A RE-READING OF RENATO CONSTANTINO’S

POSTCOLONIAL DISCOURSES ON PHILIPPINE EDUCATION

Christian Bryan S. Bustamante

Postcolonial discourses emerged from the testimonies of the former colonials.

These discourses emanated from their experiences as colonized people. Postcolonial
discourses are discourses of the “minorities,” the “inferior, and the “other.” In
postcolonial discourses, the once slaves are now treating their former masters as the
“other” and “objects” of their ideas and intellectual activities. Intellectuals of
postcolonial discourses see themselves as co-equal with the self-proclaimed men of true
civilization and superior culture. They criticize the hegemonic discourses of the West
which justify the normality of “uneven development and the differential, often
disadvantaged, histories of nations, races, communities, peoples.” 1 They formulate their
discourses around the issues of “cultural difference, social authority and political
discrimination.”2 The notion of postcolonial includes the idea of cultural struggle and
cultural power.3 It is the struggle between nations to create a level playing field in the
“uneven and unequal forces of cultural representation.” 4 The words of Sartre in his
Preface to the book, The Wretched of the Earth, echo this struggle:

It came to an end; the mouths opened by themselves; the yellow black voices still spoke
of our humanism but only to reproach us with our inhumanity. We listened without
displeasure to these polite statements of resentment, at first with proud amazement.
What? They are able to talk by themselves? Just look at what we have made of them!
We did not doubt but that they would accept our ideals, since they accused us of not
being faithful to them…

A new generation came to the scene, which changed the issue. With unbelievable
patience, its writers and poets tried to explain to us that our values and the true facts of
their lives did not hang together, and that they could neither reject them completely nor
yet assimilate them. By and large, what they are saying was this: “You are making us
into monstrosities ; your humanism claims we are at one with the rest of humanity but
your racist methods set us apart.”5

1
Homi K. Bhabha, The Postcolonial and the Postmodern in The Cultural Studies Reader, ed. Simon
During (London: Routledge, 1993), 190.
2
Bhabha.
3
Jon Stratton and Ien Ang, On The Impossibility of a Global Cultural Studies in Stuart Hall: Critical
Dialogues in Cultural Studies, eds. David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen (London: Routledge, 1996), 381.
4
Bhabha, 190.
5
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington (New York: Grove Press, 1963), 7-
8.
 2

This paper does not contain original postcolonial discourses nor offers a unique
postcolonial philosophy. This paper is a first step to an ambition of collecting and
synthesizing postcolonial discourses of Filipino intellectuals in order to come up with a
postcolonial philosophy. The framework for such ambition is not yet laid down. The
time line is not yet determined. The ambition remains an ambition. And hopefully this
humble paper will lead to the achievement of such noble undertaking.

This paper analyzes the discourses of one famous Filipino postcolonial historian,
Renato Constantino. Constantino’s history is a postcolonial critique for it analyzes the
effects and consequences of colonization to the Filipino nation and society. He is an
important writer and thinker because of his analysis of the colonial and neocolonial
effects to the Filipinos’ way of life and thinking and Philippine political and social
institutions. Constantino’s ideas are not only based on what he read but also on his
experience and observation in this former western colony. The authors reading and
analysis of Constantino’s postcolonial discourses on education is focused on the
following published essays, Our Captive Minds, The Miseducation of the Filipino and
Education and Consciousness. In these essays Constantino exposes and analyses how
education was used by the Americans as technology of colonization and the effects of this
colonial technique to the present. In the writer’s reading of the said essays, he developed
three themes which will be used as the outline of discussion on Constantino’s discourses.
These are the (1) education as an instrument of colonial policy; (3) English as a
technology of power; and (3) the effects of colonization to the economic and political
attitude and mentality of the Filipino people.

I. RENATO CONSTANTINO’S POSTCOLONIAL DISCOURSES

A. Education as an Instrument of Colonial Policy

Constantino claims that the Americans retain their control in the Philippines not
by the use of force but by “vigorous economic, cultural, and intellectual ‘assimilation.’” 6
He calls this as “conquest by acquiescence.” Through this philosophy the Filipino people
identified themselves with their American conquerors, which made their intellectual
captivity complete.7 This philosophy of conquest was concretely implemented by the
establishment of American educational system in the Philippine colony as a “means of
pacifying” the Filipino people.8 Education was used as an “instrument of colonial
policy” based on the philosophy of conquest by acquiescence.

