SPLIT-LEVEL CHRISTIANITY by Fr.Jaime Bulatao,S.J. (1966) - Part 1 of 2 [UPDATED]

"Many Filipinos are what I call Sunday-religious, that is they go to church every Sunday, take in confession and communion, but the rest of the week they bribe and do corrupt deeds..."
- Dr. Pura Santillan-Castrence

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3/26/2014

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Hi All,

It's been eons ago when I first read this enlightening essay on "split-level" Christianity by Fr. Jaime Bulatao, S.J.. Given the interest on Filipino ethical/moral values, I am posting it here.

Fast forward today, I find that the given situational samples in the essay were quite "simple" and "mild." In fact, I find them almost laughable compared to the excessiveness and gravity that characterize "split-leveling" in current times. Anyway, the bottom line is that "split-leveling" by a self-proclaimed Christian is to be unChristian (vis-a-vis what I understand as being Christian from my years of Roman Catholic upbringing).

As to the Roman Catholic Church in our homeland, it is amusing (at best) to wonder why the Catholic Church, despite its dominant influence in the homeland, seems to have failed to instill what it always claim to develop: "the whole person."

Given the prevailing social conditions in our so-called only Christian country in Asia, they only demonstrate that the church, despite its proclamation of being the "church of/for the Poor," has consistently and continually failed in its mission to teach and lead the Filipino Christians to live up according to Catholic social teachings.

• Has our Catholic Church in the homeland been stressing something else rather than addressing our present social realities, of our illiterate, ignorant and impoverished majority?
• How come Filipino Catholicism is more concerned about its religious liturgy and tradition and personal piety than its proclaimed concern/message of social justice? Such attitude and behavior have only made our homeland Christianity an effective and efficient nurturer of hypocrisy among its hierarchy and followers.

I would qualify however that there are Christians, i.e. more specifically evangelical Protestants (Calvinist variety), who can not be expected to care/act about social teachings or social justice issues since their essential belief system does not put value on social works; for Calvinists: "salvation" depended SOLELY on absolute faith in Jesus (i.e. good works do not count).

Here's Fr. Bulatao's essay, though written forty years ago but, still very relevant in gaining knowledge and understanding of our Filipino selves and maybe even lead to changes to better ourselves in terms of acting for social justice -- not towards empty religiosity-- and a better homeland society for most native Filipinos, if not all, and the future generations.  

(essay posted in two parts).



NOTES: 

1. I think and believe that ethics and morality do not necessarily emanate only out of having a religion or being a believer in a God (Christian God as traditionally or Biblically understood). There are many atheists, agnostics, pagans, non-Christians and what have you who are more ethical, moral and act for social justice than those who are supposedly religious Christians of various shades: Catholics, mainline Protestants, Pentecostals or Evangelicals.
2. This post addresses actually touches the issue of culture, i.e. our native Filipino culture. As we know, it is imperative that we obtain a deep awareness of our native history and society/culture; our society --through our home, church and school, etc.--  which embed in the subconscious Filipino mind within each of us a culture, our native society's worldview: the source of our values, attitudes and behaviors- which has been formed by a complex mix of geography, still primitive/traditional economic relations, religion, and long, divisive colonial history, etc.
3. Here our native culture is looked at just from the religious point of view. Frankly, I see this point of view as limited/inadequate, based on what I have alluded to regarding source in the preceding paragraph. I will go back, try a broader and deeper look into the issue of our native Filipino culture, i.e. cultural aspects which I see as obstacles to national development sometime later.

- Bert, 9/18/2013

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SPLIT-LEVEL CHRISTIANITY

The following story invariably provokes a good deal of laughter from a Filipino audience:

"A mother superior of a convent was once given a talented parrot as a gift, which she received and showed off to the other nuns. she pulled the parrot's right leg and the parrot, with downcast eyes, began to recite the Our father to the end. She then pulled its left leg and, just as devoutly, it recited the whole of the Hail Mary. at this juncture one of the young nuns thought to herself what would happen if she pulled both legs simultaneously. So she went up to the parrot and both of its legs hard. Immediately the parrot cried,"Putres, madadapa ako!" ("Damn, you'll make me fall!")

The laughter that greets the cry of the all-too-human parrot stems in great part from the aptness with which it reflects the culture at large: the special behavior which people show in the presence of society, authority figures, and the occasional breakthrough of one's spontaneous self. Lumamabas ang katotohanan. (The truth will out"). 

Furthermore, the story is linking the foreign language with a formalized type of behavior and untranslatable native tongue with one's spontaneous reactions reflect too the double set of automatisms of the Filipino: his behavior as conditioned by formal schooling and as conditioned by home influences, where the conditioning links are provided by one's native tongue.

The existence of two set of learned reflexes side by side seems to be a valid phenomenon worth investigating. For want of a better term we can provisionally give it the name "split-level Christianity." While this phenomenon may also be found in other parts of the world, the Philippines with its history of simultaneous colonization and Christianization by an outside power seems to lend it a special home.

Description

Split-level Christianity may be described as the coexistence within the same person of two or more thought-and-behavior systems which are inconsistent with each other. The image is of two apartments at different levels, each of which contains a family, one rarely talking tho the other.

