What is Filipino?

 

 

A friend I met during the Pinoy Fiesta & Trade Show at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre last June 28 shared with me an interesting story about this Canadian whom he invited to the same event last year. After watching with quite subdued interest the song-and-dance routines of young Filipino talents on stage, and of course, the highlight of the event, the Santacruzan, a parade of beauty queens from across the ages (from Miss Little Philippines to Miss Philippines to Mrs. Philippines), his Canadian friend asked him: So, what is Filipino here?

 

Naturally my friend was surprised for he didn’t have an appropriate response to his friend’s question. This Canadian interloper, if we can call him that for being a stranger to our so-called traditional festivals, thought he would have a front-seat lesson in understanding our culture. To his amazement, he was clueless and didn’t have a faint idea of what he was watching. True enough, it had the atmosphere of an extravaganza, but emptied of the variety of cultures and ethnicities of similar festivals he had watched and participated in before, either here in Toronto or during his travels abroad.

Pinoy Fiesta & Trade Show, Metro Toronto Convention Centre, 2014.

Even the food didn’t appeal to him as very inviting. He even heard people complaining about how expensive the food was. He thought of the Mexican migas he ate while visiting the town of Tepito in Mexico. Migas was a simple dish of garlic soup thickened with sliced day-old bolillos, left-over bread baked in a stone oven, and flavoured with pork shanks, ham bones, epazote (an herb native to southern Mexico), oregano and different types of chilies. A raw egg is usually added to each plate when served. It has become a very popular dish in fondas around downtown Mexico City. As simple as the migas is, it reminded him of Mexican culture, of the succulent food and other dishes Mexicans like to eat, which he was looking to sample during the Pinoy Fiesta.

 

My friend thought of the pondahan that we have back home, but the food there would not be as great compared to what his Canadian friend had experienced in Mexico. All he could offer his friend was a taste of Max’s Chicken, but even this fried bird was not an authentic Filipino dish.

 

If this was the best the organizers of the Pinoy Fiesta & Trade Show could offer as some glimpse into Philippine culture but enough to leave a lasting imprint of our DNA, then the Philippine Canadian Charitable Foundation (PCCF) is on the wrong side of history. The PCCF, led by the first Filipino senator in the Canadian parliament and his self-promoting and public attention-starved wife, is indeed a sad example of a community organization that will never help Filipinos in Canada break the glass barrier. Not even as a vehicle for promoting Filipino unity as their own festival was conceived to rival the original Mabuhay Festival, yet another example of a poorly-conceived effort to promote Filipino culture in the diaspora.

 

Year after year, the PCCF and other like Filipino community organizations stage their annual festivals right after the celebration of Philippine Independence Day. One would think such festivals would enrich and promote Filipino culture, customs and traditions so that non-Filipinos here in Canada would appreciate our rich heritage. But every year their template for celebration of our culture has not changed. It is the same, old, and worn out variety shows which most of us have grown accustomed to from the old days of vaudeville or “bodabil” entertainment in the Philippines since the coming of the Americans.

 

The formula for these so-called community leaders is simple: invite a few entertainment personalities from back home, introduce some up-and-coming young local talents, and hold a beauty pageant show. Then gather some local businesses to exhibit their products and services in booths that will generate revenues for the organizers. Finally, invite some friendly federal members of parliament and local elected officials to drop by and endorse the celebration and don’t forget to ask them to exhort the dependable and hospitable character of Filipinos, which will guarantee them some votes during elections.

 

Somewhat lost in the din of the Pinoy Fiesta last Saturday was an exhibit of T’boli arts and crafts, like bead-based jewellery, handcrafted ladies’ bags and purses, and indigenous musical instruments such as the wood two-stringed lute called hegelung. A local arts collective in Toronto invited some members of the T’boli indigenous tribe from Lake Sebu, South Cotabato, to showcase their handiwork, the reason why they were participating in the fiesta. We were told that they also performed their native musical instruments during one of their engagements which we missed. The aesthetic beauty of the T’boli people reflected well in their arts, crafts and music. At least to us, the rowdier and more popular Santacruzan parade that went by the T’boli booth failed to quiet it down.  

T'boli arts and crafts. Click link http://vimeo.com/5784881 to view "Preserving
culture, the T'boli people."

