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Unite and Fight
for What is Right
Sen. Ping Lacson
Bro. Eddie Villanueva
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The National Situation
Randy David
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Has Revolution Now Become
Necessary?
Alejandro Lichauco
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The Roots of Crisis:
A Neo-Colonial State
Alejandro Lichauco
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Why Are We Poor?
F. Sionil Jose
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Filipinismo, the True Filipino
Ideology
Benigno
Aquino, Sr.
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Pilipinismo
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What We Filipinos Should Know
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What Nationalism?
Teodoro Benigno
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What is Filipino
Nationalism?
Leticia Constantino
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On Nationalism and
Patrotism
Emmanuel Yap
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Magna Carta of Social Justice and Economic Freedom
Emmanuel Yap
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What We Filipinos Should Know
 It
has been discouraging to witness and realize the divisions among the
opposition to the regimes that have ruled our homeland. The lack of unity
and/or concern with personalities seem to demonstrate, aside from the many
individual/single issues pursued, the absence of solid understanding that
can lead to adequately pursuing and addressing the roots of the present
economic and political malaise. All the current public demonstrations or
rallies appear shortlived and ineffective because they are geared mainly to
the ever-changing issues. There is a need to go beyond these
well-intentioned but fractured street protests, and such a need demands
exposing our fellow countrymen-at-large to critical analysis of themselves
and their environment.
There is a need to look inward and realize some unpleasant truths
about ourselves as Filipino individuals and as a society. It
involves a "shaking of the foundations" or a "rocking of the boat" since it
requires us to question our traditional beliefs, assumptions or notions. We
need to seek an understanding of "why we are what we are, where we can or
should be headed," and to therefore be able to formulate ways to attain
where we can or should be. Before everything, let us remind ourselves that
we Filipinos have many and known good qualities, just like people of any
other country. We all know this fact. However, let us not dwell on them
since the objective here is not towards self-congratulation nor to hear/read
what we want to.
The task is to highlight our
weaknesses so that these may in turn be corrected.
I believe and think that only through a critical self-analysis or
self-examination (ala preparatory to confession some of us learned in
Catholic schools) can we change for the better. I am convinced that such an
exercise will allow us to pursue truths however shocking and unpleasant they
may be. It is only when we have "come of age," when we have come to think
for ourselves as an independent people with human dignity, with our own
cultural heritage, national pride and sovereignty can we act and work for
our own truly, permanent liberation from the dehumanizing conditions imposed
by our so-called leadership in government and business and their foreign
partners.
If we are honestly concerned with our homeland beyond simply wishing for the
better or fatalism, if we want fundamental changes to improve in the
long-term the human conditions for the majority of our present and future
countrymen in the homeland, it behooves us to do such a self-examination. We
must look critically at what we are and why, examine the nature of our
society which must be changed, then determine the direction of those
changes. Finally, we must enlist the energies of that majority to effect
such changes.
What Are We Today? Why Are We What
We Are?
Jose Rizal's analysis in his pamphlet "The Indolence of the Filipino"
remains valid today: "A man in the Philippines is only an individual, he is
not a member of a nation." Partly due to Spanish, then American colonization
and Japanese occupation plus other factors, i.e. geographical and cultural
factors, but principally to the existing economic system that has
inadequately provided opportunities and thus led to mass deprivation, the
Filipino has withdrawn from and become indifferent to his society and
isolated himself from his fellow countrymen. We have become unable to act
together as a people; really unselfish cooperation is seldom possible since individualistic concerns are
our preoccupation.
We are interested in what is going on in public only to the extent that
these events/happenings impinge on our private lives. We Filipinos are
alienated from ourselves as persons (a true human transcends purely material
and physical pursuits, his purpose and interest is reconciled with those of
his society, just as society's goals must ensure his welfare). Our values
have been primarily those of the "economic man." We have thus measured our
relations and our worth in terms of cold cash. Our goals, our happiness,our
possibilities as human beings have been reduced to crude economic terms. We
strive to enrich ourselves or lives "not by being much but by having much."
It is self and family alone that is important.
The welfare of others plays, at best, a far
second in our activities. That is why the society suffers.
We live in a climate of intellectual simple-mindedness. We have developed
many escapes which entertain us and at the same time prevent us from
thinking of really serious matters.
