The Insufficiency of Filipino Nationhood

5/3/22, 8:02 AM The Insufficiency of Filipino Nationhood
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Moussons
Recherche en sciences humaines sur l’Asie du Sud-Est
20 | 2012
Recherche en sciences humaines sur l'Asie du Sud-Est

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Nationhood
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L’insuffisance de la nationalité philippine

✓ Tout accepter
Niels Mulder
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p. 183-196
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https://doi.org/10.4000/moussons.1690
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https://journals.openedition.org/moussons/1690 1/23
Résumés
English Français
This essay is an exercise in the histoire des mentalités that traces the evolution of the characteristic ethos
in relation to State and nation in the Philippines. Whereas State-propagated nationalism and associated
rituals are inescapably present, these fail to evoke the sense of belonging to a shared civil world. It seems
as if the public sphere of the State and the private sphere of everyday life do not articulate, which is
practically enhanced by the systematic exclusion of the ordinary citizen from the oligarchic political
process. As it is often expected that a civil society rooted in the emerging middle classes has the potential
of bridging the gap and of providing the cultural leadership that moulds the nation, the evolution of their
members’ ideas, from militant idealism to current self-centred morality, will be brought into focus
against the dynamics of the political economy and of a culture that is increasingly divorced from the
practice of everyday life.
Cet essai relève de « l’histoire des mentalités » et trace l’évolution du génie spécifique liant l’état et la
nation aux Philippines. Tout en étant bien présents, le nationalisme diffusé par l’état et les rituels
associés sont incapables de renvoyer à un sentiment d’appartenance à un monde civil partagé. Tout se
passe comme si la sphère publique de l’état et la sphère privée de la vie quotidienne n’étaient pas
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coordonnées, ce qui – en pratique – est renforcé par l’exclusion systématique du citoyen ordinaire d’un
processus politique de type oligarchique. Comme il est souvent attendu qu’une société civile enracinée
dans les classes moyennes émergentes ait le potentiel de combler l’écart et de produire le leadership
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modelant la nation, et
l’évolution des idées des membres de celle-ci – d’un idéalisme militant à
l’actuelle moralité nombriliste – sera mise au grand jour, à l’opposé de la dynamique de l’économie
ceux que ainsi
politique vousquesouhaitez
d’une culture de plus en plus séparée de la vie quotidienne.
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Entrées d’index
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Mots-clés : histoire et identité philippines, nationalisme, oligarchie contre homme ordinaire, société
✗classes
civile, moyennes, intervention culturelle américaine, instruction civique, principes de
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construction sociale, histoire culturelle
Keywords: Philippine history and identity, nationalism, oligarchy versus common man, civil society,
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middle classes, American cultural intervention, civics in school, principles of social construction, cultural
history
Texte intégral
Prefatory
1 According to Gomperts et al., Indonesia’s pre-war nationalist leaders understood the need
of historic symbols for legitimating a nation-state’s cultural and national identity. Since they
were fully aware of the emotional appeal of Majapahit, they claimed it as the forerunner of a
united Indonesia. Next to this, the authors even assert that no nation can survive without
knowledge of its historical past (2010). If this is so, history has been most parsimonious in
giving the Philippines its share, as the first state on its soil was the result of Spanish
imperialism. Even so, the colonial history of the Islands must be deeply understood if we want
to appreciate the present, distinctive Filipino (Pinoy) way of life, and the festering problem of
nationhood.
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The problem of nationhood
2 The depth of American cultural imperialism is demonstrated by the listlessness of nation-
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building. In a country like Indonesia, the erasure of the humiliation of the colonial past was
not so much a priority as a matter of course, and it is inconceivable that Indonesians would
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invoke Dutch imperialism to explain the history and shape of their present nation-state. In the
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Philippines, however, the Grant of Independence is still celebrated with the lowering of a
conspicuous American flag on the current hundred-peso bill, and the names of Taft, Harrison,
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Lawton and the like live on. Even so, many places have been renamed after certain national
heroes and many more after not-so-heroic presidents, among whom the name of Quezon leads
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the pack in obfuscating the history of provinces, towns, villages, and streets.
3 Who de
Politique cares? The very cultural imperialism that thwarts nation-building also destroyed
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historical continuity, and so the sense of Philippine becoming was erased. As a “modern”,
American-educated nation, people should face forward and be progress-oriented, basically
agreeing with Henry Ford’s dictum “history is bunk.” Even so, with or without history, certain
circles recognised that the depth of the colonial impact had led to the “mis-education of the
Filipino” (Constantino 1966) and a “colonial mentality” that kept inferiority feelings alive
while blindly accepting the superiority of anything Stateside. As a result, in 1972 the Marcos
dispensation proclaimed the Educational Development Decree that, among other things,
should remedy the “problem of nationhood.”
4 Subsequently, school teaching became bilingual, the soft subjects, such as social studies,
history, and civics henceforward to be taught in the vernaculars and Filipino, and arithmetic,
mathematics, and natural science in English. At the same time, textbooks were developed that
should instil self-conscious pride in being Filipino (e.g., Mulder 2000: ch. 3). Since then, first
graders must study the legal complexities of citizenship, the panoply of national symbols, and
a long list of beauty spots and other geographical features of the country. The teaching of
history should emphasize 19th century nationalism and the Revolution against the oppressive
Spaniards, even as the American rape of the First Republic has to compete with the new
coloniser’s munificence. Thanks to Mother America, Filipinos became literate, healthy,
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democrats, and citizens of the modern world. Upon counting these blessings follow the
Freedom Missions, the Commonwealth, and the Grant of Independence in 1946, to which it is
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observed that theet
Grant came at a time that the country lay in ruins, was wallowing in
poverty, and had no identity as a free nation.
