I wrote a blog before about my disdain for referring to Filipinos as having a colonial mentality. Maybe it's the liberal inside of me that unconsciously looks for political correctness but I think it's more likely that I just thought that saying Filipinos have a colonial mentality was demeaning and unfair. I would like to revisit this because over time I have a slightly different point of view than I did in the past months.
If you are going to adequately analyze the Filipino “colonial mentality” and if that even exists or is a relevant consideration, you have to be able to define it. I first heard this term when I mentioned to a Filipino guy that I was surprised at all of the American fast food restaurants they have here. He made it sound like he was a bit embarrassed about the Philippines accepted wholesale American culture at the expense of their own. I don't think that just the existence of American fast food restaurants proves that the Filipinos have a mindset that never progressed passed the American colonial period. I mean there is American fast food in almost every country in the world today and I think that is a product of globalization that is by no means specific to the Philippines. A different argument for taking the “colonial mentality” seriously which I think carries more weight is that the Philippines lacks monumental pre-colonial architecture. There are the impressive rice-terraces in Banaue and I am sure there are other structures within Mindanao that predate the arrival of the Spanish. Everywhere in Southeast Asia was colonized except for Thailand but it appears that the colonizers had less of an influence over Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos, etc. than over the Philippines. That's kind of a loaded statement and the rise of nationalism and its subsequent distortion of history is a relevant consideration. When nationalism was gaining steam in Southeast Asia nationalist leaders would point to the old historical buildings as evidence of their pre-colonial heritage and thus their legitimacy as an independent nation. In Laos there is Luang Prabang, Cambodia has Angkor Wat, Burma has thousands of temples from the glory times of the Pagan dynasty, Thailand has a long and largely continuous history as an independent kingdom, Indonesia has Borobudur, and Vietnam and Malaysia have a history that predates the arrival of the Europeans. Even with the evidence to prove a pre-colonial heritage that was used by these nationalist heroes to rise the people in resistance to their European colonizers the countries of Southeast Asia would not look like they do today without European interference. Laos would probably be still a part of Thailand if it was not for a French expedition to oust Thai sovereignty of the region. Malaysia and Indonesia are also largely colonial constructs.
So then why are the Filipino's different? There was a substantial civilization here and a writing system that predates the arrival of Spanish but perhaps one has to consider the time frame of colonization. The Spanish arrived in the 16th century and were the first to colonize in East Asia and the Philippines was really the first major European colonial experiment in Asia. The French did not arrive in Vietnam until around mid 19th century. The Dutch arrived in Indonesia between the Spanish and the French arrival and the English were also relatively late on the scene. The Portuguese were also marginally involved but were eventually muscled into only controlling half of an island in Indonesia. Each colonial power had a different method of colonizing. I don't believe the Dutch forced the majority of the populace to learn Dutch or emulate Dutch culture. They were interested in the spice trade and just reaped the profits from the lucrative trade at the expense of the local people. The French always had these delusions that French culture was somehow superior so they usually undertook an active policy of not only teaching French in their colonies but also pushing their culture. The Spanish I feel fell in between these two. They were adamant on converting the Filipinos to Christianity and they were largely successful at that. There were political reasons behind the missionaries because the Spanish assumed that if the Filipino's were Christian they would be less likely to cause problems for the Catholic colonial government. Even with this assumption I bet there were Spanish missionaries that completely believed that they were saving the souls of the Filipinos and I can't really attack them on that belief.
The Spanish set up a highly stratified and hierarchical society in the Philippines. At the top were the Spanish and those Filipino elites that learn the Spanish language and collaborated. The Philippine revolution at the end of 19th century combined with the Spanish-American war was a turning point in Filipino history.
