The power of well-written and researched history, by professional historians aware of their vast responsibilities, is that it provides the tools needed craft a better future for all. In Margaret MacMillan’s conclusion in The Uses and Abuses of History she wrote “…a citizenry that cannot begin to put the present into context, that has so little knowledge of the past, can too easily be fed stories by those who claim to speak with the knowledge of history and its lessons.”  That is the situation extant in the country today. It is a situation that fuels many of the social, cultural, and political problems that we still face. One of the things that history teaches is to challenge dogmatic and sweeping generalizations, especially those that purport to have all the answers, to be the one true interpretation of the past.  History provides us with the tools necessary to question and question some more, while bad history (and its application) does little more than mislead and obscure; usually for purely political or selfish interests.

A little self-serving is allowed now and then right? Please click through to read my little essay on bad history and how it is affecting our understanding of EDSA 1.

It is fairly obvious, at least I would like to think, that Attorney Fernando Topacio is using his pro-Hitler statements as an opportunity to distract from the predicament of former President Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband. From the blatant display of a Hitler portrait during an interview to his almost infantile and overly simplistic pro-Nazi statements (seriously, he basically quotes Springtime for Hitler verbatim) Topacio is egging on the public. His agenda became even more obvious when he subtly compared Hitler to President Noynoy Aquino in a follow up interview, while defending GMA.

Talk about bad taste.

While the natural reaction, other than ridicule, is to just dismiss these statements as the rants of a self-fashioned court jester, I firmly believe that is just as much as a disservice to history as his original statements. Argumentum ad Hitlerum should not be allowed to slide, especially when so publicly disseminated. In the wake of the first story covering his professed Hitler love one of my chief critiques of media was the lack of contextual stories. We did not see a single interview by a respected historian or specialist in the field. It was only in the follow up stories (as cited above) where even a statement by a specialist was offered to contradict his bombastic statements.

The fact that we are letting Neo-Nazi, pro-Hitler, and anti-Semitic statements slide with a wave of a hand speaks volumes about our pervasive lack of historical appreciation and understanding in the country. If a public figure in Europe or the United States made such inflammatory statements they would be pilloried from almost all corners, and for good reason. At the very least, they would be called to defend their statements in public and offer proof to back up the assertions. Likely, statements from their clients or affiliations would be sought as well. That is how you combat ignorant and hateful speech, by putting it under a microscope. By studying why the statements were made, what was the purpose behind the statements, by bringing bigotry to light.

The fact that Topacio is using hatespeak and inflammatory comments is par for the course, I would not expect anything less from a lawyer of his…caliber. We have seen it before from him. But there is a line, and that line is crossed when Neo-Naziism and the misrepresentation of World War II history enters the discussion. That he is allowed to almost get off scot-free by us after essentially insulting Holocaust victims is shameful. His tactics are not in question, his gross misuse and misunderstanding of World War II history, his strident defense of Hitler, his continued pursuit of the Aquino = Hitler meme, and his dismissal of over six million dead civilians at the hands of the Nazis is in question. More to the point, our medias inability to offer any sort of cogent critique is as well. Hate speak as this should not, it cannot be, waived off as grandstanding. Or dismissed as being misconstrued in the court of public opinion. Doing so allows those ideas to take root, to grow, to linger on. It is a disservice to the victims of the Nazi regime (and their allies) and to ourselves.

The Nazi party came to power on a wave of Aryan supremacy, Teutonic myth-building, and was buoyed by anti-Semitic thought. The demonization of the ‘Other’ was central to their ability to maintain and consolidate power. The rise and fall of the Nazi party and Hitler offer stunningly topical warnings about insularity, parochialism, the abuse of history, and the power of racism, if properly understood. Perverted history in service of ideology is the playground of demagogues and dictators. In an analysis of Hitler and his anti-Semitic and pro-Teutonic sentiments Margaret MacMillan offers: “Setbacks and defeats become parts of such stories, rather than challenges of their truth. If the faithful have suffered, that is because of the plots and conspiracies of their enemies. For Hitler, of course, that meant the Jews. They had started World War I and created the Bolshevik Revolution, and they had ensured that Germany suffered under the Treaty of Versailles. He had warned them, Hitler said repeatedly, that if they dared to start another war, he would destroy them, ‘the vermin of Europe’. World War II was the fault of the Jews, and the time had come to deal with them once and for all. If any one person was responsible for that war, it was Hitler himself, but logic and reason do not enter into closed systems of viewing the world.”

The mis-use and perversion of history, especially within the Philippine public sphere, has been on-going focus of critique within this space. It is precisely because the misappropriation of history, its abuse in other words, can go directly to the heart of a nation. When claiming history in purely political or rhetorical ways it allows an overly simplified, seldom rational, version to be presented. One that relies wholly on emotion, little on context, usually to substantiate or defend improper actions, and inevitable in whipping a populace into a frenzy; one usually pointed outward and at some manufactured Boogeyman. The mis-use and proliferation of bad history is especially dire because it is so easy to disseminate and manufacture. Bad history is not only a disservice, it can even become dangerous.

As Eli Wiesel pointed out, anytime victims are forgotten or their memory allowed to be insulted with commensurate response it is as if we killed them a second time. By failing to offer reasoned and cogent critiques of Topacio’s grossly inappropriate statements we are abetting to the proliferation of hate speak and the continued erosion of public discourse in the Philippines.