5
Under the rule of Marcos, school education apparently did not succeed in instilling a sense
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of nationhood, and so, in 1987, Senator Leticia Ramos-Shahani proposed to conduct research
into “the weaknesses of the character of the Filipino with a view to strengthen the nation’s
moral fibre.” It resulted in a report, Building a People, Building a Nation, in which a panel of
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prominent intellectuals, among other things, concluded that Filipinos show a deficiency of
patriotism and appreciation of their own country, and are not in sympathy with their
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government. As a result and similar to the appeal of the Educational Development Decree,
they proposed that schools be tasked to propagate such values. Subsequently, in 1989, Values
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Education became part of the national curriculum.
6 Regardless of social scientists holding values to be conclusions of experience and practising
teachers knowing that “values are caught, not taught”, schools are still supposed to convince
their wards that they should be proud of being Filipinos, love their country, appreciate the
good work of their government, and be willing to sacrifice for the common welfare. Preferably,
they should be law-abiding, too. At the same time, the experience of poverty, injustice, and
ineffective governance drives many people away from their native soil.
Nationalism
7 As many columnists, educators and officials have it, the absence of vigorous nationalism is
at the root of all sorts of problems, and so, over the years, the phrase, however often repeated,
has got a hollow ring to it. The evocation of “nationalism” as a blame-all could be related to the
fact that in native Tagalog-Filipino the idea is inherently vague. Consulting Fr. English’s
Tagalog-English Dictionary, we find the equivalence of nasyonalismo and
pagkamakabayan, pagkamakabansa, diwang-makabansa, pag-ibig sa bayang-tinubuan o
inang-bayan. Because love for country is often thought to be love of its state, one may find the
equivalency of estado and bansa, bayan, and pamahalaan, and with this hotchpotch we may
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have come to the source of the convenient vagueness of the term.
8 Roughly translated, the aforementioned notions of nationalism may be rendered as “to be
pro-country”, “to be pro-nation”, “to be pro-nation-spirited”, “to love one’s native soil” or “to
love mother-land”; at the same time, state becomes people/nation, country, and
regime/government.
activer Such equivalences bedevil the subject, even as it would not take a
sociology sophomore much effort to disentangle the mess. When a movement in the southern
Philippines calls itself Bangsa Moro, it clearly sees itself as the spokesman for the Moro
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Nation, thataccepter
is, a grouping of people on the basis of the idea of sharing history and identity. In
brief, bangsa or bansa refers to Anderson’s felicitous term “imagined community” (1983).
Naturally,
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homeland or bayan.
9 It is not that Tagalog-Filipino totally ignores such shades of meaning as it refers to
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nationality as kabansaan or “sharing in a fellow bansa”, at the same time that
pagkamamamayan
Politique refers to belonging to a certain place (bayan), and thus means
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citizenship. Next to these, we have the idea of “state”, that is, of a territory (bayan) under a
government that holds sway over the people (bansa) living there. This very condition of
lordship, however, tells us nothing about people’s loyalty to that state or about their eventual
identification with it.
10 Historically, nationalism as identification with the state is a recent phenomenon that was
consciously fostered in 19th century Europe as a means of building the strength of the state
through popular identification with its regime. Subsequently, it became possible to mobilize
the populace to celebrate their state and to wage war in its name for whatever reason, because
“right or wrong, my country. ” At bottom, such blind loyalty to the state has nothing “natural”
to it, but is the result of the propaganda of the owners of the state. For such nationalism to
arise, it needs to be propagated and taught, but if people distrust the message and do not
accept it wholeheartedly, the citizens will not identify with state or regime, and their loyalty
cannot be expected.
11 In order to impress on first-graders their belonging to the nation-state, they have, in step
with the American example, to study an array of national symbols. Whereas the flag is a
powerful one among these, emblems such as the bangus (milkfish) as the national fish fail to
arouse positive emotions. More amazing is it to claim the lechon (roast pig) as the national
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food, as it arrogantly excludes the Moslems, and the poor, to boot. Next to these identity
markers, we find the endless repetition of certain ceremonies. Schooldays begin with raising
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(that cookies
in many et was struck half-an-hour earlier), singing the anthem (right hand
cases
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heart), sur the nationalistic vow. Following in this track, all sorts of meetings,
and reciting
from a social of the tennis club to the deliberations of the Senate, go through this ritual, in
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which obligatory prayer takes the place of the nationalistic vow. Depending on their schedule,
people may have to endure this rigmarole up to five times a day, and so one wonders whether
its deeper meaning has not worn thin. In the place of my research, the flag was up day and
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night at the town hall, and so it was at the provincial high school. This apathy corresponds
with the disinterest in national days, such as Bonifacio Day, Rizal Day, Heroism or Bataan
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Day, Independence Day, National Heroes Day, etc., that merely remind people of the closure
of banks, schools and offices, and the leisure to clean the house. For all that, most are happily
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unaware that such days have been created to celebrate the State and evoke the spirit of
nationalism.