So it is with the split-leveled person; at one level he professes allegiance to ideas, attitudes and ways of behaving which are mainly borrowed from the Christian West, at another level he holds convictions which are more properly his "own" ways of living and believing which were handed down from his ancestors, which do not always find their way into an explicit philosophical system, but nevertheless now and then flow into action.

Perhaps from another point of view, they may be described as two value systems, differing from each other in explicitation, one more abstract than the other, one of them coming to the fore under certain circumstances and receding to the background at other times. An example is the following incident, faithfully recorded by a participant-observer:

A group of alumni, sixteen years after graduating from a catholic high school, meet together one evening at a private home for a class reunion. Present at their reunion are two priests, their former teachers. The evening passes pleasantly, amid fond recollections of schooldays. At about 2230 hrs an offer is made to send the two priests by car back to the school. After the two priests left, the group transfers to Pasay to a certain nightclub of ill repute. Almost everyone goes along and a number end up with prostitutes. There is much joking about the fact that the wives think them "safe" in a class reunion.

Quite noticeable in this recorded incident is the allegiance to the school and to its authority figures. On the other hand, there is also an allegiance to what the culture considers to be the right thing to do for men when they find themselves together away from their wives. This second set of principles is accepted as a part of the talagang ganyan ways which are part of "reality."

A few more examples are given to illustrate this phenomenon of split-leveling:
1. a priest and a justice of the Supreme court enter a businessman's restaurant in the ermita district of manila, and sit down for lunch. Upon their entrance, the club entertainer stops singing and waits impatiently until they finish lunch. When they leave she resumes her naughty singing:
"Gusto kong humilig Sa tabi ng pu- Sa tabi ng pu- Sa tabi ng punong kawayan, etc."
(The Split" reverence for the priest and the justice versus "vulgar" signing.)

A Peace Corps girl, rooming with a Filipina at a local university, notices the following phenomenon. Her roommate on Sundays goes to a local church which has a big sign prohibiting sleeveless dresses. However, every night she brings pornographic literature with her, which she reads under a blanket before going to sleep. (The Split: submission to very restrictive rules on dress versus pornographic "inner life.")

3. A foreign priest steps into a public bus. A woman respectfully makes a room for him on the seat beside her.Immediately nasty remarks in the vernacular circulate about the bus. The priest, not knowing the vernacular, is not affected. (The Split: external reverence for the priest versus hostile attitudes towards him. Note the authority figure's "cultural deafness.'')

4. In a research seminar in a normal school, the students learn the latest methods in statistics which make for the utmost accuracy in the handling of data. they then apply what they have learned to actual research which they hope to publish in the school journal. To the teacher's consternation he discovers that his students, instead of actually gathering empirical data, have been making up numbers, to which they then apply the most modern statistical techniques. (The Split: scientific technical proficiency versus absence of scientific spirit in the search for truth.)

5. A policeman in the downtown district of Manila goes fairly regularly to mass and considers himself a catholic. nevertheless, he collects "tong'' from the small stores in the district as protection money. he feels he has a right to it because he their protector against gangsters. (The Split; the modern Catholic principles of justice versus a feudal attitude that the lord may tax those whom he protects.)

6. The Civil Liberties Union is a group dedicated to democracy, especially to academic freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. When a bill was presented to congress making compulsory the reading of the NOLI and the FILI (books which hurt the religious feelings of a large number of Catholics , the civil Liberties Union lead a rally in favor of the bill. (The Split: allegiance to the "Western" view of academic freedom and freedom of religion versus a conviction of the rightness of authoritarian approaches in education.)

7. In a catholic College for girls, the students in a group discussion discover that they do much cheating in class, but that most of the cheating occurs during examinations in ethics class.
(The Split: a highly refined conceptual system of ethics versus the compulsions arising from cultural expectations of high marks.)

8. An AB graduate (cum laude) from a Catholic Boys' College marries immediately after college, and takes up residence in Negros. Every time he comes to Manila he seeks out other women. Once, suspecting his wife of unfaithfulness, he hits her with his fist and drives her out of the house. When charged with inconsistency he says:"I was never serious about those other women. My wife has no right to go out with another man." When asked to reconcile the double standard with principles learned in school ("Thou shalt not commit adultery.") he answers: "it's just human weakness. In Negros every hacendero has a querida. Some have several." (The Split: catholic rules regarding marriage versus cultural norms.)


Conviction of Fitness

Often, the following of the second set of principles is rationalized as "human weakness," "ako'y tao lamang." But split-level Christianity is quite a different phenomenon from that human weakness which presupposes an allegiance to only one set of principles and, simultaneously, a temptation to diverge from those principles. hence human weakness still involves a sense of guilt a discomfort with oneself for loss of integrity.

But split-leveling involves the absence of a sense of guilt, or the presence of only a very minimal amount. There is a conviction "in one's gut" that the thing one has done, while something to be shielded from society's gaze like defecation or urination, is nevertheless not wrong. This sense of fitness while noticeable in the examples given above is brought out clearly in a case study by Dr. Jocano (1964) regarding the drinking habit of the Christians of Malitbog in the province of Aklan, where the Christians look on drinking as an "adult game," a thing which adults do in their playtime after work. In fact, drinking is seen as necessary for work. A parishioner is quoted here:

"Look at it this way. I will not say that these "vices" are right. You, as a pastor, an educated man, know that. But to us here in Malitbog, i do not think these things are vices nor are they as bad as you have described them. these are part of what you are supposed to do when you become grown-up. when we were young, our parents admonished us not to drink tuba or any liquor from the Chinese store. These are drinks of adults, we were told. we were supposed to drink soft-drinks and water. 

