Then there was the case of Don Tiburcio de Espanada who was accepted as a physician and charged high fees only because he had come from Spain, where, incidentally, the sum total of his medical experience had consisted in dusting off the benches and lighting the fires in a hospital.
However as in the case today, too, this lame, toothless but white man was considered a better marital catch than any better-educated native. Many of the important foreigners in our society today are prototypes of Don Custodio de Salazar y Sanchez de Monteredondo , a character of Rizal's El Fibusterismo who was considered learned and influential in this country, but who was a small and insignificant person in his native land.
The Custodios of today wield great power in the economic, social, and political life of our country, but like Rizal's Don Custodio, it is doubtful if these personages, had they remained in their homelands, could command a second look in the side streets of their neighborhood. A Broken People. In the current move of the nationalist elements to instill the Filipino First ideal among our people, Rizal's words on the subject are most applicable. T hose elements in our country who are still resisting the resurgence of nationalism should read Rizal's " The Philippines A Century Hence" and "The Indolence of the Filipinos" for in these essays he tried to show that centuries of systemic brutalization had transformed the proud, free Filipinos into a servile slave without individuality and pride.
Rizal describes our degeneration in these words They gradually lost their ancient traditions, their recollections, --they forgot their writings, their songs, their poetry, their laws in order to learn by heart other doctrines, which they did not understand, other ethics, other tastes, different from those inspired in their race by their climate and their way of thinking.
Then there was a falling off, they were lowered in their own eyes, they became ashamed, of what was distinctly their own, in order to admire and praise what was foreign and incomprehensible. Rizal did not want us to acquiesce. When we try to re-establish our roots, when we try to rediscover our culture today, we are accomplishing what Rizal wanted his contemporaries to accomplish. In " The Indolence of the Filipinos ," Rizal rebuked his countrymen for their lack of nationalist sentiment by stating that "A man in the Philippines is only an individual.
Little men preoccupied with the pursuit of their petty personal goals, their apathy towards national questions spring from their circumscribed perspective and from their fear of arousing the powers that be.
Like the people of Cabesang Tales ' town, many of our compatriots would rather be on the safe side, protecting their own interests, even though this would mean acquiescing to some injustice perpetrated on their fellowmen.
Conditioned to submission, resigned to foreign domination, their timidity, their vacillation dissipates the efforts of their more resolute countrymen to regain for all Filipinos the control of our national life. Basilios in Our Midst. Rizal's Basilio is the prototype of these weak men. Basilio forgot his past, the murder of his brother Crispin , and the death of Sisa, his mother.
These personal misfortunes were not enough to motivate him to work so that others would not be victims of the injustices his family has endured. His rationalization and this is a common one today, was that he was a man of science and therefore it was not his job to concern himself with anything more determined than the healing of the sick. Instead of making him more determined to defend his fellowmen from oppression, Basilio's personal experience with cruelty and injustice turned him into a timid man who wanted only to be left in peace in his little corner of the earth, enjoying a modicum of success.
Only when this personal ambition was thwarted by his imprisonment after the incident of the pasquinades did Basilio decide to join Simoun. And even then, his aim was to avenge himself and not to help his fellowmen. From Asocial to Anti-Social Behaviour. If we read Rizal carefully, we will soon realize that his dream for our country can be attained only by a dedicated, hard-working, socially responsible citizenry.
It is tragic, therefore, that there are so very many Basilios among us today. Basilio was essentially good. He was hard-working, did no one any harm.
In an already stable and prosperous country, such citizens as Basilio might be desirable; but in Rizal's Philippines as well as in ours , where so many reforms are still needed, we should have men with a social conscience who will consider it their obligation to do more than just obey the laws. The Basilios will never move mountains. Instead, their desire for the fulfillment of their personal ambitions will make them temporize with tyranny, compromise with oppression, cross the street to avoid seeing injustice, look the other way to ignore corruption.