The Filipino way

12 The lack of enthusiasm for celebrating the nation-state contrasts with the days that express
Filipino-ness and exemplify Pinoy civilisation. The days in mind are Christmas, Holy Week,
Flores de Mayo, All Saints’ Day, and the town fiesta, and special occasions, such as the
common outpouring of grief at Corazón Aquino’s demise (2009), the massive sympathetic
mourning after Flor Contemplacion’s execution in 1995 in Singapore (Rafael 2000: 212-27), or
when world-class boxer Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao defends his title; then roads are deserted
and everybody is glued to the box. These are the real national days that, like Pacman’s
victories, evoke identification with the nation or bansa. A state that commemorates itself
stages a military parade; national community, however, is expressed through pride in sporting
events or the victory of a beauty queen, and the emotions sparked by popular religious
observances. Then people spontaneously express their belonging to each other and their way
of life.
13
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The problem is not, as ever so often stated, that Filipinos do not love their native land or are
reluctant to identify with its people. They do, much the same as almost everybody in this
world. They are willing to sacrifice themselves for its welfare as overseas’ workers in the
“prison
vous donne without bars” of
le contrôle the Middle-East. Sure, they do not do so for the Republic, however
sur
oftenque
ceux the vous
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hails them as “heroes of the nation”, but in order to keep their loved ones afloat
in a country that does not offer any prospects. In brief, it is not a shortage of love for the native
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land, but a deficit of confidence in the State and the class that runs it. So, when a regime is
distrusted, schools may propagate all the national symbols they can muster, but, in the
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of credible national leadership, to no avail.
14 As a result, Filipino-ness is expressed in its “little-traditional” forms, and not in symbols
that✗stand
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history and nation-state. Filipino-ness belongs to home and community. It is
there that one finds the shared and distinctive representations of the Filipino ethos; these
emblems belong to individual families and communities, such as the diplomas on the wall,
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graduation pictures, the cute Santo Niño, the serene Lady of Lourdes or the stark Mother of
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Perpetual de Help,
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the plaza with its diminutive Rizal statue, the town hall and church, the
basketball court, the band, the bus waiting shed, the fiesta and processions. All of these do not
refer to an exemplary centre; they refer to nothing more than themselves. Up to the present,
therefore, Filipino civilisation is expressed in a concrete style of life rather than in the abstract
sense of an encompassing nation-state.
15 Naturally, this “little-traditional” scope is reflected in the principles of social construction of
the lowlanders who trace descent bilaterally and whose religious imagination mirrors their
kinship organisation (Mulder 1997: ch. 2). In their view, the social arrangement is a moral
edifice based on family ties, the “sacred” position of parents, hierarchy and the essential
inequality of individuals who are obliged (or not) to each other through “debts of gratitude”
that spell their tangible life world. In the absence of an alternative, sociological understanding,
they experience their moral inequality as a matter-of-course. As a result, the social studies-
curriculum is devoid of a discussion of the concepts of civil society and democratisation, other
than vague statements about the equality of citizens according to the Constitution that is
repeatedly invoked as the Mariang Makiling- or Godot-like saviour of the nation (Mojares
2002: 1-19).
16 Experience-near existence shades off into the not-morally-obliging space that appears as the
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property of others, of politicians, officials, landlords and economic power-holders. Whereas
this area may be seen as “public in itself”, it is not experienced as “of the public” or “for itself”.
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territory et “men of prowess” (Wolters: 1999: 18-9) compete for power as the
where
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admired social sur
good (King 2008: 177). For the vast majority, however, the public
domain is an anarchy of impersonal and thus a-moral relationships where one ventures—if at
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all—to serve one’s political and economic well-being. It is the area reported about in the
newspaper and other mass media that provide the ephemeral images and scandals by which it
is, often deceptively, substantiated.
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17 In this time of mass media, with a television set in almost every home, it is the pseudo
culture of simulacra à la Baudrillard (1988) that pervasively dominates the media. Even as
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politics hold the pride of place, it is consumed as a kind of spectator sport that offers no
serious competition to the lowest-common-denominator programmes broadcast country-
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wide. Hence, everyday culture radiating from the centre offers little to hold on to. Through the
interminable bombardment of fleeting symbols and messages, people are anaesthetized
against nationalism and identification with the State, against the ideals of active citizenship,
and against the hope for the rule of law. They know that politics is too much talk and little
substance, so why waste one’s time through speculating about the desirable state of affairs? As
a result, people feel that they had better focus on survival, the safety of their family, and the
consolation of religion.
18 At this point, it may be appropriate to note that religion, as a keystone of individual identity,
has been patently prospering in Southeast Asia, and so in the Philippines, since the 1960s, and
promises to be going strong for a long time to come (Mulder 2003: ch. 9; Willford et al. 2005:
introduction). Even as this religious drive is individual-centred in confirming a person’s moral
worth, such religiously driven righteousness can also exert not to be underestimated pressure
on those who hold political power. It was the Church’s appeal that played an important role in
the mass demonstrations against Presidents Marcos and Estrada, similar to religion being the
driving force that ousted the Shah in 1978, and a key factor in President Suharto’s resignation
in 1998 and the subsequent ascendancy of Moslem leader Abdurrahman Wahid. In Thailand,
the neo-Buddhist Major-General Chamlong Srimuang of the Force of Righteousness Party
brought down Prime Minister General Suchinda Khraprayoon in 1992, and possibly protesting
Buddhist monks are more effective than Aung San Suu Kyi in undermining the Burmese junta.