The English language was also used to implement the philosophy of conquest by
acquiescence. Constantino argues that the English language has been easily accepted by
the Filipinos as “language of government, commerce, and education” because of their

6
R.Constantino, Our Captive Minds in The Filipinos in the Philippines and Other Essays (Quezon City:
Malay Books, Inc., 1971), 68.
7
Constantino.
8
R. Constantino, The Miseducation of the Filipino in The Filipinos in the Philippines and Other Essays
(Quezon City: Malay Books, Inc., 1971), 42.
 3

disintegrated culture and uprooted race brought about by Spanish colonization. 9 English
language has become an official language not only of governance, business and education
but also of the Filipino household. According to Constantino, “English is used within the
family and the dialect is reserved for communication with the servants. How proudly the
fond parents recount their children’s progress in English and how frightened they are of
the growing popularity of Tagalog!”10

The American media and movies also helped in the conquest of the Filipinos. The
newspapers and magazines helped a lot in the captivity of the Filipino mind. The
information written in these periodicals were written and evaluated by the Americans
based on their standards, values and interests. 11 Gradually and unconsciously the Filipino
people have been seeing the world through the eyes of the Americans as an effect of the
information written in an American way.12 American movies also influenced the Filipino
way of life and thinking. Through these movies, the Filipino assimilated in their day-to-
day life the “American ways and attitudes, music and dances, fads in food, drink, and
dress, idiosyncracies of speech, behavior towards family and friends, problems of
juvenile delinquency and crime.”13 These movies were also used as the reference point of
beauty and excellence in art.14 That is why in Philippine movies there are, for example,
“Michael Jackson of the Philippines” or “Elvis Presley of the Philippine.”

Education was the most powerful and effective colonial tool used by the
Americans. They used education first to restore tranquility in the Philippine archipelago
and second to transform the Filipinos into good colonial subjects and to shape their young
ideal minds to conform to American ideas.15 Constantino explains:

Education served to attract the people to the new masters and at the same time to dilute
their nationalism which had just succeeded in overthrowing a foreign power. The
introduction of the American educational system was a subtle means of defeating a
triumphant nationalism.16

Hence, the goals of American educational system were not for the development of the
Filipino people. Its goals were consistent with the American colonial policy. These
were to train the Filipinos as “citizens of American colony” and to preserve and
expand American control in the Philippines.17

The American educational system did not only transform the Filipinos into good
colonial subjects. It also produced “educated ignorant” because Filipinos educated in the
American educational system “did not learn about the Philippine revolution, the first

9
Constantino, Our Captive Minds, 70.
10
Constantino, 78.
11
Constantino, 72.
12
Constantino.
13
Constantino.
14
Constantino, 78.
15
Constantino, The Miseducation of the Filipino, 42.
16
Constantino.
17
Constantino, 44, 45.
 4

Philippine Republic and Filipino resistance in the Philippine-American war.” 18

According to Constantino, Filipinos “were rendered ignorant of their historic struggles to
be a free people.”19 Instead they were “made to embrace Mother America, pledge
allegiance to the American flag, recite the Gettysberg Address like a brown Abraham
Lincoln.”20 These started the development of colonial mentality where Filipinos
“worship at the altar of the white god, marvel at his weapons, gadgets, and glossy
products.”21

The present educational system is a product of American educational system. In

other words, the present educational system is patterned after the American educational
system without realizing the gap that exists between the two countries. Since this is the
case, Constantino argues present educational system does not give more emphasis on
nationalism for the American education stresses internationalism, or globalization, and
underplays nationalism.22 The emphasis on internationalism or globalization is noble and
good but emphasizing it to people without a firm foundation of nationalism is harmful.
This is the case of the Filipino nation and society. The weak foundation of nationalism,
or even lack of it, because of American educational orientation to internationalism, is one
of the effects of American colonial education. This is also the main concern that is not
given so much time and emphasis by Filipino teachers and intellectuals including
philosophy teachers and thinkers. Throughout the years, the Filipino people failed to
develop an education that gives more emphasis to nationalism. They are overwhelmed
by the American and/or western influences.

