Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Punong-Puno na Sa Pamumuno?

Isang pananaw sa mga unang araw ng pagtakbo at retorika ng pamahalaan ni Pangulong Benigno Aquino III

Sa katotohanan, kinatatakutan ng burgesya ang kamangmangan ng masa kapag sila’y nananahimik, at ang kanilang pananaw kung sila’y naghihimagsik.
- Karl Marx, Ika-18 Brumaire ni Luis Bonaparte

Nakakadalawang linggo na mula nang ating tanghalin si Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Cojuangco Aquino III bilang ikalabinlimang Pangulo ng Republika ng Pilipinas. Bilang isang mamamayang nahubog ang pananaw-politikal sa maliligalig na panahon ng pamamahala nina Joseph Ejercito “Erap” Estrada at ni Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, nauunawaan ko ang malawakang pananabik at matatayog na pangarap ng ating mga kababayan sa kanyang maaaring maibigay para sa pagpapayabong ng pamumuhay ng mamamayang Pilipino. Napakadaling makisali sa mga mapagdiwang na pahayag na ibinabandila ng mass media at ng mga kasapi sa mga kilusang repormista ng panggitnang-uri na siyang nanguna upang ipahayag ang mensahe ng pagbabago sa pagtungo sa “daang matuwid,” isang daan kung saan ang katiwalian ay walang puwang upang sirain ang tiwala’t ugnayan ng pamahalaan at sambayanan. Kung saan ang pamahalaan ay maituturing na lingkod ng sambayanan at ang mamamayan ay siyang magiging kaakibat upang makamit ang mga layuning pangkalahatan ng ating bansa’t bayan. Isang “bagong simula,” ika nga nila.


Takot Na Kami Masaktan

Sa kabila nito, marami rin sa mga nagmamasid ang nag-aagam-agam: masyadong masaya’t nananabik tayo na tila baga ang pagpanaog ni Aquino sa Malacañang ang siyang susi sa malawaka’t malakihang pagbabanyuhay ng politika’t ekonomiya ng Pilipinas sa ngayon. Na para bagang siya, sa kanyang pagkatao bilang tagapagmana ng mito ng tanod ng demokrasya mula sa kanyang mga magulang na sina dating Pangulong Corazon at Senador Benigno “Ninoy” Jr., ay nakatali at nakatadhanang “iligtas” ang Inang Pilipinas mula sa mga kuhilang Kinatawan sa kamara na walang ginawa kundi ang magpataba at ibulsa ang kuwartang ibinubuwis ng mamamayan pagkatapos ng suson-susong paghihirap. Na tila baga ang kanyang kamuntiang pagkakamali ay ating ipag-aalsa’t siyang wawasak nang lubusan sa pag-asa ng mamamayan sa mga demokratikong institusyon. Na para bagang masyado yata tayong ambisyoso, baka pag pumalpak, e malilintikan rin lang pala tayong lahat.

Kauna-unawa ang mga agam-agam na ito, sapagka’t naipit at nabaon sa isang mapagsisi’t walang-tiwala sa sariling kalagayan (self-hating and reproachful state) ang ating mga mamamayan sa ilalim ng siyam na taon ni Gloria Arroyo, na tandisang sumira sa mga institusyong panlipunan at nagwalang-bahala sa interes ng mamamayan sa kabila ng kanyang pagkakalagay sa puwesto noong 2001 sa pamamagitan ng ikalawang himagsikang-bayan (“people power”) sa EDSA. May takot sa atin na magtiwala ulit sa institusyon sa agam-agam na tayo na naman ang maituturong maysala kung magkaloko-loko na naman ang mga bagay-bagay. Nguni’t hindi ito makatarungan para sa ating mga sarili, kung nais natin talagang panatilihing demokratiko, maka-Diyos, makatao at makabayan ang ating lipunan. Tungkulin natin na manatiling mulat, may paninindigan at manatiling nakamatyag upang tiyakin na ang ating mga narinig na gagawin ay tunay na maisagawa ng kasalukuyang administrasyon. Na sana nga ang telos (patutunguhan) ay nakikita sa lakad ng bayan ngayon. Minsan ngang ibinahagi ng kapwa natin mga Atenista, ang SpongeCola: “dehado kung dehado, para saan pa ang mga galos mo kung titiklop ka lang?”


Samantalahin, Huwag Pagsamantalahan

Marami sa ating nagitla at lumundag sa tuwa nang marinig natin si Pangulong Aquino na ipahayag sa Quirino Grandstand noong ika-30 ng Hunyo na “kayo ang boss ko.” Ngayon lamang tayo, kung tutuusin, nakarinig ng isang pinuno ng bansa na kinilala ang kanyang utang na loob hindi sa mga kauri niyang nakaririwasa na nangampanya at gumastos para sa kanyang kampanya, hindi sa mga may-kapangyarihan sa lokal na nibel, at hindi sa mga institusyonal na padron kundi sa mamamayang humalal sa kanya sa unang automated na halalan sa kasaysayan ng bansa. Totoo, hindi madaling paniwalaang naging malinis ang halalan, hindi madaling paniwalaang hindi nakibahagi si Aquino sa mga tradisyunal na paraan ng pagkalap ng boto (na kung pagbabasehan ang mga nakatakdang batas ngayon ay itinuturing nang krimeng ikabibilanggo), kalokohang sabihing walang bahid-dungis ang halalang ito na hindi binago ang mga dinamiko, nguni’t hindi makatarungang sabihing nanalo lamang si Aquino dahil ibinoto siya ng ignoranteng masa na namanipula ng mga institusyon ng burgesya at ng kleriko-pasistang Simbahan (na natitiyak kong narinig niyo na sa mga tagasuporta nina Manny Villar, Richard Gordon at Gilbert Teodoro: huwag niyo sila pakinggan, pikon lang ang mga yan).

Dala nito, may mga taong nangahas nang magtakda ng kanilang mga nais at banta sa kasalukuyang administrasyon kung hindi ito magagawa. Pinalaki na natin ang minsanang pagtuya ni Aquino sa “wang-wang” upang siya mismo’y pagbawalan nating mag “wang wang” kahit mahuhuli na siya sa mga pulong dala ng trapik. Isang batikang brodkaster nga ang nangahas magsabing “dapat hindi na rin lumalabas si Noynoy kapag Lunes dahil coding ang plaka niya.”

Hindi lisensya ang pagkilala ng ating Pangulo sa ating halaga upang putaktihin siya na sundin ang ating balang naisin bilang mga kabahagi ng taumbayang “hindi nag-iisip at sumusunod lamang sa galaw ng tiyan.” Nararapat nating tandaan na sa ating paghalal kay Aquino, ating pinili siyang upang gabayan ang kilos ng mga aparato ng estado at lipunan at hindi karapat-dapat na baliin natin ang kaniyang plataporma de gobierno dala ng ating posibleng makitid na isipang iniisip lamang ang kakanin bukas. Bilang kabahagi ng isang pamayanan, tungkulin natin bilang Pilipino (at bilang taong may kinikilalang mabuti) na mabuhay nang may pagpapahalaga sa kapwa. Kailangan nating kilalanin na ang pakikibahaging politikal ay hindi isang paraan upang magkamal para sa sarili, kundi upang tiyakin na nanatili ang ugnayan natin sa ating kapwa sa mahinusay at mapagyabong na paraan.

