True independence

Celebrations of Philippine Independence Day every June 12 at home have been focused more on fanfare and parades, and here in Toronto, on festive galas and beauty pageants. Many Filipinos tend to gloss over that period of the revolution against Spain that began in 1896 and ignore the complete picture of the continuing struggle of Filipinos for nationhood and self-determination.

President Benigno Aquino III reviews the honor guard in front of the Barasoain
 church in Malolos, Bulacan to celebrate Philippine Independence Day, June 12, 2012.
Photo by Reuters Pictures. Click  link to view "Aquino-Obama Meet to Affirm Neo-
Colonial Ties - Bayan,"   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X90CyJwKwQM



There has been very little mention, for instance, in official Independence Day celebrations of the Filipinos’ bloody struggle against the United States, which ruled the Philippines for some five decades. It is not surprising that Ambeth Ocampo, a Filipino historian and professor, would write that “many Filipinos and Americans are not aware that there was such a thing as the Filipino-American war.’’ The fact is, that war and the pacification campaign from 1899 to 1902 waged by the American government under a policy of ‘‘benevolent assimilation,’’ ‘‘civilising’’ and ‘‘Christianising’’ the Filipinos was marked by torture, cruelty and racism.

It therefore makes sense for every Filipino to fully understand the history of our struggle for nationhood so that it will open our eyes and minds to what actually transpired in history and what could be unfolding before us, instead of being simply caught up in the joy of many or despair of some over the celebration.

The war of Philippine independence against Spain started in April 1896 when members of the Katipunan gathered in Pugad Lawin to declare the country’s independence in what is now historically remembered as the Cry of Balintawak. It was the Philippines’ first public expression of the nation’s aspiration to be independent from colonial rule.

On June 12, 1898, a month after General Emilio Aguinaldo returned from exile in Hongkong and resumed command of the Filipino revolutionary forces, he proclaimed the independence of the Philippines from the balcony of his house in Kawit, Cavite. This was the official date which President Diosdado Macapagal decided to choose in 1962 to celebrate Philippine independence to replace July 4, 1946, the original date the Philippines commemorated its independence from the United States.

These are two contrasting dates of national independence, indicative of how the country was torn between two colonizers—Spain and America. Philippine independence on June 12, 1898, was short-lived when the Americans took possession of Manila on August 13, 1898, during the Battle of Manila Bay—the first hostile engagement of the Spanish-American War. The Battle of Manila Bay was actually an arranged show of resistance since Spain had already agreed to surrender Manila and the mocked resistance would preserve the Spanish sense of honour, and worse, excluded General Aguinaldo’s revolutionary forces. Knowing that the United States did not intend to recognize Philippine independence, Aguinaldo moved his capital in September from Kawit, Cavite, to the more defensible Malolos in Bulacan. That same month, the United States and Spain began their peace negotiations in Paris.

The Treaty of Paris was signed on December 10, 1898, with Spain ceding the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico to the United States for the sum of US$20 million. The Philippines became the first colony of the United States, but the campaign for Philippine independence continued on. On January 23, 1899, Aguinaldo proclaimed the Malolos Constitution and the First Philippine Republic. A month later, the Philippine War of Independence against the U.S. began on February 4, 1899, which would last for two years. Aguinaldo was captured by the Americans on March 23, 1901, and was persuaded to swear allegiance to the United States and called on his soldiers to lay down their arms. The United States declared an end to military rule on July 4, 1901, and America’s colonization of the Philippines would continue on until July 4, 1946, when the U.S. Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Law transferring sovereignty to the Filipino people.

Which of these two dates—June 12, 1898 or July 4, 1946—accurately reflects genuine Philippine Independence?

While most Filipinos are always beholden to the United States for its tutelage of Filipinos for self-government, the public education system it implemented during its colonial rule, and the colonial mentality it has embedded in every Filipino’s mindset, the July 4th celebration had always been considered as the Independence Day that wasn’t. Rightly so because the American gift of independence in 1946 had numerous strings attached. The U.S. retained sovereignty over dozens of military bases in the islands, and the U.S. Congress made sure that granting independence to the Philippines would keep it a virtual economic ward of the United States. Furthermore, the Bell Trade Act prohibited the Philippines from manufacturing or selling any products that might “come into substantial competition” with U.S.-made goods and required that the Philippine constitution be revised to grant U.S. citizens and corporations equal access to Philippine minerals, forests and other natural resources.