B. The English Language as Medium of Instruction

The Filipinos started to forget their own language when the Americans introduced
English as the medium of instruction for they became busy grappling with the strange
language before they can use it as a medium. 23 This struggle with the foreign language
has become the prime pre-occupation of the students and teachers. 24 The use of English
as medium of instruction prevented the Filipino people in the development and use of the
native language.25

Aside from preventing the development of Filipino language and making the
transmission of knowledge and learning difficult, the English language also caused
separation between the Filipinos and their past and between the educated and the
masses.26 The English language separated the Filipinos from their past because it
introduced them to a “strange, new world.”27 Because of the English language, the
18
Constantino, Education and Consciousness in Fetters on Tomorrow, ed. Lourdes Balderrama-Constantino
(Quezon City: Karel Inc., 1996), 87.
19
Constantino.
20
Constantino.
21
Constantino.
22
Constantino, The Miseducation of the Filipino, 52.
23
Constantino, Our Captive Minds, 74.
24
Constantino.
25
Constantino.
26
Constantino, The Miseducation of the Filipino, 45.
27
Constantino.
 5

Filipinos were introduced to a “new way of life, alien to their traditions and yet a
caricature of their model.”28 That is why the Filipinos were disoriented consciously and
unconsciously from their nationalist goals and no longer learn as Filipinos but as
colonials.29 They studied harder to become ideal colonials. That is to become a “carbon
copy” of the Americans. According to Constantino, Filipinos have to forget their past and
unlearn the nationalist virtues “in order to live peacefully, if not comfortably, under the
colonial order.”30 It did not only create a divide between the present and the past but also
between the educated and illiterate and between the rich and the poor. The English
language has become the language and landmark of the elite, the well-placed and highly
schooled. The few speak in the foreign language while the majority is still comfortable
speaking in their native tongue.

The English language, then, which was envisioned to provide unity and
commonality among the Filipino people, who are divided by dialects and regional
cultures, does not close the gap between the Filipinos. Instead it created a new divide
between the rich and the poor. And Constantino argues that this gap “cannot be bridge by
making the people learn more English.”31 Constantino further argues that the
empowerment of the masses “cannot be achieved through an alien language, one which
was historically imposed as a primary instrument of colonial control.” 32 Unity between
the two classes of people can only be achieved if they will speak in a language of their
own. This is, according to Constantino, “a national language which provides a sense of
humanity and commonality, at the same time that it symbolizes resistance to a
homogenizing Westernization which divides rather than unite.” 33 The English language
was introduced by the Americans not to give the Filipino nation a national language that
will unite them. The Americans used it as a technology of power in order to transfer
knowledge, information, values from the American country to the Philippine colony. The
English language was a “channel through which ideas of hegemonic nations enter the
consciousness of Filipinos, dominate their communication network and perpetuate a
chronic and massive colonial mentality.”34

Because of the use of English language as medium of instruction, the

development of our culture was barred. The use of English language facilitated the influx
of foreign culture and the underdevelopment of national culture. Because of the English
language, the Filipino people viewed themselves and the world according to American
culture. According to Constantino, “The national language is our cultural defense against
the inroads of a hegemonic culture which is trying to spread a monoculture all over the
world.”35 The underdevelopment of national language is the reason why Filipino
nationalism is weak and colonial mentality is strong.

28
Constantino, 45-46.
29
Constantino, 46.
30
Constantino.
31
Constantino.
32
Constantino.
33
Constantino.
34
Constantino.
35
Constantino, 92.
 6

Until now the great debate on the medium of instruction is not yet given a definite
conclusion. The issue on the use of Filipino or English as a medium of instruction still
arise and being discussed in public forum every now and then. Sad to say, quality of
education, sometimes, is based on the mastery and proficiency of English language.
Filipinos always think, and philosophy teachers and intellectuals are also guilty of this,
that “no true education can be true education unless it is based on the proficiency of
English.”36 Education is not only about proficiency in a foreign language or acquisition
of information. Education is also about the processing and utilization of information to
understand social problems and propose solutions to such problems. This is one of the
problems of the use of foreign language. It does not facilitate processing of information
for students who are very busy understanding more the language than the ideas that it
carries. This does not mean that English language should not be taught. The main issue
is that Filipinos are using a foreign language, or trying to use one, without mastering and
appreciating their native language. This is again dangerous. It is true that English is the
global language. Mastery of it is important for students to be employable in
multinational corporations and call centers. However, the significance and value of the
national and native language should not be downplayed for language gives one an
identity and always connects him/her to his culture and traditions.