Ano ang pinagkaiba natin sa mga trapo at mangungurakot sa mga sangay ng pamahalaan na binabaliti ang kanilang kapwa para sa kanilang sarili kung ating gagawin ito? Ano naman ang pinagkaiba ng isang Pangulong iisipin maski ang pinakamaliit na kibot ng kanyang leeg at kung paano ito makakasama sa sensibilidad ng tao sa isang aliping saguiguilid? Hindi ito makatuwirang kilos, at pinapatunayan lamang natin na tayo’y mga utak-alipin pa rin, sapagka’t “sumusukob sa mang-aalipin ang nangingibig na hindi lumaya.”


Higit Sa Lahat, Magpanagot

Sa pagsasabi kong hindi natin dapat samantalahin ang pagkilala ni Pangulong Aquino sa ating tinig, hindi natin isinasama dito ang katotohanang pangunahing karapatan nating humingi ng katarungan sa mga pampublikong institusyon. Hindi dapat kaligtaang si Pangulong Aquino mismo ay hindi pa rin sinasagot nang mahinusay ang mga patayan sa Hacienda Luisita na pagmamay-ari ng kanyang angkan. Hindi natin dapat kalimutan ang katotohanang nangangahas nang maghain ng kaduda-dudang mga pagbabago sa Saligang-Batas si dating Pangulong Arroyo na ngayo’y kinatawan ng ikalawang distrito ng Pampanga. Hindi natin dapat kalimutan ang daan-daang mamamahayag, aktibista at mga inosenteng mamamayan na pinaslang ng mga galamay ng rehimen ni Arroyo at hindi pa rin napaparusahan magpasahanggang ngayon. Hindi natin dapat kalimutan na ang ating mga kinatawan sa Mababang Kapulungan ay ang mga dating pangalan pa rin na sumuporta sa mga interes ng tiwaling pamahalaan at pumatay sa mga batas na sana’y nakapagbigay-kapangyarihan sa mamamayan para sa demokratikong pagkilos.

Dito natin marapat ibuhos ang ating pagkilos bilang mga mamamayang nagnanais ng pagbabago. Marapat nating bantayan at palaging paalalahanan ang ating Pangulo’t ang burukrasyang sumusuporta sa kanya na tungkulin nilang linisin at panariwain ang tiwalang ginutay-gutay ng mga rehimen nina Estrada at Arroyo. Karapat-dapat lamang nating panoorin ang mga nagaganap sa ating pampublikong lunan at pagdudahan din ang mga samu’t saring opinyon na dati’y tinatanggap na lang nating basta-basta.

Ibinahagi ng Hudyong manunulat na si Hannah Arendt na “ang pagpapatawad lamang ang tanging kilos na hindi lamang tugon kundi isang bagong kilos na di-inaasahan, di-tinakda ng kilos na nagbunga noon, at pinalalaya sa mga kahihinatnan nito ang nagpatawad at pinatawad.” Nangyayari lamang ang pagpapatawad na nagbubungang mahinusay kung ang katarungan ay naigawad sa maysala, kahit sa anyo ng mabigat na parusa. Kung tunay na ibinabandila ng pamahalaang Aquino na “walang pagpapanumbalik kung walang paggawad ng katarungan,” hinihingi nito na tayo bilang mamamayan ay manindigan na ang mga maysala ay magiging karapat-dapat lamang sa awa ng taumbayan kapag sila’y nalatayan na ng hagupit. Hindi naghihilom ang isang malalim na sugat kung hindi dadaan sa masakit na proseso ng pagtatahi nito.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

IN THE NAME OF PATRIA: Nationalism and Modernity as Haunted Romance

We agree that modernity, in its basic structurization of its understanding of history, is predisposed to deny the propensity of man to revert to an understanding of time as somewhat without bounds, determined by the seasons, without predictability and therefore should be viewed with caution and preparation whenever possible. Modernity, in seeking to make history its pet, has sought to fetter it with countless chains (reminiscent of Rousseau’s fatally misguided description of what supposedly the state of man is) to make it more understandable, more easy supposedly to understand, and to put it to its logical extremes, deploy it as a means of controlling warm bodies for the purposes of fevered brains. And it is in these fevered brains that are born the notion of a community beyond the local, what the national is deemed to be. Benedict Anderson opens the second chapter of his seminal Imagined Communities thusly (2006, 9):


Why this harkening back to the images of the spectre? Why, one might ask, should we characterize the discourse of nationalism (or nation-building, for that matter) in terms of its ability to inspire feelings of hallowedness or haunted-ness? Perhaps we can take the argument of Rolando Tolentino, in his essay Pitong Welgista ang Napatay, which puts into question the sensitivity of love and hatred as being conflated already, the intensity of such emotions so equal in its capacity to imbalance and violate the normal, natural existence of the lover and the beloved that its ambiguity inspires simultaneously, though unconsciously, tremendum et fascinosum which cannot be identified whether it be because of orgasmic pleasure or of horrifying terror. And it is in this light, we shall see, that the spectre that haunts national imagining is that same phenomenon of conflation that presupposes and blurs the dichotomy of love and hatred, this time confusing creation with destruction and how it consists the struggle of the post-colonial being in striving to claim one’s own space in the world.

Using spectres as a metaphor or a conduit of human desire for expression when communication seems impossible is among the characteristics of subversive and emancipatory movements. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels opened the Manifesto of the Communist Party with a foreboding that seems to have been only imagined, conceived and given life in the depths of the hell where the proletariat has been kept bound, “the spectre that haunts Europe, the spectre of communism.” Even our own prime Filipino patriot, Jose Rizal y Mercado, in illustrating the anguish that is experienced by the Creole displaced in mainland Spain and even in the Philippine colony, has chosen to show Ibarra as haunted by the spirit of his wronged father at the throes of mortality, and then later being torn giving the presumed primacy of Madre Patria between Spain and what he feels is his true homeland, the Philippines.

The mirage that is projected through the spectre reeks of something unwelcome, something that has been forcibly eliminated yet is now governed by its own will to return, to manifest oneself once more, and therefore seek to actualize its presence despite its limitations, its non-corporeality. The spectre is there not to simply communicate a message, but seeks to bend the will of those who see it to its bidding, as might be gleaned from the evolution of Hamlet to an incomprehensible, therefore un-“decodable”, and therefore invincible being after conversing with the presumed ghost of his father. As a somewhat perverse embodiment of the Spirit that G. W. F. Hegel has defined as Phenomenon, the person that embodies the blurring of distinction between the world of ideas and the concrete world, the spectre seeks to actualize where it came from, what it is now, and how it shall be in the future in the futility of no longer existing in time but is now one with time. Its desire for communion can no longer be adequately satisfied by finite means, being in a sense going towards the infinite already.