The T’boli booth was Pinoy Fiesta’s saving grace, that in the hubbub of the festivities and despite being relegated to a very inconspicuous spot in the Metro Toronto Convention hall, it stood out as an interesting facet of the Philippines’ ancestral roots which are currently being destroyed by the market economy and foreign mining companies. They do not represent today’s image and culture of lowland Filipinos but their continuing struggle to live by their ancestral lands and indigenous culture only shows how much our native traditions have survived the inroads of time and progress.

 

This is not to suggest that we should only showcase our past. But there is something in our connection to the past that makes the present more interesting. Our historical links to our ancestral traditions make our culture more alluring not just because they are exotic to the eyes, but more so because they bring our distant past to the present, that we have our native traditions and customs even before we were colonized by the West.

This is why the celebration of our home country’s Independence Day and other so-called fiestas lacks any meaningful substance or content which our children who were born and raised abroad and non-Filipinos can understand and appreciate. Filipinos here in Toronto or most probably elsewhere in the diaspora, lack a sense of history. There is so much in our past that we should celebrate and share with the rest of the world, yet we insist on exhibiting the shallowness of our progress as a people, in rehashing the tricks of a former colonizer to keep its conquered masses in complete obeisance. Yes, still quick to gawp in the pomp and circumstance of parading beauty queens and their ladies-in-waiting. That we could only find delight in what we have become—skin-deep and no deeper—this to us seems to be the final destination in our collective journey.

 

As a people, we tend to give less importance to our past and a minor role for history in our lives as a community. Every race, or nation for that matter, is a work in progress. We would not be where we are now if not for our cultural past.

 

We have many remarkable achievements, but only individually. Our fashion designers and models are on demand, just as our song-and dance-talents, musicians and artists have been competing with the best in the business. The same goes with our athletes, our boxing champions of the world. Our children can also compete with the best students in foreign schools of higher learning.

 

Yet, as a society, we continue to lag behind. The leaders we select to run our government are some of the most inept and corrupt in the world. There is little empowerment that our chosen leaders allow the common masses, that the people in general are not harnessed in the shaping and making of public policies and programs. It is the elite that continue to determine the progress of our society, and in all probability, only what is good for them becomes the full yardstick of public and private intentions.

 

We carry this kind of mentality when we live overseas. The people we entrust to lead our communities are the mirror image of leaders at home. What is good for this few people is good for everybody, so it seems.

 

If the objective of the Pinoy Fiesta & Trade Show and other like Filipino festivals is to ensure the self-promotion of their leaders and in providing them a venue to grab the mike and hug the stage in order to satisfy their insatiable desire for attention, then probably the fault is also in our community for allowing them the opportunity. It’s also just a waste of time and newspaper space that one Filipino so-called journalist in the community devotes so much of his energy in mudslinging and destroying the personalities behind these festivals, rather than criticizing their celebrations for lack of content and historical and cultural relevance to our collective identity as Filipinos.

 

The next time your Canadian friends ask you what or where is the Filipino in our fiestas and other celebrations, tell them that the Filipino has been lost on the way here. Filipinos abroad are a lost soul, wandering in their new surroundings without a sense of history and oblivious of their origins.

Engage in politics, not frivolities

 

 

Four months from now, the Filipino community in Toronto will be abuzz again with festivals commemorating Philippine Independence Day. Filipinos will come out in droves to join the parades of beauties and beasts, the latter being roasted pigs or lechons. In addition to parades, there will also be singing and dancing contests, picnics in the parks, and trade shows. At least three major community organizations, just in the city of Toronto alone, will hold separate Independence Day celebrations, as if a common observance is inadequate to embody the collective aspiration of the Filipino people to be free from colonial rule.

Filipino Centre Toronto (FCT) presents the winners of the Filipino Singing Idol contest
 during the Philippine Independence Day celebrations at Toronto City Hall. Click link
to view http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-cTF0gCEP0, "Pinoy Fiesta Toronto."



