Towards A Filipino History: A Festschrift for Zeus Salazar 9789718755099

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Towards a Filipino History: A Festschrift for Zeus Salazar

Bon Jovi Bernardo

Towards A Filipino History: A Festschrift For Zeus Salazar

Portia L. Reyes Editor

Towards a Filipino History A Festschrift for Zeus Salazar Copyright @ 2015 Published by Bahay-Saliksikan ng Kasaysayan/Bagong Kasaysayan, Inc. (BAKAS) ISBN 978-971-8755-09-9 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner or form without the permission of the authors and publishers, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles of reviews.

Editor Portia L. Reyes Book Cover Design Nicole Angela V. Canseco Book Lay-out Eugene P. Crudo

This book is dedicated to my wonder-twins Ami and Sam.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This volume will not be possible without the help of numerous colleagues and friends. Special thanks to the contributors, who have been patient and cooperative throughout the production of this work. We appreciate Suri Sining: The Art Studies Anthology which allowed us to republish Cecilia de la Paz’s essay and Itinerario. International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction which also granted our request to reprint my essay. Mary Jane Rodriguez-Tatel, Atoy Navarro and Vic Villan who are in charge of the festschrift volumes in Filipino have been very reassuring and always ready to assist. In particular, Prof. Navarro provided the impetus and sustained our dedication throughout this project. Kindly Prof. Rodriguez-Tatel edited my Filipino translations of some portions of the volume; while Prof. Villan connected us with personages who helped in its production. We are grateful to Eugene P. Crudo for the skillful lay-out of this festschrift and to Nicole Angela V. Canseco, for its striking cover design. We appreciate Lorenz Lasco and Jimmy Tiongson of the Bahay-Saliksikan ng Kasaysayan/Bagong Kasaysayan, Inc. (BAKAS) as well as Ferdinand Victoria for their prompt and competent assistance at the publication of this volume. Maraming salamat to my husband Jamie Davidson for reading parts of the work; and also to our kids—Ami and Sam—for being patient and understanding of their Nanay. Finally we thank Zeus Salazar for his support and inspiration. Truly he is a giant not only in Philippine historiography, but in the Philippine academy as a whole. We wish you all the best, sir. Mabuhay po kayo!

Possible mistakes that might arise from the editing of this volume are

mine and do not involve the aforementioned names.

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments i Table of Contents ii List of Tables iv List of Maps v List of Pictures vi Celebrating Zeus Salazar 1 Portia Reyes The Role of Language in the Philippines in a

29

Colonial and Postcolonial Context Marlies S. Salazar Amlat and the Kapampangan Historical Tradition

53

(The Case for Upper Pampanga) Lino L. Dizon “The Most Humane of any that could be Adopted” The Philippine Opium Committee Report and the Imagining of the Opium Consumer’s World in Colonial Philippines, 1903-1905 Ferdinand Philip Victoria

ii

88

The Appropriation of Local Culture in Museum Practices:

157

Problems and Possibilities for Philippine Communities Cecilia de la Paz Yearning for Nativeness 179 Wilfried Wagner Eyes on the Prize: Colonial Fantasies, the German Self, and

196

Newspaper Accounts of the 1896 Philippine Revolution Portia Reyes Human Rights Protection for “Naija Pinoys”:

246

Overseas Filipino Workers in Nigeria Saliba James Prominent Minangkabau in Java (Indonesia)

261

during the Japanese Occupation Gusti Asnan About the Contributors 297

iii

LIST OF TABLES Rough Estimate of the Number of Opium Users as Submitted by Presidents of the Provincial Boards of Health and Interviewees, 1903-1904

107

Rough Estimate of the Amounts and Mode of Opium Use as Submitted by Reporting Presidents of the Provincial Boards of Health, 1903-1904

113

Opium Imports to the Philippines per Opium Report, 1899-1903 (Values and duties in US currency)

115

Singapore Opium Exports to the Philippines and Sulu, 1898-1903

118

Profiles of Filipino Respondents in the Opium Report

130

Estimate of the Amounts of Opium Used per Consumer as Submitted by Reporting Presidents of the Provincial Boards of Health in Select Provinces and Towns, 1903-1904

135

Actual, Estimated Opium Revenues and Spanish Budget Projections in Pesos

143

iv

LIST OF MAPS Streets with Known Opium Storehouses in Intramuros, 1903

94

Streets with Known Opium Dens in Binondo District, 1903

99

Street with Known Opium Dens in Santa Cruz/Quiapo District, 1903

102

Residential Places of the Minangkabau People in Java

280

v

LIST OF PHOTOS Zeus Salazar Portrait Frontispiece Dedication of Paul Fejos to Rev. Heinz Wagner

183

Kinder der Wildnis: Filmfreuden und Filmstarallüren mitten im Stillen Ozean

186

Siuban House 187 Siuban Men 187 Siuban Dance 188

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Towards a Filipino History: A Festschrift for Zeus Salazar

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CELEBRATING ZEUS SALAZAR Portia L. Reyes

Dito rin mahuhulo: pagpapalitan Ng sangkaisipan nang walang pangatlo, Saklaw ng ating Loob na parang belo -Z. Salazar, “Doctrina Cristiana,” 19921

In this volume, we celebrate the life and scholarly achievements of Zeus Salazar, the Father of Pantayong Pananaw (for-us-from-us perspective). Salazar has dedicated his life to an intellectual project that has sought to bring a distinctly Filipino mindset to pedagogy, historiography and national history. I was one of his students, and one among many students and staff alike at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman, Quezon City that were attracted to Salazar’s ideas and ideals, not to mention his personal charm. Uncompromisingly, he drilled into his students to be wary of a historical narrative’s perspective and underlining analytical philosophy. He provoked thought on the role and responsibilities of a historian; his incessant refrain was: ‘para kanino?’ (for whom [is this history/is this historian writing]?). Demanding disciplinal rigor, he ensured his students would be ruthless in their examination of source materials used. Specifically, Salazar was at pains to demonstrate what a history of the Philippines without colonialism as the pivot would look like. His enthusiasm for history, historical

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research and teaching was contagious. He remains an inspiration not just among Filipino historians but to scores of researchers on Philippine culture and society. This essay provides a brief retrospective of Salazar as an historian, educator and public intellectual.

Filipino Language and Culture Salazar’s professional career began in 1968 when, fresh from completing graduate school at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, he returned to the Philippines with his young family in tow. As a faculty member of the History Department of UP Diliman, he vigorously tackled the demands of his new post. Among other things he led the charge to transform the pedagogical practice and discourse of history at the university. He railed against the norm of using the English language as the medium of academic exchange and encouraged his students to use the Filipino language (Filipino) in the classroom and in their exam papers and essay assignments. A brief two years after his return from abroad, he published an article entitled “Ang Pagtuturo ng Kasaysayan sa Pilipino” (Teaching History in Pilipino) that introduced his understanding of the intimate interlocation between language and culture. Adopting a Marxist standpoint, he argued that the historical march of Filipino culture is inseparable and inescapable from the struggle between the elite and the masses. He claimed that Maliwanag na ang pagpapalago sa kalinangang Pilipino ay may kaugnayan sa kasalukuyang pagkakasalungat ng mga uring panlipunan at sa pamamalagi mismo sa bansa. Ang “kulturang” kolonyal sa wikang inggles o kastila ng mga mapagsamantalang uri ay kasalungat ng kalinangang bayan, na kasalukuyang nagpapalaya sa sarili.2

Towards a Filipino History: A Festschrift for Zeus Salazar

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For Salazar, the culture (kultura) of the exploitative classes is borrowed and artificial. Neither organic nor truly posssessed, it only extracts from or gnaws at foreign knowledge. The exploitative classes and, specifically, their writings in Spanish or English offer little to enrich the sources of the people’s being (kalinangang bayan).

In fact, society’s upper classes tend to ridicule the

underclasses and their own knowledge for being unschooled and uncouth, a practice which Salazar deplores. He writes, ang pagpapayabong sa kalinangang Pilipino sa Pilipino ay isang napakamakabuluhang bahagi ng pakikibaka para sa isang pambansang kaayusang bunga ng (at batay sa) mapagpabagong pagpapasiya ng mga uring bayan. Isang gawaing napakamahalaga, sapagkat tumitiyak at nagbibigaykatuturan sa kakanyahang Pilipino, humuhubog, nagbubuo’t nagbibigay-saklaw sa tanaw, isip at damdaming bayan: ang tunay na kalinangan.3

The domination of a foreign language in schools, for Salazar, has led to the estrangement of the formally educated from most of her countrywomen. Academic work in a foreign language aims to address foreigners, while treating Filipinos as mere subjects of study and inquiry. In Salazar’s terms, they propagate

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a pangkaming (for-us) perspective, which exposes the pagkaiba (otherness) of the Filipino vis-à-vis other peoples and cultures. Unwittingly or not, knowledge becomes relevant to a foreign or foreign-educated audience but distant and even harmful to those, who are under the scholarly gaze, for they are considered different, exotic, odd or even abhorrent. Salazar was writing and espousing these ideas at a time when a liberation struggle overwhelmed UP Diliman and the country more broadly. In protest against the repressiveness of the Ferdinand Marcos regime, intellectuals collectively mounted what came to be known as “The First Quarter Storm” and the celebrated “Diliman Commune.”4 The regime clamped down on the protesters, jailing and/or torturing numerous left-leaning staff members and students. This included Salazar, who was interred from 1971 to 1973.5 Salazar’s experience of detention weighed on him and his family profoundly, whose lives were upended amid getting accustomized to their non-European surroundings. Upon release, Salazar returned to teaching and writing. He continued to hone his ideas on the intimacy between language and culture, insistent that local academics should accept, study, understand and privilege the Filipino language. According to Salazar, if a Filipino uses Filipino, she or he will be forced to think and process the world in her or his own language and in its own terms. Language is the center piece of an individual, his or her culture and society. Illustratively, Salazar notes that wika ang natatanging paraan upang matutuhan ng isang tao ang kulturang kinabibilangan niya at kahit na iyong hindi taal sa kanya. Habang nasasanay ang bata sa wika ng kanyang ka-kultura, unti-unti siyang nahuhubog sa isip, gawi, damdamin at karanasan ng mga ito—mula sa mga pinakasimpleng kanta sa sanggol at bugtong hanggang sa mga kataas-taasang katha’t likha ng diwa at kaluluwa sa

Towards a Filipino History: A Festschrift for Zeus Salazar

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sining, agham at literatura.6

As both a repository and source of culture, language changes and adapts to the needs and requirements of its speakers over time. Every speaker, in this regard, contributes to the development of her or his own language. Even a bilingual or a polyglot speaker, Salazar claims, enriches Filipino, since he serves as a means to the understanding of other peoples and cultures in the national language. In the discourse on the national language and culture Salazar found a like-minded scholar and an ally in the late Virgilio Enriquez, the father of Sikolohiyang Pilipino (SP/Filipino Psychology).7 As a psychology brought about by Filipino experiences, ideas and orientation,8 SP paved the way towards the indigenization of the theory, method and practice of psychology. To realize SP, Enriquez urged psychologists and interested social scientists to 1) appropriate untried and unproven theories which could be meaningful to Filipino life and society; 2) avoid blindly following any developments in psychology abroad; 3) communicate with and recognize other psychologists in different portions of the Philippines; and 4) enrich one’s trust and respect of his abilities to analyze data and information toward meaningful theories on Filipino society and culture.9 For Enriquez the fundamental basis of SP is the sincere appreciation of Filipino language, culture and perspective.10 His evaluation of the Filipino language in SP found a parallel in Salazar’s, who claims

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Ano ba ang magiging pamamaraan ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino upang mapag-aralan ang sariling mga katangian bilang grupong sosyo-kultural? Pundamental dito ang wika sapagkat kahit na ang mga tradisyong sosyal, pangrelihiyon at ano pa man ay nakasalalay sa wika. Lalo nang dapat pagukulan ng pansin ang paksang ito sapagkat maraming mga katangian ang inilapat sa Pilipino mula pa nang madiskubre ng mga banyaga ang Pilipino.11

Together with Enriquez and other colleagues, Salazar participated in the SP discourse and contributed in enriching and propagating some of its tenets. SP became a particular school of thought that advocated (and still advances) social scientific inquiry in the Filipino language. In SP meanings are distinguished through a careful consideration of the development of language as a process in Filipino culture and history where the researcher and her/his discipline are also integrated.12 SP treats Filipino culture as a source and motivation to research; it does not treat Filipinos as targets or subjects for foreign hypotheses and experimentation. For Salazar, the Filipino intellectual, trained and practicing his profession in English in both the private and public contexts, is lost to her own people. The language that she privileges contributes to her isolation, or even entrapment, in the toreng garing (ivory tower). According to Salazar, every people, just like every individual, is rooted in their own language; their memory and understanding are processed in their own language. An intellectual, who solely thinks in and works with a foreign language, not only becomes estranged

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from her own language and culture, but remains distant from the ills inflicting his society and indifferent to their cures. She is a ‘useless intellectual,’ one alienated from her own culture.13 Salazar notes that the historian, whose preoccupation is “to determine historical data upon which he can write history,”14 could easily be carried away in his pursuit to provide a rigorous account of what has really happened. For instance, in an effort to extract data from a document, he is confronted with an idea (or ideas), encoded as socio-linguistic symbols in the written source. He plunges into the symbolic world of the document, hoping it would be a fragment that lights up an heretofore ambiguous picture of the past. Yet, for Salazar, this is a one-sided picture of what a historian is trained to do or who he is. The historian is also a living person, breathing amid his times. He “belongs to his people, by conscious choice or through the simple operation of socio-cultural laws, his yearning for (and occassional attainment of) universality notwithstanding.”15 The Filipino historian needs to work with and/or rebel against his country’s intellectual tradition—from the formulation of his research problem through his struggle with the sources to his determination and use of historical data, because his primary audience is his countrymen, “just as the context of his comprehensibility can only be his country’s intellectual-cultural tradition.”16 In 1974 Salazar joined other UP historians to collaborate on Marcos’s project to compose a series of history books on the Philippines.17 In the midst of his controversial involvement with this project, Salazar expressed concerns over the attempts to fit foreign theories (progressive, communist, liberal, or otherwise) in plotting the linearity of Philippine history.18 While he largely persuaded his fellow historians on the project, he failed to convince its financier, Marcos, to write the books in Filipino. Salazar’s participation in the project allowed him

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to conduct research, to travel abroad and to contribute to the production of scholarly tomes. But it also put a stain on his reputation for having collaborated with the notorious regime. Salazar left the project in 1979, almost five years after his services were commissioned.

Kasaysayan: Significance in History Salazar took a leave of absence from UP and for five years, starting in the summer of 1980, held the directorship of one of the departments at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. His tenure did not require him to live in the city, however. As such he was able to accept research fellowships with the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) that allowed him to be based at the University of Cologne.19 He and his family then spent the next five years in Germany—his wife is German—where he continued to write on Philippine history and culture. While at Cologne he helped to establish Bahay-Saliksikan sa Kasaysayan (BAKAS), a history discussion group which became the publishing arm of Bagong Kasaysayan (new history) that Salazar later pioneered in the Philippines. His article, “A Legacy of the Propaganda: the Tripartite View of Philippine History,” which laid out what he deems as the Filipino concept of history and historicity, was also during this time. For an English language reading audience, he writes: our word for “history” in Tagalog does not refer to knowledge, to the search for information or to what happened in the past as such. Kasaysayan comes from saysay which means both “to relate in detail, to explain,” and “value, worth, significance.” In one sense, therefore, Kasaysayan is “story” (like the German Geschichte or another Tagalog term salaysay, which is probably simply an extended form of saysay). But Kasaysayan is also “explanation,” “significance,” or “relevance” (may saysay “significant, relevant”; walang saysay or walang kasaysayan, meaning “irrelevant, senseless”).20

Towards a Filipino History: A Festschrift for Zeus Salazar

Salazar claims that kasaysayan—the

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historical sentiment behind

myths, legends and rituals of the inhabitants of the Philippines—see history as cyclical. Yet this understanding of historical time was undermined in the sixteenth century by the Spaniards, who in their chronicles (cronica, historia), categorized the lives and actions of the island’s peoples through the mindset of a foreign historical consciousness. Inherently linear, the latter saw the archipelago and its peoples at a stage where its people would be the grateful recipients of the benevolent actions and practices of the Spanish colonizers. Their chronicles and histories of the Philippines featured themselves as saviours and/or agents of change among a pagan population. In the nineteenth century this form of historical consciousness was inculcated by a group of educated Filipinos (ilustrados) who used the Spanish frame of reference in their intellectual campaign, known as the Propaganda Movement, for colonial reforms. To counter Spanish vilification of Filipinos in prevailing narratives, such ilustrados as Jose Rizal, Graciano Lopez-Jaena and Marcelo del Pilar introduced a new perspective and utilized what Salazar would later coin as the metaphor of light-darkness-light (hence tripartite) view of Philippine history. According to this standpoint, before the Spaniards, ancient civilizations thrived and people prospered. Then came the Spanish clerics, who extinguished this “light” and brought about a period of “darkness” (or a social cancer, according to Rizal; monastic supremacy, for del Pilar; or friarocracy, to Jaena). It follows, hence, that the friars’ expulsion would resurrect a period of light and prosperity. In two critical ways, however, the ilustrado tripartite view of history remained rooted in European judgement, form and historiography. One is the insatiable and iresistable need to prove that one’s peoples have History— that they have great men and great traditions. The other is that this History hence forms a natural basis from which a Nation emerges. This lineage, Salazar notes,

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was carried forward by subsequent generations of Filipino scholars. In fact, it outlasted the Spanish period, gained considerable ground under American tutelage and has thrived in the country’s post-colonial period.21 In its modern incarnation, the tripartite view remains, but with a twist— it associates the precolonial period with prosperity, denounces the Spanish colonial period and glorifies the American occupation. Americans are equated with the arrival of democracy, equality, and public welfare, including education and hygiene. Here Filipino historians inadvertently associate developments in Philippine history to exogenous factors. According to Salazar, the historians’ entrenchment to this historiography needs to be further scrutinized, because by attaching the unfolding of our people’s history to the colonial phenomenon and other exogenous factors, our historians and Filipinos in general fail to see that we are responsible for our own history, that there is (or there must be) an internal mechanism for our becoming one people, a particular thrust to our national history. In any case, there is an urgent need for rethinking the periodization of Philippine history.22

Towards a Filipino Historiography Salazar returned to teaching at the University of the Philippines in 1986, henceforth building a reputation for his steadfast conviction on rethinking Philippine history and history-writing and the use of Filipino as the language of historical discourse. Respectful of his achievements in the academy, his cohort named him chairman of the History Department (1989-91), after which he was tabbed dean of the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy (1991-94). Coming after the fall of the Marcos regime and the return of electoral democracy to the Philippines, his tenure as chair and dean saw the resurfacing of left-

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leaning intellectuals to public life at the university. Salazar’s ideas on history and historiography found allies among them. Like Salazar, most preferred to mitigate, if not totally eliminate, the habit of associating the Philippines with their former colonial masters and using history as a means to uplift the poor. It was at this juncture that Salazar truly began to heed his own advice and exerted efforts at rethinking the emplotment and historiography of predominant historical narratives. Like-minded colleagues and students were his interlocators in the dialogues that took place in the context of seminars, discussion groups and conferences. Traditional historiography, they agreed, is informed by four discursive mechanisms. The first is the ‘discourse of influence,’ which refers to the conceptualization of the Philippines as a weak or empty cultural zone that perpetually needs assistance from the outside. Second, traditional historiography is obsessed by the so-called ‘first-Filipino discourse.’ Here, while history illustrates the ‘first Filipino engineer, doctor and so on,’ ultimately it implies that s/he is second to American or European predecessors. Third is the ‘discourse of discovery,’ which again signifies a lack of significance against that which came before, especially with regard to the arrival of Europeans in the archipelago. The final mechanism is the ‘discourse of reaction,’ which treats the Filipino as a pawn under the colonizer’s will and desire.23 For Salazar, in the periodization of history, historians should be more aware of their historical judgement. Changes that occur in history should not be measured with external exigencies and demands, but with internal needs and circumstances. An internal mechanism must facilitate the becoming of the archipelago’s inhabitants into a people; Filipinos must regain prime agency in their own history. It is in this context in which Salazar argues for his well-known pantayong pananaw (for-us-from-us perspective) in history. Narratives should

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consider the meanings behind the particular discourse among Filipinos and give credence to the individuality of Filipinos as a nation. For him, when a group of people communicate about themselves and among themselves in their own language, they comprise a closed circuit for nagkakaintindihan ang lahat. Samakatuwid, ang lipunan at kultura natin ay may “pantayong pananaw” lang kung tayong lahat ay gumagamit ng mga konsepto at ugali na alam nating lahat ang kahulugan, pati ang relasyon ng mga kahulugan, pati ang relasyon ng mga kahulugang ito sa isa’t-isa. Ito ay nangyayari lamang kung iisa ang “code”—ibig sabihin, may iisang pangkabuuang pag-uugnay at pagkakaugnay ng mga kahulugan, kaisipan at ugali. Mahalaga (at pundamental pa nga) rito ang iisang wika.24

Salazar is sincere in his belief that pantayong pananaw (PP) would inspire collective and individual responsibility for the Filipinos’ own past; blaming others for their own plight was sociologically and psychologically crippling. Prosperity and pride would be obtained through the recognition (and acceptance) of one’s own mistakes. Intellectually Salazar attributes a matrix of four meanings to PP as an historiographical strain. They are: 1) an internal correspondence and interrelation of traits, values, knowledge, expertise, goals, tradition, attitude and experience of a culture; 2) a holistic culture that is enshrouded and expressed in language; 3) a self-enclosed cultural or civilizational discourse; and 4) a reality

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within any ethnolinguistic group that is integral and sovereign.25 It follows that every culture has PP; it is a people’s worldview and understanding of themselves and their surroundings—as such, it forms the basis of their union as a group with a particular language and culture. Salazar’s introspection on Filipino agency in their own history found an ear and and interlocator in Prospero Covar, champion of Pilipinolohiya (Filipinology) which refers to the systematic study of the Filipino psyche and Filipino culture and society. Here, Filipino culture pertains to the language and all the branches of art including music, painting, sculpture, dance, architecture, drama, literature, film, philosophy and even religion.26 Pilipinolohiya aims at using social scientific research to ‘free’ (distinguish and emphasize the Filipinoness of) Filipino ideas, culture and society and not compromise them through ill-fitting foreign theory and valuation.27 According to Covar, unlike a Philippine Studies scholar who treats Filipinos or their country as mere research cases, a Filipinologist commits himself and his work towards the realization of a kabihasnan (national civilization). In Pilipinolohiya, Covar continues, the basis of the Filipino Self are Filipino experiences, while the Filipino system of thought, culture and society are markers of the Filipino nation and nationhood.28 Studies in Pilipinolohiya discusses the Filipino people with Filipinos in Filipino; they employ an emic approach to research. In agreement with Covar, Salazar suggests the potential of Pilipinolohiya in furthering research: Implicitly, Pilipinolohiya’s concern is to report and explain about Pilipinas to Filipinos in their own terms and with a view to strengthening Filipino nationality, to pursuing Filipino national goals and ideals (pambansang adhikain at mithiin). It is in this sense that Pilipinolohiya constitutes the basis for knowing or studying (and understanding) other nationalities

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and cultures in the world within “area studies” which the University of the Philippines is just beginning to develop.29 Salazar envisions Pilipinolohiya as a disciplinal platform to privilege the Filipino I/eye over the institutionalized practice of appropriating the Eurocentric and/or Anglocentric perspective in social scientific inquiry about the Philippines, the Filipinos and their related concerns in the region and around the world. Along with Covar, he strove (and still strives) to convince colleagues and students, who have otherwise written their works in English, to write in Filipino (including me!). Increasingly Salazar and his interlocators among colleagues and students at UP became convinced of furthering a systemic approach in which to propagate the possibilities of this new historiographical strain. In 1989 they established the history organization ADHIKA (Asosasyon ng mga Dalubhasa, may Hilig at Interes sa Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas/Organization of Experts, Curious, and Interested in the History of the Philippines). It sought to advocate bagong kasaysayan (new history), bagong historiograpiyang Pilipino (new Filipino historiography), and pantayong pananaw through seminars, discussion, national conferences and publication of variegated historical works.30 Like Salazar, founders of this organization, who included respected scholars Bernadette Abrera, Ferdinand Llanes, Nilo Ocampo and Jaime Veneracion, were convinced ADHIKA would facilitate the realization of their historical philosophy and convictions— they were going back to the sources of Filipino history, to the Filipino people themselves, for the Filipinos themselves. Reiterating his claims from the 1960s, Salazar asserts that a dambuhalang pagkakahating pangkalinangan (great cultural divide) exists in contemporary Filipino society. In his 1991 article “Ang Pantayong Pananaw Bilang Diskursong

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Pangkabihasnan” (Pantayong Pananaw as Civilizational Discourse) he claims Sa kalahatan ay dalawang kalinangan sa pakahulugang antropolohikal ang nakapaloob at maaring sumaklaw sa kasalukuyang lipunang Pilipino—ang “kulturang nasyonal” na nagmula sa Propaganda bilang resulta ng pagkatatag ng nacion/nation (nasyon) sa pamumuno ng elite at ang “kalinangang bayan” bilang kinalabasan ng proseso ng pagkabuo ng mga pamayanang Pilipino sa isang Bayang Pilipino, ang Inang Bayan ng Himagsikan 1896.31

Filipino intellectuals of the Propaganda Movement first conceived “national culture” in the Spanish language (la nación/patria filipina); revolutionists appropriated this conciousness in their armed campaign for political independence; and successive presidents of the country promoted it during their terms of office. “People’s culture,” Salazar reasons, is borne out of the collective historical experience of Filipino communities who were forced to become a nation in order to rebel against Western colonialism. Neither a foreign language nor foreign ideas had been used to express this historical experience. While the elite expressed their thoughts and vision in a foreign language, the Filipino revolutionary underclass—especially members of the so-called messianic movements of the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries—used either Tagalog or other Filipino languages. They communicated among one another, wrote and sung in their local tongue. However, their voices (and hence, their way of thought) were lost in the official accounts written by members of the elite class.

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At this juncture Salazar and his colleagues in the campaign to develop Bagong Kasaysayan urged other intellectuals to consider another method at discovering historical data. For this school of thought, language is not just a tool for communication, but a reservoir of a people’s history. Words provide clues about a mindset of a period and of a people and so serve as a rich source of information across time. In the 1990s, when the country was gearing up for the centennial anniversary of the 1896 Revolution and the 1898 Declaration of Philippine Independence, this analytical philosophy found a receptive audience among intellectuals interested in the study of the ideas of heroism and nationhood. For Salazar, a particular pook pangkasaysayan (place in history) frames kabayanihan (heroism). He explains: Dinaranas pa rin ng Pilipinas ang kawalan ng kabuuan. Hati pa rin ang lipunang nasyonal na katumbas ng pagkakahiwalay ng kulturang maka-kanluranin ng elite at kalinangang bayan ng nakararami. Dito umiinog ang kabayanihan ng Pilipino na nagsimula sa pagkaunawa sa bayani bilang tagapagsagawa ng gawain at tungkulin para sa kabuuang lipunan, bayan man ito o estadong bayan. Ang kalagayang ito ay unti-unting nawasak sa karamihan sa mga grupong Pilipino sa pagsapit ng kolonyalismo. Sa pakikipagtunggali rito nabuo ang nasyon sa halip ng bayan bilang kabuuang sumasaklaw sa arkipelagong Pilipino. Ang ibinunga nito ang pagkakahating pangkalinangan ng mga Pilipino: ang elite na maka-Kanluranin at ang bayan na naka-ugat sa Kalinangang Pilipino.32

The heroism associated with the revolutionary leader Andres Bonifacio and Jose Rizal, for Salazar, is emblemic of two national projects that aimed to compete with or substitute for the Spanish colonial order of the nineteenth century. While Rizal was identified as the Spanish heroe among the elite ‘Filipinos’ (educated class), Bonifacio was recognized as the Filipino bayani among the poor Tagalogs. Salazar illustrates the difference between the two concepts by identifying the subtext of bayani, glimpsed through historical dictionaries and a complex array of ethnographical materials. He concludes that whereas heroe is borrowed, Ang katagang “bayani” ay taal sa Tagalog, tulad ng “bagani” sa Bagobo—ibig sabihin, hindi hiram. Mga manang kataga ang dalawa, mula pa sa mga ninunong Austronesyano. Magiging hiram na kataga ang “bayani” sa Bahasa Melayong “berani” halimbawa, kung ang anyo ng katagang Tagalog ay naging “balani” tulad ng “balani” sa “batu balani” na katagang hiram sa Malayong “batu berani”…Bukod dito ginamit ni Otto Dempwolff ang Tagalog na “bayani,” kasama ng Malayong “berani” at Dyawang “wani” sa muling pagbuo ng katagang Austronesyanong “bagani” o “kawalang takot.”33 [emphasis in the original] That Bonifacio is regularly documented as bayani across time signifies recognition that he embodies the qualities assigned to the term by early communities of the archipelago. Bonifacio belongs to the line of leaders who have

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striven to either reconstitute or unify bayan. According to Salazar, Bonifacio’s execution at the hands of his rival Aguinaldo and his henchmen signals not just the end of a cultural project, but represents the triumph of the political project nación Filipina (Philippine nation) of his executioners, namely, the elite. Historiographically Salazar draws on the hermeneutical tradition. In his use of a complex array of ethnographical materials, oral custom and old lexicons, he has enjoined his readers to embark on rehabilitating authority and tradition in historiography. His work unravels the historical significance of a dizzying etymology of concepts vis-à-vis particular contexts and events, relaying that the Filipino culture’s being and understanding are inherently linguistic. Interestingly, Salazar also integrates playfulness in his work. For example, by linking batu belani with bayani, Salazar conjures Filipino folktales that feature a magical stone that ordinary folks need to swallow before they could become their superhero Self and serve their people. But similar to other works leaning towards hermeneutics as an analytical philosophy, his research provides carefully selected, interconnected fragments of historical meanings to buttress his argument about history. He relates his complex narrative to a phenomenon that an audience experiences and understands, therewith showcasing a complete hermeneutical circle of understanding. 34

‘Retirement’ from Teaching In 2000 Salazar retired from teaching at UP. But he soon proved to not have sitzfleisch—he held a Visiting Professorial Lectureship with De la Salle University in Manila for four years.35 Meanwhile, he has continued to write prodigiously. Since his “retirement,” he has written more than ten singleauthored and collaborative books, some five short monographs and countless

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essays. Colleagues and students imbibed in the PP project followed suit and also wrote history essays and monographs, further distinguishing and reinforcing their group’s position as a school of thought in historiography. In 2003, members of this school of thought participated in what would become the annual history seminar workshop of the history organization BAKAS (Bahay-Saliksikan sa Kasaysayan), which was established in Germany about twenty years earlier. In 2004, its members distinguished Salazar as the Ama ng Pantayong Pananaw (Father of Pantayong Pananaw) and Ama ng Bagong Historyograpiyang Pilipino (Father of New Filipino Historiography). BAKAS has not been alone in celebrating Salazar’s storied academic career. Across the years institutions have recognized Salazar’s contribution to the Philippine academy. The Pambansang Samahan ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino (PSSP/National Union of Filipino Psychology) awarded him Gawad Pagkilala in 1980; the Linangan ng mga Wika ng Pilipinas (Development of Languages in the Philippines) distinguished him with Gawad Pagkilala in 1991; the UP Sentro ng Wikang Filipino (UP Center for Filipino Language), with Gawad Lope K. Santos in 1996; the UP Dalubhasaan ng Agham Panlipunan at Pilosopiya (UP College of Social Sciences and Philosophy), with Natatanging Alumnus in 2000; the PSSP, with Gawad Sikolohiyang Pilipino in 2002; the Naga City Council for Culture and the Arts and the Bicol Regional Council for Culture and the Arts, with Gawad Bikolinismo: Most Outstanding Bikolano Artist for the Literary Arts in 2009; the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (Union of Writers of the Philippines), with the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas in 2009; the Wika ng Kultura at Agham, Inc. (Language of Culture and Sciences, Inc.) with Gawad Bayani ng Wika in 2009; the Municipality of Tiwi, Bicol, with Gawad Tibay Tiwinhon in 2010; the San Beda College Alumni Association, with Bedan Alumni Award/ Distinguished Bedan for Social Science Award in 2012; and the Kolehiyo ng Agham

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at Sining, Poletiknikong Unibersidad ng Pilipinas (College of Arts and Sciences, Polytechnic University of the Philippines), with Gawad Kalatas in 2013. In the following year, on the occasion of the BAKAS annual conference on history, he was awarded with Gawad Bagong Kasaysayan to recognize his extraordinary contribution in advocating PP and the new Filipino historiography. Salazar has been instrumental in the Filipinization of the country’s historiography. PP established a new breed of Filipino historians who persevere in determining the internal mechanism(s) that allow for change in Filipino history. PP as a school of thought has contributed in establishing Filipino as the language of history, discourse, and intellectual exertion. Not coincidentally, the number of MA theses and Ph.D. dissertations in Filipino at UP and universities in Manila has grown exponentially.36 In an effort to influence historical views, pedagogy and the profession, PP proponents continue to reach out and discuss their research with primary and secondary schools’ teachers in annual history conferences. Salazar, his students and colleagues have not been spared of critique among fellow scholars in the Philippines. Detractors have accused PP proponents of provincialism, ethnocentrism, closed mindedness and dismissive of the politico-economic factors that underpin change in modern history, charges that Salazar refutes. The movement’s advocates continue to carry on with the PP discourse in print and other fora, serving as dynamic proof of the entrenchment of Filipino and the Filipino perspective in the study of the Philippines and Filipinos. A foreign scholar may no longer claim to study Philippine history, culture and society without first learning Filipino or/and any other Filipino language.

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Celebrating Zeus Salazar The essays contained in this volume serve to celebrate Zeus Salazar’s career and service to the Filipino academy. In “The Role of Language in the Philippines in a Colonial and Postcolonial Context,” Marlies S. Salazar tackles the development of language studies in the Philippines. She argues that the Spaniards and Americans used language studies to perpetuate their authority over the islands. She notes that from the sixteenth century onwards Spaniards rendered some Philippine languages “understandable” by measuring and awkwardly associating them with Latin and Spanish grammar and rhetoric. Rendering them thoroughly knowable, however, remained elusive. The Americans, for their part, mistakenly measured the languages of the mountainous regions of northern Luzon against other Indo-European languages. Salazar claims that it was only in the 1930s when Filipinos started to push back against the extensive external influence on the study of Philippine languages. It took another forty odd years, she continues, for Filipino to be studied seriously and used as a language of intellectual exchange in the country’s premier state university. Lino L. Dizon’s “Amlat and the Kapampangan Historical Tradition” is a plaidoyer for the adoption of an autonomous historiography in Pampanga’s local histories. Dizon laments that early Pampanga histories, even those in the Kapampangan language, relied on colonial sources to the detriment of oral accounts and local histories. He finds it ironic that an outsider, John Larkin, wrote what is considered as the first serious history of the region. Nevertheless, Dizon asserts that Larkin glossed over nuances in Pampanga’s narrative for he had not fully harnessed available Kapampangan historical materials. This pertains especially so to the participation of the people of Pampanga in the Philippine Revolution. For Dizon, Pampanga’s history would be more complete

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if it accounted for amlat (legend) and kaselaysayan (history) in addition to colonial sources. Dizon champions the mining of knowledge from folklore, folktales, folksongs and literature in history-writing. In Ferdinand Philip Victoria’s chapter on the 1905 Report of the Philippine Opium Commission, he claims that the Report catapulted the United States’ campaign against drug trade and, consequently, its rise as a morally upright empire. Initiated by the newly arrived American administrators, the Report featured interviews with Filipino physicians and administrators concerning opium use, bringing to the fore the ethnic, cultural and socio-economic dimension of drug abuse across the islands. According to Victoria, the Report convinced American policy makers of the viability of “progressive prohibition.” He asserts, however, that the American officials were not entirely to blame for the state’s punitive stance against users. Responsibility should be shared by their Filipino interlocutors. Cecilia de la Paz examines the repercussions of contemporary museum practice of displaying objects of everyday life, as these displays play a prominent political role in the identity construction and the imagination of the Filipino nation. She contends that at the national museum such displays tend to exoticize and estrange the Filipino to the viewing Filipino audience. As reified objects, the collection and the displayed embody representations of loss—innocence, purity, meaning—in Filipino culture. Instead, De la Paz champions the establishment of living museums. Drawing on her experience in Negros Occidental, she asserts that communities should be (with assistance) responsible for conceiving, collecting, displaying and maintaining objects at their local museums. Regularly, displays could be changed as views of the community changes. In this way, the museum would serve as an ideal place of learning and engagement for the

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community upon which is also on display. In Wilfried Wagner’s “Yearning for Nativeness,” the European fascination with and search for his natural self, first articulated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is intertwined with the colonial conquest of the Asian and African world. Wagner purports that the Europeans’ hunger to see and experience their lost innocence encouraged the collection and display of ensembles and appendages of ‘discovered’ peoples in museums or, sometimes, ‘universal exhibition’ in Western metropolises from the nineteenth century onwards. Wagner intimates that a similar drive--a yearning to capture nativeness--was behind celebrated director Paul Fejòs’s pursuit, in 1937, to capture the Siuban on Mentawai of the Netherlands East Indies in a documentary. But Fejòs’s yearning might have been compromised by his equally urgent desire to relay a visually engaging ‘scripted’ film--for dramatization, for instance, he falsely inserted foreign objects as objects of the Siuban’s daily life. His financiers in Stockholm found the outcome inferior, so they dispatched a company official to ostensibly assist Fejòs in filming further documentaries. My essay recounts the unique progression of German consideration of the Filipino Revolution through previously untapped sources--the newspapers from the north-western city-state of Bremen. I argue that the newspapers’ extensive coverage of the uprising went beyond the typical narrative for it sought to demonstrate the German Self and its place in Asia and Europe for readers at home. The reports fed the German desire for and fascination with establishing a colonial presence in the Pacific, which, in turn, was considered a valuable ticket that would enable Germany to participate in and be respected as a power in late nineteenth century Weltpolitik (world politics). Saliba James provides an overview of the narrative of the Filipino

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immigrant workers in his “Human Rights Protection for “Naija Pinoys”: Overseas Filipino Workers in Nigeria.” James claims that, lured by the attractive salaries and living packages offered by Nigerian companies, Filipino workers started migrating to Nigeria in the 1960s. Only the economic misfortunes brought about by the country’s political volatility in the mid-1980s briefly disturbed the steady arrival of Filipinos. For James, Filipinos continue to take up posts in Nigeria for they have always enjoyed freedoms and protection of their human rights there; the dialogue between the United Nations Global Forum on Migration and Development and Civil Society Organizations assures their safety. In the 1990s, as James explains, Filipino workers increasingly declared their trust in the Nigerian system by taking up permanent residency. They began to call themselves “Naija Pinoys” (colloquial for Nigerian Filipinos), leading expatriate lives punctuated with the injection of elements of Filipino culture. According to James, the Filipino experience in Nigeria signals the efficacy of combining economic benefits with respect for human rights. Using a heretofore unused book Orang Indonesia jang Terkemoeka di Djawa (Famous Indonesians on Java, or OITD) published by the Japanese Army Information Services in 1944, Gusti Asnan illustrates that the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, well-known for their migratory habits, comprised the largest immigrant ethnic group in Java during the Japanese occupation. The OITD shows that the well-known Minangkabaus were highly educated and long established on Java, even during Dutch rule, for the Dutch had introduced a Western system of education in West Sumatra in the 1840s. In addition to their traditional migratory practice, Minangkabau who benefitted from their modern education either filled positions or furthered their education throughout Java. Unwittingly, they played instrumental roles in the public and private sectors during the Dutch and subsequent Japanese regime. According to Asnan, the

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national prominence of the Minangkabau declined in the 1960s, consequent to the establishment of the Pemerintah Revolusioner Republik Indonesia (Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia) that aimed to form a Sumatra-based central government against Sukarnos’ Guided Democracy. The Jakarta-based military suppressed the rebellion quite handily, thereby denying Minangkabau from holding civil and military office. In all, the contributions in this volume attest to some of Zeus Salazar’s academic achievements—they showcase the scholarship of individuals he has touched and they demonstrate a myriad of research topics in Philippine history and historiography, Philippine Studies and Southeast Asian Studies with which he relates. They are illustrative of Salazar’s dedication to progressive pedagogy and scholarly inquiry. Bringing to fore some of his ideals, they provide a window onto his project for the international academy.