Nationalism as sought to be achieved by former colonies, as a product of modernity, is a rejection of traditions past, traditions which they claim to have been determined for them by their colonial masters. They are operating under the presumption that they, progressing towards an inevitable flow of history, were interrupted in their potential evolution by the meddling of colonial masters. Thus, select emancipatory movements would seek to restore the pre-colonial being that their people have supposedly been in, the pure native condition (again, harkening back to Rousseauvian hallucinations). Yet as Nick Joaquin in Culture and History would argue, the act of intervention, that moment of contact is already an irreversible phenomenon, history being a sequential abstraction in flow with time, which moves forward towards eternity. To claim and attempt to restore the pre-colonial is as presumptuous as Lucifer’s ambition to displace the Creator: the finite attempting to conquer that which is beyond their capacity to even comprehend. Nationalism, therefore, is also haunted by the desire for articulation of an identity, one which, like innocence, once lost, can never be reclaimed in its purest form. One could only seek to renegotiate the relationship between those nationalities that have been “tainted” by the domination of other nationalities, mutually reinforcing their evolution without the certainty of their paths diverging. In a somewhat mundane insight, one could pick out the scalding verses of performer Stefani Germanotta (better known as “Lady Gaga”) as illustrative of a society’s haunted desire to reclaim itself from those who have crossed their way:

I want your ugly, I want your disease
I want your everything as long as it’s free…

I want your horror, I want your design
‘Cuz you’re a criminal as long as you’re mine…

I want your love and I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance
I want your love and All your lover’s revenge
You and me could write a bad romance…

In seeking to recognize itself through consciousness, the nation as a corporeal, imagined body is therefore assaulted as well of the inherent trappings of imagined bodies. Despite seeking to establish itself as the patria grande, one can only do so with the grudging tolerance of the patria chicas, the local hometowns. This fiction has been established through the romanticization of natality and even the romanticization of the tomb, and thus can only borrow its hallowedness from the fiction of tombs.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

A Mother Not Like Any Other: Postscript to Cory Aquino

Look around you! Look at these people. Do you see the suffering and unhappiness in this world? Their only hope is the Resurrected Jesus. I don't care whether you're Jesus or not. The Resurrected Jesus will save the world -- that's what matters...

I created the truth out of what people needed and what they believed. You don't know how happy he can make them. Happy to do anything. He can make them happy to die and they'll die… all for the sake of Christ. Jesus Christ. Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God. Messiah...

My Jesus is much more powerful.

- Paul the Apostle, The Last Temptation of Christ


Nick Joaquin, in an attempt to placate the anti-clerical bent of the traditional reading of the Filipino revolution, once proposed that we look kindly on our culture of festivities as it is these that bred the preferable ground for the Katipunan to launch their revolt on the eve of their discovery. We Filipinos, despite our pervasive liberal-democratic institutions, nevertheless have a legendary penchant for communal activities. We appreciate and bask in festivities not just because we swallow the shallow one-liner of John Donne of “no man being an island,” but because we value familial ties so much we want the familial mode of relations to be the dominant paradigm of transaction in any context. We have established superiority and authority in the parental figure, infusing it with such attributes that the private sphere has already become the priority of people, an ethic of sincerity and relationality.

These thoughts run in our mind in witnessing this week’s proceedings within the confines of La Salle Greenhills and its culmination from the Walled City of Intramuros. Truly Filipino, we find ways to solemnize any particular event with the air of a festivity, whether for revelry or reflective grieving. The funeral of the woman we have hailed and have been proud of as “the mother of democracy,” Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, despite efforts to render her a simple human being like all of us in that last journey of her earthly existence, has not dimmed nor effaced the gravity of her impact on an entire generation of Filipinos in their continuous, drudging, desperate, yet ever-hopeful struggle for a truly democratic society.

For all means and purposes, we do not exculpate our beloved Tita Cory from the many other questions regarding her tenure of office that have not been given satisfactory resolutions up to today. We never discount the fact that she, being a Cojuangco and a Sumulong, married to an Aquino, is inherently a part of the systematic (and, shall we say, chronic) dysfunction of our popular democratic institutions. We never forget her inabilities and shortcomings which found her in a compromising position with the very people to whom she owed her chance at proving her dedication to destroy all ramparts of the Marcos fascist-crony-capitalist state. We do not forget that she has a bumbling senator for a son and a deranged excuse for a daughter.

And yet, as Ambeth Ocampo would always reiterate, it is precisely these limitations, these failings, that make them all the more admirable for trying to dare the impossible. We have a culture of seeking to comprehend in the midst of incomprehensibility. Despite our penchant for jumping at the bandwagon to condemn incompetents, we never immediately blast somebody for trying to reach the goal through the more ambitious aim. In fact, we have an automatic identification and solidarity with them because we see ourselves in them, and therefore our capacity for greatness.

Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino embodies, in ways that people would be hard-pressed to actually articulate, the revolutionary trajectory of the Filipino in their quest for self-realization and the establishment of a true government of the people, for the people and by the people. We see in her the personification of what can be done to make the best out of a bad situation. It has not been new to us. Emilio Aguinaldo was thrust in the global political sphere in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, and exhausted every effort he can in order to maintain the independence his people were able to grasp from Spanish hegemony, if not for the tragic mistake of trusting the “cold, calculating Sons of the North.” Manuel Quezon, for all his flair, pushed on the platform of immediate independence despite its unfeasibility not just solely because he wished to strengthen his political acumen but because he is also among those who wanted a Philippines that truly speaks for itself.

Cacique democracy, it must be admitted, can never be separated from Tita Cory’s political identification. And yet despite this, it appears that, similar to that a creole like Quezon gained Malacanang at the downfall of the Federalistas, she was able to achieve what before seemed already a hopeless effort: an inauguration of a new revolutionary tradition. Though many would say that, in her later years, she is a fading voice of conscience in a society that has already lost its own and is apathetically (and pathetically) bumbling towards a hand-to-mouth existence, no one can claim that all that effort for re-imagining and reinstating what the people seeks for themselves did not make any relevant impact on the people’s fight. Her humble demeanour, never the first to impose but willing to strike back (as witness her denouncement of her own Vice-President, Salvador Laurel, after his turnaround during the Christmas Coup of 1989), appeals to our masses in the same way that we have a fanatical devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary (she herself being one), the essential mother figure. That Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo attempted to ape it (and ultimately failed to do so) shows us how permanent an image she has imprinted in our cultural consciousness.

Political analysts might highlight repeatedly (as we have done) her shortcomings, but the people will always give primary importance to her confrontation with the unlamented dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and how she supposedly was able to return “democracy” back to the people. It might also have been helpful that the dichotomies of good and evil are quite clearer then, and thus was able to strike our fellow Filipinos close to home and join the fight that has been protracted for so long. Our inability to fully relive the spirit of the EDSA Revolution is because we do not only have anxieties regarding our ability to do so as long as we fight for democracy, but because we have been kept in such mechanisms of docility stemming from the government created by the EDSA Revolution.

Time and time again, mythology has given us an enslaved community being liberated by a hero. Today, our narrative is no longer epic, but the value of communal commitment is actually stronger than ever: the late Fernando Poe Jr.’s penultimate film Alamat ng Lawin recognizes that only if the people themselves will join the fight will the willing heroes succeed. We have cried at the testimonies of Tita Cory’s friends and relatives. We have worn yellow and have enthroned her in our regard together with her husband Ninoy, the quintessential Filipino martyr in our imagination after Jose Rizal, “the only queen the people recognizes” as Fr. Catalino Arevalo, S.J. would reiterate in his homily during the mass. We have seen her body delivered to her resting place flanked by the very institutions that have been guilty of brutalizing the Filipino nation for two decades and have snuffed the life out of her husband. “Nothing else could be said about her,” the good priest said. But it should it end here?

She has become an ideal. She did not ask for it: we gave it to her. Therefore, this ideal shall only remain potent and serve as a beacon light for our children’s future if we ourselves would use it as our guidance, our source of hope, and our primary weapon against the forces of pervasive, perverted liberal democracy. This is the only, true and befitting tribute we can give her: protect the nation she has thrown her lot with and her whole life into.

And that might just stop the failed impersonator from “materializing” in our midst after 2010.

Gotham needs its true hero... "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." I can do those things because I'm not a hero... I killed those people. That's what I can be... I am whatever Gotham needs me to be...