The Filipino revolution was the first revolution against a European power in East Asia. At that time there were Filipino elites, usually European educated, known as illustrados who concisely and eloquently made their case for independence. There were a lot of these but the most famous guy is probably Jose Rizal. He was a brilliant writer who was executed by the Spanish government at the onset of the revolution and so he became a martyr for the cause. The two other political figures that were heavily involved with the revolution that I think are most important to consider are Andres Bonifacio and Emilio Aguinaldo. The rise of these two men to the forefront of the revolutionary struggle and their eventual power struggle epitomizes the political forces at work in the Philippines both then and now. Andres Bonifacio was a poor man from a poor part of Manila. He was inspired by Jose Rizal and other revolutionary writings. I don't know the details of his rise to power but he created the KKK or in Tagalog: Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng̃ mg̃รก Anak ng̃ Bayan, which is usually referred as just Katipunan which also happens to be the street I live on. Katipunan means revolution and the KKK (which has absolutely no relation to the Ku Klux Klan) became the central fighting force. Form poverty Bonifacio rose to El Supremo of the revolution. He represented the majority of Filipinos at the time, the downtrodden oppressed people. His role in the revolution is described very heroically and romantically in the history books and I'll get into later who really influenced these history books and perhaps Bonifacio became deified for a political purpose.
Emilio Aguinaldo came from a fairly wealthy/upper-middle class family of lawyers in the province of Cavite. Again I don't know the details of his ascension to power but he rose to prominence of his own revolutionary force based out of Cavite. At this point there were potentially two different revolutionary factions that had emerged. Bonifacio and Aguinaldo both recognized the damage two potentially competitive factions could cause to the outcome of the revolution as a whole so they had an election to merge the two factions and decide who would eventually lead the unified revolution. Bonifacio, with his wife, some of his family and compatriots, went to Cavite to participate in the election. Bonifacio was largely expected to win due to his popularity and reputation but there was an upset and Aguinaldo was victorious. Bonifacio was appointed to some sort of interior secretary position underneath Aguinaldo. Bonifacio was definitely a guy with an enormous ego, I mean come on, his name was El Supremo, and he did not take the election results lightly. After one of Aguinaldo's men went as far to question Bonifacio's competence at this lowly position he was appointed to Bonifacio lost it and stormed out; boycotting the whole process. There is speculation that Aguinaldo's men tampered with the results and I don't really know about that but what I do know is Aguinaldo and Bonifacio's reaction.
At this point Aguinaldo quickly organized his men and ambushed Bonifacio and his brothers before he could leave Cavite. He was heavily wounded and according to some accounts one of Aguinaldo's men went as far as to rape Bonifacio's wife. Bonifacio was dragged back to Aguinaldo, put on trial for treason in front of a military tribunal and promptly shot along with his brother. Aguinaldo then became the sole leader of the Katipunan. In some ways I despise Aguinaldo and think he is just a conniving, power thirsty tyrant but perhaps if we look at it from his perspective his actions might have some credibility. If Bonifacio had returned to Manila and the revolution was split in two than it could have undermined the whole effort but Aguinaldo's actions later in life prove to me that he really was just a self-serving coward. Following the death of Bonifacio and the eventual success of the Philippine revolution with help from the United States, Aguinaldo became the first president of the Philippines. His reign did not last long because of the outbreak of the Philippine-American War which American historians had so arrogantly referred to as the “Philippine Insurrection”. After a few years when it became obvious that the Americans will be successful in their campaign to ascertain the Philippines as a colony for itself, Aguinaldo, not wanting to be one caught on the wrong side of history swore allegiance to the United States. This was only the beginning of Aguinaldo's hypocrisy and I am still surprised that he is still considered a national hero of the Philippines. I do believe that if Bonifacio was still around at that time he never would have gave in to the Americans. Would it have made a difference? Was it inevitable that the Philippines become an American colony and Aguinaldo saved Filipino lives by surrendering? Honestly I don't think so but you could make that case. Most Americans now don't even know about the Philippine-American war or how many Filipinos were killed and the president at the time, William McKinley, portrayed this as an effort to “Christianize” the Philippines whose people were already largely Catholic. I don't see McKinley as being one who harbored far-reaching imperial ambitions from the onset but I see him more of an opportunist. He saw the Europeans partitioning Asia and enriching themselves and saw an opportunity to get an American foothold in Asia which held both for strategic and economic benefits to the United States. I believe American administration was better than the Spanish because they did help foster democracy in the Philippines and help structure the eventually independent Republic of the Philippines. They pulled a sort of bait and switch where they stripped the Filipinos of real independence but established democratic institutions that did give the Filipinos more political freedom than the Spanish had allowed. The Americans also controlled the material and history that was taught to the Filipinos and on the one side they hailed with Philippine revolution and its democratic foundation but made only short mention of the American armed intervention. Interestingly, American officials at the time promoted two Filipino revolutionary heroes that I know would not have been comfortable the American invasion: Andres Bonifacio and Jose Rizal. Both of these guys are convenient choices because they were killed while the struggle was really against the Spanish. These two were elevated to national heroes and the reason that they are so widely hailed by Filipinos today could be a result of the American colonial government's version of history.