But now that we are adults, I do not see any reason why we should not drink tuba. Moreover, let us be practical. If I want my field plowed and I offer no tuba or liquor, who will come up to help me? None. Furthermore  if drinking tuba or liquor is bad, why does not the government prohibit the sale of these liquors? because there is no prohibition, then this is not bad. The government is not stupid.

Let us take cockfighting. This is, according to you, a vice; a form of gambling. But doesn't San Pedro bring along with him a cock? he must have been playing cockfighting too --and look at him now, he is a saint. Let us be serious. when we were small boys, we played hole-ins, balinsay(jacks) and blowing rubber-bands  what would you think of us if you see us adults still playing hole-ins or blowing rubber-bands  

You see, what i am trying to say, pastor  is this: each age has its own games --cockfighting and cards are adult games. each occasion has its own social requirements. To have your field plowed you have to offer tuba or liquor or no one comes to help you. Do you understand, pastor?"

There is a conviction that drinking, even though inconsistent with the Christian teaching, is nevertheless right.

Because of this sense of the rightness of both systems, the inconsistency, while at times noticed, is not felt keenly. Thus the Christians of Malitbog believe firmly in spirits and enkantus, and in the baylan (witch doctor) who has power with them.

(Roman Catholic saints) are conceived in Malitbog to have been elevated to their present status because they possess powers similar to those of the enkantus and that they could be manipulated for personal gains....many of the details of knowledge of powers and how an individual can avail himself of their powers...are known to specialists...the priests....On the other hand, knowledge concerning the enkantus and other environmental spirits are known to another group of specialists...the baylan or mediums.

We have two theological systems, side by side, the Christian and the pagan exisitng within one man.


Unconscious Conflict

Thus one characteristic of the split-level type of Christianity is the conviction of the fitness of each of two objectively inconsistent thought-and-behavior systems. A second characteristic is the fact that the inconsistency itself is either not perceived at all, or is pushed into the rear portions of consciousness. at the most, it is taken for granted and simply "forgotten." 

Thus the feeling of inconsistency does not arise. neither is there a feeling of hypocrisy. consequently, there is no particular drive to make one system conform to the other either by a change in behavior or by the elaboration of a conceptual system, of somehow reconciling both. Both systems are left to coexist without disturbance and without guilt.

There are however, special cases in whom the unconscious has become conscious. Usually of the better-educated class, they are quite aware of the inconsistency between their philosophical system and their actual way of life. nevertheless, they use their superior awareness deliberately to manipulate their environment. These are politicians, modern Machiavellians, who allow themselves to be photographed in church receiving Holy Communion while at the same time they are blackmailing some business firm into making "political contributions" to them. One may debate whether to apply such individuals the name "split-level Christians" or not call them Christians at all.

Nevertheless, in most cases, the inconsistency remains unconscious or only semi-conscious, so that the individual within himself remains at peace with himself. The only possible source of upset is when the authority figure should "discover'' the existence of the split. Such a piercing through of the masking surface level is capable of arousing hiya to an intense degree, a calamity which must be avoided at all costs. accordingly, there arises a third characteristic of the split-level, namely, a need to keep the authority figure at a distance.


Distance making

This mechanism of defense against hiya consists of removing the self as far as possible from the gaze of the person in authority, since, as representative of Christian level, he might blame and criticize the ego for consisting with another level. hence the attempt is made figuratively and, at times, literally to push the authority figures as far away from oneself as possible. In the examples given above, the priests are sent home early by the alumni who look forward to a night on the town. 

The naughty singer waits impatiently for the justice and the priest to leave the dining club before resuming her singing. The girl reading the pornographic books hides under the blanket from her peace corps roommate. The drink-loving citizens of Malitbog try to keep the teetolating Protestant minister from intruding into their lives, and upon failure, to do so return to Roman cartholicism, as can be read in the following account from Dr. Jocano:

"And why did you re-embrace Roman Catholicism?" I asked.

"I am not satisfied with what took place after I was converted to the Protestant Church. I mean with the church activities. it demanded so much of my time --anybody's time for that matter. I really can not keep up with the restrictions and teaching of the church!. How about Roman Catholicism?"

"Oh the priest does not have so many restrictions. he lets you alone, that is, to do what you like. he does not come here often and tell "don't do that," "don't do this" and so on. he does not live here, you know. But the pastor? he keeps coming to your house calling your attention to whatever you do. Sometimes it is embarrassing because the neighbors talk. They know what you have done because the pastor preaches about them during Sundays."

From the above account one can see how the catholic priest is preferred to the protestant minister precisely because he is at a distance from these people who love their evening tuba.