C. The Effects of American Colonial Education to Filipino Economic and

Political Mentality

The American educational system and the use of English as medium of instruction
facilitated the Americanization of the economic and political aspects of the Filipino
nation and society. In economics, the American policy of free trade is perceived by the
Filipinos as a “generous gift of American altruism.” 37 This is made easy by education
that concealed the real motivations of the Americans in colonizing the Philippines.
American teachers, the thomasites, and later on Filipino teachers, the descendants of the
thomasites, presented the Americans as savior of the Filipino nation from Spain who
brought here the blessings of liberty and democracy. 38 According to Constantino, “The
almost complete lack of understanding at present of those economic motivations and of
the presence of American interests in the Philippines is the most eloquent testimony to the
success of the education for colonials which we have undergone.”39

The effect of American educational system in the Filipino economic mentality can
be seen in the idea of progress which is “tied to the quantity of natural and human
commodities we are able to export in order to earn dollars with which to buy more
imported goods and pay our gargantuan foreign debt.”40 This can also be seen in our
attitude to foreign investors as “saviors of ailing economy and dynamos for our great leap
forward to the NIC age;”41 without realizing that they take out more dollars than bring in.

36
Constantino, The Miseducation of the Filipino, 55.
37
Constantino, 47.
38
Constantino.
39
Constantino.
40
Constantino, Education and Consciousness, 87.
41
Constantino, 87-88.
 7

They send their profit to their mother company and mother country; it does not trickle
down to the poor Filipino people.

American colonial education also caused the development of apathetic attitude

towards industrialization among the Filipinos.42 American teachers instilled in the mind
of the young Filipinos the idea that the Philippines is “essentially meant to be an
agricultural country” and it should not be changed. According to Constantino, the
“schools attempt to inculcate an appreciation for things Philippine, the picture that is
presented for the child's admiration is an idealized picture of a rural Philippines, as pretty
and as unreal as an Amorsolo painting with its carabao, its smiling healthy farmer, the
winsome barrio lass in the bright clean patadyong, and the sweet little nipa hut.”43 That is
the picture inculcated in the mind of the Filipino pupils and students, which produced the
idea that it is good to live in an agricultural society and it should not be exchanged for
industrialization even if it means underdevelopment and lack of progress. The
Americans’ motive for this strategy is for them to monopolize and exploit the natural
resources of the Philippines which is for the benefit of their own economy. That is why,
Constantino argues, the Americans never emphasized the problems of an agricultural
society such as “poverty, the disease, the cultural vacuum, the sheer boredom, the
superstition and ignorance of backward farm communities.” 44 They did not present the
problem of unequal distribution of land and the urgent need for agrarian reform, which
until now haunts the Philippine economy and society.

The American educational system facilitated also the transplantation of American

political institutions in the Philippine colony.45 The Philippine government and
bureaucracy are brought by the Americans in the Philippines ready made. The
government and bureaucracy implanted in the Philippine colony are products of
American experiences, values and needs. They are not products of Philippine political
and social realities. Political institutions evolved out of the problems and needs of the
people. They established and created in order to solve public problems and serve the
people. According to Constantino, the American democratic institutions in the
Philippines are valid only for the Americans, not for the Filipinos. 46 The Filipino people
failed to develop indigenous institutions that evolved from the experiences and needs of
the people. That is why until now Filipino politicians debate on what form of
government is best to the country to achieve growth and development.

