THE CONTINUING PAST

PT. 1: THE SPANISH Week 2

EMPIRE
 OUTLINE

 For Thursday: José Gar cía Vil la, “Son of Rizal”; “The Man Who Looked Like
Ri zal”; “Story of My Count ry”)
 Arti cl e: Renat o Constanti no, “The Mis-educati on of t he Fili pino”
 Recap
 Literary narratives embed divergent perspectives, which also imply
different values
 Identification / disidentification with group identities in society and
culture
 Question of “empathy”: seeing the self in the other / other in self
 Contexts of Philippine history, society, culture
 The “continuing past”: why did it continue between Spain and the
US?
 Workshop #1: San Agustín, Rizal, and the colonial legacy
 The Philippines under US Rule
 Carlos Bulosan, “Passage Into Life”
 QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

 Interpret and explain: Centuries after the publication and

circulation of SA’s letter, the author’s claims have been
vigorously debated. What is so controversial about them?
Choose a passage from the text to support your claim.
 Analyze: What does this passage tell us about either San
Agustín, the religious Orders in the Philippines, or the
Spaniards in general?
 Argue: How does José Rizal respond to one or more of San
Agustín’s claims? What does his response tell us about Rizal’s
view of colonial history?
 Reflect: What did the US do / not do about the Spanish
colonial legacy in the Philippines?
 GASPAR DE SAN AUGUSTIN

 Mi s s i on a r y prov i n ci a l di re ctor of
th e Au g us ti n i a n Orde r ( OSA) ( 1651 -
17 24 )
 Le a rn e d Tag a l og a n d V i s aya n
( Hi l i g ayn on )
 P ubl i ca ti o n s :
 Conquistas de las Islas Philipinas: La
temporal por las armas del Señor Don
Phelipe Segundo el Prudente; y la espiritual
por los religiosos del Orden de Nuestro Padre
San A gustín - Fundación y progressos de su
Provincia del Santísimo Nombre de
Jesús (1698, reeditado en 1998 con el
título Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas 1565-
1615)
 Compendio de la ar te de la lengua
tagala (1703).
 Car ta a un amigo suyo dándole cuenta del
natural y genio de los Indios de estas islas
Filipinas (1720)
 CHRONOLOGY / BIOGRAPHY
 1 861-1 896 L ife o f J o sé Riz al
 1 868 Opening o f the Suez C anal c uts trave l b etween Sp ain and
P hilippines in half; L ib eral gove rno r C arlo s M aría d e la Torre attemp ts
to refo rm c o lo nial legislatio n in the sp irit o f “enlightened ” p rinc ip les
 1 872 Riz al’s brother Pa c iano imp lic a ted in Cavite reb ellio n, w hic h lead s
to the exec utio n o f three c reo le and mestiz o p riests; J o sé is sent to
Spain “to study med ic ine. ”
 1 886 Riz al publishes Noli m e t a n g e re , whic h attac ks Sp anish
c o lo nialism
 1 888 c o ntributes to L a S ol id a rid a d , new sp ap er fo r F ilip ino rights in
Spain
 1 891 publishes E l f il ib u s te ris mo , b rand ed a subve r s ive by the S p anish
gove rnment
 1 892 returns to the P hilip p ines, p rop o ses the esta b lishment o f a L iga
Filipina
 1 896 Spanish autho rities learn o f the ex istenc e o f a revo lutio nar y
move ment inspired by Riz a l’ s w ritings; R iz al is arrested and exec uted by
firing squad .
 1 896- 1 8 98 P hilip p ine revo lutio n against Sp ain
 QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

 Interpret and explain: Centuries after the publication and

circulation of SA’s letter, the author’s claims have been
vigorously debated. What is so controversial about them?
Choose a passage from the text to support your claim.
 Analyze: What does this passage tell us about either San
Agustín, the religious Orders in the Philippines, or the
Spaniards in general?
THE FRONTIER PROVINCES WERE LARGELY
ADMINISTERED BY THE RELIGIOUS
MISSIONARY ORDERS
…WHO ENDED UP OWNING THE
MAJORIT Y OF LAND
CAPITALISM AND THE BIRTH OF THE
AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY (18 TH C)
 Agricultural industry
gives a new value to the
land seized by the
religious Orders in the
provinces
 Friars create plantations
harvesting export crops
and depending on native
labor
 Friars use Chinese and
Chinese mestizos as go-
betweens to organize
labor and collect quotas
THE MAIN INGREDIENTS OF A COLONIAL
ECONOMY
SPANISH COLONIZATION

Military context:
Philippines used as a
base for defending the
Pacific against
European powers
Economic context:
establishment of
Spanish trade with
China
Religious context:
evangelization of
Christianity
FR. SAN AGUSTÍN’S “LETTER”

 Explicit question: “what are

the faults of native Indians
[Indios] and how does this
impact Spanish rule in the
colonies?”
 Implicit question: “Why have
two centuries of colonization
either failed or fallen short?”