So in 1962, Filipino nationalists prevailed upon President Diosdado Macapagal to change the date to celebrate Philippine Independence Day to a day which was closely linked with our “revolutionary identity, rather than our colonial identity,” according to Dr. Samuel Tan of the National Historical Institute. Thus, June 12 was chosen when Filipino revolutionaries in 1898 proclaimed their freedom from Spain. Except that this Filipino declaration did not lead to actual independence as the United States annexed the Philippines as its colony.

Why would it matter then if June 12 would be the official Independence Day?

Although it did not lead to independence from Spain, its significance is not necessarily diminished. The Philippine revolution was the first Asian uprising against a foreign imperial power, and the Filipino revolutionary forces would have eventually defeated Spain had it not been for the short-lived Spanish-American War which resulted in Spain ceding the Philippines to the U.S. for $20 million, thus paving the way for American colonization of the Philippines.

If Filipinos were asked today when their country achieved independence, many would vacillate between the historical significance of the Philippine revolution against Spain and their undying fascination with the United States. Filipinos who knew their history would emphasize the process that began with the 1896 uprising against Spain by Andres Bonifacio or the 1898 declaration by Aguinaldo. Some would pay lip service to the July 4, 1946 date, noting its limitations.

Still others would insist that Philippine independence was finally achieved when the Philippine Senate on September 16, 1991, refused to extend the U.S. lease of the Subic Bay Naval Station. Alex Magno, a political scientist at the University of the Philippines, said that in a “psychological” sense, Filipinos were not free of the U.S. until then. He explained that the Senate’s refusal to extend the lease of Subic Bay to the Americans liberated the Filipinos from the idea that Washington was responsible for their fate and allowed them to think as a nation rather than an American appendage. “Until 1991, the ghost of the Philippine-American War still haunted us,” Magno said.

Professor of comparative literature at the University of the Philippines Vivencio R. Jose similarly expressed the same sentiment: “We declared independence in 1898, established a republic in 1899, but in 1991, a certain part of the cycle was completed.” According to Jose, the Senate vote demonstrated a sense of “self-determination” that was missing in the grant of U.S. independence, and it symbolized “the fulfillment of our national aspiration.”

But this sense of the Filipino aspiration to become fully independent from a foreign power would not last long and would be shattered in 1999, seven years after the Americans transferred control of their military bases to the Philippine government. In 1999, the Philippines and the United States entered into a Visiting Forces Agreement allowing American troops under the moribund Mutual Defence Treaty between the two countries to conduct military exercises in the Philippines, but only for short periods. These military exercises overlap one another, with an exercise being started before one even wound down, thus making the “temporary” visit of U.S. forces virtually permanent.

Filipino protesters led by nuns demanding U.S. troops to leave the Philippines
now. Photo courtesy of slavishtubesocks.

The visiting American soldiers are not only involved in military exercises with the Philippine military. The troops are also known to be engaged in the war against terrorism in Mindanao and other areas of the country where local communist rebels are operating. With the ongoing dispute in the South China Sea among six ASEAN countries including the Philippines over territorial sovereignty claims to the Spratly Islands and surrounding waters, the American forces are expected to stay for longer periods pursuant to the U.S. new foreign policy of engaging China in Asia and the Pacific region.

Part of the foreign policy pivot of the United States to Asia and the Pacific, the United States is already realigning its military strength in the region based on its naval facilities in Darwin, off the coast of Northern Australia. Americans would have access to their former Subic Bay Naval Station, either under permanent basing rights or on the basis of the rotating presence of U.S. troops and ships in the Philippines. This would be similar to the old Olongapo set up when the U.S. had full control of the Subic Naval Base and where U.S. naval vessels could go in and out for refueling, repair and redeployment, and as a port for rest and recreation of American troops.

Again, the Philippines is being used as a vital cog in America’s shift in foreign policy and military strategy under the pretext of containing the threat of China’s hegemony in the region. The South China Sea dispute is already drawing the involvement of the United States into the fray, and the Philippines is actively courting (begging, perhaps is the better word) for U.S. military assistance to defend its territorial claims against China in case hostilities broke out.