The recent hullaballoo caused by the latest twisted take on Philippine history (and continuing series of Marcos apologetics) has been best covered by @marocharim, @ellobofilipino, and now @cocoy over at ProPinoy. So, to what they have written I really have nothing extra to add. Though, I will.

One mystery for me is how leftists and so-called ‘radicals’ have ended up on the side of legitimizing (and forgiving) the excesses of the Marcos dictatorship.

It is possibly an example of how perverse ideology inevitably blinds; the fractured sort of worldview that results in the adherence to an -ism. It might be something ever more simple: The antipathy felt towards the current leadership.

Yet, it boggles my mind that knowing the excesses of the Marcos regime, knowing the levels to which the country was reduced, videos such as the one now circulating still try and whitewash the Marcos regime in pursuit of a single agenda. Then we find journalists and high-profile bloggers jump on the bandwagon; naturally allowing their own prejudices and internal biases to wholly govern their decisions in this matter. In supporting the entirety of the video, whether there is a modicum of truth held within, they are inevitably supporting that interpretation of Philippine history.

They are basically saying that American imperialism (classic and neo), the rise capitalism and the creation of an international system of patronage and client-state relations, the Japanese Occupation, the Cold War, the Marcos Dictatorship and all its attendant ills, have had less effect on the fortunes of the Philippines than the blind greed of a single family. It reminds me of those conspiracy theorists out there who still believe the world is controlled by the Illuminati. 

Even worse, at least for me, it betrays a continuing critique I have of ‘leftist’ politics and historians (chief among them Agoncillo and Constantino): They treat Filipinos as little more than illiterate, mindless, automatons; capable of being manipulated by any and all with little capability for personal thought and considerations. We see that most readily with the treatment of the Philippine Revolution and Republic; we see that same pseudo-intellectual thread maintained with the decontextualization and gross simplification of EDSA I and broad reactions to Marcos socio-economic depredations.

Setting critical analysis aside, as @marocharim well pointed out, what casts this as bad history and nothing more than propaganda, is its utter lack of historical methodology. It works backward from a certain view and cherry-picks, twists, and misrepresents moments in Philippine history in pursuit of a single narrative thread. That is the worst type of history, one that purposefully excludes contextual elements in pursuit of an ideology. It, as well, a common practice in Philippine historiography; representative of a sort of shallow interpretation, and I think somewhat lazy, approach to what history means. Then again, this type of shallow historical analysis is representative of a larger malaise seen in our so-called intellectual and academic circles.

Everyone brings biases to the table. The question becomes is how rigorous is that person in trying to mitigate bias in pursuit of the story. The same holds true in journalism as in history. Methodology, a rigorous analysis of evidence and primary source documents coupled with questioning assumptions, helps separate ‘proper’ histories from polemics and propaganda. When any document offers itself as factual and accurate it invites close scrutiny of its agenda and biases. In the world of history and cultural analysis, most writers are upfront with the framework and school of thought in which they are writing. This is part of disclosure and a key element in maintaining intellectual honesty. When a writer chooses to hide those biases, distract from them, or maintain that they are offering the one true view, that calls into question, not their impartiality, but their openness to discourse and their capabilities to rationally discuss issues. In this they share similarities with dictatorships; their first inclination is to suppress dissent through shaming, innuendo or outright banishment. Ah, maybe that helps explain why a movement in support and to whitewash the Marcos dictatorship seems to be growing in those circles.

Interpretation of historical data is what history is based on. I can hand a single primary source document to five different historians, from different ideological schools of thought, and arrive at five different interpretations. Depending on what framework they come from that document will fit in different ways. The key is they are basing their interpretations on evidence, filtered through a logical and apparent framework. And quite frankly, all of their interpretations will have merit. I personally have never had an issue with leftist interpretations of Philippine history. I do have an issue with histories that rely too much on ideology and forgo actual evidence based and methodologically sound processes.

When there is little evidence and only innuendo? That is propaganda. That is bad history. And that does little more than inflame passions and obscure the past. When we lose track of the past, when we forgo basing our understanding of the past on evidence and cohesive analysis, we lose the capability of truly understanding the realities of today, and developing effective solutions to address existing social iniquities.

Philippine history is too often composed of mythic moments based on shoddy scholarship, influenced and often in service of political ideology. Today, as with many ‘historical’ days, is a perfect example of that. The ‘traditional’ narrative where the gallant Katipunero’s, now revolutionaries, gathered together on August 23rd, tore up their cedula, and raised a great passionate cry for independence!…Is untrue. Unsubstantiated by period documents and reports, only found in the memories of Pio Valenzuela. A man whose infamously changeable memory is wholly unreliable for scholarly work (sans third party corroboration).

The most prominent proponent of the Myth of the Cry of Pugad Lawin is, naturally, Teodoro Agoncillo. Because of the sheer adulation, bordering on hero worship, that his questionable scholarship is accorded his rendition of the Cry has been inscribed almost verbatim as truth. ‘Truth’ as conceived in Philippine history is usually far different from reality. To avoid getting too deep into the nuances of historiography, suffice it to say contemporary accounts of those early days post-discovery of the Katipunan and leading up to that first defeat at the hands of the Spanish on August 26 paint a far different picture than what we know.