Our students, our professionals today, often exhibit the qualities of Basilio. At best, they try to do their jobs competently but are indifferent to the issues and the problems that face our country. Those who start like Basilio but who do not possess his essential goodness degenerate from asocial individualism to definitely anti-social behavior in pursuit of their individualistic goals. They may hoard essential commodities and sell them at exorbitant prices, unmindful of the misery they are bringing to their countrymen.
They may become dummies for foreign interests, corrupt government officials, servile mouthpieces of alien groups, ten percenters, influence peddlers, and cynical racketeers whom our corrupt society rewards with material wealth and even prestige. A Nation of Rizals.
Rizal was never like Basilio. He too suffered injustice early in life when he saw his mother unjustly imprisoned; but far from making him timid and afraid, it spurred him to work for justice and freedom, not for his family but for all Filipinos. If a Filipino nationalist acts in accordance with nationalism or in accordance with duty , then he may have a selfish motive or a personal interest in mind rather than having the inherent national interest at heart.
In some cases his acting from nationalism may thwart all personal inclinations or motives. Logically speaking, nationalism seems to be the panacea of all political and social evils. But since it is not expected—although possible logically—that every Filipino would be like Rizal, then to argue—as Constantino did—that we can have a nation of Rizals, i. Slightly revised paper presented during the International Conference on the Centennial of the Philippine Revolution held at the Manila Hotel on August They merely wanted to improve the condition of every member of society, including the most favored.
They rejected all political and revolutionary action. They wished to attain their ends by peaceful means through small experiments that would pave the way for their new societies. Scientific socialism or the proletarian movement, on the other hand, will achieve its aim to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and the classless society through a bloody revolution. This presupposes the imparting in full of the knowledge of existing social conditions and the meaning of the act of universal emancipation, which is the historical mission of the proletariat.
See Marx and Engels ; Engels ; and Lenin , This Spanish passage is quite cryptic because in its narrower sense it refers to the giving of a new social status to the Filipinos should Spain grant the reforms they were seeking for.
But this will also inevitably mean that, for the Philippine archipelago, a restructuring of the social situation would take place and a new society would emerge. In its broader sense, the passage directly refers to a new social order should Spain grant the Filipinos their independence or should they obtain it through a revolution.
Gregorio F. Zaide and Sonia M. Zaide xvi enumerated eleven evils of Spanish misrule, viz. See also Onofre D. Corpuz and John N. Schumacher John N. In practice Rizal had chosen the Florentino option, but theoretically, Rizal would have accepted a bloody revolution if it were feasible, if it were clear to him it could succeed.
Bloodshed therein would not be wasted but a welcome sacrifice for national emancipation. If, however, we rely on names themselves, we can identify at least three republics before the Japanese Occupation: Katagalugan Republic, Tejeros Republic, and Malolos Republic. See in this connection, Gripaldo passim. If we do not rely on names and we reckon with the traditional historical classification, the true republics are 1 the Malolos Republic, 2 the Japanese Occupation Republic, and 3 the Philippine Republic.
For Marcuse, the ideal society must discard the domination of man by institutions or by man himself; it must have no surplus repression; and it must maximize the use of science and technology to minimize the need for human labor.
It is a society ruled by justice, fraternity, and happiness. See Robert W. Marks and also V. In general, a colonial mentality is that type of mind which by and large disparages what is essentially the product or outcome of the local situation and considers valuable the product or outcome of the foreign situation.
For example, imported goods are preferred to domestic goods even if the quality of the latter is much better; academic degrees obtained abroad are preferred to those obtained locally even if the local school is top caliber. Foreign ideas and designs are considered superior to local ones; etc. In this situation, the crab-minded person pulls down those who are above or better-situated than him and pushes down those who are below him or those aspiring to go up.
After American colonization, it will be difficult—albeit possible—to make Tagalog the national language because of cultural fragmentation, the rise of regional nationalism, such as the Bisayan and Ilokano, which was nonexistent during the revolution, and the emergence of Filipino English nationalism Cruz It seems that if the British and the Americans cannot understand Filipino English, then that is their problem.
