American Colonial Rule

“immense subterranean” changes

Gramsci’s concept of hegemony

Balibar’s notion of “producing the people”

Glenn May’s Ph.D thesis at Yale

Social Engineering in the Philippines: The Aims, Execution and Impact of

American Colonial Policy

Three types of crucial policies

Preparing the Filipinos to exercise governmental responsibilities

Providing primary education for the masses

Developing the economy

In the end, the policies failed and the American attempts at social engineering

brought about little fundamental change.

Changes in

the way people relate or respond to civic events

rituals and symbols

public consciousnesshow it’s shaped, constructed and transformed

how it shapes and transform events, perceptions, subjectivities

We cannot predict how things will turn out; our hermeneutic/genealogical goal

is more modest.

The Fabrication of a Public Consciousness

Benevolent Assimilation

issued on December 21, 1898

by President McKinley

Alfred W. McCoy“the United States quickly decided that it was not really

interested in making the islands a permanent

possession.”

“the United States established a tutelary colonialism

aimed at preparing the Filipinos for the governance of

an independent nation.”

In 1903, Filipinos held 49% of US colonial appointments and

after 10 years, they held 71%.

In 1920, there were 12, 561 Filipinos employed against 582

Americans.

In 1928, from cabinet ministers down to postal clerks was

manned by Filipinos.

Why did the United States wage a costly and

genocidal war and pacification campaign

against the Filipinos - thereby destroying their

Republic and subverting their

independence - if the intention was to prepare

them for independence?

Americans needed to acquire the Philippines for strategic reasons:

Manila Bay was ideally placed

for commercial and naval access

to the China coast.

However, the color of 6 million

brown Filipinos made them

unacceptable to white Americans

as subjects for assimilation.

Tutelary Colonialism

ultimate goal was the creation of an independent nation-state.

P.W. Preston

Having acquired this territory in pursuit of the status of great nationhood. The

US promptly determined to adhere to its espoused democratic ideal and to

prepare the territory for the independence included the tying of the

Philippines’ economy tightly to that of the US.

Charles Briggs

The establishing of American sovereignty in the Philippines as a guaranty

before the world that the Philippines are for the Filipinos, is by far the most

revolutionary dynamic ever yet introduced into oriental politics. It has released

the pent-up protest of the millions of exploited orientals.

Filipinos ended up thinking that loving America and loving the Philippines

amounted to the same thing.

Bi-nationalism

dual loyalty

The product of the American colonial regime was

not both Filipino and American and indeed was

neither Filipino nor American but rather a remade

identity epitomized.

Imagined National Communities

Benedict Anderson

The immense subterranean shift was brought on by print capitalism and it

meant a radical change in the ordinary person’s experience along three

dimensionsfrom being a member of a large religious community

from being a subject of a lord and a local noble

from living in a time-less life-world to inhibiting one that is historical and

progressive

Print Capitalism is NOT the only route to nationalism.

What makes people a people?

How are individuals nationalized or socialized in the dominant form of

belonging?

Etienne BalibarAll identity is individual but there is no individual identity that is not historical or in

other words, constructed within a field of social values, norms of behavior and

collective symbols. Individuals never identify with one another, nor, however, do they

ever acquire an isolated identity, which is an intrinsically contradictory notion. The real

question is how the dominant reference points of individual identity change over time

and with the changing institutional environment.

The emergence of a new identity that is neither Filipino nor

American is informed by the theoretical points raised by Balibar.

What was achieved culturally by the late nineteenth-century nationalist

struggle that Rizal and Bonifacio inspired?

How was this cultural achievement taken over by American imperialism?

Was it erased, subverted, appropriated, remade?

What were the effects of American colonial rule on Philippine culture, in

particular, on national consciousness?

Under the US, Philippine nationalism evolved through the sponsorship of the

metropolis.

Compared to the Spanish, American rule was benign and enlightened.

Spanish rule produced poets and revolutionaries while American rule produced

orators and lawyers.

A social formation only produces itself as a nation

to the extent that, through a network of apparatuses

and daily practices, the individual is instituted a

homo nationalis from cradle to grave, at the same

time as he or she is instituted as homo economicus,

politicus, religious...

