#UsableHistory: On this day 119 years ago – on 13 September 1907 – Gen. Macario Leon Sakay was hanged along with Col. Lucio de Vega by authorities of the American occupation. President of the Katagalugan Republic, Sakay was a Katipunan original who fought alongside Bonifacio, Jacinto, and Oriang de Jesus. On 16 October 1907, a mere month after Sakay’s execution, U.S. officials inaugurated the Philippine Assembly, a chamber packed with turncoats ever ready to trade the nation’s interest for personal gain.
Think of Sakay and the unfinished Revolution each time you see the year “1907” shining on the seal of the House of Representatives, and the Philippine Senate which came after – institutions that trace their lineage to what is called, correctly, as our people’s first taste of U.S. democracy: when American occupiers ensured elites elected fellow elites to public office. We might even call it an origin story, if not the origin story, of political dynasties and oligarchs largely responsible for the mess the we’re in today. If we are to be guided by the past, the slogan #NeverForget must reach deeper into a past that goes far beyond 1972.