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Changing middle stratum
19 Whatever the changes in lifestyles and world view of the members of the educated middle
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classes, we should bear in mind that they are exemplary to the rest of the populace. They are
the producers, disseminators, and consumers of mainstream and alternative ideas; they are
the✓mainstay of public opinion, and their milieu is the matrix of ideas about the desirable
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order of society. For a while, in the 1960s and during the late-Marcos and early-Aquino years,
progressive and nationalist ideas emanating from their quarters appeared to fire the public
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imagination. Nowadays, however, in a globalizing world, the nation seems to have been lost
sight of, at the same time that primordial and professional bonds give reason to behaviour.
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20 If we compare with the long period of the gestation of the idea of “our nation-state” in
neighbouring
Politique Indonesia—pertinently present as of 1900, then institutionalising in the 1910s
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and 1920s in the Budi Utomo and Sarekat Islam associations, and from the 1920s onward in
political platforms—then post-colonial nationalism in the Philippines has been no more than a
flash in the pan. In 1946, when “sovereignty” was granted, the country was willingly more
dependent on the USofA than during pre-war days. Whereas, in the 1950s, this was
emphatically protested by politicians like Claro M. Recto and Lorenzo v. Tañada, the historian
Teodoro A. Agoncillo, and the social-activist author Amado v. Hernandez, their nationalism
was not widely understood, even as toward the end of the decade then President Carlos P.
Garcia initiated a “Filipino-First” economic policy. Altogether, these early stirrings resulted in
the efflorescence of nationalistic, social-emancipatory, and anti-authoritarian movements in
the 1960s that went underground after the declaration of Martial Law on the 21st of
September 1972.
21 Following the assassination of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino on 23 August 1983, the ideas of the
sixties resounded again throughout society. As the former students had meanwhile become
professional, this was most vociferously the case in their demonstrations in the business heart
of Makati City and in the ever more audacious opposition press. When Marcos’s shenanigans
came to a head that catapulted Ninoy’s widow Corazon to the presidency in February 1986, it
seemed as if social reconstruction was within arm’s reach. It didn’t last, and if people on the
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progressive side were still in doubt, the Mendiola massacre of peasant demonstrators toward
the end of January 1987 made it abundantly clear that the now-restored oligarchy called the
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so, the et intellectual heritage lived on through the early nineties in a lively
formers’
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the alternative press, but politically the idealists had been marginalized and
henceforward their ideas were irrelevant to the public agenda.
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22 Meanwhile, they have been replaced by a vast generation of professionals who, as Martial
Law babies, went to school under the dictatorship. As this was a time of state
developmentalism, it induced a career-orientation in the students that has continued into the
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present. Their formal education was and is precariously low on social science and humanities
content; at best they are oriented to future progress, resulting in generations that tend to be
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socially inattentive and devoid of a sense of history. This runs parallel to the sea change in
technology that has overwhelmed their experience of life. As McLuhan commented in now far-
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off 1964, the medium is the message, and new media, new “extensions of man», new sources
of power, production, and efficiency irreversibly change the world and with it, mentality.
23 If momentarily concentrating on these media, we note that, in the wake of the idealistic
1960s, television intruded into every home, and as it did, it banished books. Gradually, the
calculator and, later, the bar-code expelled mental arithmetic. In the early 1980s, the
computer came of age and revolutionised information and communication technology, at the
same time that stereo and, later, videoke, drove out the guitar; in the 1990s, the internet and
e-mail picked up, and since it has become rare to see someone lick a postage stamp. From the
early 2000s on, people have become cell-phone addicts. When we reflect on the effects of
these changing media on the way we live and imagine life to be, we’ll realise that it is an abyss
that separates the 1960s with its belief in social constructability from the present.
24 In those recent olden days of the 1960s, it appeared as if there was some integrity between
the Filipino way of life and the way it was thought to be. Nowadays, however, the outside
world seems to have been disconnected from experience as people have to go by industrially
and foreign produced images. With television and its illusions, they entered a pseudo-reality
in which it becomes increasingly problematic to separate the real from the fantastic. As a
result, people stick to their identity-confirming inner circle and hold on to their career, as all
of us are finally experiencing Buddha’s truth that life out there is maya, delusory, indeed.
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Civil society?
25 Ever since, in the 1920s, Filipinos got leeway to run their affairs, the public sphere has been
the arena of traditional or money politics, presided over by, first, the colonial and, later, the
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neo-colonial oligarchy. The members of this class regard the country as their private preserve
and exploit it to their advantage; consequently, they have and had no interest in creating a
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vibrant public of participating citizens. As a result, ideas about the public or common welfare
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miss a broad social basis, at the same time that the public realm is perceived as the field of
contest of political
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oneself against or to take advantage of, as one’s real life and identity belong elsewhere.
26 This concurs with the experience of contemporary mass society in which people do not
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actively participate; they are simply there, much as one is in a forest without participating in
nature. de
Politique In contrast with the activist student generation of the 1960s, the new urban middle
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stratum is not eager to be involved in “public” affairs. Besides, these days such affairs are
obfuscated by the permanent bombardment of messages that emphasize the importance of
individual lifestyles and consumption. So, whereas the mass demonstrations that finished
Presidents Marcos and Estrada evoked the image of a vigilant civil society, deeper analysis
shows that it were hegemonic interests that engineered public opinion. Accordingly,
occasional popular mobilisation occurs “in the name of civil society” rather than as its product
(Hedman 2006).