The state plays a vital role in producing the people. The state,

thus, creates its own “imagined community” that Balibar

explicates is that a community which recognized itself in advance

in the institution of the state, which recognizes “its own” in

opposition to the other states and in particular inscribes its

aspirations for within the horizon of the state - by formulating its

aspirations for reform and social revolutions as projects of

transformation of “its national state.”

What happened under American rule was the creation of a new nation-state

that could best further the agenda of the emergent American empire in the

Asia-Pacific region.

The Philippines had to be free and self-governing; as a colony it would be less

useful, if not altogether a liability.

The creation of a new homo nationalis - who would be attached to the so-

called American-style values while remaining Filipino

The task of “producing the people” had been accomplished.

An aspect of this cultural production is the “fabrication” of a new

public consciousness in which “American-style values”

predominated.

Tracing the trajectory of Philippine nationalism in terms of two

related phenomenaGenealogy of the Rizal symbol

The way we have imagined ourself in relation to America and Japan

From Resistance to Hegemony

By the time Rizal came back for the second and

the last time to the Philippines to form the La

Liga Filipina in 1892, he had become the center,

the acknowledged moral and intellectual leader,

of the nationalist struggle against the Spanish

colonial regime.

Rizal’s mythical figure became a

symbolof

resistance

The first commemoration was

held on December 30, 1898,

when General Emilio Aguinaldo,

on behalf of the revolutionary

government at Malolos, Bulacan,

officially declared that day as a

national day of mourning in

solemn observance of the second

anniversary of Rizal’s execution.

“It was 10 o’clock in the forenoon when I arrived in

the pueblo of Lukban. The town was mourning, with

a flag at half mast at each house. I learned later that

it was in commemoration of the anniversary of the

iniquitous and tragic killing of the eminent Doctor

Jose Rizal at the hands of the Spaniards in the

execution ground of Bagumbayan [now Luneta].”

-Antonio Guevarra

It was a stroke of genius, therefore, on the part of

the American regime to have seized the symbol

of Rizal to further their own colonial agenda.

However, during the early years of the new

regime, the American appropriation of Rizal was

resisted.

Campbell Dauncey

-an Englishwoman

-arrived in the Philippines on

27 November 1904

-stayed in the country for

nine months

An Englishwoman in

the Philippines (1906)

“unbiased impression… of

the Philippines as they are” in

the form of letters to family

and friends in England

Her observations of the political situation in the

Philippines facing the crucial first four years

of American colonial rule are quite instructive

of the American “methods” of colonization.

Rizal’s death anniversary had become not only

a public holiday under the new era but also a

Filipino fiesta.

LETTER 7(Iloilo, 31 December 1904)

Mrs. Dauncey characterized the Filipino not only as a fun-loving lazy fellow who

“knocks off what little work he does” to join the merriment of the fiesta, but also

as unhygienic chap who “spits” in the street.

Moreover, her observations subvert the

American propaganda in 1904 that the country

had been pacified and that the Filipino people

have accepted the American rule.

“They are still fighting tooth and nail to get

their own liberty, their own way.”

“On account of this state of affairs, the natives seize on this

anniversary to give relief to some of their patriotic emotions. The

day is a public holiday, they hang out flags and lanterns, and

every Filipino knocks off what little work he does, and crawls

about the streets and spits, and every one of them who is not

carrying some music instrument, is seen taking a cock to or from

a cock-fight; while the women slouch along in gangs with

myriads of children, who else jolt up and down in hired carriages-

and that is the Fiesta.” (51-52)

LETTER 39(Iloilo, 11 August 1905)

Mrs. Dauncey describes the excitement that surround the return visit to Iloilo of

William Howard Taft, the first civil governor (1901-1903) of the Philippines

under the American regime and now revisiting “SecWar” of the United States.

“While the municipal and ecclesiastical dignitaries, etc., were

awaiting the arrival of Secretary Taft, a Government vessel

slowly made her way up the Pasig river filled with the dead and

wounded from the island of Samar. During the stay of the party in

Manila, four native men were brought in from the adjoining

province of Cavite frightfully mutilated because of the pro-

American sympathies.”