One can see the same distance-making trend in the insistence, especially in the provinces, that the priest should stay in the convento and not mix with the people. A priest who visits his parishioners is bound to arouse talk. Sometimes the interdiction affects not only the social visits but even "official" visits in the exercise of ministry. parishioners are often left to die without the last sacraments because of the in-congruence within peoples' minds of the picture of a priest entering their own home.

This distance making need is socio-syntonic that even the priests themselves and the bishops enjoin their own separation from the people, usually for ascetic or moral "reasons." Distance is the socially accepted thing, and is the actual social effect whether the conscious reason is "reverence for priests," "self-protection," "prayer" or anything else.

Dynamics

It may be interesting to enter into the dynamics of this situation and study the forces that bring about such an unconscious splitting of the ethical psyche. Where do the two levels come from? What keeps them apart? What keeps their in-congruence unconscious? Such questions obviously call for speculation and hypothesis formation.


Sources of Content

A study of the two levels may bring out the following analysis. the top or surface level is the more "Christian" part. it is made up of rules and beliefs picked up in school or in church. In large part it is conceptualized, or at least verbalized, usually in a foreign language like English, Spanish or Latin. Much of it is learned by rote, from the catechism or from books. It is the side which is presented to the authority figure in much the same way as a conductor plate in a condenser presents its positive charge on its surface to another conductor plate bearing negative charges.

The lower or deeper level is made up of the rules, beliefs, attitudes and action tendencies which are more common in the environment, which are picked up at home and in the street rather than at school. A large part of it is never verbalized, but acts as a sort of unspoken philosophy, spontaneously flowing into action when the occasion calls it forth and the inhibitory forces are removed. Thus in Malitbog the beliefs are drinking is an adult game spontaneously found expression in the evening when work was done and as long as the priest was away.

to be continued....next is Part 2 of 2, Click -->  Split-level Christianity, Part 2 of 2 

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Hi All,

The below link will show a short list of my past posts (out of 540 posts so far) which I consider as basic topics about us native (indio)/ Malay Filipinos. This link/listing, which may later expand, will always be presented at the bottom of each future post.  Just point-and-click at each listed item to open and read. 

Thank you for reading and sharing with others, especially those in our homeland.

- Bert

PLEASE POINT & CLICK THIS LINK:  

http://www.thefilipinomind.com/2013/08/primary-postsreadings-for-my-fellow.html

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"Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual; the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country." - Karl Kraus, 1874-1936.

"We shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know..." – SOCRATES

“In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their WISDOM and UNWISDOM; we have to say, Like People like Government. “ - Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881, Scottish Philosopher, Author

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"Beware of the yeast of Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops." (Luke 12, NRSV)

Ignorance, Apathy, Social Justice/Morality, and the Nationalist Revolution (Updated)

"Those who profess to favor freedom
and yet deprecate agitation
are men who want crops without plowing up the ground;
they want rain without thunder and
lightning.
They want the ocean without the
awful roar of its waters.
This struggle may be a moral one
or it may be a physical one
or it may be both moral and physical
but it must be a struggle.
Power concedes nothing without a
demand
It never did, and never will."- - Frederick Douglass, Abolitionist, Author, Slave (1817-1895)
[from Fr. Pedro V. Salgado, O.P.,The Philippine Economy: History and Analysis, 1985]


WHAT WE FILIPINOS SHOULD KNOW: (Note: Bold and/or underlined words are HTML links. Click on them to see the linked postings/articles. Forwarding the postings to relatives and friends, especially in the homeland, is greatly appreciated. To write or read a comment, please go to the bottom of the post and click on "Comments.").

We are poor and in ever-worsening predicament because the majority of native Filipinos are functionally illiterate and most are ignorant.

Majority of native Filipinos are apathetic about socio-economic problems because they are not informed; and lack of information (ignorance) reinforces apathy.

People can be aroused to action with a well-formulated presentation of the problems that evoke their sympathy. Thus we Filipinos need first to eliminate our illiteracy and ignorance, to educate ourselves so as to gain knowledge of the fundamental causes and remedies for social problems, including the economics, politics, and ethics of the problems and solutions. Then when we educate others, we must at the same time invoke their antipathy to the problems and arouse their sympathy with the remedies.

When the impoverished majority, that is the "masa," are roused with sympathy and armed with knowledge of the remedy, the greedy in government, business and military who benefits from ignorance will either be swayed themselves to join the righteous battle, or be overwhelmed by the greater force of the righteous revolution.

It is and will not be an easy task. There are internal and external forces constantly at work to keep the majority ignorant. The internal forces (native Filipinos with economic and political powers) and external forces (foreign businessmen and TNCs). They all remind us of the Spaniards who kept us (indios) uneducated, or the white Americans who kept the Negroes/Blacks illiterate for slavery.

In a previous post, I wrote about the subtle changes that neocolonialism/neoimperialism imposes on our private and state universities (our foreign loans are predicated on following its conditions):

".....As to the present goals of the educational system: during the Dictatorship, Marcos followed the dictates and plans of the International Monetary Fund/World Bank/Asian Development Bank (IMF/WB/ADB) as to the direction of our Public School System (PSS) and educational system as a whole; that is, to provide cheap and trained labor to multinational/transnational companies."