The American educational system did not only facilitate the development of pro-
American economic attitude and transplantation of political institutions. It also made the
Filipinos over dependent to the Americans.47 This over dependency led to the failure of
the Filipino people to “develop independent, serious, and solid thinking on matters of
national concern.”48 Filipino politicians, economists and policy makers will easily look
42
Constantino, The Miseducation of the Filipino, 47.
43
Constantino.
44
Constantino, 48.
45
Constantino, 49.
46
Constantino, 50.
47
Constantino, Our Captive Minds, 72.
48
Constantino.
 8

for American or western models that will explain the cause, effects and solutions of
public problems. Instead of considering public problems in terms of the local
circumstances and needs, they resort to following and copying American models.
American models are treated as “messiahs” of Philippine public problems. They are the
outright solutions to any problem experienced by the Filipino people and in Philippine
society. Globalization, privatization, deregulation and liberalization are good policies for
the ailing Philippine economy and society because they are effective in the American
economy. The Filipino people cherish political and economic values and policies that are
not products of their own thinking and analysis.

Because of the effective use of education as instrument of colonial policy, the

Filipino people are confused about their national goals. 49 According to Constantino, the
foundation of that confusion is the “follow America” political and economic mentality
which became the cornerstone of Filipino national and international life. 50 This mentality
prevented the Filipino people in pursuing any agenda independently and an agenda that is
based on the true and genuine national interests. The Filipino people aligned their
interests with the American national interests. That is why, Constantino argues, every
time the Philippine experiences a problem or crisis the first consideration is, “how will
the Americans regard this, how will this affect Philippine-American relations?” 51 For
Constantino, there is a “blind spot” in the thinking of the Filipino people. That is the
inability to consider the America as a nation with her own national interest, values and
needs.52 Constatino further states:

This handicap that we impose on ourselves is our assumption that we are facing, not a
nation seeking what is best for herself, but a quixotic adversary gallantly seeking what is
best for us. It is, therefore, easy to persuade us into believing that some action which is
best for America is actually best for us. Only when the issues of self-interest stand
nakedly clear, as in the bases question, do we painfully realize that our benevolent
brother is thinking first of himself. Our expression of hurt surprise at this natural and
normal behavior of America is evidence of our idealized and unrealistic view of our
former conquerors.53

Constantino’s postcolonial discourses give emphasis on one of the strategies used

by the Americans to colonize the Filipino people that is, education. This colonial strategy
is very effective for it changed the economic and political attitudes of the Filipinos and it
facilitated the slow development, or lack of, nationalism on the part of the Filipino people
(please see Figure1 below). Education is the not the only strategy used by the Americans.
They also employed the English language. If education is the principal agent of
American colonization, the English language is its master stroke. 54 It makes the
American strategies for colonization complete. Because of the English language, the
Filipino people have gradually forgotten to develop their own native language and

49
Constantino, 74.
50
Constantino.
51
Constantino.
52
Constantino, 75.
53
Constantino.
54
Constantino, The Philippines: A Past Revisited, Vol. 1 (Quezon City: Renato Constantino, 1975), 314.
 9

appreciate their own culture and traditions. The English language and American
education lay down the foundation for the Filipinos to appreciate what is American.

Lack of Nationalism
American
Educational
System

Colonial Pro-American
Instruments Economic Attitude

English Language
Americanized
Political Institutions
and Thinking

Figure 1

II. A CRITIQUE OF CONSTANTINO’S DISCOURSES

Renato Constantino describes how the educational system and English language
were used by the Americans as colonial instruments. He also describes the effects of
these techniques to the Filipino people. In this part of the paper, the author will try to
rationalize why education and language become effective tools of colonial policy using
the philosophical ideas of Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault and Frantz Fanon.

A. Education and English Language and the American Hegemony

The Americans created ideological terrain when they arrived in the Philippines.
The new ideological terrains created by the Americans were the public educational
system which used the English language as medium of instruction and the media that
project the American culture, values and worldview. The Filipino people participated in
the new ideological terrains because they were searching for their own nation identity and
culture devastated by the Spanish colonization. While searching for their own identity
and culture the Filipinos’ consciousness and knowledge were influenced by the American
ideology, consciously or unconsciously. That is the beginning of the development of the
hegemonic control of the Americans and the creation of a hegemonic situation. From then
on, the cultural, economic and political developments of the Filipino people are guided
and influenced by the American consciousness. The American culture and ideology
inscribed in the American textbooks, movies and periodicals directed the development of
the Filipino consciousness. That this why a blind spot was created in the mind of the
Filipino people. The Filipinos adopted the American culture and ideas not because they
wanted to be Americans but because they believed that these are the best means to
 10

achieve the development of their country and nation. That is why the Filipinos adopted
American economic models and policies and political institutions and thinking because of
the idea implanted in their minds that American models and institutions are best means to
achieve the modernization of the Philippines.

