The Insufficiency of Filipino Nationhood

12/2/22, 3:57 PM The Insufficiency of Filipino Nationhood
Moussons
Recherche en sciences humaines sur l’Asie du Sud-Est
20 | 2012
Recherche en sciences humaines sur l'Asie du Sud-Est

Notes
The Insufficiency of Filipino

Nationhood
L’insuffisance de la nationalité philippine
Niels Mulder
p. 183-196
https://doi.org/10.4000/moussons.1690
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
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 culturel modelant la nation, 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 politique ainsi que d’une culture de plus en plus séparée de la vie
quotidienne.
https://journals.openedition.org/moussons/1690#text 1/14
Entrées d’index
Mots-clés : histoire et identité philippines, nationalisme, oligarchie contre homme ordinaire,
société civile, classes moyennes, intervention culturelle américaine, instruction civique, principes de
construction sociale, histoire culturelle
Keywords: Philippine history and identity, nationalism, oligarchy versus common man, civil
society, 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.
The problem of nationhood

2 The depth of American cultural imperialism is demonstrated by the listlessness of
nation-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 invoke Dutch imperialism to explain the history and shape of their
present nation-state. In the 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, 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 the pack in obfuscating the history of
provinces, towns, villages, and streets.
3 Who cares? The very cultural imperialism that thwarts nation-building also destroyed
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, 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 typically observed that the 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 Nation, that 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, the Bangsa Moro movement aspires to run its people’s
own affairs in their homeland or bayan.
9 It is not that Tagalog-Filipino totally ignores such shades of meaning as it refers to
nationality as kabansaan or “sharing in a fellow bansa”, at the same time that
pagkamamamayan refers to belonging to a certain place (bayan), and thus means
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 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 the flag (that in many cases was struck half-an-hour earlier), singing the
anthem (right hand on the heart), and reciting the nationalistic vow. Following in this
track, all sorts of meetings, from a social of the tennis club to the deliberations of the
Senate, go through this ritual, in 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 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 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 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 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 without bars” of the Middle-East. Sure, they do not do so for the Republic,
however often the latter 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 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 absence 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 for 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, graduation pictures, the cute Santo Niño, the serene Lady of Lourdes or the stark
Mother of Perpetual Help, 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 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”. It is the vast territory where “men of prowess” (Wolters: 1999: 18-9)
compete for power as the highly admired social 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 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.
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
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-
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.
Changing middle stratum

19 Whatever the changes in lifestyles and world view of the members of the educated
middle 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 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 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.
20 If we compare with the long period of the gestation of the idea of “our nation-state” in
neighbouring Indonesia—pertinently present as of 1900, then institutionalising in the
1910s 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 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 shots. Even so, the formers’ intellectual
heritage lived on through the early nineties in a lively NGO scene and the alternative press,
but politically the idealists had been marginalized and henceforward their ideas were
irrelevant to the public agenda.
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 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 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-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.
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 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 vibrant public of participating citizens. As a result, ideas about the
public or common welfare miss a broad social basis, at the same time that the public realm
is perceived as the field of contest of political and economic interests. For most people,
therefore, it is a sphere to defend 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
actively participate; they are simply there, much as one is in a forest without participating
in nature. In contrast with the activist student generation of the 1960s, the new urban
middle 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 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 haemorrhaged through emigration, 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
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 esteem at the same time that public life is subject to interests over and against which
the citizens feel powerless.
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 seamlessly connected with its roots in family and person-centred morals. Later on, this
thinking resounded in the repeated appeals for moral reform that emanated from then
President Arroyo. Whereas suchlike social imagination necessarily fails to come to grips
with 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.
Culture of the ruling class

33 In establishing their dominion, the Spaniards were successful in co-opting the former
chieftains (datu) and the upper echelon of freemen (maharlika) of the disparate
communities (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
betrayed the Revolution, it could have been that their incipient cultural leadership would
have created a transcendent national 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 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 of the hugely popular nationalistic or “seditious” theatre
plays, and the establishment of the schismatic Iglesia Filipina Independiente.
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 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 (1945), the hope of the masa expressed in the elections of Magsaysay
(1954) and Cory Aquino (1986), the landslide victory 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-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.
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 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 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
Independence read like a newspaper. Some texts are adamant that politics is powered by
opportunism, corruption 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 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.
43 On the basis of so much “legitimate symbolic violence” (Bourdieu, Passeron 1977: 13-5,
24-5), 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 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 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.
45 As far as the Philippines goes, it is a could-have-been, as the institution of the State has
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 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 its charter. However, since all or most of these
are no better than figments of a foreign imagination, they were never taken seriously, and
so, when Marcos’s remarkable predecessor, Commonwealth President 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
manipulation prevented the institutions of the State, such as the President, Congress, and
the Supreme Court, to develop into shining, transcendent centres of the nation. As a
result, there 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 on this political event, history has given the Filipinos a bad deal. Political history,
however, is ephemeral; it is like the 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 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 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 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 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.
51 What remained, in spite of the American steamroller, was and is the Pinoy way of life
with its multitude of distinctive features, in which we recognize and the deep past, and
Spanish cuisine and Catholicism, American fast-food, coke and historical obfuscation, and
the 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 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.
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 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.
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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 02 décembre 2022. URL :
http://journals.openedition.org/moussons/1690 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/moussons.1690
Auteur
Niels Mulder
Niels Mulder has retired to the southern slope of the mystically potent Mt. Banáhaw, Philippines,
where he stays in touch through niels_mulder201935@yahoo.com.ph.
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