The Filipino People Under (S)Pain

Hist 1 (Philippine History) Brief Essay Number 2

Every Filipino now enjoys the liberties of posting our political and religious opinions on social media, whether satire or slander. Every one of us now has the freedom to elect any government officials that we want to serve for the country. The same things, however, cannot be said to the Philippines centuries ago. The thought of a Filipino society possessing freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and separation of church and state was nothing but a dream, until brave Filipinos, or Indios bravos (Francia 2010), grew courageous, started speaking out against the Spanish oppression, and demanded our independence. But ask yourself: if these people were still alive today, would they be proud or disappointed in what the Philippines had become?

An Overview to 19th Century Philippines

By the beginning of the 19th century, almost the entirety of the Philippines was already under the Spanish crown for 235 years (I said almost because the Spaniards didn’t manage to fully conquer most of the Muslim territories). Even though the colonial government managed to contain all of the small-scale rebellions like those of Diego Silang, Francisco Dagohoy, and Juan Ponce Sumuroy. But as new European superpowers emerged such as Great Britain, the Spanish Empire began to slowly crumble. The Seven Years’ War and the subsequent British invasion of Manila in 1762 showed to Filipino natives that defeating their Spanish overlords was possible (Zaide and Zaide 2011). The spread of liberalism and the establishment of new socio-political order in France due to the French Revolution also threatened the existence of the European monarchy.

Emperor Napoleon I also invaded Spain in 1808, imprisoned King Fernando VII and his father Carlos IV in France, and installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte to the Spanish throne (Zafra 1956). The chaos in the Iberian Peninsula became the golden opportunity for the colonies in Latin America to launch their revolutions against Spain. The biggest loss was the Mexican independence of 1824 because the Viceroyalty of New Spain was used to be the middleman between the Spanish East Indies and mainland Spain. From then on, the Philippines was now at direct control of the Spanish crown. After the Latin American revolutions, by 1884, only Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) were the remaining Spanish colonies in the Americas (Almario 2021).

The colonial government opened the ports of Manila to foreign merchants in 1837; Pangasinan, Iloilo, and Zamboanga in 1855; and Cebu in 1867, thus the beginning of the Filipino participation in global trade (Barrows 1905). But even if Manila ports hadn’t been opened yet, economic growth in the archipelago was already felt for the most part. According to historian Teodoro Agoncillo, the P4.7 million-worth of total Philippine exports in 1810 increased to P9.2 million in 1856, P28 million in 1870, and P33.1 million in 1894; while P5.3 million-worth of total Philippine imports in 1810 rose to P6.9 million in 1856, P23.5 million in 1870, and P28.5 million in 1894 (Agoncillo 1990).

The continuously growing economic prosperity caused the improvement of the education system in the Philippines, and with the arrival of European traders also came the liberal and progressive ideals of equality, democracy, social justice, freedom of speech, and press freedom from the Age of Enlightenment, particularly the philosophies of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire. Some of the Spanish Filipinos (called insulares) began to feel disconnected from mainland Spain and started developing the concept of Filipinos being separated from it, due to the discrimination of Spaniards from Iberia (called peninsulares). They started calling themselves “hijos del pais” or “sons of the country” (Scott 1994). The insular Spaniard Luis Rodriguez-Varela and other mestizos and criollos (half-Spaniards) already began begging for reforms as early as the late 18th century, with Varela even declaring himself as “El Conde Filipino” (Joaquin 2005).

During the Napoleonic Rule in Spain, the liberals of Spanish cortes formed the Cadiz Constitution in 1812, providing equal rights and freedom of speech not only to Iberian Spaniards but also to their colonies in the Americas and the Philippines. (Constantino 1975). Hoping that this would finally put an end to the exploitative polo y servicio (forced labor) and tributo (mandatory tributes) systems, the Indios and liberal Filipino Spaniards rejoiced as they would be equals with the peninsulares. But by the return of the conservative King Fernando VII from imprisonment, the constitution was dissolved in 1814. It was said that the dissolution of the Cadiz Constitution angered the Ilocanos and started an uprising in 1815 (Zafra 1956).