The Filipino people, unmindful of the American interests, allowed themselves to

be guided by American culture and ideology to achieve personal and collective
advancement. This hegemonic situation continues to the present. The Filipinos are still
captives of American hegemony. They are always looking up to their former colonial
masters turned saviors turned mentors and turned idols. Most of the Filipino economists
still want to be like the Americans by adopting American economic and business models
that will improve the still underdeveloped Philippine economy in this era of
globalization. Some Filipino social and political scientists still think like Americans by
explaining the social and political problems in the Philippines using American theories or
citing American experiences. Filipinos have not yet realized that the two countries are
different with one another. There is gap between the two countries’ social, political and
economic experiences.

How can Filipino intellectuals or philosophers solve this postcolonial problem?

They should do what the Americans did. It is the task of Filipino thinkers to create a new
ideological terrain to challenge the hegemonic control of the West to the Filipino
consciousness. The hegemonic control of the West can be challenged by the formulation
and publication of Filipino postcolonial discourses to enlighten and re-direct the Filipino
consciousness which has been guided by American ideology. The confusion of the
Filipino people on their national goals and the lack of nationalism by the Filipino people
cannot be solved by requiring the Filipinos to speak Filipino and not to patronize the
ideas and products of the West. These problems can be solved by starting with what the
Americans did, the creation of ideological terrain and hegemonic situation to challenge
that of the West’s. This form of revolution must be started by Filipino intellectuals. The
objective of that revolution is to create a Filipino hegemonic situation in order to
challenge the American hegemony. The technologies that will be used are discourses,
textbooks, and classroom.

B. The American Language as a Technology of Power

Power is a relation between two forces; stated differently, in “every relation

between forces is a power relation.” 55 Power is productive for it produces and creates
knowledge and truth. Power takes effect with the use of technologies. These
technologies of power are “micro-physics” for the reason that they are exercised on the
body.56 The body is “directly involved in a political field; power relations have an
immediate hold upon it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out
tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs.”57 The body is locked up with power
relations because of its economic use. The body is a “force of production” that is why
55
Michel Foucault, Clarifications on the Question of Power in Foucault Live (Interviews, 1961-1984), ed.
Sylvera Lotringer, trans. Lysa Hochroth and John Johnston (New York: Semiotext (e), 1996), 25.
56
Foucault.
57
Foucault.
 11

power relations and domination invested in it. Because of its importance in the economy,
it is essential that the body is subjected in order for it to be transformed into a useful
force.

The English language is the master stroke of American colonization. Because of

the English language, the American colonization completed its task of transforming the
Filipinos into ideal and loyal colonials. The effects of the use of English language as a
medium of instruction are proofs on how effective language is as a technology of power.
The English language is used by the Americans as a technology of power in producing
American truths for the Filipinos and in producing ideal Filipino colonials. The
technology of language is supplemented by other techniques that make the work of power
complete and perfect for the Americans. They used the textbooks, newspapers,
magazines, and movies. They also used the classrooms and movie houses as loci of the
exercise of power.

The truths created by the Americans for the Americans are appreciated and
accepted by the Filipinos as their own truths. The truths about the Americans as the
saviors of the Filipino nation; the superiority of American culture and civilization; the
greatness of American heroes; and the benevolence of the Americans were all accepted
by the Filipinos as truths. The Filipino people also accepted the American ideology as
truth that is why they use such ideology as their guide in the rebuilding of their society.
The political, social and economic ideologies of the Americans prevailed over the
Filipinos. These are the Filipinos’ ultimate models and truths for the rebuilding of their
devastated nation. These truths still prevail today.