27 Apart from this, where would a vigorous civil society hail from? In the 1980s and 1990s,
with the efflorescence of all sorts of cause-oriented groups and NGOs, people were easily led to
believe in the vitality of civic consciousness, at the same time that the very proliferation of
such groups demonstrated their basic flaw, often joked about as, “Two Filipinos is two NGOs. ”
To get people to stick to a cause or a program, even when it is clearly to their advantage, is
almost impossible as long as they remain leading-personality oriented and as perennial
interpersonal rivalries keep them from making common cause. No need to say that this quality
easily reduces them to playthings of power-holders and their divide-and-rule tactics.
28 There is more to this. A vigorous civil society as a watchdog against political horse-play and
economic manipulation can only flourish if it has a vast recruitment base of well-educated and
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critical people. Even as there are quite a few of such citizens, we should realise, as Anderson
cautioned in 1988, that the educated middle stratum of Philippine society is being
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et mostly to the USA, and so fails to develop into a
significant competitor of the oligarchy (1998: 212).
29
Ergo, in the absence of a significant civil opponent, the Philippine State is hostage to the
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political and business interests of oligarchs that have no stake in strengthening it; on the
contrary, through loop holing the Constitution and a highly personalised political system,
corruption has consciously been built in (Villacorte 1987). As a result, politics is held in low
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esteem at the same time that public life is subject to interests over and against which the
citizens feel powerless.
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Individual-centeredness
30 In view of this situation, there is little cause for wonder that most people doggedly pursue
their own course irrespective of others (kanya-kanya). In a way, this agrees with the
propagation of consumerism that stimulates people to acquire the status symbols that mark
their individuality. In other words, where society is lost sight of, its component members come
to the fore, and so the focus of public life is on outstanding, single individuals, rather than on
the impersonal “generalised other” or something as intangible as the public interest.
31 At present, the social life of the nation is appreciably open to the world, and has become
part of a post-national global environment that is not subject to any ideology or ethical system
other than the rules of political and economic expediency. Because of people’s dependence on
it for survival and advancement, it intrudes into private life, which may give cause to
frustration. Subsequently, they express their grumbling in newspaper columns and letters to
the editor, in values education courses, in sermons and exhortatory speeches that all
emphasize decency, sacrifice, and personal virtue as the well-springs of good society. This self-
centred orientation leads away from legal or ideological attempts to come to grips with the
public world that remains hidden in vagueness. It is there to watch, not to actively participate
in. As a result, only minimal demands on the state and economy can be expected to emanate
from the new urban middle stratum.
32 ☝🍪
This moral self-centeredness dovetails conveniently with the interests of the state-owning
class. Its introduction of values education in order to improve the quality of public life
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seamlessly des cookies et its roots in family and person-centred morals. Later on, this
with
vous donneresounded
thinking le contrôleinsur
the repeated appeals for moral reform that emanated from then
President Arroyo. Whereas suchlike social imagination necessarily fails to come to grips with
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society-in-the-abstract, it may be soothing to the individual soul. One may even argue that it
comes timely in a borderless world that leaves the person thrown back on the comprehensible,
identity confirming areas of experience, such as family and religion.
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Culture of the ruling class
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33 In establishing their dominion, the Spaniards were successful in co-opting the former
chieftains
Politique de(datu) and the upper echelon of freemen (maharlika) of the disparate communities
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(baranggay). Through creating this privileged stratum of native principalía as their
henchmen and the old wisdom of divide and rule, the separation of the political class from the
common people evolved from early colonial times. Through the imperial policy of gathering
the population “under the bells”, these original principalía became the kernel of urban, i.e., of
pueblo society.
34 A separate class of people that evolved in and around Manila were the Chinese who were
attracted by the opportunities the colonial emporium held in store. Many of them took native
Christian wives, so that by the time the Chinese were expelled from the Islands (1766), a
considerable number of Chinese-Filipino mestizos could step into their fathers’ shoes.
Entrepreneurially minded, they came to dominate the retail trade of the Islands and seized on
the opportunities—just as exponents of the principalía did—the commercialisation of
agriculture and the opening up of the country to world trade offered.
35 Since a measure of political clout and money attract each other, the two classes fused and, as
the 19th century proceeded, their intermixture gave birth to the identifiable ancestors of the
current state-owning elite (Simbulan 2005). In the last quarter of the century, this highly
successful middle class had begun to send some of its male offspring to the venues of higher
education in the colony and the mother country, giving rise to a stratum of Hispanicized
☝🍪
intellectuals, the so-called ilustrados, who matured as the vanguard of Filipino nationalism.
36 If these “enlightened ones” would have had it their way, and if the Americans had not
Ce site utilise
betrayed thedes cookiesitetcould have been that their incipient cultural leadership would have
Revolution,
vous donne
created le contrôle national
a transcendent sur ideology that could unite Filipinos as a nation. What comes to
mind in this respect are the works of José Rizal, the ruminations on the State of Apolinario
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Mabini, the ideas of Pedro Paterno, T.H. Pardo de Tavera, and Isabelo de los Reyes as “the
brains of the nation” (Mojares 2006), Lope K. Santos’s dream of social justice as unfolded in
his then widely-read Banaag at Sikat (“from early dawn to full brilliance”, 1906), the authors
✓ Tout accepter
of the hugely popular nationalistic or “seditious” theatre plays, and the establishment of the
schismatic Iglesia Filipina Independiente.