-17 January “1906” news item from the Manila Times

LETTER 40It describes in detail the preparations in Iloilo of the arrival of Taft, and contains

perhaps the most revealing passage in Mrs. Dauncey’s quaintly instructive, if

Orientalizing, account of her Philippine sojourn.

native’s excitement over

the coming visit to his

hometown of his hero,

the Filipinos’ “Patron

Saint”, Taft

the portrait of Rizal

hung on a wall in

another native’s kitchen

as “a sort of little

shrine”

How these two seemingly unconnected, if not contradictory,

elements were synthesized in the Filipino mind explains the

secret of the success of American hegemony in the Philippines.

The quintessential example of

the success of the American

hegemony is found at Manuel

Luis Quezon’s autobiography.

“When I realized that [President F.D.

Roosevelt] was big enough to assume

and place the burden of the defense of

my country upon the sacrifice of

heroism of his own people alone, I

swore to myself and to the God of my

ancestors that as long as I lived I

would stand by America regardless of

the consequences to my people and to

myself.”

Throughout his autobiography, Quezon never

misses an opportunity to proclaim his loyalty

to America.

He disparages General Emilio Aguinaldo, his

former commander-in-chief, for urging

General Douglas MacArthur, in a radio

broadcast on 6 February 1942, to surrender to

the Japanese invaders.

Quezon had so completely identified himself and

his country with the United States that he

construes the refusal to fight the Japanese as a

disloyalty not only to the United States but also

to the Philippines.

“I pray that our people may be spread the horrors of

war, but if it comes to us, I shall welcome it for two

reasons: first, that we may show the people of the

United States that we are loyal to them; second, that

you may learn to suffer, and, if needs be, to die.”

-Quezon’s address to the students of University of

the Philippines on Hero’s Day

The Good Fight (1945)by Manuel L. Quezon

Introduction

“The following pages- showing my life as a rebel against, and as

a supporter of, the United States- are more than mere accounts of

my personal experiences. They, in effect, portray the struggle of

the Filipino people in the quest for freedom, first against and then

in support of the great republic of North America.”

The introduction states that…

an “immense subterranean shift” in national

consciousness had taken place

the book is also a story of the suppression of

moral-intellectual leaders such as Rizal and

Bonifacio with the likes of Manuel Luis Quezon

and Sergio Osmeña, his sparring partner

“the fading away of nationalism as the guiding spirit

and paramount value in Filipino politics… begun

when the founding of the Nacionalista party in

1907”

-O.D. Corpuz (1989)

Katherine Mayo

- American journalist

- known for denouncing the

Philippine Declaration of

Independence on racialist

and religious grounds

The Isles of Fear:

The Truth about the

Philippines (1925)

“lacks the detached, tongue-

in-cheek cynicism and ironic

wit of Dauncey’s book”

Katherine Mayo on Rizal Day:

● Rizal Day was invented by Mr. Taft, and thenceforth celebrated throughout

the archipelago.

● No Filipino was thus known to people.

● Mr. Taft, in consultation with the best available advice, decided, therefore,

to pick Jose Rizal.

● The purpose of Rizal Day was “artificially to create” Rizal as “the Filipino

hero”...

● …so that “a much needed ideal might, in time, grow up around that name.”

However, she never clarified a

number of things:

1) Who were those who provided the “best

available advice” to pick out Rizal?

1) Why Rizal?

1) What “much-needed ideal” did Taft wish to

inculcate on his Filipino subjects?

Rizal Day

Dauncy

“to give relief to

some of their

patriotic emotions”

to demonstrate

“against subservience

to America” and

against “General

Wood”

Mayo

3 major readings of Rizal during the

American colonial period (Ileto)

1) American version, first noted by Katherine

Mayo

● promoted “nation-wide hero worship of Rizal . . . to

transfer Filipino adoration away from revolutionary

heroes towards an advocate of pacifist nationalism”

(Ileto 1984, 92)

2) The conservative ilustrados’ view of Rizal

as a

symbol of both opposition of supremacy of

friars and, as Ileto puts it, “evolutionary [as

against revolutionary] change”.