Nick Joaquin lyrically questioned the Cry and accurately pointed out the weakness in trying to so heavily weight an event that did not have much period resonance: “One difficulty is that the participants in the event didn’t know they were uttering the “Cry of Balintawak” or whatever it properly is. That phrase was coined in a time when historical subtitling was becoming fashionable…We are looking for an idea we ourselves created.” That actually is the crux of the historical issue (or a contrived controversy as Soledad Borromeo-Buehler called it): The Katipuneros at the time really did not consider the act of tearing up their cedula as anything important; that is born out by the variety of dates put forth by various Katipuneros who were in attendance. The fact is cedulas were torn up, but it was not the central purpose behind the gathering by any means. The contemporary Filipino, or at least those who were trying to create a mythical and romantic Bonifacio, needed it. Instead, the far greater likelihood is that the Katipuneros in 1896 were more worried about discovery and prosecuting a revolution against Mother Spain.

August 19 is when we note the formal public discovery of the Katipunan, though there is evidence that they were privately known by the Spanish government prior. Bonifacio had already begun the process of organizing the various factions and leaders of the Katipunan together to once and for all decide whether to raise a revolt or not. Their discovery accelerated that process, so much so that the Katipunan was not quite prepared. The relative disorder, and that first loss to the Spanish on August 26, speak to that. As an aside, the historical shifting of importance away from that first loss to the fictional Cry of Pugad Lawin, might very well be purposeful on the part of some of our historians. A way to cover up certain obvious failures; to replace them with moments of romantic grandeur.

The reliance of Agoncillo on Valenzuela’s testimony is shoddy scholarship. Especially since Valenzuela’s testimony is directly contradicted by revolutionaries, like Guillermo Masangkay, who were in attendance at the time. The days of August 22-26 were comprised of meetings, discussions, and decisions on how to move forward. Most curiously, Masangkay remembers Valenzuela being one of the members of the Katipunan who voted against going to war with Spain. A revelation that gives some insights into the later motivations of Valenzuela in reconstructing the events of the Katipunan. Be that as it may, three Katipuneros (Masangkay, Vicente Samson, and Francisco Carreon) actually remember cedula’s being torn on August 26 in Kangkong, after a successful vote to go to war. It was later that same day that the Katipunan troops were defeated in a brief skirmish with Spanish troops.

Borromeo-Buehler, in her exhaustive work “The Cry of Balintawak” sums it up nicely: “The so-called ‘Cry of Pugad Lawin’ is an invention. This conclusion is based on the total absence of any contemporary documentation on ‘Pugad Lawin’…There is ample documentation on the tearing of cedillas and the initial encounter of the revolution. The chronology of those events therefore no longer hinges on the testimony of just one of the eyewitnesses.” And that really is the sad part of this whole affair. By completely manufacturing history we have inevitably obscured the players who were involved. Very few of us remember Masangkay, even though he was one of the great Katipuneros. Very few of us remember the bravery of those days and the resolve shown in marching out to meet the Spanish in combat. Instead we are enthralled with a fictitious event with little historical resonance.

By distilling the entirety of the Katipunan to a simple tearing of the cedula we inevitably forget the magnitude of their accomplishments and efforts. They remained hidden from the Spanish authorities for almost four years, all the while they effectively disseminated revolutionary thought and ideas. Our understanding of history, and those seminal events in 1896, should not be based on some fictionalized account designed to give us a Hollywood moment; that ignores the complexities of the era, and trials and tribulations, and difficult decisions those men faced. In fact, by moving the tearing of the cedula back to its historically accurate position (August 26th) we get a sequence of events far more realistic, and even more resonant. Impassioned debate in the face of discovery, pleas for bravery and calls for courage, a final decision to strike against the Spanish, a simple revolutionary speech, the tearing up of the cedula, and a march to war.

Stripping away Bad History eventually uncovers great history.

Two days ago, on July 26, the Philippines celebrated with great pomp and circumstance the birthday of the first Supremo of the Katipunan, Deodato Arellano. Of course we all know his story. Born in Bulacan, Bulacan in 1844; Educated at the Ateneo de Manila in bookkeeping; Married to the sister (Hilaria) of famed propagandist Marcelo H del Pilar. He was one of those workers upon which revolutions are built: He was active in La Propaganda, helping del Pilar with fighting for political reforms in the Philippines. La Propaganda did not last long. But, its mission was to raise funds to support Propagandists abroad in Spain, while at the same time disseminating their works in the Philippine colony. With the failure of La Propaganda, Jose Rizal organized La Liga; where Arellano was elected Secretary. That disbanded as well after Rizal’s exile to Dapitan on July 7. 

On the same day, the Katipunan was founded with Arellano as its first President. The revolutionary minded organization of the Katipunan took place at 72 Azcarraga Street, in Don Deodato Arellano’s home. Fancy that. 

Other men who were there included Andres Bonifacio, Valentin Diaz, and Teodoro Plata. When Arellano was replaced as President, Roman Basa was elected in his place. Bonifacio in fact was the third President of the Katipunan. There is one another intriguing note: Like the rest Arellano was a Mason. And of course, as well all know, the Masonic Order is definitely a grassroots organization that only sought out the most downtrodden members of society for acceptance into the Order.

We all know this story right? Right? Yeah…right.

Sarcasm aside, this is not the Katipunan that we commonly know. The one that we popularly know erroneously paints a far different picture of the make up of the organization and its membership. Running through the list of those early leaders, even the location of the home where it was founded, demonstrates that the Katipunan was far from a ‘masa’ organization at the onset. Much like the hero mostly commonly associated with it: Andres Bonifacio. They were all professionals, middle managers in modern parlance; who were reasonably well educated and held positions of trust in various established business houses.

