ºÝºÝߣ

Editor's Notes

1. The Center for Engaged Foresight (CEF) is a futures innovation and social foresight hub in the Philippines and South East Asia.Established to advance a spectrum of futures strategies and methodologies, the CEF aims to intensify the aptitude of persons, systems and society¡¯s to respond to the challenges of the 21st century. The CEF believes that by engaging and exposing individuals and collectivities to engaged foresight, the present can be reinterpreted and the future reinvented. The CEF posits that when more time and effort is invested into understanding and conceptualizing alternative and transformative futures, the wealthier and healthier our options and collective futures will be.The Center specializes on futures education and research, facilitation and engaged foresight.
2. The Circle of Engaged Foresight is a network of futurists, academics, civil society, government and industry leaders around the world supporting the CEF¡¯s efforts in advancing long-term thinking and action foresight in the Philippines and South East Asia.Contact-basedProf. Shermon Cruz, director, professor and researcher at the University Center for Research and Development in Northwestern University.Prof. Dennis Morgan, full professor at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS) in South Korea.Prof. Marcus Bussey is Lecturer in World History/Sustainable Futures and also Research Fellow in Regional Futures with the University of the Sunshine Coast¡¯s Sustainability Research Centre, Australia and Visiting Fellow at Nanyang Technological University¡¯s S. Rajanatram School of International Studies, Singapore.Romelene Pacis, editor and researcher at Northwestern University.Shiela R. Castillo is a licensed teacher, with a degree in BSE Social Sciences from the Philippine Normal University, Manila. She is a development consultant who has been working in the environment sector for 15 years doing projects for non-government organizations, as well as national and international institutions.Prof. Gina Lomotan, assistant professor at De La Salle University teaching political science, development studies and environment and society courses.
3. Concerned with understanding and exploration of the multiple possibilities of what lies ahead, of what is yet to happen, of alternatives, of what¡¯s plausible and preferred or not in a particular issue or future issue (Dator, 2009; Inayatullah, 2007)
4. It identifies some significant events, the main actors and their motivations, and it conveys how the world functions. Building and using scenarios can help people explore what the future might look like and the likely challenges of living in it.Scenarios are based on intuition, but crafted as analytical structures. They are written as stories that make potential futures seem vivid and compelling. They do not provide a consensus view of the future, nor are they predictions: they may describe a context and how it may change, but they do not describe the implications of the scenarios for potential users nor dictate how they must respond.
5. Futures studies has six pillars:Six pillars: futures thinking for transformingMapping the Present and the Future through methods and tools such as the futures triangle and the futures landscapeAnticipating the Future? through methods such as emerging issues analysis and the futures wheelTiming the Future, understanding the grand patterns of change, macrohistory and macrofutures.Deepening the Future through methods such as causal layered analysis and four quadrant mappingCreating Alternatives to the Present through methods such as scenarios and nuts and boltsTransforming the Present and Creating the Future through visioning, backcasting, action learning and the transcend conflict resolution method.
6. Scenarios are not predictions about the future but rather similar to simulations of some possible futures. They are used both as an exploratory method or a tool for decision-making, mainly to highlight the discontinuities of the present and to reveal the choices available and their potential consequences.
7. The following scenarios are still initial findings and reflections. We deconstructed the Maharlika narrative and tried to draw some assumptions on the ¡°official¡± or default future of the Maharlika narrative.
8. Based from the existing information from articles, and resources that we gathered on the net, there are discourses that describes/illustrates the official future of Maharlika as seen from the present.The idea is that Maharlika is synonymous with Marcos.Maharlika(1971), produced by Paul Mason and directed by Gerry Hopper, depicted the legendary exploits of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos during World War II. The lead stars are Paul Burke (in the role of the young Marcos), Farley Granger and starlet Dovie Beams who played the role of Isabella, a Fil-American mestiza. The movie was said to be a part of CIA-funded propaganda to portray Marcos as a war hero who fought the Japanese during WW II. It became a sizzling issue and controversy ensued when the press made an expose and divulged the existence of a tape recordings incriminating the President and allegedly confirming the rumors that Ms. Beams was the President¡¯s mistress.Beams held a press conference before leaving the country, and delighted the press and public by playing the controversial erotic tape recordings of her with Ferdinand Marcos. She managed to hide a tape recorder under the bed to record while making love with the former President. According to her, she was forced to come into the open since there were threats to her life.Although the film was yanked out of exhibition, it enjoyed a brief run at several theaters after the EDSA revolution in 1986.
9. Maharlika is a political and nationalist agenda of the new society that is why Maharlika-related programs and projects are interpreted as some sort of an attempt to revisioning the Marcos legacy. Major projects of Marcos were named Maharlika such as the Maharlikahiway, Maharlika Hall in the Malacanan Palace and even the Maharlika Livelihood Complex in Baguio which was built originally to be a hotel in place of the burnt stone market in 1978. These projects seemed as if kinalimutannasila ng gobyerno.
10. The official future as far as worldview analysis is concerned, is constructed or believed as Islamic, Malay, non-Western and has been intentionally excluded in history or mainstream history for that matter including misconception of Maharlika to be of phallic nature. Marcos preferred to view it or mean it as nobility and royalty.
11. Today, historians and cultural advocates imagines it as of warrior origin and which, perhaps, influenced Marcos¡¯ views of Maharlika that inspired him to use it to name his guerilla unit during the 2nd World War. As a folk history, Maharlika is linked to Marcos as if it¡¯s his own myth or legend.
12. As far as we are concerned, this is how we look at Maharlika today. Is this the official future? Do we want these to represent Maharlika? Or do we want to question it and create alternative futures for Maharlika? How can we transform Maharlika as a cultural metaphor, folk history and social movement for national identity, transformation and development? It¡¯s a hard nut to crack but how?
13. Now, I want to ask three basic questions and perhaps help us build these scenarios for further research and discussion,¡­
14. I¡¯d like to ask you some questions about some plausible scenarios
15. The ultimate question is¡­