Endnotes

1 Zeus Salazar, “Doctrina Cristiana,” in Zeus A. Salazar, Mga Tula ng Pagiral at Pakikibaka (Lunsod Quezon: Palimbagan ng Lahi, 2001), p. 210. 2 Zeus Salazar, “Ang Pagtuturo ng Kasaysayan sa Pilipino,” in General Education Journal 19-20, 1970-71 (Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1971), p. 37. 3

Ibid.

4 On these topics, see: Patricio Abinales, Fellow Traveler. Essays on Filipino Communism (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2001; Ferdinand Llanes (ed.), Tibak Rising. Activism in the Days of Martial Law (Mandaluyong City: T’bak Inc. and Anvil Publishing Inc., 2012); Susan F. Quimpo and Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, Subversive Lives. A Family Memoir of the Marcos Years (Mandaluyong City: Anvil Publishing Inc., 2012); Mark Thomson, The AntiMarcos Struggle. Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1996); Kathleen Weekley, The Communist

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Party of the Philippines, 1968-1993: A Story of its Theory and Practice (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2001). 5 Atoy Navarro, “Ama ng Pantayong Pananaw: Bayan sa Buhay ni Prop. Dr. Zeus Salazar (1934-Kasalukuyan),” in Bahay-Saliksikan ng Kasaysayan. Natatanging Lathalain (Quezon City: BAKAS, 2004), p. 4. 6 Zeus Salazar, “Ukol sa Wika at Kulturang Pilipino,” in Mga Bagong Pag-aaral sa Wika, Literatura, at Kultura: Dyornal ng Malawakang Edukasyon, XXIII-XXIV, 1972-1973, p. 63. 7 On Sikolohiyang Pilipino, see: Marie Madelene Sta. Maria, “Die Indigenisierungskrise in den Sozialwissenschaftern und der Versuch einer Resolution in Sikolohiyang Pilipino,” Ph.D. Diss., Universität Köln, 1993. 8 Virgilio Enriquez, “Sikolohiyang Pilipino: Perspektibo at Direksyon,” in Rogelia Pe-pua (Pat.), Sikolohiyang Pilipino. Teorya, Metodo at Gamit (Lunsod Quezon: University of the Philippines Press at Akademya ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino, 1989), p. 6. 9

Ibid., pp. 17-18.

10 Virgilio Enriquez, “Mga Batayan ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino sa Kultura at Kasaysayan,” in Pe-pua, Sikolohiyang Pilipino, p. 69. 11 Zeus Salazar, “Ilang Batayan Para sa Isang Sikolohiyang Pilipino,” in Pe-pua, Sikolohiyang Pilipino, p. 53. 12 227.

Sta. Maria, “Die Indigenisierungskrise in den Sozialwissenschaften,” p.

13

Salazar, “Ukol sa Wika at Kulturang Pilipino, p. 72.

14 Zeus Salazar, “Historiography and the Idealist-Romantic Attitude in Philippine Historical Writing,” Lecture at a Graduate Seminar, 17 January 1979, p. 3. 15

Ibid., p. 12.

16

Ibid., p. 14.

17 Out of this project came: Ferdinand Marcos, Tadhana. The History of the Filipino People. Vols. I-VI (Manila: 1976-86). 18 For an account of the involvement of historians, including Salazar, in Marcos’s Tadhana project, see: Zeus Salazar, “Ang Historiograpiya ng Tadhana: Isang Malayang Paggunita-Panayan”; Romeo V. Cruz, “Ang Paggawa ng Tadhana Mula 1980”; Virgilio Enriquez, “Ang Hangganan ng Kapantasan: Isang Reaksyon

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sa Historiograpiya ng Tadhana”; “Malayang Talakayan” in Ma. Bernadette Abrera and Dedina Lapar (Mga Pat.), Paksa, Paraan at Pananaw sa Kasaysayan (Quezon City: UP Departamento ng Kasaysayan, UP LIKAS, BAKAS, 1992), pp. 193-217. 19

Navarro, “Ama ng Pantayong Pananaw,” p. 5.

20 Zeus Salazar, “A Legacy of the Propaganda: The Tripartite View of Philippine history,” in The Ethnic Dimension. Papers on Philippine Culture, History and Psychology (Cologne: CARITAS, 1983), p. 108. 21

Ibid., p. 125-26.

22

Ibid., p. 126.

23 Ramon Guillermo, “Expositions, Critique and New Directions for Pantayong Pananaw,” Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia 3, March 2003, pp. 2-3. 24 Zeus Salazar, “Ang Pantayong Pananaw: Isang Paliwanag,” in Philippine Currents Vol. IV, No. 9. September 1989, p. 56. 25 For a further analysis, see Portia Reyes, “Fighting over a Nation: Theorizing a Filipino Historiography,” in Postcolonial Studies Vol. 11, No. 3, p. 248. 26 See: Prospero Covar, “Pilipinolohiya,” Typescript, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, UP Diliman, Quezon City, 9 November 1989. Also in: Prospero Covar, Larangan. Seminal Essays on Philippine Culture (Manila: National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 1998). 27 Pilipinolohiya is an offshoot of a Ph.D. program on Philippine Studies, which was introduced at the University of the Philippines in 1974. 28

Covar, “Pilipinolohiya,” in Larangan, p. 27.

29 Zeus Salazar, “Philippine Studies and Pilipinolohiya: Past, Present and Future of Two Heuristic Views in the Study of the Philippines,” in Zeus Salazar, The Malayan Connection: Ang Pilipinas sa Dunia Melayu (Lunsod Quezon: Palimbagan ng Lahi, 1998), p. 313. 30

Navarro, “Ama ng Pantayong Pananaw,” p. 7.

31 Zeus Salazar, “Ang Pantayong Pananaw Bilang Diskursong Pangkabihasnan,” in Bautista at Pe-pua, Pilipinolohiya: Kasaysayan, Pilosopiya at Pananaliksik (Maynila: Kalikasan Press, 1991). Also in Atoy Navarro, Mary Jane Rodriguez and Vicente Villan (Mga Pat.), Pantayong Pananaw: Ugat at Kabuluhan. Pambungad sa Pag-aaral ng Bagong Kasaysayan (Lunsod Quezon:

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Palimbagang Kalawakan, 1997), p. 103. 32 Zeus Salazar, “Ang Bayani Bilang Sakripisyo: Pag-aanyo ng Pagkabayani sa Agos ng Kasaysayang Pilipino,” Balangkas ng Panayam. Kumperensya ng ADHIKA, Unibersidad ng Tarlac, 29 Nobyembre 1994, p. 6. 33 Zeus Salazar, “Si Andres Bonifacio at ang Kabayanihang Pilipino,” in Bagong Kasaysayan 2, 1997, p. 8. 34

Reyes, “Fighting over the Nation,” pp. 248-9.

35

I thank Ma. Carmen Peñalosa for this detail.

36 For a preliminary look on this development, see: Nilo Ocampo, “Mga Disertasyong NakaFilipino: Tungo sa Pambansang Iskolarsyip,” in Lagda. Publikasyon ng Departamento ng Filipino at Panitikan ng Pilipinas (Quezon City: UP KAL, Hulyo 1993).

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THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN THE PHILIPPINES IN A COLONIAL AND POSTCOLONIAL CONTEXT Marlies S. Salazar Abstrak: Tinatalakay ng sanaysay na ito ang papel ng wika sa kasaysayan ng Pilipinas. Matagal nang pinag-aaralan ang mga wika sa Pilipinas sa pananaw ng mga banyaga. Parehong ginamit ng Kastila at Amerikanong kapangyarihang kolonyal ang pag-aaral ng mga wika sa Pilipinas hindi dahil sa kanilang maka-agham na pang-uusisa, ngunit dahil sa kanilang pangangailangang sakupin ang kapuluan. Para sa mga Kastila, hindi mapaghihiwalay ang kolonisasyon sa Kristiyanisasyon sapagkat kinakailangang ang lahat ng sakop ng Hari ng Espanya ay Katoliko rin. Nagsulat ang mga Kastilang misyonero ng mga balarila at diksiyonaryo ng mga pangunahing wika sa Pilipinas upang akitin ang mga katutubo sa Katolisismo at maging matatapat na sakop ng Espanya. Dahilan dito, naging kasangkapan ng kolonisasyon ang lingguwistika. Sapagkat hindi nasakop ng mga Kastila ang mga pamayanan sa kabundukan at ang mga Muslim sa Timog, hindi rin nila napag-aralan ang kanilang mga wika. Matagal pa bago mapag-aaralan ang mga ito. Sa ikalabinsiyam na siglo binigyang-pansin ng mga Europeong siyentista, kabilang na si Wilhelm von Humboldt, ang Pilipinas. Noong 1898, matapos sakupin ang Maynila, nagtatag ang mga Amerikano ng mga eskuwelahang elementarya kung saan Ingles ang wikang panturo. Sinimulan dito ang Amerikanisasyon ng Pilipinas. Noong 1953, sa panahon ng Cold War, nagtungo ang Summer School of Linguistics sa Pilipinas upang pag-aralan ang wika ng mga grupong minoridad. Sa sanaysay na ito susuriin ang papel ng mga aspetong nabanggit kaugnay ng mga pagpupunyagi ng Pilipinong espesyalista sa lingguwistika na pag-aralan ang kanilang mga wika upang makabuo ng teorya kaugnay ng mga disiplinang lingguwistika, antropolohiya, sikolohiya at kasaysayan mula sa loob ng Pilipinas, katulad ng minimithi at tunguhin ng Pantayong Pananaw.

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SALAZAR: The Role Of Language In The Philippines

Introduction This paper is an attempt to describe the role of language in the history of the Philippines in a colonial and postcolonial context, from the “discovery” of the Philippines by Magellan to the Americanization of the country in the twentieth century. For almost five centuries Philippine languages were described primarily from the perspective of foreigners. Both colonial powers, the Spanish as well as the Americans, studied Philippine languages not out of scientific interest, but as a means of colonizing the country. The Philippines are an archipelago of 7107 islands, where more than 100 languages are spoken, of which the majority belongs to the MalayoPolynesian language family, a branch of the Austronesian languages. Since 1946 the Philippines have been an independent country; but from 1521 to 1898 they were a Spanish colony, and after a short interlude of independence, which they had declared in 1898, they were sold by Spain to the United States of America in the Treaty of Paris. Although the Filipinos continued to struggle for their independence until 1902, they eventually became a colony of the United States of America until 1946. The archipelago consists of three main groups: the Northern island of Luzon with the capital Manila, a group of islands in the center called Bisayas, and the southern island of Mindanao, which is partly inhabited by Muslims. Since 1973 the official languages of the Republic of the Philippines are Filipino and English. 82.9 % of the population are Catholics, a result of the long Spanish colonial period, and only 5 % are Muslims. The population growth is enormous: if at the beginning of the twentieth century, in 1903, there were only 7,635,426 inhabitants, in 1948 there were already 19,234,182; in 1980, 48, 098,410; in 2000, 76,458,614; in 2010, 92,337,8521; in 2013, presumably 95 million inhabitants.

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This enormous population growth leads to great social and economic problems, forcing many people to look abroad for job opportunities.

The Spanish Period (1521-1898) The Philippines were “discovered” in 1521 by Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese adventurer in the service of Spain, who lost his life in the course of events. But one of his companions the Italian Antonio Pigafetta brought an interesting report back to Europe, which also includes a very interesting word-list.2 Further Spanish expeditions followed, and in 1541 the archipelago was named after the Spanish Infant Felipe, “Islas Filipinas.” In 1565 the first Spanish settlement was founded in Cebu by Miguel López de Legaspi and in 1571 Manila was declared capital of the colony. For the Spaniards colonization and mission always went hand in hand--the subjects of the Spanish king had to be Catholics. This was a logical consequence of the Reconquista, i.e. of the expulsion of the Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula between 1213-1492, followed by the expulsion of the Jews and the Moriscos (converted Muslims) from Spain, as well as of the colonization of Latin America. The evangelization in the colonies was supposed to be done in Spanish, because Spanish was, according to them, after Latin, the highest language, i.e. the language closest to God’s word. This had already been the practice in the Spanish colonies in Latin America half a century earlier and was supposed to be the practice also in the Philippines. But the missionaries soon found out that this was practically impossible because there were simply too few of them living among the many indigenous people to teach them Spanish. Therefore the missionaries started to write grammars and dictionaries of the most important Philippine languages from the early seventeenth century on, in order to convert

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the people to Catholicism and to make them loyal subjects of the King of Spain. It is in this regard that linguistics became an instrument of colonization. Since the Spaniards could not conquer the peoples in the mountainous north and the Muslims in the south, they initially did not study their languages. That happened much later. In 1580 the Franciscans issued the order to publish dictionaries and grammars of Tagalog, the language spoken in and around Manila. The first grammar was by Juan de Plasencia (not preserved); the second, by San Buanaventura (1613). The grammars were written according to the grammatical system of Latin, because Latin grammar was considered to be the universal grammar created by God. They followed the model of the Spanish grammar of Antonio de Nebrija3 and did not take into consideration the structure of Philippine languages. Still the amount of work done was enormous: the known number of grammars and dictionaries is very high. According to Joaquin Sueiro Justel4 there are 119 of these works, alone for the most important Philippine languages: Tagalog, Bisaya and Ilocano, followed by Bikol and Pampango. In the early Spanish Period there were four religious orders in the Philippines: the Augustinians, the Dominicans, the Franciscans and the Jesuits. To avoid quarrels among them the colonial government decided that all four orders were allowed to work in Manila, but otherwise they were assigned different regions. The Augustinians, who had arrived in 1575, were assigned to Manila, Cebu and Iloilo; the Franciscans (1578), to Manila, Southern Luzon and Bikol; the Dominicans (1581), to Bataan, Pangasinan and the Cagayan Valley; the Jesuits (1581-1773), to Manila, Samar and Leyte; the Augustinian and the Jesuits had to share Mindanao. The Augustianian Recollects who arrived in 1612 had to build their church outside Intramuros and worked mainly in Zambales,

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Pampanga, Negros and Palawan. But all of them considered Tagalog, which was spoken in and around the capital Manila, as the most important language of the Philippines, and they wrote many dictionaries and grammars for Tagalog. The missionaries first converted the lowlanders, because they were easier to reach and offered less resistance than the highlanders. On the one hand these grammars and dictionaries are valuable sources for the language and culture of the Filipinos in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. On the other hand they suffer from the fact that the Spaniards described Philippine languages according to the model of the Latin grammar, just as Nebrija had described the Spanish language according to the Latin model. A marked disconnection occurred here. Nebrija had chosen an appropriate analogy--the Spanish and the Latin language belonged to the same language family. Philippine languages, however, belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language family and are structurally different from Latin. In their effort to read Philippine languages through Latin, hence, the Spaniards introduced declensions and conjugations, which do not exist in Philippine languages. They introduced concepts like nombres, verbos, adjetivos, voces (passiva/activa), ablativos, preteritos, pretiritos, futuros etc. and subjected Philippine languages to the grammatical categories of Latin. And since they could not imagine a language without the auxiliary verb “to be,” they often adopted the mysterious verbal form “sung,” which does not really exist, in their manuscripts. They also rejected the ancient Philippine alphabets called “baybayin,” which were syllabaries, where the Spaniards could not find their own vowels and consonants. These alphabets were widespread and were written on palm leaves or bamboo. They were used not only for letters and contracts, but also for things which had to do with traditional religious beliefs. Therefore the Spanish friars

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considered them as works of the devil and burned them.5 Today the baybayin are used only by the Mangyans in Mindoro and the Tagbanuwa in Palawan, but they have fascinated European scholars for a long time. For example Wilhelm von Humboldt devoted most of the volume III of his monumental work On the Kawi Language on the Island Java6 to Tagalog. He thought that the Philippine alphabets were related to South-Indian alphabets;7 he considered Tagalog to be the most important and highly developed language of the Malayo-Polynesian language family. Although Humboldt based his study of the language on Spanish grammars of Tagalog, especially on the famous grammar by Sebastian de Totanes,8 he also criticized him for dividing arbitrarily Tagalog verbs into 17 different conjugations and conjugating them according to the Spanish tradition. The Spaniards translated Christian beliefs into the Philippine languages, but kept words like Dios, Espiritu Santo and Jesucristo, because they could not find an equivalent for them or they did not want to use the indigenous words for God like bathala or anito. The indigenous words for gods, spirits or ancestors were considered to represent superstitions and their statues as idolos, which had to be burned. This condemnation of indigenous gods, ancestors and spirits did not prevent Filipinos from continuing to believe in them and to integrate them somehow into their religious practices. There are examples of this syncretism up to now. In his book on the role of translation in the conversion of the Tagalogs in the early Spanish period, Vicente Rafael gives very interesting examples of the misunderstandings which occurred in the translation of Spanish concepts into Tagalog.9 The Spaniards translated soul to loob, which refers to the inside of a person, the inside of a house etc. and can be used in many other contexts

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in the Tagalog language. Sin was translated as hiya, which means shame. The last sacrament given to the dying became baon, meaning food one takes on a journey. Unwittingly the Tagalogs interpreted the new religion in their own way and continued to believe that you have to pacify the souls of the dead by providing provisions for their travel to the other world. Filipinos were called Indios like the South American indigenous groups, which had been colonized half a century earlier. This came from the original misunderstanding of Christopher Columbus, who thought that he had discovered India when he arrived in the Caribbean. The Philippines were not administered directly from Madrid; until 1821 it was considered a province of the Spanish Vice-Royalty of New Spain (Mexico) which was represented by a Governor General in Manila. In the villages outside Manila Spanish power was represented mostly by the friars, who conspired to transform the scattered rural settlements into bigger villages (poblaciones) around the church. These poblaciones provided the friars better control of the newly converted population, making the church collection of tributes and taxes from them easier. Their knowledge of the native languages and spiritual authority gave the friars more power than the Spanish colonial administration, which sat behind walls of the fortified city of Manila Intramuros. The friars’ desire to retain this position of power fuelled their strong opposition to the Filipino elite’s plea for liberalization and independence in the nineteenth century. The Spanish friars had a dual role in Philippine history: their linguistic studies contributed to the knowledge of the major Philippine languages, but these selfsame studies also contributed to the Spanish colonization of the country. Many Spanish words found their way into Philippine languages, mostly in family and place names, but are also integrated in Philippine grammatical

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structures. Creole or Chabacano, which is based on Spanish, still exists and has existed for 400 years. Today it has only very few speakers in Cavite, Zamboanga and Davao, and is already extinct in Ermita, a district of Manila. Very few Filipinos spoke Spanish. Towards the end of the Spanish period only 10% of the population could speak this language and they belonged mostly to the Spanish-Filipino elite. Until the 1920s the elite fought against the influence of English and wrote their literature and newspapers in Spanish. Interestingly the Spanish-speaking elite tried to establish contact with the regime of General Franco in Spain and became part of the so-called “Falange Exterior.” The President of the University of Santo Tomas even named General Franco Honorary President of the university and expressed the hope that Franco would one day reestablish the Spanish empire that included the Philippines.10 The elite’s hope was of course not realized, but they did achieve the preservation of Spanish as one of the official languages of the Philippines until 1973. Nowadays only 3% of the Filipinos speak Spanish, although it has been an obligatory subject in the universities for many years. When the Austrian specialist on the Philippines Ferdinand Blumentritt published his “Attempt at an Ethnography of the Philippines with an Ethnographic Map of the Philippines” in 1882 he concluded that the Spaniards only knew the areas near the coasts and the plains, and had very little knowledge of the areas in the mountains and on far-away islands of the archipelago.11 The population of a part of Mindanao and the islands of Basilan and Tawi-Tawi are Muslim, but the Spaniards had never been able to colonize them. The Spaniards called them “Moros.” And even the colonization and conversion of the peoples from the mountainous region took a long time. These peoples were not easily

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reached and they defended themselves very well. The Spaniards called all of them “Igorot,” a general term they used to refer to all “wild”, i.e. not baptized, people. In reality the linguistic situation in the Philippines is much more complicated than the Spaniards ever knew. Every ethno-linguistic group has its own name and there are about 100 of them in the Philippines, maybe even more. Linguists differ on this subject, which is dependent on their standards on the limits between language and dialect. As far as this essay is concerned with minor languages, I will limit myself to the history of the discovery of the ethno-linguistic groups in the Cordillera Central. The Apayao, Tingguian, Kalinga, Bontok, Kankanai, Ifugao, Ibaloy, Gaddang, and Ilongot live in this mountainous region of Northern Luzon. In William Henry Scott’s The Discovery of the Igorots the Spaniards’ vision of gold mines in the mountains fanned the Spanish desire to conquer the Igorots.12 In 1571, six months after the fall of Manila, Miguel de Legazpi’s grandson Juan de Salcedo went on an expedition to north Luzon and came back with 50 pounds of gold. Four years later he died on his way to the gold mines. Many Spanish expeditions succumbed to the superior fighting ability of the Igorots. The missionaries didn’t fare any better; in 1584 the Augustinians had their first martyr--Fray Esteban Marin, who was tied to a tree and beheaded. Henceforth the Igorots were believed to be headhunters and cannibals. By the 18th century the Spaniards knew that conquering the Igorots was indeed difficult; in fact, they could not even prevent their comings and goings from their mountain homes and their trade with the Christianized lowlanders. Therefore the colonizers tried to employ a new strategy: they encircled the Igorots by establishing so-called reducciones (from reducir i.e. to subject) halfway up the mountains. Reducciones

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were fortified settlements of baptized Filipinos, under Spanish military administration. This soft approach to the colonization of the north changed in the 19th century, however. Fueled by the desire to take advantage of the gold and copper mines and missions in the mountains and irked by its inhabitant Igorots, who undermined the Spanish tobacco monopoly and hence deprived the government of revenues, the Spaniards renewed their quest of conquering the region. With better firearms they raided Igorot villages, destroyed houses and rice-terraces and established military commands. The year 1880 marked their intensified occupation of this region, punctuated by the arrival of Don Fernando Primo de Rivera, Marquis de Estrella, who was Governor General of the Philippine from 1880 to 1882, and again from 1897 to 1898. When their military expeditions failed, the Spaniards tried to forge alliances with Igorots. Some of those who cooperated were sent to Madrid to man the Igorot village at the colonial Exposición de las Islas Filipinas in June 1887. José Rizal was extremely upset about this degrading exhibition of Igorots in Madrid, as he wrote to his friend, Ferdinand Blumentritt: Kümmern Sie sich nicht über die Exposicion de Filipinas in Madrid. Meinen Nachrichten, und den spanischen Zeitungen nach, ist es keine Ausstellung von den Philippinen, sondern nur von Igorotten, die Musik spielen werden, Küche machen, singen und tanzen. Aber ich fürchte mich ob den armen Leuten. Sie sollen in dem Madrider Zoologischen Garten sich ausstellen, mit ihren Kleidern: sie werden eine köstliche Lungenentzündung bekommen, da dies die häufigste Krankheit in Madrid ist: es bekommen die Madrider selbst trotz dem Überzeug. 13 This exhibition, which took place in the Retiro Park in Madrid, was an attempt by the Spanish government to show to the public its colonial possessions in the Far East, not only the Philippines, but also Palau, the Marianas and the Caroline Islands. It displayed the flora and fauna of the islands, as well as the scientific publications on their ethno-linguistic groups and their languages.14 Prepared by Spanish officials and friars in the Philippines, the exhibition emphasized the necessary continuation of the “civilizing mission” of Spain. It contrasted “advanced” Spain, symbolized by the Crystal Palace, and “backward” Philippines, symbolized by the nipa huts of the Igorot village. It showcased Igorots, one Negrito and Moros, and set aside lowlanders as well as the political claims of the indigenous intellectual elite. However, the exhibition did not attain its goal of contributing to the continuation of Spanish power in the Philippines. In his article on the intentions and consequences of the exhibition, Reinhard Wendt notes that the 1887 exhibits have been preserved. Devoid of any comment on the colonial context in which its components were collected, this exhibition comprises the core of the Philippine collection of the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Madrid today.15 The Spaniards had to leave the mountains of Northern Luzon after the Philippine revolution and the arrival of the Americans in 1898, i.e. 325 years after the first attempt by Juan de Salcedo to reach the gold mines. They had not acquired much knowledge about the Igorots. They didn’t even know that the Igorots were actually many different mountain tribes with their own languages. These observations were made only by some nineteenth century

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German travelers, who were driven more by scientific curiosity than by military or religious interest. European scientists like Peter Simon Pallas, Franz Carl Alter, Johann Christoph Adelung, Lorenzo Hervas, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Franz Bopp, Friedrich Müller, Hans Conon von der Gabelentz and his son Hans-Georg Conon von der Gabelentz, and Hendrik Kern had been interested in Philippine languages.16 Purely scientific interest in comparative linguistic studies in Europe interested them, not colonial linguistics. It was only in the nineteenth century, after the end of the Galleon Trade between Manila and Acapulco in 1815 and especially after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 that more non-Spanish traders and explorers came to the Philippines, among them German travelers like Fedor Jagor, Carl Semper, Hans Meyer and Alexander Schadenberg. Fedor Jagor, son of Russian immigrants in Berlin, traveled between 1859 and 1860 to the Philippines and wrote his Travels in the Philippines, which still makes very interesting reading.17 He did not travel to the Cordillera Central, but to the Bikol provinces and the Bisayas. He was one of the first Europeans who climbed the Mayon volcano in Albay. In Camarines Sur, while climbing the Yriga volcano he noticed that the Spaniards called the small groups of Negritos living there ‘Igorots’, and so he wrote that the term was apparently a general term for wild tribes.18 Jagor found the Negritos to be very peaceful hunters and gatherers. Carl Semper was a young scientist who traveled between 1858 and 1863 in the Philippines and Palau. In May 1860 he hiked across the Sierra Madre mountains to Isabela province and visited the Kalinga ethno-linguistic group, of which he made the first ethnographic description.19 Later he became professor in Würzburg and published three volumes about the Philippines and a book

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about Palau.20 In 1882, during his voyage around the world, German geographer Hans Meyer spent four months in the Philippines and particularly went to the provinces Benguet and Lepanto and the east of the province Abra. On March 27, 1883 he discussed this visit in his lecture before the Ethnological Society of Berlin, emphasizing the customs and traditions of the inhabitant non-Christian tribes he encountered in the region.21 He claimed that the Igorots in Benguet and Lepanto speak four different dialects: Inibaloi, Kankanai, a northern variant of Kankanai in the Abra valley and Lepanto. Hans Meyer wrote a few articles on the Igorots and a book about his voyage around the world, where he dedicated chapter 12 and the appendix on the Igorots.22 Upon his return he entered the publishing house of his father Hermann Julius Meyer, publisher behind Meyers Konversations-Lexikon. In Germany Hans Meyer is better known for being the first to climb mount Kilimanjaro in 1889. Alexander Schadenberg was a German pharmacist who lived in the Philippines for many years and used all his free time for ethnographic studies. He wrote the first serious ethnological and linguistic study of the Negritos, which attracted much attention among specialists.23 Then he explored the South and East of Mindanao, climbed Mount Apo two times and published his geographic, ethnological and linguistic findings in 1885.24 When Schadenberg opened his own pharmacy in Vigan (Ilocos Sur) he used it as a point of departure for many expeditions to the interior of the Cordillera, on which his wife always accompanied him. One of his most successful expeditions took place in 1886, when he visited the Tinguians, then the Banaos and finally the Guinaans.25 He wrote comparative word-lists of Bontoc, Banawe, Lepanto and Ilocano, and for the first time, opted to use the German transcription, which is phonologically

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closer to the Philippine languages, over the Spanish transcription.26 He liked photography and published together with Adolf Bernhard Meyer, who later became director of the Royal Zoological and Anthropological- Ethnographic Museum in Dresden, Album of Types of Filipinos.27 Alexander Schadenberg died in 1896 in the Philippines at the age of 44. The aforementioned German explorers could be mistakenly taken as the vanguards of the colonial ambitions of the German Reich, which after 1880 became especially active in South Africa and the Southern Pacific. However, all of them acted out of scientific curiosity and were in constant communication with professor of medicine Rudolf Virchow, who was long renowned for his many discoveries, for being one of the founders of social medicine, and for his keen interest in anthropology. In 1869 he founded the German Society for Ethnology, Anthropology and Prehistory and became one of the co-founders of the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. In politics he was a liberal opponent of Bismarck and criticized colonialism. In 1887, upon recommendations by Fedor Jagor and Ferdinand Blumentritt, Virchow invited José Rizal to become a member of the “Society of Ethnology”, which was a great honor for a 26- years old young man from the Philippines. Another German who did a lot for Philippine linguistics and who also corresponded with Blumentritt was Otto Scheerer. He came from Hamburg to Manila, where he worked from 1882 to 1896 as a merchant and later became owner of the cigar factory La Minerva. For health reasons he left Manila and moved to the mountain province, where he bought land in the Ibaloi village Kafagway. His interest in the Ibaloi culture led to his quick mastery of their language. When the Americans occupied the Philippines in 1898 Scheerer showed them the area and wrote reports on Ibaloi customs and agriculture

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for the Taft Commission. The Americans referred to him as “a bizarre German scientist gone native.”28 They preferred the cool climate in the mountains over the hot and humid climate of Manila and decided to establish their future summer capital on the grounds of the Ibaloi village Kafagway. Scheerer’s initial cooperative attitude towards the Americans turned awry, when, in their efforts to build country clubs and military camps, the new colonizers displaced the Ibaloi from their land without compensation. In 1901 Scheerer went to Japan and Formosa for a few years and wrote about the indigenous languages of Formosa and their relationship with Philippine languages. After his return to the Philippines in 1911, Scheerer devoted himself mostly to Philippine linguistics. He published a number of linguistic studies and in 1924 became chairman of the Department for Oriental Languages at the University of the Philippines. He trained the first generation of experts on Philippine linguistics; and so, rightly he can be called a pioneer of Philippine linguistics. One of his best students was Cecilio Lopez, who later worked on his Ph.D. at the University of Hamburg under the tutelage of Otto Dempwolff. Lopez kept contact with Dempwolff and helped another German, Hermann Costenoble, who worked as an agricultural advisor in the Philippines, to study Philippine linguistics. In 1943, during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, Costenoble died and left the manuscript of his Proto-Philippine Dictionary with Cecilio Lopez, who translated and published it.29 A certain continuity of German-Philippine relations, in the area of linguistics, exists. Ernesto Constantino, who was the successor of Cecilio Lopez, was my Ph.D. supervisor for Philippine Linguistics at UP.

The American Period (1898-1946) From 1898 to 1902 (in some parts of the Philippines until 1912), while the FilipinoAmerican war raged, the Americans began to plan the future of their new colony.

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This included a new language policy. Soon after their occupation of Manila, they began to open elementary schools, in which English was the language of instruction. In the beginning soldiers taught in these schools, then in 1901 the Americans sent hundreds of young teachers, who were distributed everywhere in the Philippines, to establish secular schools and teach in English. They were called Thomasites after the converted cattle transporter, the Thomas, on board of which many of them arrived. Some of these young teachers were frustrated by the clash of culture, while others grew roots, got married and stayed in the Philippines.30 This was the start of the Americanization of the Philippines. The Spanish friars lost their privileges and much of their influence. They were partly replaced by American and European missionaries, for example the Protestant Episcopalian Church from the United States, which as early as 1901 already named its first bishop in the Philippines, Charles Brent. To avoid unnecessary competition with the Catholic Church, they concentrated their missionary efforts on the Chinese in Manila and on the not yet Christianized minority groups in Mindanao and the northern Luzon. The Sagada Episcopalian mission in the mountain province, which is the only place in the Philippines where 95 % of the population is protestant, is a well-known example. But the Catholic Church did not give up, far from that. Instead of Spanish bishops it nominated American bishops for the Philippines. Thus Dennis Dougherty was appointed to the diocese of Nueva Segovia, to which belonged practically all of North Luzon. In 1906 the bishop asked the Belgian religious order CICM (Corona Immaculata Cordis Mariae) to send some missionaries. In September 1907 their first missionaries arrived and proceeded to evangelize the Igorots in Bontok. Today they have nine universities and seminaries in the Philippines. Two CICM missionaries have become quite famous because of their

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ethnological and linguistic researches on the main ethno-linguistic groups of northern Luzon: Fr. Morice Vanoverbergh und Fr. Francis H. Lambrecht. Fr. Morice Vanoverbergh spent almost eighty years in the Mountain Province, from his arrival in Bauko, Lepanto in 1909 to his death in Baguio in 1987. He wrote numerous linguistic and folklore studies on the languages Kankanay (Lepanto-Igorot), Isneg (Apayao), Ilokano and the Negritos of Northern Luzon. Francis H. Lambrecht came to the Philippines in 1924 and stayed until his death in 1978. He has devoted his entire life not only to the mission, but also to research on the language, epics and folklore of the Ifugao. A third important religious order that came to the Philippines in the twentieth century was the SVD (Societas Verbae Divinae). Since 1909 the SVD has been active in Abra and has spread all over the Philippines. Besides their missionary and educational work (they operate forty-seven schools, several seminaries and colleges, as well as two universities), they specialized in linguistic and ethnological research, which they publish in their journal Anthropos.31 In 1904 the American colonial government followed the imperialist tradition of the Spaniards and brought different groups from the Philippines to the St. Louis World’s Fair. A group of Igorots, who were exhibited in a reconstructed native village, was among them. They were treated like animals in a zoo and were forced to eat dog meat every day.32 This display justified American imperialism and proved that the Filipinos still had to be civilized. A by-product of this exhibition was a Grammar of Bontoc Igorot by Carl Wilhelm Seidenagel,33 who taught Greek and Latin at the University of Chicago. Regularly Seidenagel met the Igorots to learn their language, unknowing that he conversed with people from different dialects. He made many mistakes in transcribing the language. “SDL was supremely confident of his ability to recognize and

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represent the sounds that he heard, and of his own erudition, frequently citing examples from Greek, Latin, Russian, French, Spanish, Scotch and German.”34 His phonology and syntax were also problematic because he analyzed the Igorot language on the basis of “Indo-European” languages. A long overdue reaction to the extensive linguistic influence from outside the Philippines, first by the Spaniards and then by the Americans, was the establishment of the Institute of National Language in 1936. Seven members, each representing a different linguistic group, comprised the founding committee: Jaime C. Veyra (Samar-Leyte Visayan) chairman, Santiago A. Fonacier (Ilocano), member, Filemon Sotto (Cebu Visayan) member, Casimiro F. Perfecto (Bicol) member, Felix S. Salas Rodriguez (Panay Visayan) member, Hadji Butu (Moro), member, Cecilio Lopez (Tagalog), member and secretary. Thus the most important languages of the Philippines were represented in this committee. A year after its establishment, the committee decided to create the national language based on Tagalog. In 1938 the Institute of National Language (ILN) was renamed National Language Institute (NLI), which was tasked with creating a dictionary, a grammar and a unified spelling system for the national language, which was to be taught in the last years of high school from 1940 onwards. It was not yet a language of instruction at that time.35

Language policies in the Philippines since independence (1946 to the present) In 1946 after World War II the Philippines became an independent state. American and European missionaries and linguists continued to come to the country, however. Filipino linguists themselves study the different languages of the Philippines and continue to disagree on their number and on the further

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development of their national language. A persistent bone of contention among them concerns the allegation that the national language does not sufficiently consider the other important regional languages and disregards the numerous minor languages of the Philippines. The quarrel between the “mono-language” and the “multi-language” protagonists, as well as the discussion whether the national language should be called “Filipino” or “Pilipino” perseveres. The 1973 constitution acknowledged Filipino as one of the two official languages of the Philippines, the other one being English.36 The 1987 constitution prescribed the formation of a national language committee, consisting of representatives of different regions and professions, to promote and coordinate researches “on the development, propagation and conservation of Filipino and other Philippine languages.” The discussion seems to continue unabatedly. The smaller linguistic groups’ reactions against the predominance of Filipino and English also abound. Since the “International Year of Languages” in 2008, when the UNESCO Secretary General warned that within a few generations more than 50% of the 7000 world’s spoken languages could disappear, the awareness of this problem has grown in the Philippines. Speakers of minor languages, who prefer to speak in Filipino or English, are perceived as threats to the existence of their mother tongues and a part of their cultural heritage. Elementary education tends to favor a multilingual education based on the mother tongue and a curriculum stressing local culture. This has been tried before and it remains to be seen how successful it will be in the long run. The agreements of the Department of Education with foreign specialists, like the SIL International (Summer Institute of Linguistics), are highly questionable. The SIL began to work in the Philippines in 1953 during the Cold War. An American organization, the SIL started its activities in the 1940s

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in North and South America and now works on a worldwide scale. Everywhere it studies the languages of ethno-linguistic minorities. Its American staff members learn the languages of these minorities and develop alphabets and dictionaries-always with the ultimate goal of translating the Bible and influencing people. The quality of their linguistic studies appears trustworthy, but their ultimate goal is apparently not a scientific one. My Filipino colleagues were always very suspicious of them. SIL works on the basis of an agreement with the Philippine Government. Right now in 2013, after sixty years of work in the Philippines, the SIL managed to sign another MOA (Memorandum of Agreement) with the Department of Education.37 Evidently an end to postcolonial influence on linguistic studies in the Philippines is not yet in sight. Since the 1970s Filipino was slowly adopted as a language of instruction in schools and universities. The University of the Philippines in Diliman spearheaded the movement to intensify the study in and of Filipino, first in the Department of Linguistics and the Department of Pilipino and Philippine literature, followed by the Psychology Department with Virgilio Enriquez’s “Sikolohivang Pilipino,” in the Anthropology Department with Prospero Covar and last but not least in the History Department with Zeus A. Salazar. Trained as a historian at the U.P., Salazar studied anthropology and linguistics at the Freie Universität Berlin, the Sorbonne and the Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales Vivantes in Paris and the University of Leiden (Holland). He earned his Ph.D. from the Sorbonne with his comparative study of Austronesian religions, using the concept of anito as central motif.38 In 1968, after his return to the Philippines and to the UP Department of History, linguistics and anthropology continued to play an important role in his work. He used an interdisciplinary approach in developing his idea of Pantayong Pananaw, which can be translated as “our view.” The idea is to see Philippine history and society through the insider’s, not

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the outsider’s eyes. But since it uses the exclusive pronoun tayo for we and not the inclusive kami, the followers of this idea have a tendency to be concerned only with their singular, shared destiny and seek to exclude others who are dissimilar. In her Ph.D. dissertation Portia Reyes defines it as: “Pantayong Pananaw is the point of view where the author and the audience are exclusively one, in a specifically closed circuitry, most especially in the face and in consideration of the others, who do not belong therein.”39 It does this by the exclusive use of the Filipino language and represents the exclusively Philippine perspective in different scientific fields, like psychology, anthropology, linguistics and history. It is a school of thought that wants to create a scientific language in Filipino and to develop specific Philippine concepts. Pantayong Pananaw in history developed into Bagong Kasaysayan, meaning “New History,” a history only by and for Filipinos, devoid of many foreign influences. Zeus A. Salazar developed its theory--a philosophy of history and a method of research; and many of his students and colleagues followed his example. It has produced many publications on Philippine history, including textbooks for schools and colleges, but also translations of foreign texts, the idea being that “Translation is, in this regard, a significant procedure in the whole process. It is a procedure toward indigenization, the elemental step towards Filipinization.”40 Filipinization is an important step to overcome colonial language policies, but it should not be exaggerated. At least graduate students and professors should be able to read foreign sources in the original languages and to communicate with their fellow scientists abroad. After all, as the poet John Donne wrote: “No man is an island unto himself.”