... Sometimes...the truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.

- Batman, The Dark Knight



Creative Commons License
A Mother Not Like Any Other: Postscript to Cory Aquino by Hansley A. Juliano is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Philippines License.

Friday, July 10, 2009

NOT SO DEMURE

NOT SO DEMURE:
Philippine Prostitution in the Spanish Colonial Era in Light of Pre-Colonial Notions of Sexuality

(a joint paper with Jore Vergara in Hi 165-B, Summer 2009 under Dr. Ambeth R. Ocampo)

We have a held perception that there exists in Philippine pre-colonial history a relatively peaceful society, occasionally interrupted by “inter-barangaic” wars. They believed in many gods and spirits, known today as paganism. We were a developing society then having a lot of sophistication and knowledge during our time. These include metallurgical works of gold, pottery, tools out of metals, stone and the like. With the increase in sophistication and knowledge, social stratification inevitably emerged, likely for the maintenance of an organized society back then. The main status symbol during the time was the gold ornaments stated earlier. Amidst all of this, however, our ancestors displayed a relatively primitive regard to fashion, based from how they dressed themselves merely by wearing minimal cloth, save possibly those belonging to the pre-colonial nobility depicted in the Boxer Codex.

Eventually we established foreign trade, supposedly for the purpose of expansion and cultural development. One of the important international relationships established during the time was the trade we established with the Chinese. The Chinese brought with them various items of porcelains and pots that attracted the eyes of our ancestors that they insisted on buying the goods the Chinese brought with them. However, instead of using these goods as a replacement of what we formerly used they used the goods bought from the Chinese as an addition to the burial rituals of a deceased. And after some time trading with these people, our ancestors have established a firm relationship between themselves and the Chinese. The Chinese became a main source of labor and trade in the Philippines.

Before our readers become bored with wondering how these narratives on pre-colonial history would be relevant to our tackling of a quite unmentionable topic in our Spanish colonial past, we deemed it necessary to situate most of the major actors in this phenomenon in their proper context. These connections, in a way, illustrate how a proliferation and intermingling of culture has already permeated the life of the various barangays of the then-disunited Philippines, broken up into separate petty kingdoms. Nascent communities were opening themselves up to various modes of trade and communion with other cultures, such as the Orang Dampuans, Banjar and the neighbouring countries within Southeast Asia (Agoncillo 1990, 23-24). Though there are questions as to the nature and extent of these exchanges based from archaeological evidence (Joaquin 2004, 37-38), recent finds dispel such doubts and these are already visible in museums. (1).

However, during this time of flourishing trade and cultural exchange, the successive fleets of Spanish colonizers came starting from Magellan in 1521 until Legazpi in 1565, first presented themselves as friendly people only looking for food and water in exchange for their goods in order for themselves to go back home to Spain and report their findings. In the course of our interaction with them, war broke out between their men and our chiefs (most notably Sulayman) which eventually led to the destruction of native settlements, paving the way for the establishment of European-style cities and towns. As a result, greater stratification that classified the colonized by race, work, position in society and even “limpieza de sangre” (Ocampo-BOC 2001, 103) was put into place. It seems, interestingly, that stratification will be and always is a constant mark of a civilized society, whatever stages of progress it undertakes.

With the current stratification during the colonization, there arisen a number of problems to be addressed now that there is a clear line between the rich and the poor, the employed and the unemployed, the city-dwellers and the provincial people. There were significant economical effects, more so among the working force comprised of mostly native Filipinos, classified in records as indios. And a notable profession here, due to the aforesaid reasons, is prostitution.

As any dictionary would define, prostitution is the practice of engaging in a sexual activity with any person as a means of earning. Despite the existence of prostitutes from both genders and varying purposes, prostitution, incidentally, universally affects the women of a society. Today, there are various reasons for a woman to engage in prostitution and the most common of them all is that it is the only option left for a woman to have a means of living within that community. For the denizens of colonial Philippines, however, this wasn’t the only reason for engaging in prostitution, which spans a plethora of social, economic, maybe even political reasons that stow away from whatever stereotypes we might have imbibed from our early age.

Thus, this paper intends to discuss about the other factors that have led to a woman go into prostitution or, generally, why prostitution was present, and eventually prevalent, in the first place in Philippine colonial history. In line with the belief that prostitution is one of the oldest professions, it is no wonder, in a way, that it would manifest itself in the wake of the Spanish colonization. Despite the proliferation of such “illegal” and “indecent” means of earning a livelihood, the demographics of its patronage reveal a quite peculiar observation. In a way, it seems that prostitutes are readily available amongst the citizens of the country. That such public and prevalent patronage is present seems to underlie a question of the pre-colonial Filipino’s sexuality which desires to break free from the “domestication” of colonization.

The discourse to be presented will be to do an appraisal of pre-colonial culture and their treatment of sexuality during those times. Having done so, we try to analyse the role of a prostitute with regards to her trade, the society wherein she moves in, and the motives by which she was driven to enter such a profession. We also look at how prostitution was treated back then, as well as the implications of their presence in the society they move in, in light of the dominant Hispano-Catholic culture. In the end, summing up all of the points of discussion then we conclude with an inference of how these still reflect in the modern Philippine society.

A Problematic Intercourse of Culture

To begin with, a study on a sensitive topic such as prostitution would warrant a look into the views that people actually possess of their sexuality. To say that a particular act is an act of prostitution would mean that somebody is committing a grave immorality, something that would not be welcome to a particular society. This is why it is not surprising that the first Spanish colonizers led by Ferdinand Magellan, more so the Italian chronicler Antonio Pigafetta, would have a field day in describing sexual practices that would be deemed bizarre by their Middle Age scruples (and even ours today), though this might actually be questionable: “The males, large and small, have their penis pierced from one side to the other near the head, with a gold or tin bolt as large as a goose quill. In both ends pf the same bolt, some have what resembles a spur, which points upon the ends; others are like the end of a cart nail… The bolt and the spurs always hold firm. They say that their women wish it so, and that if they did otherwise they would not have communication with them. (Pigafetta 1521, 66-67).”

The behavior of pre-colonial Filipinos with regards to their sexuality, it must be admitted, is not limited to the purpose of procreation. Sex is likely viewed by our ancestors as a manner of expressing themselves in a relationship with the person they are performing the act with, as well as an act wherein they gain pleasure. In much more controlled environments like those of Christian Europe, this is most likely deemed an aberration of character, a horrifying sin even. (2). It is no wonder, then, that accounts of Filipinos’ voracious carnal appetite would pepper accounts of friars such as the notorious Fray Gaspar de San Agustin who wrote a letter in 1698 about Filipinos, praising the chastity of Tagalog and Pampango women but would say that “Visayan women… are ready for everything and are not so fastidious. On the contrary, they are very ready to consent to any temptation.” (3). Almost a couple of centuries later, W.E. Retana, formerly an anti-Filipino journalist who eventually became Jose Rizal’s first biographer, would get into trouble with the Filipino colony (and Rizal himself) due in part to declaring Filipinas “of easy nature and by nature depraved.” (Ocampo-BB 1995, 81).