3) “Subversive reading of Rizal”

● it was this “subversive” meaning of that was

commemorated when the second anniversary

of his martyrdom was solemnly observed in

all towns under the control of revolutionary

forces.

● Survives today in some millennial enclaves

(e.g. Mount Banahaw)

“...having died like Christ, Rizal, it was widely

believed, arose from the dead and was hidden in

some sacred mountain or embodied in a person

of unusual powers . . . peasant rebel leaders up to

the 1920s claimed to be Rizal or to be in some

sort of communication with him.”

Doomsday story of the Surigao

Colorum (Mayo)

“War was coming . . . And all would join the Surigao Colorums in a general

onslaught upon the Government. Together they must kill every government

official - every “traitor” who refused to join their army.

Then, after four months of fighting, Dr. Jose Rizal would arrive at the

Barrio Socorro . . . They would celebrate the victory in company with the Holy

Child.

During these festivities a plague would break out and sweep the earth

clear of all who had survived the war yet who had refused to join the Colorum

forces . . . Dr. Jose Rizal would be crowned king . . . Everyone would live

happy forever after without paying taxes and without necessity for work.”

● Colorum sect did attract a huge following among

peasants

● The authorities feared that the colorums would

kill government officials.

● The Philippine Constabulary was sent to destroy

and arrest the leaders, which ended in the

massacre of the sect.

John Schumacher (1991, 117)

The martyred figure of Rizal as well as his radical

critique of Spanish colonialism was “congenial to

Americans” and “fitted perfectly into American

efforts to wean Filipinos from any sense of

gratitude to Spain”.

Development of a Pro-American

modern Filipino consciousness:Two Factors:

•The patronage politics instituted by America’s colonial functionaries

•The colonial curriculum in the educational system

Imperial Collaboration•Explanation of Philippine colonial politics under the American regime as the result of an intricate web of patron-client ties between the local elite.

•“Colonial Democracy” or “Compadre Colonialism”

- the development of Philippine politics down to contemporary times

Colonial Education

•Fostered a complementary ideology of a lasting “special relationship” between the Philippines and the United States

•American colonial education did not deny Philippine nationalism

1.Re-writing Philippine History

•Textbooks represented the Philippine-American War in a way that was complementary to Philippine-American friendship

•Treated the defeat of the 1896 Revolution as if it was the fulfillment of Philippine Nationalism

2. Reverence for both American and Filipino

flags in the Elementary Schools•“Indoctrination of bi-national values”

•“Saluting the Flag”

- When boys and girls salute the flag, they do not merely express their pride that it is a flag honored over the world. They ought to remember that the flag represents the country to which there are duties every hour of their lives. All the time they are receiving blessings from that country, and all the time they have duties to that country.

Philippine Public School Readers: Book Three

The Flags

1.When the Flags are raised or lowered, or when they pass in front of you, stand straight and be very quiet. If you are a boy, take off your hat and hold it near your heart.

2.Never allow the Flags to touch the ground.

3.The Filipino Flag should be at the left of the American Flag or below it.

3. Inculcating the value of Filipino-American

cooperation through school exams•Civics and Social Life tests for high school students contained damning critiques of Philippine society and culture, depicting it as immature and incomplete, but portrayed the Philippine-American relationship as a strong positive influence for progress.

•The test in the book written by two Filipino educators, Conrado Benitez and Ramon S. Tirona

4. Promoting America and her heroes

through music in the classroom•Philippine Progressive Music Series

•Compiled by Norberto Romualdez – Imelda Marcos’ uncle

•The book was printed seven times

•The 1949 edition contains a song dedicated to General Douglas MacArthur “in commemoration of liberation of the Philippines”

5. The lessons from the Colonial curriculum

•“To you, flag of my nation, I offer my life, heart and strength.”

- Lesson about flag reverence (Si Pepe Kag Pilar Nagdu-aw sa Dakbanua)

•Theoretical Implications McCoy does not pursue, is twofold:

1.They were mostly written, compiled and published by Filipinos

2.Their publication dates range from 1937 to 1951.

