Beduya, Shane Vallery A.

Section 1 May 14, 2020

PSC1106 - Final paper
The Philippine Political Thought
The theme of this paper centers on the query if there is truly a Philippine political
thought. To this end, this paper attempts to understand the meaning of political thought, and
after doing so, explore its domain in the Philippine setting, particularly its construction in the
19th century.
Many scholars have pondered on Phillippine political thought. There are even those
who tackled this exact question on its existence like Michael Jamillon’s (2017) work titled “Is
there such a thing as Filipino political thought?” The work concluded that there is a Filipino
political thought despite confrontations on its “originality”.
Still, I find a particular approach to the work, to be dubious. In his initial introduction,
Jamillon (2017) used political thought and political philosophy interchangeably and extracted
a definition from Remigio Agpalo’s “Pro Dbo Et Patria: The Political Philosophy Of Jose P.
Laurel” which is trying to give meaning to political philosophy. After surveying Agpalo’s
work, I found out that Agpalo never mentioned political thought exclusively throughout his
work. Thus, I realized that Jamillon (2017) only assumed an encompassing definition of
political philosophy from Agpalo’s (1987) work, and from that identification, he argued the
existence of Filipino political thought. Hence, it is highly possible that what Jamillon’s
(2017) work addressed from this deduction is if there is a Philippine political philosophy.
Though Jamillon’s (2017) deductions could appear equally acceptable given the
strong connection between political philosophy and political thought, it is still important to
identify and single out Filipino political thought as it is. Leo Strauss points that though “all
political philosophy is a political thought”, one should be conscious that “not all political
thought is a political philosophy”. This only emphasizes the significance of the detailed
carefulness that we should give in imposing meanings to our arguments to clear ambiguities.
Political thought and political philosophy are strongly linked. Still, I believe that there
is a distinction between the two and it is important to use them appropriately to achieve the
purpose of this paper. Leo Strauss and Bernard Crick both affirmed the importance of
distinguishing political thought from political philosophy. Strauss (1988) simply identified
political thought as “the reflection on, or the exposition of, political ideas” while political
ideas are what “attempts to resolve or to understand the conflict between concepts and
circumstances” (p. 12). Crick (2006) defined political thought as “the ordinary opinions that
people hold, their immediate demands, assumptions and conditioned reflections about day to
day public affairs”(p. 4). Simply put, political thought concerns courses of how people think,
participate, and generate what counts as polities and their constituents (Noble, 2015). If these
meanings are the ones to be considered, then YES, there is a Philippine political thought.
Political thought is best understood as a process of reflection on the collective human
existence and the political challenges they face (Tigno, 2018). As Stengers (2015) puts it, the
thought is of the milieu. Nothing could best answer if there is a Filipino political thought than
the history of our country. To better understand the Philippine political thought let us go back
to its first buddings in Philippine history.
During the Pre-Hispanic Era, the Philippines that we know today hasn't yet existed
nor the idea of a nation. There were existing communities but were only linked by trades and
were independent of one another (Mateo, 2001). Come early colonial rule, under Miguel
Lopez de Legaspi, there was still no tangible political thought and the early texts were
predominated by secular writings. By and large, the colonized natives were an uncomplaining
lot who were taught by the Spanish friars to live a simple and God-fearing life. They abide by
the policies of the Spanish rule, negotiate their concerns and some are even loyal to the
Spaniards. Arcellana (1976) describes them as people who gets by their daily activities with
an amount of thought about politics that is next to nothing. And even those who engage in the
affairs of the community “are more social beings than political animals in the Aristotelian
sense” (p. 67).
At the turn of the 16th century, the outgrowth on the controversy of colonial abuses
and land disputes piled up while the grievances over the forced labor provoked more serious
acts of violence (Zafra, 1956). As early as 1621, there were already revolts that rose against
the Spanish rule (Barrows, 1905). However, these revolts occurred sporadically in the
archipelago and were strictly based on personal causes and regional in character. There were
no unified fronts that could neither amass enough power to subdue the oppressors from the
archipelago nor show early signs of national consciousness that wished to drive away foreign
powers. As a result, these sporadic revolts only deteriorated quickly to their tragic ends.
