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Title: Three Stars and a Sun Author: dagami Date: October 2011 Language: en Topics: decolonization, Philippines, anti-imperialism, anti-nationalism Source: From the Gasera Journal. http://mindsetbreakerdistro.blogspot.com/2011/10/gasera-journal-1.html][mindsetbreakerdistro.blogspot.com]] and [[https://libcom.org/library/gasera-journal-1-january-2012
The menace of expansionist policies of the West changed the lives of our
ancestors forever. The consequences of these changes still determine our
lives today: poverty, ignorance, subjugation, political marginalisation,
loss of identity and self determination, resource degradation.
Magellan kept his words to King Charles, passed the great American
continent and indeed opened a new route to island of spice. Trinidad
reached Limasawa then Cebu.
Lapu-Lapu’s uncompromising attitude against the Spaniards proved to be
right and Raja Homabon’s hostile behavior towards them later might
indicate his realization about the diabolic intentions of the
conquerors.
The Spanish government sent more expeditions between 1525 and 1542. The
one of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi was the break through. Upon receiving
orders from the Audencia of Mexico, four ships carrying 350 men sailed
off to the archipelago and successfully captured Cebu and later Manila
and its surrounding provinces (de la Costa, 1965).
From then on, the regalian doctrine took effect in the archipelago based
on the capacity of the centralised government that received orders from
Spain. This meant that all natural resources of the archipelago became
royal property, and all of its inhabitants royal subjects with
obligations to obey royal orders.
The Spaniards imposed a new social order wherein political, economic and
cultural affairs were centralised under their control. An abstract
large-scale community, an organised centralised structure, was
introduced — but not without blood. Pockets of resistance — like those
of Tamblot (Bohol), Bancao (Leyte), Sumoroy (Samar), Tapar (Iloilo),
Witch (Mangungutud o Mangkukulam) in Gapang (Nueva Ecija) — emerged.
Pedro Gumapos (Vigan), Diego and Gabriela Silang (Vigan) Mandaya, Basi
Revolt (Ilocos), Dabao (Caraga, Mindanao) and many more scored
substantial successes but were quickly subdued.
Oppressive policies and practices such as encomienda, taxation, polo
system and discrimination caused revolts. Christianity, however, was
successful. Successive missionaries captured our ancestors’ deep
spirituality, thus winning their loyalty — which explained numerous
cases of betrayal that caused revolts to fail.
If our ancestors had discovered that they could use traditional
archipelagic networks of support, they could have won the war.
It is difficult to know when the people in the archipelago began to
consider themselves as a nation rather than simply as Tagalogs,
Ilokanos, Visayans, or members of any specific tribe. However, it is
reasonable to suppose that the oppressive conditions established common
sentiments against the colonizers (de la Costa, 1965).
The oppressive conditions that could not be transcended by the pockets
of resistance continued until the Enlightenment age in Europe. Reason
and science prevailed and became influential at the global scale. Rebels
and intellectuals like Bonifacio, Rizal, del Pilar, Mabini, Luna and
others did use this influence from European ideas to drive the Spanish
away.
The Katipunan claimed sovereignty. Sovereignty would mean the abolition
of oppressive conditions that were approved by huge numbers of poor and
under-privileged. This would be done by staging revolution and creating
a republic with a centralised government that will rule the entire
archipelago. The community beyond face-to-face politics thus established
and further reinforced by Americans.
The few privileged had their own way of creating nationhood. According
to Josephine Dionisio’s introduction to Randy David’s book Nation, Self
and Citizenship: An Invitation to Sociology, the Filipino nation is in
part an invention of European-educated Filipino intellectuals who we
know now as our heroes.
Katipunan and its idea of sovereignty became the viable expression of
freedom to many locals who were already influenced by the centralistic
system brought by the Spanish monarchy and its political organisations.
The primitive autonomous and interdependent barangays were not
sufficient to resist the organizational patterns of the colonizers that
were said to be superior to the primitive structures. This is only true
if we measure superiority by conquest. The colonial patterns are
designed to colonize while the primitive structures are characterized by
cooperation, diversity and the absence of private property.
The context discussed above reinforced the idea of statism among the
rebels. The conceived territory which is the archipelago was to be
governed by a uniform centralised political power that later expounded
by statist Pan-Germanic form of nationalism.