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Endnotes

1

National Statistics Office (Manila, 2012).

2 Antonio Pigafetta, Relazione del primo viaggio intorno el mondo (Madrid, 1524). 3 1429).

Antonio de Nebrija, Gramatica de la lengua castellana (Salamanca:

4 Joaquin Sueiro Justel, Historia de la linguistica española en Filipinas (1580-1898) (Lugo, 2003). 5

Pedro Chirino, Relación de las Islas Filipinas (Rome: 1604).

6 Wilhelm von Humboldt, Über die Kawi Sprache auf der Insel Java (Berlin: 1836-1839). 7 Wilhelm von Humboldt, “Lettre à M. Jacquet sur les alphabets de la Polynésie Asiatique” in Historisch-philologische Abhandlungen (Berlin: 1832), pp. 78-79. 8 Sebastian de Totanes, Arte de la lengua Tagala y manual Tagalog (Sampaloc: 1745). 9 Vicente L. Rafael, Contracting Colonialism – Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1988). 10 Allan Chase, Falange: The Axis secret Army in the Americas (New York: 1943), p. 68. 11 Ferdinand Blumentritt, Versuch einer Ethnographie der Philippinen mit einer Karte der Philippinen (Gotha: 1882). 12 William Henry Scott, The Discovery of the Igorots- Spanish Contacts with the Pagans of Northern Luzon (Manila: New Day, 1974). 13 Rizal’s Letter from Berlin to Blumentritt, November 22,1886, in Teodoro M. Kalaw (ed), Epistolario Rizalino, Vol. 5 (Manila: 1938), p. 27. 14 cf. Catálogo de la Exposición de las Islas Filipinas celebrada en Madrid inaugurado por S.M. Reina Regente el 30 de Junio de 1887 (Madrid: 1887). 15 Reinhard Wendt, “La Exposición general de las Islas Filipinas” in Madrid 1887. Zu Intentionen und Nachwirkungen einer Kolonialausstellung” in

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Jahrbuch für Europäische Überseegeschichte 3, Wiesbaden,2003, p. 114. 16 Marlies Salazar, Perspectives on Philippine Languages - Five Centuries of European Scholarship (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2012). 17

Fedor Jagor, Reisen in den Philippinen, (Berlin: [1873], 1982).

18

Jagor, op. cit., p. 149 ff.

19 Carl Semper, “Reise durch die nordöstlichen Provinzen der Insel Luzon” in Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde, 10, 1861, S. pp. 249-266. 20 1867).

Carl Semper, Reisen im Archipel der Philippinen. 3 vols. (Wiesbaden:

21 Hans Meyer, “Die Igorotten von Luzon”, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 15 (Berlin: 1883). 22 Hans Meyer, Eine Weltreise: Plaudereien über eine zweijährige Erdumseglung (Leipzig: 1885). 23 Alexander Schadenberg, “Über die Negritos der Philippinen,” Zeitschrift für Ethnoloige, 12 (Berlin: 1883). 24 Alexander Schadenberg, “Die Bewohner von Süd-Mindano und der Insel Samal,” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 17 (Berlin: 1883). 25 Alexander Schadenberg, “Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Banao-Leute, und der Guinanen, Gran Cordillera Central, Insel Luzon, Philippinen,” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 19, (Berlin: 1887). 26 Alexander Schadenberg, “Im Innern Nordluzons lebende Stämme,” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 21, (Berlin: 1883). 27 A.B. Meyer und Alexander Schadenberg, Album von Philippinen-Typen. Nord-Luzon: Negritos, Tiangianen, Banaos, Guinanen, Silipanen, Calingas, Apoyaos, Kianganen, Igorotten und Ilocanen (Dresden: 1891). 28 Stanley Karnow, In Our Image. America’s Empire in the Philippines (New York: Ballantine Books, 1989), p. 215. 29 Hermann Costenoble, Dictionary of Proto-Philippine, Trans. by Cecilio Lopez (Quezon City: 1979). 30 Mary Racelis Hollnsteiner and Judy Celis Ick (eds.), Bearers of Benevolence: The Thomasites and Public Education in the Philippines (Manila: 2001).

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31 Anthropos is an International Journal of Anthropology and Linguistics founded in 1906 by Wilhelm Schmidt, and published by the Anthropos Institute in Sankt Augustin, Germany. 32 Jose D. Fermin, 1904 World’s Fair. The Filipino Experience (Infinity Publishing, Diliman, Quezon City, 2004). 33 Carl Wilhelm Seidenadel, The First Grammar of the Language Spoken by the Bontoc Igorot with Vocabulary and Texts, 592 pp. (Chicago, 1909). Also available online through the Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co. 34 Lawrence A. Reid, “Seidenadel’s Grammar of Bontoc Igorot: One Hundred Years on,” in Philippine Linguistics Before the Advent of Structuralism (Berlin: 2011), pp. 141-161. 35 Leopoldo L. Yabes, History of Filipino as the Common National Language, Language Planning and the Building of a National Language, Ed. by Bonifacio Sibayan and Andrew Gonzalez, FSC (Quezon City: 1977). 36 Andrew Gonzalez, Language and Nationalism: the Philippine Experience so Far (Quezon City, Ateneo de Manila Universsity Press, 1980). 37 See: http://www.sil.org/about/news/celebrating-60-years-partnershipphilippines. 38 Zeus A. Salazar, Le concept AC’/anitu’ dans le monde austrnésien: vers l’étude cmparative des religions ethniques austronésiennes. Ph.D. Diss, Sorbonne (Paris, 1968). 39 Portia Reyes, Pantayong Pananaw and Bagong Kasaysayan in the New Filipino Historiography. A History of Filipino Historiography as a History of Ideas. Ph. D. Diss, University of Bremen, 2002, p. 552. 40

Reyes, op. cit., p. 593.

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AMLAT AND THE KAPAMPANGAN HISTORICAL TRADITION1 (THE CASE FOR UPPER PAMPANGA) Lino L. Dizon

Abstrak: Sa pamamagitan ng Amlat o kasaysayan (o kaya’y epiko pa nga) sa Kapampangan, pinag-aaralan sa sanaysay na ito ang mga posibilidad ng nagsasariling historyograpiyang lokal sa dating rehiyon ng hilagang Pampanga, kung saan matatagpuan ang Kapampangang nakarating sa hangganan ng bayan ng probinsya ng Tarlac. Iginigiit ng artikulo na ang katangian ng itinuturing na makasaysaysang tradisyong Kapampangan ay may ekstensibong kaugnayan sa larangan ng folklor, lingguwistika, at panitikan, at iba pa.

Introduction Until today, a still recurrent and necessary Filipino theme is that of the revolutionary turn two centuries ago, particularly the Philippine Revolution of 1896 and its vicissitudes. Due to the constricted attitude of early academics and their conventional view of history, much of the actual experience has been left in the hands of the orthodox historians who did not see anything historical except in the general that has been calcified by facts and extreme documentation. In this process, glorious and phenomenal details, which could have been optimized with a more localized historical form, have been either filtered or left out. These details could be gathered again and resurrected, as the essay hopes to achieve, through a historical technique that can accommodate a variety of data to unify or coalesce them later. This is the domain of local historiography.

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It is ironical that what is local is the least understood and attended. This is basically the transpiration of local history as a discipline in the historical spectrum. Local history, “which was practiced long ago with carefulness, zeal and even pride,” as a French scholar blurts out, “was later despised (especially in the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century) by the supporters of general history.”2 He was quick to add, however, that “since the middle of this century, local history has risen again and acquired new meaning; indeed, some even maintain that only local history can be true and sound.” There are enormous particularities in the resurrection and selfmanifestation of local history, both in technique and content. For example, in the 1960s, synchronous with the belligerent attack on apartheid, segregation and other racist policies in the United States and other parts of the world, historians, particularly those from Africa, were doing the same thing in history. This was the “prime” of Jan Vansina and his colleagues who propagated the role or the auxiliary role of oral history in place of conservative written history.3 They insisted that oral traditions can supplement the study of societies without a formal script. In other words, one must not be effaced of his history because of the misrepresentation of his past by another, whose determinants are outlandish to him in most cases. Local history, as in the case of oral history, is the common tao’s interpretation of history, bereft of the qualities and requirements of formal historiography. In our communities, we could still encounter an unschooled but respected individual, who could relate the story of the founding of a sitio or a barangay with a concoction of facts handed down from generation to generation. Usually the community would lead a researcher to him, not to an academic or a history teacher; his seniority is his only qualification. In this instance,

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the authenticity of facts is already immaterial; the workings of an historical process inherent in the ordinary man, divorced from the dictates of alienating methodologies, is more important. We could always collect these stories for the sake of our folklore, yet it is always possible that these can also serve as missing links in the proper understanding of our history. A breakthrough in scholarship and certainly an answer to the above conundrum was Reynaldo Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution which came out in 1979.4 This book did not delimit history to the conventional or the orthodox as predecessors did; and it did not have what David Lowenthal proposes as ‘Eurocentric bias.’5 Ileto used oral traditions in documenting its subjects: the Katipunan and the Revolution of 1896. He used the pasyon, kantahing bayan and folk songs that told the people’s experiences in rhyme and verses; and so undermined the practice of traditional historians who confined their historywriting around the principal actors of history (usually the so-called ilustrados and the intellegentia). His contentions were fruitful and replete with possibilities. Ileto stated that “when errors proliferate in a patterned manner, when rumors spread “like wildfire,” when sources are biased in a consistent way, we are in fact offered the opportunity to study the workings of the popular mind.”6 Convincingly he mentioned that this is applicable not only to “folk” sources like riddles and epics but to works whose authors are known. Consider the following: The latter are usually analyzed as products or expressions of individual creative minds, despite the fact that poetry or history can only be written within the context of a system of conventions which delimit the text. As long as the writer intends to communicate, he has to imagine the reactions of his readers who have assimilated the system of conventions used. Knowing something of this underlying system enables us to transcend questions of authorship, which is problematic in many Tagalog sources. Once we have gained some idea of

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the structure of the popular mind, data from conventional sources like official reports and outsider accounts can be fruitfully used. For example, we can get at the full significance of the observation that Katipuneros wept after their initiation, only after we have analyzed and understood the complex of meanings behind acts of compassion, weeping, and empathy, which are abundantly illustrated in literature. In other words, “weeping” acquires meaning only if it is integrated into a system of unconscious thought.7 Such interpretation tempts us to conceive a sort of a Kapampangan historical tradition, which could also be associated with another ethnolinguistic group in Central Luzon particularly in Pampanga and the border provinces of Bataan, Nueva Ecija and especially Tarlac that used to comprise what was known as Alta Pampanga (Upper Pampanga) during the Spanish Colonial Period. This is far from being definitive, however. This enterprise is ambitious and hard to establish, primarily hampered by the Kapampangan past itself. Like other Christianized, lowland Philippine ethnolinguistic groups, the long Spanish colonial domination affected the sway of pre-existent Kapampangan cultural tradition. This period inevitably waylaid the early system of thought and knowledge in favor of those of the Western colonizers. In 1571, Pampanga was one of the initial provinces to be subjugated and subsequently created in the Spanish mold by the Adelantado, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. Eventually most Kapampangans deemed it their duty to be nostalgic of the bygone vast Kapampangan country that “stretched from the bank of the Rio Grande northward to the country of the Pangasinans on one side and that of the Ilongots on the other ”8 or, as a Kapampangan historian puts it, “tutuldua na ing sucad at dagul na ibat ya Menila anga ya Ilocos, cayabe la ding Capitna ning Bataan, Tarlac, daque ning Bulacan, Pangasinan, at Zambales.”9 No amount of explanation could make them understand that this ‘vastness’ was no more than

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an inutile demarcación de encomienda by the Spanish conquistadores rather than a signifier of the eminence of this linguistic race, whose region, right down to the middle of the nineteenth century, “kept losing one town after another to Tarlac and Nueva Ecija because its center of political gravity had continued to remain fixed around the delta.”10 A catalyst that further beefed up this nostalgia was the alleged arrival in Pampanga of Prince Balagtas, son of noble chief Araw of Borneo and wife Lady Maylag during the Javanese Majapahit Empire. Crossing the seas through daungs between 1335 and 1380, more than a century prior to the start of the Philippine historical period, Prince Balagtas was, as Kapampangans love to relate, to sire the royal blood of this race (Aku ing meging supling da ring pipumpunan a sugi.../Menibatan la Borneo at karing pampangan naniti Sinadsad la’t menuknangan, memalipi,menatili...).11 Adopted from a supposed 17th century will of Fernando Malang Balagtas, this out-of-Pampanga sentimentality became popular in the early 20th century through archaeologist H. Otley Beyer, proponent of the migration theory on the peopling of the Philippines. The 1960s discovery of the Tabon Man debunked Beyer’s theory; still, some Kapampangans continued to be convinced of its veracity, particularly to their supposed nonPhilippine royal origins. Considered by some, certainly by the non-Kapampangan Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil, to be the ‘constant fraternizers of the Spaniards’ and by Fray Gaspar de San Agustin in the 1600s as the “Castilians of these Indians” (with a Spanish alcalde-mayor Jose Canovas in 1897 calling Pampanga as “muy Española”) Kapampangan folkways have been sadly replaced, assimilated or truncated by Western thoughts and practices. Most of the Kapampangan socio-cultural ways had to take the dictates of the domineering, colonial culture. Preliminary assessments show that the

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areas immune from the prescriptions of the latter are only some areas of the narrative lore and literature, e.g., the polosa, the canta- istorya puwesiya, and other folksongs, the drama (comedia, moro-moro, zarzuela), and the folk speech (bugtungan, kasebian). The language--even with the inevitable seeping of adoptions, borrowings and translations--has managed to encapsulate certain strands of idiosyncratic compositions that could have merely given in and coalesced, like the rest. Here we also acknowledge Vicente Rafael’s warning that the survival of a language is not a guarantee that it is totally free from the adulteration of colonialism.12 Even then, it will still be quite hard to identify an indigenous Kapampangan historical tradition; unlike its feasibility in folklore, as shown in the studies of many scholars to be presented later. It is even more exacting if this tradition has to be sieved in the standards of endemic, unadulterated taxonomy. For example Ricardo Galang’s Ethnographic Study of the Pampangans amply illustrated types and examples of various Kapampangan folklore areas and ethos, but neglected to discuss history. It used a certain ‘authority,’ as a specimen (as “one in his field”), in the field of research and not in history itself. He was Lubao native Angel Morales, author of Ing Capangpañgan, which was “a sketch of Pampanga’s achievement with the history of the towns of the province,”13 of 1919.14 This was the same predicament of those who followed suit in their history of Pampanga and the Kapampangans, without or with lackadaisical use of the history or historical methodology by the Kapampangans. Mariano Henson was one of the acknowledged Kapampangan historians; he came up with a number of works dealing with genealogy, local history, and other aspects of Pampanga and its people. His The Province of Pampanga and Its Towns,

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which had four editions between 1955 and 1965, continues to be the bible of Kapampangan history. However, this book and Henson’s other historical works, some even written in Pampango, preferred to use the more standard, colonial sources over local history accounts. Meanwhile, in an effort to heal some of the cultural ravages wrought by the Second World War, the Philippine government encouraged the preservation of local history through oral methodology. It supported the release of the Velasco handbook.15 Kapampangan anthologists, including Lacson, Icban-Castro and Manlapaz, rode on this wave. Though their main concern was Kapampangan literature, their anthologies also provided ample data on the prosaic nonfictional literary forms of the ethnolinguistic group, as biography, memoirs, and essay. Unfortunately, though each of them included a history of Kapampangan literature and language, they have not discussed a local historiographical genre and minimally used historical works by or in Kapampangan. A similar paucity is found in the recent listing of Kapampangan studies by Anicia Del Coro.16 Henson and other Kapampangan scholars are not entirely to blame. An identical otiose situs plagues regional and local histories of other Philippine ethnolinguistic groups. “In the past,” local historian Marcelino Foronda stated, “local history has not merited the attention not to say the dedication and efforts of our more notable historians, relegated as it was by and large to souvenir programs of town fiestas and athletic meets, or to volumes commemorating the anniversaries of some city, town or province.” He added that “(though) the writing of local history in the Philippines is not actually new...(it) would only be towards practically the end of Spanish colonial rule that the first book length work in local history written by a Filipino, the Historia de Ilocos by Isabelo de los Reyes was published in 1890.”17

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The beginning of a Kapampangan historical tradition could be found in Pampanga and with the Kapampangans or in particular, in the premier grabadores and minervistas Tomas Pinpin and Antonio Damba. In 1610, Tomas Pinpin built the first Philippine movable-type printing press (“Imprenta Incunabula”) in Bataan, which was then a distrito of Pampanga. Pampanga’s Bacolor, Macabebe, and Lubao had printing presses long before other Philippine major cities. In his Conquista de Filipinas Gaspar de San Agustin mentioned that the Augustinians bought a good imprenta that was transported from Japan to Manila and Pampanga between 1618 and 1621. He said that it “had printed much books, in Spanish and also in Kapampangan and Tagalog.”18 Francisco Coronel’s Catecismo y doctrina christiana en lengua pampanga, presumably the first Kapampangan printed book, was published in Macabebe in 1621--presumably through the very press that San Agustin had mentioned.19 Described by historian Juan de Medina as “a man of vast learning and of whom very great hopes were entertained for the future,”20 Coronel, who was a native of Torija, Guadalajara, Spain, served in Kapampangan town-missions Mexico (1611), Lubao (1613), Bacolor (1617, 1629) and Macabebe (1620, 1626). After he familiarized himself with the language, he wrote the first known Kapampangan grammar, Arte y reglas de la lenguapampanga, in 1621.21 Kapampangan Studies scholars failed to acknowledge this work.22 During the remainder of the Spanish period Kapampangan printed materials were confined to translations and reprints of bulas (papal bulls), catechisms, awits and corridos and a couple of grammars and dictionaries. In 1831 Kapampangan priest and “Father of Kapampangan literature” Anselmo Fajardo wrote Comedia Heroica de la Conquista de Granada o sea Vida de Don Gonzalo de Cordova Llamado el Gran Capitan, which was performed in a fiesta for San Guillermo in Bacolor in the same year.23 The play transformed the town

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into the “Athens of Pampanga” and inspired a string of homegrown writers like Sotto himself, Cornelio Pabalan Byron, Felix Galura, and others. Printed in 1912, this comedia has 832 pages and 31,000 lines, one of the longest of its kind in the Philippines. Displaying the richness of the vernacular language, it imparted an early historico-geographical curiosity among its captivated audience-- the jornadas of Don Gonzalo de Cordoba to Granada, most especially. Uli nita ing España, ngeni ala nang Corti na, nun e na iting Granadang mamuc acua ning Castilla. Ing Granada misnang sampat ing pangabili na ganap, carin pin macatalacad qñg pun ding Sierras Nevadas. Matas a pangabilian Ing Granadang cabilugan, At qñg sabla-sabla na ngan Encantos ing pacabusal. 24 According to historian Bonifacio Salamanca, the first serious work on Philippine local history was on the Kapampangans and ironically by a nonFilipino.

25

In 1972 American John Larkin’s The Pampangans: Colonial Society

in a Philippine Province came out. He did his fieldwork in Pampanga from 1964 to 1965, when local history was hardly recognized as a Philippine discipline. His experience informed his “The Place of Local History in Philippine

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Historiography,” a treatise on local historiography. Still, his treatment of Philippine local history was criticized for being inadequate, biased, and alienating by Filipino scholars.26 Some Kapampangan scholars even adamantly declared that his findings “downplayed the role of Kapampangans in the Philippine Revolution.”27 They claimed Larkin said that “Pampangans played a relatively minor role when compared with that of their Tagalog neighbors to the south.”28 In some respects The Pampangans is more Filipino, or more Kapampangan, than other works written by Filipino historians before. Written in English, the book fully took advantage of local Kapampangan sources that were either scorned or taken for granted by earlier scholars. Amply it utilized local histories. One of these is a manuscript--Macario Siccion’s untitled history of Pampanga (1896-1932).29 Commenting on this book, Larkin said that “there is probably no better example of Pampangan local pride and suspicion than is found in a history of the province written in the dialect by a native of Apalit. In it the author complains bitterly of the increasing role of the Tagalogs in Philippine society, and he fears that Tagalog dominance will work to the detriment of Pampangan culture and literature.”30 Larkin also utilized other collections that contained considerable data on Kapampangan history and culture, including the Beyer and Luther Parker collections and the Historical Data Papers (HDP) for Pampanga, thereby leading future historians to them. The Beyer collection, entitled “Ethnography of the Pampangan People,” contains three volumes of unpublished manuscripts collected between 1916 and 1931 by Dr. H.O.Beyer. Kapampangan students wrote these papers for Beyer’s anthropology class in U.P. before the Second World War.31

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Former principal Luther Parker of the Bacolor School of Arts and Trades-presently the Don Honorio Ventura College of Arts and Trades--collected the materials from 1904-1910. Together with Juan Crisostomo Soto and Modesto Joaquin, Parker prepared An English-Spanish-Pampango Dictionary in 1905.32 Presently housed at the Filipiniana Section of the University of the Philippines, the collection contains historical accounts of the various towns of Pampanga.33 Larkin used this collection alongside Parker’s correspondences, available at the US Library of Congress and the Yale University Library. “The Historical Data Papers” or HDP are deposited at the Philippine National Library. In the 1950s, in an effort to retrieve local historical accounts, the Bureau of Public Schools mandated public school teachers to submit historical data on their barangays, towns/cities, and provinces, patterned after the Velasco handbook.34 For lacking appropriate documentation, the HDP is not highly regarded by some historians. Ileto, however, found them useful for they “contained old songs and stories about anting-anting and other unusual occurrences associated with the revolutionary period.”35 According to Larkin, only the second of the two Pampangan volumes is still left and this contains information on nine municipalities of the province. Larkin’s The Pampangans also used souvenir programs and local newspapers. The centennial anniversary souvenir program Capagmasusian Qñg Aldo Pañgasilang Ning Magalang, Diciembre 1963 was among these. He thought local newspapers Ing Emangabiran36(San Fernando, Pampanga), with some issues for December 1907, May 1908, and April 1911, and El Imparcial (San Fernando, Pampanga), with issues for November, December 1907, May 1908, April, December 1909, and April 1911 were useful. Historian Galang came up with a comprehensive listing of pre-war Kapampangan newspapers, but most of

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them are no longer available. Galang mentioned Ang Kalayaan: Tagapamalitang Tagalog at Capampangan, one of the pioneering newspapers written in Kapampangan, juxtaposed with Tagalog. An edition of the third issue of this newspaper, dated 1899, exists at the Philippine National Library. It features the visit of President Aguinaldo in Tarlac and Pangasinan in the month of February, before the fall of his Malolos Republic. Gen. Makabulos was notably the publisher of this paper, which circulated primarily in the Tarlac Province.37 This TarlaqueñoKapampangan general initiated Soto in the Katipunan and most likely had a lot to do with the translations for the Kapampangan portion of the newspaper. He had previously worked for La Independencia, Gen. Antonio Luna’s revolutionary newspaper.38 During his incarceration at La Paz, Tarlac on February 22, 1899, former Bamban Recollect curate Mariano Morales charged this “un periódico seminal editado en tagalog y pampango ...Ang Kalayaan (La Libertad) se llamaba la infame hoja (weekly newspaper edited in Tagalog and Kapampangan ... Ang Kalayaan being the name of this infamous sheet)” for heartening personal attacks on the Spanish Archbishop of Manila, instigated by a pro-revolutionary native clergy (most probably by Fr. Eusebio Natividad, the military vicar of General Makabulos).39 I am not familiar with any exhaustive study or a catalog on Kapampangan newspapers. It is unfortunate, since these usually contain tidbits of data on local history. The Pampangans also cites the Philippine Insurgent Records (PIR) and the holdings of the Philippine National Archives. During its research, however, the Taylor book (on the PIR) is yet to be published by E. Lopez Foundation (it was to be printed in 1971). The PNA had also only released its catalogs,

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particularly the finding aids for the Erecciones de Pueblos, in 1990. Documents related to Pampanga and Tarlac are in volumes 4 and 5 of this catalog. Rightly Larkin claimed that “the PNA in Manila contains one of the largest collections in the world of documents on the Spanish regime in the archipelago; the papers number in the millions.”40 Many documents about Pampanga and Tarlac are still in their search stage. Larkin’s treatment of the Philippine Revolution, as bewailed by Kapampangan scholars, was indeed meager. “A la yapa king kalingkingan (cannot yet accommodate even the little finger),” a Kapampangan would most likely to say. Larkin just presented the tip of an iceberg. The PIR contains so many documents about the phase and peculiar situados of the Revolution in both Pampanga and Tarlac. Day-to-day and trivial developments, as are discernible in the communications of General Tomas Mascardo, Don Antonio Consunji (president of San Fernando), Don Juan Nepomuceno (president of Angeles) and other revolucionarios, abound. Dated July 12, 1898, a letter by writer and Soto’s friend Col. Modesto Joaquin to General Makabulos is of interest here. Joaquin congratulated Makabulos for his successful siege of Tarlac two days earlier. He requested the immediate release of Colonels Bañuelos and Simeon Cabigting and Commandant Lorenzo Camaya from the Makabulos brigade; so they could come back to and help restore peace and order in Pampanga.41 The letter proves the existence of cooperation among the Kapampangan “linguistic” brethren, who were then already living in separate provinces. As I have suggested in earlier publications, the prision accounts or the journals of Spanish friars, who were imprisoned by the Filipino revolutionaries, constitute some of the hardly utilized sources of the Philippine Revolution. Notably most of these friars were stationed in Tarlac and Pampanga prior to and

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during their incarceration. Prisoners included the last Spanish curate of Porac, Pampanga, Fr. Bernardo Martinez, O.S.A., who wrote Apuntes históricos de la provincial Agustiniana de Santísimo Nombre de Jesús de Filipinas.42 Another inmate was former Macabebe curate Fernando Garcia O.S.A., whose Ing macuyad a pa(g)magsalita diquil qñg bie nang delanan at pañgatimaua ning metung a mebijag of 1900 was an important contribution to Kapampangan historiography.43 Sixteen years earlier Garcia also wrote a Kapampangan arithmetic book.44 He was 49, when he surrendered to the Filipino revolucionarios in Hagonoy, Bulacan.45 Another facet of Kapampangan historiography that needs to be harnessed is oral history. From 1964 until the 1970s, prior to the publication of his book, Larkin interviewed some citizens of Pampanga, including politicians, landowners, and peasants.46 This is commendable; what is unfortunate, however, was that as a non-speaker of Kapampangan, Larkin failed to observe innate historical perceptions among the people. For example, among the holdings of the CTS was a pawaga (testimony) of a Tarlaqueño in 1966 concerning his reminiscences about the 1898 Tarlac Siege. In Kapampangan, the interviewee remembered that the siege was when it was “maralas nang mumuran at ding bunga da ring dutung a’ manga lagad-lagad la mu…panaun nang Apung Alfonso Ramos (raining often with fruit-bearing among trees almost over … during the time of Don Alfonso Ramos).47 Larkin would not have deduced that the interviewee was referring to the month of June, during the onset of the rainy season and the end of the fruit-bearing period of the mango trees.

A Kapampangan Historiography It was only around 1987 that I was able to take hold of histories written in Kapampangan. Instead of amlat pirulunan or borderline history, these narratives

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were written by Kapampangans or former Kapampangans, now living in Tarlac province. I thought I would be seeing some local terms for history in them for the first time. In their analysis, however, we should also be aware of the caution of Marc Bloch that “the worst danger of such careful definitions is that they only bring further limitations.”48 “This subject,” declares the divine lexicographer, “or that means of treating it, is, no doubt seductive, but take care, o young apprentice! it is not history!” Published in 1956 by Matias Press of Tarlac, Marcos Tañedo’s Makuyad a Kasalesayan o (Historia) Kñg Pangatatag ning Balen Tarlac a Ngeni Meguing Lalawigan (Provincia) is foremost of these Kapampangan narratives. Don Marcos had utilized two Kapampangan taxonomic terms for history: one, as the moldy cover of this rare book states, was Kasalesayan; the other was Amlat. As I have indicated in earlier publications, I derived the title of my column Amlat in some Tarlac newspapers (and part of the title of this essay) from this book. Kasalesayan, highlighted by the term salese or “order”, is roughly a rigid equivalent of the Tagalog Kasaysayan. It shares similarities with the Western concept history--an orthodox, conservative, and empirical treatment of facts. The grammarian priest Fr. Antonio Bravo, then the “cura parroco qñg balean Uaua”(Guagua), was among its early users in 1873.49 Casalesayan was used in a number of publications during the Spanish period. For proponents of pantayong pananaw the Spanish historia is a mere chronology of events while the Tagalog kasaysayan could be deduced from may saysay (with meaning) and the end-user of the discipline (ka-).50 With the use of glottochronology and other means of lexical comparison, especially with a neighboring language like Kapampangan, we could claim that kasaysayan evolved from salaysay or sanaysay (e.g., kasalaysayan and kasanaysay being the

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original form of kasaysayan). It was primarily concerned with the reportage and process of story-telling, not with ethnocentrism. E. Manuel pointed out that kasaysayan (importance, value, utility) was from a reduplication of the Chinese sái; but added that it has a second meaning (“history or narrative”), as cited by Tomas Pinpin in 1610. Manuel stated that this second meaning “seems not to be embraced in the Chinese concept, or if it is, an extension of meaning has probably occurred.”51 Amlat might have been akin to Alamat or “legend” in most Philippine languages. In amlat history is purportedly a by-product of a simple story. This is not a far-fetched opinion. The Kapampangans tend to metathesize the language of others; for example, Kapampangan speakers transformed the Tagalog tubo, sugar cane, to atbu or äbu in the distinctly slurring Magalang-Concepcion diction. In Amlat, there is no barrier between people, between the intellegencia and the ordinary, between the rich and the poor, between the educated and the uneducated. What remains, therefore, is a history of the people, by the people and for the people. In his etymology of Tarlac, Luciano Tabaquero submitted to the Tarlac Historical Society in 1966 a testament from his grandfather Mapilan A Amanu Ning Kasalesayan Dikil King Amlat Ning Balayan Ning Tarlac52 (Some historical words concerning the History of the Town of Tarlac) that used the aforementioned Kapampangan terms for history. Recently, I have seen Qñg Tula Ra Ding Capampangan (With the Joy of the Kapampangan People)--a 1956 souvenir program prepared for the Nuestra Señora Virgen De Los Remedios as the patroness of the Diocese of San Fernando. A rare discovery and not cited by more recent Kapampangan studies, it includes the histories of the towns and parishes of Pampanga and Felix B. Punsalan’s

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“AMLAT (Historia) NING CAPAMPANGAN.” Most of these accounts, however, are already available in Mariano Henson’s English language books. Like Tañedo’s book of the same year, Qng Tula regularly used amlat--though often substituted with the Spanish historia--to refer to history. This suggests the prevalence of the term in that period. In contrast, however, Henson stressed the historical process pangatatag (establishment) rather than the discipline in his Kapampangan histories.53 Another Kapampangan-Tarlaqueño historian was Vicente Catu, from Victoria, Tarlac. In his heyday, he wrote Tarlac historical sketches that would be utilized by celebrated writer Nick Joaquin in his work on the Aquinos of Tarlac. In 1977, Catu wrote the histories of a couple of barrios of Tarlac town in Kapampangan in the Tarlac Star. He used the term Ystoria in his historical writings.54 The hypothesis that amlat was a metathesis of alamat is related to the jokingly told contention that since Kapampangan speakers do not aspirate h, they also do not know the distinction between historia and istorya.55

Vestiges of a Historical Tradition In his observation of the early communities on the archipelago of the 1600s Fr. Pedro Chirino, in his Relacion de las Islas Filipinas, stated: (That) government and religion are for them founded on tradition and on the practices introduced by the devil himself... and are preserved in songs which they have committed to memory and learned from childhood, having heard them sung while sailing, while at work, while rejoicing and feasting, and above all while mourning the dead. In these barbaric songs they relate the fabulous genealogies and vain deeds of their gods...They deal with the creation of the world and the beginning of human lineage, with the deluge, and with glory and grief and other intangible things, telling a thousand absurd stories and even altering their stories a

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great deal so that some tell it one way and others...56 The historical tradition was already a moiety of Filipino prehistoric culture, as was manifested in their folklore, narrative forms (epics, myths, and tales) and folksongs. During the centennial celebration of the 1896 Philippine Revolution University of the Philippines Professor Vivencio Jose called for a creation of a revolutionary paradigm, since “in this more complex age, we need to expand the frontiers of the Revolution and adopt an appropriate praxis.”57 For him, this coherent paradigm will “galvanize the internal revolution among our people” and feature certain appropriate elements. He claimed that the basic among these elements, called the “first historic tradition,” is “rooted in popular, millennial struggles that are embodied by our epics and heroic songs.” Jose already established earlier that “the early myths and epics give us glimpses of probable beginnings of mass movements in Philippine history.”58 Unfortunately, Kapampangans do not have an extant epic, unlike the ethnolinguistic group Ilokanos, who have their Biag ni Lam-ang; the Ifugaos, their Hudhud at Alim; and the Bikolanos, their Ibalon. The Kapampangans also have minimal myths. Recently, the academic group Akademyang Kapampangan came up with an epic for Pampanga, entitled “Y Mariang Sinukuan” of Mt. Arayat. Though I am a member of this group, I was against this project. For me, an epic is woven by a culture through a passage of time; it is only in this manner that the integrity and applicability of an epic is tested. The importance of the project was undeniable, especially in its use of cultural themes and culture heroes who, at one time, might have been mortals like us. For example Sinukuan might have been either a nymph or a lord, as some tales referred to her/him as Mariang Sinukuan or Aring Sinukuan [King Sinukuan].59 Despite of doubts over her/his gender, however, we are sure that

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s/he could foster cultural identity among Kapampangans. The epic Biag-niLam-ang has served this purpose for the Ilokanos; and the Ibalon and Daragang Magayon (Mayon), to the Bikolanos. Legends are aplenty. Known as alamat, Kapampangan legends include stories on the origin and the naming of barrios and sitios, as well as people and events. Both folklore and history are now considering toponymy or place-name study. Numerous Philippine toponyms indicate historical events like Pinaglabanan of San Juan, which refers to the battle fought between the Katipuneros under Andres Bonifacio and the Spanish soldiers on August 30, 1896; Bayakitos of Nagcarlan, Laguna which is a corruption of “Bayan ng mga Insurektos”; Pinagbateriahan of Amadeo, Cavite, which comes from the Spanish word bateria (battery); and Pinaglagdaan of Paombong, Bulacan which refers to where the members of the Revolution signed their names.60 Barrio Ligtasan of Tarlac was believed to have been so named because it afforded a sanctuary or ‘saved’ the revolutionaries from the Spaniards. Concepcion’s barrio Telabanca used to be called Mabuloc (foul smell) for it allegedly acted as a swampy receptacle of fatalities from the Filipino-American War. Citizens of Pampanga’s Sasmuan (a.k.a. Sexmoan) were convinced that the name of their town came from tabnuan, a Kapampangan term for gathering and assembly, and is the place where “a band of patriotic Pampangos from nearby towns used to assemble and plan attacks against Chinese61 and Spanish insurgents .” 62 Magalang’s barrio San Francisco was formerly known as Batiawan, since it housed Spanish general Ricardo Monet’s torre heliografia (watchtower) that allegedly guarded Central Luzon from Filipino violators of the Pact-of-Biak-na-Bato ceasefire agreement like General Makabulos and his Kapampangan cohorts. Finally, Sta. Rita, Pampanga’s barrio San Matias was earlier known as Lacbañgan for it was where the so-called “dragones” (probably a corruption of the Spanish cazadores)

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established a “check-point in a narrow bridge and halted everyone that passed, shouting ‘Quien vive?’ ”63 Some Kapampangan legends focus on the role of cultural and historical heroes, the feat of the revolucionarios and the like. For example, some Tarlac streets were named after heroes who feature in local lore. “Rizal Street” was named after the national hero, who supposed to have stayed in the area when he visited Leonor Rivera in Camiling; while “Mabini Street” was named after the Sublime Paralytic, who supposedly had sojourned in the place, which was then known as Calle Real, etc. In this genre we could include the “biographies” of famous Kapampangan participants of the Revolution like Francisco Makabulos, Servillano Aquino, and Maximino Hizon. Most of the chapters in their lives are handed down to us in packets of legendary tales about their superhuman bravery and courage. Makabulos, for example, was said to be dexterous in arnisde-mano. 64 There are also a lot of folktales among the Kapampangans. Examples of this type include the drolls, the fables, the tricksters’ tales, and other stories. In this genre, we could also classify various stories about our heroes, especially their childhood lives. Books about Rizal, Bonifacio, and others were usually filled-up with tales about their extraordinary childhood feats. This tendency is comparable with the way older people related their experiences, or the ‘good old times’ to their descendants. Aniang malati ku (When I was small) and the Ketang Milabasan (In times passed) genre among Kapampangan tales are good sources of history. Like their peers, Kapampangan grandparents love to tell their accomplishments during historical events, like the Katipunan, Revolution, and the Japanese Period in Philippine history. Folk songs are genuine memento of a nation’s rich and glorious past.