Overall, the people during this time were so absorbed into their personal causes that
they paid no attention to writing nor reflecting on political affairs (Jamillon, 2017). Besides,
most of the primary sources about these revolts came from religious archives written by
Spanish friars, and as much as those archives are concerned, they contain much information
about monastic estates, but little about revolts (Palanco, 2010). Many historiographic works
consider some of these revolts such as the Tagalog revolts to be an important milestone of the
development of Filipino nationalism (p. 46). But I believe they can’t truly reflect the political
ideas of the people since the understanding of these events are incomplete and even distorted.
For over two centuries, the natives of the islands had been resisting the Spanish rule
in the form of pocket and regional revolts against heavy tax burdens and forced labor (Tan,
1984). Nevertheless, the frequent manifestation of the bad relationship between the Spanish
government and the natives did not necessarily result in violence. In fact, many of the
controversies on oppression eventually cooled down with the mediation of Spanish priests
(Palanco, 2010). Even in the provinces near Manila, the Spanish military forces were limited
and were only able to subdue isolated villages (p. 68). In a general manner, the maintenance
of peace and Spanish rule was the result of the persuasive power of the religious (Ibid.).
Perhaps the most underrated aspect during this period is the unification brought by
the gradual organizational development that the natives learned from the Spaniards. For
instance, the villagers were able to elect leaders and form armed groups in shorter periods due
to Spanish influence. Filipino natives drew this capacity from Spanish practices such as the
making of the announcements using a bugle-horn, calling of meetings in juntas, and
organization of groups to do public works (p. 69). Moreover, the forced labor that is rampant
throughout the islands meant long commutes which prompted the organization of workers
and the election of their respective chiefs (Ibid.). Under these circumstances, though the
Spaniards did not intend for this, they promoted the organization of the people apart from the
official hierarchy (Ibid.). At the eruption of the controversy between the natives and the
religious order in the 18th century, the organizational aspect that the Spaniards promoted
helped ripen a more unified Filipinos.
In the 1860s, the three secular priests, Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomez, and Father
Jacinto Zamora, asserted equal rights for the native secular priests against the Spanish clergy.
In 1872, they were accused of conspiring the Cavité Mutiny and were executed as martyrs.
The GomBurZa’s brilliant defense of the native clergy aroused a certain extent of a racial
consciousness as the secularization brought about the issue between the ruling race and the
ruled (Tan, 1984, p. 153). It was in this manner that the path towards Filipino nationalism
paved its way, and subsequently to the budding of Filipino political thought.
The punishments and deportations to Guam of prominent Indios, Chinese mestizos,
and Spanish mestizos following the Cavite Mutiny impelled the middle and upper-class
families' to send their sons in Europe for education (Abella, 1971, p. 208). With the
opportunity to access formal education and influenced by European liberal ideas, the
enlightened young men (Ilustrados) became politically conscious. These liberal ideas
prompted these growing intellectuals to start thinking in terms of national in place of
provincial and sectoral concerns (Tan, 1984, p. 153). In his “Brains of the Nation”, Resil
Mojares asserted during this time, Filipinos were becoming “increasingly self-aware in their
nationality. . . [and] were engaged in cultural self-definition in the context of anticolonial
nation formation” (as cited in Tigno, 2018, p. 2).In the last quarter of the 19th century, the
Philippines was to witness the emergence of the Indio as Filipino.
In 1870, the writings of Pedro Paterno and Gregorio Sanciano first exhibited the
manifestation of and shared this budding sense of Filipino nationality. According to
Schumacher (1973), the two were the trailblazers in the manufacture of the idea of a Filipino
identity (p. 18). In his collection of poems, Pedro Paterno first projected a Filipino
personality and attempted to define the Filipino national feeling (Tan, 1984, p. 153). In a
more cogent manner, Gregorio Sanciano expressed the first glimmerings of a Filipino
national sentiment. His book "El Progreso de Filipinas" or Progress of the Philippines dealt
with the economic and political challenges faced by the islands (Ibid.). It vehemently
condemned the tax payment that burdened the Indios but exempted the creoles and Spanish
mestizos. To put an end to what he perceived as racial discrimination, Sanciano suggested the
assimilation of the Philippines into Spain (Ibid.). A more significant contribution of
Sanciano’s writings defended the dignity of the Filipinos against the notion of the Filipino
indolence (p. 154). Before Rizal, he first explained that Filipino indolence was a reaction to
long exploitation. His book anticipated and enunciated all the themes and solutions such as
public education and liberation from heavy tax burdens (Osias, 1921) that Jose Rizal,
Graciano Lopez Jaena, Marcelo H. del Pilar and others would later elaborate.