The term Tagalog used by Bonifacio refers to the entire archipelago
(Reyes, 1995) represents our early concept of nation. The concept of
“Inang Bayan” or “Haring Bayan” is the earliest large-scale imagined
community that represents the idea of nation hood among the Katipuneros
and its supporters. Imagined because the face-to-face process of
barangays has been replaced by highly centralised political organisation
based on the idea of republicanism and representative democracy —
generally derived from the principles of “Declaration of Rights of Man
and the Citizen” of the Revolutionary Assembly in France on August 27,
1789.
As history shows, the conclusion of the Philippines as a nation is due
to long coercive processes of colonisation that continue until today.
Physically, colonizers are gone, but their supremacy deeply and
profoundly penetrates our values and prejudices, our culture and
developmental perspective.
Anderson considered nationalism a pathology in our modern developmental
history. The Philippines as a nation is indeed a pathology that
undermined our autonomous traditions, interdependent and horizontal
political relationships based on mutual-cooperation.
Nationalism and statism are illnesses that destroyed the desirable
conditions of the primitive communities in the archipelago. Primitive
barangays did engage in warfare among themselves. For instance,
inhabitants of Mindanao and Panay exchanged at tacks on a regular basis.
Tribal war commonly known as head hunting was also typical among tribes
in northern Luzon. Largely, common causes of attacks and raids were
revenge, betrayal of a pact and unresolved dispute of territorial claims
— but not to dominate and to rule.
Highly decentralised they were, but in permanent warfare they were not.
Interdependent relationships provided overall mutual protection and
benefits and were common among primitive communities.
The term “Filipino” originally refers to an individual born in the
archipelago by Spanish parents. Currently, many of us regard Filipino as
our superior identity that is upheld by many groups, tribes,
ethnolinguistic identity and geographical affiliation in the
archipelago. This goes for basically everyone except tribes that remain
isolated and people in the southern Philippines who aim to secede and to
establish a Muslim nation.
Our sense of nationalism and identity as Filipino was particularly high
during the times when revolutionary fervor was strong within us —
especially during the Katipunan uprising, People Power I, II and III.
However, the meaning of our identity as Filipino continuously changes.
After the two major political exercises in EDSA, social and economic
conditions have not changed. Unemployment is steadily increasing, hunger
is prevalent, political marginalisation is alarming, and ecological
destruction is rampant throughout the archipelago and has caused the
loss of livelihood of millions. After billions of pesos have already
been spent on an agrarian reform that started during the Aquino regime,
this reform is still far from completion.
Prices of basic commodities are increasing fast while workers’ wages
barely move. The peso is gaining strength in relation to the dollar to
the detriment of the OFWs who deliver substantial value in government
revenues. Corruption is deemed “acceptable” in our culture.
We are maids in Europe and Singapore. prostitutes in Japan, and
underpaid workers in the international seafaring industry (David, 2002),
while the characteristics of our lives at home are obedience, passivity,
individualism, opportunism, corruption, dependency due to the exogenous
forces brought by colonisation, centralization of power, capitalism and
relationships based on competition and hierarchy. These conditions
further facilitate the process of decadence of the meaning of “Filipino”
that established through coercive processes.
Upon acquiring ideas from the West, native rebels felt compelled to
adopt and invent “Filipino” as a national identity to effectively fight
Spanish colonizers. The statist framework that governs the Katipunan
reinforced this and we totally veered away from the decentralised
fashion of the primitive organisations.
Ultimately, the creation of our identity as a nation and as a Filipino
did not come from our own cultural, political and social conditions and
self-determination. It came from oppression, slavery, aggression,
arrogance and the dominance of the West. The pioneer dwellers of the
archipelago up to the baranganic phase were neither Christians,
republicans nor parliamentarians nor corporate leaders nor bureaucrats.
They were hunters, gatherers, fishers, farmers with their own
industries. They had their own decentralised system of politics,
autonomous and interdependent. They had rich diverse culture and a
generally prosperous economy that sustained massive trading activities
with China, Malaysia, and Indonesia and even Siam (Thailand).
Jose Rizal wrote in his essay “The Indolence of the Filipino People”:
All histories of those first years, in short, abound in long accounts
about the industry and agriculture of the natives: mines, gold-washings,
looms, farms, barter, naval construction, raising of poultry and stock,
weaving of silk and cotton, distilleries, manufactures of arms, pearl
fisheries, the civet industry, the horn and hide industry, etc., are
things encountered at every step, and, considering the time and
condition of the islands, prove that there was life, there was activity,
there was movement.
He further explained that:
And not only, Morga, not only Chirino, Colin, Argensola, Gaspar de San
Agustin and others agree in this matter, but modern travelers after 250
years, examining the decadence, and misery assert the same thing. Dr.