This was confirmed to me by a Spanish friend whom I visited last December in Madrid; he mentioned about Marcos inviting and speaking to them about such a direction for Philippine schools (my friend was a former priest and principal at a Catholic school).

Stressing only technical vocations, though practical since they put food on the table, will only lead to the "dumbing" of the new generations of Filipino minds, to keep the majority ignorant; unable to comprehend the root causes of their predicament (note that nowadays, the American mind has closed and its youth is getting dumb) which in turn will lead to perpetuation of the injustices in the socio-economic and political status-quo.

Thus, the primary imperative is to educate the "masa," in terms of understanding "what's going on;" thereafter we can change what has been keeping us down; preferably peacefully; if not, by radical means, i.e. a revolution that is neither communist nor anticommunist, but a nationalist revolution.

Below article is a brief by our famous writer F. Sionil Jose on the "who, why, what" of a real revolution, necessarily nationalistic, for the common good.

(see also: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2006/01/education-deterioration-of-public.html

http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/06/ang-sistema-ng-edukasyon-sa-pilipinas.html

http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/08/meaning-of-illiteracy-paul-harrison-is.html

http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/12/third-worlddefinitions-and.html,

http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/12/education-and-social-change-rev.html,

http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/11/education-for-independent-thought.html,

http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/12/dumbing-down-audience-by-ralph-nader.html )

“Nations, whose NATIONALISM is destroyed, are subject to ruin.” - Colonel Muhammar Qaddafi, 1942-, Libyan Political and Military Leader

“The true Filipino is a decolonized Filipino.” – Renato Constantino

"Upang maitindig natin ang bantayog ng ating lipunan, kailangang radikal nating baguhin hindi lamang ang ating mga institusyon kundi maging ang ating pag-iisip at pamumuhay. Kailangan ang rebolusyon, hindi lamang sa panlabas, kundi lalo na sa panloob!" --Apolinario Mabini, La Revolucion Filipina (1898)

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Revolution and the University of the Philippines
by F. Sionil Jose

What is an old man like myself doing here, talking about revolution? Hindsight is the lowest form of wisdom. I can tell you what it was like when your campus was nothing but cogon waste, when all those trees that line your streets were just saplings.

I can tell you, also, why we were left behind by all our neighbors when in the fifties and the sixties we were the richest, most progressive country in the region, when Seoul, Tokyo, were ravaged by war and Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta were mere kampongs, when Bangkok was a sleepy town criss-crossed by canals.

I never was in China till 1979, but I know in the forties that country was always threatened by famine. It had a population then of only half a billion. Now, with more than a billion people, famine is no longer a threat, although hunger still lurks in some of its distant regions.

Hunger has always been with some of us, too, but not as much as it is now when so many poor Filipinos eat only once a day. Altanghap, I wonder how many of you know what that word means.

So then, why are we poor? Why do our women flee to foreign cities to work as housemaids, as prostitutes?

We are poor because we have lost our ethical moorings, this in spite of those massive religious rallies of EI Shaddai, those neo-gothic churches of the Iglesia ni Kristo sprouting all over the country, in spite of the nearly 400 years of Catholic evangelization.

How can we build an ethical society? We must remember that so-called values are neutral--that so much depends on how people use them. James Fallows' thesis on our "damaged culture" which many of us understand is neither permanent nor inherent.

Ramon Magsaysay infused public life in the fifties with discipline and morality, Arsenio Lacson as mayor of Manila cleaned up City Hall. Even today, shining examples of honesty among our public officials exist, but they are few and far between and they are not institutionalized.

And it is precisely here where the university comes in with its courses in the humanities. Of all the arts, only literature teaches us ethics. Literature presents us with problems, complex equations that deal with the human spirit and how often the choice between right and wrong is made. In this process, we are compelled to use our conscience, to validate the choice we make, and render the meaning, the pith of our existence.

The university then is the real cathedral of a nation, and its humanities particularly its literature department, the altar. But how many of our teachers know this crucial function of literature, how many teachers themselves possess this sense of worth, and mission?

To know ourselves, to make good and proper use of our consciences, we must know our own history. So few of us do, in fact, we nurture no sense of the past. If our teachers know our history, if they soak it in their bones, then it follows that they also impart this very same marrow to their students.

If this is so, how come that when Bongbong Marcos visited UP Diliman some time ago, he was mobbed by students who wanted his autograph? How come that in La Salle, business students cited Marcos as the best President this country ever had?

Not too long ago, I spoke before freshmen at the Ateneo and was told that since so many practice bribery, it must be right, or how could anyone get things done if palms are not greased? In this university are professors who served Marcos. Have they ever been asked what their role was?

We are poor because we are not moral. Can this immorality as evidenced by widespread corruption be quantified? Yes, about 23 billion pesos a year is lost according to NGO estimates.

We are poor because we have no sense of history, and therefore, no sense of nation. The nationalism that was preached to my generation by Claro M. Recto and Lorenzo Tañada was phony; how they could have convinced so many intellectuals is in itself the failure of those intellectuals to analyze that inward, socially meaningless nationalism.

Recto and Tañada opposed agrarian reform, the single most important political act that could have lifted this country then from poverty and released the peasantry from its centuries-old bondage.

