REFLECTION

The article, Philippine Higher Education and the Origins of Nationalism, explains how higher
education in the Philippines influenced the development of Filipino nationalism in the nineteenth
century. It emphasized that while the Spanish Jesuits and Dominicans who supplied education did
not actively push any movement to free the Filipinos from Spanish control, education did play a
role in it. "To know oneself part of a wider world than that of plain human experience was to
have one's mind opened to new horizons, to become dissatisfied with the established order, and
eventually to gaze possibly very far beyond it to a totally new one," writes the author, John N.
Schumacher. Higher education in the Philippines has not failed the Filipino people." This article
also describes and discusses a number of critiques leveled towards the Philippines' educational
system in the late nineteenth century. One example is academic ineptitude brought on by a lack of
academic freedom. The overemphasis on religious concerns was also examined, with religious
organizations' authority remaining one of the great constants of Spanish colonial control
throughout the centuries. During the Spanish period, the friars had complete authority over the
educational system. They owned a variety of schools, ranging from elementary to post-secondary
education. The missionaries were in charge of educating, enforcing, and upholding the rules and
regulations that the students were subjected to.

In the Philippines, the Catholic Church was primarily responsible for education. The missionaries built the schools, hired the
teachers, provided the facilities, and chose what should be taught. The Spaniards legally founded Higher Education during their
colonization of the Americas in the nineteenth century. The Spaniards established a formal education system based on religious
groups such as the Order of Santo Tomas. Previously, the lack of academic autonomy, independence, and national consciousness
was the main cause of concern among Filipino students. Filipinos are not only subjected to Spanish colonization, but they also
have inferior educational opportunities. Filipinos used to have few rights, and those who were wealthy or privileged were the
only ones who had access to education, which required them to travel abroad to obtain. Higher education institutions were crucial
in the Philippines for the formation of national consciousness. Filipinos have become more cautious and brave as a result of their
improved education. The fact that such large numbers of Filipino students were able to move without apparent difficulty from
educational institutions at home to those in the Peninsula and establish honorable records for themselves there shows that
Philippine higher education was not far behind, or, in some respects, even superior to the general level of higher education in
Spain, at least outside Madrid. It is possible that, rather than academic incompetence, the main complaint of young Filipino students
about education in their homeland was the orthodoxy imposed on them, and the lack of academic independence. It was precisely this
ostensibly "orthodox" and protective schooling in the Philippines that contributed to young Filipinos becoming conscious of their
national identity and preparing them to seek respect for it.

The Propaganda Movement of the 1880s and 1890s was the time when the Filipino people realized that they were more than
Tagalogs, Visayans, and Ilocanos, that they were one people with its own future, not just Tagalogs, Visayans, and Ilocanos united
under a shared Spanish colonial rule.

This national consciousness, as well as the Propaganda Movement that sparked it, arose primarily as a result of Philippine higher
education institutions. The experiences of Filipino students overseas undoubtedly heightened their feeling of national
identification, and their desire for liberal and progressive reforms in their home country intensified as a result of their travels.
However, before any major number of Filipino students set foot in Europe, they had a strong sense of national identity and
purpose. Rather than being a byproduct of their European experiences, it was the thoughts and dreams they had as students in
Manila that drove them to Europe in order to further their ambitions.

Father Jod Burgos, Father Mariano Sevilla, and other priests from the University of Santo Tomas who arrived in the decade
preceding 1872. It's no coincidence that the first significant assertions of Filipino equality with Spaniards, as well as the first
conscious efforts to obtain recognition of Filipino capacities, occurred around the same time that Filipinos, particularly Filipino
priests, began to flock to the University in relatively large numbers. The Filipino people ultimately acknowledged that they are
one people with a single fate during the Nationalist Movement of the 1880s and 1890s. The creation of a national consciousness
and a sense of Filipino togetherness arose from this two-decade undertaking. The Philippines' higher education institutions, as well
as the Propaganda Movement, were primarily responsible for the creation of this sense of national identity. The goal of higher
education in the Philippines, according to the article, is to educate students so that they can become productive and valuable
members of society. Its objective is to strike a balance between industrial demand and a highly skilled and competitive workforce.
Higher education in the Philippines served to awaken Filipinos' national awareness and played a significant role in initiating
national revolution as Filipinos began to identify their desire for progressive and evolving liberal ideas.

 REFLECTION
Even before they stepped foot on foreign land, the profoundly humanistic core of Rizal's and
his companions' education in literature, science, and philosophy revealed to them a viewpoint far
wider than the restricted Philippine world. This humanistic perspective established a mental space
in which a sense of national identity and, at the very least, inchoate national ambitions might
emerge and evolve among the world's peoples. Knowing oneself to be a part of a larger world
than one's own particular experience meant having one's mind opened to new horizons, becoming
dissatisfied with the existing order, and eventually looking beyond it to a completely new one.
Higher education in the Philippines has not failed the Filipino people.

He said that a nation can only be free if, in addition to liberal laws, the people have moral
freedom, at least in a significant proportion of the people who make it up. Individual moral
freedom is the result of a thorough intellectual and moral education that gives a man a broad
and autonomous worldview. Nonetheless, whether accepted or not, Letran's and, in particular,
the University's influence on the foundations of Filipino nationalism cannot be overlooked.
Burgos has already been discussed, as has his generation. However, key members of the
Propaganda Movement's generation, such as Marcelo del Pilar and Mariano Ponce, awoke to
nationalism as students at major Manila universities long before they set foot in Europe.

This is especially true of Apolinario Mabini, a revolutionary thinker who received his education at Letran and Santo Tomas without
ever seeing Europe. It's not surprising, then, that we consider this to be the failure of Philippine higher education, that it was
unable to provide an adequate theological framework for the growing class of Filipino ilustrados' liberal and nationalist
aspirations, aspirations that, as we've noted, it had done much to enable and stimulate. It's ironic that late-nineteenth-century
Philippine higher education, which was entirely under Catholic control and directed by those who wanted to keep Spanish colonial
rule in place, should have been more effective in laying the groundwork for a triumphant Filipino nationalism than in integrating
this vision of an emerging Filipino nation with its Catholic heritage.

As a result, higher education is a source of nationalism in the Philippines. As Filipino children received high-quality education, they
were becoming more aware of the reality about what was going on in society, and more specifically, in the nation, and the Spanish
should be held accountable for the injustices, corruption, and abuse they were experiencing at the time. Furthermore, greater
education has awakened every Filipino to the fact that the more you know, the clearer you perceive the truth that Spanish
colonialists continue to hide from us.

Reference: Schumacher, John N. “The Philippine Higher Education and the Origins of
Nationalism.” Philippine Studies, Philippine Studies Ateneo de Manila University, 27 June 2008,
www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/42635034.pdf.