If only this huge annual coming-out event by Filipinos in the biggest Canadian city could be an accurate gauge of our participation in civic, community and political events, then we could say that Filipinos in Canada, or at least in the city of Toronto, constitute a powerful political force to reckon with. That’s why these Independence Day festivals are attended by Canadian politicians, federal, provincial and local, those in office, those running in the next election, and political wannabes. And one could also probably say that Filipinos, by their sheer number of close to 250,00o in the metropolitan area, are well represented in the city and provincial governments.

 

The sad truth, however, is either we are disinterested in politics or our divisive nature has failed us miserably to send at least one Filipino in Toronto’s city council or in Ontario’s provincial parliament. But this is not the case in the West where we have elected Filipinos in parliaments in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba. Manitoba has also sent to the federal Parliament the first and only Filipino Member of the House of Commons.

 

But wait; let’s not be too quick to put down Filipinos in Toronto. We just have a Filipino senator in Canada’s Parliament, even if he wasn’t elected. Responding to an interview hours after his appointment was announced, the new senator said: “I was completely shocked when they told me about the appointment. I couldn’t believe that this was happening.”

 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper chose Tobias “Jun” Enverga as one of the senators to represent the province of Ontario, albeit without a real and a natural constituency. Before this appointment, the newly-minted senator was elected a school trustee in his first attempt to run for office, though with no memorable record to speak of. Not even his political stand or opinion on the issues of the day is known to many, other than being an active supporter of the ruling Conservative Party.

 

Of course, Mr. Enverga’s charitable works speak volumes for him in the community. He was a former president of Philippine Independence Day Celebration (PIDC), the supposed umbrella organization for all festivals commemorating Philippine independence in Toronto, and founder and adviser to Philippine Canadian Charitable Foundation (PCCF), a rival organization that also holds similar Independence Day festivities. The new senator is on the record saying: “I always advocate for charity wherever I go. So for every organization I join, I make sure they have a cause to build on–not just social and cultural, they should also be a charity. It’s important because we’re so blessed here in Canada and we should share all the time–have fun and share.”



Senator Tobias "Jun" Enverga, only Filipino senator in Canada's Parliament.
Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovqo2XROb6I to view interview
of Mr. Enverga after his election as school trustee, "A Voice for Toronto's Visible
Minorities," by FilipinoWebChannel.

Now, who’s to question the motives of the Prime Minister if that singular devotion to charitable causes is not enough to qualify one to become a senator?

 

Canada’s Senate has been plagued with problems in the past and is currently under siege from the opposition parties and the public in general. Its relevance to Canada’s democratic process is once again under scrutiny with the most recent expulsion from the Conservative caucus of Senator Patrick Brazeau who was charged with domestic assault and for bringing to the Senate a string of negative news, from controversial expense claims to mental incompetence. Another senator from Prince Edward Island, former television journalist Mike Duffy, is also on the hot seat for reportedly claiming living allowances for senators from out-of-province, even though he apparently lives in the Ottawa-area where he also votes. Both senators were appointed by Mr. Harper.

 

The Canadian Senate is a house in great disarray. Poll surveys have indicated that majority of Canadians would rather want the Senate be abolished or senators be elected instead of allowing the Prime Minister to choose and appoint them, usually on the basis of political patronage.

Senator Patrick Brazeau was removed from caucus by the Conservative Party
after his arrest in Gatineau, QC. Photo by Chriss Wattie/Reuters.

It’s therefore disturbing to hear a group of Filipinos in Toronto who feel offended by those who criticize the appointment of Mr. Enverga to the Senate, as if being a senator in Canada is comparable to an elected senator in the United States or Philippines. They claim the appointment is a boost to the image of the Filipino in Canada. To put down Mr. Enverga, they said, “demeans and ridicules individual Filipino achievers and sets back community-building efforts and is not in the best interests of the Filipino community in Canada.”

 

In announcing the appointment of Senator Enverga, Prime Minister Harper highlighted Mr. Enverga’s “broad range of experience and dedication” to the Filipino community, which he said will further strengthen the Senate and benefit the entire country. Didn’t Mr. Enverga say he was an advocate of charitable work? Beyond raising funds for the benefit of a medical mission in his home province of Quezon in the Philippines, Mr. Enverga has not done anything significant, for example, in helping newly-landed Filipinos resettle and find employment opportunities, or reducing gang violence among Filipino youth or advocating for better working conditions for Filipino domestic caregivers or access to the professions by trained Filipino graduates. He is clueless on significant political and social issues, and has been conspicuously absent in efforts by some Filipino groups in a broad range of social advocacy issues in the province. His only foray in politics was his election as a school trustee two years ago, but even in this position, Mr. Enverga did not leave any lasting imprint of his contribution.

