The Philippine Daily
Inquirer, in its Editorial today, laments:
Why aren’t we as animated with our Independence Day as other countries are with theirs. A strong cause of the rather limp nationalism may be the record of failures of the Philippine nation-state. The first republic of Asia can’t ever seem to get its act together so that more than a century after declaring its independence, the Philippine economy and development remains a relative laggard when compared with its neighbors, which achieved their independence much later.
It is not hard to see why
the present generation of Filipinos doesn’t seem to care much about the Independence
Day celebration of the Philippines.
In the first place, there
was really no independence that took place. The Philippine Declaration of
Independence on June 12, 1898 in the town of Cavite-Viejo, Province of Cavite
made the country a protectorate of the United States. This was the belief
of Apolinario Mabini, who insisted that another proclamation be done in
Malolos, Bulacan.
The Declaration read in
Cavite-Viejo said in part:
And having as witness to the rectitude of our intentions the Supreme Judge of the Universe, and under the protection of the Powerful and Humanitarian Nation, the United State of America, we do hereby proclaim and declare solemnly in the name and by authority of the people of these Philippine Islands, that they are and have the right to be free and independent; that they ceased to have any allegiance to the Crown of Spain; that all political ties between them are and should be completely severed and annulled…
In the second place, the
road to the declaration of independence was filled with blood, sweat, tears and
shame.
On the part of the United
States, it broke its traditional version of Manifest Destiny (a people
not capable of rising to statehood should never be annexed) and acquired
the Philippines as a colony, rather than as a protectorate. The Americans
considered the Filipinos as barbarians; hence, President McKinley could only
say,
"There was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them…."
They did not bother to know
that a number of Filipinos were already attending schools and universities
in the Philippines and in European countries. They did not bother to check
if, after more than 300 years of Spanish colonization, the Filipinos were not
yet Catholics!
Mabini, in his book “The
Philippine Revolution” analyzed this situation and lamented:
Undoubtedly President McKinley destroyed the Spanish tyranny, but, apparently, only in order to replace it with another in the American manner. It is interesting to observe that the Republican Party, led by a Lincoln in its beginnings, freed many millions of slaves in the United States, while, led by a McKinley in its greatest period of vigour and prosperity, it made the United States the absolute owner of many millions of Filipinos. Immortal Washington, speaking of the Constitution of the United States, said that so long as the civic virtues did not wholly vanish among the classes of North-American society, the distribution of powers made in that Constitution would not permit an unjust policy to become permanent. God grant that the Americans do not, forget the father of their country, or defraud his fond hopes!
On the part of the
Philippines, a number of critical incidents continue to haunt the integrity of
the Philippine Independence.
These critical incidents include the following:
- Opposition to the election of Andres Bonifacio as director of the interior of a central government (to replace the Katipunan) on the ground that he was not educationally qualified;
- Andres Bonifacio’s non-recognition of the proceedings of the meeting and actions that threaten the continued existence of the fragile revolutionary movement;
- Arrest, trial and execution of Andres Bonifacio and his brother – which eventually demoralized the revolutionary movement;
- Surrender of the revolutionaries
to the Spanish authorities after receiving payments;
- Lack of plan, guns, competencies
and discipline to fight the Americans;
- Murder of General Luna at the hands of soldiers he had court-martialed for abandoning their posts and disobeying his orders, and
- Rape of Filipinas by Filipino
soldiers.
Mabini summed up the
Philippine Revolution in this way:
[T]he Revolution failed because it was badly led; because its leader won his post by reprehensible rather than meritorious acts; because instead of supporting the men most useful to the people, he made them useless out of jealousy. Identifying the aggrandizement of the people with his own, he judged the worth of men not by their ability, character and patriotism but rather by their degree of friendship and kinship with him; and anxious to secure the readiness of his favorites tosacrifice themselves for him, he was tolerant even of their transgressions. Because he thus neglected the people forsook him; and forsaken by the people, he was bound to fall like a waxen idol melting in the heat of adversity. God grant we do not forget such a terrible lesson, learnt at the cost of untold suffering.