•Camilo Osias and Conrado Benitez – received their academic training, as pensionados

Two contentious theoretical issues in McCoy’s thesis

on the Rizal symbol and American hegemony1.“Bi-Nationalism” as a dual loyalty - to one’s country as well as to the colonial master – which the Filipino elite harbored both under Spanish rule and American rule.

2.The colonial curriculum during the American regime apparently colonized the minds of only the children of the privileged classes, who as McCoy had noted, remained in school longest.

The Schurman Commission

The Schurman Commission

Dr. Jacob Schurman

President of Cornell University, NY

The Schurman Commission

● Study the conditions in

the Philippines

● Submit a

recommendation to the

US President

● Arrived in 1899

The Schurman Commission

● Gathered as much historical,

ethnographic, geographic, and

other scientific information about

the Philippines

● Completed its mission by January

21, 1990

● Submitted its report to President

McKinley

Schurman Commission’s Recommendation

● Withdrawal of military rule and

establishment of civil

government in places already at

peace with America

● Organization of autonomous

municipal and provincial

governments

● Establishment of a bicameral

legislature (lower house to be

elective; upper house to be half-

elective and half-appointive)

● Appointment of distinguished

Filipinos to important

government offices

Although there is no

mention of it in its

policy and

recommendations, one

of the things the

commission discovered

was Rizal.

Discovery of Rizal

Discovery of Rizal

● Through interviews with Prominent

Filipinos particularly Dr. Trinidad

Pardo de Tavera

Dr. Trinidad Pardo de Tavera

● Medical doctor

● Sanskrit scholar

● Ethnohistorian

● One of the first ilustrados who offered

their services to the Americans as

soon as the Spanish regime collapsed

Dr. Trinidad Pardo de Tavera

● Provided the commission’s first

picture of Rizal

● Provided a capsule biography of Rizal

that included a subtle disparagement

of Bonifacio

Capsule Biography of RIzal

“When Bonifacio asked Rizal if it would be a good plan to start a revolution,

Rizal opposed and said it would not be suitable. He said that what would do the

country the most good would be for the people to devote themselves to the

improvement and education of the people and look for reformation in peaceful

ways. Bonifacio, instead, told the Filipinos that Rizal had advised the

revolution instead of peace. Rizal had nothing to do with the revolution nor

with the Katipunan”

Capsule Biography of Rizal

● When the revolution broke out, Rizal was court-martialed

● Although it had not been proven that he had anything to do with it, he was

still sentenced and shot by the Spaniards as they demanded it

Discovery of Rizal

● Through the works of the

British writer John Foreman

John Foreman

● Long-time resident of the Philippines

● Published ‘The Philippine Islands’ in 1890

● Revised it in 1899 and 1906

Discovery of Rizal

● Through the works of the Spanish

journalist-cum-historian Wenceslao

E. Retana

Wenceslao E. Retana

● Pro-friar journalist

● Antagonist of Rizal and Blumentritt

● Had a change of heart after Spain’s

defeat

● Wrote the first documented full-length

biography of Rizal

Discovery of Rizal

● All 3 writers shared a common view of Rizal as:

– Multitalented

– Liberal

– Reformist intellectual who opposed Bonifacio’s uprising

– Most revered of all Filipino patriots

● American authorities found this most congenial to their

colonial agenda

Luneta

From Pardo de Tavera

The Americans learned about the centrality of Luneta in the Filipino’s

political life. The questions raised by the commission foretell the new

regime’s subsequent use of Luneta as the center of national celebrations

and the site of Rizal’s monument.

Questions Raised

Where was he shot?

● “Bagumbayan”, Luneta

● Rizal showed a great deal of self-

possession

● Spaniards and Spanish ladies

cried “Viva Espana”

Questions Raised

Was there a large crowd present?

● Enormous

● Spanish National Fiesta

● La Marcha de Cadiz

Questions Raised

Was he the only man shot on that

occasion?

● He was the only man shot

● Spaniards demanded that native

soldiers should be the one to

shoot him

Questions Raised

And was that done?

