YOUNG actor Ella Cruz boldly, if not innocently, stated that history is just like gossip or "tsismis." And social media erupted in derision, with netizens pelting her with insults and unkind words. It did not help that she is coming from a position of playing one of the Marcos children in the upcoming movie "Maid in Malacañang," about the last three days of the Marcoses before they fled to Hawaii in 1986. The public criticism she received ended up being clothed with political color.
Indeed, likening history to gossip is sacrilege to academic historians. Gossip is commonly taken as untrue, even malicious. At a time when historical distortion has become a push-button issue that can easily rile the critics of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who fear an impending spree of rewriting history, Ella Cruz's comment was taken to unimaginable heights of political trash talk.
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