 

There is perhaps something Mr. Enverga can do for the Filipino community at this crucial time of discord among Filipinos in Toronto. Admittedly, he and his wife were partly responsible for the issues that currently divide the community. He cannot deny this because he founded PCCF, a rival organization to PIDC, and his wife, also an officer of this new organization, is so enamoured with managing beauty contests that also raise funds and have been relentlessly questioned by the local media for lack of financial transparency. Mr. Enverga could be greatly instrumental in bringing our folks together with his stature alone as a Canadian senator and a distinguished leader in the community. At the same time, this could be a litmus test of his leadership ability which will assist him well in the Senate where he would be serving until he reaches 75.

 

But Filipinos in the Metropolitan Toronto area cannot be smug and content that we have Mr. Enverga in the Canadian Senate. We need to elect Filipinos to our local councils and to the provincial or federal Parliament if we must politically empower our community as a whole. Empowerment is not a dangerous word that should scare some of our so-called geriatric community leaders. I heard one community leader say that she doesn’t want “activists” because they are rabble-rousers, perhaps harkening to those days in her youth when student activists in the Philippines had to battle armed riot police.

 

To achieve political empowerment, our community organizations and their leaders must refocus their objectives and priorities, and redefine their political engagement by helping identify and encourage those that have talents for leadership who can be tapped for potential political runs. They won’t find these talents through the usual singing idol contests which the Filipino Centre Toronto (FCT) sponsors every year or the beauty pageants that PIDC or PCCF organizes to select beauty queens from among our young women so they can parade and showcase them during Independence Day celebrations. Above all, our older so-called leaders perhaps need to step down and let the younger crop of leaders lead us to the future.

 

A recent survey of Canadians’ satisfaction with our democratic process yielded an all-time low of 55%. Only 27% of Canadians think Ottawa deals with the issues they care about satisfactorily. Overall, statistics show that Canadians are getting disengaged from politics, in ways similar to the trend in the United States.

 

We usually blame politicians for how we feel towards our government. But we can’t keep on complaining and making it a national pastime. If we‘re not happy with the way our government works and responds to our problems, then let’s not elect those representatives and leaders we believe are responsible for the sad state of our democracy.

 

The same can be said of our community. Most of the time we blame our division, our lack of unity, for not being able to elect one Filipino in city council or in parliament. It’s about time to change this attitude. We cannot continue to disparage our community or our government if we are not engaged and doing our part. The engagement of citizens in public affairs is an indispensable condition of our democratic process.

 

We should encourage our young people to join the public life. Their political engagement, more than anything else, will advance our image as a community here in Canada and even back home. Let’s not simply be content with basking in the glory of those who are given the plum job or appointment for loyalty to one’s political party. A sign of political maturity among our people is when we start to encourage our young to skip the frivolous in favour of substance. Beauty and the beast pageants will bind us to petty squabbles and distract us from aiming for a deeper involvement in the political arena and the issues that matter: jobs, better work conditions, zero discrimination in the workplace, access to higher education, and work opportunities for our youth.

Disconnect between old and young

Celebrating Philippine Independence Day in Toronto, or perhaps elsewhere in today’s Filipino diaspora, brings about an obvious disconnect between two main groups in our immigrant Filipino community: the older and traditional groups, led and composed by and large of the older and more established folks, on one hand, and the more engaged and activist-oriented youth, on the other. The focus and way of celebrating Philippine independence by these two groups are quite asymmetrical, although not necessarily opposed to each other. They’re not opposed in the sense that neither one aims to spoil or junk the other.

Diwa ng Kasarinlan (Spirit of Independence) 2012, an alternative celebration
by Anakbayan Toronto on July 7, 2012 at the Ryerson University Students
Union. To see more about the event, click  link to Anakbayan Toronto FB page, https://www.facebook.com/Anakbayan.Toronto



At the forefront of this group of elders is the Philippine Independence Day Celebration (PIDC), an umbrella of Filipino community organizations dedicated to the commemoration of Philippine Independence Day every year. PIDC is also holding the Mabuhay Festival and Trade Show at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on July 28. Hosting the annual Pistahan sa Toronto which is the focal point of the celebration of Independence Day is the Filipino Centre Toronto (FCT), another organization led by community elders and successful Filipino professionals.