We are poor because our elites from way back had no sense of nation--they collaborated with whoever ruled--the Spaniards, the Japanese, the Americans and in recent times, Marcos. Our elites imbibed the values of the colonizer.

And worst of all, these wealthy Filipinos did not modernize this country--they sent abroad their wealth distilled from the blood and sweat of our poor. The rich Chinese to China, to Taiwan, to Hong Kong, the rich mestizos to Europe, and the rich Indios like Marcos to Switzerland and the United States--moneys that could have developed this nation.

How do we end this shameless domestic colonialism? The ballot failed; the bullet then? How else but through the cleansing power of revolution. Make no mistake about it--revolution means the transfer of power from the decadent upper classes to the lower classes. Revolution is class war whose objective is justice and freedom.

Who will form the vanguard of change? Who else but the very people who will benefit from it. Listen, when I was researching for my novel POON at the New York Public Library, I came across photographs of our soldiers of the 1896 revolution felled in their trenches by American guns. I looked closely and found that most of them were barefoot. They were peasants.

The peasant is the truest nationalist. He works the land with his hands, he knows instinctively what the term Motherland means. He loves this earth, even worships it. The Ilocano farmer calls it Apo Daga.

But never romanticize the poor. Once, a group of Ph.D.s lamented the futility of their efforts in organizing and motivating them. When the elections came that year, the poor sold their votes, or voted for Erap.

Understand why they are often lazy, contemptible, fawning, cheating and stealing. Imagine yourself not having a centavo in your pocket now, and you don't know if you will eat tonight. There is nothing honorable about poverty--it is totally dehumanizing and degrading. But once the very poor are roused from their stupor, they become the bravest, the most steadfast. Remember those Watawat ng Lahi followers felled by Constabulary guns on Taft Avenue in 1965? They believed that with their faith they were invincible.

It is with such faith and righteousness that our peasants rebelled in living memory, the Colorums in 1931, the Sakdals in 1935, and the Huks in 1949-53.The Moro rebellion, the New People's Army--the cadres of both are from our very poor, just like it was in 1896. And now, here is the most tragic contradiction in our country.

Our Armed Forces--its officers corps--many come from the lower classes, too; they got to their exalted positions through public examinations and entry to the Philippine Military Academy. Our Armed Forces enlisted men--most of them come from the very poor. When the poor kill the poor, who profits?

The Ideology of the Revolution
Revolution starts in the mind and heart. It alters attitudes to enable us to think beyond ourselves, family and ethnicity to encompass the whole nation. If the communists win and I don't think they ever will, they will rule just as badly because they are Filipinos unable to go beyond barnacled habits of mind, hostage as they always are to friends and family and to towering egos. The same egos aborted the revolution in 1896, the EDSA revolution in 1986, and now, we see the same egos wrecking havoc on the Communist Party. We see these egos eroding our already rotten political system.

The core belief that should guide us in redeeming our unhappy country is in our history, in our peasantry. It is not in textbooks, in foreign intellectual idols, in Marx. And what is this ideology which Bonifacio believed in? Which those barefoot soldiers killed by the Americans believed in? Pedro Calosa, the peasant leader who led the Colorum uprising in Tayug, Pangasinan in 1931 said it is this: "God resides in every man. God created earth, water and air for all men. It is against God's laws for one family or one group to own them."

God and country; translate this belief into your own words and there you have it in its simplest terms the creed with which the unfulfilled revolution of 1896 was based, and which should be the same creed that should forge unity among us.

Who will lead the revolution?
Certainly, not the masa, but one from the masa who understands them, who will not betray them, the way our leaders betrayed the masa. Estrada is the most shameful example of that leadership that betrayed.The leaders of the revolution could be in this university, who have the education, but who are not shackled by alien concepts, or the attitudes of superiority that destroy leadership. Such leaders, like Ho Chi Minh, must lead by sterling example, with integrity, courage, compassion and willingness to sacrifice, who know that when the revolution is won, it is time to change from conspirators to even better administrators, remembering that they have become conservative, that they must now work even harder to produce better and cheaper products.

And this massive work of modernization can be achieved in one generation. The Koreans, Taiwanese and the Japanese did it. It is not the Confucian ethic that enabled them to do this, they understood simply the logic of government which is service and that of commerce which is profit.

By what right do I have to urge revolution upon our people who will suffer it? What right do I have to urge the young to sacrifice, the poor to get even poorer, if they embrace the revolutionary creed? I have no such right, nor will I call it such. I call it duty, duty, duty. Duty for all of us rooted in our soil, who believe that our destiny is freedom.

Not everyone can bear arms, or have the physical strength to stand up, to shout loudly about the injustices that prevail around us. Those who cannot do these, who cannot be part of this radical movement, must not help those who enslave us. Do not give them legitimacy as so many gave legitimacy to Marcos. Recognize, identify our enemies and oppose them with all your means. This will then test integrity, commitment.

Nobody need tell us the exorbitant cost of revolution, the lives that will be lost, senselessly even as when Pol Pot massacred thousands of his own countrymen in Cambodia. We who lived through the Japanese Occupation know what hunger, fear, and flight mean.

Joseph Conrad, Albert Camus and Jose Rizal--writers I admire deeply, all warned against revolution because it breeds tyrants, because it does not always bring change. But look around us, at the thousands of Filipinos who are debased and hungry, who are denied justice. Be shamed if you don't act.