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They help trace back the lifeline of a country’s history and development. Listeners to a country’s folksong will be transported to the land and its people and get a closer perspective of their characteristic traits, customs, and tradition.65 A handful considered the 1960s proliferation of folk songs and hootenanny (folksong singing) in the United States as “singing history.” “At its best,” as one puts it, “(a folk song) unpretentiously calls up a sense of history. It shines with language in which short words and images go long distances.”66 Folklorist Alejandrino Q. Perez classified Kapampangan folksongs in 1968.67 They include farming songs (pantatanam), love songs (dalit, pamuri, and silimi, of which Atin Ku Pung Singsing is the most popular) and nonsensical songs (basulto). In an interview in the 1960s an old Kapampangan (Lorenzo Garcia of San Fernando, Pampanga) related that the basulto was originally a form of marching song accompanied by the music of the flute and drums sung during tribal wars and so, confirmed the connection between folklore and social movements. The stronger the beating of the drums in the basulto, the stronger the tribal army was. Here is an example: Lalaki, babae, menako keni Baraping abalu dening taung deni Isadya yong sibat yu At lumibut tamu--Bara pin gakit ding taung lilu! 68

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The same rhythms of the basulto found its place in the patriotic songs of the Kapampangan revolucionarios. An equivalent of the patriotic songs is the Kantang patriota like the Katipunan and the Amanung Sisuan. They are remnants of our fight against Spain; Tarlac and Pampanga were among the eight provinces which first revolted. 69 Some Kapampangan kanta-istorya poesiya (chanted narrative poems like the polosa or an extemporaneous song presented in verse) are also replete with historical events. Certainly carry-overs of what Chirino described as ‘barbaric songs that relate the fabulous genealogies and vain deeds of their gods’ or the ‘devil’s handy-work’, these poems merely purport that, as elsewhere, the first poets were the storytellers. They tell us that long ago, hunters would gather around the fire at night while the storyteller would tell them of the day’s adventures or recount legends of their ancestors. In the period prior to the Japanese Occupation or ‘peace time’ a popular istorya-poesiya among Kapampangans was the Berding Dikut, sometimes entitled Maria Dolores, which poetically tell the story of the ill-fated love of Dedina and Elias and the legend of the makahiya (mimosa pudica) grass: Berding dikut atinubu libutad ning marangle, Tagkilan me mangayungkung, agtalan me mamamate. Nung bakit mikasuksuk ya itang kayang baling tanke, King salitang makarima, idalit ke keko ngene.

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During the crescendo of political patronage in the Philippines, especially during the first taste of local elections in the American period (1910s-1930s), the townspeople eagerly await momentous events concerning the politico (e.g., birthdays), leading to the composition of songs about him. Some of these songs survived as reminiscences of the era. For example, the people of Concepcion, Tarlac sung the Ing Suging Don Benignu (The Honorable Don Benigno), honoring then political caudillo Benigno Aquino, Sr.70 A part of this song goes: Ngeni ye damdaman ing kadiwang istoria Tungkul kang Don Benignu kanitang minuna Itang depatana king milabasan a aldo Serviciu king balen kareng parang tau...

In the early times, the story-poems endured because of the troubadours, or those who were paid to sing stories. They usually exaggerated the feat, heroism, and virtuous life of their masters and lords. In Kapampangan gatherings, especially during fiestas, one can still see the mamulosa (the polosa singer) who, for a certain amount, will instantly compose a song for you, with a dexterous accompaniment of his guitar. One of the most requested polosa is Cuarenta Dias, which tells of the town of Porac during the great floods of central Luzon in 1972 (due to the monsoon rain, or uran a siyam-siyam, which lasted for fortydays). Makalunus-lunus ing bie ming delanan King bagyu at uran, albug a malalam.

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Alus patingapun misan kami mangan Pauli nanitang uran e tutuknang.71

There was even a polosa about Magsaysay that went: Añang mabieya’y Magsaysay, Mekumbira ya qñg Cebu Bilang bisitang pandangal, Ketang metung a colegiu... Añang iba’t neng megsalita, Memun ne qñg pesitagun Agad-agad sinake ya, Ketang eroplanu. Eroplanung sekayan, Apin ing Mount Pinatubu...72 .

Another remarkable source of the Kapampangan historical tradition, though rarely seen, is literature. Foremost Kapampangan writers like Juan Crisostomo Soto, Aurelio Tolentino, Zoilo Hilario, and others used historical backdrops in their zarzuela, comedia, novels, poems, and essays. Wenceslao P. Guzman’s recent story-poem, Ing Ditak Kung Kamalayan King Istoryaning Magalang,73 displays the endurance of the historical tradition as a marriage between local history and literary form among Kapampangans. Other Kapampangan histories-in-poetry, though more general in scope, include Magin Torres’ Sintang Pilipinas74 and Gon C. Sta. Maria’s Istoria Ning Filipinas.75

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The literary products of some movements, albeit leftist or rebellious, are also similarly interesting. These include the songs (kantang ukbu) and tales of the Hukbalahaps, collectively known as HukLore.76 During the campaigns against the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines they emerged as guerillalore (kantang gerilya) and persisted among the peasantry in the following period, during their fight for agrarian reforms against their own government. In this genre, we could include Pilipinas, Mipakdeka and Pangawanted Na.77 The former is a patriotic song that entreats the Philippines to be calm in spite of the catastrophes of the war: Pilipinas, mipakde ka, Sulyapan mo ring anak mung mibabata, Telakad de ing guerilla Uling lugud da king karelang bansa... E bala ing mate kami Alakwan da kasang maili. .

The latter, Pangawanted Na, tells the story of two brothers from Masantol, Pampanga who were seized by the Japanese Army, headed by a MAKAPILI or a Filipino spy named Captain Serrano. The guerilla activities of a ‘wanted’ comrade, Kayabe (or Ka) Del Pilar, comprises the backdrop of the brothers’ story. The unfruitful hunt for Del Pilar angered the Japanese, who then directed their anger against the captured civilians. Before the brothers’ scheduled

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death through a firing squad, however, the good guys came (sundalus usape or the USAFFE). In the end the bad guys (Apon ampong PC or the Japanese and the PC ) were successfully eliminated. Here, the unknown author of the song probably used PC or Philippine Constabulary to mean the dreaded Japanese police or the kempetai. This istorya-puwesiya goes as: Ing pangawanted nang Kayabe Del Pilar Lalu lang mebangis ding kayang kalaban Kibkuban do bale, tambing dong gepusan I Fred yang pangane matua ya karela Metung yang artistang lalabas sursuwela Ruben ya ing metung yapping ing bunsu ra Binatilyu neman iting labing pitung banwa... Apon ampong PC tunnel no miglulan Anyang merakap no Apon a dakal Keti Pilipinas tilamong pelisan. .

Lino Gopez Dizon’s monumental Pasion ding Talapagobra78 which presaged most of the Philippine proletarian literature, including Amado Guerrero’s Philippine Society and Revolution, is included in this genre. Prepared

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during the infancy of the Socialist Party in Pampanga of the 1930s, it tried to view history from the perspective of those who were from “below” through the passion--as historian Ileto would also see thirty years later--as an apt allegory to recite in verse a “history of long oppression:” Kapilan ta pa mipasno Ita mung maldang obrero makikiupa’t ortelano pilan la pa King kalbario pusanan ta karing pago? Maluat tang pibabatan ing bye king pangayalipan atbusabus king kabyayan, kapilan tapa labanan ing milalung kasakitan? Samasan yung pibulayan kapatad king kapalaran nung atin tang katuliran, keting Pasion akit tangan ing kekatang sukat daptan79

Paralusdus:80 By way of a conclusion The dearth and immaturity of the Kapampangan historical tradition, as it was felt in the recent historiographical trends about the Philippine Revolution, should not be a hindrance in coming up with substantial Kapampangan histories or maging quipnuan amlat (‘be historical’) as a speaker may simply say. Like everybody else, a local historian needs to be enterprising so as to be able to find suitable sources, as “hidden” in folklore, the humanities, and other “knowledgemining” fields. S/he would be amazed at how many possible sources there could be. It is also the propitious moment to mount a multi-dimensional approach to the social sciences, including history. Historians and enthusiasts now recognize that in history we could perceive and present the cultural development of an era and, as has been presented, vice versa. Naturally, the local historian, even in the name of historical enterprise or a crusade, still ought to properly filter his sources and resources. S/he, like his culture heroes, may only perpetuate myths and legends as such; for her/his failure to do so might do more harm than good to her/his people.

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Endnotes

1 An earlier version of this article appeared as: Lino L. Dizon, Amlat. Kapampangan Local History Contours in Tarlac and Pampanga (Tarlac: Center for Tarlaqueño Studies, 2000). 2

Pierre Goubert, “Local History,” Daedalus, 100(1)Winter, 1971, p. 113.

3 Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin, 1985). See also David Henige, Oral Historiography (Essex: Longman Group Limited, 1982). As I once stressed in a cultural forum I am reminded of this genre of Alex Haley‘s experience in Roots. What led Haley to his hasty beginnings were the oral accounts of the local historians of Gambia, called “griots.” Alex Haley, ROOTS ( London: Picador Books, 1976), p. 626. 4 Reynaldo Clemeña Ileto, Pasyon and Revolution. Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1979). 5 David Lowenthal, Possessed by the Past.The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History (New York: The Free Press, 1996), pp. 240-243. 6

Ileto, op. cit., pp. 14-15.

7

Ibid.

8 E.Aguilar Cruz. Maynila and Other Explorations (Hong Kong: Raya Books, 1978), p. 181. 9 “(The Capangpangan) extends its area and immensity from Manila until Ilocos, including half of Bataan, Tarlac, portions of Bulacan, Pangasinan, and Zambales.” See: Felix B. Punsalan, “AMLAT (Historia) NING CAPAMPANGAN” in Qñg Tula Ra Ding Capampangan, Ntra. Sra. Virgen De Los Remedios (San Fernando: Diocese of San Fernando, 1956). 10

Ibid.

11 (I am the offspring of great forbears...They came from Borneo and along its banks They anchored, stayed, raised families, and lived forever... ) from Silvestre M. Punzalan, “Metung Kung Kapampangan (Bistat Muli Kumu King Aun),” in Evangelina Hilario-Lacson, Kapampangan Writing. A Selected Compendium and Critique (Manila: National Historical Institute, 1984), pp. 108109. 12 Vicente Rafael, Contracting Colonialism. Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule (Quezon City: Ateneo

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de Manila University Press, 1988). 13 Ricardo E. Galang, Ethnographic Study of the Pampangans (Manila: by the author, 1940), p. 129. 14 Here is the complete entry: Angel Morales, Ing Capampañgan (Manila: Tip. y Lit. de Santos y Bernal, 1919). As cited by E. Arsenio Manuel in Dictionary of Philippine Biography. Vol. I (Quezon City: Filipiniana Publications, 1955), p. 436. 15 Severino I. Velasco, Outline of Philippine Local History and Folklore (Manila: Dept. of Education, 1963). The original, in mimeograph form, came out in 1938. 16 Anicia H. Del Coro, “Ding Aklat Misulat King Salitang Kapampangan,” Ing Susi. Vol.I, No.1, n.d.(1987?), p. 12. 17 Marcelino A. Foronda, Jr., “Bibliographic Sources and Regional History,” The Journal of History, Vol. XXII, Nos.1-2, January-December, 1977, pp. 12-13. 18 As quoted by Jose Toribio Medina, La Imprenta en Manila. Desde Sus Origines Hasta 1810 (Santiago de Chile: Impreso y grabado en cas del Autor, 1896), p. xlv. 19 Bibliographer Medina criticized the exageración of Fr. Gaspar; aside from the fact that there was only a handful of publications in the cited timeframe, the catechism of Fr. Coronel was the only Kapampangan book printed. 20 Juan de Medina, OSA, in Emma Blair and James Robertson (trans and eds), The Philippine Islands, Vol. XXIV (Cleveland, Ohio: A.H. Clark and Co, 1903-08), p. 158. 21 Here is the complete entry on the book’s title page: Arte y reglas de la lengua pampanga, Compuesto por el padre predicador Fr. Francisco Coronel, Dedicado al dulcissimo nombre de Jesus, Acabado el año de 1621. Containing 33 folios, this book is the oldest among the manuscript holdings of the Augustinian College of Valladolid. See: Helen R. Tubangui, A Catalog of Filipiniana at Valladolid (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1973), no. 2746, p. 289. 22 See Del Coro, op. cit., who cited the later grammars of Benavente (1729), Bergaño (1732,1736), and Bravo (1868) [all Augustinians, like Coronel] but not this 1621 work. 23 Rosalina Icban-Castro, Literature of the Pampangos (Manila: UE Press, 1981), p. 129. 24

Ibid., p. 134.

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25 See “Foreword” in Rosario Mendoza Cortes, Pangasinan, 1572-1800 (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1974). When American historian Lewis E. Gleeck, Jr. wrote that “only Larkin’s The Pampangans is a serious and systematic effort to fill the gap” he alluded to the imbalance of production between Pampanga’s provincial histories compared with those of Manila. Americans on the Philippine Frontiers (Manila: Carmelo & Bauermann, Inc., 1974), p. ix. 26 Jaime B. Veneracion, “Kasaysayang Pampook: Ilang Paglilinaw,” in Ma. Bernadette L. Abrera and Dedina A. Lapar, Paksa, Paraan at Pananawsa Kasaysayan (Quezon City: UP Department of History, 1993), p. 130. 27 Tonette Orejas, “Pampanga honors rebel poets who fought US,” in Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 10, 1998. See also Rafaelita Hilario Soriano, A Shaft Of Light. Revised Edition (Quezon City: Printon Press, 1996), pp. v-vi. 28 John Larkin, Pampangans. Colonial Society in a Philippine Province (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), p. 126. 29 Macario Siccion, “Untitled history of Pampanga, 1896-1932,” ms. Unfortunately, Larkin did not provide the original Kapampangan term. 30

Larkin, p. 15.

31 Some of the papers and materials in the collection include: “A Brief History of Pampañgan Literature” by Primo G. Quizon (1916), “An Account of the Moro-Moro Play as It is Given in Pampanga Province” by Manuel G. Carreon (1916), and the folktale “Sinukuan” by Leon Ma. Gonzales. For excerpts of the latter (in Kapampangan and English), see Castro, op. cit., pp. 23-32. 32

Manuel, op.cit., p. 423,

33 These include “Datos historicos sobre el pueblo de San Fernando, cabecera de la Pampanga, I.F.” by Clemente Ocampo; “Municipio de Guagua, Pampanga, I.F.” by Felino Simpao, “Minalin, Pampanga, I.F., documentos historicos” by Cristino Lagman and “Documentos historicos del municipio de Bacolor, Pampanga, I.F.” by Pedro Malig. 34 The actual year is unknown. Larkin cited it 1946, immediately after the war. However, some municipalities, particularly that of Concepcion, were written only in 1953. 35

Ileto, p. 333.

36 Presumably published in 1907, this was the oldest newspaper in Kapampangan. Galang, op. cit., p.130. With office in Manila (and not San Fernando, as cited by Larkin), one of its early editors was Don Magno Gosioco

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of Sta. Rita, Pampanga. “From 1770 A.D.: The History of Sta. Rita Town,” Roses for Sta. Rita. ’74 Town Fiesta, Sta. Rita, Pampanga, May 21-22, 1974. E. Manuel was to cite, however, that the editor/publisher was actually Juan Crisostomo Sotto, loc. cit. 37 This information was from Don Isaac Elias, then the Information Officer of general Makabulos. From Leonardo Guevarra. Central Luzon Monitor, 1958 issue. 38

Manuel, op. cit., pp. 422-423.

39 “Memoria de su prision,” in Boletin de la Provincia de San Nicolas de Tolentino de Filipinas. Año XVI, Num.182, Agosto de 1925. Capitulo XXIII, p. 253. 40

Larkin., p. 317.

41 Philippine Insurgency Records 183, Folder #2. 42

Madrid: Imp. del Asilo de Huerfanos del S.C. de Jesus, 1909.

43

Manila: Imprenta del Colegio de Sto.Tomas, 1900, 22 pp.

44 Fernando Garcia, OSA, Macuyad a pipagaralan qñg aritmetika, Manila: Imprenta “Amigo del Pais,” 1884. 45 “Appendice” in Ulpiano Herrero y Sampedro, O.P. Nuestra Prision en Poder De Los Revolucionarios Filipinos (Manila: Imprenta del Colegio de Sto. Tomas, 1900), pp. 874-875. 46

A list of interviewees is provided in Larkin, pp. 330-331.

47 Pawaga of Evaristo Medina at Tacoba, in a Tarlac Historical Society (THS) Resolution of 1966. A native of Tibag, a suburb of the present Tarlac City by the Tarlac River, Mr. Medina was 13 years old during the Makabulos siege. He was interviewed by the members of the THS. CTS File. 48 Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, Trans. by Peter Putnam (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1954), p. 21. 49 Casalesayan ning pangadding biñagan a magapalaman quing catecismong picudta na ning P. Astete a macayagpanganaman qñg Catecismoning P.Ripalda. Gueuane ning licenciado D. Santiago Jose Garcia Mazo, magistral qñg cathedral carin Valladolid, ampon bildug ne qñg amanung capampanganning, R.P. Fr. Antonio Bravo (Manila: Imprenta de los Amigos del Pais, 1873). 50 See: Zeus A. Salazar, “Historiograpiyang Pilipino: Tungo sa Pagbubuo ng ‘Pantayong Pananaw’ sa Kasaysayan” in Abrera and Lapar, op. cit., pp. 220-

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221. Also Atoy Navarro, et al., (eds.), op. cit., p.172. 51 E.Arsenio Manuel, Chinese Elements In the Tagalog Language (Manila: Filipiniana Publications, 1948), p. 52. 52 Ms., CTS File. An abridged English translation was published as “How Tarlac Got Its Name,” in Central Luzon Weekly Monitor. December 25, 1966, p. 36. In the note Luciano was mistakenly identified as a son; he was, as written in the ms., a grandson of Esteban, who allegedly was “one of the early settlers of Tarlac.” 53 For example: Mariano Henson, Ing Pangatatag ning Balen Angeles (Angeles, Pampanga: by the author, 1954). 54 For example: Vicente Catu, “Ystorianing Barrio Mapalacsiao, Tarlac, Tarlac,” in Tarlac Star, May 15-21, 1977. 55 T.H. Pardo de Tavera, Antiguos Alfabetos Filipinos, 1884, pp. 12-13. As cited by Galang, pp. 66-67. 56 Pedro Chirino, S.J. Relacion de las Islas Filipinas. (The Philippines in 1600), Trans. by Ramon Echevarria (Manila: Historical Conservation Society, 1969), pp. 296-297. 57 Vivencio R. Jose, “The Centennial Paradigm’ A Testament of History, A Covenant With the Future,” in U.P. Journal of English Studies and Comparative Literature. Vol. 1, No.1, December 1996, p. 8. 58 Vivencio R. Jose, “Folk Literature and Social Movements,” in Philippine Humanities Review, Vol. 1, Nos.1-2, July-December 1984, p. 42. 59 Some available stories point to Sinukuan as Ari, a patriarch as opposed to the academe’s view that she is Mariang Sinukuan, a sister of Mariang Makiling. See Leon Ma. Gonzales, “Sinukuan,” in Rosalina Icban Castro, op. cit., pp. 28-32. 60 Data taken from Isagani R. Medina “Ang Alamat Batay sa mga Tunay na Pangyayaring Pangkasaysayan at ang mga Pangalanng Lugar sa Pilipinas,” in Proceedings of the Symposium of the UP Folklorists, Inc. and the Folklore Studies Program, UP, Sept. 19-20, 1981. Philippine Social Science and Humanities Review, 46, 1-2, Jan.-June 1982, pp. 173-79. 61 The Guagua (near Sexmoan) revolt of December of 1762 was the last of the famous Chinese revolts against Spain in the Philippines. Gregorio F. Zaide, The Pageant of Philippine History. Vol. I (Manila: PECO, 1979), p. 450. 62 “Brief History of Sexmoan,” Sexmoan Town Fiesta Souvenir Program, December 12-13, 1983. Here the writer mistook Spaniards as insurgents. In most

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cases, as propounded by the late Monico R. Mercado or EMERME who was from Sasmuan, it was the collaborative effort of the Kapampangans and the Spaniards. 63 “From 1770 A.D.: The History of Sta. Rita Town,” Roses for Sta. Rita. ’74 Town Fiesta (Sta. Rita, Pampanga, May 21-22, 1974). 64 See: L. Dizon, Francisco Makabulos Soliman: A Biographical Study of A Local Revolutionary Hero (Tarlac: CTS, 1994). 65 Luz A. Pelayo, “World Peace Through Folk Song,” Angeles University Foundation Journal (XB, 2, Nov-March 1982). 66

“Listen to the Folk Singers!,” Time, November 23, 1962.

67 1968.

Alejandrino Q. Perez, “Pampango Folklore,” Unitas. Vol. 41, no. 1, March

68

Ibid., p. 90.

69

Pelayo, op. cit.

70 This song, collected in the 1982, was contributed by Josefina Pineda when I was still teaching at the BS Aquino Memorial High School. 71

Contributed by Pedro Tiglao, a teacher of Aquino National High School.

72

Contributed by Enrico Tulio, 1982.

73

In Ing Susi, Year 4, no.1, June 1997, p. 15.

74 This was serialized in Campuput. I have seen only Dangca 5-9, in Vol. II, no.2, pp. 1921. Incidentally, Magin Torres is a native of Sapang Tagalog, Tarlac City. 75

Campuput. Vol. III, No. 4, pp. 19, 24 (First Part).

76 See Romeo G. Dizon, “Huklore” and “Mga Gerilyang Filipino: Literaturang Laban sa Hapon” tss and publications of Philippine Folklore Society. Prof. R. Dizon of UP is Kapampangan, a native of San Fernando, Pampanga. 77 Both of these were collected by Enrico Tulio of Santiago, Concepcion, Tarlac in 1982. 78 Lino Gopez Dizon, Pasion ding Talapagobra (Azcarraga, Manila: Dallosa Press, 1936). See also Teresita Gimenez-Maceda, “Ang Pagsanib ng Tradisyon at Radikalismo sa Sosialistang Partido ng Pilipinas,” Diliman Review, Tomo 38, Blg. 1, 1990, pp. 51-61.

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79 Excerpts from “Ding Tau Sukat Lang MyeAntimong Tau,” in Lino G. Dizon, op. cit. Quoted and translated by Lacson, op. cit., pp. 227-228. 80 Also known as sampelut, this is a favorite dessert/delicacy among Kapampangans.

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“THE MOST HUMANE OF ANY THAT COULD BE ADOPTED” THE PHILIPPINE OPIUM COMMITTEE REPORT AND THE IMAGINING OF THE OPIUM CONSUMER’S WORLD IN THE COLONIAL PHILIPPINES, 1903-1905 Ferdinand Philip F. Victoria

Abstrak:

Para sa mga historyador ng internasyonal at Amerikanong polisiyang pandroga, mapagbago ang publikasyon ng United States’ 1905 Report of the Philippine Opium Commission kaugnay ng regulasyon ng kalakalan at pagkonsumo ng droga at sa pagsusulong ng kagalingang moral ng imperyong Amerikano. Higit pa sa isang makahulugang polisiya, masaklaw na inilalarawan ng Report ang kalagayan ng paggamit ng opyo sa Pilipinas. Sentral sa survey ng Report ang mga nakasulat na interbyu sa mga Pilipinong nakaaalam at opisyal na lokal na tinipon sa loob ng dalawang taon. Sinusuri sa sanaysay na ito kung paano tinalakay ng mga ininterbyu at opisyal ang lawak at kinahinatnan ng paggamit ng opyo. Kahit na pagtitiyak lamang ang kanilang kontribusyon sa Report ng posisyong malawak at dapat itigil ang okasyunal na paggamit ng at abuso sa opyo, hindi maitatangging ang kanilang pananaw sa konsumsyon ng opyo ay kaugnay ng umiiral na pampamayanang pagtingin sa droga sa panahong ito. Sa pamamagitan ng larawang ito ng mundo ng paggamit sa opyo sa Pilipinas, nakikita sa kaisipan ng mga nasakop ang diskurso ng tinaguriang “Suliraning Opyo.”

Introduction Drugs and Professor Salazar never mixed, at least this is how I would justify why such a piece as this would oddly stand out in a volume celebrating his contribution to the advancement of Philippine historiography. Nonetheless, my

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experience as his former graduate student drove home the point of the limits of applying external historical tools and frameworks to analyze Philippine history and Southeast Asia in general. Historians of Southeast Asia fall into the trap of emphasizing distinctiveness without looking into a common heritage or experience. National and nationalist histories are born as an offspring of anti-colonial discourse that obfuscates the deeper fraternal experience among Southeast Asians. It turns out that Southeast Asia’s involvement with opium and its association with the overseas Chinese in the region transcends the boundaries of colonial and national histories as well. The current prohibitionist strategy in the global war against illegal drugs was an American legacy that was rooted in the Philippines’ encounter with opium. While historians generally credit American officials’ views, public opinion and pressure groups involved in the anti-opium movement for their role in the formulation of the United States’ antinarcotics policy, little has been said as to how the impressions, assumptions and attitudes by Filipino and even Philippine Chinese towards opium use contributed to the shaping of the American position. One reason for this marginalization was the perception that American policy realities were monopolized by American policymakers and non-state actors and perhaps motivated more by racial considerations than otherwise. While to a certain extent “Chinese and Filipino opinions on the opium [policy] could be, and were, ignored by policymakers in Manila and Washington,” it was not a cut-and-dried case. Filipino nationalist sentiment in the years following the Philippine Revolution of 1896 were instrumental in making American officials realize that Filipino aspirations and views could trump the intention of its civilizing mission.1 Understanding how Filipinos perceived the opium consumer in the

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Philippines as someone apart from society is important because it provides the historical context to the meanings and associations that were ascribed to a commodity such as opium. In the Philippine case, little has been discussed on what Zheng Yangwen calls the “social life of opium” by looking at ‘Mr. Opium’ biographically--that is, investigating the evolution of the culture of opium consumption. Frank Dikotter’s critique of some research done on opium’s history in China is more to the point: there is the tendency to grant inanimate substances agency “while human beings become passive objects… However, opium pipes and morphine needles do not have lives of their own: they are granted social lives by their users.” A similar call has been made by James Francis Warren “in order to understand the various manifestations and shifts between the representation and meaning of culture and power, on the one hand, and on the other, the history of a commodity and the history of the body.” Keith McMahon’s postmodern approach to understanding how opium smokers in nineteenth century China were imagined by various people offers a unique path of study.2 In a general sense, the imagined perceptions of the Filipino elites, as communicated to the American colonial officials in this case, was a classic example of how they distinguished themselves as a group apart, as opium non-users, worthy of tutelage in contrast with the user/addict/wastrel who parodied the Filipino national vision and the American social order. I argue that these meanings, associations, assumptions, impressions and attitudes towards opium consumption by the Filipino elites helped validate the official views that made the progressive implementation of a punitive regime a model worthy of replication in the international level. A landmark 1905 report, tasked to survey the prevailing practices by neighboring regimes in regulating the nonmedical use of opium and formulate policy recommendations for the Philippines, offers a glimpse into the views

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towards the opium user as the ‘Other.’ Entitled Report of the Committee Appointed by the Philippine Commission to Investigate the Use of Opium and the Traffic Therein and the Rules, Ordinances and Laws Regulating Such Use and Traffic in Japan, Formosa, Shanghai, Hongkong, Saigon, Singapore, Burmah, Java and the Philippine Islands this 300 plus-page opium study was commissioned by the American government and published by the War Department’s Bureau of Insular Affairs in 1905. It was the product of the Philippine opium policy debate of 1903. The three-man investigative committee conducted interviews both in the Philippines and overseas and gathered statistical information within a seven-month period. The Committee hoped that the recommendations--“the most humane of any that could be adopted”--would finally clarify the American Government’s official attitude towards the opium question in Asia.3 The Report was later translated in Chinese, distributed in Qing China and made its way to the halls of the American Congress. It would lay the foundation for the United States’ federal narcotics regulation and drug consumer rehabilitation policy, an instance where colonial law set the standard for the metropole to follow.4 To be sure, several recommendations made in the Philippine Opium Report were implemented between 1906 and 1908. Its real value, however, was twofold: (1) that it was an attempt at a broad-ranging survey of policies of opium regimes throughout colonial Southeast Asia; and (2) it provided a comprehensive look at Philippine conditions qualitatively and quantitatively. The report was the first of its kind in the Philippines. To compare, by 1895 the British Government had already published a massive six-volume Report of the Royal Commission on Opium which provided detailed information on the production, distribution and consumption of opium in India, Hongkong, the Straits Settlements and China. Through his Opium Report of 1888 Dutch Chief Inspector of Opium Affairs Charles TeMechelen produced “the first relatively

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complete study of the opium farms” for the Netherlands East Indies. Earlier still, in 1888 the French conducted a series of hearings which led to the abolition of the opium farm system in Indochina and its replacement by a government-run monopoly two years later.5 Perhaps because of the primary importance they placed on the politics involving American policymakers, missionaries and persons of the anti-opium movement historians hardly explored three features of the report. The first is a series of written interviews from nineteen Filipino resource-persons throughout the colony. The second are reports and opinions compiled by the Presidents of the Provincial Board of Health describing the state and scope of opium use at the time. A brief interview with an unnamed Chinese Manila merchant, eliciting his personal views on the current policy, makes up the last feature of the report. We take caution in taking this Report at face value for the testimonies it contains formed part of an official source and has not taken into account existing private or internal correspondence from the Filipino respondents although other sources tended to supplement the findings. Instead, we put value in the way these insights, attitudes and perceptions were expressed in the official record and projected towards the prevailing culture of opium consumption.

Opium Consumption in the Philippines: a Background When the American Asiatic fleet turned up in Manila Bay in May 1898, it stumbled upon a Spanish regime struggling to regain control and credibility as a result of a twenty-one month revolution launched by its Filipino subjects. The disruption of the fifty-four-year-old opium farm system, a fairly lucrative source of colonial revenue, was a casualty of this war. In 1896, the regime earned

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more than 500,000 pesos from the farm system; in the following year, because of the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution, it only earned half of this amount. Although paltry, compared to those generated by its counterparts in Singapore and the Netherlands East Indies, the Spanish government’s earnings from the opium farms, which comprised four percent of the total revenues at its height, kept the government financially solvent and at one point even paid for the expense of the colony’s courts at the local level. Similar to its Southeast Asian counterparts, the system of licensing opium-smoking venues (or dens) was left in the hands of private entrepreneur-contractors for a fixed term. It appeared distinct because, similar to Burma, the license was made exclusive only to the immigrant Chinese as the end-users. Several Spanish writers explained that the government imposed this sanction partly to cater to the disinterest of the Hispanized natives in smoking opium or to protect them from their own weaknesses. This legal impediment did not prevent Filipinos from obtaining opium but it did pre-determine the limit by which the market could legally grow. The limited official demand for opium therefore made the Spanish Philippines less dependent on opium revenues.6 At the center of the opium farm system was its legal and target consumer, the immigrant Chinese, mostly from Fujian province in Southern China. Chinese immigration accelerated in the second half of the nineteenth century after the Spanish government adopted a series of policies intended to promote economic development, colonial self-sufficiency and profitability. From just 5,700 in 1847 the Chinese population increased dramatically to around 90,000 in the 1876 to 1886 period. By 1894, only 48 percent of the 50,000 Chinese were residing in Manila. Their economic activity consisted of retail of export crops and services. Their interactions with Filipino society went beyond the purely commercial, allowing for social transactions that resulted

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Map 1 Streets with known Opium Storehouses in Intramuros, 1903 PASIG RIVER

100 m.

500 ft.

LEGEND: (With corresponding number of establishments.)

A. Basco B. Cabildo C. Legaspi D. Palacio E. Real F. Solana G. Victoria

(2) (1) (1)* (2) (1) (3) (5)

Streets not shown are: Bangkusay (5) Tondo district Gallera (1) Ermita district Unindentified place in Paco and San Marcelino districts. *Also had a separate den where opim was sold and used. Source: Philippine Opium Report, p.168-169.

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in intermarriages. However, the Spanish always thought that the Chinese remained culturally-oriented towards China; and so, expectedly, their income in the Philippines could also be invested in China. For the Spanish government, hence, opium revenue farming was a way to “force the Chinese to leave part of their income in the Philippines.”7 Opium consumption in China and Southeast Asia has a long history. The Chinese initially regarded opium (yapian, yarong, afuyong, afurong, hepurong, wuxiang, yangyan and yangyao, to name some) as medicine, providing relief from diarrhea, dysentery, sunstroke, coughing, asthma, pains and other ailments. By the late 1400’s, however, the Ming Imperial Court began experimenting with opium as an aphrodisiac or as “medicine that helped to induce sexual desire, vitalize intercourse and control ejaculation and emission.” Chinese medical science believed that the kidney was where the male body fluid and sperm was stored. Opium helped retain and replenish the male essence in the kidney, thus strengthening it against sexual excesses. This signified opium’s cultural transformation from its role as a medicinal herb/wonder drug to its recreational use as a commodity.8 Opium smoking began with the introduction of tobacco to Southeast Asia and China via the Spanish in Manila in 1570. Prior to this, opium was consumed as decoctions, soups or chewable substance which left a bitter taste; but when it was smoked it “released a sweet, pleasurable aroma which rapidly became known [in China] for relieving boredom (jiemen) and anxiety (xinjiao).” This Southeast Asian tobacco-opium-herbal blend became known as madak/ madat in Java and the Malay Peninsula and yapianyan (opium for smoking) in China. This led an eighteenth century writer named Zhu Jingying to believe that the “opium smoke is from Batavia [Jakarta], Luzon and other ocean countries.”9

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Smoking was a significant step in opium’s transformation into a recreational commodity because it made consumption far less dangerous. A person was less likely to die from overdose since s/he would lose consciousness from the fumes first than pass out from actually ingesting the drug. By the eighteenth century, opium smoking spread among the poorer classes of Chinese; coinciding with the introduction of the opium pipe, pure opium smoking and expansion of the opium trade. This shift heralded a new system of preparation and refinement which became associated with the Chinese. From this point on, Trocki argues, “the smoking of opium came to be seen as something that was peculiarly Asian.”10 Opium became more affordable to the coolie classes who derived from it “the physical and psychological strength to survive the day.” A coolie can endure long hours of physical work because from a “clinical point of view morphine [opium’s active ingredient] does not act as a stimulant in humans, [but] by removing the dull irritation of routine aches and pains opium would surely induce a feeling of vigor, alertness and energy.”11 Although known generically as anfion in Spanish the concentrated paste of “cooked” or refined opium was called chandu in Java and in the Malay world, apiyan, opio cocido, opio preparado or opio confeccionado in the Spanish Philippines. The affluent Philippine Chinese offered opium in their private homes as a symbol of hospitality, a marker of social status and as part of a household’s medicine kit. Their poorer classes consumed opium as a work drug and the dens served as their places of interaction and escape from the vicissitudes of life as migrant workers in an alien land. While there were no official estimates on the number of opium smokers during the Spanish regime, Gamella has suggested that the consumer population was in the order of fifteen thousand with an average dose of 3.1 grams, which as will be shown below, was indicative of mild addiction.12

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Spanish writers were already aware of the medicinal properties of opium in the form of theriac, a sovereign cure-all and antidote popular in Europe, which was raw opium flavored with herbs or honey. Among Filipinos opium appeared to have been first introduced as an exotic product and was used by the social elites, including warriors; by the nineteenth century it became popular among the migrant working-class Chinese. The court of Sultan Barahaman of Maguindanao (r. 1671-1699) was familiar with it, and a later observer of this community noted that they “universally chew the betal and areka but make more moderate use of opium than any inhabitants of the Eastern Seas.” The Taosug aristocracy of the Sulu Sultanate smoked opium during social gatherings as they discussed trade and politics. An American admiral visiting Sulu in 1842 thought that it was “considered polite that when refreshments [i.e., tea, coffee and opium] are handed they should be partaken of.” In fact, opium was one of the traded commodities the English introduced into the area from 1773 onwards. This had the effect of realigning the Sultanate’s economy, transforming it into a formidable power over the next century.13 Filipinos such as Jose Rizal criticized Spain’s opium policy through his novels. Despite his fictional generalization that it was the Chinese “who smokes the most opium” and that opium fumes formed part of a “certain odor peculiar to Chinese homes,” he characterized the rich native Capitan Tiago as the consummate opium user, whose depression led to his addiction, as an allusion to the corrupted state of the Philippines in the throes of a revolution.14 However, soon after the Philippine government headed by Emilio Aguinaldo declared independence in June 1898, it resumed the operation of the opium farm system for it provided an important source of revenue and the “Chinese are unable to stop smoking opium” anyway. As the government decentralized and reverted to guerilla warfare in the Filipino-American War, despite the alarm raised by

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a Filipino governor that opium use was spreading among the Filipinos in his province Filipino local officials continued to auction opium contracts, indicating that the republic found opium revenues vital in funding the war effort. In this regard, the Aguinaldo-led government was not only the first Asian republic, it was also the first Asian nationalist regime to profit from opium sales.15

The Creation of the Philippine Opium Investigation Committee The circumstances that led to the incidental creation of the Opium Investigation Committee have been the focus of most American historians on the subject. According to Foster, two considerations were in the American mindset: first, was the belief that opium users posed a threat because they were inconsistent with the colonial vision of a “model society of industrious, thrifty citizens;” and second, American officials viewed the Philippine Chinese as outsiders and thought prohibition “might help the whole ethnic Chinese problem…literally go away,” and thus enable the Americans to focus on reforming the Filipinos in their image. Another factor was the American public’s “association of Chinese migrants with lurid, filthy opium dens which ensnared and corrupted innocent whites.”16 In fact, however, some users were white, middle-class women and Civil War veterans who consumed opium socially or as a relief for old war wounds. One scholar estimated that at the turn of the twentieth century, there were 250,000 estimated addicts in the United States out of a population of 76 million.17 Almost immediately after the occupation of Manila’s capitol in August 1898, American soldiers noted the proliferation of opium use. In his entry for August 16, 1898, Private John Bowe of the 13th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry noted that “Chinese hop-joints [i.e.,opium dens] were open to the street.”18 His regiment, assigned to police duty around Manila, was featured in the first

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definitive photograph of opium use in the Philippines. They arrested four Chinese opium smokers in a raid conducted sometime in the latter part of 1898, although the nature of the violation was unclear.19 An American army officer recounted that Chinese coolies assisted troops to do menial tasks such as cooking and driving the carts since the Filipino workers defected to the revolutionaries’ side during the Philippine-American War. He complained that the one thing “that made it hard to keep Chinamen in the field was that they missed their ‘hop’ (opium).”20

MAP 2

Streets With Known Opium Dens in Binondo District, 1903

PASIG RIVER

500 ft. 100 m.

