Quite simply, Agoncillo’s construct of the Filipino is racism in action. Visiting Agoncillo’s ‘A History of the Filipino People’ is delving into an antiquated history. It is a construction of the Filipino people that is highly flawed in concept and more than a little racist. It shares a disturbing number of similarities with early American and even Spanish descriptions of Filipinos.
As a matter of fact, to step back and reread his long description of the Filipino is to see that racism at work. It offers a sobering example of how colonial interpretations of self have infiltrated our history and even our concept of self. The sad thing is he and his work remains the most popular prism through which we see ourselves and our history. Even by those who purport to be ‘intellectuals’ offering ‘new’ critiques of Filipino society and history. These critiques are not new, they are not deep. Instead they skate along the superficial; propagating ideas derived and adapted from repressive colonial regimes. Following Agoncillo’s construct of the Filipino means rejecting everything for which our greatest heroes fought.
We don’t have much in the way of new critical thought on our history and culture infiltrating the main. Sure, while there is tremendous work being done in the academe, our so-called public intellectuals very rarely draw from that wellspring of information and thought. Instead they continue to rely on methodologically and evidentiary flawed works like Agoncillo’s History. Most of our public ‘intellectuals’ and writers come from various grades of the same school of thought. All influenced by these antiquated, exclusionary ideas.
Agoncillo was probably not racist, but the way he constructs the Filipino is. He extends the colonial mentality inculcated by an American regime hell-bent on substantiating their imperial objectives. When we talk about rewriting Philippine history and constructing a new Filipino identity is begins with eliminating race from our construct of identity. It means going back and re-understanding what Rizal, de los Reyes, Mabini, Jacinto et al were advocating in the construction of a new Filipinas. When we return and reread their philosophies we find a distinct rejection of ideas race and physical feature in anything, not just identity and the building blocks of nation-states. Our heroes created philosophies that were cutting edge in the 19th century and are still ground-breaking in the 21st. Agoncillo, on the other hand, does not even approach the complexity of their thoughts.
The idea that a people, a diverse people from different backgrounds, faiths, beliefs can be defined by a set of arbitrary standards and ‘colors’ is racism at heart. It is exclusionary. It is antiquated. And it has to be excised from our understanding of self if we are ever to prosper. By keeping these ideas around and active, we are hamstringing our potential as a people.
Agoncillo opens up his description of the Filipino peope by talking about race. “The Filipino belongs to a mixture of races, although basically he is Malay.” As if someone can only be Filipino if he is from that background. Again, it is an antiquated way of understanding identity completely at odds with Emilio Jacinto’s exhortation that importance is not based on an ‘aquiline nose’ or religious belief, but in the manner a life is led. Our understanding of identity, nationalism, whatever you want to call it, has to evolve beyond such simplistic concepts. By immediately saying that someone has to be Malay to be Filipino it excludes the possibility than anyone else from an ethnic background could ever be Filipino. How is that even possible or acceptable?
He goes on to talk about racial blending leading to ‘curious contradictions’ that are ‘apt for misunderstandings by foreigners.’ Note who the audience becomes: Foreigners. He is in essence apologizing for Filipinos; he is saying that because of our ‘racial blendings’ there is something wrong with us. He goes on to talk about ‘half-breeds’ who are ‘qualified by the nationality of their parents.’ Again, for him the race of a person is far more important than what they believe, or what they feel.
After that paragraph he dives into class warfare, broken down along racial lines. Basically imbedding the idea that class is defined by race, that a light skinner person is more apt to be racially superior than a brown skinned person. His passages on race and class are frankly disgusting. Applying in broad generalizations of intellect, mental features and status along wholly racial lines. Essentially, Agoncillo has spent a page describing the false dichotomies between whites and darks. As opposed to constructing an identity or defining Filipino along lines of belief or shared, imagined possibilities he seeks out color as defining factors. He at no point rejects the idea that race matters in identity and instead upholds that wholly false conceit.
His next section on ‘common traits’ of Filipinos is too long in this space to discuss. But my critiques run along the same basic lines as above. In attempting to define social traits of a people he is basically saying: “This is what it means to be Filipino. What a Filipino is.” Without these traits, without thinking, acting or looking like this, you aren’t Filipino. Racism by any other name.
The most pathetic part about this whole thing is that this is exactly what our Propagandists, Reformists and Revolutionaries were attempting to avoid. Quite frankly, who the hell cares about what the color of your skin is, or what faith you come from, or these sad little attempts to define cultural traits. This isn’t about the experience of being a Filipino, what it means to be a Filipino. It is about boxing Filipinos into neat little boxes; basically saying if you’re not like this, you aren’t Filipino.
In most international academic circles the idea of race defining identity has been rejected completely. It is a step we have failed to take here. Identity is not that simple at all. There is a reason that nationalism has been defined as an ‘imagined community’ that is not restricted by state borders or defined by something as insipid as the color of skin or religious beliefs. National identity should be far more complex than that. It has to be able to encompass a diverse background. Look at our country today. We aren’t a simple people by any means, with simple easy to define and apply cultural traits. Yet, that is what we do. And when someone, or even a group of people, do not fit those little tick boxes they are told they are not Filipino. Even if they think they are, even if they believe they are. It’s a failing in our construction of identity and it has roots in works like Agoncillos.
Our heroes did not want to see a country built upon racial, social or economic lines. They did not see the Filipino as belonging to a single racial class and everyone else who wasn’t part of that class as not being Filipino. Instead they saw identity built along shared beliefs, encompassing a wide-range of hopes, dreams, desires, faiths, creeds and colors. Yet, instead of inculcating those new, positive and non-discriminatory ways of seeing the self, we imbed racial classifications and divisive ideas in our education system. From the first moment students enter our schools they are taught that the brown is inferior, the white is out to get them and they are inheritors of a long-history of gormless, indolent flawed people with little redeeming qualities. To read Agoncillo’s description of the Filipino is to read a manifesto of racism, a colonial legacy designed to beatdown a people and create a sense of self-loathing. We make Filipinos hate to be Filipino.
Our writers and intellectuals once railed against easy definitions of self. They sought to up-end the social assumptions upon which the world as they knew was built. They demanded a new way to view what it meant, what it is, to be Filipino. Basically, we’ve repudiated everything they fought for. It’s long-past time to resurrect their old ideas. These ideas still remain new and lamentably unimplemented. If we truly want to move forward together as a nation and a people we have to reimagine our understanding of identity. Basically, we have to reunderstand what it means to be Filipino. Failing that, we will continue to fail to be cohesive people. That’s our new, yet very old, challenge. To finally build a free, open and accepting nation.
