HI166

BUILDING A NATIONAL LITERACY — *imagining the

filipino nation
THEORHETICAL CONCEPTS;
– Literacies - socially recognised ways which people generate, communicate,
and negotiate meanings through the medium of encoded texts
– As members of Discourses
– No longer just physical or handwritten but may be through vast media mediums
– Practices - physical, mental, and social activities guided by various social
structures
– Discourse - ways of behaving, interacting, … speaking, and other reading
and writing, that are accepted as instantations of particular identities

1521-1899
– Emergence of “Filipino” identity and “Republica ng Pilipinas”
– Nations born out of cultural systems
". RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY
– Sacred language and written script
– Allowed them to spread ideals easier
– Roots of their identity
– Centripetal and hierarchical societal groups
– Pope in Catholic Community
– COLLAPSE OF THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY
– Due to explorations (relativisation & territorialization)
– Gradual demotion of the sacred language because of print
language (sacred language wasnʼt exclusive to the bible or prayer, it became a
part of everyday life)
$. DYNASTIC REALM
– Legitimacy from divinity
– Porous borders
– Sense of territory as far as the eye can see
– Empires born to out of imperialist tendencies
– COLLAPSE: end of divine myths
%. THE EMERGENCE OF “HOMOGENOUS, EMPTY TIME”
– The “end” of Messianic time; time driven by prayer i.e. Angelus, 3 pm prayer, etc.
– The birth of print and publication
– Sharing the same experience regardless of being in different points
of history; TIME SPACE COMPRESSION
– “Homogenous, empty time”
– Simultaneous actions during a specific time at specific places
by unknowing and unrelated actors
– Measured by the clock and calendar
– National literacy through the reading simultaneous experiences
of nameless heroes in familiar places; texts beckon readers to
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imagine locations, people, and experiences

Nations as Imagined Community
– Nation is an imagined political community; “Members of even the smallest nations
will never know most of their fellow members … yet in the minds of each lives the image of their
communion”
– Nation imagined as limited; “because even the largest of them [nations] … has a finite, if
elastic, boundaries”
– Nation imaged as sovereign; “the concept was born in an age in which Enlightenment
and Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchal dynastic
realm”
– DISCOURSE AS A MARKER FOR IDENTITY
○ A kind of person
○ Identity demands the recognition and labelling of a kind of person
○ Engaging in a discoure entails literacy
◆ Literacy for a kind of person
◆ Practices of the various literacies of a kind of person (“only a — would
do that!”)
◆ Entails knowing and practicing various NATIONAL LITERACIES
◆ Way of behaving, interacting, valuing, thinking, believing,
speaking, and often reading and writing that are accepted as
instantiation of particular national identities

FILIPINO LITERACY
– The first filipinos were the criollos, particularly Luis Rodríguez Varela; a
Spanish born in the Philippines but registered himself to EL CONDE FILIPINO in
1795
– Ilustrado with an educational background from France
– Filipino official
– Most known document is PROCLAMA HISTORIAL
– Written in early 1800s
– Encouraged Filipinos to go against Napoleon
– Called for free schools for the poor and colleges for medicine,
navigation, and math
– Introduced writings and ideas from the Enlightenment and the French
Revolution
– EDUCATION AND FILIPINO LITERACIES
– Development of religious schools in the late 1800s
– Was not liberally progressive but had strong humanistic perspectives
which helped build affective attachments to local life
– Competency to imagine a limited community
– Filipino sentiments limited to elite
– Gave birth to the PROPAGANDA MOVEMENT
– Ilustrado students from the Philippines in Europe
– Insulares, Indios, and mestizo based in the Philippines
– National discourse
– Local literacies and practices while studying abroad
– Local experiences fuelled their desire for progressive and
 –
liberal literacies that could help their country
– NOLI ME TANGERE; captured local literacies and practices of
Spaniards and local people *written in Spanish
– EL FOLK-LORE FILIPINO; scientific approach to studying local
Ilokano culture *written in Spanish
– EARLY FILIPINO DISCOURSE; ways of behaving, interacting, valuing,
thinking, believing, speaking, and often reading and writing that are
accepted as instantiations of a particular identity that lives in the
Philippines islands and stands equal to the Spaniards
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PRIVILEGED HISTORIES IN NATIONHOOD — loud elites and silenced masses