LEGEND: [With corresponding number of dens.] RR. Binondo Church A. Aceiteros (3) N. Marquina (1) B. Asuncion (4) P. Nueva (1) Not shown: C. Caballeros (2) Q. Poblete (1) Olivares (2) D. Carvajal (8) R. Sagunto (2) Turco (5) E. Clavel (2) S. San Jacinto (6) F. Dasmarinas(2) T. San Nicolas (6) Sources: G. David (5) U. San Vicente (1) H. Elcano (4) V. Santa Elena (1) Chu 2012, p.60 J. Fundidor (1) W. Ilang Ilang (1) Philippine Opium Report, p. 168-169 K. Hormiga (5) Y. Lemery (3) Carlos Quirino, Maps and Views of Old L. Jaboneros (5) Manila M. As Lavezares (4) they interacted with the Filipinos and Chinese American soldiers

al

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As they interacted with Filipinos and Chinese, American soldiers soon learned to smoke opium. In fact, during the American military occupation of Capiz town, its mayor noted that some “foreigners” (perhaps referring to American soldiers) were smoking it.21 This development alarmed the American Pharmaceutical Association (APhA) in 1903; in the report of its Committee on Acquirement of Drug Habits, it noted that a number of U.S. military personnel had been discharged for being users. The discharge rate due to this was several percent higher during the previous five years than any ten years before that.22 In 1908, Dr. George A. Zeller, who served for three years in the Philippines estimated that probably an average of three American soldiers to the company became addicted to the opium habit.”23 William E. “Pussyfoot” Johnson, later a well-known Prohibitionist advocate, reported in 1900 that he visited the owners of a dozen opium dens and asked to see their license to dispense opium. All of them informed him that since the American occupation, they no longer paid a license but rather “they paid so much, at stated intervals” to the Chinese merchant Carlos Palanca [Chen Qianshan] who in turn “squared things with the authorities.” Palanca, it seemed, paid a duty on all the opium imported and practically established a monopoly of the opium business. Den owners who did not buy their opium from Palanca were prosecuted by the American government, “but the five or six hundred dives which buy their drug in the proper place are not disturbed.” Johnson also found that the dens allegedly operated brothels located on their upper floors. The women occupying these brothels actually possessed licenses to sell beer and wine, which in Johnson’s view was a clever scheme by American officials of virtually legalizing prostitution. In fact, brothel operators developed a code that conveyed the double meaning of alcohol and women: ‘margaritas topsede [topside]’, which Johnson decoded as ‘prostitutes upstairs.’ For him,

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there was no question that the owners of these “opium hells” had “slave girls upstairs” being rented out for “immoral purposes.” 24 Since the Philippines was under the direct control of the American federal government and not part of the union of states Major General Elwell Otis’s abolition of opium farms in 1899 and imposition of an import tariff legally allowed the importation of opium for whatever purpose to the islands. Local governments were allowed to decide on the banning of opium dens under their jurisdiction. Since Manila did not impose such a ban, around 200 Chineseowned and managed opium dens thrived in the Chinatown districts of Binondo and Santa Cruz. The cholera epidemic of 1902 also contributed in the persistence of the opium habit; a report noted, for instance, that “opium vendors used the opportunity to increase the sale of opium among Filipinos as an antidote or cure for the disease.” A Filipino also recalled that when cholera struck his town in Marinduque in September 1903, some of his compatriots tried smoking opium “to protect themselves from the disease and were successful.” A surge in opium import to major ports followed and Sulu’s opium traffic raised concerns among the Americans.25 The Philippine Commission headed by William Howard Taft tried to forge a workable opium policy that considered the local conditions and views of Washington policymakers. In 1903, it proposed a revival of the opium farm system. American missionaries and members from the Chinese Chamber of Commerce opposed this proposition while supporters like former North Borneo opium farmer Cheak Kee Ee, who visited Manila during the debate, thought that “A Chinaman is just as entitled to his opium as a German to his beer, a Scotchman to his whiskey [and] a Philippino [sic] to his cigar... The habit is national and cannot be eradicated.” This debate had long preoccupied Filipinos.

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MAP 3

Streets With Known Opium Dens in Santa Cruz/Quiapo District, 1903

PASIG RIVER LEGEND: (With corresponding number of establishments.) Z. Alcala (1) AA. Arranque (3) BB. Benavides (3) CC. Echague (3) DD. Ezpeleta (3) EE. Gandara (3) FF. Lacoste (23) GG. Padre Ducos (2) HH. Plaza Sta. Cruz (6)

JJ. Santa Rosa (1) KK. Soler (1) LL. Tetuan (5) MM. Villalobos (1) NN. Carvallo (1) PP. Sta Cruz Church QQ. Quiapo Church

Not shown are: Chando (2) Dolores (4) Padre Blanco (3) Sources: Chu 2012, p.60 Philippine Opium Report, p.168-169 Carlos Quirino, Maps and Views of Old Manila

The writer for the Philippine newspaper El Renacimiento published a satire mocking those opposing prohibition during the Opium Bill debates while Cebu City mayor Florentino Rallos in 1901 thought that prohibition was an unpopular and impractical measure and that opium farming would become a welcome revenue stream for local governments. Governor Taft believed that

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while Filipinos were unable to control their use of opium, the Chinese assigned a social value to it like drinking whiskey in moderation. He also felt that most Filipinos “did not consider opium smoking to be an ‘immoral offense or one that ought to be punished.’” 26 When Secretary of State Elihu Root requested information on opium policies from other countries, Taft proposed the creation of an expert committee (officially called Opium Investigation Committee) to study the opium issue and make impartial recommendations. He hoped that the findings would convince Washington of the monopoly approach and affirm the authority of the Philippine Commission over Philippine affairs while the White House placated its constituents who were upset about the bill. The proposal was not novel. In 1894, the nine-man British Royal Opium Commission was created to review Britain’s opium policy. It also assessed the conditions of its territories and studied the opium policies of neighboring colonies and countries through information provided by British diplomats, missionaries and persons of interest. What would make the American Committee distinct was its willingness to conduct a hands-on investigation by directly visiting these foreign colonies (the British Commission limited its direct investigation to India) in so short a time.27 The Committee was carefully selected by Taft to “represent the medical and moral aspects of the opium issue and to downplay the revenue considerations that had incensed the missionaries.”28 It was chaired by U.S. Army Surgeon Major Edward Champe Carter (1854-1910), the concurrent Philippine Commissioner for Public Health.29 The Philippine Episcopalian Bishop Charles Henry Brent (1862-1929) was one of the most popular missionaries in Manila, a critic of the opium farm system and close friend of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.30 Dr. Jose Albert (1867-1946) was a famous Filipino pediatrician who worked at St.

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Luke’s Hospital, which Brent founded in 1903. He was also a member of the Federalista Party, a Filipino political party that originally advocated for Philippine statehood.31 Ironically, the Chinese were not represented in the Committee; the immigrant doctor Tee Han Kee (1880-1943) only served as its interpreter. On August 17, 1903 the Committee left Manila for Hong Kong to begin the investigation; it reconvened in Manila in February 1904, before adjourning the following month. The Philippine Commission extended the submission of its Report to June 30, 1904 to allot time for typing.32 In its initial remarks, the Committee acknowledged the assistance provided by the foreign governments and the American diplomats in securing the information used in the Report. It also lauded the cooperation of Filipino provincial officials who courteously provided “uniformly serviceable” information and statistics. However, the Report criticized the non-participation of the Manila Chinese in the Committee’s proceedings. It singled out the Chinese Chamber of Commerce because it insisted on certain conditions “such as no government committee could accept.” Only the testimony of an unnamed Manila Chinese merchant, undertaken just two weeks before the Committee’s adjournment, made the Report. He was not an opium seller.33 Also conspicuously absent were formal interviews with Philippine-based missionaries. The rationale behind this absence might have been Brent’s presence at the Committee; the interviews with other missionaries based elsewhere and their public opposition during the Opium Bill hearing of 1903 made up for this absence.34 The Committee furnished questionnaires to nineteen Filipino resourcepersons from seven Philippine provinces. Ten of the respondents were from the Visayas; six, from Luzon and three, from Mindanao. The Report does not explain who or how the interviewees were selected since some of them came from the

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same province. However, the respondents appeared to be prominent Filipinos --doctors or politicians from their respective towns and provinces.35 The twenty questions covered the following topics: race, class and gender profiles of opium users; dosage and method of consumption; acquisition of addiction; perceived physical and social effects on the user; comparison with alcohol consumption; and the respondents’ opinions on public policy. Supplementing the interviews were reports from the heads of twentytwo Provincial Boards of Health, which in December 1901 the Philippine Commission established to exercise “general supervision over the health and sanitary condition of its province” including enforcement of health laws, containment of epidemics and control of the local or Municipal Boards of Health. The Provincial heads were, in turn, supervised by Philippine Commissioner of Public Health Edward Champe Carter. Both boards were to be headed by Presidents. The Provincial President, who was appointed by the GovernorGeneral, should be a qualified doctor; while the municipal president was either a doctor or an undergraduate of medicine. A list of the Provincial Presidents of the Boards from 1902 to 1904 provided by Dean Worcester suggests that the majority of the provincial heads were Filipinos while it is most likely that the municipal heads were overwhelmingly Filipinos.36 Three of the interviewees concurrently served as Provincial Board of Health head: Paulino Quisumbing for Capiz, Pablo Araneta for Iloilo, and Antonio Fernando for Surigao. The Provincial Boards consolidated the opium use data provided by the local boards or governments in their jurisdiction and submitted their reports from October 1903 to March 1904. The data was by no means complete since the report from Manila and other major provinces such as Morong (Rizal), Pampanga, Albay and Cavite was not included in the publication. Provinces

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Zambales and Paragua (Palawan) only provided a comment while far-flung towns failed to submit their data on time. There is no indication that addenda were inserted when it was republished as a United States Senate Document. Nonetheless, the Report still managed to cover more than half of the provinces representing Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. 37 In some instances, the provincial heads provided first-hand observations through their experience as physicians or their private contacts. None of them were actual opium users. Some met resistance from the smokers, experiencing difficulty in the identification of exact numbers of users. The unidentified author of the Cagayan Report, decried the refusal of some towns to provide data on Filipino smokers “on account of some fear which they harbor.” The author of the Pangasinan report attested to the “comparatively accurate” data he obtained, “considering the indifference and ignorance of some of the municipal officials and the tendency of the smokers to conceal themselves.” He felt that these attitudes had skewed the data for the two main towns of Lingayen and Dagupan, and offered his own estimate.38 The Iloilo provincial report stood out; Dr. Araneta must have certainly been its author because it is similar to his responses in the questionnaire. His detailed statistics on opium smokers in the province and responses influenced the estimates in general.

Profiling the Opium Consumer: how many, how much and how they used The number and class profile of opium consumers American official estimates on the number of users were in the vicinity of forty thousand.39 In 1904 the Philippine Opium Committee estimated that there were 10,000 Filipino addicts; and by 1908 the figure was 20,000. The unnamed

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Chinese merchant interviewed by the Committee thought that around 20 percent of Manila Chinese residents smoked opium and “very few women” used it but not the children.40 Table 1 below reflects this statistical gap while also providing a rough picture of the extent of opium use in Philippine provinces and towns. Four observations could be gleaned from the data. One, large concentrations of users outside Manila lived in Northern Luzon, Panay, Negros, Cebu and Northern Mindanao, where there was significant Chinese presence.41 Two, except for Negros Oriental and Paragua, where almost all Chinese were reported users, the percentage of Chinese users per the Chinese population appears to have varied. Only 35 percent of Iloilo’s resident Chinese were users; La Union’s Chinese residents did not smoke opium at all. Three, around 10 percent of the Filipino users were women and most of them resided in the Visayas and northern Mindanao regions. And four, only two non-Chinese foreigners were reportedly users: an American and a Spaniard; despite Mayor Mariano Chiyuto’s observation that some foreigners (perhaps American) were smoking opium during the American military occupation of the Capiz town. Table 1 Rough Estimate of the Number of Opium Users as Submitted by Presidents of the Provincial Boards of Health and Interviewees, 1903-1904 Province

Filipino/Native

Chinese

Others

Unspecified

(% per Chinese population) Male Antique

Towns with opium users

Female 76

Bataan

80 1

4

15

5

3

8 13

Batangas

13

13

9

Bohol

94

47

13

Bulacan

Towns without opium users

74

8

17

Towns Unreported

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108

Cagayana

122 138

Capiz b Cebu

248 6

224

147 (62)

1

37

9

6

28

29

23

Ilocos Norte

28

4

11

Ilocos Sur

18

3

21

22

29

97

Iloilo

c

613

15

77

659 (35)

Isabela

315

11

14

5

Masbate

10

4

Misamisf

1849

20

4

10

13

26

8

8

Laguna d Leyte

1

52 (42)

30

e

15 (66)

35 232 8

Negros Orientalh

256 10

15

2

Nueva Ecija Negros Occidentalg

5

1

306 (99)

4 655

Pangasinani

24

10

7

5

3

75 (100)

Paraguaj Sorsogon

34 112

Surigaok

12

204 (50)

14

21 (53)

Tayabasl 16

La Unionm 1,171

Total Grand Total

n

(0) 106

2,737

Estimated Users

1

11

3

3,074

265

222

7,088

Towns Covered

a. In an observation by Board of Health Medical Inspector Robert F. Bartlett, he notes that while there are “quite a number” of Filipino opium smokers, the practice “seems to prevail” throughout Cagayan Valley. p. 164. b. For Capiz proper only. Chiyuto reports 27 (or 23 percent of Chinese) while Quisumbing reports 120 Chinese who were all users, pp. 129-130. On Filipino users, Chiyuto estimates 2 for every 1,000 Filipino residents of whom 6 were women, although figures provided by Quisumbing and Villasis range from 1 in 4,000 to 1 in 3,000, or 4 to 6 women, respectively, p. 131. Quisumbing reports that 1 American was known to smoke opium, p. 132. c. Dr. Araneta notes in his Iloilo Report that the number of opium smokers did not include “numerous” other consumers of opium pills and small balls. However, he contradicts himself later in the interview when he refers to figures on pill users as “insignificant”, p. 133. His interview figure of 856 Chinese smokers also does not tally with his Report. Of the 170 Filipinos, 93 men and 77 women were reported users. I retained the figure for

8 495

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d.

e.

f. g.

h.

i.

j. k.

women and adjusted the figures for the men. Compare p. 129 and p. 156. There were only 14 Iloilo towns with opium dens in 1896. Philippine National Archives (PNA), Anfion: Iloilo, 1868-1896, Exp. 7, Fols. 1-2b. For Pagsanjan, Biñan and Santa Cruz only. Pagsanjan had 10 (or 15 percent of Chinese), Binan had 4 Chinese or 12 percent of users and Santa Cruz had 38 Chinese and generally used opium, p. 129. However, the Provincial Report declared Pagsanjan opium-free, p. 159. On Filipino users, there were 2 in Biñan (1 male and 1 female) and 7 persons in Santa Cruz, p. 131. Naval and Malitbog towns only. All of Naval’s 4 Chinese were users while Malitbog had 11 users or 33 percent, pp. 129-130. On Filipinos in Naval, only 1 in 1,000 was a user, of whom women made up 1 percent. No population data was given to obtain a solid estimate. Malitbog had 30 Filipino users with a small undetermined number of women users, p. 131. Vaño noted that the users concealed themselves during the investigation, making it hard to determine the exact number of users in Malitbog, p. 148. Smith rounded down the Report’s list of the number per thousand inhabitants. Smith incorrectly states that thirteen of the Filipinos were Spanish. In fact, the Report noted that in the town of Bacolod, of the 13 Filipinos, only one was classified as Spanish. Bais and Dumaguete towns only. All the 4 Chinese in Bais and 5 from Amlan smoked opium while 99 percent of Chinese in Dumaguete also smoked opium. pp. 129-130. On Filipino users, Bais had 3 percent users and for every 2 men there was 1 woman user. But another town to the north, Tayasan, had 25 percent users. Approximately 1 percent of Dumaguete’s Filipinos were users of whom 6 to 8 were women. Unfortunately, there was no population figure for the towns given for a solid estimate so it appears as though there are more female than male users. There were 10 Filipino users reported in Amlan and 2 were women, p. 131. The formal transmittal indicated a figure of 467. However, in the remark on the statistics furnished, the Provincial President of the Board of Health believed that both Lingayen and Dagupan towns had 150 users each, p. 162. The actual Report mentions that “very few natives use opium.” Dr. Fernando’s figures appear more reliable than his

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submitted Report. 50 percent of the Chinese smoke in his province, pp. 129-130. He also mentions that for every 10 male Filipino users, there is 1 woman user, p. 131. l. For towns of Tayabas (20 Chinese or 40 percent) and Lucban (4 Chinese or 40 percent) and Torrijos, Marinduque (1 Chinese) only, p. 129. As to Filipinos, San Agustin estimated a ratio of 1 in 2,000 for Tayabas while it is 1 percent for Lucban, p. 130. m. The transmittal actually mentions only 15 Filipinos. n. This excludes Manila and Zambales, of which the figures went unreported. Sources: Smith, p. 17, POR, pp. 130, 150-165. Twenty-five percent of Filipinos in northern Negros Oriental towns,

particularly in Tayasan town, were addicted to opium and the vice continued to spread throughout the area. Convinced that opium smoking “cures all kinds of disease,” an unspecified number in Zambales expressed a “great liking” for the habit, wrote Board of Health Inspector L. Abella. In La Union, the fifteen opium smokers were Filipinos, of whom seven smoked daily, the others, occasionally “smoking every two to three days.” According to the Pangasinan report the majority of users in the province were between thirty to forty years of age, with small numbers ranging from twenty up to seventy. In Paragua (present-day Palawan), only a few Filipinos used opium. Twenty-five of the seventy-five known Chinese opium users lived in the southern part of the province, “living among the Moros and other tribes, who all use opium in unknown quantities,” since opium was smuggled through Borneo.42 Respondents had mixed views on the issue of social classes and opium use. Some interviewees believed that opium use pervaded all social classes in their towns--including the Manila Chinese--but most thought that the lower classes were most affected. A few, however, did note that members of the upper

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classes consumed it as well. Those who believed that all social classes in their towns used opium, including Mssrs. Fernando and Montenegro, thought that persons coming in frequent contact with the Chinese would be the most likely users. In Capiz town Mayor Chiyuto thought that the poor Chinese were mostly users. For Mr. Araneta, the middle classes, along with a rich few, were mostly the users in Iloilo. Some members of the middle class in Biñan and Dumaguete were also users, but in Surigao, the educated class “who are able to understand the pernicious effects of opium” did not become users. The Antique report identified the Filipino users as members of the middle class, whose consumption was limited “owing to their impoverished condition.” Consumption among the upper classes was noted in the towns of Iloilo, Bais and Santa Cruz. Interestingly, Mr. Gonzalez stated that in Bais, opium was considered an item of luxury that those who used it boasted of “having attained the triumph of civilization.” Mayor Chiyuto appeared to have a similar view, reporting that among the rich in Capiz, opium was used as a “means of distraction and pastime, offering it to guests making social calls.”43

Dosage The survey question on dosage was phrased as “How much opium is daily used by a person addicted to the vice?” Responses to this were varied, since some of interviewees used different systems and qualified their answers. However, they all assumed that the question referred to the smoking dosage. Depending on the means and tolerance of the user, the interviewees estimated the daily consumption range to be as follows:

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One-fourth to one tahil44 (San Agustin, Eleazar, Fernando, Salazar) One-third to two-thirds tahil (Anonymous) One-half tahil (Sorvera) One-half to two tahils (Araneta) One tahil (Chiyuto) One to one-and-a-half tahils (Villasis) Two to four tahils (Roxas) Six to eight tahils (Vizmanos) One to three ounces (Montenegro) Ten to twelve ounces (De Jesus) Ten grams (Ocampo) One and one half-dollars worth (Palomares) One to two dollars (Vaño) 1 tahil= 1.3 ounces = 38 grams ½ tahil= 0.67 ounces=16 grams ¼ tahil= 0.34 ounces= 8 grams 1 ounce= 28.3 grams Roxas’ response was more specific. He indicated that while a user with a high tolerance--his definition of a vice--could use up to two to four tahils, a moderate user or one who uses it for disease treatment consumes only onefourth to one-half tahil. According to the Pangasinan Report a novice can smoke between 1.5 to 2 grams daily for the first six months but can take as much as 10 to 15 grams once becoming experienced. For Cagayan, it was 360 ounces per day per smoker, although this is very improbable.45 Dr. Araneta’s 1903 report clues us in on the retail price of opium. In Iloilo city dispensaries sold opium from 1.25 to 1.50 pesos (or US$ 0.63 to 0.75 in 1903) per tahil, grossing 1,038 to 1,237 pesos daily. In Surigao, Dr. Fernando noted, opium cost 1.50 pesos per tahil.46 Dr. Albert would testify in 1906 that a very poor man paid half a peseta a day while a rich person could spend as much as four pesos a day (US$2.00) for opium. Years later, Dr. Victor Heiser recalled that a pipe of opium and a table space rental cost twenty cents; as such, a ¼ tahil of opium likely amounted to 0.38 pesos or US$ 0.19. A Filipino smoker recounted that his week’s supply of a full opium tin cost 5 to 7 pesos. To put this in perspective, in 1899, a carpenter in American Philippines earned about 0.80

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to 0.90 pesos for a day’s work; a cook, some 50 to 60 pesos per month or 2 pesos a day. By 1900, the cost of a quarter tahil of opium would have been equivalent with the price of almost a pound of Australian beef, two pounds of white fish, sugar or C grade coffee or six-and-a-half pounds of rice.47

Table 2 Rough Estimate of the Amounts and Mode of Opium Use as Submitted by Reporting Presidents of the Provincial Boards of Health, 1903-1904a

Province

Grams

Day

Month

Ounces

Day

Month

Tahils

Day

Town(s) with most number of users/ largest dose

How used

Month

Antique

Tibiao

Smoked.

Dinalupihan

Eaten and smoked.

Lipa

Medicinally and smoked.

Talibon and Tubigon

Smoked.

Hagonoy

Smoked.

Tuguegarao and Aparri

Smoked.

Capiz

Kapiz

Smoked and pills.

Cebu

Cebu City

Smoked.

Laoag

Smoked.

Santa Maria

Smoked.

Iloilo City

Smoked, pills and small balls. Smoked.

Bataan

21

Batangas

512

Bohol

30-40 71

Bulacan Cagayan

360

4

IlocosNorteb Ilocos Sur

138

1

Iloilo

387.6

Isabela

2030

Ilagan

Laguna

157.1

San Pablo

Masbate

12

Misamis Nueva Ecija

106.5

Negros Occidental Pangasinand

Smoked. Smoked, pills and liquid form.

Leytec

1.5-2,

1

Masbate

Smoked and pills.

Catarman

Smoked and pills.

Aliaga

Smoked and pills.

Valladolid

Smoked.

Dagupan and Lingayen

Smoked and internally.

Not given.

Not given.

10-15 Paragua

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Sorsogon Surigao

993

La Union

20.1

Juban

Smoked and pills.

Surigao

Smoked.

San Fernando and Aringay

Smoked.

a. The basis for the figures varied but most were calculated based on the number of users per province. This excludes Manila and Zambales, of which the figures are unreported. Other major provinces like Albay, Cavite, Pampanga, Rizal (Morong) and Tarlac went unreported. b. Does not include the 2 ounces a smoker in Batac uses. The average consumption of the 20 users in Laoag is at 1 tahil per 4-6 days. I used the average 5 days to calculate the estimate. c. Per Gonzalez and Vaño interviews, p. 133. d. Lower limit is for first six months of smoking. Higher limit is for experienced smoker. Source: POR, pp. 150-165.

Respondents estimated that addicted smokers consumed one-fourth to one tahil or 8 to 38 grams of opium daily. In the course of their investigation in Shanghai, the Committee interviewed two officials from the New York Life Insurance Company to get information as to what dosage of opium consumed would be acceptable for an insurance applicant. Examining physician Dr. N. McLeod declared that it was difficult to determine what constituted moderate and excessive opium use since it depended on the person’s constitution and tolerance of the drug. However, as a matter of company policy, two mace or 7.6 grams of opium a day was the acceptable limit for an applicant to be able to obtain insurance.48 To compare, the American delegation to the International Opium Conference in 1909 estimated that 17,700 ‘Heavy smokers’ or an average of 15 percent of the Chinese population in the United Stated minimally used two mace or 7.6 grams of opium a day. ‘Light smokers,’ or those who smoke when

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they thought they were ill used opium once or twice a week; they numbered 23,600 or 20 percent of the populace, smoking half a mace or 1.9 grams daily. ‘Social smokers,’ who smoked opium during holidays and ceremonial occasions, made up 10 percent or 11,800 at 1 ounce a year or less than 0.08 grams a day.49 In his analysis of opium smoking patterns, Dr. John Kramer argued that heavy smokers tended to reach for the optimum level of satisfaction instead of the maximum. For fear of social sanctions like the public disdain of drunken persons smokers avoided undesirable symptoms. Using an 1880 survey of 1,000 opium smokers in China, he concluded that 75 percent of smokers consumed only 8.5 grams or less a day. Since substantial withdrawal symptoms could only occur with a minimum of 12 grams of daily consumption, the surveyed Chinese smokers were “at, most, mildly addicted.” Twelve grams of opium contained about 800 milligrams of morphine and only one-tenth (80 mg) of this was absorbed by smoking. Hence, “20 or 30 mg. of morphine taken daily is marginally addicting while 60 mg. is clearly so.”50 Table 3 Opium Imports to the Philippines per Opium Report, 1899-1903a (Values and duties in US currency) YEAR

POUNDS

P.I.

ILOILO

% SHARE OF POUNDSb CEBU

ILOILO

CEBU

VALUE in USDc

P.I.

ILOILO

% SHARE OF VALUE

DUTIES PAID IN USD

% SHARE OF DUTY OVER TOTAL VALUE

ILOILO

P.I.

P.I.

1899

120,066

-

-

-

-

328,713

-

-

111,469

33.9

1900d

224,115

7,726

-

3.4

-

639,193

22,698

3.5

168,301

26.3

1901

369,037

20,013

9,968

5.4

2.7

1,070,431

57,238

5.3

332,692

31.1

1902

137,583

13,426

20,331

9.7

14.7

411,513

32,895

7.9

191,199

46.5

1903

254,547

14,578

29,528

5.7

11.6

685,088

38,865

5.67

348,388

50.85

TOTAL

1,105,348

55,743

59,827

5.66

7.86

3,134,938

151,696

5.4

1,152,049

36.7

a. Another set of figures were given by the United States delegation in the 1909 Report of the International

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Opium Commission: Shanghai, China, vol.2, p. 26: YEAR

1899

POUNDS

91,823

VALUE IN USD 255,310

DUTY IN USD 64,586

% of DUTY over VALUE

INTERNAL REVENUE TAX

TOTAL REVENUE

25.2

1900

155,672

477,027

132,392

27.8

1901

221,683

619,338

187,020

30.2

1902

285,443

819,625

263,406

32.1

1903

259,473

721,551

357,575

49.6

1904

268,128

770,596

338,422

43.9

1905

265,128

850,381

366,893

43.1

1906

150,292

440,464

272,955

61.96

47,144.82

320,099.82

1907

169,933

513,287

308,277

60.0

292,140.85

600,417.85*

1908

50,776

143,670

92,126

64.1

152,208.25

244,334.25

*The total revenue for that fiscal year was $17,445, 489.49 or 3.5 percent of the total Philippines’ revenue. p. 25. Another set of import volume figures was provided in the same report from 1903 to 1907, but it went by fiscal year. It closely mirrors the table above. The figures were as follows, converted to pounds: 1903 258,933.4 1904 249.251.2 1905 267,570.6 1906 149,978.4 1907 169,578.2 Source: Op.cit., p. 378 insert. b. Calculated share computed on the totals for those corresponding years only. c. See above explanation. d. July to December only. Source: POR, pp. 165-167. The exact level of opium dependence in the Philippines is unclear. If we apply Kramer’s measure to the estimates per person of the 85 Philippine towns that had reported daily consumption figures from Table 2 above, we find that 52 percent or a little more than half (44) of these towns consumed 8.5 grams or less of opium daily. Twenty-five towns or 29 percent reported consumption between 8.5-12 grams and sixteen towns or 19 percent had an estimated level of consumption of over 12 grams a day. Remarkably, if we use

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the same measurement to the 75 Philippine towns that had 1,423 reported users, we find that 796 persons or 56 percent consumed more than 12 grams daily. Only 484 persons or 34 percent were using 8.5 grams or less. To illustrate the variations of an individual’s consumption, we can look at the 16 towns with only one user and their respective amounts of opium used. Ten users or 62 percent were using 8.5 grams or less; only two used more than 12 grams--the user from Batac, Ilocos Norte, who reportedly consumed 56 grams of opium daily, consumed most. We can only make the following tentative conclusions on the above assumptions. Low levels of opium consumption (8.5 grams or less) were widespread geographically, with high levels thought to be concentrated in 16 towns. More than half of the sampled users consumed more than 12 grams per day.

Modes of consumption The Report affirmed that the mode of opium consumption in the Philippines was smoking. However, other forms of consumption such as in small pills, liquid form or eating the residue ash were also noted. The Committee found that subcutaneous injections of morphine as a practice “were unknown.” Opium pills were “soft aqueous extract of opium prepared ad hoc;” they deemed economical, for they could be consumed while traveling or when smoking in the reclining position was impossible. Called aguiw, opium ash/ dross was supposedly the burnt “dark, hard residue clinging to the mouth of an opium pipe” after it has been smoked. A Filipino smoker recalled using two pinches of aguiw in two fingers of tepid water every three hours as an “ultimo remedio” (last drug of recourse) during his bout with cholera. Mr. Roxas noted that the smokers shaped the ashes into one to two-gram pills which they took

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daily; he claimed, dependents usually did this out of desperation “owing to a lack of means on the part of the user.”51

The Epidemiology of Opium Use and Observed Practices The Committee also tried to determine the motivations behind opium use. Eight of the Filipino interviewees were convinced that “continuous and intimate association or intercourse with the Chinese” was responsible for the spread of opium use. The Chinese allegedly led people to believe that opium was a panacea or that it was a way to attract people to purchase goods from them. Mr. Gonzalez apparently knew some individuals, who distributed opium to novices for free since they were certainly going to become regular customers. In turn, Filipino users and opium-smoking “quack doctors and healers,” who also viewed opium as a panacea, perpetuated its spread by telling friends that opium makes them “insusceptible to disease”. Table 4 Singapore Opium Exports to the Philippines and Sulu, 1898-1903 YEAR

DESTINATION

Benares Opium Chests

Dollars

1898 Philippines

29

20,272

Sulu

32

22,468

61

42,740

Total 1899 Philippines

56

45,111

Sulu

30

24,136

86

69,247

Philippines

76

69,568

Sulu

54

49,569

130

119,137

Total 1900

Total 1901

Prepared Chandu Tahils

Dollars

Towards a Filipino History: A Festschrift for Zeus Salazar

Philippines

96

Sulu

10

8,879

106

95,513

Philippines

30

27,800

Sulu

30

27,250

60

55,050

34

33,796

Total

119

86,634

1902

Total 1903a Philippines Sulu Total

17

16,889

51

50,685

78,600

94,320

a. First to third quarter only. A chest of opium had 40 raw opium balls and weighed around 133 lbs. or 60 kgs. Source: POR, p. 170.Trocki 1999, 185. Race figured in tracing the spread of opium use in the provinces. Some acquired the habit while “living with the Chinese.” The Antique report shared Mr. Gonzalez’s view that some unscrupulous Chinese spread the drug to certain Filipinos. Initially they offered free opium to cure headaches and colic among Filipinos and once they had them hooked, they charged high prices for the drug to recover the initial cost. Bataan province partly attributed its low number of opium users to the presence of “not more than ten” permanent Chinese residents. According to Dr. Araneta, in Iloilo the Filipino middle class affected by the habit were employees, dependents and spouses of Chinese residents who adopted the latter’s custom. He also theorized that since the affluent class, the Americans and other foreigners had less social dealings or relations with the Iloilo-based Chinese, opium use was rare among them. The Pangasinan report echoed most of the aforementioned observations on the spread of opium in the province. The largest number of opium users was in Dagupan town, a commercial center with a lot of Chinese residents, who were deemed responsible for spreading the practice. Other towns, populated with Chinese merchants, had the largest contingent of Filipino opium smokers. This

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racial interaction fostered the spread of opium use. For medicinal purposes the Chinese offered opium ash to their Filipino friends for free at first. Relieved, the Filipino patient becomes a regular client, seeks pleasure by smoking opium, then “finds his satisfaction in communicating the good effects to others.” A few took opium pills and ash, “adopting these methods only when they can no longer bear the expense of smoking.”52 In Masbate province some women reportedly acquired the habit “through imitation or at the suggestion of their husbands.” In turn, according to a 1930 interview with Philippine Customs collector Vicente Aldanese, Filipino women of the Spanish period introduced their relatives to the pipe through their Chinese husbands. 53 The Isabela report provided another theory behind the spread of opium use. Although the Chinese introduced it to the province during the Spanish regime, it rapidly spread since 1900 due to the: (1) unrestricted importation and sale of opium and (2) marked ease of smoking opium in a user’s own home. This ease of access facilitated the acquaintance and acquisition of the habit among a user’s family, nearest relatives and friends, “for many women and children are seen to use more or less of this narcotic.” Importantly, Isabela had more recreational opium users than those who used it for medicinal purposes. For eleven of the interviewees opium users were usually exposed to the drug as treatment of their medical conditions. Dr. Araneta thought that most users did not acquire it primarily for medical treatment, but nonetheless used it as a sedative. Opium was believed to be a cure for “gastralgia, fatigue, rheumatism and other diseases in which pain was the principal symptom.” Dr. Cordero confirmed this by using a case of a San Juan de Dios Hospital patient with chronic gastralgia, who was administered with morphine for his pain.

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Mssrs. Eleazar and De Jesus also thought that opium was not a treatment for malaria, and neither did it relieve fatigue nor rheumatism. Opium allayed hunger pangs, not because of its special properties but because its user falls asleep. Others acknowledged it as an effective sedative but not a cure. The Ilocos Sur report also attested that some users were introduced with opium smoking while seeking relief from their symptoms. They only smoked it occasionally and when unable to smoke “they eat the ashes or residue left in the pipe after the opium has been smoked.” Several Masbate users added that they consumed opium for medicinal purposes for a number of years already but with moderation. For some a few Filipino users acquired the habit out of curiosity, imitation or peer pressure. Mr. Sorvera noted that a sprinkling of users smoked out of pride since spending much money on opium enhanced one’s social status. Using could have also started “by reason of friendships of such a nature that one cannot refuse a person when he offers him opium to smoke.”54 Interviewee Montenegro noted that certain parents in Dumaguete taught their young children to inhale opium smoke to keep them sedated or quiet. Bais resident Gonzalez affirmed this, claiming he chanced upon certain parents administering puffs of opium smoke to their newborn baby because, they said, “it was good to put it to sleep.” He thought that such a child would grow to be an “excessive user” like his parents because of its opium-saturated environment. Mr. Vizmanos estimated that addiction occurs when one continually smokes opium for nine days; after which the user would crave for opium or experience guian. However, he did not state the dosage involved. Certain Chinese

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informed Mr. Roxas that one also becomes addicted “by smoking the drug and at the same time swallowing the saliva.” That opium use had not spread to the European population in the Philippines was another interesting issue in the Report. Some believed Europeans did not acquire the habit for they had less contact with the Chinese; were better educated on the side-effects of opium use; or were more indulgent towards alcohol. Dr. Quisumbing, however, retorted that while it was true that Europeans were not smoking opium, “you need only to look around you” to find Europeans using morphine instead. Fifteen of the respondents were convinced that the old Spanish system of opium farming had the effect of spreading, instead of containing, opium use among Filipinos. Reasons given included the existence of smuggling, lax government enforcement and its exclusive sale to the Chinese. Those who believed in the system thought that the stiff penalties imposed against the Filipinos were enough to deter widespread use or that stricter enforcement was only needed.55 Twelve of the respondents opined that the absence of a comprehensive legislation under the American regime had led to an increase in opium use. Under the farming system, opium price increases with the contractor’s overhead for this was theoretically passed on to the consumer. Its abolition caused opium price to plummet. The removal of colony-wide legal sanctions against access to opium dens by Filipinos, which was in place during the Spanish regime, was thought to have further encouraged domestic consumption. Still, as Dr. Quisumbing noted, opium use continued to be limited among Filipinos due to “the poverty that exists throughout these islands.”56 His view supports Trocki’s hypothesis on why Filipinos did not become significant opium consumers, vis-

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à-vis their Southeast Asian counterparts.57 Poverty was not a problem with some of the Negros Oriental elites, however. Mr. Gonzalez was appalled that in some towns it was impossible to find prominent residents eligible to hold a municipal office, “since they are all opium habitués and incapacitated through lack of moral and physical energy.” Interestingly, only the anonymous respondent from the neighboring town of Amlan thought that opium use decreased due “to the growth of culture that is taking place in our country.”58 He did not elaborate what “growth of culture” meant but as we shall see below, some members of the Filipino elite became increasingly aware of the negative effects of recreational consumption. Three decades later, numerous interviewees testified before the League of Nations that because the new generation were better educated, had an improved standard of living and had more access to entertainment and sports, they were less likely to engage in opium use.59 Two provincial reports also noted that opium consumption was either at a standstill or on a decline. The Bataan and Nueva Ecija reports partly attributed this to the penalties and restrictions imposed by the town ordinances to curb opium use. The author the Nueva Ecija report also mentioned that opium use was an issue of “slight importance” since it “has decreased notably during the past seven or eight years” and that the combination of the two developments had led him to believe that the province would become opium free “within a short period of time.”

Profiling the Physical and Social Impressions of the User Physical description

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Most of the interviewees negatively perceived the opium user. For them opium use led to “emaciation, general debility, dyslepsia, costiveness, stupor or mental apathy, loss of memory, and dullness.” Some described users as “anemic,” of a “sickly and stupid appearance” and since opium addiction “enervates the vital forces” it induced “moral viciousness,” “continual drowsiness” and laziness, making them “stupid and unfit for work.” They produced copious amounts of phlegm, salivated like teething children and were “tuberculous.” Similar observations were made in the provincial reports. Users had yellowish to pale complexion indicative of “slow intoxication,” were anorexic, were malnourished and constipated “due to a lack of tone in the intestines.” They also had “profound disturbances” in their nervous system. Opinions on opium’s effect as an aphrodisiac were divided. Araneta, San Agustin, De Jesus, Quisumbing, Roxas were convinced that it was an aphrodisiac; while an anonymous author thought that it moderated aphrodisia. Eleazar, Fernando, Gonzalez, and De Jesus thought that it made one sterile or impotent; while Palomares opined that it did not have any effect at all. Interviewees were also asked whether opium use affected birth rate and life expectancy. Most attested that because opium produced “nervous and cerebral derangement, the general debility, the cerebral dejection”, it decreased birth rate and increased mortality risk. This “debility” made a user “indifferent to his wife.” It even made one age prematurely. In particular, Dr. Fernando noted, “it is rare to find an opium smoker who has reached the age of seventy, while at the age of forty they look like decrepits of eighty years.” Furthermore, since users were thought to be undergoing a “slow process of poisoning,” their eventual illness could not be treated with ordinary medicine. Some thought that opium use had little or no connection with the birth rate but had some link with mortality rates. Others did not know or rejected any connections at all.