Aguinaldo at this time was still involved with the new American guided government of the Philippines but he expressed his disdain and disappointment of the American hijacking of the Filipino revolution by always wearing a black bow-tie while the Philippines was an American colony. I think Bonifacio would have fought and died before letting the Philippines fall into political servitude so Aguinaldo “protesting” the American administration by wearing a black bow-tie is just weak sauce. And once the Japanese occupied the Philippines during the Second World War, Aguinaldo was quick to swear allegiance to them and be their mouth-piece for their own imperialist propaganda. The fact that Aguinaldo maintained his political position as being a revolutionary hero, to collaborating with both the American and Japanese, to still maintaining his political prestige after the Philippines was finally independent after WW2 demonstrates a skill of political survival that only befits someone with really no backbone at all. When I look at Filipino politicians following Aguinaldo I see a lot of continuance of his “legacy”. I don't know enough about Filipino politics to adequately address this but when I see Ferdinand Marcos I see the similarities with Aguinaldo. Marcos was a brilliant man and some saw him as a break from the usual suspects that populated the political elite. In my opinion Marcos' policies had two major problems which caused his downfall and damage to his country. Number one, he was quick to cave to American pressure and adopt neo-liberal trade policies enforced on him by the IMF and the US government. He broke his election vow and allowed his country to fall in unsustainable debt with these organizations which lead the Philippines being unable to protect their own industry. I wrote about this before in a previous blog. His second problem lies in his inability to relinquish power. He allowed the government to become institutionally corrupt and maintained his power to protect himself and his cronies. I believe this is inexcusable but there is a lot of debate in the Philippines still today about whether this point of view is correct.
Keep in mind that my observations are from an outsider with only vague notions of Filipino history but I brought all of this up to explain my views on the colonial-mentality of Filipinos. So then where is this colonial-mentality? The Filipino revolution is different from the independence struggle or India or Vietnam because it was based on idealistic principles of democracy and free government without a strong pre-colonial cultural framework to work from. What I mean by this is that the Philippines was constructed through colonialism and Bonifacio or Aguinaldo did not have any ambitions to “restore” the Philippines to a freedom that it enjoyed before colonization because there really wasn't a legacy to draw these ambitions from. There were indigenous people before the Spanish and a pre-colonial culture but after over 300 years of colonization these people were either integrated into the system or marginalized. Actually, Filipino history is more complex than the way I am portraying it. The Muslim sultans in Mindanao were never integrated into the Philippines until the American colonization and there are still people in Mindanao fighting for independence from the Philippines.
I read somewhere that most Filipinos are not so interested in their own history. The author described Filipinos as either looking to future or just dwelling in the present. We live in a post-colonial world and each colonized country inevitably retains some vestiges of this period of their history. I don't think the Filipinos are a particularly patriotic people at least in the arrogant way. I see a humbleness among the people toward their country much like I saw in Canadians. It's not that they disrespect their country but they don't carry delusions of cultural superiority that plague a lot nations on the planet. If you come here you will hear Spanish and English mixed with the local language. A lot of Filipinos retained their Spanish names and respect the “care-taker” role the American government played in creating a democratic government here. The Philippines has retained a lot of the vestiges of colonization so one could argue for a them having a colonial-mentality but I feel like this term should be stripped of the negative connotation that it had for me when I first heard it. You can say the Filipinos have that sort of mentality but that doesn't mean that they will bow down to any American or Spanish guy that shows up. Perhaps Filipino people do not take their history or their culture as seriously as others but people here have a strong sense of self-respect and dignity which they have maintained through the arduous years of oppression both externally and from within. The average Filipino largely resisted the absurdity of the experiment of nationalism.