Many of us are too lazy to think. Many of
us are afraid to think. The rest of us never learned how. We
do not waste our precious leisure worrying about the problems of others or
the state of society. Leisure is not seen as an opportunity for meaningful
social interaction. Instead, we have the pseudo-camaraderie of numerous
social clubs and civic organizations which we join not because we like other
people, nor because we believe in their avowed purposes, but because
membership will expose us to the limelight, will enhance our public image,
will put us in contact with others who can help or be useful in our private
pursuits.
We Filipinos are not Filipino
enough because we are not original enough. Mainly
due to our colonial conditioning and western-type or Americanized education,
we have developed an obsession for anything foreign or imported that
consequently led to the lack of desire for anything Filipino (the Spanish
neglect and the "free trade" imposed by the American occupation doomed any
indigenous industrial development). We love to imitate ape-ishly everything.
We therefore betray our colonial mentality. Caught in a
vicious circle, our imitativeness is partly responsible for our failure to
become truly autonomous and nationally sovereign. Just as the academian with
a foreign degree is accepted without question as superior vis-a-vis a local
product, so the artist who has gone abroad is ipso facto better, more
artistic than the home-grown variety, in the eyes of western-oriented
audiences. These so-called "cultured" Filipinos are a breed apart from the majority of
Filipinos. Their thought processes are comprehensible only to themselves and
their foreign friends.
We as Filipino Christians are not
Christian enough. We brag about our being the only christian
country in the Asia. We brag about our crowded churches on Sundays. We brag
about the length of our religious processions. We brag about the
colorfulness of our barrio fiestas. We brag about the
numerical strength of our Catholic majority. But until when are we going to
remain christians in name and number only? We Filipino Christians have not
attained religious maturity. We are supertitious, we participate in such
nonsense as the "spirit of the glass," chain letters, Good Friday
penitencias, amulets, magic incantations/prayers, etc..ad nauseam.
We as Filipino Christians practice "split-level" christianity.
We have not integrated or internalized christian or humanist values in our
whole being. We have not gone beyond "externalities," as happens in the
Black Nazarene fame at Quiapo or the wiping of San Roque's dog. We go to
church on Sundays due to compulsion, not out of conviction. We drift lazily
to church, dangle and loiter at the back, walk in and walk out for a chat or
smoke. We come to church because it is Sunday and we love the Sunday crowd;
or if we do not like the Sunday crowd, we still go lest we be looked at
differently. Our norm of moral behaviour is based on the external such as
shame or "hiya," "don't get caught attitude," "everyone does it," "ako ay
tao lamang," and other convenient rationalizations. Because of our failure
(AND the failure of the church to correctly nurture) to internalize
christian ideals to become, at least partly, the basis of our actual
behaviour, we as so-called christian politicians, bureaucrats or plain Juan
dela Cruz feel little, if any at all, guilt upon loss of integrity. We feel
neither inconsistencies nor hypocrisy.
We as Filipino Christians are intellectually unexciting christians.
We never went beyond our small cathechism book. We never heard or read about
developments in the church such as the Papal Encyclicals, Vatican II,
Liberation Theology; we are unaware of the history of christianity, of the
writings of Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Teilhard de chardin, Neihbuhr, Hans
Kung and other brilliant minds who wrestled with the rational aspects of our
christian faith. We know nothing about the studies made about
"Filipino-style" christianity by Filipino priests. We are so
ignorant, thus still childish and immature in our religious beliefs and
sentiments, and out of touch with what constitute a truly christian message.
We therefore continue to practice an
escapist religion --an
opiate of the people, and an economic boon to vendors and other
opportunists; and conceive of the chiurch as limited to what happens inside
the church building (these are 16th century concepts).
We Filipinos as immigrants in foreign lands
are no better as persons or
members of our adopted countires. We simply carried or brought over our
individualistic, selfish aspirations. Further reinforced by a more
materialistic value-system society, we more vigorously pursue purely
material objectives, now more easily attained because of better
opportunities. We easily forget where we came from because we never
appreciated nor understood what we were or what we are as Filipinos, as a
nation of people, as human beings. We do not appreciate such concepts/terms
such as "human potential," "whole person," or "hierarchy of needs" because
of our concentration and equation of "having, as reason for living."