This more traditional group—first-generation immigrants who brought the values and traditions they learned while growing up in the Philippines—focuses their celebration of Independence Day around the idea of festivals and merry-making. These festivals have their root in the native town fiesta, complete with the Santacruzan, singing and dance contests, beauty pageants, and even a parade of lechons (roasted pigs). While they usually start their celebration with the raising of the Philippine flag at the Nathan Phillips Square, this only visual and perhaps relevant connection to Independence Day is fleeting and easily drowned by the festive atmosphere that surrounds the presentation of beauty queens, the song and dance performances, and most importantly, by a gala celebration where the movers and shakers of the community are invited and honoured. By day’s end, everything about the significance of independence is only a distant memory; nothing much remembered and learned, except for a superficial recollection of the gowns and attire worn by the gala celebrants.

Even the Santacruzan, which has a deeply religious and historical meaning to Filipinos back home, is somehow scandalized by the emphasis of the organizers on the beauty queens that make up the parade. Otherwise known as “Flores de Mayo,” (Flowers of May), the Santacruzan celebrates the finding of the Cross and in many Philippine towns, this event is celebrated with praying of the rosary, offering of flowers to the Virgin Mary, sharing of homemade delicacies and treats, and welcoming the rains that will water the new crops. But in cosmopolitan Toronto, the older leaders of the Filipino diaspora have transformed it into something akin to a bacchanalian festivity, minus the drunken revelry.

On the other hand, the other group composed of young people and mostly university students, who came to Canada with their parents when they were very young or those born and bred in Canada, points their celebration of Philippine independence to a continuing struggle for national self-determination. To them, independence has not been fully achieved because the Philippines is not yet fully free from American control and influence. Protest against the traditional celebration of Philippine Independence Day runs deep in these young people’s minds as they offer an alternative form of memorial. ANAKBAYAN Toronto represents this militant group that seeks to achieve true national liberation for their motherland.

This group’s celebration of the spirit of independence, Diwa ng Kasarinlan, coincides with the founding of the Katipunan which led the Philippine revolution against colonial Spain on July 7, 1896, instead of the ceremonial independence day of June 12, 1898. Disenchantment typifies the ambience of their celebration, as they conduct workshops to discuss the history of our heroes’ struggle, particularly about the engagement of Filipino youth revolutionaries during the Spanish colonial period. Their riveting performances of songs, whether hip-hop, rap or jazz, and spoken word all invoke their collective angst toward their adopted community and the Philippine society back home. Their spare but powerful dances portray their pride in their heritage and culture and the drama of the ongoing struggle for liberation of the indigenous peoples in the Philippines. Their music not only utilizes digital technology but also traditional Filipino instruments such as the kulintang.

Set against each other, both groups’ celebrations are equally entertaining but the younger group adds a feature with a more lasting impact: not only is the presentation highly informative, it also raises the participants’ awareness of the significance of the event they are celebrating. Both utilize artistic and talented performers but the younger group features home-grown talents who are also intellectually grounded on the issues their performances harp on, so unlike the washed-up entertainers or stars from the past imported by the older group from the Philippines. Thus, while the older group’s celebration puts the accent on the superficial, the younger group focuses on relevance and substance.

Why the big disconnect?

The youth and students comprising the more activist-oriented group are all descended from immigrant parents who have likewise undergone the immigrant’s experience of displacement and loss sometime in their earlier years in Canada. Somehow the same tensions, ambiguities of desire, contradictions and struggles that typify the immigrant experience would have been expected to be transferred on the young, yet the quest of the young for their genuine identity and cultural affinity with their parents’ land of birth seems so far off. Why they would begin questioning the traditions and values that previously gave order and meaning to their immigrant parents’ lives is rather perplexing than what could be most naturally expected from immigrants’ children, particularly with Filipino children who are normally raised under strict rules of parenting.