This brings us to the more relevant question of whether the Philippines has achieved true independence. A question more serious than simply picking a date to commemorate Independence Day. If the Americans were able to snatch the victory of the Philippine Revolution against Spain, it is beyond doubt that the U.S. is again repeating history, thanks to the RP-U.S. Visiting Forces Agreement and the obsequiousness of the present Aquino government who has cast hook, line and sinker to the new U.S. foreign policy of engaging China in Asia and the Pacific region.

Parades, festivals, galas and beauty pageants will not give meaning to our celebration of Philippine Independence Day when the United States continues to mock our aspiration and struggle to become a truly independent nation—the spirit of yearning for self-determination which was begun by our revolutionary forebears during the Philippine Revolution of 1896.

Philippine Independence 101

On June 12, 1898, Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed the independence of the Philippines from the window of his home in Kawit, Cavite. A month before, Aguinaldo also formally established the Dictatorial Government which he believed would be more efficient than a republican one in time of crisis. It was only later upon the advice of Apolinario Mabini that Aguinaldo changed the form of government from Dictatorial to Revolutionary.

Aguinaldo’s proclamation of Philippine independence came at the cusp of the Spanish army’s defeat in the hands of the Filipino rebels. It was never recognized by Spain or the United States which at the time had also been at war with Spain. In December 1898, American and Spanish peace commissioners met in Paris to settle questions relating to Cuba, the Philippines, and other matters. Felipe Agoncillo, Aguinaldo’s diplomatic envoy, pleaded with the commissioners to recognize the Philippines as an independent nation. The commissioners refused to listen to Agoncillo and went ahead to sign the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898, in which Spain gave up the Philippines to the United States for a sum of 20 million dollars.

Battle of Manila Bay, May 1, 1898. Courtesy of wikipedia.

On February 4, 1899, the Filipino-American War broke out which would last until 1902. Aguinaldo’s revolutionary government was crushed and his proclamation of independence short-lived. The Philippines was annexed as a Commonwealth of the United States until the end of the Japanese war in 1946 when independence was granted to the Philippines on July 4 by the United States’ Congress.

The June 12, 1898 independence proclamation was essentially an aspirational one. It was never achieved, and the colonization of the Philippines was handed over from its former colonial master Spain to the emerging power, the United States of America. Whereas the July 4, 1946 independence was merely a nominal one, it came at the expense of officially adopting the vestiges of American colonialism such as parity rights for American citizens in the Philippine Constitution and one-sided bilateral agreements in favour of the United States such as the Bell Trade Act, Laurel-Langley Agreement and the RP-US Military Bases Agreement.

In other words, the celebration of Philippine independence, as it was held before every July 4 commencing from the third Republic under President Manuel Roxas and then every June 12 beginning the fifth Republic under President Diosdado Macapagal, is a ritual bereft of historical correctness. Macapagal changed the celebration of independence to June 12 as a symbolic act of nationalism which was praised by other Filipino nationalists at the time since the July 4th independence was declared not by a Filipino but by an American, President Harry Truman. Both dates, however, do not represent the historical truth if the celebration of independence should really reflect the first act made by the Filipino people to establish a free and sovereign nation.

Philippine Independence Day Parade. Photo courtesy of Noel Y.C.

Aguinaldo’s June 12th declaration of Philippine independence was in itself questionable since he had earlier made overtures to Admiral George Dewey to recognize the independence of the Philippines under the protection of the United States Navy. One can argue that no sensible and patriotic leader of his country would claim independence, yet beg for protection from a foreign army. A U.S. Library of Congress Country Study on the Philippines completed in 1991 contained reports that the United States Department of the Navy during that time had ordered Dewey to distance himself from Aguinaldo so he would not make untoward commitments to the Philippine forces. Besides, Aguinaldo was never in a firm position to declare independence from Spain when the Philippine revolution was not over yet. The most Aguinaldo could accomplish was to proclaim the Filipino aspiration for a government that was independent and free from Spanish control, except this aspiration or desire to be an independent state was already expressed two years earlier after members of the Katipunan, led by Andres Bonifacio, declared a nationwide armed revolution to win freedom from Spain.

