some books pertaining to Martial Law should be banned.
I participated in fact-checking and fighting disinformation during the campaign season but it seems like the alternative history has already prevailed. It’s concerning that a lot people now refer to TikTok and other platforms for their sources of history, and banning these books will validate all of that. Not to mention, Sara Duterte, daughter of current president Rodrigo Duterte, has been appointed as the Secretary for the department of Education and they are planning to tell the “real” history.
Sorry for the long block of text but main question is
If this is post is too political, I’m sorry. I’m just really concerned for my countrymen.
While others chime in with direct comments about addressing disinformation, /r/AskHistorians previously had a round table discussing disinformation that might be of interest.
I can understand why you've come to this forum to ask this question - it's a question about the perception of history, and this is the forum for historians after all. But realistically, historians can't help you here. Oh sure, they can keep doing their jobs and putting out work that provides a thoroughly researched and truthful as possible story, but it'll just get ignored. They can do public outreach, but it'll be a drop in an ocean of disinformation.
What you have to remember is that this is politics. This isn't academia, where providing the best researched material and being The Most Right should eventually win the day (though that's a pretty rosy view of academia in and of itself). Politics is about material conditions, about brute power, about persuasion. The public perception of history is subservient to the needs of the ruling class of any country.
For example, here in Belgium, up until fairly recently - somewhere in the nineties - public education about Belgium's colonisation in Congo was, to put it mildly, very rose-tinted. This was not because the historical record was unclear about Belgium's atrocities in Congo. No, the shift in how it was taught and thus how it was perceived by the general public corresponds very clearly with the gradual loss of power of the old Belgian nationalist elite to the new regionalist Flemish nationalist elite. Despite the fact that many of the new Flemish capitalists also made their money in destroying Congo, the blame was more easily connected to the notion of "Belgium" - which these Flemish nationalists opposed. This shift came along with gradual but substantial state reforms that led to a more federal system in which the Dutch-speaking part of the country, Flanders, dominates. Which in turn was the result of a shift in global economics, the loss of importance of heavy iron&coal industry in the French speaking part of the country, and rise of Flemish capital.
Not to get into Belgian history too much, but it is a clear example of how our public notion of history is determined by forces outside of what is considered to be right in academia. I don't know enough about the political or economic situation in the Philippines to apply the same analysis to it, but I can guarantee it works in the same way. If you need a starting point, look to why your countrymen might not be happy with their current situation - discontent with the system is a powerful force which figures like Duterte and Bongbong latch onto with ease.
What to do about it, though. As I said, being right will never be enough. There's no neutral arbiter who will give this one to you, no teacher who will praise the brightest student and give them a gold star. Any answer to this will be political. The popular discontent that Bongbong Marcos is able to channel isn't exclusive to him - figures like these generally fill a void, where they're either the only political force acknowledging the discontent people feel or the only political force organised enough to reach people with its answer to that discontent.
Regardless of which it is, the answer is the same: organise! Organise with a message that cuts to the heart of people's discontent. It's more than just getting people to vote for your candidate, you have to get them involved. I don't know much about the Philippines, but IIRC the organisational structure and approach of the women's movement there is often considered a shining example of how to organise. So you don't even have to look all that for for a blueprint.
Once you've done that, people's perception of history can follow. There's a quote I keep coming back to, by Bertolt Brecht: "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral." It's (historical) materialism summed up in a single line, quite a feat. First comes the grub, then the morality. People make their decision based on material conditions (feeding their family, having a roof over their head, having a decent job) rather than the more esoteric (doing the right thing, leading a moral life, having a correct accounting of history). So start with the material, and morality can follow.