Men like Arellano and Basa are little known for what, I suspect, is a simple reason: They are concrete links between the reform movements abroad and in the Philippines and the revolution. Not to mention they create an image of an organization with some affluence and education attached to it. These are links and perceptions that have been almost forcefully managed out of our histories; primarily because they do not fit the preferred narrative of the Katipunan and Bonifacio being exclusively of the ‘masa.’  They make a lie out of popular history (which really is not that hard to do by any means). Oh, and they also hint at the deep familial relationships that were at play in the reform and revolution movements. For some unfathomable reason some of our historians have this sort of perverse fascination with the odd idea that the Philippine revolution spontaneously sprang out of nowhere at the end of the 19th century. They work very hard to disassociate the revolution from the evolution of thought and the formation of a Philippine idea that came before. They refuse to connect familial relationships to the transmission of reformist and eventually revolutionary philosophies. As if it is a bad thing that families became involved in trying to free the Philippines from imperial ownership. These are the perils of histories written by historians who are so rigidly ideologically bound that they are practically wearing blinders. Well, in fact, they are. 

There have been some intrepid historians who have tried to create a more accurate image of Philippine revolutionary history. One historian, Jim Richardson, has accomplished what is likely the most exhaustive studies of the history and organizational and membership makeup of the Katipunan. One aspect was delving into the income of various members of the Katipunan and comparing it to the standard salary rates of actual uneducated laborers (i.e. the real proletariat). 

It is fairly obvious that Deodato Arellano was reasonably affluent. Roman Basa, who took over the Presidency of the Katipunan after Arellano, earned approximately 50 pesos a month; Bonifacio made approximately 20 pesos a month from his position as a trusted warehouse clerk, an income that he augmented through the creating and selling of walking canes and paper fans. The fact is that almost all of members of the Katipunan made or earned in excess of the median wage. As a matter of fact only one member of the Katipunan could be considered a ‘laborer.’ More often than not, laborers make up the majority of a proletariat; yet, in terms of members, the Katipunan did not quite represent them.

Consider this, among the membership “…there is not a single servant, nor a single sailor, launderer, seamstress or coachman, and yet these modes of employment each occupied thousands. These were the people who truly had to scrape by on the most meager wages ,and these were the people, together with the unfortunates who had no regular means of livelihood, who truly belonged to the ‘lower stratum.’ (Richardson). To put wages in perspective, seamstresses earned about 5 pesos a month, servants and laborers 5-10 pesos a month. The most ‘affluent’ of the bunch were sailors, who made around 12 pesos a month.

The Katipunan was far from comprised of impoverished members of the lowest stratum of Philippine society. Instead, it was formed by educated men of some social standing and economic means.

While this may seem like an attack on the Katipunan, it is not. Let me be clear, you do not have to be of a certain socio-economic strata to fight for equal rights for all, including the ‘poor.’ It instead is a critique of the completely erroneous image of that organization that has been perpetuated and foisted upon us by gross leftist influenced propaganda masquerading as history. The truth is that revolution is preceded by intellectual and economic enlightenment. Those reformist efforts created the necessary awareness and awakening that launched a revolution. Revolution, successful ones at that, are not built on a moment of frenzied mindless ‘passion’ that is too often confused with patriotism. Men like Bonifacio, Arellano, Basa et al may not in fact have been of the ‘masa.’ They were too educated, too successful within the context of the period to be so. Yet, they fought for them. They believed in them. They dreamed of a better Philippines for all Filipinos regardless of social class.

Just like the reformists did; just like men like Aguinaldo and Pardo de Tavera did. What some historians have tried to do is delineate our history along forced class lines: If you were rich, you were not a patriot. If you were poor, you were. Their chosen totems, the Katipunan and Bonifacio, in fact bely that untenable line of historical thinking. 

At the same time, we have essentially undermined what it means to create a nation; the process that has to be undertaken and the sheer magnitude of cooperation across all socio-economic strata that is necessary. By twisting our history as we have, we have eliminated the very foundation upon which we can build our country. We have essentially excised out the patriotic and nationalist dreams and sentiments of any except the ‘downtrodden huddled masses.’ An error that has to be remedied soon, else our history will remain what it is today: The lurid fantastical tales created from the imaginations of deluded leftist historian’s. These fantasies create contentious misunderstandings which inevitably disassociate the Filipino from his past and his country. A situation that weakens the very fabric of our nation and makes it incredibly difficult to build a shared cohesive future.

It is long past time to rescue and re-understand our heroes and their organizations. We can start with Rizal, we must continue with Bonifacio, the Katipunan, Aguinaldo, the Philippine Republic, and all those who were involved at every step of the way.

PS: Happy Belated Birthday Deodato Arellano. And thank you.

There are two serious weaknesses in Philippine historiography. First, most of the primary research materials that are relied on where culled and collected by late Spanish and early American era historians. For example, we rely heavily on the compilations of a noted anti-Filipino Spaniard in W.E. Retana. All of his works, even his later biography of Rizal, was focused on painting the Philippines as a territory in dire need of Spanish munificence. From the American period the most oft-cited and utilized of primary source compilations is Blair and Robertson’s epic The Philippine Islands. Yet, for all the strengths of that collection, there are serious weaknesses. Chief among them in the purposeful mistranslation and editing of source documents. As well, the Blair and Robertson did not source documents from the National Archives. Which is why the Archives, both national and religious, remain incredible untapped sources for re-understanding our history. 

