ARMADILO A.

PALATAN BSCRIM-1

REACTION PAPER

My reaction about Filipino Nationalism was, it says there that Filipino comes from the word Filipinas, a

name after a Spanish king and it was given by Spanish explorer Roy de Villalobos. In the first place It was

not a certain Indio or a native who broadened the meaning of Filipinas. Even Indio or native that time

had no power to establish a meaning of Filipinas that would apply to the whole of the archipelago. But

there was foreigner who gave meaning and relevance to it, who could not even speak of one local

language of the natives. And accordingly to what I’ve read, it says there that in the context of

colonization, the natives became second class where people could not even found a nation of its own,

people who could not find their identity. Even a professor claimed that there is no such thing as Filipino

nationalism. It insisted that there is a unique nationalism. That Filipinos are unique people with unique

historicity. And looking back to the historicity of Filipinos, it says there that Filipinos have their own

phase of evolution and development. And by that process, Filipino nationalism also came into

existence.

For Anderson he suggests that, it would make things easier if one treated it as if it belonged with

kingship‘ and religion, rather than with liberalism‘ or fascism‘. Filipino nation as the contextual matrix of

Filipino nationalism is an imagined political community and imagined as both inherently limited and

sovereign. For instance, not all Ilocanos meet Cebuanos. Not all Bicolanos hear about Caviteños.

Filipinos only hear, meet, and watch other Filipinos on radio, on TV, in newspapers or in books. It is

even in a very limited scheme. In the mind of each Filipino, however. Living in different islands with

different languages (dialects). Filipino people long to live in a nation, which is free. For Ninoy Aquino

(Manifesto of a Free Society). Communicative language, e.g. Filipino language, therefore, is a necessary

and crucial factor in the history of the evolution of Filipino nationalism. Its mobilization with the intent
of providing it with national historicity and structure, this communicative language stimulates and

ignites the fire of Filipino consciousness and furnishes new nation, the Filipino nation. Thus, Filipino

nationalism thrives in the condition that favors the rise of mass reading-publics by printing and

commodity capitalism.

In other words, nationalism is the mother virtue of every Filipino. It, therefore, unites Filipinos into one

endeavor; it unleashes the energy, courage and enthusiasm of the Filipino into work for political, social,

cultural and economic transformation. Communication affects Filipino nationalism. It urges nationalism

to be communicative and not to be bounded within one family, clan, political party or sector of the

society. Filipino nationalism, therefore, is not only for the rich, or educated, or intellectual Filipinos. And

Filipino nationalism is shared as a print language and as virtue that strengthen blood relation among

Filipinos though they do not see and hear one another. In such matrix of Filipino nationalism, Filipino

discovers and defines his/her selfhood and self-identity as Filipino.