THE CRUXES OF EARLY HISTORIOGRAPHY

● HISTORIOGRAPHY BASED ON ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS
○ Literate structures *STATE AND CHURCH
○ Powerful structure
○ Hierarchal social view
◆ Interactions between elites; lapu-lapu meeting magellan, we are not aware of
which of lapu-lapuʼs mean made him aware o the presence of spaniards
● FILIPINO ELITES
○ Position of relative economic and political power before Philippine
independence in 1898 *PRINCIPALES
○ Position of absolute economic and political power after 1898
○ Dominated historical documentation
○ “The ‘eliteʼ is a figure of subversion as well as cooptation and collaboration,
and for this reason is singled out for both praise and opprobrium in
philippine nationalism historiography”
● THE SILENCED VOICES OF THE MASSES
○ Why were the revolutionary masses silenced in our history?
○ Harshest victime of colonisation
◆ Abused by colonisers
◆ Abused by fellow country men
○ Underprivileged and ill-educated members of Philippine society
○ Had little political agency beyond strength in numbers
○ “Lack” official historical documentation
◆ Not really lacking just simply written differently
◆ Written as communities or residents or locals
◆ Generalised rather than expressed in detail such as the elites
○ Nuanced perspectives
◆ Documenters do not understand them
◆ Entrenched in local culture yet those who documented, Spaniards
and Spanish educated Filipinos, did not understand them
○ Uncovering silenced Filipino masses
◆ Visible tension against privileged class
◆ Folk literacies and practices
◆ Unique behaviours
◆ Understanding that their behaviours are practices that are
 ◆
important to them as a community — use of anting-anting of the KKK,
KKKʼs sanduguan
● THE ROAD TO NATIONHOOD; ELITES AND MASSES IN THE PHILIPPINE REVOLUTION
○ In the context of 300 years of Spanish abuse
◆ Racial and class tensions between Peninsulares and locals
*INSULARES, MESTIZO, CRILLO, INDIO
◆ Corruption in the Philippine colonies
○ Anti-Colonial Sentiments
◆ Rising consciousness against Spanish abuse in the late 19th
Century — felt by both masses and the elites
◆ “The Evil is that the indolence in the Philippines is a magnified indolence, …
those who have a hand in the misgovernment, but do not care, we have made
an assertion and are going to prove it” - JOSE P. RIZAL
○ Towards REPUBLICA FILIPINA — Road of the Elites
◆ Racial discrimination by Spaniards
◆ Lack of privileges
◆ Friars & National consciousness
◆ Growth of secular Filipino priests
◆ Spanish priests returned to Spain leaving parishes to
Filipino priests
◆ Educated using the bible after Spanish priests left
◆ Developed nationalist literacies
◆ Filipino clergy fought for their rights to keep their parishes
◆ 1872 cavite mutiny
◆ Mutiny of Filipino soldiers of Fort San Felipe in Cavite
◆ Personal Taxes for soldier now imposed
◆ Forced labor
◆ Trigger for nationalist sentiments and movements — THIS ISNʼT
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM THE BIBLE!
◆ Blame was put on GOMBURZA
◆ Seen as subversive
◆ Executed in 1872
◆ 1868-1898 propaganda movement
◆ Ilustrado students from the Philippines in Europe
◆ Desired to be seen as intellectuals to Westerners
◆ Initially sought out equality with Peninsulares but switched to
nationalist sentiments after the execution of GOMBURZA
◆ 1887 philippine exposition in madrid — exposition of the best of
their colonies
◆ Natives presented as undignified