If we have to critically study the origin of an independent and sovereign Philippines, albeit aspirational, we can trace the embryonic idea to the formation of the Katipunan in 1892 when a small group of patriotic Filipinos decided to found a society dedicated to the objective of securing separation and independence from Spain. The Katipunan was founded right after Jose Rizal was arrested on July 7, 1892 by Spanish authorities and ordered to be banished to Dapitan. But it was four years later on August 24, 1896, under the threat of discovery by the Spanish civil authorities that the Katipunan would finally declare its decision to wage a national armed revolution against Spain.

Katipunan Flag as shown at Pugadlawin. Courtesy of wikipedia.

The Katipunan did not just declare its intention to fight Spain but it also established a national government with elected officials who would lead the nation and the army. There was no holding back the revolution. The Spanish secret police already knew of the dangerous clandestine Katipunan and the Spanish civil authorities had been warned by the clergy of the grave danger the society posed to the Spanish community. Governor-General Ramon Blanco made up his mind to order the “juez de cuchillo” or total annihilation of the Filipino population in identified areas of the uprising. Some, like Rizal, balked at the idea of the timing of the revolution, but to many, the time had come.

It was clear to Bonifacio and the members of the Katipunan that they were waging a national struggle. The Spanish historian Manuel Sastron described the revolution as a “rebellion of the Tagalogs against Spanish domination,” although it was clear that the 1896 revolution was a national endeavour. The term “Tagalog” referred to all persons born in the archipelago, whether Bisayan, Ilocano, Pampango, etc. Thus, the Tagalog nation or Katagalugan, consisted not only of Tagalog speakers but also included those who grew up in the Philippines, regardless of their ethnolingusitic classification and ancestry. At the time, the term “Filipino” applied solely to Spaniards born in the archipelago while “Tagalog” applied to all indios or natives.

From the declaration of war of independence on August 24, 1896, the Katipunan became an open de facto government. It had its own laws, bureaucratic structure and an elective leadership. As a matter of historical fact, it was the first Filipino national government. That was the conclusion made by John R.M. Taylor, the American military historian and custodian of the Philippine Insurgent Records. Most Filipino historians also agreed that the Katipunan was more than a secret revolutionary society and that Bonifacio intended to have the Katipunan govern the whole Philippines after the overthrow of Spanish rule.

How is the Katipunan’s open declaration of war against Spain any different from Aguinaldo’s proclamation of independence almost two years later on June 12, 1898? Both may be considered aspirational and did not accomplish the objective of a free and sovereign nation, but Bonifacio’s Katipunan was the first act declaring a national struggle and it paved the road to liberation from Spain, although independence was never achieved because the hopes of the Filipino people were quashed by the new colonial masters from America.

After the hostilities during the Filipino-American war ended in 1902 and the United States established its colonial foothold in the archipelago, Muslims in the south never wavered in their struggle for independence from the central government which continues until today. Despite grant of limited self-autonomy to Muslim-dominated provinces in Mindanao, the struggle for liberation goes on for the Muslim inhabitants of the south. Arguably, the same can be said about the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army which have persevered in their struggle for national democracy despite the powerful presence of the United States’ military through the Visiting Forces Agreement.

Filipino casualties on the first day of the Philippine-American War.
Photo courtesy of miaojsilva.

The question therefore is not whether we have achieved independence as a nation through the revolution of 1896, or whether the struggle for real independence continues because hostilities between government’s soldiers and the local insurgents and Muslim rebels have not ceased.

If we accept that all we have accomplished is merely an aspiration to become an independent and sovereign state, isn’t it right that we observe our celebration of independence by making it historically correct? We may not have to call it “Independence Day” if this shocks or bothers our conscience. We can always call it our “National Day” instead. But we must abide by events in our history and the struggles of the Katipunan if the 1896 Philippine Revolution has to have any worth at all. We can begin by recognizing Andres Bonifacio not only as the founder of the Katipunan and leader of the revolution of 1896, but as the first Filipino president, the father of our nation and founder of our democracy.

 Andres Bonifacio, leader of the Philippine Revolution of 1896.
 Photo  courtesy of shaiipot.

But then Bonifacio was regarded by those who would proclaim heroes—members of the educated and landed elite in Philippine society—as a mere lowly worker, uneducated and probably illiterate by the standards of our education system today, whereas Aguinaldo was a member of the ilustrado, educated, and also from the landed class. It’s up to us to honour our historical roots correctly, and it is not necessary that we wage another revolution or a civil war to settle this issue.