The “lazy native” falls asleep at the job: “Indio

Filipino,” in Ilustración Filipina 2: 286.
 QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

 Interpret and explain: Centuries after the publication and

circulation of SA’s letter, the author’s claims have been
vigorously debated. What is so controversial about them?
Choose a passage from the text to support your claim.
 Analyze: What does this passage tell us about either San
Agustín, the religious Orders in the Philippines, or the
Spaniards in general?
 Argue: How does José Rizal respond to one or more of San
Agustín’s claims? What does his response tell us about Rizal’s
view of colonial history?
JOSÉ RIZAL, “ON THE INDOLENCE OF THE
FILIPINOS”
 “We must confess that indolence does act uall y and
positivel y exist there; only that, instead of holding it
to be the cause of the backwardness and the trouble,
we regard it as the ef fect of the trouble and the
backwardness, by foster ing the development of a
lamentable predisposition” (3).
 Indolence: a natural predisposition magnified by aggravating forces
 Filipinos did not originally lack industry as written sources show

 A ggravating forces
 Wars of conquest and resistance of indigenous people: flight from the coasts to the
highlands or remote areas (13)
 Piracy led by Chinese corsairs as well as Muslim sultanates from the south (Mindanao,
Joló, Borneo) (13-15)
 Despoliation (theft) of native access to land, community resources, leadership, loss of
leadership
 FROM AWAKENED PREDISPOSITION TO
LEARNED HELPLESSNESS
 Absence of commercial stimulus
 Absence of native incentive
 Moreover, 'Why work?' asked many natives. The curate says that the
rich man will not go to heaven. The rich man on earth is liable to all
kinds of trouble, to be appointed a cabeza de barangay, to be deported
if an uprising occurs, to be forced banker of the military chief of the
town, who to reward him for favors received seizes his laborers and his
stock, in order to force him to beg for mercy, and thus easily pays up….
The native, whom they pretend to regard as an imbecile, is not so much
so that he does not understand that it is ridiculous to work himself to
death to become worse off.
 Gambling
 Lack of capital
 Religious doctrine
 Government apathy
SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF CONQUEST AND
COLONIZATION

Deracination (displacement), deculturation (cultural

genocide through forced conversion), depopulation
(1/3)
Racial division between the conquerors and the
conquered, which corresponded to the geographical
division between coastal towns and the provinces and
the class division between officials and workers
Introduction of Chinese immigration, with Chinese
entrepreneurs serving as negotiators and
intermediators between the worlds of the colonizer and
colonized
Emergence of mestizaje (miscegenenation) between
indigenous Filipinos and Chinese and Spaniards (esp.
Priests)
THE CONTINUING PAST,
PT. 2: FROM THE Colonialism
SPANISH EMPIRE TO in the guise
of liberation

THE US
COMMONWEALTH
THE FAILED REVOLUTION

Execution of Rizal, Bagumbayan field

(Intramuros), December 30, 1896
 CHRONOLOGY

 1 896 Revolution vs. Spain

 1 898 Revolution vs. th e US
(“Ph ilippine- A merican War”)
 1901 Surrender of General
A guinaldo, commanding of ficer of
th e Ph ilippine revolutionar y troops
 1902 Ph ilippine Bill promises
eve ntual self-gove rnment, af ter a
period of colonial tutelage.
Ph ilippines becomes classified as
an “unincorporated territor y”
 1916 Jones Law reiterates
Ph ilippine Bill “It’s Up to Them.” Caption: Uncle Sam to
 1934 Tydings-M cDuf fie Act the Filipinos: “Take your pick - I have
promises independence in a plenty of both!”
10year period, rest rict s Philippine
migration to t he U S
 LEGACIES OF THE PHILIPPINE-
AMERICAN WAR
 Human catastrophe: 30,000 US soldiers lost; Filipino
casualties are estimated to be anywhere from 500,000-
one million deaths, most of them civilians.
 US “popular education” of the world through the World’s
Fairs freely conflate and distort available knowledge of
the world with popular stereotypes and entertainment
priorities.
 Phil- Am War contributes to the rhetoric of “race war”
between whites and blacks in the US, resulting in the
escalation of lynching (105 cases in 1901).
 Proletarianization: US colonial government reinforces and
worsens class division and antagonism between elite and
laboring classes
 Redefinition of Filipinos as “US nationals” who have the
freedom to travel between the US and the Philippines
without any corresponding rights of citizenship
 PHILIPPINES UNDER US RULE

 Economy: the obligation to

agriculture in the age of
industry and manufacture
 Politics: the theory of
“benevolent assimilation”
and paternal(ist)
government under the
Philippine Commission
 Culture and society: the
continuity of poverty and
extreme inequality (access
and opportunity), mandatory
education in English, rise of
commodity culture
 DISCUSSION