We are happy everytime the Philippine peso devaluates because our dollar
converts for more pesos. The fact that the Filipino worker in the homeland
will work the same number of hours for much less buying power or work more
hours to purchase the same amount of food or clothing does not shock nor
cross our minds. We look down at fellow Filipinos who have not been where we
had and brag about where we had been, i.e. a cruise, etc. We suddenly
consider ourselves as westernized, modern or Americanized although in fact
we may have uncritically only copied the externalities of their culture or
society.
We even have become prejudiced against Blacks thanks to our ignorance of
Black History, with Hollywood stereotyping due to our intellectual
shallowness. We do not appreciate the fact that Black activism for civil
rights spinned-off our newly found opportunities. We do not register to vote
because we do not see its relevance to us. Our adopted home-country offers
us possibilities to grow, to appreciate what a true and complete person is,
to approach the realization of our full human potential. Unfortunately, just
as we were back in the homeland, we are stunted, we do not know, we do not
understand what it is to be a total human being, that is, to be a member of
a society. Thus, we as immigrants are no improvement to what we were before.
Thus, like our fellow countrymen back home, we are still alienated from
ourselves and from society.
What is the nature of Filipino
society?
As a people we have been deprived for centuries of responsibility for our
destiny. Under the Spaniards, this deprivation was open. They ruled, we
obeyed. Under the Americans, while we were ostensibly being prepared for
self-government and self-reliance, we were actually being maneuvered by
means of economic and political pressures to defer to American decisions at
the same time that we were being conditioned by our Americanized education
to prefer American ways and thinking. The result is a people
habituated to abdicating control over basic areas of our national life,
unaccustomed to coming to grips with reality, prone to escape to fantasies,
and a parade of leadership which voluntarily chooses Americanized solutions
for Philippine problems. Partly because of our intellectual conditioning and
partly for personal expediency since our politicians tacitly recognize the
danger of displeasing foreign "friends", especially Americans, Japanese,
etc.
Thus we have existed as a semi-ward country, with semi-independent status,
our leaders busy with stop-gap measures; our people turning more towards
individual pursuits for survival if not blinded by faith that promises that
everything will be fine; faith divorced from reality. Objective reality in
our society stares us in the face now and we are confused, lost and
desperate. We managed to get by before and believed that there is nothing
wrong with our society; that the difficulties are symptomatic of progress
and economic growth. But all these optimistic thinking has been taught us
for the last 60+ years.; and yet, the actual conditions for people
especially in the countryside have not changed any better but instead
gravely worsened, it is still a picture of a society burdened with
harsh poverty unchanged since Rizal's time, a century ago if not longer.
It is true that more of us are enjoying the benefits of American, Japanese,
etc. gadgetry; we have more TV and stereo sets, concrete roads and
buildings. But what of the increasing tribe of the unemployed and
underemployed, of the millions of educated countrymen and women forced to
leave the homeland for menial jobs abroad, due to
successive governments' neglect, corruption and incompetence to govern for
the good of the people? What of the peasants too for whom the future also
holds nothing but the desperate search for food and security that occupies
them today? What of the young whose talents are wasted for lack of
opportunity, deficient education, malnutrition and ill-health?
And all the while a few rich, Filipinos and foreigners: local foreigners
-Americans, Chinese, Koreans, etc.- have essentially taken over our economy
to further enrich themselves, to avail themselves of our women, national
resources and patrimony. These foreigners who do not identify nor work for
the common good, except for their common good as a ruling elite/class. Their
continued and ever-growing affluence assure the further degradation of the
common tao. This fact has slowly lead our homeland to a society approaching
that of a Latin American "banana republic" of the recent
past. The only good part seems to be that as life becomes deeply unbearable,
our cynicism will turn into more dissent and our indifference which
hopefully will give way to an active search for real alternative approaches
to our problems.
Where do we go from here?
Political freedom is meaningless unless it is based on economic freedom, for
the basis of political democracy is economic democracy. Thus, our
fundamental task is economic development that will provide as many Filipinos
as possible their essential human needs. Mere quantitative accomplishment in
roads, buildings, production, GNP statistics, etc. do not consitute
development nor progress if the overall result is to make the few already
rich, foreign and Filipino, richer and the Filipino majority, poorer. The
true measure of economic development is found not in how
rich the rich are nor even how rich the country is, but in the
well-being and degree of economic security of the majority of the
population.