◆ Showcase as a justification of Spanish colonisation
◆ Held in summer and the temperatures ranged from 21 to 12
degrees
◆ Housed in bahay kubos
◆ Dressed in bahags
◆ Portrayed as “lions in a zoo”
◆ One died as a result of pneumonia — result in outrage
from the Filipino community
 ◆ ORIENTALISM — “… Western style for dominating restructuring,
and having authority over the orient”
◆ Counteracting the achievements of Filipinos in Europe at
that time
◆ 1889 — La Solidaridad
◆ Established by members of the Propaganda movement
◆ Aims of the publication include …
◆ Filipino representation in the Cortes as a province of
Spain
◆ Representation of Filipino priests
◆ Equal rights before the law
◆ Prohibition of exile without proper jurisdiction
◆ Abolition of censure
◆ Freedom of assembly and speech
◆ Failure of the propaganda movement
◆ Lack of response from the Spanish government
◆ Differing opinions of its purpose
◆ Del Pilar wants to use it for the aims of the Filipino
Colony
◆ Rizal wants it to educate locals and raise Filipino
consciousness
◆ Personal politics
◆ Strong Eurocentric sentiments
◆ Protection of their privileges by aligning with Spain
◆ Least concerned with nation-building but more of
colony-building
◆ THINGS TO NOTE ABOUT ILUSTRADOS
◆ theoretical concept: EUROCENTRISM
◆ European execeptionalism
◆ Focus on the cultural, political, and social achievements of
Europe , or generally, the Western world
◆ Perspective within the context of Europe (or the West)
◆ theoretical concept: PRIVILEGE
◆ Unearned advantages of an individual inherited by virtue of
their birth
◆ A kind of social inequality
◆ Primarily determined by a persons race, gender, and social
class
◆ Elites at the cusp of the revolution
◆ Seeking for equality with the Spaniards
◆ Seeking to end colonial oppression
◆ Seeking for ways to protect their privileges
◆ Seeking for ways to hold power
● THE ROAD OF MASSES TOWARD PHILIPPINE NATIONHOOD
○ Massesʼ discontent — however they accepted these as a fact of life, were not aware
of their abuses
◆ Racial abuse
◆ Physical abuse
◆ Faced labor
 ◆ Sexual abuse
○ Massesʼ reality
◆ Low literacies
◆ Heavily relies on local vernacular
◆ Highly oral literacies
◆ Nuanced discourse
○ THE MASSES NEEDED A GATEKEEPER TO OPEN THE DOORS TO
NATIONHOOD — none other than Andres Bonifacio
◆ ANDRES BONIFACIO
◆ Lower-middle class family
◆ Didnʼt own land for tilling
◆ Finish until 2nd year high school literate enough to work!
◆ Blue collar worker for various foreign trading firms
◆ Salesman
◆ Warehouseman
◆ Thespian
◆ Literacies
◆ Self-taught in Spanish through his work
◆ Accessed propaganda writing
◆ Wide reader of both local (korido, pasyon, etc.) and foreign
literature (Les Misérables)
◆ Fond of Rizalʼs writing so once he heard of Rizalʼs return he
sought out a connection with him and found it with LA LIGA
FILIPINA
◆ Established in 1892 to continue the legacy of Burgos in
building Philippine national consciousness
◆ The Philippine Fraternity — a masonic organisation
◆ Compensate the failures of the government
◆ Not intended to be revolutionary!
◆ AIMS OF LA LIGA FILIPINA
◆ Unification of the archipelago into a homogenous
political body
◆ Mutual protection invert want and necessity
◆ Defence against all violence and injustice
◆ The promotion of instruction, agriculture, and business
◆ Study and implementation of reforms
◆ When Rizal was detained in Dapitan so Bonifacio was sent