Such statements of savage and loose behavior, being seen from the point of view of the Spanish colonizers, do not likely do justice to our ancestors more so they are written with a prevailing superiority complex. In his annotations of Dr. Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, Jose Rizal, despite his quite biased historical scholarship, nevertheless puts in context the beliefs and points of view by which our ancestors believed they should act and behave with regards to the function of reproduction. When Morga decried the seeming absence of continence with regards to sex among our ancestors, Rizal rebuffed him

Because they saw nothing sinful in the act of the reproduction of the species. The ancient peoples, like many other peoples, did not see in it more than a natural instinct which has to be satisfied. The same Mosaic religion did not prohibit it except adultery. Only Christianity made the act a mortal sin, because (perhaps agreeing with the agnostics) it saw everything carnal as corrupt, bad, like something from the devil… Between prostitution, however, and Cenobite anti-naturalism, gloomy and barren, there is a middle ground: Obedience to natural laws without adultering them or frustrating the purposes that all things have. (Rizal-Morga 1962, 289, fn. 1).

These aforementioned debates and debunking of beliefs, bordering on accusations of myopia from both sides, is something which, if viewed with hindsight, something which they cannot be blamed for. It is only in the last three decades that an analysis of the dialectics between the cultures of the East and the West has been inaugurated by philosopher Edward Said: “as much as the West itself, the Orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought, imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in and for the West. The two geographical entities thus support and to an extent reflect each other.” (Said 1978, 5). Without examining orientalism as a discourse, one cannot possibly understand the enormous discipline by which European culture established itself by placing the Orient as a somewhat underground image. Misunderstandings between contact of culture between the East and the West, precisely because of their locations and distance, were driven to be curious and, eventually, suspicious of each other. This mutual distrust (despite claims to friendship and paternal protection of three centuries) will manifest itself in the criminal sectors of Philippine colonial society, which involves the sector of sexuality suppressed most by the Roman Catholic Church; prostitution.

Inspecting the Meathouse

To begin with, prostitutes are persons who engage in any kind of sexual activity in exchange for any form of income. Like in most cultures, it is females who are the ones most likely to engage in this trade or ‘work,’ though there are indeed isolated cases of male prostitutes. (4). Contrary to our stereotypes of a very pious population, the deemed crime of prostitution is actually very much rampant and active despite voiced-out condemnations from religious Orders. Various factors are present which could make a woman choose to become a prostitute, the most general one being economic (Camagay 1995, 108). Since many rural areas, then as now, are impoverished and poorly developed, many women from the province are attracted to work in the cities where in the end they end up being criadas or maids of a house where, nevertheless, the pay wasn’t that much (51). Sometimes they were turned over to brothels by the mistress of the house (114). Another more despicable means is when “a woman was seduced and persuaded to elope with a man who had not the slightest intention of honoring his promise to marry her, but who took her instead to a brothel. These men were known to be the pimps or brothel keepers, ‘recruiting’ women with their caressing yet deceptive tongues.” (Bankoff 1996, 41). The very term by which they were referred to, mujeres publicas, which literally means “public women” (and in a way resonates to an old euphemism used in Tagalog provinces, “asawa ng bayan”), shows the acknowledgment of their presence by the societies they move around. They do, however, need protection of “minders,” sometimes public officials, and they themselves have to be “street-wise” in order to avoid occasional incarceration. (42).

Besides their means of procurement, they were also subdivided into four categories depending on how they managed their work (Camagay 1995, 109-110):

1. A prostitute is kept in a prostitute house under the supervision of an ama (mistress) or amo (master).
2. A prostitute who managed by posting themselves in certain streets ready to offer their services.
3. A prostitute who managed their trade by going to the house of their client. This is especially made for the Chinese males of the society.
4. A prostitute who managed their trade inside of their own homes. These women catered to men belonging in the higher bracket of society.

Those in the first category are most likely women who were seduced by the pimps, by promising them better pay or better lifestyle through marriage. Denizens in the three remaining categories, however, suggest that they are women who were willing (or are forced to by circumstances) to become prostitutes for their own gain or for the livelihood of their family.

Unnerving as it may sound, the prostitutes undergo a quite vicious cycle which relatively ensures their permanent association with the flesh trade. After having been recruited or deceived and serving as a prostitute while doing other side jobs, she might be able to gain well-paying clients which will allow her to become a “professional” getting her living solely out of offering “services.” (Bankoff 1996, 42). Should she eventually retire, she can be part of the recruitment and training of new prostitutes, usually making her daughters engage in the same job or by means of referral, usually from the same province where she came from. In a way, the retired whore can still live off the rearing, “maintenance” and deposits of the younger prostitutes (43).

It must be noted, however, that not merely Filipinas were participants in this form of white slavery. Japanese scholar Motoe Terami-Wada gives us a quite vivid portrait of the Manila Japanese community’s complicity in prostitution, albeit during the tail-end of the Philippine Revolution. One Muraoka Iheji, an entrepreneurial “pimp” whose activities go far back since 1885 in Hong Kong, opened up a store and a restaurant, both in his name, as fronts for prostitution activities in 1900. Starting out with fifteen women (including his wife), the area eventually bloomed and by 1903 the Japanese Consulate in Manila would state that there are about 280 “barmaids” reportedly present (Terami-Wada 1986, 292-295), despite their earlier denials. Wada also noted that as early as December 1898, there were actually already houses of “ill fame” in “Kari Karieta” (possibly Calle Carriedo) which serves various personages. Confirmation came through reports of an American soldier’s arrest in such establishments and the experience of a certain Hirayama, notably a volunteer in General Emilio Aguinaldo’s revolutionary forces who usually hid in the brothels to avoid American authorities (296-297).

The Impetus of La Gota

It appears, in light of the aforementioned data, that prostitutes weren’t given much concern by the government despite the condemnation of the then highly-influential Catholic Church. (5). Only when there were occasional breakouts of venereal diseases were visible measures enforced, and they were not even deemed problematic. For one, “prostitutes were not being ostracized” during the time suggesting that they didn’t carry any kind of social stigma if they were labeled as prostitutes (Camagay 1995, 106). In addition to this, government policy over prostitution was quite ambivalent too (Bankoff 1996, 44). However, in the turn of the 19th century, local authorities imposed punitive measures against prostitutes in order to combat the spread of venereal diseases (Camagay 1995, 99). The measures against the spread of the disease include incarceration, deportation, and, wildly, marriage.

Incarceration of a prostitute lasted for 10, 15, and 30 days (101). Most of these prostitutes served their sentences in the Carcel de Bilibid. Usually, they would serve their term by doing hard labor appropriate for women. Upon finishing their sentence, the authorities of the prison would certify these women that they have successfully served their term. Yet instead of reforming them, incarceration created another place in order for them to practice their trade. Sometimes, the women would return to the prison during the Thursday and Sunday visiting hours, pretending to be relatives of the remaining detainees in order to get in the prison and “peddle their goods” once again (1988, 243).

Deportation was then considered the most severe punishment a prostitute could receive, such that even while wary of the activities of their daughters, the fathers and mothers of such whores would “spare no effort to prevent the daughter from being deported to Davao or Balabac.” (244). In a way, it suggests that the local authorities didn’t have an accurate consensus of who were the prostitutes back then and therefore only suspected who and who weren’t guilty. With such familial involvement, a means was created to supposedly circumvent the increase of prostitutes: marriage. The offer of marriage apparently served to circumvent or avert the deportation of a prostitute, since it was then perceived as another means of reforming them. There are numerous cases of such aversions since 1849, though there were also instances that such proposals came when the suspect was already serving the term, or even those who chose to join their “beloved” in exile (245-247). Nevertheless, it raises questions as to why there were men who would choose to marry women accused of prostitution when Catholic regulation (and probably, perception) would say otherwise. It seems, in a way, that there is no stigma involved with accusations of prostitutions with the working classes of colonial Philippines.