✗ Tout refuser
37 It would not be. We noted the emergence of a hybrid native middle class and should be
aware of the pettiness of its political position. Hence, when this bourgeoisie joined Aguinaldo’s
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Revolution, most of its members did so in the hope of combining their economic acumen with
political influence; at the same time, the majority of them was not interested in ilustrado
idealism. As the realists they were, they would soon accommodate to the new American
overlord who was, in fact, generous in dispensing political opportunity. When, in the 1920s,
the lease to the new master was relaxed, they stormed ahead in plundering the country’s
resources, as if they had never heard of the idea of the common welfare (Anderson 1998: 202-
3). If there was such an idea at all, it was the Commonwealth with the United States that
beckoned.
38 With the Grant of Independence in 1946, we witness the, at least for South-East Asia,
curious spectacle of a privileged class that had always been subservient to its masters
becoming the tutelary heir to the latter’s power. As a colonial creation, it is colonial history
that legitimizes the present oligarchy that has long lost its roots among the ordinary folks.
Largely mestizo and culturally oriented to the world of the West, its members do not feel to
have more in common with the ordinary people than the vernacular to give orders in. As a
consolidated, privileged class, whose power has been used to protect its landed and other
interests, it stands in opposition to those its members refer to as the “common tao” (people).
39 In other words, if there is a problem of nationhood or an absence of identification with the
common weal, the problem should be pinned on the country’s oligarchy. Repeatedly, the
ordinary people have expressed their desire to partake in the country’s course and destiny.
☝🍪
Think of the efflorescence of the Katipunan that initiated the Revolution of 1896, the socialist
and communist movements of the American period, the popularity of the Democratic Alliance
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(1945), des cookies
the hope et expressed in the elections of Magsaysay (1954) and Cory Aquino
of the masa
vous donne
(1986), thelelandslide
contrôlevictory
sur of “Erap” Estrada (1998), and his 30% of the vote in 2010, but
whatever the hopes of the ordinary folk, they would persistently be betrayed by the state-
activer
owning class that is averse to their emancipation and nationalism. Let everybody in the land
express their belonging through watching a glorious Pacquiao, but the humble “common tao”
should stay clear of politics and the affairs of State, even as they are allowed to cast their vote.
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40 With the elite’s power of determining the contents of the mandatory curriculum, school
teaching keeps it this way. The course outline of the subject of “History and Government” is
✗ Tout refuser
political through and through, and should build up to having an independent state with
sovereignty, three branches of government, and foreign relations. To anticipate this situation
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and long before contact with Spain, primordial communities are said to be ánd Filipino ánd to
possess all of these, which implies that there was nothing to learn or that the continuous
process of change and becoming does not apply in the Islands. People there had a high
civilisation, even wrote down [some of] their laws as the baranggay chieftain (datu) lorded it
over the thirty to one hundred families of his jurisdiction. So, long before Montesquieu
formulated the Trias Politica (1748), the datu is said to be invested with legislative, executive
and juridical power, at the same time that he is the head of the armed forces. This is very much
in the image of the absolute monarch who proclaimed “l’état, c’est moi” (the state, that’s me)
or of somebody like Marcos, the usurper of freedom and rights, and ordinary dictator.
41 The school’s approach to history and government is crammed with this type of a-historical
and irresponsible statements, at the same time that it keeps the becoming of the state-owning
class meticulously out of sight. Instead of presenting the cultural history of the slow evolution
of a potential nation—an endeavour that would connect the past to the present—political
chronology takes over. Through chopping up in seemingly unconnected episodes, such as the
Spanish colonial State, the Revolution of 1896, the Philippine-American War, the blessings of
American colonialism and the Commonwealth, the Japanese Occupation, Liberation, and
Independence, continuity and becoming are lost sight of. As if to highlight this rape of history,
the last period is presented through individual presidential reigns, Martial Law, New Republic,
the EDSA demonstrations of 1986 that undid Marcos, more reigns, the EDSA demonstrations
☝🍪
of 2001 that ousted Estrada, and President Arroyo’s administration.
42 Because this periodisation highlights transient affairs, observations on the period of
Ce site utilise desread
Independence cookies
like aetnewspaper. Some texts are adamant that politics is powered by
vous donne le contrôle
opportunism, corruptionsur
and shady deals—in which sense the picture of a rotten society is no
different from that in the mandatory course of Values Education. In spite of such occasional
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realism, all texts must enumerate every president’s noble intentions that, alas, invariably come
to naught, even as it is never explained why this is so.
On the basis of so much “legitimate symbolic violence” (Bourdieu, Passeron 1977: 13-5, 24-
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43
5), it becomes well-nigh impossible to understand social life, let alone to identify with the
nation and its past. So, if, theoretically, school should foster a sense of self that comes to
✗ Tout refuser
include the wider community, we may safely conclude that the way it shapes this demand
makes it impossible to imagine that one, as a student, is personally involved. Besides, at the
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same time that much attention is devoted to the birth of ilustrado and popular nationalism in
the period preceding the Revolution, the present invocation of Rizal, Bonifacio, and Mabini is
no better than evoking phantoms of the past that are safely on the far side of the watershed
event of the American occupation. Ironically, current Indonesian school texts still refer to
Rizal, the Revolution and the First Republic as exemplary for the awakening of (anti-colonial)
nationalism in Asia.