It is quite plausible to understand that when immigrants leave one place for another, they find themselves dislocated not only in terms of space but also in terms of meaning, time, and values. Early on, they may find their past not so easily accessible and their future uncertain. Inevitably, tensions between the old world and the new build up. As immigrant parents continue to struggle in their newly adopted home, they gradually reconnect with their past by bringing in some facets of their culture that could soothe their feelings of nostalgia. But for the most part, they have become selective, allowing them to be pulled backward toward the values of the past that they deem practical, safe or convenient, such as beauty pageants or music festivals that are largely entertaining, ascribing to these festive activities a simulacra of the culture they left behind.

But the children are pulled differently, much forward into the dynamic vortex of the larger society they have become a part of. Most of the time, they abstain from participating in their parents’ celebrations of culture. After all, culture is more than the way immigrants do things, dress or eat. It is also more than art, ritual or language. It encompasses beliefs and systems of meaning that create community, dignify individual lives and make them significant. These children are looking for more than what their parents’ notion of culture can give, something more than Filipino dishes or festivals can offer. This search for identity beyond their parents’ traditional culture has created a schism between them, a search for answers that cannot be found at home.

So these children embrace an activist orientation which, to their parents, unfortunately, denotes something negative and destructive. This orientation provides them with a way of organizing their world perspective and realizing their full dignity, thanks to the freedom they have, but which now stirs them to question why people in their homeland have no access to the same type of freedom. Although militant and confrontational, these young people take the burning issues of the day seriously as distinguished from the hands-off attitude of their elders.

They would question and oppose American intervention in the affairs of their native land, or why the Philippine government continues to allow the U.S. military to conduct military exercises on Philippine soil and waters when these are obviously not to defend Filipino interests. They would demand that the U.S. stop making the terrorist wars in Mindanao as a laboratory in preparing their troops for military offensives in the Middle East and everywhere the U.S. government sends  its troops in the guise of waging a war against terror and restoring democracy. They would expose the mining practices of Canadian companies in the Philippines that harm the lives of the folks living in the mining grounds: the adverse health effects of mining operations on their environment, particularly on the water they drink, and the human rights abuses committed by paramilitary groups employed by these mining companies when people protest to seek redress for their grievances.

Cultural groups in the Philippines performed a series of street plays to commemorate
the founding of the Katipunan which led the Philippine revolution of 1896. Photo
courtesy of bulatlat.com

Not many of their elders would agree to the demands of these young people and the manner by which they show their discontent. Most of the parents reject their children’s activism and militancy, and that contradiction permeates the gaping divide between the old and the young in the Filipino diaspora in Toronto.

Perhaps, this is the easiest way to understand the schisms between immigrant parents and their children, the gaps that divide generations. However, the divide between these aforementioned older and younger groups is not simply a generational or a cultural gap. These immigrant parents left the Philippines to find a better place for their children to grow and fulfill their dreams, and some were also fed up with the socio-political and economic system they left behind. It is the great tidal pull of a better homeland that motivated these parents and, for the sake of their children, further boosted their belief that immigration was the best decision they made. But their immigrant struggles have also dulled any residue of anger and hopes they nursed before, making them seek simpler and safer entertainment forms from their culture at home, a balm for their longings and despair. Rather than venting their rage against the inequalities and discrimination they have experienced in the workplace in their adopted country, the older generation has chosen to silently seek refuge in the trappings that a materialist society can offer: abundant feasts, the garish display of clothes, possessions, and entertainment.

We should not fault the immigrant parents for their decision to come to Canada. In the same vein, however, we should also not blame their children for taking up an activist stance in trying to shape their true identity as Filipinos, as opposed to what their parents have traditionally accepted. A happy medium could be struck by reconciling our youth’s struggle for identity and their continuing aspiration for a genuinely free and independent homeland with their immigrant parents’ hopeless resignation to the old ways of the past. And the recent Diwa ng Kasarinlan 2012 has shown the way: there is room for optimism that this ideal balance is achievable.

This reconciliation can be realized faster if only Filipino immigrant parents would fully embrace the causes of their children, for the future rightfully belongs to them. And it is only in pushing and driving our children to actively engage in the larger political arena, whether here or at home, can we be assured that the future is within their reach.

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.