However, several factors convinced the authorities that regulation was more productive than futile attempts at proscription (Bankoff 1996, 44). One of these is still the spread of venereal disease cases that later created the Bureau of Public Health. At this point, punishment of a prostitute was minimal because of the consensus and licensing made by the bureau, publicly acknowledging that the “… Bureau of Public Health instituted the licensing of prostitutes in Manila… [it] did not only facilitate a census of prostitutes but more significantly, it checked the spread of syphilis in the city… licensed prostitutes were required to undergo examination twice a week…[italics ours]." (Camagay 1995, 115). This suggests that the government has allowed prostitutes to be, still, prostitutes only that they abide by taking an examination of syphilis. But aside from this, they were sexually ‘free’ to do it. Bankoff adds that “the licensing of prostitution was a symptomatic of a process by which pragmatism increasingly replace morality as the guiding principle in administration of justice in the Philippines. (6).

Cultural Checkpoints

By constant interaction, it is with the Chinese immigrants and traders that we share a lot of societal roots with in colonial Manila. However, what really persuaded the Spaniards in integrating the Chinese people within the colony is likely their appetite for labor and production. Quoting from Liao, “The Chinese played an important role in the support of skilled labor, materials, better methods of farming, and manufacturing for the development of the country. They became the backbone of Philippine trade and industry (1964, 19). In a point in time, they were deemed more efficient than our ancestors such that the authorities believe that “without the trade and commerce of the Chinese these dominions could not have existed” (31), further emphasizing their importance and significant contributions.

However, amidst this social inclination towards the Chinese in reliance of labor and the economy, the Spanish still had doubts about them. The Spanish government was especially alarmed with the rapid growth rate of the Chinese during the establishment of the Spanish regime, such that they eventually made it a policy to monitor and control their movements through the establishment of the Parian, close to the Walled City of Intramuros (Tiongson 1973, 22). Filipina prostitutes, interestingly, had a role of calming down the Chinese to prevent them from conducting revolts, which in a way is a worse blockade to commerce than the flesh trade itself. This is another reason why imposing punitive measures had a difficult time in the Spanish regime because prostitution assumed this position (Bankoff 1996, 44). That they would choose Filipinas to intermingle with reflects how close they are in the lower rungs of the social strata dominated by the Peninsular Spaniards (Ocampo-BOC 2001, 105). This implies that they might be receiving low wages (Tiongson 1973, 30-31) not equal to the amount of work they put into it. As such, they can only afford cheap entertainments such as prostitution.

Having brought up earlier in this paper the case of our relatively-free sexuality during the pre-colonial era (Camagay 116), we might then have an idea as to why we have embraced prostitution as a non-problematic means of livelihood. Once more, we note that “sex to the pre-colonial natives clearly entailed much more than the propagation of the species; it was also enjoyed purely in the pursuit of carnal pleasure” (Reyes 2008, 208). Sexual expression seems to be a given that men enjoy much to have sex with the women within their society (and therefore willing to follow their demands), which indicates a somewhat high regard for women. Contrasting this sexual expression in the context of a conservative and scrupulous colonial regime, however, suggests an entirely different picture, leading them to consider our women as “inherently loose.” (7). That Morga would describe our ancestors in somewhat condescending tones illustrate how problematic indeed is our sexuality in their view:

…“The natives of the Islands of the Pintados, especially the women, are very vicious and sensual, and their malevolence has led them to invent lewd (torpe) ways of intercourse between women and men. The men have a custom that they practice from their youth onwards. They make a hole in the miembro viril, close to its head, and pass through it a device that resembles a serpent’s head made of metal or ivory, which is then secured in place by material of the same substance. With this device they have intercourse with a woman, and are unable to withdraw long after coitus, for women are so addicted and fin delight in it despite shedding much blood and receiving other injuries. These devices are called sagras…” (Rizal-Morga 1992, 289-290).

If we will try doing a psychological analysis by hindsight through the collective unconscious according to Carl Jung, women who pursue prostitution (and are likely aware of the colonial past despite hundreds of years of suppression) are likely to willingly show this particular behavior. (8). Since earlier in our pre-colonial life we were sexually active in pursuing our desires then it is ingrained in our subconscious mind of what we were before. This is better commented on by the eminent Philippinologist Ferdinand Blumentritt who, in reproduction, stated that “…[v]irginity is not a virtue, for the girls easily give themselves up to any of their lovers, and only a small number of them are still virgin when they are brought before the altar for marriage. This may still be blamed on the time when there were still pagans and when virginity was not prized… Prostitution is present. [italics ours]." (Reyes 2008, 201).

If So, What’s New with Us Then?

Looking at how our pre-colonial culture practices a free mode of sexuality, we find that virginity is not given importance because it is deemed relative to a society which, though definitely pagan, is not necessarily to be considered heathen due to their views on the goodness of fertility and primacy of development. Such ideas, being deemed immoral and unworthy of Christian values, morals and lifestyle drove, the Spanish colonizers to habituate us in a belief of consistent sexual repression, therefore resulting in a Filipino woman to be more innocent, chaste, and having great esteem for herself. (9). However, this isn’t that much true in the colonial Philippines because of prostitution and prostitution itself didn’t carry a social stigma during the time (Bankoff 1996, 43). This means that people do not see prostitutes, who commit adultery and pornography most of their time, as a set of people who must be sanctioned but as a normal set of people just living their daily lives. Prostitution, as the norms of society would show base from evidence, was to be tolerated but should be regulated. Therefore, Christianity hasn’t fully been inculcated in the culture of the Filipinos because they still have their primitive sexual life within them and that is why prostitutes weren’t given a social stigma.

It might be probably an exaggeration, but it appears that we as a people seems to haven’t been in terms with our notions of sexuality and, as such, are not able to understand the context by which our ancestors come from. True, the majority of Filipinos’ scruples and Catholic upbringing seems to have a love-hate relationship with our mixed culture due to our desire to find our true identity as Filipinos, sons of this long-fragmented country, and yet cannot depart from the indoctrinations that more than four hundred years of foreign intervention has impressed on us. As such, we cannot understand how, as gleaned from experiences with issues regarding sexuality, we abhor prostitution and other “indecencies” yet in our consciousness we actually desire to know more about them.

Michel Foucault, in recognizing this dilemma, seems to offer a challenging solution:

… [W]e must not refer a history of sexuality to the agency of sex; but rather show how “sex” is historically subordinate to sexuality… It is the agency of sex that we must break away from, if we aim – through a tactical reversal of the various mechanisms of sexuality – to counter the grips of power with the claims of bodies, pleasure and knowledges, in their multiplicity and their possibility of resistance. The rallying point of the counterattack against the deployment of sexuality ought not to be sex-desire, but bodies and pleasure. (Foucault 1990, 157).

Considering prostitution as a crime and a menace to society is inevitably tied up with the logic and understanding of the colonizing Western culture. To comprehend through Oriental point of view (that is, the perspective of our ancestors) the significance of prostitution in Philippine society, we must look at the phenomenon of prostitution as an offshoot of our culture of sexual freedom, albeit a twisted means of resistance against the prevailing puritanical hegemony. If we are to consider our colonization as instrumental in fabricating our present Filipino culture, some might deem it right that we consign this “orgasmic” period of our history in the shadows, as it is a “shameful” spot in our national family tree. However, doing so blindly will also indicate our inability to come to terms with an aspect of the past we seek and wish to glorify. Doing so, we will be unable to use it to chart our future. Prostitution is a recorded and persisting part of Filipino life then until now, and the exploitative nature of the trade obscures the call for the liberation of sexuality. How we will deal with it is a reflection of the changing perspectives we have as a people, as a community, and as a nation.

