Virtual Ethnography 101: Remember Erlinda! (AFP Museum)

As part of the weekly exercises of my graduate students in Anthropology 225: Philippine Society and Culture, I wanted my students to explore places and write ethnography using the method of participation-observation.

I am posting in my blog with the writer's consent selected ethnography penned creatively by my students to contribute to the emerging sub-discipline of anthropology called 'Virtual Ethnography'.

Basically, virtually ethnography is also referred to as Webnography. We cannot deny the fact that with increasing use of technology and the Internet, there is now a demand for online spaces on various ethnographic accounts.

Ethnography by Charissimae Ventura

I am not a fan of museums, never was and never will.

So after learning of about the homework for today’s class, I grudgingly set a date with Laurence Garcia (a classmate also in the same class) to visit a museum nearest my office – the AFP Museum. In my eagerness to ensure that I comply with such requirement, I completely forgot about the date when I am supposed to go there.

Again, I am not a fan of museum. For me, when you’ve seen one museum, you’ve seen all – a building or institution that houses and cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, or historical importance. This is when a tour guide becomes useful. He gives stories and meanings to these artifacts.

A group of special kids were also having a tour of the museum on that day. The AFP Museum has two floor of exhibition space. The first floor features the following: development of Filipino military tradition and institutions through several historic periods – precolonial, colonial, revolutionary, Filipino-American war, the commonwealth era, World War II, and post-war to the present times. Photographs, documents, dioramas, scale models, equipment, weaponry, uniforms, insignias, medals and various artworks represent each historical period. The second floor showcases displays on the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Outside the building is found the Kagitingan Park displaying Air Force jets, a helicopter, army tanks, armored vehicles, naval guns, cannons, and a two-man submarine.

When I walked through the second floor, notwithstanding my enthusiasm about museums, a makeshift tank with the words “remember me” written across it caught my attention. I asked the tour guide the story of Erlinda and he relayed the story in this wise:

“‘Remember Erlinda’ was a slogan which spurred our Filipino soldiers to fight against the Japanese soldiers during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines. One day in Bataan, a Filipino soldier patrol found the body of a young Filipina who had been raped and killed by the Japanese soldiers. Next to her body was a handkerchief with the name “Erlinda” embroidered on it. The fate of Erlinda drove the Filipino soldiers to fight harder, and belied all the propaganda leaflets which the Japanese dropped.”

The tour guide added: whenever our Filipino soldiers wanted to give up in the battle against the Japanese soldiers during the said occupation, each soldier would remind them of the battle cry “Remember Erlinda” and they would fight even harder for the country and its people amidst hunger, thirst, and exhaustion brought about by war.

I left the museum intrigued as ever in the story of the Erlinda battle cry. I searched the internet for published stories about remembering Erlinda but information about it was very scarce. I only found a news article about it on page 11 of a newspaper entitled “The Quan” dated February 1976. However, the article written had a slight discrepancy with the facts of the story told by tour guide in the museum. Nonetheless, it had the same conclusion that, indeed, the battle cry “Remember Erlinda” was the reaction of our Filipino soldiers when they fought against the Japanese soldiers during the Japanese occupation or the World War II.