As much as the Propagandists in the 19th century were trying to reclaim Philippine history, the Americans were doing the same. Except their goal was to paint a picture of darkness, exploitation and savagery before their arrival on the Islands. In this, the Propagandists and the Americans shared similar tools. They diverged in outcomes. The Propagandists were trying to awaken a nation to their current state of servitude and their sovereign potential. The Americans were trying to ensure that the Filipinos were grateful for foreign benevolent intervention and assimilation.

Second, problems not only arise in the careful selection of what documents were included in the compilations, but in how the documents were translated, what words were used and even in some instances, what was purposeful left out. William Henry Scott points out that our understanding of pre-history is colored because of this. Blair and Robertson utilized an American translation (by Frederick Morrison of Harvard) for passage from Father Plasencia’s ‘Customs of the Tagalogs’ from 1589. Their version read:

This tribal gathering is called in Tagalo a barangay.

Scott’s own translation of the passage reads far different:

These [datus] were chiefs of but few people, as many as a hundred houses and even less than thirty; and this they call in Tagalog, barangay.

Tribal then is a purely 20th century description for what Plasencia witnessed. And, as a result, carries its own connotations. Naturally, this is a problem for all translators. But in these instances, especially when they color the way we understand our history, they become particularly worrisome. This also shows up areas like social classes. Scott continues:

Principales were clearly datus, those the Spaniards first called kings until they discovered they had neither kingdoms nor power over other datus, and the esclavos were alipin, slaves. But Plasencia also distinguished a serf-like category of slaves who owned their own houses s a separate class he called pecheros, tribute payers. And between these and the datus, he recognized the datu’s non-slave subjects, maharlikas, as hidalgos, gentry or well-to-do, which Morrison in his turn translated as ‘nobles.’ Like hidalgos, these maharlika, accompanied their lord to war armed at their own expense, but unlike them, they rowed his boat alongside slave oarsmen, harvested his rice like field hands, and provided manual labor when he called for it.

It is true that hidalgos were technically a lower grade of nobility, but the translation ‘nobles’ is misleading…Titled lords in Tagalog society - like Rajah Soliman of Manila or Lakandula of Tondo - were maginoo, not maharlika. The early dictionaries define maharlika unambiguously as freemen…Freedmen were former slaves, and when they were freed they became, not nobles, but the class ancestors of the Filipino peasantry…

Like Scott, I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry that subsequent Filipino generations have run with that mistranslation by an American historian: Even going so far as to attempt to rename the Philippines after a fictitious noble class! We are viewing our history not only through Spanish eyes, but American prisms of understanding and linguistics.

The editing of our history (inadvertent or not) by American historians has radically shifted even how we relate to the on-goings of the Philippine Republic. One of the pertinent examples (for today) is found in JRM Taylor’s translation of a key Philippine Republic text from 1898.

Taylor was a US military historian. His translations of Philippine Republic documents has become the go-to for American and Philippine historians alike. His interpretations of Spanish language and events (along with his word choices) then has directly colored our understanding of that period. And while we do owe him a debt of gratitude for the work of collating, translating and preserving those documents, we shouldn’t rely uncritically on his translations. OD Corpuz sketches very quickly one of Taylor’s adventures in mistranslations: 

This perspective is perverted by John R.M Taylor. He presents the June 18 decree under the title “Aguinaldo’s Proclamation of June 1898, Establishing the Dictatorial Government.” The decree’s correct title is, translated from Spanish, “Establishment of Representative Government.”

The meaning has completely and totally shifted between the original intent and the American interpretation; the connotations based on word choice could not be more divergent. On one hand we have the image of a government organized under the auspices of ‘landed gentry’ with the purposes of perpetuating their own power, on the other, a government designed to represent the Philippine people. Amazing the power of word choice. The June 18 and June 20 decrees lead directly to the June 23 “Call to Unity” and Organic Act establishing a Revolutionary Government. In essence, each announcement was leading to the establishment of a government, post military victory, that was elected by the Filipino people. National government was assembled through inter-linked and elected local governments. Taylor completely subverts that whole thought. By shifting the meaning of the title, and even clauses within the document, the basic intent of the revolutionaries is lost. Guess whose regime benefits? We suffer as a result today.

Our failure to truly understand the intent and actions of the Philippine Republic eliminates one of the key potential historical sources for constructing a positive national identity. We have the legacies of both the Spanish and American imperial eras, not to mention ideologically bound and colonially influenced Philippine historians, to thank for that.

The funny part is in our misguided search to remove all ‘colonial’ from our history and unearth the ‘true Filipino’ (a conceit that is kind of laughable, how else did the Filipino come into being except as both a product and reaction to colonialism?) we frequently utilize colonial historian’s interpretations of source documents; especially those of our reformists, propagandists, revolutionaries and the Philippine Republic. The sad truth is, aside from some extant Chinese archives and minor exceptions here and there, the only documents that detail our pre-history and early history are ‘foreign’ sources. However, those documents are a goldmine for new interpretations and understandings as long as our historians make the effort to not only unearth them, but translate them. That is a distinct failing of our historians: They rely to heavily on colonial translations, complete with lost and falsified meanings, to craft our history.

But, in the cases where we have access to documents written by Filipinos in Spanish we still lazily rely on American and Spanish translations. Translations that, more often than not, are guided by ideology and private agendas. And in some cases, such as the complete and utter mistranslations of Rizal’s works, we color the translations for purely personal motives ourselves.