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Children born to opium-using parents were thought to be weak, anemic and easily susceptible to disease or certain nervous ailments such as eclampsia. But for interviewee Montenegro, the perceived weakness could be attributed to the practice of the parents letting young children “inhale opium smoke when they cry or are supposed to be indisposed.”

Social, psychological and racial disposition Because of their odor, complexion and their “dislike of work,” opium users were not “lovers of progress and are repugnant to society.” To satisfy his craving, the user wastes work hours “lying down on his bed to smoke, or sitting down on the side of the candle, after which he goes to sleep.” At times, “they are drowsy” during gatherings and did not seem to be attentive. This “physical and moral weakness makes the user indifferent” and predisposes them to commit crimes or renders them “useless to society.” Some thought that opium use resulted in “forgetfulness” and neglect of familial obligations. This laziness, according to a report, made the user susceptible to other vices like cards and cockfighting and made the user slovenly and careless.60 This physical and mental disposition of the user became the basis of the pejorative epithet apyan lelot (opium sot) to refer to a pale, listless person.61 In Pangasinan, opium smokers “refused to confess their habit” even to their spouses. They were secluded in “secret rooms where they smoke, and if a physician should call at the house they would never tell the fact that they use opium, even though they were questioned.” When their hour of smoking arrives, users become “peevish” and “irritable,” writes the author of the Isabela report. Those who crave opium usually

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have “a general feeling of depression, suffer from headache or other temporary ailments.” This depressing sensation, or guian according to Montenegro, led the user to commit robbery or other crimes. It sets in when the user failed to receive his dose at the expected time. He becomes “drowsy and pale-faced” then “mute and quiet, has a tendency towards morbidness, or reaches a condition of imbecility.” A novice would only acquire this condition after nine days of opium smoking. In fact, attested the Opium Report, guian was associated nationwide with the “irresistible craving which seizes the opium smoker at regular hours, forcing him to yield to the vice, and when unable to do so, seeming to place his life in suspense.”62 These withdrawal symptoms remind us of Rizal’s description of Capitan Tiago, the “monster of the vice”, who whenever “he felt depressed for lack of a dose of opium… would accuse, maltreat, insult” his aide. This term is still used today; giyan or giyang in Binisaya (Cebuano), for instance, is “craving for something favorite or addicted to.”63 Insanity or dementia cases involving opium use had not been generally observed by the interviewees except one who noted that it “seldom” occurred. The Committee also asked the interviewees to compare the effect of opium between Filipinos (Malays) and Chinese. Some believed that Malays were more “sensitive” to opium’s side-effects than the Chinese. Dr. Araneta thought that this was because the latter were in the “habit of drinking tea, which produces an action antagonistic to opium.” Here, the doctor appeared to understand Chinese custom. Opium houses in China served food, sweets and tea since the yin element of opium had to be counterbalanced by ingesting yang elements like tea, meat, shellfish or herbal tonics such as garlic or ginger, among others. For interviewee Gonzalez Malays tended to use opium without moderation. Others thought that race was irrelevant as the effects were uniform and that variations of effects were caused by the quantity of opium intake.64

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Criminal tendencies and social consequences of opium use Most interviewees and some of the provincial reports shared the view that as users become more dependent, they committed crimes to obtain money to buy opium. Theft was one crime. In Iloilo, Dr. Araneta narrated, fathers prostituted their daughters and even husbands prostituted their wives; similar cases also occurred in Antique. Stories on consequences of drug dependence were also mentioned. Families were driven to financial ruin, shame and sometimes even addiction. The Pangasinan report mentions cases where families tried to conceal that one or two of their members were users. In Antique, according to the report, numerous families who once lived comfortably in their towns are now “on the verge of the most shameful misery and indigence.”65 Mr. Eleazar recounted how a previously rich Chinese person squandered his fortune by neglecting his family and business and lived in poverty for ten years prior to his death. He spent eight dollars a day to purchase “opium, relishes and wine,” for, according to Mr. Eleazar, the user “becomes an epicure as well.” After realizing the negative impact of opium use towards her business interests and health, a rich lady from Isabela who once consumed large amounts of opium daily tried to gradually limit her intake to the lowest possible dose. But just as “she was about to free herself from it, she was seized with convulsions and died.”

Addiction and the possibility of withdrawal without injury Users found it difficult, if not impossible, to withdraw from opium consumption without any difficulties or the risk of dying. Some interviewees, like Dr. Cordero,

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reported that users suffered from “insomnia, loss of appetite, debility and gastrointestinal troubles” while undergoing withdrawal. Mayor Chiyuto claimed that a few individuals who “under great stress and through the exercise of much patience” were able to abandon it. A withdrawal technique entailed substituting “pills and decreasing the amount daily used;” another one concerned the use of “some alcoholic liquor in sufficient quantities to produce inebriation, this being a mere palliative” to assist in the withdrawal process. An interviewee noted a user who had switched to consuming pills in an attempt to moderate his use. The Isabela report marked that those who have “just commenced the use opium” were able to transition to another vice like wine drinking but did not work for long-time users. Most--including the Chinese merchant--thought, however, that moderate opium usage could not be sustained in the long-term since consumption has always led to a downward spiral of excessive use and early death. The Bais smokers informed Mr. Gonzalez that the more they used the drug, the stronger their craving for it became. In fact, of the four “inveterate smokers” Mr. Eleazar knew in Lucban, two had died while the remaining became “sickly and rachitic.” A few, like Mayor Chiyuto and Dr. Quisumbing thought otherwise. Chiyuto was convinced that opium smoking as a hospitality gesture qualified as moderate use. Dr. Quisumbing acknowledged the benefits of opium as part of a treatment regimen.

Comparisons with alcohol consumption and other vices Eleven of the respondents believed that recreational opium use was more damaging to society than alcohol consumption. For Dr. Araneta while alcoholism was far more potentially disastrous, the widespread opium use was

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more disconcerting. Dr. Fernando believed that many drank alcohol moderately and continued to lead long lives. Mr. Gonzalez preferred to see a drunkard than an opium smoker. Most respondents remained unconvinced that opium users engaged in drinking alcohol or other vices at the same time or as a possible alternative to their habit. Mayor Chiyuto noted that alcohol was uninteresting, at least among the Chinese users in Capiz. Mr. San Agustin observed, however, that in Tayabas, opium users also engaged in gambling and cock-fighting. Mr. Ocampo guessed that 70 percent of users drank alcohol while Mr. Sorvera thought that users drank alcohol to strengthen them, “but not as the result of abandoning the use of opium.”

Views on the Existing Policy Environment There was a general sentiment against opium use among observers. Mayor Chiyuto noted, however, that in Capiz town Filipinos remained indifferent because they take “turns with the Chinese in smoking from the same pipe.” Whether he meant it literally or as an allusion was unclear. Dr. Fernando believed that in Surigao town, only the local elites (“the cultured class”) detested the opium vice because they understood its ill-effects. The rest of the people cared less, if not favorable, towards opium use because of its novelty and promise of, “as their friends make them believe, pleasure and a palliative for their ailments.” Mssrs. Montenegro and Vizmanos from Dumaguete thought that only a large part of the cultured class or 20 percent of its residents expressed sentiments against it. The interviewed Chinese merchant also observed that most of the Manila Chinese despised its use, “although they continue to take it.” The Masbate report author proudly noted that its residents expressed their dislike of

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opium and resisted the persistent advice of local Chinese residents to use it as medicine. Twenty-four out of the thirty-seven towns in Pangasinan denounced the use of opium while ten declared their jurisdictions opium free. 66 The Committee solicited the interviewees’ opinions on the policy options being considered at the time. The first question was whether they believed in the practicability of enforcing an immediate and absolute prohibition of the vice. The second was whether an alternative system of gradual suppression by granting high fees for licenses to adult Chinese and Filipino users was a more preferable policy.

Table 5 Profiles of Filipino Respondents in the Opium Report Province

Respondents and Town of Origin

Capiz

Mariano Chiyuto (Capiz)a Dr. Paulino Quisumbing (Capiz)b Felipe Villasis (Capiz)c

Iloilo

Dr. Pablo Aranetad

Laguna

Dr. Narciso Cordero (Pagsanjan)e Vicente D. Ocampo (Biñan)f M.V. Palomares (Santa Cruz)g

Leyte

F. E. De Jesus (Naval) PolicarpioVaño (Malitbog)

Negros Oriental

S. Gonzalez (Bais) Juan Montenegro (Dumaguete)h Jose Vizmanos (Dumaguete)i Anonymous (Amlan)

Surigao

Dr. Antonio Fernando (Surigao)j Hugo Salazar (Surigao)k Benito Sorvera (Surigao)l

Tayabas

SilverioEleazar (Lucban)m Primitivo San Agustin (Tayabas) n I. Roxas (Torrijos, Marinduque)

a. He became the first mayor of Capiz town under the American regime in 1901. Juan L. Pastrana, “A Historical Brochure on Capiz” (1951), cited in Bienvenido P. Cortes, comp. “Flashback on Capiz” Madyaas Pen,

Towards a Filipino History: A Festschrift for Zeus Salazar

b.

c. d.

e.

f.

g. h.

i.

j.

http://madyaaspen.blogspot.com/2013/05/flashbackon-capiz.html. Accessed October 20, 2013. Quisumbing (1871-1923) later served as a District Health Officer. http://www.mundia.com/ph/Search/ Results?surname=QUISUMBING&birthPlace=Philippines. Accessed October 20, 2013.Worcester, Asiatic Cholera, p. 114. Villasis served as the Capiz Clerk of Court and notary public from 1901 and was still active in 1912. Roster, p. 67. Araneta (1864-1943) was a surveyor and doctor who became a brigadier general of the Philippine Revolutionary Forces in Panay that fought against the Spanish in 1898. He was part of the council of the Visayan Republic. He became Mayor of Molo in 1902, then the President of the Iloilo Provincial Board of Health from 1903 to 1907. He later became a member of Iloilo’s Provincial Council. National Historical Commission of the Philippines, Pablo Araneta y Soriano Marker Inscription, “National Registry of Historic Sites and Structures in the Philippines” http://nhcphistoricsites.blogspot.com/2013/02/ pablo-araneta-y-soriano.html. Accessed October 20, 2013. Cordero had a medical practice in Pagsanjan and served the Philippine Revolutionary Forces. Gregorio F. Zaide, Pagsanjan in History and Legend (1975), ch. 7, p.5 in http:// www.pagsanjan.org/hometown/historychap7_pg5.html. Accessed October 20, 2013.Gilda Cordero-Fernando, “Dr. C, Dr. Dee and Dr. T.” Philippine Daily Inquirer (August 22, 2010) http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/sundaylifestyle/sundaylifestyle/ view/20100822-288099/Dr-C-Dr-Dee-and-Dr-T. Accessed October 20, 2013. Ocampo became the First District Representative to the 5th Philippine Legislature (1919-1922). Philippine House of Representatives, “Online Roster of Philippine Legislators”, http://congress.gov.ph/orphil/index.php. Accessed October 20, 2013. No data could be found on Palomares, De Jesus, Vaño, Gonzalez and Roxas. Montenegro (d. 1927) served as Governor of Negros Oriental (1911-12), Official Roster, p. 86. Negros Oriental Province Official Website, http://www.negor.gov.ph/index.php/ history. Accessed October 20, 2013. There is no data obtained on Vizmanos. However, he may be related to the Saenz de Vizmanos family who was the 1850 contractor for the expanded opium farm that included Manila, Bataan, Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Pampanga and Zamboanga. Fernando later became a District Health Officer and

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132

k. l.

m. n.

was transferred to Nueva Ecija. Official Roster, p.15. War Department, Annual Reports 1909 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1910), p. 187. Became Governor of Surigao Province. Report of the Philippine Commission to the Secretary of War. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1915), pp. 625-628. Sorvera or Corvera later served as a Municipal Census Board Advisor for Surigao town. Census Office of the Philippine Islands, Census of the Philippine Islands taken under the Direction of the Philippine Legislature in the year 1918: Appendix to Volume I- Organization, Census Acts and Regulations. (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1920), p. 382. Eleazar was a local historian and researched on the Cofradia de San Jose. Philippine Magazine, vol. 26 (1929), p. 428. Later became governor of Tayabas province (1910-12), Manuel L. Quezon’s private secretary and First District Representative to the 7th Philippine Legislature (1925-1928). Official Roster of Officers and Employees of the Civil Service of the Philippine Islands (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1912), p.89. William Guerauche, “Sociability and Personal Bonds in the Philippines under American Colonisation.” Posted by Manuel Quezon III, http://www.scribd.com/doc/6000051/ Sociability-and-personal-bonds-in-the-Philippines-underAmerican-Colonisation, “Online Roster of Philippine Legislators”. Accessed October 20, 2013.

Supporters saw an immediate and absolute prohibition as a radical, “practicable and expedient” policy but a necessary solution. For Mr. Gonzalez, it “matters not that a few hundred may be killed as a result” if only to protect the Filipino people. The user should not be allowed to hold public office because of his perceived incapacity and because he would be too ashamed to rehabilitate himself. Wrongly Mr. Sorvera thought that a gradual suppression system might lead to a permanent set-up since “there will always be opium smokers.” Others, like Dr. Araneta, were convinced that opium should be immediately prohibited to Filipinos who were not yet users. However, for the Chinese and known Filipino users, heavy license fees should be imposed with higher fees for the latter. Mr. Villasis agreed granting licenses to the Chinese

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but supported absolute prohibition to all Filipinos. The anonymous Amlan interviewee did not agree to a high license fee system but favored gradual prohibition where only a grace period “which the vice may be practiced without restriction” would be granted “with a view to its final extinction.”67 Advocates of the gradual suppression strategy of imposing high license fees to known users thought their measure would: (1) avoid filling up the jails with indigent opium users; (2) also avoid injuring the personal health of the user; and (3) deter more users from hitting the pipe. Most believed that this strategy should only apply to known users and that a monitoring system should be in place to ensure compliance. Dr. Fernando preferred the establishment of public dens with licenses to be graded in price according to the number of customers. Higher license fees for smoking in private and first time smokers should be charged, along with a more rigorous system of identification and enforcement of violations.68 There were those who did adopt an ambivalent position. Mr. Vaño preferred gradual suppression, but found the “very violent measure” of absolute prohibition acceptable, since it was practicable and expedient for the authorities. The interviewed Chinese merchant was also convinced that most Chinese favored gradual prohibition since he thought that it would take ten years before opium use is fully controlled or eliminated. He argued that the authorities should first set up special hospitals, where users could go to for voluntary treatment. Should the government compelled users to go to the facilities, he added, “four weeks to two months would be sufficient to stop the practice” depending on the gravity of addiction. The caveat was that if immediate prohibition were to be implemented, the American government would have to buy off all the opium in the merchants’ possession. Either way, he opposed any return to the revenue

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farm system and that “no monopoly should be given to the Chinese.” Other suggestions were made by the interviewees. Some suggested that the accruing license fees for opium use should benefit the municipal funds. Others wanted to designate opium houses outside the village, where they would not become a nuisance to residents and passers-by due to the annoying smell of opium. Finally, some suggested that opium-using Filipino officials should be disqualified from holding office in order to force them to rehabilitate themselves-a view later reiterated by Dr. Albert in his 1906 testimony. 69

The Aftermath of the Report To sum up the Committee made four general observations. First, while opium use was widespread in all provinces, the number of Filipino consumers in proportion to the whole population was “only to a small degree” as to be “insignificant” (defined as “slightly more than one-eighth of one percent”) and “fortunately does not constitute so grave a social calamity” compared to their Southeast Asian brethren. Users were concentrated in Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, Capiz, Surigao, Cagayan and Isabela and opium was unknown in towns where there was no social contact with the Chinese. Second, Filipino women rarely used opium and the drug was never administered to children. Third, the most prevalent method of opium use was smoking; pill swallowing was “exceptional,” while hypodermic injection was unknown. Finally, for the Committee, containing the current situation in order to prevent the spread of recreational opium use from reaching epidemic proportions was the real challenge. It was convinced that the keys towards the regulation of the opium problem was the combination of active government intervention through internal regulation of opium use and the continuous imposition of the Chinese

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exclusion act that ensures that “there can be no influx of opium smokers from without.”

Table 6 Estimate of the Amounts of Opium Used per Consumer as Submitted by Reporting Presidents of the Provincial Boards of Health in Select Provinces and Towns, 1903-1904a Province

Town

Grams Daily

Number of users

Bataan

Province

Town

Grams Daily

Number of users

Isabela Abucay

1

Cauayan

6.25

80

Dinalupihan

10

Echague

7.05

85

Orani

10

Gamu

4

5

7.6

92

1

Batangas

Ilagan Batangas

4

Naguilian

4

5

Bauan

2

Reina Mercedes

4

6

Lemery

0.16

Santa Maria

4

5

Balayan

8

4

Tumauini

4

19

Lipa

0.2

15

Tanauan

0.26

Biñan

0.5

1

Santo Tomas

2.4

2

Los Baños

1.6

1

San Juan

38

9

Nagcarlan

2.3

3

Santa Cruz

4

5

San Pablo

11.3

10

4

10

Bohol

Laguna

14.25

Ilocos Norte Batac

56

1

Masbate

Laoag

6.5

20

Nueva Ecija

Paoay

22.8

6

Aliaga

34

11

San Nicolas

3.7

1

Bongabong

8

2

Cabanatuan

20

4

Cabiao

4

2

Cuyapo

10

3

Ilocos Sur Vigan

1

1

Iloilo Ajuy

15.2

5

Gapan

2

1

Banate

11.4

3

Nampicuan

8

2

Barotac Nuevo

11.4

1

San Antonio

10

2

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Cabatuan

11.4

2

Santo Domingo

5

1

Dumangas

9.5

6

San Isidro

5.5

7

Estancia

14.25

8

Pangasinan

Guimbal

11.4

6

Surigao

Iloilo

18.2

637

Bacuag

11.2

6

Janiuay

11.4

3

Butuan

8

28

Jaro

11.4

32

Cantilan

7.5

1

Jordan

9.5

4

Dapa

2.5

5

La Paz

22.8

15

Gigaquit

5

2

Leon

11.4

2

Lianga

10

3

Maasin

11.4

1

Maynit

10

1

Mandurriao

11.4

3

Surigao

8.2

33

Miagao

11.4

3

Tagana-an

14.8

17

Molo

17.86

63

Tandag

25

1

Oton

15.2

20

Tubay

10.8

5

Pototan

15.2

8

Bislig

9

3

Santa Barbara

11.4

2

Sara

6.46

6

Agoo

2.1

1

Zarraga

11.4

3

Aringay

6.3

1

Balaoan

1.58

13

San Juan

0.63

1

Isabela Angadanan

4

10

Cabagan Nuevo

4

5

Cabagan Viejo

4

3

1.5-2, 10-15

La Union

a. The claim of the author of the Cagayan report is not included here. He claimed that 360 ounces or 10 kilos (22 pounds) of daily opium consumption would be improbable. In his analysis of opium smoking patterns, John Kramer argues that heavy smokers tended to reach the optimum level of satisfaction rather than the maximum. Some figures were determined by converting ounces and tahils into grams. 1 ounce was equivalent to 28.3 grams. b. The total was around 2,009.3 grams. Since the Report’s author estimated users at 141, each of those users consumed some 15 grams on average. c. For Masbate, the amounts in grams were put together and divided into 10 for the noted smokers in the province.

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d. Lower limit is for first six months of smoking. Higher limit is for experienced smoker. Source: POR, pp. 150-165. The Committee thought that opium consumption would not be contained by the continuation of the Spanish farm system and policy of segregation that was making opium only available to the Chinese. Significant commercial and social interactions among Filipino and the Chinese communities made the spread of opium use inevitable. “The process of contamination might be slow, but it would be unerring,” it argued.70 As it turned out, the colonial governments in Taiwan, the French Indochina and the Netherlands East Indies already enforced a government-monopoly system on opium that rendered the farm system obsolete, even before the Americans arrived in the Philippines.71 Other racial and cultural considerations were at play. For instance, according to Wertz, the “notion that opium presented a special danger to Filipinos” was “…premised on a hierarchical idea of race.” Filipinos were thought to have a “relatively low degree of vitality” and so, would be less able to retain self-control or moderate the habit. Some assumed that if opium consumption lowered the capability of a Chinese person, then it is “more immediately disastrous” to the Malay who “with fewer gifts…reduces his vitality in the same measure but in so doing touches the bottom of worthlessness.” Others perceived Filipinos to be culturally vulnerable to the habit. The Committee argued that in “the case of the Christian Filipinos no religious sentiment regarding opium prevails of a sufficiently definite character to protect them with similar armor [against Chinese influence], while among the Moros the consumption of the drug has already reached considerable proportions.”72 The American government eventually adopted the final strategy of progressive prohibition that set a March 1, 1908 deadline for Chinese and

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Filipino users to submit to rehabilitation or face incarceration. Brent and Albert would later affirm their findings during the 1906 hearing on the Anti-Opium Bill. Only licensed Chinese users were allowed to purchase opium until the deadline while Filipinos were immediately banned from opium use in 1906. The lackluster response to the strategy prompted the American officials and even the Catholic Church to mount a public campaign about the upcoming ban. By the so-called “Black Sunday,” 5,000 persons still smoked opium and addicts “fought and screamed, threatened and sulked” as they went to San Lazaro Hospital for treatment. Others simply stopped using, took substitute cures, returned to China, obtained opium from the black market, or simply switched to substances such as morphine or cocaine which was easier to conceal and more potent. At this juncture the opium user was no longer a victim but a ‘fiend,’ whose decision to resist being “saved by legal force” will now have to be punished if only to be “cured of the habit by force.” The global war against the drug user had begun.73

Conclusions “I believe that if a vote were put to the Filipinos,” Major Carter conceded in the course of his interview with an American missionary in Shanghai, “there would be an overwhelming decision against the use of opium.” This was the consistent tone of all the interviews.74 The implementation of the prohibitionist and punitive regime in the Philippines, therefore, was not purely the result of policymaking monopolized by American officials and pressure groups. The Filipino contribution to the Opium Report clearly influenced the subsequent formulation of the American regime’s opium policy. By providing an “on the ground” impression on opium consumers in the Philippines, the interviewed Filipino medical and political

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elite assisted the regime into thinking that a prohibitive policy could be worked out in a short time. The Spanish restriction on opium consumption among the Chinese predetermined the limit by which the market on the islands could grow and made the Spanish Philippines less dependent on opium revenues. Consequently the American government could easily resist or be ‘weaned’ from the lure of opium money. Without being fiscally compromised, the regime could pursue a prohibitionist policy as a feasible option towards the suppression of the drug. Still, American officials would emphasize the “sacrifice” it made when it seized the moral high ground of prohibition. The 1909 Report of the American Delegation to the Shanghai Opium Commission stressed this point. The revenue from opium for the last complete fiscal year (1907) prior to prohibition amounted to $600,417.85, out of a total revenue of $17,445,489.49, being 3 ½ per cent of the total revenue. This fact is presented as indicating the strength of the conviction of the Government regarding the necessity of the legislation enacted [i.e., The Anti-Opium Law].75 Filipino elites, except in Southern Mindanao, seemed to limit the use of opium partly because cheaper substitutes such as betel or tobacco were readily available. Poverty or the limited exposure to a cash economy impeded the popularity of opium among Filipinos and allowed the authors of the Report to confidently declare that the ‘opium plague’ could be contained and suppressed. In fact, Dr. Albert insisted before the Philippine Commission during the 1906 hearing that “[I]t is on the account of the small number of smokers that [the Opium Investigation Committee] had formed the opinion that it would not cost the Government much to have a thorough inspection and surveillance of opium smoking in the Islands.”76 Other substances such as cocaine and morphine also emerged as alternative, more potent and portable recreational drugs, although

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the incidence of their use became noted around 1908. In the late 1920s, the anonymous Filipino user recalled securing a morphine injection from a doctor --also a consumer himself--for only 30 cents (US$ 0.15) compared to a pipe that cost 1 peso (US$ 0.50).77 It also appears that Carter’s impression of the Filipinos’ “overwhelming” aversion or disinterest towards opium was partly influenced by their racist perception of drug use. Despite the views that certain elites in Philippine society used opium as a marker of social affluence, “a triumph of civilization” or a symbol of hospitality, its recreational use became entangled in assertive expressions of ‘suppressed’ Philippine nationalism that involved emphasizing fears of economic domination by the migrant Chinese and their involvement in opium smoking and smuggling. The Filipino interviewees and reporters saw a direct proportional correlation between the Chinese and the spread of opium in certain localities.78 Nonetheless, the licit opium trade and the cholera epidemic of 1902 did lead to fears that 20,000 Filipino consumers in 1908 needed to be cured. Some of the Filipino interviewees in the Report perceived this dependence on opium as a marker of defiance to the new colonial agenda of uplifting the physical and social condition of Filipinos and other inhabitants of the Philippines. The Filipino depiction of an addict as phleghmatic, tuberculous and cerebrally debilitated readily implies drug dependence as a disease. Only by the timely intervention of the enlightened and scientific American regime can this threat be contained, checked and eradicated in the colony before it encroached on the metropole, even if it meant deportation of the Chinese ‘alien’ or the death of the inveterate users. The Philippine Opium Report, according to Gamella, also laid the groundwork for the present-day discourse on drug use. Its effort in analyzing and defining key concepts such as drug use, abuse and dependence would be later developed and integrated in international efforts in dealing with the

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proliferation of recreational drugs. The Committee defined opium use as a vice because it was an enslaving habit. Addiction was not an abstract concept but one that could easily be ascertained regardless if it was used or abused. While it anticipated modern concepts, such as the recognition of withdrawal symptoms, the Report also suffered from nineteenth-century perceptions of race and culture and moral superiority.79 On the issue of the Filipino predisposition to opium, the Filipino interviewees were evenly split between acknowledging the ‘sensitivity’ or lack of self-control of the Filipino and the more ‘modern’ view that race was irrelevant and that what mattered was an individual’s physical constitution and level of tolerance. This is understandable because the present paradigm was laid out as a result of an aggressive American international campaign in the early twentieth century to replicate the Philippine model that entailed a punitive regime towards the drug consumer. Even into the 1950s opium use in the Philippines persisted and so was the correlation of one’s cultural and ethnic predisposition with drug use and socially deviant behavior. In 1959, the sociologist Ricardo Zarco offered several explanations to understand why the Philippine Chinese of his time were involved in narcotics use. His first argument was that some Chinese were “already conditioned to opiates.” This conditioning may have occurred as a result of their exposure to home remedies for ordinary ailments or they may have simply picked up the habit from China. He also argued that the Chinese were “culturally predisposed to narcotic use whenever hard pressed for a means of ‘escape’.” Applying the concept of ethnic anomie, he explained that the history of discrimination against the Chinese in the Philippines and cross-cultural intermarriages had produced a generation of Filipino-Chinese with an “unintegrated personality” or a feeling of marginalization, further exacerbated by the realization that he circulates in a society with American and

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VICTORIA: The Most Humane Of Any That Could Be Adopted

Hispanic influences. Four different sets of cultural forces pushed and pulled his marginal personalities--“not fully accepted in any but persecuted in most.” These social stresses combined with the knowledge of narcotics use made the person vulnerable to addiction and the “narcotic social system; a semiinstitutionalized, deviant, sub-society lending continuity to narcotic activity.”80 These observations may no longer ring true today for the Philippine Chinese or to Philippine society in general, but the changing socio-cultural attitudes and the ongoing debates on the acceptability of recreational drugs, alcohol and tobacco; the perceptions and misperceptions they create and the standards we impose as to whether one is included or should be set apart from the “healthy” body politic deserves a deeper introspection.

103,500.00

1866

450,000.00

482,700.00

241,300.00

483,400.00

1885g

1886

1887

1888

520,371.35

247,259.31

482,038.46

417,512.30

460,208.82

466,125.00

1884f

216,565.00

1874

309,820.00

165,228.00

1873

1880e

126,508.00

1872

331,609.00

171,591.00

1871

1877

187,168.00

1870d

123,235.00

70,000.00

1865

1868

49,000.00

49,000.00

1860b

5,206,836.93

6,262,738.00

5,862,626.00

3,692,666.00

3,037,332.00

2,724,100.00

1,988,599.15

1,928,607.92

IMPOSTS

REVENUES

43,333.24

TAXES AND

OPIUM

REVENUES

DIRECT

ESTIMATED

ACTUAL OPIUM

1859a

YEAR

2,023,400.00

2,176,500.00

2,175,242.00

1,605,700.00

1,200,000.00

919,500.00

664,100.00

600,000.00

CUSTOMS DUTIES

1,181,239.00

1,254,400.00

1,560,191.00

7,502,520.00

7,846,841.00

7,304,770.50

7,381,718.64

7,199,950.59

REVENUE FARMS

9,837,896.93

11,554,379.00h

11,528,178.00

11,298,508.98

14,630,486.00

13,824,140.00

11,924,825.50c

10,368,646.38

10,017,341.10

TOTAL REVENUES

3,016,185.91

3,483,325.00

3,310,941.00

2,939,526.65

3,608,659.00

2,111,373.00

2,544,719.25

2,216,669.44

ARMY

2,573,776.27

2,398,747.00

2,440,549.00

1,943,986.53

2,366,755.00

1,228,524.50

1,961,891.48

904,331.27

NAVY

n/a

1,265,108.00

1,226,013.00

644,134.58

736,483.00

293,908.00

199,642.12

272,528.62

GOVERNMENT

Actual, Estimated Opium Revenues and Spanish Budget Projections in Pesos

Table 7

TOTAL EXPEN-

9,825,633.29

12,930,558.00

11,526,753.40

11,341,057.00

15,440,517.61

15,252,217.02

10,228,575.00

12,266,610.15

10,452,728.27

DITURES

Towards a Filipino History: A Festschrift for Zeus Salazar 143

458,716.66

507,519.31

567,592.00

1891

1892

1893

104,574.78m

1898

602,300.00

527,431.00

462,607.16

6,659,450.00

3,370,940.19k

9,009,464.53j

5,091,880.00i

4,565,000.00

2,274,528.42

4,927,500.00

3,432,400.00

1,112,850.00

509,991.67

1,483,695.00

856,800.00

17,474,020.00l

13,579,900.00

6,332,793.52

16,936,274.70

10,812,760.00

4,045,061.00

2,221,709.95

5,089,723.18

2,842,214.59

2,450,171.00

1,062,158.00

2,756,595.40

1,887,710.10

2,220,121.00

1,000,980.96

3,114,144.64

1,821,567.78

NOTE 1: Only the three largest items in the revenue and expenditure sections by 1894 were taken for comparison. a. John Bowring, A Visit to the Philippine Islands (London: Smith and Elder, 1859), p. 320. b. Opium revenues for 1860, 1865 and 1866 were valued in escudos. See Feodor Jagor, Viajespor Filipinas, S. Vidal y Soler, trans. (Madrid: Aribau y Co., 1875), p. 326. I used the conversion rate of 0.5 peso for every escudo for the three years. On budget, seePresupuestosGenerales de Ingresos y GastosCorrespondientes al Año de 1860 aprobadospor Real Orden de 18 de Enero del mismoAño (n.p., 1860), pp. 12, 199. c. Informepresentado en 18 de Deciembre de 1870 al Excmo. Sr. Gob. Sup. Civil de Filipinas, por la Junta de reformaseconomicascreada al efectopor la mismaautoridad superior (Binondo: Impr. De Bruno Gonzales Moras, 1871), pp. 47, 49. d. Opium revenues from 1870-1874 and budget for 1877 are from Ramon Gonzalez Fernandez, Anuario Filipino para 1877 (Manila: Tipo. De Plana, 1877), p. 94. e. Gregorio Sancianco, El Progreso de Filipinas: EstudiosEconomicos, Administrativos y Politicos: Parte Economica(Madrid: Imp. De la Viuda de J.M. Perez, 1881), pp. 16, 25. f. Actual and projected opium revenues from 1884-1892 and projected revenue for 1893 taken from Comenge, pp. 162-163. g. Budget for 1885 and 1894 are from OnofreCorpuz, Bureaucracy in the Philippines (Quezon City:

576,000.00

1896

1894

437,500.00

1890

17,293,879.00

13,280,141.00

6,921,424.46

16,805,552.50

10,928,758.28

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VICTORIA: The Most Humane Of Any That Could Be Adopted

Source: IOCR, vol. 2, p. 25.

Amount in Pesos 440,675.15 460,409.28 746,470.58 545,223.84 568,933.24 562,044.02 542,808.88 250,463.20

Year 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897

University of the Philippines, 1957), pp. 137, 139. h. Actual receipt from John Foreman, The Philippine Islands, Third Edition(Makati: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1980 [1906]), p. 227. i. PresupuestosGenerales de Gastos e Ingresos de las Islas Filipinas para el Año 1890. j. The projected revenues and expenditures for this year were calculated for 18 months. Presupuestos 1892. k. The projected revenues and expenditures for this year were calculated for 6 months.Presupuestos 1893. l. Based on actual revenue. Estimated revenue was 17,086,423.00 pesos per Foreman, p. 227. Corpuz, An Economic History of the Philippines (Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1997), pp. 193, 194. m. Collections made by the Philippine Republic ending December 1898. Bamero, p. 67. NOTE 2: These figures were presented by the American delegation at the 1909 Shanghai Opium Conference, based on data provided by the Archives in Manila, as follows:

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VICTORIA: The Most Humane Of Any That Could Be Adopted

Endnotes 1 Daniel J.P. Wertz, “Idealism, Imperialism, and Internationalism: Opium Politics in the Colonial Philippines, 1898–1925” Modern Asian Studies 47, 2 (2013) pp. 467–499, first published online 31 October 2012, p. 480.While there is yet to be a general, book-length study on the subject, there is a growing corpus of significant studies, references or relevant discussions related to the history of opium in the Philippines. For a general overview, see Ricardo Zarco, “The Philippine Chinese and Opium Addiction,” in Alfonso Felix, ed. The Chinese in the Philippines, 2 vols. (Manila: Solidaridad, 1969), vol.1, pp.96-109; “A Short History of Narcotic Drug Addiction in the Philippines, 1521-1959,” Historical Bulletin 3 (December 1959), pp. 87-100; and his “A Sociological Study of the Illegal Narcotics Activity in the Philippines” M.A. Thesis, University of the Philippines Diliman, 1959. On state policy during the Spanish period, the discussion by Edgar Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine Life: 1850-1898 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000) originally published in 1965 still remains the starting point for research into the history of opium policy in the Philippines. Other works are: Alma N. Bamero, “Opium: The Evolution of Polices, the Tolerance of the Vice, and the Proliferation of Contraband Trade in the Philippines, 1843-1908” Social Science Diliman (January-December 2006) 3: 102, pp. 49-83; and Juan Gamella and Elisa Martin, “Las Rentas de Anfion: El Monopolio Español del Opio en Filipinas (1844-1898) y su Rechazo por la Administracion Norteamericana,” Revista de Indias, Num. 194 (EneroAbril 1992), pp. 61-106. On state policy from the American Period: David T. Courtwright, Dark Paradise: Opiate Addiction in America before 1940 Second Edition(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); Anne L. Foster, “Opium, the United States, and the Civilizing Mission in Southeast Asia,” in Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 24, No.1 (Winter 2010), pp.6-19; “Prohibiting Opium in the Philippines and the United States: The Creation of an Interventionist State,” in Alfred McCoy and Francisco Scarano (eds.), Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009); “Models for Governing: Opium and Colonial Policies in Southeast Asia, 1898–1910,” in Julian Go and Anne L. Foster (eds), The American Colonial State in the Philippines: Global Perspectives (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), pp. 91-117; “Prohibition as Superiority: Policing Opium in South-East Asia,” The International History Review 22, no.2 (June 2000), pp.253-273; David F. Musto, The American Disease: Origins of Narcotics Control (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); and Nathaniel Lee Smith, “Cured of the Habit by Force: The United States and the Global Campaign to Punish Drug Consumers, 1898-1970,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007, dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/etd/id/1495 (Accessed November 18, 2013). On race relations, see Richard T. Chu, Chinese and Chinese Mestizos of Manila: Family, Identity and Culture, 1860s-1930s (Manila: Anvil, 2012); Chinese Merchants of Binondo in the Nineteenth Century (Manila: UST Publishing

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House, 2010) and Andrew Wilson, Ambition and Identity: China and the Chinese in the Colonial Philippines (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004). On the economy, see James Francis Warren, The Sulu Zone, 1768-1898: The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State, Second Edition (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2007); The Global Economy and the Sulu Zone: Connections, Commodities and Culture (Quezon City: New Day, 2000). This writer particularly thanks Professor Gamella for graciously sharing his research and Professor Dikotter for his comments. 2 Zheng Yangwen, The Social Life of Opium in China (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p.1; Frank Dikotter, Lars Laamann, Zhou Xun, Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China (University of Chicago Press: 2004), p. 7; Warren 2000, p. 29; Keith McMahon, The Fall of the God of Money: Opium Smoking in Nineteenth Century China (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002). 3

Philippine Opium Report (hereafter POR), p. 13.

4 See Smith, pp. 7-65. American officials, according to him, “forged a punitive response to opium smokers in their Philippine colony in the early 1900s as part of what they regarded as a modern and progressive solution to a moral and practical problem. The Philippine experience served in turn as the basis for a punitive model abroad” and has remained the international norm (p. 6). On Chinese translation, see Gamella and Martin, p. 29. As Foster (2003) notes: “There is a certain irony in U.S. leadership of the regional prohibition policy, because opium remained a legal commodity in the United States throughout most of the period 1898-1910.” p. 93. 5 Report of the Royal Commission on Opium (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1894-1895), 6 vols. (Hereafter RCOR) For an analysis of the British study, see John F. Richards, “Opium and the British Indian Empire: The Royal Commission on Opium of 1895,” Modern Asian Studies 36:2 (February 2002), pp. 375-420. James R. Rush, Opium to Java: Revenue Farming and Chinese Enterprise in Colonial Indonesia, 1860-1910 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 6. Carl A. Trocki, “Chinese Capitalism and the British Empire,” Conference paper presented to the International Association of Historians of Asia, 2004, pp. 13-14. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/679/1/trocki_chinese.PDF (Accessed December 10, 2013). 6 Rafael Comenge, Cuestiones Filipinas, 1a Parte: Los Chinos (Manila: Chofre y Compania, 1894), p. 141 ff. See Table 7 on revenues. These pro-opium views were articulated by Manuel Pizarro Bernaldez, Rafael Diaz-Arenas (d.1866) and Sinibaldo De Mas (1809-1868), who also supported the idea of encouraging local cultivation and export of opium to China as a source of revenue. De Mas thought that the government was wrong to argue that to let Filipinos smoke

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would further encourage laziness. To the contrary, he argued, “because laziness among the natives of the Philippines is due to the fact they do not have needs, and if they were to start smoking opium, they would have to work to pay for it.” Manuel Pizarro Bernaldez, “Reforms Needed in Filipinas,” Emma Blair and James Robertson, trans. and eds., The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Antonio E.A. Defensor, comp. (CD-ROM, 2000 [1827, 1903]), Vol. LI, pp. 251-253. See also Gamella and Martin, pp. 6-7, 42, n19. Rafael Diaz-Arenas, Report on the Commerce and Shipping of the Philippine Islands (Manila: National Historical Institute, 1979 [1838]. De Mas, L’Angleterre, la Chine et l’Inde (Paris, 1857), pp. 96, 118. On opium revenues, see Carl A. Trocki, Opium and Empire: Chinese Society in Colonial Singapore, 1800-1910 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 199 and his Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy: A Study of the Asian Opium Trade, 1750-1950 (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 138-140. 7 59-61.