And as Salud Algabre, the Sakdal general said in 1935-- "No rebellion fails. Each is a step in the right direction." Revolution need not even have to be bloody. How many lives were lost at EDSA I? Not even 20. So Cory goes around telling the world that she had restored democracy in the Philippines.

Sure enough, we now have free elections, free speech, free assembly but these are the empty shells of democratic institutions because the real essence of democracy does not exist here. And that real essence is in the stomach--as when the taxi driver in Tokyo eats the same sashimi as the Japanese emperor, or the bus driver in Washington who can eat the same steak as President Bush in the White House. Contrast these with that jobless Cavite laborer whose two children died because he fed them with garbage.

No, Cory Aquino's EDSA revolution could not even have our garbage properly collected. Worse, nineteen farmer demonstrators were killed near Malacanan because she refused to see them. True to her oligarchic class, she declared a revolutionary government without doing anything revolutionary; instead, she turned EDSA I into a restoration of the old oligarchy. So today, we are reaping the results of her negligence, ignorance and folly.

Yet, even capitalism can be very helpful. South Korea is a very good example of how capital was formed by corruption, and how a single-minded general lifted that nation from the ashes of the Korean War, into the thriving modem economy which Korea is today.

Remember the slogans of American capitalism--a chicken in every pot, a Ford in every garage. Money is like fertilizer--to do any good it must be spread around. Those robber barons at the turn of the 19th century were rapacious, they exploited their workers, but they built industries, railroads, banks, the sinews of American capitalism.

And the most important thing--they kept their money home to develop America. Unlike our rich Chinese, our rich mestizos and the likes of Marcos who sent their money abroad to keep us poor. They are the enemy.

It has been said again and again that we are, indeed, a young nation compared with other Asian countries whose august civilizations date back to two thousand years or more. Indeed, so are the Filipinos who shaped this nation--those who led the revolution against Spain--they were all young, like you are, in their twenties or early thirties. Rizal was 34 when he was martyred.

How then do we keep young without having to grow old only to see the fire in our minds and hearts die? How does the nation's leading university maintain its vitality, its youth against the ravages of consumerism, of globalism?

How else but to keep the mind ever healthy, ever alive by empowering it with those ideas that nurture change and revolution itself, by ingesting the technological age so that we can use technology for realizing our ideals. How else but to embrace the ideas that make us doubt technology, society, even revolution itself, but never, never about who we are, what we should do and hope to be.

We cannot be beholden to any other nation. Jose Maria Sison doomed his revolution when he turned to China for assistance; he ignored the "objective reality"--the latent anti-Chinese feeling among Filipinos, in fact among all Southeast Asians who fear a Chinese hegemony. We must mould our own destiny, infusing it with the strength of a sovereign people. The Americans, the English, French, Russians, Cubans, Chinese, Vietnamese--all achieved their unique revolutions. We must have our very own, defined only by us.

How to build it, direct it, use it for the betterment of our lives, the flowering of liberty--I see all these as the major function of the university which, after all, shapes our leaders. I pray that UP will graduate the best doctors, the best engineers, the best teachers, the best bureaucrats. The revolution needs them all. But most of all, let this university of the people produce the ultimate modernizer, the heroic nationalist revolutionary--we need him most of all.



Source: http://www.up.edu.ph/fsioniljose_lecture.htm









“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe." . – Frederick Douglass, American Abolitionist, Lecturer, Author and Slave, 1817-1895)





Neocolonialism - The dominance of strong nations over weak nations, not by direct political control (as in traditional colonialism), but by economic and cultural influence.





"The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain" - Thomas Jefferson, 1809





