-

COLONIAL LEGACY THE PHITIPPINES

'U\jlanila

trust in institutions

Colonialism created the Philippines, shaped
its political culture and continues to influ-
ence its mindset. The 333 years under Spain
and nearly five decades under the USA
moulded the nation decisively.
By Alan C. Robles
The Philippine experience is unique: it
was actually colonised four times. In the
18th century, Britain temporarily dis-
strongman governance rvas "pre-po1itica1"
because it was "informal. folk-sustained,
uncentralised and still u'ithout specific
agencies". There was no distinction between
the family and the communitl-. Leaders' au-
thority was based on kinship. subsen'ience,
deference and dependence.
A few hundred Spaniards easilr .'on-
quered most of the archipelago. The ercep-
tion was the southern island -\lindanao.
where Islam had taken a Iirm root. The coir
Spain introduced Catholic dogma and
worship, a highly centralised government,
bureaucracy and Roman iaw. The Philip-
pines was divided into provinces composed
of clustered villages, towns and cities. Fri-
ars from various religious orders kept
watch.
However, the conquerors also built
their empire on the islands' pre-Hispanic
foundations. Cooperative chieftains became
,. i11age oltcials who used their positions to

placed the Spaniards and ruled the isiands nial power thrived on native disunitr'. eniis:- :::: .ri|'antage of their families and clans.
for a few years, and during World War II, ing allies to help subdue the holdor,rts, ':-.:'. :.ror.r formed a separate class, the
Japan took over.
It was Spanish and US rule, however,
that left lasting marks. According to the his-
torian Serafln Quiason (1998), "the patterns
Lflf
ofculture and poverty, dependencl'and un- 'r,fd
derdeveloprnent have deei. root- irt t;r.
Spanish and American colonial pr,.1i:ies an.i
practices." indeed. Spanish colonialism laid
{*x*
the foundation for the toric issues that still
haur.rt PI.rilippine politics :

. an unaccountable and abusive elite.

o massive corruption,
o a dysfunctional system of govern-
ment,
o huge social disparities and
o a meddling of the Catholic Church
with theocratic leanings.
In the early 20'h century, the Ameri-
cans added capitalism and formal elections,
introduced some marginal reforms and de-
clared the country to be a "democracy".
When a Spanish expedition arrived
from Mexico in 1565, there was no idea of the
Philippines being any kind of coherent en-
tity. This vast collection of islands was dot-
ted by small settlements ("barangay") and
inhabited by various tribes and ethnic
groups speaking different languages. Islam-
ic missionaries had arrived in the south, but
the Spanish annexation stopped them from
progressing further. The conquerors forced
Catholicism on the natives, defined the
boundaries of the colony and named it after
:
their king, Philip IL o
The barangays had typically been
-E

ruled by chieftains who were called "datu",

@
"raja" or "pangolo". According to one history ii

book (Cortes et a1., 2000), this system of Main gate of Fort Santiago in Manila's historical centre lntramuros. L