there and there he formed the KKK *KATAASTAASANG

KAGALANGGALANG KATIPUNAN NG MGA ANAK NG BAYAN
◆ Freemasonry (fraternity)
◆ Progressive political societies from Western cultures
◆ Highly fraternal society
◆ Underground
◆ Highly ritualistic (handshakes, rites, practices, etc.)
◆ Appeal In the 19th century
◆ Success in the independence of various Western states
◆ Intellectual mystery
◆ Revolutionary masonic society
◆ Combination of revolutionaries from various socio-
 ◆
economic backgrounds united against Spain
◆ Municipal elite were at first hesitant until Katipunan
implicated notable elites in Philippine society
◆ Folk rituals of the Katipunan
◆ Symbolic rituals
◆ Initiation rites in the form of a sanduguan or blood
contract
◆ Wearing of an anting-anting
◆ bottled unborn foetuses adorned and viewed as a power-up
or extra life
◆ Similar to the practice of religious relics;
if a strong
revolutionary passed, they would keep bits of
his person or his clothing
◆ Religious literature
◆ Commandments of the Katipunan
– “True love of country
Complete motherhood with one another
Poor and rich, unlettered and educated: all here are true
brothers”
– *Based on equality not only on riches but also, literacies
◆ Passing Mahal ni Jesucristong Panginoon Natin
◆ A reading of the Passion of Christ
◆ Lenten tradition popularised as a sacred
performance in the 1800s
◆ Why does the Passion of Jesus Christ matter
to the Katipunero?
– Christʼs suffering as the Filipino suffering
– Christʼs sacrifice as the ultimate sacrifice
for nationhood
◆ Jesus as a subversive figure
◆ Jesusʼ suffering bore similarities to co
◆ Folk literature — westernise texts
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THE POLITICS OF LIFE AND DEATH: THE PHILIPPINE REVOLUTION AND THE FIRST PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC

BIOPOLITICS
– State regulation of its subjects through various methods in an effort to
subjugate their bodies and control their population
– Exertion of biopower; power over life
how does the government control our bodies and population?
– Healthcare Programs
– Passports and visas (where you can go freely without a visa and where you canʼt)
– Birth certificates (gender, name, etc.)
– Prison
– “Where discipline is the technology deployed to make individuals behave, to be efficient and
productive workers, biopolitics is deployed to mange population” - Michel Foucault
NECROPOLITICS
– Regulation of subjects through the control of their life and death
– The politics of violence in controlling a population
– Not just the right to kill but, also controlling peopleʼs exposure to death
how does the government control our exposure to death?
– Death penalty
– Death certificate
– Historical studies (CHED commissioned history courses)
– NOT JUST DEATH BUT, the use of violence surrounding a daily life;
commuting during rush hour, media institutions showing crimes without larger
contexts

BIOPOLITICS AND NECROPOLITICS IN THE PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC

– CRY OF PUGAD LAWIN: Necropolitical seeing as there is a symbolic death;
within their affiliation with the Spanish government, the use of violence to
justify their independence makes this necropolitics
– use of “Tagalog”
– Taga-ilog or ‘from the riverʼ
– Local indigenous community in the Southern part of Luzon
– Also used to identify the local vernacular of the region
– Tagalog Republic
– Established soon after the cry of Pugad Lawin
– Encompasses the entirety of the Philippines because we are connected
by rivers
– Consisted of Katipunan factions
– Bonifacio was the supremo
– However, this republic is officially unrecognised
– Not an official state
– Not a recognised republic
– When established, it was neither recognised nor acknowledged by
any foreign country
– THE SIEGE OF MANILA (August 29-30, 1896)
– Failed due to the lack of cooperation from the Aguinaldoʼs troop coming
from the South
– “Hardly anyone came from the South”
– Aguinaldo missed the memo
– Attempted to ensure the safety of his people first
– Liberated Cavite first, hence resulting in his lateness for the
siege
– Due to the lack of forces attacking on the southern side, the
Spanish troops were able to defend themselves
– Great project of Nationhood
– THE GROWING REVOLUTION (September to October, 1896)
– TRIALS OF THE REVOLUTION
– scarcity of food
– Crops caught in the middle due to conscription of able-bodied
farmers
 – Crop fields used as battlefields
– internal politics
– Magdalo Elite
– Magdiwang Masses
– Disrespect, hostility, and rumour-mongering against Bonifacio
— slutshaming his wife
– Magdaloʼs initial draft of the constitution favoured the
municipal elite
– Destabilisation of the Tagalog government
– TEJEROS CONVENTION (March, 1897)
– Opportunity for Tagalog government to hold elections
– Bias against Aguinaldo
– No longer supremo
– Department of Interior
– Values of KKK being contested — from equality for all
to “… but is he eligible tho?”
– power struggle between aguinaldo and bonifacio
– Aguinaldo questioning Bonifacioʼs leadership
– Resulting in Aguinaldo being tried for acts of sedition
– Ultimately results in the EXECUTION OF BONIFACIO (May 10r,
1897)
– Official statement was he was exiled
– Started out as rumours but would e denied by
Aguinaldo
– Even Quezon acknowledged this and used it in his
campaign
– Wasnʼt until 1960ʼs when Aguinaldo confessed to the
assassination of Bonifacio
– due to the fact that “a number of people suggested that
Bonifacio could not live”
– Mentality that “If Bonifacio could contest the Spanish, then
thereʼs no doubt that he could stand up against the elite”
– An effort to unite the nation
– PRESSING REALITIES OF THE REVOLUTION
– MALABAR MANIFESTO (July, 1897) — propaganda released by
the Katipunan that highly aligned itself with the interests of
the elite
– Sought for the
– Expulsion of the friars and the restitution of
townships of the land the friars have appropriated
– Parliamentary representation, freedom of the
press, and toleration of all religious sects
– etc.
– SURRENDER AT BIAK-NA-BATO (December, 1897)
– 800,000 paid
– Shortly after Aguinaldo left for Hong Kong
– However, the revolution continued without Aguinaldo
 – Yet Aguinaldo and the elites negotiated arms deals in
Hong Kong (negotiating with JAPAN)
– Japan was considered as the underdog of the new
colonial modern powers
– Modernisation of Japan was in full force
– By the time negotiations began, Japan had claimed
areas of China
– AGUINALDO DECLARES INDEPENDENCE (June 12, 1898)
– Necropolitical themes in the declaration
– “… BECAUSE OF ARBITRARY ARRESTS AND ABUSES O THE
CIVIL GUARDS WHO CAUSE DEATHS”
– “… ORDER THE SHOOTING OF THOSE PLACED UNDER
ARREST UNDER THE PRETEXT THAT THEY ATTEMPTED TO
ESCAPE IN VIOLATION OF KNOWN RULES AND
REGULATIONS”
– Problematic themes
– Mention of dictatorship established by none other
than Don Emilio Aguinaldo
– Suggesting that Aguinaldo had been “…is the
instrument selected by God, in spite of his humble
origin”
– Unlike the Tagalog republic, this declaration was
acknowledged by other foreign bodies
– MALOLOS CONGRESS and MALOLOS CONSTITUTION (1899)
– First democratic constitution in Asia, patterned after
the Spanish and French constitutions
– Used Spanish as the official language of the Filipinos
(convenient to unite all dialects)
– Sovereignty to the people
– Separation of church and state
– Republic form of government that is “popular,
representative, alternative, and responsible”
– 3 branches of government (legislative, executive, and
judiciary)
– Bill of Rights gave civil liberties to people
– FIRST PHILIPPINE REPUBLIC (January, 1899) shortly followed by
the PHILIPPINE-AMERICAN WAR (1899)
– Knew of what was coming hence the hasty declaration
of independence

THE COST OF IMPERIAL “HAPPINESS”

– Explore the notion of happiness and its role in American expansionism in
the Philippines
– The cost of American happiness
– The good life — a life in the pursuit of or in the state of happiness
– Happiness — “a matter of how the individual is able to positively place him - or
herself- with regard to social values and norms”
 – Contentment — “satisfaction one feels regarding their relationship with the social
world …Not the fulfilment of needs and wants but a reflexive evaluation of needs and
wants”
– Biopolitics strives for happiness, which leads contentment, and ultimately
to the good life but in reality, biopolitics frames the good life which
standardises happiness which leads to discontentment that uses
necropolitics to attain contentment and ultimately, the good life

AMERICAʼS GOOD LIFE

– 19th Century as the “Good Century” for the West with the steam engine
– Industrial revolution thanks to the steam engine encouraged trade and
economic activity
– Expandable income allowed people to indulge in things such as barrels of
beer. Thus came the idea of luxuries, coming from the colonies in the
orient, in the form of tea and curry powder
– Products of the orient showed as the epitome of luxury
– For the West, anything from the East was a luxury to be exploited and
profited from
– Great Britain was the epitome of the good life, they standardised it
– To understand the good life, life must mimic that of Britain
– Marriage of Queen Victoria led to the standard of white wedding gowns
– WESTʼS GOOD CENTURY (19th century)
– Lead to the rise of…
– Peak of Industrial Revolution
– Rise of Capitalism
– Rise of Print Capitalism
– Emergence of the middle-class
– etc.
–