They will have to consult the Asian English dictionary. The rise of Cavite nationalism as against Manila nationalism Aguinaldo versus Bonifacio was due to politics—or perhaps, family or kinship ties—and not to language.
I am a Bisayan but I do not object to making Tagalog the national language on historical grounds. Tagalog was essentially the language of the revolution although Spanish was used in a limited way see Gripaldo There are overlappings between the narrow and broad types of nationalism. One divergence is in economics: domestic market protectionism vs. David Ricardo of England was primarily a landlord who was also engaged in business transactions, especially the stock market.
The mercantilists of his time exported handicrafts and other manufactured nonperishable goods and brought home cheap agricultural products. Ricardo fought against his own landowning class and sided with the mercantilists in repealing the Corn Laws that protected domestic agriculture against cheap imported agricultural goods.
He wanted the agricultural sector to be internally efficient in production so that it could compete globally. No one in England considered Ricardo as anti- nationalist.
I say this because I heard arguments that since we Filipinos are favoring domestic efficiency in both agriculture and industry for global competition, then they are not nationalists.
They still are. It is a matter of distinguishing the narrow and broad types of nationalism. Ang Pilipinas at ang mga Pilipino noon at ngayon. Quezon City: R. Garcia Publishing Co. History of the Filipino people, 8th ed. Tan, and Isagani Medina. History of the Filipino people, 5th ed. Alzona, Encarnacion, trans.
Manila: National Historical Commission. Bronner, Stephen Eric. Between art and utopia: Reconsidering the aesthetics theory of Herbert Marcuse. In Marcuse: Critical theory and the promise of utopia. South Hadley, Mass.
Condorcet, Antoine-Nicolas de. The progress of the human mind. In Theories of history. Edited by Patrick Gardner. New York: The Free Press. Constantino, Renato. Our task: To make Rizal obsolete. The Filipinos in the Philippines and other essays.
Quezon City: Malaya Books, Inc. Graft and corruption. In Readings in human behavior in organizations. Edited by Nestor N. Pilar and Rafael A. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Engels, Frederick. Socialism: Utopian and scientific. In Essentials work of Marxism. Edited by Arthur P. New York: Bantam Books. Fallows, James. A damaged culture. Atlantic Monthly Finley, M. Utopianism ancient and modern. In The critical spirit: Essays in honor of Herbert Marcuse.
Edited by Kurt H. Wolfe and Barrington Moore Jr. Boston: Beacon Press. Fores-Ganzon, Guadalupe, trans. La solidaridad, 2 vols.
Quezon City: University of the Philippine Press. A complete edition in 7 volumes is available. Pasig City: Fundacion Santiago.
Gripaldo, Rolando M. The north and south of a national language. Diliman Review 34 July-October. PAGE 12 Journal 1. Guerrero, Leon Ma. The first Filipino. Kant, Immanuel. Foundations of the metaphysics of morals. Let our minds be open to the issues that concern not only ourselves, but of others also gossips are exceptions to that.
Moreover, our awe for foreigners seemed to be a permanent character. When Bush visited the Philippines, everything was repainted, there was a sudden increase of gardeners and metro aids on the streets.
But how come, when Filipinos are educated from a university abroad i. Is it because they really are, or because foreigners, whom we regard more intellectually capable, taught them? Surely, we would pick the latter. What kind of gayuma foreigners made our race drink, we could not know.
Upon realizing the different faults of us, Filipinos, we can now be a better society, the dream society of Rizal. People before were able to relate his fictions to real life. Unfortunately, they failed to take further action. After the revolution, we hastily considered our heritage finally free from oppression and foreign influence. Now, more intellectuals arise, intellectuals who likewise study Rizal, and unlike before, we have more minds to put together for reformation and conversion.
After hundreds of years, it is amenable to think that IT IS high-time to exterminate these characters, and create improved ones. Certainly, we do not want the idea of what the Philippines was before is still the Philippines we see today. We should see an improvement in able to differentiate the past from the present.
Our neighboring countries, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and China, were once like us before, with bitter conditions, some became colonies to superpowers. Look at them now!
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