Gamella and Martin, pp. 11-12. On economic policies, see Wickberg, pp.

8 Zheng, pp. 10-24. As Peter Lee explains, opium use before sex enabled a user to exercise better control during the act instead of firing up the libido. “By delaying ejaculation, [one] prolonged the pleasure of sex, enhancing [one’s] appreciation of the experience and giving [one] time to enjoy [the] partner’s responses.” Peter Lee, Opium Culture: The Art and Ritual of the Chinese Tradition (Rochester: Park Street Press, 2006), p. 65. 9

Dikotter, et al., p. 32. Quoted in Zheng, p. 45. McMahon, p. 36.

10

Trocki 1999, pp. 36-37.

11 Zheng, p. 149. Rush, p. 35. James Warren’s prosopographic study of the rickshaw coolies in Singapore vividly describes how opium use contributed to the survival strategies coolies employed in their daily lives. Warren, Rickshaw Coolie: A People’s History of Singapore, 1880-1940 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1986). 12 On terms, see Balanza Mercantil del Comercio de las Islas Filipinas 1854, p. 70 and Balanza Mercantil de las Islas Filipinas Correspondiente al Año 1859, p. 67. On social uses, see Richard T. Chu 2012, pp. 145, 150; POR, p. 150; and Jose Rizal, El Filibusterismo, Ma. Soledad Lacson-Locsin, trans. (Makati: Bookmark, 2008 [1891]), pp. 168, 282, Gamella and Martin, p. 16 and the anonymous account of a Filipino user-turned-dealer from Negros, “Confessions of an Opium Addict as told to Pershing F. Ganao,” Philippines Free Press, vol. 33, no. 44 (November 4, 1939), p. 22. I argue, however, that the basis of calculating the dosage should not be the weight of raw opium but instead after refinement. Processed malwa opium lost 28 percent of its weight while Patna lost 42 percent. What it lost in weight was offset by the increased concentration of morphine. Dikotter, et al., p. 51. Comenge, p. 141 ff. describes opium smoking in detail.

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13 On Spanish use, see Pedro Velarde, SJ (1749), in Blair and Robertson (hereafter BR),Vol. XLIV, p. 48. On the early use in Sulu, see Francisco Combes, SJ, (1667), BR, Vol. XL, p. 180. On theriac, see Trocki, 1999, pp. 17-21. On Maguindanao, see Ruurdje Laarhoven, Triumph of Moro Diplomacy: The Maguindanao Sultanate in the 17th Century (Quezon City: New Day, 1989), pp. 78, 157. Quotation from Warren 2007, p. 21. Warren charts the rise and fall of the Sultanate in this work. Charles Wilkes (1844), in BR, Vol. XLIII, p. 169. 14

Rizal, El Filibusterismo, pp. 16-17, 255-258, 261, 282.

15 Philippine Revolutionary Records (PRR), Circular dated April 20, 1899, Indice Official, p. 1. 222.6; Nicolas Mola to Aguinaldo dated August 8, 1899, 260.2; 222.7 and 222.4. English translations of first two documents in John R.M. Taylor, The Philippine Insurrection Against the United States (Eugenio Lopez Foundation, 1971), vol.4, pp. 453-454 and vol.3, p.213, respectively. On Asian regimes, see Alfred McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade (Brooklyn: Lawrence Hill Books, 1991) and Robert Cribb, “Opium and the Indonesian Revolution,” Modern Asian Studies 22 (4) (1988), pp. 701-722. 16

Foster 2003, p. 94; Wertz, p. 470.

17 David F. Musto, “The History of Legislative Control over Opium, Cocaine and their Derivatives,” (n.d.), p.3. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/ history/ophs.htm (Accessed April 20, 2014). 18 John Bowe, With the 13th Minnesota in the Philippines (Minneapolis: A.B. Farkham, 1905), p. 38. A hop joint was a 19th-century slang for “a room or apartment where patrons gather together to smoke opium” or a “saloon bar”. Jonathon Green, Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, 2nd edition (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2005). 19 Karl Faust, Campaigning in the Philippines (San Francisco: Hicks-Judd Co., 1899), p. 90 and H.C. Kirk, “Life in the Philippine Capital” The National Tribune, (June 14, 1900), p. 8. The latter is captioned “Rounding up an Opium Joint in Manila.” See Arnaldo Dumindin’s blog, “Philippine-American War, 1899-1902,” http://philippineamericanwar.webs.com/americansoccupymanila. htm (Accessed Nov. 10, 2013). 20 “Chinese in [the] Philippines: An Army Officer’s Experience with Celestials under Fire,” The National Tribune (July 19, 1900), p. 5. From the United States Library of Congress digital newspaper collection. 21

POR, p. 131.

22 Peter Brush, “Higher and Higher: American Drug Use in Vietnam,” Vietnam Magazine, vol. 5, no. 4 (December 2002). The American delegation to the 1909 Shanghai Opium Commission denied this occurrence, claiming that

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“there is not the slightest evidence that the use of opium or its derivatives has been introduced” to American Army or Navy personnel “except for medicinal purposes.” Report of the International Opium Commission: Shanghai, China. (Shanghai: Shanghai Daily News and Herald, 1909), vol. 2, p. 20 (hereafter IOCR). 23 Zeller’s letter to Opium Commissioner Luke Wright, September 7, 1908, quoted in Courtwright, p. 239, n.96. Based on the estimate of 125,000 American troops became engaged in the Filipino-American War, we can deduce that there were 3,750 American soldier-dependents. Gamella and Martin, p. 23. 24 Excerpted from The New Voice issue of August 16, 1900. Quoted in Wilbur F. Crafts, et. al, comp., Intoxicants and Opium in All Lands and Times (Washington: The Reform Bureau, 1905), p. 208 n.16. See also Maria Luisa Camagay, Working Women of Manila in the Nineteenth Century (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1995), p. 110 for another reference to opium dens and prostitution. 25 IOCR, vol. 2, p. 23. POR, pp. 91-92, 135, 137, 139. See Table 4 on figures of Benares opium shipped from Singapore to Manila and Sulu. On American concerns, see Warren 2007, p. 130 and BR, Vol. XLIII, p. 154, note 59. In 1910, an American horticulturist reported that young girls were reportedly being trafficked for opium in Mindanao. He stated that “no white man is engaged in this traffic” and was limited among the datus in the Cotabato region and the Chinese traders of Southeast Mindanao. The Moro, according to him “will trade anything short of his life” to obtain opium including the “primitive” marriage custom of having the groom provide a dowry of 100 to 150 pesos or its equivalent in opium. “Trade Girls for Opium,” New York Times (June 12, 1910), http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/ pdf?res=F50C11FE395D11738DDDAB0994DE405B808DF1D3. (Accessed April 29, 2014). See Maps 1 to 3 on Manila streets where opium was sold and stored. Of the 200 proprietors of Manila opium dens, the name Suiliong stands out. He was Uy Suiliong, a business partner of Mariano Cu Unjieng. In 1901, Cu Unjieng declared his residence at 12 Hormiga Street in Binondo district, the same address where the den was located. Chu 2012, pp. 372, 382. 26 Cheak Ee quoted in Wertz, p. 480-481. Taft quoted in Smith, pp. 27-28. The debate was documented in the Public Minutes of the Philippine Commission (Sept. 1, 1902-Sept. 1, 1903), typescript, vol. 5, p.469 ff. (hereafter PMPC.) 27

RCOR, vol. 6, Appendix XXV, XXVII.

28 Smith, pp. 28, 33. Foster, however, contends that Taft already began to move away from his pro-opium farm stance prior to the creation of the Committee. His appointment of the anti-opium advocate Bishop Charles Brent “ensured that the final report would have at least some strongly moralistic, anti-

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opium sentiment.” Foster 2003, pp. 100-101, 106-107. 29 Carter also wrote an article “Some Observations Concerning the Controlling of Epidemics,” Journal of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, Vol.XVIII, No. 2 (February 1906), pp. 89-95. It appears that he was later assigned to the United States Army and Navy General Hospital at Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he died on April 24, 1910. Email communication entitled “Inquiry on access to the AMA Deceased Physicians List” dated November 15, 2013 with Anne Rothsfield, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine. 30 Smith, p. 28. Brent was born in Newcastle, Ontario, Canada and moved to Buffalo in 1887 and Boston in 1888. He became a United States Citizen in 1891. As the Philippine Episcopalian Bishop, he served from August 1902 until 1918 and was the Senior Chaplain of the American forces in Europe during World War I. He died in Switzerland. “Career of the Rev. C.H. Brent,” The New York Times (October 13, 1901); Elinor Betts, et al., comp. “Charles Henry Brent: A Register of his Papers in the Library of Congress” United States Library of Congress, Manuscript Division (2008) http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/mss/eadxmlmss/ eadpdfmss/2008/ms008040.pdf (Accessed Nov. 2, 2013); “Memorial Sermons for Charles Henry Brent” http://anglicanhistory.org/asia/brent/memorial_ sermons1929.html (Accessed Nov. 2, 2013). 31 Smith, p. 28, Wertz, p. 482. On the Federalista Party, see Ruby Paredes, ed., Philippine Colonial Democracy (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1989). Albert took up medicine at the University of Santo Tomas and the Universidad Central de Madrid in 1887. He returned to the Philippines to specialize in Pediatrics. He was a signatory to the Malolos Constitution in 1898 and appointed by the Philippine Republican Government as the Director of the Committee on Sanitation and Hygiene. He supported the founding of the Liga para la Proteccion de la Infancia and its subsidiary the Gota de Leche. Dr. Albert later joined the Philippine General Hospital. National Historical Commission of the Philippines, “Jose M. Albert (1867-1946), Pioneer Pediatrician,” http:// nhcp.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/sm0004.pdf (Accessed Nov.4, 2013). On St. Luke’s Hospital (now St. Luke’s Medical Center), see Project Canterbury: Handbooks on the Missions of the Episcopal Church,Vol. III. Philippine Islands (New York: National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church Department of Missions, 1923), p. 20 (Accessed April 10, 2014). 32 Assisting the Committee was Mr. Carl J. Arnell, who served as disbursing officer, stenographer and interpreter. The Committee did not, at times, stay as a panel in the course of the investigation. POR, pp. 1-9. 33

Ibid., p. 1-11, 148-150.

34

For a summary of the Opium Bill hearing see Homer Stuntz, The

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Philippines and the Far East (Cincinatti: Jennings and Pye, 1904), p. 277-278 and John Bancroft Devins, An Observer in the Philippines (Boston: American Tract Society, 1905), pp. 138-145. See also Gemma Cruz-Araneta, “Legalizing Opium,” Manila Bulletin (April 14 and 16, 2014), http://www.mb.com.ph/author/gemmacruz-araneta/ (Accessed April 28, 2014). 35

See Table 5 on the interviewees’ profiles.

36 Act No. 307 (December 2, 1901) and Act No. 308 (December 2, 1901), 57th Congress, House of Representatives, Annual Reports of the War Department for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30,1902: Vol XI: Acts of the Philippine Commission (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1902), pp. 69-73; Dean C. Worcester, A History of Asiatic Cholera in the Philippine Islands (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1908), p. 40. 37 POR, p. 130, 161, 162. In 1904, there were 40 Philippine provinces, 32 of which had Provincial Boards of Health and 286 Municipal Boards of Health out of 706 towns established. War Department, Bureau of Insular Affairs, Fifth Annual Report of the Philippine Commission 1904, Part 2. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1905), p. 14. 38 POR, pp. 150-151, 153-154, 156, 158, 162-165. Similar concerns were echoed by Vaño and the Bulacan report, pp. 148, 153. 39 Another estimate was offered by a member of the Chinese delegation to the 1909 Shanghai Opium Conference. He mentioned a figure of 23 to 25 percent of Chinese residents in the Philippines were opium smokers. “Minutes of Proceedings,” IOCR, vol.1, p. 33. In 1906, around 13,000 Chinese had applied for opium user licenses. American officials agreed that thousands of Filipino users were still obtaining the drug through the black market. Smith added all of the provincial figures and came up with a total of 5,981. A closer reading of the interviews and the reports indicated a higher tally. For variations of estimates see Smith, p. 15, n25, 37. 40 POR, pp.40, 148.Archbishop Jeremiah James Harty, “Males resultantes del uso del opio.” Libertas, January 31, 1908, p. 2. Harty (1853-1927) was the first American Catholic Archbishop of Manila, serving from 1903 to 1916. “Archbishop Jeremiah James Harty,” http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bharty.html (Accessed April 12, 2014). 41

See Table 4.

42 POR, pp. 130-131, 162-165. A Filipino user later recalled that opium was smuggled from Borneo to Davao by vinta-riding Chinese and Moros and redistributed from Mindanao through Filipino contacts since Chinese travelers were being profiled by constabulary agents. “Confessions,” pp. 22-23.

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153

Ibid., pp. 133, 139, 148, 150.

44 Although the Report used “tael”, the more accurate term to use is tahil, a Malay term for a Chinese standard of measure. The term was used in the Malay Peninsula, Singapore and Java. The term “tael” actually refers to a standard unit of Chinese currency roughly worth 1,000 copper cash. Trocki 1999, p. 185; Rush, p. 259. 45 POR, pp. 132, 154, 163, 164. Roxas mistakenly estimated the tahil at 22 grams. Dr. Fernando was more accurate when he estimated a tahil to be at 37 grams. See the following discussion of Dr. John Kramer. 46

Ibid., pp. 157, 164. I used pesos to refer to Mexican or Spanish dollars.

47 On Albert testimony, see PMPC (Sept. 1, 1905 to Sept. 1, 1906), pp. 272-273. Victor Heiser, MD, An American Doctor’s Odyssey (New York: Norton and Company, 1936), p.167. “Confessions,” p. 21. Ronaldo Mactal, Ang Pangaraw-araw na Buhay sa Maynila sa Panahon ng Digmaang Pilipino-Amerikano, 1898-1901 (Manila: UST Publishing House, 2010), pp. 172, 176-177. A can or tin of opium usually contained 5 tahils of chandu. “Opium cans or tins,” in Chinese in Northwest America Research Committee, http://www.cinarc.org/Opium. html#anchor_85 (Accessed April 27, 2014). 48

POR, Interviews XIII and XIV, p. 75.

49

IOCR, vol. 2, p. 8.

50 John C. Kramer, MD, “Speculations on the Nature and Pattern of Opium Smoking,” Journal of Drug Issues, Spring (1979), pp. 247-256. 51 POR, pp. 43, 133, 139, 156, 161. Dr. Quisumbing also noted users who were “morphomaniacs”—most likely those accustomed to morphine injections— suffering from the same effects as those who smoked or took pills, but it was unclear whether he was just expressing his expert opinion or was stating a fact based on an observed case. By 1907, it was clear that morphine hypodermic injections were already being used in the Philippines. “Confessions,” p. 20. Opium ash use was already reported under the Spanish regime. The ashes (cenizas) were also to be used with the proper documentation. Anfion, Binondo, 1884-1886, Exp. 1, Fols. 1-178. Ramon Aenlle v. Lim Chuco (December 18, 1884), Case No. 5755. See also Ilocos Sur report on description of opium ash eating, p. 156. Opium ash was also called jicing in Java. Dikotter, pp. 56-57, Rush, p. 31,Warren 1986. 52 POR, pp. 142-143, 151-153, 156-158, 163. The other factor was the effectiveness of the severe penalties imposed by the towns on the sale of opium. Dr. Araneta also noted that it was also gradually spreading in nearby towns of Molo, Jaro and La Paz. The anonymous Filipino user first took aguiw and was

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later introduced to the pipe. His initial dose was three pipes a day after meals but his dependence increased his consumption from one to up to three tins a week, “Confessions,” pp. 20, 23. 53 POR, p. 159. Cited in Smith, p.19. Aldanese (1883-1947) was from Cebu and later headed the Bureau of Customs under the Philippine Commonwealth. Filipinas Heritage Library, Photo archive. http://www.retrato.com.ph/list. asp?subject=82 (Accessed December 12, 2013). 54 POR, pp. 142-143, 156, 158-159. It should be noted that the Cagayan and Isabela provinces were once part of a single opium farm in Spanish times and provided one of the most stable opium revenues outside of Manila. See Wickberg, Gamella and Bamero. 55 POR, pp. 136, 141-145. There appeared to be some confusion whether the question pertained to Europeans in Europe or those residing in the Philippines. Dr. Araneta’s reply, for example, was directed to those living in Europe. On the Spanish system, see Wickberg, pp. 115-116. 56

POR, Replies of Quisumbing and Vizmanos, pp. 145-146, 151.

57 Trocki 1999, p. 89. “Only natives of the Philippines seem to have been relatively free of the drug plague, but this was probably more a function of their poverty than the ethical principles of their rulers.” See also Foster 2003, p. 94. 58

POR, p. 145.

59 Aldanese noted that only the elder generation of Filipinos and Chinese were now known to have smoked opium since childhood. Smith, p. 64. 60

POR, pp. 134-136, 151-152, 157, 161.

61 Armando J. Malay, “From Parian to Forbes Park,” The Sunday Times Magazine (July 23, 1989), pp. 20-21. 62 POR, pp. 44, 134, 138, 143, 151, 158, 162-163. The anonymous Filipino user recalled that his opium dealer justified guian as a “natural bodily reaction on the part of those unaccustomed to opium.” He began experiencing this after regularly smoking thrice a day for three months, “Confessions,” p. 21. 63 Rizal, El Filibusterismo, p. 255. Virgilio Abueva, Binisaya-English Dictionary (Quezon City: Great Books, 2012) p. 192. It is currently a Filipino slang term for “harsh craving/longing but with mild addiction to something/someone or action.” Ron Bulaon, “Street Talk Tagalog: Salitang Kalye in English,” http:// tunogkalye202.blogspot.com/ (Accessed October 25, 2013). This appears to have been repopularized in a song “Giyang” by a Filipino rock band, Razorback, to describe the irrepressible craving for alcohol. “Hebigat Sounds Volume One”

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(Alpha Records, 1995). It also exists as “giyan”, an archaic term in a Tagalog dialect conveying the same meaning (craving, longing or lusting for). E. Arsenio Manuel, “A Lexicographic Study of Tayabas Tagalog in Quezon Province,” Diliman Review, 19, 1-4 (1971), p. 126. 64

POR, pp. 134-135, 137, 151. Dikotter, et al., p. 65-68.

65 POR, pp. 134-135, 151, 162, 157. Sorvera did not believe that addiction led the user to commit theft; “at the most it may cause him to pilfer, in order to save his means.” 66 POR, pp. 134, 138-141, 143, 148-149, 153, 158-159, 162. Dr. Fernando mentioned that there were “rare instances” of long-term moderate use of opium. Quisumbing, Villasis and Anonymous also believed it was possible for a user to drink alcohol as well. Fernando contradicted Sorvera, who believed 99 percent were against opium use in Surigao. 67 Ibid., pp. 146-147. Others who supported absolute prohibition were Cordero, De Jesus, Ocampo, Palomares and Roxas. 68 POR, pp. 146-147. Replies of Chiyuto, Fernando, Quisumbing and Vizmanos. Others who supported this position were San Agustin, Eleazar and Salazar. See: Wertz, p. 483. 69 Ibid., pp. 147-149. The Chinese merchant mentioned that there might be “ten to fifteen importers and wholesale dealers” and numerous retail dealers who might be interested in the “exploitation of opium.” On Dr. Albert, see PMPC 1906, p. 273. 70

POR, pp. 41-47.

71

Foster 2003, pp. 104-106.

72

POR, pp. 40-41, Wertz, p. 483.

73 Smith, pp. 35-60. Smith quoted Victor Heiser and Internal Revenue official Robert C. Round, respectively. On this hearing, see PMPC 1906, p. 235 ff. 74

POR, Interview with Dr. J. N. Cushing, p. 115.

75

IOCR, vol. 2, p. 29.

76

PMPC 1906, p. 273.

77

“Confessions,” p. 24.

78 On Chinese policies and perceptions at the beginning of the American period see Chu 2012, pp. 281-332.

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Gamella and Martin, p. 31.

80 Ricardo M. Zarco, “A Sociological Study of the Illegal Narcotics Activity in the Philippines” M.A. Thesis, University of the Philippines Diliman, 1959, pp. 84-86. Zarco profiled the immigrant Chinese addict of his time as one who was 40 to 50 years old and from Fujian (Amoy), Guangzhou (Canton) or Chingkiang.

Towards a Filipino History: A Festschrift for Zeus Salazar

THE APPROPRIATION OF LOCAL CULTURE IN MUSEUM PRACTICES: PROBLEMS AND POSSIBILITIES FOR PHILIPPINE COMMUNITIES1 Cecilia S. De La Paz

Abstrak:

Sa pagsusuri ng kasanayang pangmuseo na may kinalaman sa paglalahad ng “pang araw-araw na pamumuhay” bilang representasyon ng ilang aspeto ng kalinangang lokal, nakikibahagi ang sanaysay na ito sa diskurso ukol sa politika ng pampublikong kultura ng Pilipinas. Habang isinasaalangalang ang pag-aalinlangan kaugnay ng eksotikong pagtingin ng museo sa ini-Ibang etnisidad at pamayanan para sa pagkonsumong urban, inuusisa rito ang uri ng estetiko, gayundin ang kadahilanan ng ipinapahayag sa bawat pagtatanghal ng museo. Paano tinatalakay ang isyu ng kakanyahan sa ganitong uri ng museo at para kanino? Mga espasyo ang museo kung saan ang diskurso ng tunay na kultura na nagtatanghal ng “pang araw-araw na pamumuhay” ay nagiging “itinanghal na pamumuhay.” Kinakailangang muling suriin ang papel ng mga pampublikong institusyon katulad ng museo upang makibahagi sa politika ng paglikha sa kakanyahan at sa sariling pagtingin ng bayan. Layunin ng papel na ito ang mga sumusunod: 1) suriin ang kasanayang pangmuseo na naglalahad ng “pang arawaraw na pamumuhay” bilang mga espasyo ng “paglikha ng kakanyahan” ng pangitaing bayan; 2) pag-aralan ang isyu ng representasyon ng “kulturang lokal” sa kasanayang museo at ang kaugnayan nito sa turismo; at 3) pag-isipan ang mga suliranin at posibilidad ng pagsisimula ng pampamayanang museo sa mga kabayanan ng Pilipinas bilang kapalit ng tradisyunal na kasanayang pangmuseo.

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Introduction This paper would like to contribute to the discourse on the politics of public culture in the Philippines by examining the museum practice that deals with displays of “everyday life” that represents notions of local culture. In an era where ‘globality’ is encroaching in a nation’s political, economic, social and cultural agenda, the presence of significant variety of museums dealing with traditional life ways (peasant) and folk objects, presents a problematic issue of representation and identity construction of Philippine communities which are grappling with modernity and its effects on everyday life. While recognizing the dangers of museums presenting an exotic gaze on “othered” ethnicities and communities for urban consumption, we can ask: what kinds of aesthetics are being constructed and for what purpose? How is the issue of identity being addressed in such a museum and for whom? Keeping in mind the importance of differences in the mode of production and reception of displayed objects, people as individuals and as a collective construct meaningful signification to what the museum represents in civil society. Museums are spaces where the discourse of an authentic culture through exhibits of ‘everyday life’ is transformed into ‘displayed life’. In the midst of criticism of the prevalent ‘self-orientalization’ or ‘nativism’ in ethnographic and folk museums, or even national museums, there is a need to re-evaluate the role of such public institutions so that it can address the politics of identity construction and a nation’s imagination of itself. Therefore, the paper aims to explore the following ideas: 1) evaluate museums practices dealing with ‘everyday life’ as “identity construction” sites of an imagined nation; 2) problematize the issue of representation of “local culture” as appropriated in the museum practice and its relation to tourism; and 3) explore the challenges and possibilities of

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initiating community museums in the Philippine localities as alternative to the traditional museum practice. Navigating through these concepts would hopefully reveal new paths in understanding different communities in the Philippines, seeking guidance in directions that their cultural program can take.2 At this point, I must explain that I am part of a non-governmental organization which gives value to local cultural research as the basis of “appropriation” of certain motifs of local culture whether it’s for community theater, festival management and community museum. As such, I had to work with various local government units in what may be described as “critical collaboration,” persevering to instill societal change from within the much maligned political structure of the Philippines. It is this context that I am presenting my thoughts on museums and communities, hoping that they could throw some light on the larger discourse on appropriating indigenous cultural resources.3

The Museum Gaze and Public Culture Working on the premise that culture is a social construct, a contested and negotiated field of knowledge and articulation, then a critique of the museum gaze is timely in the Philippines as it is implicated in questions of identity in the context of encroaching globality. In more ways than one, museums communicate to a disparate audience or communities, forging an artefactual or artificial experience of homogeneity-–a space where social tensions are ironed out and made sensible. With the intention to reveal the politics of collection and display to an enlightened viewer, the times call for more sensitivity to people’s lives that are sometimes exploited in the name of culture.

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This paper is concerned with the museum’s role in creating a public culture as part of civil society. Economic activities, social life and cultural affairs are all constructed within civil society and the strength and resilience of a social order resides in the capacity of civil society to aid in shaping the direction of change. As Ivan Karp aptly puts it, “Civil society is the crucible in which citizenship is forged…more than a mosaic of communities and institutions, civil society is a stage, an arena in which values are asserted and attempts at legitimation made and contested.”4 As an important element in civil society, museums articulate social ideas. They define relations with communities whether they intend to or not. They construct central and peripheral identities because of particular narrations, of aesthetic privileging and political-economic interests. So that if we consider museums as integral parts of civil society, we often justify their existence on the grounds that they play a major role in expressing, understanding, developing and preserving our objects, values and knowledge. However, questions remain: who decide on what to collect, that can represent people’s lives and experience? How are social relations forged in the politics and aesthetics constructed in the museum practice? What values are silenced by the museum practice and what is advanced as true and authentic? As Karp has observed, the traditional roles of museum–-collecting, preserving, studying, interpreting and exhibiting–-are now scrutinized by communities who are marginalized by the museum gaze. The realization that the museum audience does not passively accept what they are made to see is to point to the complex and changing nature of public culture. For better or for worse, civil society widely accepts that museums are spaces for defining who people are and how they should act; and so they are also places for challenging outdated and oppressive representations.5

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The Display of Everyday Life and Cultural Appropriations Museums, dealing with things used in everyday life, assume that urban culture which is marked with ‘stranger mentality’ or absence of community solidarity could be taught with specific ways of seeing and valuing. We do not actually ‘know’ our neighbor because there is nothing in our neighborhood that ties us beyond our family, network of friends and professional colleagues. Therefore the modern city has to create cultural symbols so that people can have a sense of commonality and communality that will allow its dwellers to imagine, feel and acquire the same things together. As a state apparatus, a museum contribute to the notion of a homogenous culture and serve as an arbiter of what is acceptable and not. It engages in the production of knowledge that vie for space in the modern Filipino consciousness, especially in the urban centers of power. Old museum practice is sustained by the idea of “authenticity”-–a perspective that says there are factual and unchanging truth claims on cultural ethnicities. It is also an emotional issue because collective identity, territoriality and historical claims are involved. In all, it should be noted that the discourse on authenticity always revolves around “power” and “authority” on the one hand, and “misrepresentation” and “marginalization” on the other. We should note that in the museum practice of starting a collection, objects in themselves have no authority, people do. We ascribe meaning to objects; then we label them as “material culture” or “cultural heritage.” But as a kind of discourse, we must ask “what does the label of authenticity privileges and what does it deny?” A collector’s objects or artifacts control the focus of an exhibition in museums; in this regard, her/his rejected objects become “silences” in the selfsame collection. The colonial experience becomes important in determining the nature of most museum collection which we now consider as collection of

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the Philippine “nation.” One can easily conclude that this collection was guided by the exotizing eye, the “Filipino” as the European’s “other.” If we wish to overcome the colonial trap, then we must re-orient the museum practice in order to give more importance on people and their capacity to interpret and create contemporary meanings, rather than on collecting “objects” that stereotypically represent indigenous “Filipino-ness.” An indigenous community, for instance, would not see the importance of displaying the objects that represent their everyday life that is still lived and experienced in their community. However, an urban audience, which experiences the systemic loss of identity brought about by colonization and globalization, has more of a need for an appropriated life experiences in order to feel a sense of a nation, in which ethnic identities are deemed to possess a sense of authenticity.

National Museums, the Culture of Collecting and Appropriated Local Cultures The idea of a nation is intimately intertwined with the idea of a national museum as a marker of its achievements in the passage of time. We remember the story of Noah in the Bible, where he saved as much living things as he can in his famous ark, and felt the need to classify and organize god’s creations for a promised future.6 The birth of a national museum follows a similar pattern: first, a need to collect a past to be brought to the present is felt; second, the impetus to organize and classify so that collections become meaningful is realized; and lastly, the language of display becomes a concern: how does one publicly exhibit collections that would be cohesive and representational of interests of the state and its people? Objects from everyday life are imagined to be saved from the deluge of time, natural catastrophe and social upheaval to serve as a stable past

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for a continuously changing present. The chosen sites of national museums are also symbolic of the cultural claims of the economic and political centers of the nation. The concept of a national museum is a claim to civilization, so that more than its objects, the context of its viewing and attendant atmosphere become as important. The concept and collection of the Philippine National Museum started in the late 19th century under Spanish colonialism. This Museum has experienced a tumultuous history during the American rule; it suffered bombings in World War II and lost important artifacts to influential museums abroad. During the last decade, the museum was rehabilitated as it was transferred to the Finance Building, originally constructed in the American occupation. Claiming to be “The Museum of the Filipino People,” it modernized its method of display to include interactive programs alongside archeological, ethnographic and thematic displays. The collection relays a strong awareness of the diversity of ethnicities that forms the nation, although it is mostly silent on its Muslim populace and their history of wars with the colonizers and continued oppression. Without an organized group tour, it is difficult to persuade people to visit museums. It is possible that people have yet to feel the need to view their life as a displayed piece for it is still played out in their everyday. It is also possible that the everyday landscape in the country’s urban culture has not rapidly changed; traditions are still meaningfully played out with social change. Yet, whether they are visited or not, as part of civil society, museums in the Philippines appropriate various ethnic emblems and objects as the bases of the Philippine nation. The term “art” and “craft” would be problematic to Filipino traditional communities where spheres of knowledge are intimately intertwined despite

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modern encroachment. In the academe, there are attempts towards a discourse on folk art called sining bayan or katutubong sining which has its own aesthetics based on environmental and social context. Since fine arts come from a western tradition, traditional folk crafts--shaped by the diverse Philippine landscape--are seen as bastions of ethnicity, honesty and purity. There are no specific museums in the Philippines dealing with folk art, but the former Museum of Philippine Ethnography in the Nayong Pilipino Park deals with displays of everyday life and objects such as textiles and farming implements mainly from the indigenous groups of northern Luzon and southern Mindanao. The display underscores the cultural context of the textiles, although the orientation is mainly visual and discourages interaction. In addition, the touted representations of the Philippine village as an open museum looses much of its credibility when the attitudinal concerns of the guides or docents are mainly economic–-to make visitors buy the varied array of souvenir folk art items or tourist art. The staff of each ‘regional’ house openly welcomes visitors with flashy cameras for they signify ‘buying power.’ Another thematic exhibit on life ways is the Diwa: Buhay at Ritual or the Museo ng Kalinangang Pilipino, housed in a small gallery at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The main problems here are accessibility to the public and the symbolic meaning still associated with CCP, however misplaced, as a Marcosian creation. Both museums attempted in situ (context) displays by using mannequins that approximate how people have lived and still live today. But the resulting display is one of exoticism--far-away static communities that is untouched by modernity (except for the converse shoes worn by the male mannequin of the araquio tableaux at CCP). The contemporariness of

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culture and its possible emergence is relayed with a subliminal message of an unchanging past--a ‘narrative of loss’--loss of innocence, loss of purity, loss of meaning--for the benefit of tourists and an urban based audience. In our own history, indigenous communities have experienced many encroachments and exploitation from the outside world in the name of imperial dreams and display. They have been exploited in International Expositions at the turn of the 20th century when they were shipped to the United States to perform/live as display objects in the middle of winter. Many died during that journey, forgotten and lost in historical memory. Today the state attempts to correct such past sins by giving awards like the “Gawad Manlilikha ng Bayan” (National Living Human Treasures) to traditional artists in weaving, pottery, basketry, music and performance and promote traditional art as high art.7 Centers for Living Tradition, where indigenous knowledge can be taught and transmitted, are established. We have yet to see the effects of these government-funded initiatives on indigenous communities, particularly on the relations, inside and outside their communities. What is significant at the concept of these “centers” is that it takes the place of a traditional museum where it is clearly not needed. In light of local realities in the Philippines, we have begun to reassess the museum practice, coming face to face with political and economic marginalization, as well as globalization in the form of diasporic communities, comprised of millions of Filipinos working abroad. And recently, a widening interest in the institution of local museums are springing in the regions, as local communities grapple with their own sense of identity and the political symbolism of a small town museum. Here it is noteworthy to cite the case of the Museo Ilocos Norte where

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traditional life is represented through farming implements and the Spanish influence on everyday life. The story of this historical tobacco factory turned museum is a story of how elite patronage hastened the establishment of a local museum. However, a conversation with one of the guides reveals this interesting feedback: non-Ilocano visitors and tourists appreciate the display more than the Ilocano themselves. The reason is that Ilocano visitors expect fine art objects in museum displays, and certainly not objects of everyday life that is easily found in their homes. While the intention of the museum was to promote Ilocano heritage among its people, the museum has also begun to widen the definition of art. 8

Turning Museums into Spaces of Engagement of the Constitution of Local Culture What we construe as “Filipino culture” is always mediated by invented concepts and agencies of modernity-–nation-state, school, media and museums. As Stuart Hall has suggested, “The nation-state was never simply a political entity. It was also a symbolic formation-–“a system of representation,” which produced an ‘idea of the nation as an imagined community,’ with whose meanings we could identify and through which this imaginary identification constituted its citizen as ‘subjects.’9 Yet, as we are citizens who are shaped by our particular society and culture, we must also recognize that people are also active social actors who have the capacity to re-create or re-invent selves in every context and milieu. Museums then can be an instrument of both suppression and empowerment because they address the issue of perspective on what constitute the everyday: for whom is the representation? Who benefits from the discourse of authenticity? Why is the discourse of an idyllic everyday life of the past important to a modern audience?

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In the projects of imagining a nation, a lived experience by its indigenous communities becomes the carrier of ethnicity, perhaps also a reminder of what the nation was before modernity. Towns in the Philippines are now all vying to become the Destination--or the focal point of the privileged gaze. With this title comes much needed income for towns where “tourism” becomes equated with “jobs.” Attracting a bored citizenry who have lost their identity and sense of self because of modernity is now a big business. The arts and tradition of the Filipinos have answered this need in contemporary times. However, excesses have occurred many times: cultural practices and traditions, not culturally rooted to the place, were appropriated or invented; through costumes and street dancing competitions, indigenous traditions were exoticized. The desire of local communities to create an identity of its own-–in other words, to be a destination--is the context of today’s folk craft. Folk craft and everyday objects have been appropriated to embody regional and local identities and counter-act their perceived marginalization vis-à-vis the favored large urban centers. How then do we turn museums into living cultural spaces of engagement and not as ‘narratives of loss?’ As a component of public culture, one must redefine a museum’s role beyond ‘collection and display,’ turning the museum audience into a community which has stakes in its representation. It would be of people and communities and would have the power to reclaim historical memories and create meaning for them, not given didactically to them. The role of nationstates and its relation to museum must be reviewed also as to be more engaging with the public, to be more people oriented rather than object oriented. This means more programs of dialogue and museum education on viewing, in the hope of encouraging a multi-perspective view on issues concerning a changing society and the connections that bind the community in the museum’s gaze with other communities. We hope for museums that will develop an audience of not

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primarily of connoisseurs but socially aware individuals. We must encourage collaborative curatorship as this is a terrain of hybrid meanings that involve multidisciplinary approaches and knowledge, working with the community people themselves. Only then could everyday displays of life be valid for they would articulate unsaid hopes and tensions in civil society--the past and present are clearly connected; the center and periphery, actively resolved. Our task then is to surface the issue of local cultures that are manipulated by partisan interests and locate culture within the context of people’s social realities. If a Philippine local culture is born out of a negotiation, we envision its museum as a place where an audience/visitor becomes “stakeholders” in its very constitution, definition and relevance in its locality.

The Direction: Community Museums What is a community museum? By appending the word “community” to the word “museum,” the phrase redirects the museum practice to face existing realities in many communities which experienced exploitation and loss of cultural justice due to the project of an “imagined nation.” According to Carlisle Levine, it is a “museum which is in the hands of the community: born out of, developed, and administered by and for the community.”10 According to a workshop in Asian community museums in 1997, a community museum faces issues that concerns being 1) “centers of local development, conserving and recuperating community history, cultural values and traditional technology, and serving as focal points for local organizational strengthening;” 2) a locale for “preservation of both tangible and intangible heritage” such as oral traditions, folklore, rituals and indigenous knowledge;” and 3) “a place to rediscover the community identity and to empower community members in the face of rapid economic

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development and the globalization of mass culture.”11 Community museums purposely tries to get out of the old museological practice of colonial mapping, careless and decontextualized appropriation of indigenous cultural resources as representations of people and nations. A community museum’s new role is to “empower the many peripheral rural communities, touching endangered livelihoods, environment and resource base, customs and rituals, oral and performing traditions and elements of their knowledge and skills.”12 Japanese theorist Toshiro Ito explained that “a community museum is oriented primarily to the local community, as opposed to the nation’s center or the needs of tourism…new community values are discovered by adopting an approach based in the community’s own agenda; in other words, a revival of the overall identity belonging to the community…”13 Rather than presenting everyday life as an unchanging past, exhibits are meant to provoke dialogues that can help in community development. Many countries have adopted this perspective. In Australia, where the aboriginal people are marginalized from a white dominated society, some museums have devised policies that would ensure the rights of the aborigines to their material culture and encourage them to pinpoint what they consider as meaningful research topics.14 In Japan, where modernity has rapidly altered the life ways, community museums are seen not an end in itself, but as tools that local people can use to evaluate a modern lifestyle that has become too uniform. A community that conducts its own research whether through beach combing or bird watching allows for the discovery of the community itself--an ordinary citizen’s stimulus to become a “stakeholder” in the community and its future. For this is what it is all about: we want to build a conscious community of people who are convinced that Philippine localities are cultural spaces which are important in

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understanding a negotiated identity in this complex world.