Endnotes:
  1. The Ayala Museum has exhibited recently various excavations of gold ornaments made by pre-colonial Filipinos and implements made of porcelain and precious stones from China and differing countries from Southeast Asia. (Ayala Museum, “Exhibitions - Gold of Ancestors,” and “Exhibitions – A Millennium of Contact,” , accessed 20 May 2009).
  2. Such a belief will be echoed centuries later by philosopher Michel Foucault when, in making a differentiation between scientia sexualis and ars erotica, he would criticize the controlling power of the pastoral as a means of habituating the body, stifling it into “docile bodies” which reduces sex as a tool of production, stifling the body’s means of expression. As an illustration of this, he writes: “Up to the end of the eighteenth century, three major explicit codes – apart from the customary regularities and constraints of opinion – governed sexual practices: canonical law, the Christian pastoral, and the civil law. They determined, each in its own way, the division between licit and illicit. They were all centered on matrimonial relations: the marital obligation, the ability to fulfil it, the manner in which one complied with it, the requirements and violences that accompanied it, the useless or unwarranted caresses for which it was a pretext, its fecundity or the way one went about making it sterile, the moments when one demanded it (dangerous periods of pregnancy or breast-feeding, forbidden times of Lent or abstinence), its frequency or infrequency, and so on.” (Foucault 1990, 31).
  3. Blair and Robertson Vol. 40, 254.
  4. Camagay 1995, Appendix F, 184 & 186. In the records of prostitutes during the years 1862-1879 from the Philippine National Archives, a pescador (fisherman) named Faustino Nicolas, unmarried at 35 years of age, was the sole male prostitute.
  5. As an added note to this phenomenon, the Marquis de Ayerbe would write that “[t]ambien huyeron unas cuatrocientas mujeres de mal vivir que quedaron abandonadas por la marcha del ejercito ingles (also, about four hundred women of ill-repute were forced to flee Manila after they were abandoned by the English Army),” suggesting that the English invaders were procuring prostitutes for their own relaxation after the fall of Manila. (Joaquin de Urries 1897, 130).
  6. As early as 1591, then-Governor General Gomez Perez Dasmarinas has acknowledged and informed his lower officials within Manila that most of the indios were supposedly “addicted to theft and licentiousness, and the women were ready to sell their persons.” As such, it might be, to the consternation of the Orders and to the insult and detriment of the native Filipinos, that prostitution was propagated within the colonized settlements. (Blair and Robertson, Vol. 8, 81).
  7. It is not an isolated case. Up to today, many still have misconceptions with regards to the purpose of the Vedic Kama Sutra of India, thinking of perversions when in fact it was made for the maintenance of a lawful relationship.
  8. “Carl Jung.” Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia. (accessed 24 May 2009).
  9. It is no accident, it seems, that in recognizing the free sexuality of the pre-colonial Filipinos one would recall to mind our supposed epitome of Filipina virginity: Jose Rizal’s Maria Clara from the Noli Me Tangere. However, her somewhat aberrant and highly-repressed (and therefore sexually-tense) behavior at the mention of her beloved puts this idea to doubt, affirming our thesis on repression breeding more deviant behavior like prostitution.

Bibliography:

Agoncillo, Teodoro A. History of the Filipino People. 8th ed. Quezon City: GaroTech, 1990.

Ayala Museum, “Exhibitions - Gold of Ancestors,” (accessed 20 May 2009).

____________, “Exhibitions – A Millennium of Contact,” (accessed 20 May 2009).

Bankoff, Greg. Crime, Society, and the State in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 1996.

Blair, Emma Helen and James Alexander Robertson. The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803. With historical introduction and additional notes by Edward Gaylord Bourne. Cleveland, Ohio: A.H. Clark, 1903-09. 55 vols.: ill., maps, ports

Camagay, Ma. Luisa T. “Prostitution in Manila during the 19th Century”, in Philippine Studies Volume 36, Third Quarter. Ateneo de Manila University: 1988, pp. 241-255. (cited as Camagay 1988)

___________________. Working Women of Manila in the 19th Century. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press andthe University Center for Women’s Studies, 1995. (cited as Camagay 1995)

“Carl Jung.” Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia. (accessed 24 May 2009).

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. New York: Vintage/Random House, 1990.

Joaquin, Nick. Culture and History. Pasig: Anvil, 2004.

Joaquin de Urries, Pedro, marqués de Ayerbe. Sitio y conquista de Manila por los Ingleses en 1762. Zaragoza, 1897.

Liao, Shubert, Ph. D. "How the Chinese Lived in the Philippines from 1570-1898" in Chinese Participation in Philippine Culture and Economy. Shubert Liao, Ph. D., ed. Makati City: The Ford Foundation, 1964.

Morga, Antonio de. Historical Events of the Philippine Islands, Published in Mexico in 1609 recently brought into light and Annotated by Jose Rizal. Preceded by a Prologue by Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt. Manila: Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission, 1962. (cited as Rizal-Morga 1992)

Pigafetta, Antonio. “Pigafetta’s Account, 1521” in The Philippines at the Spanish Contact. F. Landa Jocano, ed. Quezon City: R.P. Garcia, 1975. (cited as Pigafetta 1521)

Ocampo, Ambeth R. Bonifacio’s Bolo. Pasig: Anvil, 1995. (cited as Ocampo-BB 1995)

________________. Bones of Contention: The Bonifacio Lectures. Pasig: Anvil, 2001. (cited as Ocampo-BOC 2001).

Reyes, Raquel. Love, Passion and Patriotism: Sexuality and the Philippine Propaganda Movement, 1882-1892. Singapore: NUSP, 2008.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978.

Terami-Wada, Motoe. "Karayuki-San of Manila: 1890-1920," in Philippine Studies Volume 34, Third Quarter. Ateneo de Manila University: 1986, pp. 287-316.

Tiongson, Corazon R. and Boy Scout of the Philippines. Two Minority Groups in the Philippine Society: A study on ethnic relations. Manila: Committee on National Solidarity, 1973. (cited as Tiongson 1973).



Creative Commons License
NOT SO DEMURE: Philippine Prostitution in the Spanish Colonial Era in Light of Pre-Colonial Notions of Sexuality by Jon Andre Vergara and Hansley Juliano is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Philippines License.
Based on a work at kalisnglawin.blogspot.com.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Kaibigang Pandong


The Assassination of Governor Bustamante and His Son, Felix Ressurrecion Hidalgo


Ilang ulit ko nang hinanap ang iyong libingan
Nguni't hindi kita matutunang matunton.
Mahirap unawain ang mapait na katotohanang
Sinuklian ang katuwiran ng pagkabuhong.

Mapait isiping kung paanong ang katarungan
Ay napasasailalim sa kasamaan ng kaluluwa,
At paanong ang relihiyon ay ininis at sinisikaran
Ng mga mismong ministrong walang-wawa.

Tunay nga marahil na isang malaking parikala
Na ikaw, Kamahalang Kinatawan ng Hari,
Ay ipagkanulo't paslangin ng iyong mga kauri
At itangis ng mga indiong ni hindi mo kilala.