The English language is introduced not to unite the Filipino people or to provide
them with a national language. It is used as a technology of power for the Americans to
transmit their truths to the Filipinos. Another clear proof of English as technology of
power by the Americans is the division between the Filipino elite and masses. English
becomes the language of the elite, the powerful and educated. It becomes as symbol of
social status and dominance in the society. It is the language of the superior and powerful
Filipinos because it is the language of the Americans. It also becomes the language of the
Filipino intellectuals. The Filipino people realized that they are more powerful and
superior than others when they have mastery of their colonial masters’ language.

The Filipinos transmitted the truths created by the Americans to the succeeding
generations. That is why nowadays it is very difficult to draw the line between the
American truths about the Filipinos and the Filipino truths. There is a confusion or
identity crisis because Filipinos do not only accept the truths of the Americans but they
also perpetuate it. They even recreated it not for Filipinos’ sake but for the Americans’.
The Filipinos allowed themselves to be used as technologies of the perpetuation and
permanency of American power and influence over them. This is the neocolonial
mentality.

Filipino philosophers and teachers of philosophy are also guilty of the

perpetuation of the American truths. It is, however, one of their noble tasks to challenge
 12

these truths created by the Americans that still prevail today in the mind of the Filipino
people. Constantino calls for the deconstruction of the Philippine education. In this
process of deconstructing the truths by the Americans for the Filipinos, philosophy
teachers play a critical role. The Americans created organic intellectuals among the
Filipinos to express their values, and interests in the American point of view. Filipino
philosophy teachers and philosophers should transform themselves into organic
intellectuals who express Filipino values, interests, and experiences from the point of
view of Filipinos. The organic intellectuals are very important for the deconstruction of
the truths created by the Americans.

C. Fanon and the Effects of American Colonization

In the preceding sections, the writer rationalized why the American educational
system and English are used effectively by the Americans to control and transform the
Filipinos as citizens of American colony. In this section, the writer will explain why the
colonial technologies of education and language have lasting and permanent effects to the
Filipinos using the postcolonial discourses of Frantz Fanon.

Fanon argues that colonized people are suffering from inferiority complex
because of the “death and burial of its local and cultural originality.” 58 The colonized
people are marked by their colonial masters as uncivilized and primitive, “no culture, no
civilization, no long historical past.”59 Unfortunately, the colonized people accepted the
descriptions of their colonizers. Fanon calls this as the “colonial situation,” which caused
the “emergence of a mass of illusions and misunderstandings”60 about the culture of the
colonized people.

The colonized people now want to elevate themselves above their current status as
inferior people, without civilization, culture and history, by adopting their mother
country’s cultural standards. According to Fanon:

Every colonized people…finds itself face to face with the language of the civilizing
nation; that is, with the culture of the mother country. The colonized is elevated above
his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother country’s cultural standards.
He becomes whither as he renounces his blackness, his jungle.61

Fanon emphasizes the use of language of the mother country as the primary and best
means to improve the status of the colonized people and get out from the bondage of
inferiority. By learning the language of the mother country, the colonized people “take
on a world, a culture” of their masters. According to Fanon, “The Antilles Negro who
wants to be white will be the whither as he gains greater mastery of the cultural tool of
that language is.”62 In other words, the colonized people want to speak the language of
their mother country not only to learn its culture but to elevate themselves to the status of

58
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin White Masks, (Great Britain: MacGibbon and Kee Ltd, 1968), 14.
59
Fanon, 25.
60
Fanon, 60.
61
Fanon, 14.
62
Fanon, 29.
 13

their colonizer. It is a means to prove to themselves that they can adopt the superior
culture and become superior themselves. Unfortunately, in the process of learning and
adopting the so-called superior culture, they have forgotten slowly themselves and they
can no longer recall who they are. Unfortunately again, learning the language and culture
of the mother country to be superior means that the colonized people accepted what their
colonial masters told them, they are inferior.

This is the colonial situation of the colonized people including Filipinos.