More dominant narratives about the Ilustrados center on those who belonged to the
Propaganda Movement who mainly focused on reacting to the oppressive Spanish colonial
rule. One of its leaders, the ardent propagandist Marcelo H. Del Pilar empathized with
Filipino masses even before studying in Europe. Del Pilar illustrated in his writings the
problems faced by the Philippines, particularly in the hands of the abusive Spanish friars.
During his stay in Europe, Del Pilar assumed an assimilationist cause that is similar to his
senior, Graciano Lopez-Jaena. Their nationalist discourse didn’t deviate from their political
works that focused on the project of nation-building (Justiniano, 2016).
In the 1880s, the young man Jose Rizal, dubbed as the pride of the Malay race, fueled
the smoldering fire of nationalism in Spain. Finding the group Ilustrados scrabbling and
lacking in effective leadership, Rizal led them in transforming their “unformed sentiments”
into the “nationalist fervor of the years to come” (Schumacher, 1973, p. 29). The death of the
three martyred priests also greatly affected the motivations of Rizal. The birth of Filipino
consciousness that has manifested in the writings of Paterno and Sancianco bloomed into
political philosophy in his powerful mind (Tan, 1983).
Rizal's two novels, "Noli Me Tangere" and "El Filibusterismo", illustrated an evoking
image of the abuses and oppression suffered by his countrymen and depicted way beyond a
simple indictment of the Spanish system. The Noli Me |Tangere proclaimed creed of Filipino
nationalism; while El Filibusterismo awakened the Filipino people's sense of nationhood
(Schumacher, 1973). Rizal’s “Indolence of the Filipinos”, defended the Filipino dignity by
arguing that the Filipinos are not lazy by nature and were civilized even before the Spaniards
came. It exposed the myth spread by Spanish writers. To support his argument, Rizal
annotated Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. Rizal treated the Sucesos as historical data
to show that the Indios had an existing civilization during the pre-colonial Philippines. (Tan,
1984, p. 154). Rizal was able to instill in his countrymen a national feeling and racial pride
that erases docility toward the oppressive rulers (p. 155).
 On his return to the Philippines in 1892, Rizal founded the Liga Filipina. The
organization served as a movement that aimed to unite the whole archipelago by forming
“structures of defenses, mutual help, and self-reliance” (Quibuyen, 2002, p. 210). In this
regard, Rizal spearheaded the union of the islands and preached that the Indios could be
members of its own nation other than being subservient serfs of a foreign race (Tan, 1984).
Pedro Paterno, Gregorio Sancianco, Jose Rizal together with the Ilustrados in Europe,
were, to a certain extent, responsible for instilling in their countrymen the kindlings of
Filipino political thought in the form of the incipient sense of nationality and national self-
esteem. In the words of the esteemed historian, Teodoro Agoncillo, these Filipino
intellectuals who pushed for a reformist cause expressed “the submerged feelings of the
masses,” and “unconsciously pointed the way to revolution” (as cited in Tan, 1984, p. 157).
Still, I can’t fully agree with Agoncillo that reformist ideas are the true demands of the
masses because their radical political actions showed otherwise. However, it is indeed their
shared grievances and sufferings that sparked the sense of nationhood that crossed even the
social divides.
The demand for national independence, however, was still undoubtedly complicated
by class struggle (Casper, 1892). In the late 1890’s men like Apolinario Mabini and Antonio
Luna, shared a dominant view of Rizal and demurred from the thought of revolution seeing
that the masses were still unprepared (p. 147). Nevertheless, shaped by the political and
socio-economic conditions of the country, Mabini’s political ideas stood out as one of the
most comprehensive and consistent among all of the Filipino philosophies. Like the
Ilustrados, the infusion of liberal ideas from Europe to the Philippines largely influenced the
development of Mabini's political philosophy. Mabini pondered on political concepts
including the concept of man and society, the government and its function, and the
relationships among its branches (Cajes, 2008). Most significantly, at the eruption of the
Philippine revolution, Mabini eventually developed stronger feelings for independence and
advocated the continuation of the revolution in 1898 against American colonial rule (Mabini,
1969).