Kahimanawaring mabuti nga na ang aming nuno
Napagalaw ng mga musa ang mabunying kamay,
Upang ipaalala sa lahat sa aming mga nabubuhay
Na martir ka ng Simbahang kubkob ng diyablo.

Hindi mo man kami dinulutan ng ilaw ng paglaya,
Kami nama'y tinuruan mo ng sinag ng reporma;
Sa iyo ay magsimula ang sanrekwang pagdurusa
Na idinulot sa amin ng mga prayleng walang-hiya.

Na sa katapusan ay pagbuhatan ng isang pagbalikwas,
Na sa mapait na kinsapitan ng Espanya'y magwakas,
At sa bayang ito'y hindi na muling pasasailalim pa
Sa mapait na lason ng isang balintunang Iglesia.


The Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians came out from their convents, each as a body, carrying in their hands crucifixes and shouting, ‘Long Live the Church! Long Live King Felipe V!’… they were joined by people of all classes and proceeded to the Church of San Agustin…

The governor who was roused from his sleep and informed of the arrival of the mob sprang up and ordered the guards to keep back the crowd… He dispatched an order to the fort to discharge artillery at the crowd; but he was so little obeyed that, although they applied a match to two cannons, these where aimed so low that the balls were buried in the middle of the esplanade of the fort.

Without opposition, this multitude arrived at the doors of the palace… As for the soldiers of the guard, some retreated in fear, and others in terror laid down their arms. The mob climbed up by ladders and entered the first hall, the halberdiers not firing the swivel-guns that had been provided, although the governor had commanded them to do so…

{tThe governor} attempted to discharge his gun at a citizen standing near and it missed fore; then the governor drew his saber and wounded the citizen; the latter, and with him all the rest at once attacked the governor. They broke him right arm, and a blow on his head from a saber caused him to fall like one dead.

- Volume 44, The Philippine Islands: Emma Blair and James Robertson

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Sapagka't Si Gary Valenciano (yata) Ang Umawit ng Pambansang Awit Natin


Ginising ako ng umagang ito ng isang malupit, nakakabuwisit at, puwede ba nating sabihin, NAKAKAPAGPAULAN NG NAGBABAGA'T NAKALALASONG PUTANG-INANG headline.

Says plan backed by ‘legal study’


Hindi ko maunawaan kung paano mo sasabihing isang "legal study" ang iyong sinasabi kung hindi mo masabi (isa ka pa Burak Jojobama!) kung saang pambalot ng tinapa (paumanhin sa mga tagagawa ng pambalot ng tinapa at mga tabloid) mo nakuha ang interpretasyon mo ng probisyon ng Saligang-Batas ukol dito. Pinagtatalunan sa isyung ito ang mga probisyong ito:

a. The President and the Vice-President shall be elected by direct vote of the people for a term of six years which shall begin at noon on the thirtieth day of June next following the day of the election and shall end at noon of the same date, six years thereafter. The President shall not be eligible for any re-election. No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall be qualified for election to the same office at any time.

b. No Vice-President shall serve for more than two successive terms. Voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of time shall not be considered as an interruption in the continuity of the service for the full term for which he was elected. (emphasis mine).

- Section 4, Article VII, 1987 Philippine Constitution

Sino ang nagsabing mga "legal luminaries" na pupuwede? Batay sa pagbabanggit ni P. Joaquin Bernas, S.J., Dean Emeritus ng Paaralan ng Abugasya ng Pamantasang Ateneo de Manila, na ang BULUGANG ito (bastos pakinggan oo, pero hindi ko magawang dulutan siya ng kahit kaunting paggalang) ay nagdulot bago siya magbitiw ng isang kartang nagbabanggit na siya ay "nagbitiw" na sa tungkulin. Sa pagbabanggit na ito ng Saligang-Batas, hindi maaaring ituring na pagkaantala ng tungkulin ang pagbibitiw. May mga mangmang na mangangahas sabihing dahil ito'y kabahagi ng Subsection 4.b ay para lamang ito sa mga Bise-Presidente, pero iniiwan ko na ang usaping ito sa mga lumikha mismo ng Saligang-Batas.

Ano nga ba ang aasahan mo sa mga ganitong usapin. ng lehitimasyon at legalidad.. Kung minsan tuloy hindi ko mapigilang tumawang mapait sa sinabi ni Padre Fernandez:

To stamp out a small evil, there are dictated many laws that cause greater evils still: 'corruptissima in republica plurimae leges,' said Tacitus. To prevent one case of fraud, there are provided a million and a half preventive or humiliating regulations, which produce the immediate effect of awakening in the public the desire to elude and mock such regulations. To make a people criminal, there's nothing more needed than to doubt its virtue. Enact a law, not only here, but even in Spain, and you will see how the means of evading it will be sought, and this is for the very reason that the legislators have overlooked the fact that the more an object is hidden, the more a sight of it is desired. Why are rascality and astuteness regarded as great qualities in the Spanish people, when there is no other so noble, so proud, so chivalrous as it? Because our legislators, with the best intentions, have doubted its nobility, wounded its pride, challenged its chivalry! Do you wish to open in Spain a road among the rocks? Then place there an imperative notice forbidding the passage, and the people, in order to protest against the order, will leave the highway to clamber over the rocks. The day on which some legislator in Spain forbids virtue and commands vice, then all will become virtuous!

- Padre Fernandez, The Reign of Greed (El Filibusterismo), Jose Rizal (translated by Charles Derbyshire).

Tilang tamang-tama naman yata ngayon na sa klase namin sa EC 102 sa ilalim ni G. Greg Orara ay pinagsisikapan namin ang pag-uunawa sa pandaigdigang kalakalan. Mga ulit na niyang pinanindigan na dala na rin ng sistemang patron o "bata-bata" na pinalaganap ng bulugang ito ay hindi ka nga magtataka na lalo lamang naipon ang salapi ng bansa na dapat ay umiikot. Kaya nga hindi ko pipigilan ang mga magsasabi ng "NEVER AGAIN!!" Dito mo nakikita kung paanong kahit na mas kahila-hilakbot at kasuklam-suklam ang naging mga kasalanan ni Gloria Arroyo, hindi mo rin masasabing naging mas maayos ang nakaraang mga taon kung natapos niya ang termino niya (salamat at kinahabagan tayo ng ating mga sarili).

Mas lalong tagos rin na sa araw na ito ay pinag-usapan namin sa Hi 165 kay Dr. Ambeth Ocampo ang "unang dayaan sa eleksyon" sa Kapulungan ng Tejeros, na nagwakas sa kamatayan ni Supremo Andres Bonifacio. Bagaman sa usapang ito ay maraming kalokohang usapin (lalo na yaong pinakakalat ng mga bangag na historyador Marxista), isa pa rin itong klasikong usapin ng ating matatawag na sakit ng makasaysayang pagkalimot (historical amnesia).

Hindi natin mapansin-pansin na ilang ulit na tayong kumakanta ng

Isang ngiti mo lang
At ako'y napapaamo
Yakapin mong minsan
Ay muling magbabalik sa'yo
Na walang kalaban-laban...

habang kinakalnatari't pinagmumukhang tanga ng neoliberal demokratikong sistemang ito habang ang dapat naman talaga nating inaawit ay

Walang ibang maasahang Bathala o manunubos,
Kaya ang ating kaligtasa'y nasa ating pagkilos.
Manggagawa, bawiin ang yaman, kaisipa'y palayain.
Ang maso ay ating hawakan, kinabukasa'y pandayin.

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