The understanding of history is built on documents and their interpretations and translations. A horrifying idea for our history indeed.

I was trying to come up with a gentle way of describing my disdain for Renato Constantino’s sadly influential speech Veneration without Understanding. And alas, I can’t. It’s crap. It’s a hodgepodge of twisted leftist ideology masquerading as historical commentary; it’s historical fiction presented as fact, with a heavy dose of conspiracy theories and logical fallacies all rolled into a nice little bundle of nonsense. Not to mention the complete and utter hilarity that comes with accusing Jose Rizal of being a colonial construct, while the entire time mimicking some of the worst of colonially influenced thought. Or maybe it’s just the audaciousness that comes with undermining the legacy of Jose Rizal for the purpose of propping up Andres Bonifacio; which I will never ever understand. They were more in accord than many of us know today. Sadly, Bonifacio the figure that has become so much more myth than man, completely shorn from historical fact. To his detriment in fact.

Maybe the curiousness of Constantino is just how removed the ‘critiques’ of Rizal are from serious scholarly work and actual historical research. He pulls quotes out of the air, mistranslates others, inevitably ignores reams of primary source material that contradicts his thesis in favor of pushing a perverted vision of Philippine history. This is propaganda masquerading as ‘history’ at its worse. Polemic, untenable, bereft of substantiating evidence, at odds with known records, and so bound up in a restrictive and foreign ideology as to be unintelligible. Because, quite frankly, so much of what is in the essay is unintelligible.

I have had the misfortune of reading this ‘essay’ in the past and sadly forgot most of what irritated me about it in the first place. So, I picked up another copy in National Bookstore, where surprisingly it was located in the Philippine History section (not Humor) and I decided to read it again with the intention of writing a Bad History post. After slogging through, let’s just pull out some of the choicest parts.

In our case our national hero was not the leader of our revolution. In fact, he repudiated that Revolution…

Constantino goes on for a while some how trying to make us believe this is true. And he is accurate in a sense, but only if you cherry pick historical record, ignore all of his writings and merrily dance through source materials with blinders on. Rizal, in fact, did not approve of the revolution AT THAT MOMENT. His entire time in the public eye, Rizal agitated for reforms, in Filipinos. He firmly believed that the country was not ready for a successful revolution. He abhorred bloodshed, but understand that when Filipinos were truly ready for self rule violence would be a necessity, a must for true independence.

Underlying this thought is the assumption that a man can only be considered a hero if he engages in bloodshed. How…blood thirsty. A hero is someone who stands on principles, who fights for what he believes and is not swayed by the moments of passion and verve. Who builds a philosophy and stays true to it. Who takes the long view and fights and dies for something far greater than momentary glory.

As a matter of fact, those words were treasonous…

Treasonous? By every measure Rizal was the driving force behind the construction of the Filipino identity. Before him the idea of an identity, of a nation built by Filipinos, had only when whispered and never fully articulated. His Noli, Morga and Fili were roadmaps to nationalism and nationhood. That is far from treasonous. For Constantino, in fact, repudiating Bonifacio’s revolution is treasonous. Was there a nation upon which treason could be committed? Was he told to fight by his sovereign leader and repudiated that? Of course not. Rizal was staying true to his beliefs; that the Philippines was not ready for true revolution. When it was, when Filipinos achieved what he dreamed of for them through education, then there is no doubt that Rizal would have supported revolution. That is peppered through out his writings.

This means Constantino is doing exactly what he accuses everyone else of doing with Rizal: Putting one man above the idea of a nation.

It was Governor William Howard Taft who in 1900s suggested to the Philippine Commission that the Filipinos be given a national hero.

Correct that Taft said that, wrong in so many ways. Fact was the first Rizal Day was ordered by Aguinaldo in 1898. Thus, the leaders and men of the Revolution and the Philippine Republic honored Rizal well before the Americans.

In fact, more than anything, Constantino is pushing the idea of Rizal as reformist and pro-Spanish. An idea wholly derived from colonial sources! He’s not even going back and trying to reconstruct the real Rizal, he’s just basing his assumptions on colonial thought and using that thought to attack colonialism. Rizal the reformist is completely pulled from three gentlemen: Pardo de Tavera, Austin Craig and WE Retana. Pardo de Tavera is, of course, one of the first Filipinos to side with the Americans in exchange for influence and political favor. Craig was a pro-American historian and Retana hated Filipinos and the Philippines. They subverted Rizal and constructed Rizal as the Americans wanted.

Constantino’s basic premise that we should remove colonialism from our history is completely undermined by his reliance on colonial historians to push his twisted agenda.

Rizal’s preoccupation with education…

Ah right, because being concerned with education, wanting to prepare a nation for self-rule is such a dangerous thing. Consider in the world of Constantino it is. For him revolution is spontaneous, derived from the nameless faceless masses who rise up when needed. He doesn’t attribute to them capabilities of thinking or cogent thought. No, they are driven by emotion. While on the other hand Rizal had the respect of his countrymen, he worked with them in the fields and in the streets of Manila. He fought for them in the papers of Madrid and returned home to try and work with them. To ignite their spirit, to mold them into a nation. He respected his countrymen. Rizal saw them as something beautiful, wonderful, worth fighting and dying for. 

Bonifacio, not as Hispanized as the ilustrado, saw in people’s action the only road to liberation.