● All executions were done by

Spanish soldiers except that

one of Rizal

Questions Raised

Were executions generally made in

Luneta?

● Always

Questions Raised

Did they make it an occasion of

rejoicing?

● Spanish people went there

believing that it was a just act

● Carrying of justice

Questions Raised

Was it habitual for the ladies and

gentlemen to go to see all these

executions, or only occasionally?

● Yes, in political executions

Effects of Schurman Commission

● The intensive research and observation of the country had had

contrasting effects

● Dr. Schurman and Prof. Dean C. Worcester

Effects of Schurman Commission

● Dr. Schurman returned to the US

● Convert to the cause of the Anti-

Imperialist League

○ John Dewey

○ William James

○ Mark Twain

● All regarded war against the

Filipinos as criminal

Effects of Schurman Commission

● Worcester settled down in the

Philippines

● Became a prominent official of the

colonial government (14 years)

● Ethnographer of various hill tribes

● Successful businessman

● The Philippines: Past and Present

• Richard E. Welch Jr. (1979,118)

• “Schurman, having realized that the Philippine-

American War had become a crucible for

Filipino nationalism, publicly advocated

Philippine independence, declaring that the 3

years of struggle and fighting had produced

among the Filipinos “a people” and “a universal

passion” for immediate independence.”

• However, as Welch observes (117), the scholars and

writers’ opposition to America’s war in the Philippines,

although frequently eloquent and occasionally courageous,

was in the end ineffectual.

• Filipinos were unfit for independence and

required American tutelage in democracy and

good government for a considerable length of

time before they could take care of themselves

• Worcester, “I am firmly convinced that the

Filipinos are where they are today only because

they have been pushed into line, and that if

outside pressure were relaxed they would

steadily and rapidly deteriorate.”

• Taft, the important thing was the

Filipinos’ “welfare”, not their

independence

• To promote this view among the

Filipinos, American Orientalists,

like Worcester of the Schurman

Commission, had to rewrite

Philippine History and reinvent

Rizal.

• Worcester, “American rule

was a total blessing on the

uncivilized Filipinos and

that the longer the

Americans stayed the better

it will be for the Filipinos”

Quezon disagreed

Worcester’s Conclusion

• From annotations of Morga and Rizal

• “Slavery did exist and continues to exist in the Philippines”

Rizal’s Argument

• The type of slavery practiced in Europe and Spain does not

and never did exist in the Philippines, and that it was the

Spanish chroniclers and missionaries who pinned the label

of “slavery” on certain social practices in the Philippines

that they did not fully understand, and which were not

identical to those practiced in Europe.

Quezon’s Rebuttal

• Published in New York Evening Post

• “Since there is not, and there never was, slavery in the

territory inhabited by the Christian Filipinos, which is part

of the Islands subject to the legislative control of the

Assembly, this house has refused to concur in the anti-

slavery bill passed by the Philippine Commission”

Worcester• “Whom will the American public believe, Morga, the

historian; and Rizal, the Filipino patriot, or Quezon, the

Filipino Politician?”

• He had dramatically shown Rizal’s uses for the American

regime:

– To discredit Filipino nationalists who upheld the aims of

the Revolution or advocate independence. Quezon did

not fit into this mold.

Uses of Rizal• Negation of national independence and revolution

• Downgrading of the Spanish colonial heritage and the

affirmation of American institutions and values

Schumacher (1991)

Twofold American Ploy• Laud Rizal’s genius and wisdom

• Present him as in fact an advocate of the very things that the

Americans were instituting or carrying out of the

Philippines.

Completely dissociate Rizal with Bonifacio and the 1896 Revolution

Taft Commission

•Second Philippine Commission

•Established by William McKinley on March 16, 1900

•Legislative and Executive Arm

•William Howard Taft

•Replaced the Military government that controlled Philippines

since August 1899

Americanized Rizal

•Tangible Effect of the American Colonization

•American sponsorship and the enthusiastic Filipino Elite.