National transcendence?
44 In spite of all the phraseology about “nationhood”, “moral recovery”, and the
underdevelopment of “nationalism”, there is nothing that reminds of a national doctrine other
than silly lists of national symbols and beauty spots, and ever-repeated anthem singing and
flag-raising. The contrast with Indonesia’s Panca Sila ideology and Thailand’s theory of The
Three Institutions is striking, as these teachings clearly evoke an exemplary centre that lends
legitimacy to the institutions of the State and that sets certain parameters within which
national discourses can thrive. They also eventuated in Indonesians and Thai identifying with
their nation-states as matters-of-course.
As far as the Philippines goes, it is a could-have-been, as the institution of the State has
☝🍪
45
never been held in great esteem. Colonial in its origins, its contempt for and exploitation of the
populace couldn’t lend it much legitimacy. If anything, the State was something to stay away
from or to take advantage of. Accordingly, its local representatives, the principalía, developed
a political culture of artfulness and deceit in balancing the demands of a powerful overlord
with their own interests (Corpuz 1989: xii-iii). When they were finally put to the task of
activer
organizing the State on their own, they duly wrote the foundational ideas of People’s
Sovereignty, Justice, Separation of Powers, Popular Representation, and (quality) Education
in ✓itsTout
charter. However, since all or most of these are no better than figments of a foreign
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imagination, they were never taken seriously, and so, when Marcos’s remarkable predecessor,
Commonwealth
✗ Tout refuserPresident Manuel L. Quezon, established himself as a virtual dictator, he held
no scruples about editing the 1935 Constitution to his liking (McCoy 1989).
46 Since then, a perennial deficit of popular endorsement, poor performance, and political
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manipulation prevented the institutions of the State, such as the President, Congress, and the
Supreme
Politique deCourt, to develop into shining, transcendent centres of the nation. As a result, there
confidentialité
is little high-cultural substance to overarch the little-traditional way of life of the general
public. The only nation-wide institution that could possibly qualify is the Church, but few are
those who would point to the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines as an
authoritative centre, not only because it dirties its hands in politics or because of its unpopular
position regarding reproductive health, but most particularly because church-life belongs to
the parish and its local traditions.
47 Arguably, History is the great institution of a nation-state for sanctioning its identity. It is
the source of emotive symbols that lend pride and reason to the present as the presumptive
continuation of a semi-mythic past. Even so, whereas the Indonesians have their Majapahit
and the Thai their Sukhothai, American imperialism cheated the Philippines of the glory of
being the first Asian nation to defeat, seven years ahead of Japan, a Western power—an event
that inspired nationalists from Sun Yat Sen to Sukarno. Unfortunately, the Americans kept the
humiliation of being a colony alive at the same time that they were over-eager to denigrate the
country’s cultural past and relegate it to the dustbin of irrelevance. Through creating, in Nick
Joaquin’s metaphor, a lettered generation of people without fathers and grandfathers, or, in
the colonial trope, Little Brown Brothers, culture and history were aborted, and with it
confidence and pride in identity and continuity. In brief, American aggression and tutelage
☝🍪
brought about a cultural calamity.
48 The history of the Philippines begins with the Spanish conquista, and if we keep our focus
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on this des event,
political cookies et has given the Filipinos a bad deal. Political history, however, is
history
vous donne leit contrôle
ephemeral; is like thesur
events of the day in the newspaper that serves to wrap salted fish the
day after. If we want history to cohere, we have to be aware of the spirit of the times, of
activer
intentions and motivations. Since these constitute the gist of history, we had better follow
Febvre’s call for tracing the evolution of the ways of thinking and experiencing of the common
man, the elite and other relevant groups (1973). When we follow this advice, we will find the
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relevance of the past to understanding current existence. What began with the introduction of
the plough and new crops, the wheel and the horse, Catholicism and the printing press, and
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the opening of the country to Asia and the world, had its repercussions on mentality and
eventually aroused the spirits of popular, ilustrado and elitist nationalisms, the idea of
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Filipino identity, and ideas on how to give these shape in a free country.
49 It is regrettable to note that already in the days of the successful Revolution against Spain,
the nationalist potential of all and sundry imagining to belong together was effectively
debilitated. Firstly, through the liquidation of the popular Katipunan leader Andres Bonifacio
soon after the petty bourgeois leadership of Aguinaldo had effectively taken over. Then,
through the blatant self-serving nature of most members of the leading class (e.g., Guerrero
1982). Thirdly, through the explicit exclusion of the common people when the principalía set
up their Malolos Republic (1898-99) that, fourthly, lorded it over the populace so abusively
that many became nostalgic of the Spanish past (ib.: 175-79). No wonder that at the time the
Republic was fighting the Americans, many of the ordinary citizens turned their back on it and
even offered organised resistance, such as the Guardia de Honor in Pangasinan. As a result,
there is no cause for wonder that, in 1902, the peasantry of Palanan, Isabela, had no scruples
in delivering the Republic’s President Aguinaldo to the Americans after he had sought refuge
there (Joaquin 1988: ch. 10).