Hans Meyer, when he saw the unsubdued tribes cultivating beautiful
fields and working energetically, asked if they would not become
indolent when they in turn should accept Christianity and a paternal
government.
Evidently, the state — through its government and with the help of
Christianity — oppressed, enslaved and corrupted us — while at the same
time creating and reinforcing the Filipino identity and nation.
The Philippine nation and the Filipino citizen have never delivered
concrete expressions of democracy and prosperity for the lives of the
many. In fact, these notions undermined the freedom and abundance of the
primitive communities.
I do not propose splitting up into several unrelated and hostile groups
or anything like that. The earlier discussion informed us already that
this is not part of the autonomous and interdependent wisdom that I wish
to explore. The theme of mutual cooperation and the absence of social
stratification characterized the primitive communities, particularly
Pisan tribal groups, between 50,000 to 500 BC. We can gain insights from
this in order to imagine our future political communities. Communities
that will allow total diversity and that will concretely address social
problems such as poverty, ignorance, massive ecological destruction, as
well as all forms of abuse, discrimination and political
marginalisation.
Reestablishing this decentralised system under a non statist framework
is a sound proposition particularly because the statist alternatives are
increasingly loosing their appeal to the citizens of the archipelago.
Redefining “Filipino” based on a non-statist paradigm is the key to
overcome the mentioned social problems. Reviving our lost identity means
regaining our lost freedom and abundance from the centralistic systems
of the state and capitalism.
In our modern age, decentralised, autonomous and interdependent could
mean the following: direct workers’ control of industries and factories;
direct management of employees of the former government institutions for
administrative functions; the collectivization of agricultural lands;
direct community management of ecosystems; total respect and recognition
of the indigenous claims to ancestral lands and waters; direct
participation of the community, producers, workers, women, youth, gays,
lesbians, senior citizens and sidewalk vendors to economic and social
planning; the socialization of facilities such as housing, health
services, water and energy supply — substantial time for socialization
is an essential human activity that must be reinstituted in the actual
application of direct democracy.
Making politics accessible to every family is what counts. What we need
is the widest participation of the people from the communities and
localities. The system of representative democracy is not designed to
accommodate people’s participation in power and we must replace this
with direct democracy, a political system that offers a genuine
participation to power by being organised in decentralised fashion based
on the principles of solidarity and mutual cooperation.
The proposed system requires a dialectical process of educating citizens
in every municipality and barangay with regard to the idea of
self-determination, deep and radical ecological awareness, cooperation,
solidarity, mutuality, diversity and productivity. In a broad stroke,
these processes will bring people to voluntarily organise based on their
interests at the municipal, city or barangay level. Voluntary structures
will actively participate in decision-making at public places
facilitated by administrative councils. It should be noted that members
of administrative councils function only to facilitate the
implementation of the agreed system. They do not have any authority or
privilege.
The survival of humanity is strictly connected to the health of global
ecology. Its condition is deteriorating fast. This is due to
anthropocentrism and hierarchical relationship of human being.
The higher the position in a hierarchical structure the greater the
access to power and benefits. This promotes competition and
relationships between people that revolve around incentives and
privilege. Incentives entice people to produce more for the markets and
shops which will result in massive extraction of natural resources and
the exploitation of the earth as a sink. This causes ecological crises.
Accumulation of incentive of the few “winners” leads to poverty and
marginalisation of the many.
Before the global ecology turns into total waste, people of the world
must find ways to innovate relationships and systems that will replace
political hierarchy and centralization of incentives and benefits of
streams. We must do it swiftly.
Anderson, Benedict. (1997) “Imagined Communities: reflections on the
origins and spread of nationalism”. Revised edition.
de la Costa, Horacio (1965) “Readings in Philippine History”
David, Randolf S (2002) “Nation, Self and Citizenship”
Jocano, F. Landa (1998) “Filipino Indigenous Ethnic Communities:
Anthropology of the Fili pino People II
Reyes, Aurelio Ed, C (1995) “Bonifacio Siya ba ay kilala ko?”
Rizal, Jose M “The Indolence of Filipino People”
Scott, Henry William (1997) “Barangay” Sixteenth-Century Philippine
Culture and Society”
The Project Gutenberg EBook of “The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898,
Volume XXIII, 1629–30,” Release Date: August 6, 2005 [EBook #16451]
Umali, Bas (2006) “Archipelagic Confederation: Advancing Genuine
Citizens’ Politics through Free Assemblies and Independent Structures
from the Barangay & Communities”