Act no. 137

Rizal Province

June 5, 1901

Provinces of Manila and

Morong

Act no. 243

•Rizal Monument at Luneta

•September 28, 1901

•The construction of Rizal Monument

was comprised of wealthy Ilustrados

•$ 15,000

•International Competition

for the design of the Rizal

Monument

•Dr. Kissling

Act no. 893 Act No.

1436

Duty-free entry of all

materials necessary for

construction of the Rizal

monument.

Act no. 345

•December 30 official public

holiday.

•Rizal Day

•February 1, 1902

•Memorandum list by W.H.

Taft

•December 21 1906

•Religious holidays, Fiestas,

and Saint’s day during the

Spanish Era

•Sundays

American Holidays

•February 22

•July 4

•Thanksgiving day

Philippine Legislature

•American Colonial Regime

and the Filipino Elite

•Philippine Assembly later

called the Philippine

Legislature

•1907

Act no. 1892•First Significant Act of the Philippine Legislature passed in

April 19 1910

•“An Act Providing for the Celebration of the Fiftieth

Anniversary of the Birth of Doctor Jose Rizal, and for Other

Purposes”

•Executed by Proclamation No.9

•Governor-General W. Cameron Forbes

•June 19 – official public holiday

Rizal Day of 1912

•December 29 – Trinidad (sister of

Jose Rizal) had the his remains.

•December 30 – Filipino’s paid their

respects to Rizal at the Luneta Park

• – Jose Rizal was

officially announced as the National

Hero of the Philippines.

1. Act No. 2021

enacted on 26 January 1911

- provided for the purchase of the books and other

documents of Rizal, and appropriated funds for

that purpose

- allocated P32,000 for that purpose

2. Act No. 2078

enacted on 9 November 1911

- Appropriated P25,000 for providing public

schools with an adequate biography of Rizal.

A suitably written biography which shall give special attention

to details of his childhood, school life, travels, work etc.

selections from his writings in English that would most likely

interest children

reproductions of his paintings, drawings, carvings, and

modellings

authentic and historically accurate photos of himself and the

people and places notable in his life

3. Act No. 3241

enacted on 27 November 1925

- authorized the secretary of Justice to purchase

the original of Rizal’s El Filibusterismo

- Appropriated P10,000 for this purpose

devotion to God

reverence for elders and parents

cleanliness

honesty

industry and loyalty

obedience to the state and its laws

The colonial regime wanted to inculcate the

following traits and values in Filipino

children:

However...

The promotion of an “official Rizal cult” by the

Philippine Commission and Philippine Legislature

went hand in hand with the obliteration of heroes

who had been branded by the colonial regime as

bandits and criminals (through the Anti-Sedition

Law passed by the Philippine Commission).

Macario Sakay

- Filipino general

- took part in the 1896 Philippine

Revolution against the Spanish Empire

and in the Philippine-American War

- Executed after he surrendered (on

account of a promised amnesty that the

government did not honor)

“The Legislature has taken the admirable step in several

instances of appropriating funds for the construction of

elementary and other permanent school buildings as memorials

to distinguished patriots, typical of which is are the laboratory

building of the University named “Rizal Hall” . . . and the

intermediate school building at Morong in memory of Tomas

Claudio, the First Filipino killed in the [First] World War, a

soldier in the American Expeditionary Forces.”

- Governor Forbes (1:47)

Dying for America now meant

dying for the Philippines as well.

“as long as I lived I would stand by

America regardless of the consequence to

my people and to myself.”

- Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon

By the late 1930s, such professions of loyalty

to America were not regarded as contrary to

being Filipino. Quezon was in truth voicing a

common sentiment among the elite and the

educated segment of the population, a sentiment

that was beginning to rub off the masses as well.

“In the verdicts of the tribunals that tried the collaboration

cases, the men who were declared to have collaborated with

the Japanese were called traitors, as if those who were loyal to

the United States, and fought the guerrilla war so that the

Americans would return, were any less betrayers of their

nation’s integrity. The meaning of the nation had been lost; the

Filipinos could only view themselves in terms of other

countries. Madre Espana was gone, but it was now replaced

by mother America.”

- O.D. Corpuz (1989, 569)

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