posted by Bert M. Drona @ 11:28 PM 9 comments links to this post

9 Comments:
At 12:56 AM, Anonymous said...
I agree that the masses should be educated. Churches and schools are agencies that can help but the leaders of these organizations are also ignorant. Listen to their sermons - they do not teach people to look at facts, to think and how to make dicisions in terms of the general good of the community and the country.- DrPaz
At 1:01 AM, Bert M. Drona said...
Thanks for your response. Yes, when one steps back and think, educating the masses is crucial. Else, no fundamental changes can happen. The "masa" will be simple pawns and duped as in the past,present,in the near future. You also are mainly correct in inferring that the is ignorant. The church is essentially part of the establishment; as a former seminarian and catholic, I am to put it very mildly, disappointed with it.
At 1:04 AM, Anonymous said...
Hi Bert!We are poor because this People's Power government believed in the lie propounded by the free trade economist that all poor nations will be eliminated if only all economies practice free trade. This is a blatant lie propounded by professional economist who is more interested in propaganda rather than truth.When NAFTA was implemented in Mexico, the average growth rate of Mexico fell from 5.9 per cent to 3.9 per cent, and yet free trade economist refuse to recognize these facts and keep on insisting that poverty will be eliminated in the planet if free trade is practised everywhere -- inspite of all the evidence to the contrary.Because our People's Power government economic planners believed in this obvious lies of the free trade economist, the People's Power government has failed to take off our country inspite of their promise that they will do better than President Marcos if allowed to run the country. Because of the institution of free trade in the country, our average growth rate has fell to one half that was achieved by Marcos and all his predecessors.Inspite of these facts, the Liberal Party in its official website has called for the continuation of free trade in the country and made free trade as the principal economic platform of that party.Free trade was the principal economic policy of the American colonial administration. When the United States acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the Americans instituted a policy of free trade on all its newly acquired economies. Because free trade was keeping the Philippines as an agricultural economy, nationalist like Manuel L. Quezon and Sergio Osmena demanded independence from the United States. It was the election of Manuel L. Quezon as President of our Commonwealth that finally put an end to the policy of free trade imposed by the Americans on the Philippine economy.One of the principal reasons why the Nationalista Party was able to easily obtain the passage of the Tydings-Mcduffie Law which granted independence to the Philippines was because the American labor backed the independence move of the Philippine government. The American labor unions is opposed to any free trade in the United States between its colonies or any other independent nation.When the commonwealth administration of Pres. Quezon put an end to the colonial policy of free trade of the Americans, we saw the emergence of Philippine industrialization. However, because of the devastation in the Philippines caused by World War II, the Americans again imposed free trade as a condition for the American assistance in the reconstruction of the Philippines. This free trade was embodied in the Bell Treaty.This Bell Treaty again did not improve the Philippine economy but only fanned the hatred of Philippine political leaders against the Americans. The Bell Treaty was denounced by leading luminaries in both the Liberal and Nationalista Parties.Inspite of all these facts, the Liberal Party and the People's Power government believed all the lies that was propounded by the free trade economists. Neither did the lessons of Philippine history nor the warnings of economists who saw through the lies of the free trade economists could convince the economists of the People's Power government that free trade will stultify the economic development of our country. They kept insisting on believing the lies of the free trade economists that free trade is the solution of the poverty of the planet -- inspite of all the evidence to the contrary.Very truly yours,RAMON A. DEL GALLEGO
At 1:24 AM, Bert M. Drona said...
Ramon,I agree with you. Absolute free trade, which the WTO/economic globalization is all about, is disastrous for our poor country. Free trade is great only for the rich nations. WTO rules are made by the rich nations to be followed by the poor nations; and in reality, not necessarily by the former.Free trade/WTO is one of the fundamental aspects in our political economy that needs to be dismantled. The mixed economy that we had before martial law was workable and could be improved on. But essential too is a change in our way of thinking and behaving, a need for a "cultural revolution;" especially towards nationalism within our homeland, our territorial boundaries. It is only when we have attained national unity can we be able to stand on our own and be able to deal other nations with confidence and strength; and be treated fairly and with respect. Without nationalism, we will be where we are now and going nowhere up but continually spiralling down, i.e. increasing impoverishment for the expanding majority (declining native middle class). That is why the ruling elite, i.e. the native and local politicians/technocrats/businessmen/military and their foreign partners and TNCs want to keep the "masa" ignorant. Knowledge is power. To maintain slaves and slavery, our majority have to be kept ignorant of what's really going on.
At 6:49 AM, Anonymous said...
"The mixed economy that we had before martial law was workable and could be improved on. But essential too is a change in our way of thinking and behaving, a need for a "cultural revolution;" especially towards nationalism within our homeland, our territorial boundaries."This is precisely the reason why I am encouraging you to keep on writing your ideas. Nobody will help the Philippines except Filipinos. We cannot rely on the Americans, the Japanese or any other foriegners to help us. We Filipinos have to learn to help ourselves because no foreigner will do that for us. We will obtain happiness or misery because we Filipinos have collectively chosen happiness or misery as our goal.In the ultimate analysis, only Filipinos are to be blamed for anything that is happening in our country because we have allowed it in the first place.- Ramon
At 6:57 AM, Anonymous said...
Because I failed to see in your blog little bio on Luis Taruc, I am forwarding what I wrote on the day I learned about his death.A REQUIEM TO SUPREMO KA LUIS TARUCThe peasant farmer depends on the fruit of his labor to the land he toils to support a family. But even when fertile fields become fertile grounds for discontent, there is incongruity between the basic needs he yearns and the impossible demands from the landlord. Pity the poor abused sharecroppers for they shall inherit bloody agrarian revolution.One man understood the plight of hapless farmers. He witnessed the abuses of absent landlords and incensed on the inept and often biased government army soldiers who were supposed to protect them. He saw the birth and demise of the Sakdalista movement and its peasant origin. He also witnessed the litany of abuses temporarily halted during the Japanese occupation but not the occupiers’ brutal treatment to the citizens deserted by MacArthur. That man’s vision started an effective answer to oppressive regimes of what we now know and what it spawned other violent groups by their acronyms, HUKBALAHAP, primarly against ther Japanese, HUK (urban and rural guerillas during Roxas, Quirino and Magsaysay) and HMB Hukbong Magpalaya ng Bayan of the Garcia and early Marcos administration. Now NPA is getting its share in the struggle.Like Andres Bonifacio of the 1896 revolution, this man can also speak the language of the masses. He even adopted the title Supremo. If I remember correctly, while the first supremo has the equivalent of second grade elementary education, this other supremo attended two years at the University of the Philippines. Call him Bonifacio re-incarnate!