38 D+C 11-12/2017

"principalia", and eventually turned into
self-perpetuating oligarchy. Under Spanish
rule, "elections" were conflned to village po-
sitions with the members of the eiite als avs
electing each other.
The natives were not allori-ed ro call
themselves "Filipinos". This term \\'as re-
served for Spaniards born in the .olon!-. For
CentUrieS, brOwn_SkinneC natrrc- \\ere Co|t-
temptuously ca11ed "lndios' i Indians).
Spain li,ent otlt of its \\ a\- to prevent In-
dios from learning Spanish. Instead, the mo-
nastic orders assidttoush- mastered the na-
tive languages in order to carr-v out conver-
sions. According ro the scholar Benedict
Anderson (2007,. their nlor-ropoly on linguis-
tic access to the nali\ es "gave them an enor-
rrrous power \\-hich no secular group shared".
Fully aware ol this. the friars "opposed the
spread olthe Spanish language". Spanish be-
carne the tongue ol power that only the colo-
nisers and a fes members of the local elite
understood.
Under Spanish mle, the Philippines be-
came East .\sia's on11' Christian country. Iron-
ically, its Catholic faitl.r was always far from
pure. Thou gh Sparr-r's missionaries eradicated
overt practices of anin-rism, traditional beliefs
in spirits and ntagic survived. They were
fused with Catholic doctrine to create a
unique folk religion. Ir.r tl'iis regard, the Philip-
pines resemble Latin America more than
other Asian couutrie-s. Indeed, the country
was even administered from Mexico for 200
years. However, rhe Philippines never f,t in
the wlth the Hispanised .-ountries of Central
and South America b'ecause Spanish never
became the archipelago s iin5:ua franca.
What the people did learn over the cen-
turies was that governnlenl. Ia\\'s and bu-
reaucracy were instntrnenrs ol oppression,
exploitation and abuse. E'.'en \i'e1l-inten-
tioned laws were implemented in oppressive
ways, but the victims never understood that.
A11 colonial laws were written in Sparlish af-
ter all. Those in power seized 1and. in-rposed
taxes and demanded tributes. includtng
forced labour. The monastic orders estab-
iished feudal power structures. The faith
served to keep the natives under control.
Sinibaldo de Mas, a Spanish official, ob-
served in 1841: 'A friar is worth more than a
squadron of cava1ry."
At the same time, the PrinciPalia
taught the Indios that kinship ties overruled
impersonal bureaucratic systems. Public of-
lice was for personai gain and beneflted
D+C 11-12/2017
leaders' fan-rilies. The colonised people nev-
a
er had reason to trust government institu-
tions or formal western law. Depressingly,
this attitude marks Philippine poiitics in
sti11
the 21'r century.
After three hundred years and nufller-
ous revolts, Filipinos flnally staged Asia s
flrst revolution. They were close to gaining
independence. However, another power, the
United States, intervened in 1899, ostensibly
to ilelp the revolutionaries' The Americans
displaced Spain and then turned on their
"little brown brothers" in a bloody three-
year war.
..FIFTY
YEARS IN Ht)LLYW()tlD"
After three centuries of slow development
under Spain, Filipinos next experienced ex-
plosive change under the US ruie. According
to a popular quip, the colonial experience
amounted to "300 years in the convent and
50 years in Hollywood". Washington claimed
that colonising the Philippines was an act of
"benevolent assimilation" and would even-
tually lead to natlonhood. In actual practice,
however, that was mostlY for show.
The new imperial Power Promised to
build an American-style republic. It intro-
duced policies to promote everphing from
education and hygiene to infrastructure.
Laws and institutions were supposed to
teach Filipino leaders the mysteries of de-
mocracy. English became the archipelago's
official lingua franca, and learning it was of-
ficially encouraged. However, the schools
were never expanded in a way tl-lat would
have ailowed the majority of the people to do
so. Even today, English is the nation's official
language, but most Filipinos do not speak it.
Legislation has been written in English for
more than a century, but to most citizens, it
remains as inaccessible as Spanish 1aw was.
The powerful Catholic church was left
untouched. It stayed influential under US
rule, and it did not hesitate to meddle in sec-
ular matters. Wealth and power remained
concentrated in the hands of a few families.
The Americans didn't alter the socioeco-
nomic order, co-opting the native elite to
subdue resistance. Just as their Spanish pre-
decessors had, they depended on the local
elites.
It is true that Americans introduced
popular elections, bttt these events were
games of musical chairs piayed by the small
group of dynastic families. Landowning
I
COLONIAL LEGACY
I
oligarchs andwarlords don-rinated at the local
I
&
level and shared the spoils at the national
level. As Quiason put it, "what evolved was
democracy in form bllt not in substance". The
dynasties treated the country's institutions as
tools for increasing their own wealth and
power. Policymaking served clan interests'
American colonialism formally ended
in 7946. The Philippines became a nominal
republic with weak democratic institutions.
The people lacked any clear understanding of
rights ancl freedoms. In1972, President Ferdi- I
nand Marcos declared martial law and estab-
lished a dictatorship that lasted until 1986. E
A particularly violent legacy of US co-
lonlalism was the Philippine Constabulary
(PC). This paramilitary police force was sup-
posed to keep the peace. For all practical
purposes, that meant suppressing Filipinos'
It was a key component of a regirne of sur-
veillance that kept an eye on Filipino nation-
alists, politicians and activists. Its track re-
cord of blatant hurnan-rights abuses did not
stop when the Americans left. The PC was
associated with torture and murder under
the Marcos regime.
The PC was abolished after martial law
ended, but now Rodrigo Duterte, the populist
president. wants to bring it bacl<. Indeed. he
seems eager to impose authoritarian rule (see
my essay ilt D+CIE+Z e-Paper 2077lO2' p.24'
and print edition 2Ol7lO3-O4, p.36). The
omens for Philippine democracy are current-
1y not good. The sad truth is that the non-
clemocratic attitudes which evolved under
colonial rule seem to be oflasting relevance.
ALAN C. ROBLES
is a freelance iournalist
based in Manila.
editor@hotmanila.Ph
REFERENCES
Anderson, B.,2OO7: Under three flags -
Colonialism and the anti-colonial imagination,
New York, London: Verso.
Cortes, R. M., Boncan, C. P', and Jose, R, T.,
2000: The Filipino saga - History as social
change. Manila: New Day Publishers.
Kiernan, V. G., 1982: European empires from
conquest to collapse 1 81 5 to 1 960. Leicester:
University Press.
Ouiason, S., 1998: The Philippines: a case of
multiple colonial experiences. ln: The
lndependent Review, PP. 29-37.