I have attempted to studiously avoid this issue of Bonifacio vs Rizal; primarily because they did not see themselves at odds. Their aims were the same, their goals identical. The difference lay in the timing and pre-requisites for success. Rizal had foresight, foresight that Bonifacio relied on to pepper his speeches and polemics against Spain. Bonifacio frequently translated Rizal’s works into Tagalog and disseminated them. The idea that they were at odds (reformist vs revolutionary) would have shocked them. Hell, Bonifacio was shocked when Rizal rejected the revolution as premature. Why would he have been shocked unless prior their thoughts were fairly in accord?

It is Constantino and Agoncillo before, and all after, who forced the dichotomy of Bonifacio vs Rizal into our history. For the sole purpose of raising Bonifacio to a hallowed status. In essence, what we have seen is character assassination of Rizal in favor of Bonifacio.

The funny part is that Bonifacio was as much an ilustrado as, let’s say, Mabini. Or Jacinto. Bonifacio was educated, educated enough to get jobs with multinational corporations. Educated enough to read the biographies of American presidents, French novels, Spanish texts and to translate Rizal’s works. Educated enough indeed. More so than landed gentry like Aguinaldo (who was even more a successful man of action).

…the ilustrados joined the Revolution where, despite their revolutionary rhetoric, they revealed by their behavior their own limited goals…

And then we come to Constantino’s true aim, his attempt to cleave the ilustrados from the revolution, to claim that they had nothing to do with the revolution, in fact they joined in only when it was apparent it was going to be occur.

I’ve already written on ilustrado, how the term is nonsensical in its historical application. Because it is. Only those, it seems, who were of the masses can be considered revolutionary, all others are ilustrados, weak reformists. A conceit so far from historical record, so disassociated from what occurred as to be almost a joke.

Ilustrados, enlightened ones, the middle class - whatever we want to call them - along with their brethren from all walks of life, had to be in accord for the revolution to begin and end successfully. The 1896 Revolution, and its successful 1898 counterpart, were all extensions of growing nationalist thought. Thought that was brought into the Philippines as early as the late 1700s. It was expressed in the agitations of the creoles, in the attempts to gain secular priests, in the deaths of Gomburza and the street protests of the mestizos and others. 

Constantino derides Rizal without every truly understanding him. He fixates on the colonial interpretations of Rizal, without ever trying to discover why he was held in such high regard by his contemporaries- contemporaries from all walks of life and social strata. To side step that sticky issue, he attempts to deride all ilustrados. When faced with the fact that Bonifacio revered Rizal and his writings, he manufactures a schism between the two. Essentially, Constantino perverts our history, our past and our heroes, for the sole purpose of pushing his leftist, Marxist frameworks of the nameless masses as the pure drivers of  revolutionary change. Bloodshed without philosophy, death without being consecrated to a higher purpose, is useless murder. That is something that Rizal could not ignore. He did not want to see useless death and murder, when the end result would have been the slaves becoming tyrants themselves.

Constantino ignores social and intellectual development, he evades the depth of Rizal and the other revolutionaries writings in favor of a wholly superficial take on our history. His history is in service of his political ideology. Even worse, he ignores the importance of the middle class in a successful revolution, he forgets that Filipinos, that a people, have to work together to be truly successful.

He is as bad as the colonialists he derides throughout his essay.

The space I have here is to limited for a true negation of all that Constantino slings around in his “Veneration.” The truly pathetic thing, for me, is just how little understanding of the social, political and revolutionary realities of the 19th century he demonstrates. Sans that, lacking that fundamental grounding in history, he is nothing more than a master manipulator and propagandist. A con man in the guise of a historian. A huckster trying to trick people into following his own perverted view of life and country. It’s not just bad history. It’s just bad. And the end result has been a people shorn from their own history.

That is the legacy of Renato Constantino: Bad History. But maybe it is time to take his advice and to throw off the shackles of colonial thought that pervade our history. To truly write a Filipino history. The place to start then, is with him.

Lately I have become fascinated with the term ilustrado. A word so influential in our historical discourse on the revolution, but has so little meaning truly attached to it. Instead the word has become a catch-all; a label used to brand anyone who did not support one Andres Bonifacio’s revolution. Thus all that exists in popular consciousness are negative connotations. It is a by-product of our popular reductionist Marxist take on Philippine history. It is class warfare at its worst.

Who exactly were the ilustrados? According to the most popular interpretation, they are the petty bougeous, those dastardly wealthy men who co-opted the revolution from the faceless, seething masses who spontaneously rose up against the Spanish. Spontaneously and at the same time I might add. How fascinating is that: The inarticulate seem somehow possessing of a mass sub-conscious that enabled them to rise up at the same time, in different areas with no coordination or preparation. After then to see their glorious spontaneous revolution stolen out from under them by the ilustrado, those wealthy men of education and status who were glory hounds and control freaks. Yeah…right. There are serious flaws in the common understanding of ilustrado, the restrictive and inconsistent application of the term.