If our aspiration is for the prosperity of the majority, then our
goals must be categorized precisely as nationalist
, i.e.
nationalist industrialization and a modernized agriculture for the benefit
of the many. These goals would seek to do away with the 60+ years of
neo-colonial nature of our economy, which is the main obstacle to our
national economic and political development.
However, Filipino nationalism is not a simple love of country.
It is beyond simple emotionalism, beyond the wearing of the "barong," the
singing of the national anthem, of saying "I am a Filipino." It is beyond
such superficialities. Anyone can say he loves his country and not even try
to do something for it and its people, in whatever small way.
Instead, nationalism is a point of view. Filipino nationalism is
characterized by an attitude AND behaviour which insist that the power of
the sovereign state must be based and exercised by Filipinos, that economic
power be lodged in the Filipino people.
Since economic power is political power, it is imperative that economic
decisions and control of power be wielded by native Filipinos. Since a
program for true economic development through industrialization and
modernized agriculture must be geared for the native Filipino, the latter
should be deeply involved in such a program. A program that is
planned, designed, controlled and implemented by non-Filipinos will not
surely be bearing fruits for the Filipino majority.
Our Filipino nationalism will be protective within our borders, and will not
deny the national interests of foreign countries in their own borders
(firstly, we do not have nor will have that capability). Our Filipino
nationalism will have us live in harmony with other nationalists because all
nationalists can work out a plan of co-existence. Those who have carried out
their nationalism beyond their borders, i.e. Japan and Nazi Germany in
recent history, or the USA in post-WW2 era, were/are ultra-nationalists;
more aptly, imperialists.
Filipino nationalism sees that the interests of the G7 nations, their TNCs
are antagonistic to the long-term interests of
underdeveloped nations such as ours. Therefore, any government politician,
native Filipino businessman and/or technocrat in our homeland who support
and help implement policies that only welcome and further strengthen foreign
control of our economy and exploitation of our national resources/patrimony
and people is not working with Filipino nationalism in their hearts and
minds. In short such a Filipino is
a traitor. In contrast, a nationalist government will
encourage the spread of nationalist consciousness --via mass nationalist
education-- among the majority of the citizenry so that it can have an
effective mass support to bravely pursue nationalistic economic and
political goals.
Do we need foreign TNCs ? Do we lack
capital? TNCs supposedly
bring managerial talent. In reality, we have enough native managerial and
professional talents to effectively and efficiently run business and
manufacturing enterprises. As to capital, we should note that for decades,
foreign companies have been practically hoarding out immense profits. With
TNCs, our people have only experienced massive layoffs, witnessed the
ruthless closing of native manufacturing facilities or buying off of such
facilities, and the creation of a small, native middle class whose
self-interests understandably are tied up to the foreign entities rather
than indigenuous growth. With mainland China becoming the "factory of the
world," we saw the demise of whatever industrialization and essential
agricultural production we have. What we have left are TNCs with their
native partners amassing the best lands and planting for exports, for
conversion to golf courses and other entertainment/sports for the wealthy
and foreigners, all the while pushing more people towards impoverishment.
How do we
enlist the energies of our people?
As alluded to, we
need to gain mass nationalism. We need to have a strong, brave and
nationalistic leadership in government and business. For us Filipinos who
are seriously desiring a radical change of direction need to start with
ourselves. We need to restudy and overhaul our passive, fatalistic,
tradition-oriented attitudes. We need to be politicized (not limited to
participation in elections, which are shams and charades for foreign
consumption), but in terms of a consciousness of our right to a better life,
an awareness of our power to achieve such a goal by united action, a sense
of duty to participate in nation-building ultimately for the common good.
It is only through
mass education for nationalism,
political and social consciousness can we critically
understand "what's going on" and therefrom effectively dissent and work for
fundamental, radical changes in our government, business and society. It is
only through the nationalist
alternative that we Filipinos can regain our honor as a
people and be a true nation AND achieve the well-being for the majority.
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