Filipinos want to prove to themselves that they are equal with their colonial masters, the
Americans, by learning and adopting the American culture, economic models and
political ideas and institutions, not by showing to them the superiority of their original
culture. According to Fanon, the “black man wants to be white” 63 and they “dream of a
form of salvation that consists of magically turning white.”64 And since the black man
can no longer “negrify the world,” he is trying “to bleach it.” 65 The same with the
Filipinos, they want to become Americans and dream of society like that of the
Americans that is why they have adopted whatever is American - the American language,
art, dance, music, stories, movies, theories, policies, institutions. They think and act like
Americans not only because they wanted to become Americans but also because they
wanted to become superior. However, the adoption of whatever is American is
superficial because the Filipinos and their society are different to the Americans’. There
is a gap between the two. That is why there are problems in the Philippine society – lack
of nationalism, political and cultural confusions and crisis in Filipino identity to mention
a few – because they have adopted superficially American culture and civilization. The
Filipinos still continue to behave like colonials. That is very evident in the programs and
policies of the present government and the business sector. That is evident on the way
politicians and economists explain, and propose solutions to, the problems and issues
confronting the society.

Will these effects of American colonization in the attitudes of the Filipino people
be permanent? It could as it was and as it is now. It is again the task of Filipino
intellectuals, especially philosophers, to enlighten the Filipino people that they have their
own culture and should use and develop it. Filipino intellectuals should emphasize the
plurality and equality of cultures and languages. Filipino people should realize that the
Filipino language and American language are different; likewise with their culture and
civilization. No one is inferior or superior to the other. There is nothing wrong in
adopting and using the other’s language and culture as long as it is done for the
development of one’s native culture and language. But it is harmful to be assimilated in
that culture and language and forget one’s cultural originality. The influence of the
American culture cannot be denied. It is a fact. It is here. However, Filipino people
should be guided for them to realize that the American culture is different to their own
culture and they have to value their cultural originality. The blind spot in the mind of the
Filipinos should be removed so that they will be able to see the reality that Filipino

63
Fanon, 9.
64
Fanon, 33.
65
Fanon, 34.
 14

interest and American interest are different. Postcolonial discourses should be formulated
to remove that blind spot.

III. CONCLUDING REMARKS

Education and language are effective technologies of power that produced and
created culture. Through education and language, the consciousness of a group of people
can be influenced, molded and directed by another group of people. Education and
language are political for these can be used to promote the interests of a group of people
over another. Culture is also political for it can be produced and manufactured through
the use of different technologies like education and language. The Filipino culture is a
product of colonization. It is a product of Spanish and American colonizations. The
Spaniards used religion as their technology while Americans used education and
language. These technologies altered the way of life and redirected the consciousness of
the Filipino people so that they will submit to the power and interests of their colonial
masters.

Postcolonial discourse is not about the past. The past can longer be changed. It is
about the present and the future. The fact of the matter is given to us. The Filipino
culture is a product of power struggle between the colonized and the colonial masters
where the latter prevailed. Postcolonial thinkers continue this struggle not to make the
culture of the colonized superior than the colonial masters’ culture but for others to see
that their culture is different, unique and original. The message of postcolonial thinkers
is that culture is not singular. It is plural. The present Filipino culture is a product of
colonization. But the Filipinos have their own original culture. The original culture and
the culture produced by the colonizers are different with one another. This must be seen
and realized by Filipinos. And this is the challenge given to Filipino intellectuals.

IV. REFERENCES

Constantino, Renato. The Invisible Enemy-Globalization and Maldevelopment. Ed.

Joan Orendain. Quezon City: Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1997.
_________________. Fetters on Tomorrow. Ed. Lourdes Balderrama-Constantino.
Quezon City: Karel Inc., 1996.
_________________. The Philippines: A Past Revisited. Vol. 1. Quezon City: Renato
Constantino, 1975.
_________________. The Filipinos in the Philippines and Other Essays. Quezon
City: Malaya Books Inc., 1971.
_________________. The Democratic Filipino Society. Quezon City: Malaya Books,
Inc., 1969.
Bhabha, Homi K. The Postcolonial and the Postmodern: The Question of Agency in The
Cultural Studies Reader. Ed. Simon During. London: Routledge, 1993.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin White Masks. Great Britain: MacGibbon and Kee Ltd,
1968.
 15

____________. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington. New York:
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