If going by the usage of Renato Constantino, and every historian influenced there in by his analysis, the ilustrado is everyone who wasn’t a peninsulare or a member of the masses. Constantino sees the ilustrado as the “petty bourgeois”; essentially the entirety of the middle class. For Constantino this stratum is, well, kind of bad. He specifically utilizes the term ilustrado as a way to separate the revolution of the masses from the actions of the middle class. Unsurprising in his highly restrictive class warfare sense of history. Yet is at odds with historical fact. Revolution usually rests on the shoulders of the middle class, the men of new wealth and education who are able to critique the status quo and conceptualize a new way of life. Thus, the middle class is frequently the engine behind revolutions around the world. In the 19^th century this was borne out with the creole uprisings in Latin American and the Philippines (unsuccessful though they may have been). Just this year we have seen popular uprisings throughout the Middle East, driven by the strata of reasonably well-off and educated individuals. During the 1970s and 80s the middle class played crucial roles not only in resisting Martial Law but articulating why a popular revolution, like EDSA, was necessary. While Constantino approaches the middle class as the antagonists in his history of the Philippines, the realities were far different. As others have aptly demonstrated, the middle class was the leadership, the brains and some of the money behind the Philippine Revolution. They weren’t alone though. A revolution limited to one stratum of society would always be doomed to fail. Ours did not. The untold story is the level of cooperation that existed up and down Philippine society during the late 19^th century.

In modern parlance the term ilustrado has shifted away from its original concept of the educated and enlightened and become more closely aligned with the idea of wealth. Elite status is attributed to wealth, not necessarily forethought. When evaluating the complexities of the revolution, if we are to retain the term I firmly believe that we need to shift ilustrado back towards the idea of ‘enlightened individuals.’ As it is, there are so many exceptions to the rule when it comes to who is an ilustrado that the use of the term becomes a farce.

For example, if we are going by the common use of ilustrado as a wealthy educated, where does that leave someone like Emilio Aguinaldo? Yes, he came from a landed provincial family, but he did not attain a very high level of education. Admitting that his Spanish was poor and he likely never really read Rizal’s works (even as he was inspired by them). While on the other hand Andres Bonifacio came from an urban family of some means, and was a mestizo. He attained a reasonably high level of education (for the period), was knowledgeable enough to manage warehouses for multinational corporations, read extensively and was able to translate Rizal’s works into Tagalog for dissemination. Then there is a man like Mabini; someone who on the surface should embody the term ilustrado: Enlightened, intelligent and…poor.  Ooops. Then men like Pardo de Tavera are also considered ilustrados, even as they existed much closer to in wealth and social status to the peninsulares. Or shall we say that all ilustrados are those who were able to leave the Philippines and achieve some level of education and exposure internationally. That means men like Rizal, del Pilar, Luna, Apacible and so on.

I would rather that ilustrado was rescued from class warfare and racial bias and deployed in its traditional, original sense: those sons of the Enlightenment, the men who attempted to cultivate a higher educational, intellectual and rational sense.

The root of our misunderstanding of the term ilustrado comes from a radical reinterpreting of our history along purely forced class lines: A dichotomization that also encompasses attempts to re-cast the revolutionary middle class as counter-revolutionary. Rizal the ilustrado, was reformist. Aguinaldo, the ilustrado, was the betrayer of Bonifacio’s revolution. And Bonifacio, the ilustrado, did not exist, because he was the exception to the ilustrado rule. The end result is that ilustrado doesn’t basically mean anything; it is instead a derogatory term used as a critique of any who were not ‘of the masses.’ This is best exemplified with a passage from Constantino’s flawed “Veneration without Understanding”:

“Rizal was a bourgeois reformist…he cannot be our national hero…As a first step to decolonizing our minds we must liberate ourselves from the spell of ilustrados like Rizal. We should look for those more deserving of the title of national hero, such as Andres Bonifacio…”

How interesting indeed that Bonifacio spent so much time translating and disseminating Rizal’s writings. But, that is an aside for this essay. Constantino’s succinct description of ilustrado and how he employs it encompasses so much of what is flawed with our history. Class warfare, bereft of historical evidence and in fact the inheritor of colonial thought. Constantino and his use of ilustrado is colonialism in action; it is highly influenced by Retana and Craig’s biographies of Rizal. I’d argue instead that the truest way to become a supra-colonial people is to reclaim the term ilustrado.

Ilustrado as a term was not used by any of the actors in the 19^th century. At least so far as I have discovered. The term was of more modern deployment; even if its roots are found in the 18^th century and the Enlightenment. In that respect, the term does have positive notes. Our heroes were sons of the Enlightenment, even as they reinterpreted and filtered Enlightenment ideals through new frameworks. To reclaim the word and its original meaning we also have to stand away from pat classifications based on wealth and race. Using those forms for definition creates untenable contradictions, contradictions that undermine our understanding of Philippine history.  An ilustrado essentially was man, from any walk of life, who sought higher knowledge, greater understanding of self and country, and fought for it.

Maybe we should just drop the use of ilustrado. Basically, the term has become meaningless, useless in modern discourse precisely because it has become a term associated with so many exceptions and misconceptions. The fact is ilustrado has become a tool in the arsenal of those who have analyzed our history along gross economic and Marxist lines; obscuring and pitting our heroes against one another, contrary to how they worked together and drew inspiration from one another. Ilustrado is bad history because it is not history. It is in fact a weapon of modern ideology, used to twist our history until it has become unrecognizable and a stumbling block to nationhood and greater cooperation. That is the danger of bad history. However, as the term is so embedded in our popular consciousness, re-understanding and re-interpreting the term in a positive and more accurate manner will likely redound throughout our historiography. We can start by reclaiming the legacy of the most well known and revolutionary of all ilustrados: Jose Rizal. Along with the rest of that motley band of conspirators, who came from every walk of life to try and fight for the betterment of the Philippines.

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.