Reactions and Attitudes to Socio-Political Changes

The progressive changes in the Philippines especially triggered the royalists (conservatives) and the friars, who long have enjoyed the Spanish-Catholic hegemony. The concept of church-state separation simply did not exist in the Philippines, and the Spanish friars held too much political power above the government that officials from the governor-general down to gobernadocillos were all just their mere lapdogs. But perhaps the biggest step towards actual reform and eventually, revolution, came from the clergy. The clash between the secular priests (who are mostly Indios, mestizos, and insulares) and the regular friars (who are mostly peninsular Spaniards) did not actually start from the Secularization Movements of Fr. Pedro Pelaez and the GomBurZa, but can be somewhat traced back to the 1841 religious revolt of Apolinario dela Cruz, aka “Hermano Pule,” with his cult Cofradia de San Jose, to fight for the place of Indios within the clergy (Constantino 1975).

Another almost for a Spanish reform in the Philippines was the 1868 deposition of Queen Isabel II where another liberal constitution was drafted the next year. This political change led to the appointment of the most beloved progressive governor-general Carlos Maria dela Torre in the Philippines, which made the advocates of the Secularization movement excited (Almario 2021). But the conservatives pushed back. The friars blamed the priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora for a mutiny erupted in Cavite completely unrelated to their movement and executed via garote in 1872. The Cavite Mutiny also put plenty of other reform advocates in exile, and the legacy of secular priests was continued by the educated class of Indios and mestizos called ilustrados.

By late 19th century, the word Filipino did not only mean a Spaniard born in the Philippines, but was eventually extended into mestizos, criollos, sangleys (Chinese Filipinos), and Indios, and later on, extended into all inhabitants of the Philippines, Christian or not (Aguilar 2005). Due to the fact that the word Filipino originally pertained to Spaniards, Andres Bonifacio and his fellow members of the Katipunan refrained from using it and instead used Katagalugan. Emilio Jacinto explained in Kartilya ng Katipunan, “Sa salitáng tagalog katutura’y ang lahát nang tumubo sa Sangkapuluáng itó; sa makatuid, bisaya man, iloko man, kapangpangan man, etc., ay tagalog din” (Guerrero and Schumacher 1998).

Aside from demanding reforms for equality, the Propaganda Movement focused on the mockery of Spanish friars, highlighting their excessiveness, hypocrisy, and abuses towards their countrymen. From Lopez-Jaena’s Fray Botod, Del Pilar’s Dasalan at Tocsohan, and Rizal’s characters of Padre Damaso and Padre Salvi in his novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. They have to write their subversive works as far away from the Philippines to avoid persecution, through their newspaper La Solidaridad (Joaquin 2005). But did the efforts of the Propagandists fail? Only half-true. It may seem that their efforts for reformation in the country were worthless, but it sure permanently stained the reputation of the friars (Almario 2021).

Jose Rizal and Marcelo del Pilar’s disagreements also led to the La Solidaridad’s dwindling, with the former believing that it is time to bring the reform movement to the Philippines, which led to his eventual return to the country in 1892 (L. M. Guerrero 1961). It seems that the Spanish reforms were mostly advocated by the bourgeoisie class of Filipinos, thinking that these changes will eventually benefit the country, and ultimately, them. But most of the peasants and the commoners were already fed up with the abuses and exploitation and had been radicalized. They want real change. They want Spain out of the country through a revolution, the reason why Bonifacio’s Katipunan was founded in the first place.

Rizal in particular was reluctant on the idea of separatism. Nick Joaquin said that his “Hamlet split” between his desire to revolt and his hesitation to secede from Spain glaringly shows in his novel El Filibusterismo (Joaquin 2005). Meanwhile, Leon Maria Guerrero remarked, “In Rizal’s mind, the Filipinos of his generation were not yet ready for revolution because they were not yet ready for independence, and they were not ready for independence because they were still unworthy of it” (L. M. Guerrero 1961). But was it really true?

“Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon?”

Let’s face it, despite our calls for unity and oneness as a nation, Filipinos are almost always divided at anything from the very beginning until now. Perhaps that was our mere nature of being divided into regional groups with different cultures and languages. The Propagandists demanded assimilation from Spain, while the revolutionaries demanded separation from it. Patriots General Antonio Luna wanted to fight the new American oppressorswhile traitors like Felipe Buencamino and Pedro Paterno wanted annexation to it. If they would be alive in the 21st century, they would also angrily type to their keyboards and slander each other on social media just like what we do today.

It was also true that sometimes the tyrants are not the Western oppressor, but our fellow Filipinos. Megalomaniacal politicians hungry for power ultimately made the purpose of the revolution futile, as shown by Emilio Aguinaldo’s supposed involvement in the deaths of Bonifacio and Luna due to them being threats to his rule. Those power-hungry crooks in the government are now keeping the Philippines from progressing.

But on the other hand, unlike during the 19th century, we are now enjoying the different kinds of freedoms, liberties, and human rights that our forefathers did not manage to enjoy, and even died for the sake of them. If we want to honor them, it is our responsibility to safeguard those rights and keep them from being taken away from us, as we learned from the lessons of the Marcos Regime in the 1970s. Going back to our original question: would our heroes be proud or disappointed for the modern Filipino generation? It entirely depends on us. A critical and proper study of Philippine history will give us the tools on how we should move forward as a nation, and that includes learning from their mistakes. History does not repeat itself; we do. The decision of making Rizal and Bonifacio shake their heads to us from the afterlife is up to the Filipino people.

Conclusion

Seeing the subsequent results of the 1896 Revolution, maybe Rizal was right about the revolution being poorly planned and ill-prepared. Lack of governance skills, military disadvantage, and disunity between each other put down Emilio Aguinaldo’s government. Or perhaps that is only the curse for all newly-independent colonies of the Western powers, which might explain why most of them are Third-World countries. However, Rizal could also be wrong too. After all, true liberty and independence are not demanded to the oppressors, but to be fought for. No matter if we win or we lost, the fact that we resisted tyranny is already a heroic and noble act.

Bibliography

• Agoncillo, Teodoro. 1990. History of the Filipino People (8th Edition). Quezon City: R. P. Garcia Publishing Co.

• Aguilar, Filomeno V. 2005. "Tracing Origins: ‘Ilustrado’ Nationalism and the Racial Science of Migration Waves." The Journal of Asian Studies 64, No. 3 605-37.

• Almario, Virgilio S. 2021. Himagsikang 1896: Ang Dapat Mabatid ng mga Filipino. Quezon City: Adarna House, Inc.

• Barrows, David P. 1905. A History of the Philippines. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co.

• Constantino, Renato. 1975. The Philippines: A Past Revisited. Quezon City: Tala Publishing Services.

• Francia, Luis H. 2010. A History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos. New York: The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.

• Guerrero, Leon Maria. 1961. The First Filipino. Manila: Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission.

• Guerrero, Milagros, and John Schumacher. 1998. Kasaysayan: The Story of the Filipino People. Hong Kong: Asia Publishing Company Limited.

• Joaquin, Nick. 2005. A Question of Heroes (New Edition). Mandaluyong: Anvil Publishing, Inc.

• Scott, William Henry. 1994. Barangay: Sixteenth Century Philippine Culture and Society. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.

• Zafra, Nicolas. 1956. Readings in Philippine History. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press.

• Zaide, Gregorio F., and Sonia M. Zaide. 2011. Kasaysayan at Pamahalaan ng Pilipinas, 6th Edition. Quezon City: All-Nations Publishing Co., Inc.

Passed on November 17, 2021