The contradiction between the premature revolts and the reformists would be
translated by Andres Bonifacio and the Katipuneros into political action (Tan, 1984, p. 157).
Refusing to await "moral instruction" from the Filipino elites, the people set the Philippine
Revolution underway (Casper, 1962, p. 147). Moving away from being vassals of Spain, the
Filipinos became separate and distinct people who are equipped in making their history. The
1896 revolution became the first test of the Filipino people as a nation (Tan, 1984, p. 157).
On the eve of the Revolution, it was evident that the people of the islands subscribed
to a new nationality to hold them together. Until such time, the term “Filipino” only referred
to the Spaniards who were born in the islands, also known as Creoles (Tan, 1984, p. 158).
The 1896 Philippine Revolution served as the final act of resoluteness for Filipinos in
claiming for themselves and their descendants the unprecedented heritage of nationhood
(Ibid.).
The 1896 Philippine Revolution, however, failed to achieve independence with the
take over of the Americans in 1898. With its first-rate military arms and organization, the
new colonial power subdued the Filipino forces that lacked discipline. The defeat from the
American forces did not necessarily make the Filipinos abandon resolve for independence
and continued to persist. The struggle for Philippine independence carried on in a peaceful
and parliamentary way by new leaders with a tactical approach to political freedom including
Sergio Osmenia, Manuel Quezon, Manuel Roxas, and several others (Agpalo, 1965, p. 166).
According to Casper (1962), it was often remarked by extreme nationalists in the
country that it was because of the American "liberators" that the Philippine independence was
delayed for another forty years. Meanwhile, the political philosopher Cesar Majul objectively
offered accounts on the ideological disunity and disputes among revolutionary leaders,
which, he argued, “might have subverted the Malolos Republic of I899, even without
American intervention” (as cited in Casper, 1962, p. 417).
At the height of the 19th to 20th century, many political thinkers emerged including
Maximo Kalaw, Rafael Palma, Claro M. Recto, Manuel Roxas, Benigno Ramos, and Jose P.
Laurel (Jamillon, 2017). They led the formation of note-worthy ideologies among Filipino
thinkers. The names of Jose Ma. Sison, Benigno Aquino, Fidel V. Ramos also resonated in
the field of political thinking after and were hailed as prominent contributors to Filipino
political thought (Ibid.). The conception of their political ideas, that answers to their context,
only proves that the seed of national consciousness that was sowed the century before
continues to find high values to today’s Filipino nationalism.

Conclusion
From the time of Rizal to the present, Filipino political thinkers still endures the
impact of Western ideas. These impacts has been well translated into the Philippine political
thought. Still, their resourcefulness in finding meanings within the Philippine setting brought
about profound outcomes that distinguish Filipino political thought from all over the world.
Filipino political thinkers may not have the stature of profound Western thinkers, but they did
reflect on man and government, setting forth their ideas with their contextual settings such as
the issues between the church and the state, human rights and nationhood (Agpalo, 1965, p.
163), and only answered to the demands of their times. Their act of going beyond the
Western conceptual frames only verifies that the West do not exclusively monopolizes
political thinking. Presently, it could be seen that the political ideas of twentieth-century
Filipino thinkers shows their conscious yearning to join and provide something into the
immense discussion of political ideas (Tigno, 2018, p. 3.)
At the end of this scholarly endeavor, it came to me that the question if there is such a
thing as a Philippine political thought is a question that many have tried to answer before and
will continue to be grappled with by future political science students. At first impression, it
becomes easy to assume that there is a Filipino political thought and the explanation is simply
laid out with the obvious reiteration of Philippine history. However, when one ponders at the
question with depth, it becomes clear that what matters is arriving into fresh perspectives that
could evoke new ideas in the approaches of Philippine political thought that could keep the
discussion going in search of the truth. Besides, this is what Philippine political thinking is all
about. As Tigno (2018) puts it Philippine political thinking “is a desire to provoke intelligent
conversations concerning real problems and challenges facing the country” (p. 2).
More significantly, the aim goes back to the basic understanding of what political
thought is, a goal that is often left unwittingly in the dark but is an equally significant purpose
of this course. This understanding, I believe, is a torch that is continually passed on in our
country’s history. Be it conscious or unconscious thinking that is directed by the demands of
our setting, this understanding of political thought keeps the fire burning on the manufacture
of insightful Filipino political thought that would address the current challenges faced by our
country.
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