50 Apart from the endemic split between the haves and the have-nots, the equally endemic
opportunism of most of the erstwhile republican leadership made them side with the
Americans as soon as they recognised which side their bread was buttered on. Whereas
popularly based pockets of resistance against the new supremacy held out until 1912, the
Americans had little trouble in dousing the principalía’s nationalist impetus, firstly through
☝🍪
opening up political and economic opportunity, then through saturating the privileged class
with American-style modernity and school education.
Ce
51 site utilise
What des cookies
remained, in spiteetof the American steamroller, was and is the Pinoy way of life with
vous
its donne
multitudele contrôle sur features, in which we recognize and the deep past, and Spanish
of distinctive
cuisine and Catholicism, American fast-food, coke and historical obfuscation, and the
activer
inescapable onslaught of ever new media. Even so, in spite of these vicissitudes, there is much
more continuity in the epic of Philippine becoming over the last 500 years than between the
heyday of Majapahit and present-day Indonesia. This continuity demonstrates a certain
✓ Tout accepter
national transcendence and a culturally colonial past that can usefully serve to create the sense
of nation, such as plausibly pioneered by Corpuz, Joaquin, and Zialcita.
✗ Tout refuser
52 When we train our attention on the history of the political-economy, however, we’ll see that,
under whatever regime, a consolidated, privileged class developed whose interests are
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opposed to those of the common people. As the modern day principalía, they have no interest
in providing the cultural leadership an imagined community needs to refer to. In this they are
supported by a social imagination that is myopically focussed on the immediate experience of
life and media that almost exclusively centre on political personalities.
The insufficiency of nationhood

53 The insufficiency of Filipino nationhood lies in its failure to mould the population into an
organic whole or an encompassing moral order in which people imagine that they belong
together. In the absence of a shared narrative of collective emancipation that ties private life to
an authoritative centre of nationhood, we find two nations in the independent Philippine
State, that is to say, the largely mestizo elite and the “common tao.” Since these “nations”
cannot articulate, it keeps all and sundry—inclusive of the members of the new middle classes
—from identifying with the whole and prevents them from developing into a nation of
responsible citizens. As a result, nation building remains a task stretching way into the future.
WOLTERS, O.W., 1999, History, Culture and Religion in Southeast Asian Perspectives,
Singapore: Institute for Southeast Asian Studies (rev. ed. of 1982 orig.).
ZIALCITA, Fernando N., 2005, Authentic though not Exotic; Essays on Filipino Identity,
Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.
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ANDERSON, Benedict, 1983, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism, London: Verso.
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ANDERSON, Benedict, 1998, “Cacique Democracy in the Philippines,” The Spectre of Comparisons.
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BAUDRILLARD, Jean, 1988, “Simulacra and Simulations,” in Selected Writings, M. Poster, éd., Oxford,
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CORPUZ, O.D., 1989, The Roots of the Filipino Nation. I, II, Quezon City: Aklahi Fnd.
ENGLISH, Leo J., 1986, Tagalog-English Dictionary, Metro Manila: National Book Store.
FEBVRE, Lucien, 1973, “Sensibility and history: How to reconstitute the emotional life of the past,” in A
New Kind of History from the Writings of Lucien Febvre, P. Burke, éd., New York: Harper and Row,
p. 12-26.
GOMPERTS, Amrit, Arnoud Haag & Peter Carey, 2010, “Rediscovering the royal capital of Majapahit,”
The Newsletter, 53: 12-13.
GUERRERO, Milagros C., 1982, “The Provincial and municipal elites of Luzon during the Revolution,
1998-1902,” in Philippine Social History: Global Trade and Local Transformations, Alfred W. McCoy,
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Metro Manila: Solar Publishing Corp.
KING, Victor T., 2008, The Sociology of Southeast Asia: Transformations in a Developing Region,
Copenhagen: NIAS Press.
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Philippine Colonial Democracy, Ruby R. Paredes, ed., Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.
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Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, New York: McGraw Hill.
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MOJARES, Resil. B., 2006, Brains of the Nation: Pedro Paterno, T.H. Pardo de Tavera, Isabelo de los
Reyes and the Production of Modern Knowledge, Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.
MONTESQUIEU, 1748, L’Esprit des lois, Genève : Barillot & Fils.
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MULDER, Niels, 1997, Inside Philippine Society. Interpretations of Everyday Life, Quezon City: New
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MULDER, Niels, 2003, Southeast Asian Images; Toward Civil Society?, Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.
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Manila University Press.
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SIMBULAN, Dante C., [1965] 2005, The Modern Principalia; The Historical Evolution of the Philippine
Ruling Oligarchy, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press.
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2, 1.
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Contemporary Southeast Asia, Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications.
Pour citer cet article

Référence papier
Niels Mulder, « The Insufficiency of Filipino Nationhood », Moussons, 20 | 2012, 183-196.
Référence électronique
Niels Mulder, « The Insufficiency of Filipino Nationhood », Moussons [En ligne], 20 | 2012, mis en ligne
le 27 novembre 2012, consulté le 01 mai 2022. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/moussons/1690 ;
DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/moussons.1690
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Auteur
Niels Mulder
Niels Mulder has retired to the southern slope of the mystically potent Mt. Banáhaw, Philippines, where
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he stays in touch through niels_mulder201935@yahoo.com.ph.
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5/3/22, 8:02 AM The Insufficiency of Filipino Nationhood

Recherche en sciences humaines sur l'Asie du Sud-Est

L’insuffisance de la nationalité philippine

The Filipino way

The insufficiency of nationhood

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