 What in your opinion is the main point or takeaway from Renato

Constantino’s article, “The Mis-Education of the Filipino?” Is there
anything else Constantino wrote that strikes you as important or
meaningful in our study of Philippine literature and culture?
 In García Villa’s Footnote to Youth stories, does the image,
imagination, or outright fantasy of Rizal’s relationship to the
characters’ lives, give meaning to these lives? Do they increase or
diminish the reputation of the national martyr? Do they make the
characters deserving of sympathy; or, conversely, contempt? Explain
your answer, taking an example from one or more stories.
 How would you characterize the position of the narrator in the stories
by Bulosan and García Villa? Are they similar or different? Again, a
specific example to cite or paraphrase will make your analysis stronger.
 FROM “THE MIS-EDUCATION OF THE
FILIPINO”
 The first and perhaps the master stroke in the plan to use education as
an instrument of colonial policy was the decision to use English as the
medium of instruction. English became the wedge that separated the
Filipinos from their past and later was to separate educated Filipinos
from the masses of their countrymen. English introduced the Filipinos
to a strange, new world. With American textbooks, Filipinos started
learning not only a new language but also a new way of life, alien to
their traditions and yet a caricature of their model. This was the
beginning of their education. At the same time, it was the beginning of
their mis-education, for they learned no longer as Filipinos but as
colonials. They had to be disoriented from their nationalist goals
because they had to become good colonials. The ideal colonial was the
carbon copy of his conqueror, the conformist follower of the new
dispensation. He had to forget his past and unlearn the nationalist
virtues in order to live peacefully, if not comfortably, under the
colonial Order (24).
THE IDEAL…

Fernando Amorsolo, “Planting Rice,” 1921

Fernando Amorsolo, ”Market at the Church Steps,
Concepción” (1959)
Fernando Amorsolo, “Bayanihan”
(1959)
 …VS. THE REAL

20% Filipinos live in poverty, i.e., unable to provide for basic

necessities, including rent, food, clothing, and supplies
Poverty leads to high rates of starvation, malnutrition, debt,
and victimization
Unchallenged land ownership by the elite stifles jobs,
manufacturing, and overall economic improvement.
 CONSEQUENCES

Political leaders were divided between those who

demanded immediate independence and those who
advocated for the inclusion of the Philippines in the
United States
Ambiguity of political authority allowed colonial
interests during the Spanish period (the Church, the
landowning elite) to reconsolidate their titles and
holdings, perpetuating de facto colonial rule
Poor communities were driven to:
 revolt
 mass migration to the US
 PEASANT REBELLION AND MASS
MIGRATION

Sakdalista peasant uprising, 1935 Filipino cannery workers

being shipped to Alaska
(photo credit: John Stamets)
 DISCUSSION

 What in your opinion is the main point or takeaway from Renato

Constantino’s article, “The Mis-Education of the Filipino?” Is there
anything else Constantino wrote that strikes you as important or
meaningful in our study of Philippine literature and culture?
 In García Villa’s Footnote to Youth stories, does the image,
imagination, or outright fantasy of Rizal’s relationship to the
characters’ lives, give meaning to these lives? Do they increase or
diminish the reputation of the national martyr? Do they make the
characters deserving of sympathy; or, conversely, contempt? Explain
your answer, taking an example from one or more stories.
 How would you characterize the position of the narrator in the stories
by Bulosan and García Villa? Are they similar or different? Again, a
specific example to cite or paraphrase will make your analysis stronger.
 FOOTNOTE TO YOUTH: “IN MY
IMAGINATION”
 “Rizal to us is a reality, a magnificent, potent reality, but to you he is
only a myth, a golden legend.... To us he is not unreachable, for he is
among us” (“Son of Rizal,” 148).
 “’It takes a big, strong man to admit he is wrong…. And it takes a
bigger, stronger man to admit he is wrong…when he is right…and
apologize…. It is because I am like Rizal.’ His little goddess did not
move but looked at him with helpless, wet, un-understanding eyes”
(“The Man Who Looked Like Rizal,” 284).
 José Rizal – was not his name, but José Rosal – and he changed it to
José Rizal so my father should not know him…. If my brother had not
run away…there would be no José Rizal – my country would be
without José Rizal” (“Story for My Country,” 313).
 CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

 ”Footnote to Youth” depicts an imagination of Rizal that the

characters learn not by formal education but by legend and folklore.
Not only is it unmoored from either any sense of histor y or
orientation toward the vir tues he espoused; it also cannot take into
account any of the arguments and histories that made him such a
controversial figure.
 Vacuum of understanding and identity mirrored the ambiguous
legacy of the Philippine Commonwealth, in which Filipinos receive
neither a historical knowledge of the national struggle against
colonialism nor clear guidance of what a perpetually deferred
independence would signify for themselves and their families /
communities.
 Bulosan vs. García Villa: “Passage into Life” highlights the
narrator’s coming into consciousness about his past. Does the same
thing happen in García Villa?