The Project: A Community Museum in Bago City, Negros Occidental The initial idea for this project was simple: how can we transform a museum into a people oriented space rather than an elite space for objects that gather dust? How can a museum contribute in building a sense of a community rather than in causing a community’s alienation? The answer was difficult and long--but certainly this project provided a fruitful journey of rediscovery and commitment to our land and culture. With the help of the Asian Public Intellectuals Follow-up Grant, I was able to collaborate with the Balay ni Tan Juan Historical House Museum in initiating a community exhibit in Bago City, Negros Occidental. From April 2004 to April 2005, we conducted a series of workshops with representatives from the different sectors and barangays of Bago City. The workshops aimed to create a community exhibit that the people themselves conceptualized, collected and installed, as well as to provide a context towards a sustainable museum education program. The workshop output on cultural research methods, local culture and history, curatorship and museum education program were integrated into the visual design and concept of the exhibit called “Kabuhi sa Bago: A Community Exhibit” or “Life in Bago: A Community Exhibit.” It opened on November 5, 2004 as a joint project of the API Follow-Up Program of the Nippon Foundation (Japan) and the City of Bago in time for their annual festival called “A Cinco de Noviembre,” which commemorates the Negros province declaration of independence from Spanish colonizers in 1898. The site of the exhibit is the residence of Don Juan Araneta, popularly

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known as Tan Juan, who led the revolution against the Spanish regime in Negros. At present, Tan Juan’s house was bequeathed to the local government to be used as a museum. While the house is undergoing the much-needed reconstruction and renovation, its curator, Mr. Clemente Del Castillo was open to the idea of developing it into a community museum—turning the “elite” space into a “community” space, where people can go, learn and discuss the culture and history of Bago City. The structure is currently being restored to firm up its structural support. Managed by the local government, the museum houses a paltry collection, lacks a sustainable museum education program and has not established a relationship with its immediate community. It has a budget to pay for the staff but has no significant funds for exhibition and museum education programs.15 The local government welcomed the museum project as it could help in promoting Bago City as a tourist attraction in Negros, in competition with well-preserved old towns such as Silay and Talisay. However, for the participants, who devoted time, effort and talent to the project, the community museum is really meant for them–-understanding where they are now in Bago history. The concern for Bago tourism was secondary. A community museum can only be possible in this manner. If the main concern behind a museum project is the tourist, then its exhibit will only lead to exoticization. But if its main concern is the articulation of people’s voices, then its installations might be an “authentic” voice from below.

The Community Exhibit: Kabuhi sa Bago The exhibit has two components: the first is the barangay exhibit which includes

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their historical memories, collected objects from the past and cultural map where the people’s own valuation of their local history and cultural tangible heritage were given meaning and importance. The second features the place of rice and sugar in their everyday life-–which includes farm, storage and cooking implements. Photos, drawings and the Negrense language were incorporated in the exhibit. Cultural research is crucial to the museum project as it points to the community’s cultural heritage such as the old simburyo or sugar mill chimneys, made of river stones, and the ‘re-discovery’ of the traditional cookie alfajor (sundried rice and sugar cookies) which is in danger of being forgotten. In contrast to the old museum practice, we started with cultural research in the local culture and not with a collection. Workshop participants were taught various research methodologies such as cultural mapping and cultural calendar. We redefined the interview in their traditional concepts of kuwentuhan and kapihan. The gathered data were processed in workshops that yielded dialogue and interpretation. Local stories surrounding particular sites emerged, whether historical or mythical. As a group, everybody went around each other’s barangays and became interested in each other’s problem beyond their own political territory. They saw connectedness and similarities in their experiences. Finally, they were asked to gather objects that would have “value” for the people in their barangay--the result was a very human interpretation of their community’s experiences. Over 200 objects were borrowed, ranging from antique “santos” to an ordinary “arinola”--every single one tells a story about the war, about a loved one, about spirits in nature, about their life as farmers. Here, a community museum’s objective is clearly not just aesthetic, nor is it about culture per se; it is about the community, as it tries to recuperate the past and understand the present.16

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Possibilities and Challenges of a Community Museum in the Philippines The project aims to realize an “imagined community” in the context of social actors, actively responding to issues of power or disempowerment in terms of historical memory, economic direction, social inequity and cultural representation. Through a collaborative and participative museum installation of its diverse and common cultural life, the Bago City community underwent a process of creating and re-creating ‘selves’ in the hope of claiming a space in historical memory as well as social and cultural empowerment. A community museum is not the structure per se; it is the continuous process of producing knowledge by the people, in order to better understand present realities and inspire the capacity to ‘create,’ concurrent with the possibility to change. It is in this perspective that I also argue for the experience of lowlanders who experienced colonization, migration and dislocation are also societal experiences that are part and integral to concepts of local history and culture and may be viewed as “indigenous cultural resource.” These are silences in our national history--the voice of our people and their crucial understanding of what is tangible and intangible heritage, from their unique perspective of oppression, poverty and continuing feudal relations. Transforming the elite space of Balay ni Tan Juan into a community space is significant. A community museum will have a great impact on many levels. First, it benefits the people of Bago, providing a platform for the assertion of history among their sugar workers, who have plowed these lands in the last 150 years against the backdraft of the elite view of Negrense history. Second, other Negros Occidental towns and districts will welcome a community museum more than its highly urbanized counterpart in Bacolod for it will improve local eco-

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tourism that is people-oriented and not prone to stereotyping. Third, museum workers will be trained in curatorial work and a museum education program will be developed and maintained. Fourth, local artisans and craftsman will have a chance to engage with the community in a dignified manner and will be recognized as keepers of knowledge and traditions. And last, through the school system, audience development will primarily be given importance so that the youth may learn the importance of their local history and culture. Overall, the development of a community museum in the Philippines could be an important step in mitigating the Manila-oriented version of a ‘national’ culture by empowering people in the margins to imagine themselves based on their experiences and realities. The vision to turn the museum from an elite-oriented space into a “space of engagement” and a meaningful community space is an important initiative in the Philippines where the elitist connotation of culture predominates. Significantly, an artistic and cultural perspective is a tool of empowering people to look at themselves in their own context and not just passively accept the elite families’ version of their history and culture. There is a rich undercurrent of a ‘history from below’ that is only now being realized in Negros; and working in a ‘community museum’ set-up will encourage a dialogue that has not frequently happened. In addition to working with the Bago community of farmers and sugar workers, folk weavers, potters and contemporary artists, the project wishes to mount an exhibit that will deal with historical memory, folk culture and the community’s agricultural life cycle that is always connected with national and global concerns.17 For this project, the community museum is reconstructed not as a status symbol of a nation or as a ‘narrative of loss’ but an active reclaiming of

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cultural and historical memory, which is always in process and not a fossilized fact. Therefore, the heart of a community museum is not just its collection, but the process of a collaborative undertaking associated with its establishment. Its educational program component will enliven the museum space. The citizens of Negros Occidental will also have a chance to ‘mirror’ themselves in such a museum; it will be a space, where they can reflect on their history and culture. Such a museum might also serve as a model for other community museums in the country or in Southeast Asia. Many local government units in the Philippines are clamoring for museums in their own towns with the mistaken agenda of purely touristic purposes. Beginning this initiative and working with a local government unit could prove that alternative voices can come out in the open without the fear and influence of partisan politics. Finally, let me say that at the heart of my belief in cultural empowerment is the realization that without an aware citizenry at the local level, there would be no significant changes in the national political-scape in the Philippines, nor will there be empathy with the larger concerns of Asia and the world. The work for a cultural worker is here-–and it cannot wait. As for the academic in me, learning from people and communities (and their lessons of resiliency in the face of adversities) has been very rewarding experience–-a journey that I hope will continue in the future.

Endnotes 1 An earlier version of this essay appeared as: “The Appropriation of local culture in Museum Practices: Problems and Possibilities for Philippine Communities,” Rueben Ramas Cañete (ed.), Suri Sining: The Art Studies Anthology (Quezon City: The Art Studies Foundation, Inc., 2011). 2

At this point I need to explain that I’m speaking from two voices--as an

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academic and as a cultural worker. I have been teaching Art Studies for 18 years and I realize that theory is not enough. For theories to be “useful” I embarked on a community work through Baglan Art and Community Initiatives which believes that the key to people empowerment and human development is through the arts. 3 This paper was initially presented to the National Congress on Appropriating Indigenous Cultural Resources in Festivals and other Spectacles, October 20, 2006 at the Philippine Social Science Center, Quezon City. 4 Ivan Karp, et al. (eds). Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), p. 6. 5 Another issue that the paper deals with is the concept of representation that arises from imagining selves, nations and communities in the museum gaze. Taking off from Benedict Anderson’s notion of ‘imagined communities’ (See: Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism [London: Verso Edition, 1983]) and Eric Hobsbawm and Ernst Gellner’s ‘invented tradition,’ we can examine the Philippines as a cultural construct created by the intellectual elites and appropriated in political and economic policies of the state. As Hobsbawm has suggested, it is a mistake to think of a ‘nation’ as an unchanging social entity. It is rather of a “particular and historically recent entity, relating to a certain kind of modern state.”(See: Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990]) Therefore, the concept of a nation is a kind of project--an artefact, an invention and a product of social engineering--it is not static, but rather imagined and constructed through active engagement by a group of people. 6 John Elsner and Roger Cardinal (eds), The Cultures of Collecting (Massachusets: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 1. 7 Felipe de Leon, “Traditional Art is High Art: A Question of Perspective,” National Living Treasures Awards, (Manila: National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 1998). 8 Reification of folk art objects happens when everyday things become acquirable possessions. In 1992 such a process happened at the Cabanatuan City Museum. I am from this fast-changing city; and so I helped the local government start its historical and thematic exhibit. Initiating an on-loan temporary collection from the rural baranggays, we borrowed a huge kawa or talyasi that this village used for cooking during collective celebrations and events. On the day the exhibit opened, the decontextualized talyasi is transformed--the everyday object becomes art, by virtue of the museum space, and was eyed by antique collectors. Museums appropriating everyday folk materials contributed

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to the idea of acquirable art mostly for urban consumers of culture, pointing to a democratization of symbolic and material culture. Yet a revaluation of folk art is in order to widen its definition that would incorporate notions of ‘cultural justice,’ facing the fact that the objects we admire so much also connotes meanings of unequal relations of urban and regional development, and of marginalization in the national imaginary. We only need to be reminded of the T’boli people whose land was taken by a multinational corporation which grow pineapples for a global market. The circulation of the T’boli textile and brassware are now so popular and widely accepted as a national treasure in our country, yet the province of South Cotabato time and again becomes a site of recurring and unresolved violence in Philippine society. 9 Stuart Hall, “Culture, Community, Nation,” in David Boswell and Jessica Evans (eds.), Representing the Nation: A Reader (Histories, Heritage and Museum) (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 38. 10 Community Museums in Asia (Japan: Japan Foundation Asia Center, 1997), p. 8. 11

Ibid.

12 Kalyan Chakravarty, “The Legitimate Mission of a Post Colonial Museum in the Indian Context,” in Community Museums in Asia (Japan: Japan Foundation Asia Center, 1997), pp. 24-25. 13 This was cited in: Takeshi Asaji, “The Osaka Human Rights Museum as a Community,” in Community Museums in Asia (Japan: Japan Foundation Asia Center, 1997), p. 167. 14 Philip Gordon, “Museums, Indigenous Peoples and the 21st Century; Or is There a Place for Museums in this Brave New World?” in Community Museums in Asia (Japan: Japan Foundation Asia Center, 1997), pp. 34-41. 15 In terms of finances, the API grant paid for the cost of materials including the electrical needs of the exhibit, airfare, services, board and lodging of staff, workshops, and honoraria of consultants. As their financial counterpart, Bago City shouldered the local transportation needs, workshop venues, provided carpentry services, promotion and opening day ceremonies. More than 150 people directly participated in the project, including the active participation of the 24-barangay representatives of the city and 100 more that contributed or loaned objects for the exhibit, which dates from the 18th century to the 1960’s. The curatorial process was collaborative--Dr. Brenda Fajardo (who hails from Bago City) and Mr. Tanni Pangilinan of Digerati (a multimedia company) served as co-curators with the participants while the BTJ staff helped out in any way they can. Hopefully the exhibit will last 5-8 years, given the quality of the tarpaulin materials that were used. Although in keeping with the idea of community

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empowerment and knowledge transfer, the participants may choose to revise it according to their felt need and availability of resources. Indeed, from my point of view, a dynamic changing exhibit is more desirable than a static one. 16 The objects that were collected from the 24 barangays are on-lease basis. The staff has been given training in conducting guided tours. An organization called Abyan (Friends) also evolved from the participants to the workshops that support the programs and promotions, including members of the Araneta family. A museum education program was also started by holding an art workshop for the youth sector and senior citizens of the community. Many were eager for such an event because they said that there are no venues and opportunities to learn about artistic methods and discussions. The exhibit space provided a gallery for their works wherein they draw landscapes and genre scenes of their villages. Art materials were donated to each barangay hall so that they can continue to practice and maybe even encourage people to explore the possibilities of art making. All in all, the project experimented with the possibilities and challenges in realizing a community exhibit in the Philippines. Other local government units have expressed their desire to emulate the project and hopefully it will provide an alternative way of creating a cultural program for their communities. 17 Today Mr. Del Castillo is thinking of converting the second floor into an exhibition of a history of Bago through a genealogical approach--family histories. It will be composed of both elite and poor families, both political and cultural roles, family of boxers, weavers, kakanin makers, etc. It is also hoped that the process of reconstructing memory from the point of view of the disempowered in official history along with the understanding of the role of living traditions in contemporary society will enhance the goal of creating a vibrant community responsive to the needs of the times. A realistic community museum program and activities throughout the year has been set up. Hopefully, it will be sustainable, dynamic, responsive and empowering. Using local resources and practices, a year-long museum program will be coordinated with the school curriculum that is envisioned to be participative and engaging.

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YEARNING FOR NATIVENESS Wilfried Wagner

Abstrak: Iginigiit sa kontribusyong ito ang mithiing gagapin ang pagka-katutubo bilang produkto ng Panahon ng Kaliwanagan. Matapos ang isang maikling paglalahad ukol sa ilang kilalang ekspedisyon, tinatalakay dito ang ‘di pa nabibigyang-pansin na “Ekspedisyong Fejòs.” Noong 1937 pinaniwalaan ng direktor sa Hollywood at arkeologong si Dr. Paul Fejòs na natuklasan niya ang isang lipunan sa kanilang kauna-unahang estado sa Sipora ng kapuluang Mentawai, sa kanlurang bahagi ng Sumatra. Habang ginagamit ang modelong “Nanook of the North” ni Flaherty, kumatha ng isang pelikulang may script ukol sa lipunang ito. Bagamat may malakas na probisyong pinansyal at may pitong buwan ng pagsasapelikula, tatlong maikling pelikula lamang ang naging produkto ng ekspedisyon. Pinagtangkaang suriin sa sanaysay na ito ang mga dahilan sa likod nito. Bilang pangwakas, ipinugay ang pagpupunyagi ni Zeus Salazar na ilantad ang mapagkunwaring “pagkakatuklas” at kagilagilalas na pagpapakita sa mga Tasaday bilang isang lipunan sa kanilang pinakaunang estado.

Aveyron In 1797, a “wild boy” was sighted in the forests of Aveyron and finally captured in 1800. The news spread rapidly. After all, here, at last, was an opportunity to find out how a human being, who had grown up completely unspoilt by culture and its constraints, thought and felt. As a belated contemporary of Adam and Eve, prior to the fall of mankind, what language would he speak--perhaps the oldest in human history? Hebrew, perhaps?

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Fifty years had not yet passed since Jean-Jacques Rousseau1 had thrown down the gauntlet to “his age of enlightenment, reason and science”2 and was awarded the prize by the Academy of Dijon in 1750. The task was to answer the question as to whether the restoration of the sciences and the arts had contributed to refining moral practices. Rousseau added a self-doubting “or corrupting it”3 to the question and answered it with a “No.” Although he did not pen the frequently cited phrase “Back to Nature,” he did institute a discourse that was to determine the second half of the 18th century and feed the French Revolution. Accordingly, the “cultural world had smothered the natural world that is simultaneously recognised as the true home of the soul, the centre of the recently acquired self.”4 The educational novels Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse (1761)--a global success--and Émile ou De l’éducation (1762) in connection with the magnum opus of political philosophy Du Contract Social, ou Principes du Droit Politique (1762), transpose Rousseau’s educational concepts with the stylistic means of constructed biographies. Rousseau experimented hypothetically with alternative life designs “to get to the question as to what humans could have become.”5 Man in his primitive state was “a being, weaker than the others, less agile, but overall the most favourably equipped of all. As a wild creature he lived among the animals and gradually prevailed over them [...]. Afflictions plague him less in his primitive state than in over-saturated cultures, where nights spent without sleep, debauchery, exhaustion and spiritual fatigue (as Rousseau says) wear down the soul.”6 “Émile,” in particular, was banned and burnt due to its attacks on court, state and church. Rousseau experienced neither the storming of the Bastille nor the capture of the “wild boy.” He died in 1778. The capture of the “wild boy” gave his discourse on the primitive state of man an authentic twist--albeit not as one

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might have expected. Indeed, the very first examination of the approximately ten-year-old yielded perplexing results: he did not speak a word, understood no language, did not react to pantomime or gesture, music left him cold, and he sought no physical contact with others. But he was wide awake as soon as a nut was cracked behind his back. Eventually, a young physician and teacher of deaf-mutes, Jean Itard, took over his education and put him through a rigorous programme of conditioning that lasted for many years. With moderate success--as the diary, made into a film by François Truffault, serves to demonstrate. The intellectual audience of the age of enlightenment had long since anticipated that the expansion of Europe would lead to the discovery of the “noble savage,” perhaps even of entire societies in a primeval state, instead of mere reports of a single “wild boy.”

Paris Whilst the verification or falsification of the biblical story of creation were considered of cognitive interest at the beginning of the age of enlightenment, the expectations and requirements of irrefutable proof of man in his primal state were subject to change. Because most Europeans were unable to travel overseas to seek out, find and study the ways of life practiced by yet to be ‘discovered’ peoples, these peoples’ presumed detailed ensembles should at least be brought to the metropolises of the old world. As such in 1815 the first international industrial fair7 the “Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations” had presented “colonial” departments in London; while the 1878 Paris “Exposition Universelle” imported “aboriginal villages” as attractions for visitors. Moreover, they served to justify the colonial and cultural project

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against the background of the rise of Social Darwinism. In the meantime, the Hagenbeck Company had recognised that the “villages” were losing their appeal over time. The people from faraway lands were by no means emotionally cold and no longer played a convincing role as dull and indifferent extras in a “primal state” akin to still life. The wax models began to wink with their eyes, as it were, and to offer demonstrations of unusual motor activity, strength and humour. Hagenbeck’s ambulatory “aborigine shows” became successful events, during which the astonished and delighted audience were presented with a display of intoxicating physicality and acrobatics, amazing requisites, nonEuropean animals and inventive clothing and finery. A new kind of exoticism broke away from the meanwhile academic ethnology and “colonial exhibitions within the scope of world and industry fairs.” The emergence of tropical photography in a colonial context progressed, parallel to this development.8 The new instrument promised an extension to the visual organ of sight and seemed to offer results of sheer inimitable accuracy. Eventually, movement came to film, followed later by sounds, speech and music in “talkies.” Gradually, however--and not least as a consequence of a rapidly expanding film production--viewers became weary of the obviously staged scenes. It was the 1920’s film “Nanook of the North,” German title “Nanuk, der Eskimo,” by Robert Joseph Flaherty that treated the people at its centre not only as objects at the line producer’s disposal, but rather as components of creative filming. Film production played second fiddle to Nanook’s rhythm of work, and the hidden choreography of his construction concept for a new igloo and securing his provisions made sense. The term ‘scripted fictional film’ came into use.

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Mentawai The following section addresses Dr.Paul Fejòs9 who, in 1937, believed he could capture nativeness in a scripted fictional film made in the village of Siuban on Sipora in the Mentawai archipelago, west of Sumatra.10 Until today this expedition is unknown to the field of research. Fejòs brought Hollywood to Mentawai.

11

This dedication in a copy of Theodor Mommsen’s “Das Weltreich der Caesaren”12 is possibly the only handwritten comment Fejòs ever made on his Mentawai expedition. How did he get to this location? Paul Fejós, in Hungarian Pal Fejös, grew up in a wealthy, cosmopolitan family in Budapest. The good-looking, adroit grammar school pupil dreamed of a career in film, whilst his father forced him to study medicine. After successfully completing his studies there was nothing in Europe to hold him back. In Hollywood, the autodidact forged a career as an inventive director of silent movies Charlie Chaplin called him a genius, and Albert Einstein visited

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him at the studio in 1930.13 The Frankfurt film sociologist Kracauer reviewed Fejòs’s film “Lonesome” in 1929.14 He wrote the following: “The film…,which comes from Hollywood, is one of the best films made for a long time…The two protagonists are a telephonist and a factory worker—little people who are not seen at all in the usual German films.”15 Fejós was the first to install a camera platform on the extended ladder of a fire engine.16 That is how “Broadway” was made in 1929. Completely disillusioned, he returned to Europe in 1931, declaring “I simply didn’t fit into the Hollywood picture.”17 He successfully managed the transition to films with sound at Nordisk Films of Copenhagen. But he soon became bored with studio productions. “No sitzfleisch,”18 as he is described by his American biographer. His old friend Lothar Wolff (19091988) provided Fejós a new direction by introducing him to anthropology and archaeology, but most of all, away from Europe. In 1936 he boarded a ship to Madagascar--“because,” according to him, “there are native people”19 in the south, particularly in “the most untouched part”20 to the Tanosi and Bara. Later, he claimed “(F)or the first time in my life I met primitive natives and I found them adorable.”21 Ten months in Madagascar were followed by three in Mahé and other locations in the Seychelles. In 1937, at the recommendation of Thomas Thomsen, the director of the Copenhagen Museum of Ethnology, the Swedish Film Industry furnished Paul Fejós with significant funds--to which the king of Sweden had also contributed.22 Thomsen commissioned him to produce films of untouched societies and collect ethnological artefacts in today’s Indonesia or the former Dutch East Indies. This assignment became Fejós’s extreme field research project--and his longest. He visited virtually every island of the Indonesian archipelago, but also Singapore, where he met the Swedish cinema industrialist Axel Wenner-Gren (1881-1961) who would become his lifelong patron, friend and companion. In 1938, he

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directed the film “A Handful of Rice” in northern Siam, a simple story “told with native ‘actors’ about the rigors of jungle life.”23 He returned to Europe and then emigrated to the USA, where he directed the “Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research” and held various professorships for anthropology. In 1937, at the end of his expedition through Indonesia and before he starts filming in Siam in 1938, we find him as a guest of my parents, Erna and Heintz Wagner at the mission station of the Rheinische Missionsgessellschaft on the Mentawai island of Sipora in the village of Siuban.24 “My husband went with him to Siuban before dusk on the day he arrived,” my mother explained. Fejós’s initial encounter with a society, living in a primitive state and embedded in the poetry of unspoilt nature, left him awestruck. He returned to the mission full of enthusiasm, claiming “I have at last found what I have been looking for on all of my travels: primitive humans.”25 He used Flaherty’s “Nanook of the North” as template for his scripted fictional film. The team lived at the mission for seven months. Mrs. Fejòs took photographs and used still scenes from the film production to illustrate her article for the Münchner Illustrierte Presse, “Kinder der Wildnis. Filmfreuden und Filmstarallüren mitten im Stillen Ozean.”26 It is the only representation of filming on Mentawai. She noted, Thick atlases were browsed at the studio offices of the Svenska Film Company and many geographers were interviewed until the destination of film director Dr. Fejós’s expedition in the Pacific Ocean was determined: the Mentawai group of islands, with the main island of Sipora as the central filming location. The utensils used by the natives there was in part reminiscent of artefacts from the Stone Age. After exceptional communication difficulties had been overcome to a certain extent, filming began with shared enthusiasm. The film topic was the last tribal wars. The island’s medicine man acted as “consultant director.” Previously isolated from the world, the children of the wild easily picked up what the white men wanted from them and played their parts full of joy and astoundingly natural talent.

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Another one of the scarce sources concerning Fejós’s island sojourn is an essay on poisoned arrows and ethnographic notes from the Mentawai archipelago (East Indies).27 In addition to an analysis of the arrows and ethnological artefacts it also tells us that the sojourn in Siuban lasted for seven months, confirming the statement made by Erna Wagner.28

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Erna & Heintz Wagner, family photo album. The dance scenes had to be filmed outside due to light conditions. Some information about Fejòs’s trip to Mentawai could also be found in the volume Geschichte der Kultur (History of Culture), which feature two of the film maker’s still photographs and his detailed account of the expedition.29 Fejòs envisaged a film with the Mentawaiian title “Saggak” (War). It would tell of two hostile villages at war with each other. Out of probably some 20,000 metres30 of sound film, only three short films were made: “The Tribe Still Lives” (9’ 10‟), “The Age of Bamboo” (10‛ 40‟) and “The Chief’s Son Is Dead” (10‛ 37‟).31 They were compiled from the raw materials and subtitled in Swedish in Copenhagen after 1945.32 The original Mentawaiian dialogues could only be heard when the Swedish commentator pauses. The Siuban amateurs obviously took great pleasure from their acting. Fejòs, however, seems to have mislaid the philosophy of the scripted fictional film. His wife writes: “The natives played their roles as directed, void of all shyness of the camera.”33 Apparently the director only needed to issue a few instructions. But Erna Wagner pointed out, however, that Fejòs helped out with a few dramatization effects. The men’s

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loincloths of beaten tree bark were replaced with white textile material for a better contrast. The fight between a mongoose and a python was staged as there were no mongooses on Mentawai. Moreover, the fight was ended by a gunshot. Finally, one of the short films shows schoolchildren competing in a tug-of-war under the instruction of Batak missionaries, although the film commentator speaks of ancient contests. Only one scene depicts the raid-like storming of a village accompanied by loud cries of “Saggak.” What caused the concept of the scripted fictional film to fail? In contrast to his subsequent film “A Handful of Rice” which focused on a young couple’s fight for survival, Fejòs’s Siuban film project obviously lacked a consistent script. His expectations of a nativeness that could merely be caught on camera remained unfulfilled. “The film material was sent to Sweden for developing and copying [...]. But the company in Stockholm did not consider the material to be good enough. Perhaps partially due to the fact that the expedition had encountered much greater difficulties than initially anticipated [...]. In February 1938, Svensk Filmindustri therefore officially dispatched the Swedish film documentary and newsreel producer Gunnar Skoglund to assist Fejòs, but in reality to take over shooting ‘A Handful of Rice’.”34 Speculations on Fejòs motives/prejudice are also conceivable. As a Hollywood director he must have been aware of the film “King Kong,” made in 1933.35 A comment by the captain and a brief camera shot of a map of the west coast of Sumatra positioned this film on a yet undiscovered island in roughly the same location as the Mentawai islands to the west of Sumatra.36 Additionally, the image of the primitive inhabitants in this film is based partially on elements of Mentawaiian culture. In the 1930s this had caused a significant stir among anthropological circles. At this time, so-called “primitive” art and culture was

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of intellectual and popular interest. The scenes in “King Kong” and, in fact, the entire film have nothing to do with the biogeographic features of Sipora and its inhabitants. Nonetheless, there are some astounding similarities between “King Kong” and Fejòs’s approach. Alone the working title of “Saggak” is evocative of the King Kong film. There are mentions of “much-used atlases” before the destination was defined, both in the film and from Mrs Fejòs. The archive at the National Museum in Copenhagen, however, contains the correspondence of four years between Heintz Wagner and the director of the Copenhagen museum dealing with the preparation of the expedition. “King Kong” and all of its remakes work with an almost unnaturally delicate and beautiful, blond white woman that the monster gets between its giant paws. Her sheer presence causes “King Kong” to melt. There are indeed some peculiar associations, as Mrs Fejòs, Denmark’s beauty queen of 1931 under her maiden name of Inga Arvad (1913-1973), seemed to represent the then popular ideal of a tall, slim, blond northern European.37 She was an actress, “but could not act.”38 Did Fejòs intend to give her a role in “Saggak”? It would be in keeping with his erratic, open-ended planning. Could Fejòs, in his search for nativeness, have perhaps found inspiration in the “King Kong” film? Does the encounter with reality explain his conspicuous silence? A huge divergence between high-flying expectations of nativeness and mute answers? Or was it the disappointment of his sponsors? The seven months of the Mentawai expedition continued to be omitted in every biographic publication on Fejòs. It almost appears like his seven months in Siuban have been covered up by more than mere coincidence--if it weren’t for the dedication from Dr. Fejòs to missionary Wagner. Finally, it should be noted that the missionary station was closest

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and maintained friendly relations with Siuban.39 The contact alone with the Christian mission could possibly have led to a civilising alienation. Hostile villages were already forbidden to engage in active warfare; and so, recreating a war in front of the camera developed into an extraordinary event. Obvious indicators, such as clothing made from natural materials and self-made tools and utensils, appeared primitive and prehistoric, whilst Christian liturgy and songs had replaced animistic incantations and rituals that were tabooed as heathen. Perhaps the pleasure gained from moving between two worlds might explain the amusement of the actors. Ultimately one can suspect that Fejòs was anything but a non-directive documentalist. After all, he and his team spent seven comfortable and wellfinanced months at the missionary station. As cannibalism and attacks against whites were prohibited, they could have filmed the archaic methods of production, weaving, whittling, canoe-building, cooking in a bamboo oven, fishing, hunting and slaughtering without risk. Seven months was more than enough time to carefully investigate initial impressions. Although a clan house did not afford the necessary light for taking photographs and filming, they would have experienced the interaction among the inhabitants during allday sojourns and overnight stays--in brief, actual everyday life. As a qualified tropical physician, Fejòs could have quickly engaged in conversation with the inquisitive medicine men. It is very probable that the scripted fictional film “Saggak” never came into being because Fejòs and the team on location failed to critically question their experiences and observations and discuss them with the Siubans. Caught between distance and closeness, they chose to remain distant and rely on the suggestive force of the film. Is not the notion of finding and filming nativeness

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on a par with trying to isolate the golden hue of sunlight? An attempt at reconstructing Fejòs’s expedition on the basis of the dedication and the narrated pieces of mosaic is indeed possible. After seven months Fejòs made no attempt to sugar-coat his rather meagre results, in contrast to his initial impression which he regarded as epiphany, nor to blame it on external factors.

Mindanao The “Tasaday Controversy” serves to show just how easy it is today to visually exploit the yearning for undiscovered nativeness by means of transportable filming technology and traceless editing. In 1972, the Tasaday, a small, indigenous people in the south of Mindanao, raised a global media stir due to their apparent stone-age technology and total isolation from Philippine society. Enthralling films and photos depict gracious and agile people, expertly choreographed, in a sustainable symbiosis between man and nature. The list of literature indicates to the reader that predominantly American anthropologists have taken possession of the subject. The “stone-age people” once again became the focal point of the world’s media in 1986, after the fall of President Ferdinand Marcos, this time as the victims of manipulation. Among Zeus Salazar’s many merits are his efforts to initiate the demystification of this elaborate fraud with “stone-age people.” He exposed this ruse in his two essays,40 published in December 1971 and 1972, and put his entire academic and political reputation at risk. He had, after all, challenged Manuel Elizalde, the director of the governmental organization PANAMIN, which was established in 1968 to protect the interests of cultural minorities. Elizalde was a protégé of President Marcos and protected “his” Tasaday from critical, and in

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particular, Philippine researchers with police force. Zeus Salazar celebrates his 80th birthday this year. Vivat!

Endnotes 1

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778.

2 Hans Maier, Rousseau. Klassiker des Politischen Denkens II (Munich: 1968), p. 104-134; here, p. 111. 3

Ibid., p. 112.

4

Ibid.

5

Ibid.

6

Ibid.

7 On this point and in the following see the deeply reflective and content-rich essay by Kristina Starkloff, “Eigene Fremde. Die Aussagekraft “Kolonialisierter” auf Welt- und Gewerbeausstellungen,” in Jahrbuch für Europäische Überseegeschichte, 11. 2011, pp. 117-152. 8 On this point see Thomas Theye (Ed.), Der geraubte Schatten: Die Photographie als ethnographisches Dokument (Munich/Lucerne: 1989). 9 On Paul Fejòs (*1897 Budapest, † 1963 New York), see John W. Dodds, The Several Lives of Paul Fejòs: a Hungarian-American Odyssey (New York: Wenner-Gren Foundation, 1973); Paul Fejòs. Filmkritik magazine, dedicated to a film director, in Filmkritik No. 272 Aug. 1979; and David Bidney, “Paul Fejòs 1897-1963,” in American Anthropologist 66, 1964, pp. 110-115. 10 The National Museum of Denmark, Department of Ethnography Archive. 11

Wagner family archive.

12 Theodor Mommsen, Das Weltreich der Caesaren. Vol. V (Vienna: 1933), in the estate of my parents Erna Wagner, née Michel, and Heintz Wagner. 13 Filmkritik, p. 341. 14 Frankfurter Zeitung 9 April 1929. Siegfried Kracauer (born in Frankfurt/ Main in 1889; deceased in New York in 1966), co-founder of the undogmatic

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Marxist “Frankfurter Schule” around Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, reviewed a total of four films by Fejòs in the newspaper, of which he was an editorial staff member. Siegfried Kracauer, Kino, Essays, Studien, Glossen zum Film, Ed. by Karsten Witte (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 126, FFM, 1974). 15

Kracauer l.c. p. 202

16

Ibid., p. 340.

17

Dodds, l.c. 43.

18

Ibid., p. 52.

19

Ibid.

20

Ibid.

21

Ibid., p. 54.

22 Erna Wagner, “Erinnerungen an Mentawai,” Video Interview, (University of Bremen, 1988). 23

Dodds, l.c. p. 59.

24 Erna and Heintz Wagner worked as a married missionary couple on the Mentawai islands from 1931 to 1938. 25

Erna Wagner, l.c.

26 “Münchner Illustrierte Presse,” edition 16, 1939, No. 17, btw. p 616 and 617. Erna Wagner received the article by post from Mrs. Fejòs in 1939 and assumed that she had written it. The name “Pacific Ocean” for the localisation of the smaller Indonesian islands was commonplace at the time. 27 Carl Gustaf Santesson, “Pfeilgifte und ethnographische Notizen von dem Mentawei-Archipel (Ostindien),” in Ethnos Vol. IV, 1939, pp. 129-146. 28

Erna Wagner, l.c.

29 Kaj Birkett-Smith, Geschichte der Kultur, (Zurich: 1956). Fig. 130 between pp. 196 & 197, Fig. 263 between pp. 412 & 413. The medicine man, Fig. 263, is clearly wearing a loincloth made from white textile material as distributed by Fejós, instead of wearing beaten tree bark. 30

Erna Wagner, l.c.

31 Source: Sveriges Television, Stock Shot Library, Stockholm. Translation of title and sound from Swedish gratefully received from Hennig Eichberg.

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Message from Inger Wulff 1982.

33 Kinder der Wildnis (Children of the wild). Signature on one of the photos. 34

Werner Gösta in Filmkritik, No. 272 August 1979, p. 388.

35 On this point and in the following: Adrian Vickers, Bali. A Paradise Created (1969), p. 126. 36 This is also referred to by Reimar Schefold, Harmonie en Rivaliteit (Leiden: 1990), p. 12. 37 During conversations relating to the expedition held in Siuban in 1974, the author was asked about the white woman who wore trousers “like a chicken that wants to be a rooster”. 38

Lothar Wolff, “Ueber Paul Fejòs,” Filmkritik l.c. p. 385.

39

My mother published a story about her friend, Si Alai Gerat.

40 Zeus Salazar, “Footnote on the Tasaday” in The Philippine Journal of Linguistics, XI, 2, December 1971, pp. 34-38, and again with “Second Footnote on the Tasaday,” 1972. Salazar argues purely linguistically by pointing out in detail that the Tasaday was a splinter cell of the ethno-linguistic group of the Manabo and did indeed have words for products made of iron (an appreciated contribution from Marlies Salazar).

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EYES ON A PRIZE: COLONIAL FANTASIES, THE GERMAN SELF AND NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS OF THE 1896 PHILIPPINE REVOLUTION Portia L. Reyes1

Abstrak:

Inilalahad ng sanaysay na ito ang natatanging pagtatanghal ng mga Aleman sa Rebolusyong Pilipino sa hindi pa nagagamit na batis pangkasaysayan—ang mga pahayagan mula sa hilagang-kanlurang estadong siyudad ng Bremen. Iginigiit ng may-akda na lumampas pa sa karaniwang pagsasalaysay sa himagsikan ang pagpapahayag ng mga diyaryo, sapagkat nais din nilang ilahad sa kanilang mga salaysay ang katuturan ng kanilang Sarili bilang Aleman at ang partikular na lugar nito sa Asya at sa Europa para sa kanilang mambabasa sa Alemanya. Pinag-ibayo ng mga salaysay ang pagnanasa at kasiyahan ng mga Aleman sa pagtatatag ng kolonya sa Pasipiko—kolonyang itinuturing na mahalagang kasangkapan noong ikalabinsiyam na siglo upang magkaroon ng pagkakataon ang Alemanya na makibahagi at igalang bilang isang Kapangyarihan sa larangan ng Weltpolitik o pandaigdigang politika.

Introduction Hundreds of German traders and residents were living in the Philippines when the 1896 Revolution against the Spanish broke out. Representing different religious, regional and economic backgrounds, they routinely met and mingled in such social organizations as reading clubs or, later, the Casino Union.2 Save for the Spanish, Germans formed the most numerous European community. As latecomers vis-à-vis other Europeans, they painstakingly maintained working

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relations with the Spanish colonial administrators and local Filipino elites to bolster their businesses. The outbreak of the revolution, however, threatened the deepening economic inroads this community had striven so hard to make; and as the fighting grew they feared that their lives were also threatened. As a consequence, they turned to their government in Berlin for protection. A warship was duly deployed to the islands in case evacuation was deemed necessary. Significantly, this request provided the German navy a prime opportunity to assess developments in the Spanish colony, which, in turn, might facilitate direct state intervention in the rebellion.3 While it is not a surprise that the German community in the Philippines closely followed the twists and turns of the revolution, it is a revelation that German newspapers extensively covered the revolt for their domestic readers. At the end of the nineteenth century German newspapers swelled in number and began to take on the commercial and industrial characteristics of modern media, which aided broader coverage of world events.4 Reports transformed abstract, obscure, and complex political events abroad into comprehensible, daily occurrences for the papers’ increasingly curious readership.5 These monumental changes were occurring as the Philippine Revolution unfolded, and German news editors took full advantage of this fact. Reports about the unprecedented event filled the papers and over time domestic readers became familiar with a distant territory and its people who were, from a European perspective, intricately linked to the nearby Spanish monarchy. Thus newspaper accounts of the revolution not only demonstrated the growth of print capitalism, which would be critical in imagining the German nation,6 but they also shed light on the complexities and intricacies of intra-European competition for domination in Asia—in this case, growing German expansionism vis-à-vis established Spanish (as well as French) colonial interests.

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Using previously untapped sources on the Filipino Revolution, this article traces the growth of German interest in this seminal event through the newspapers from the northwestern city-state of Bremen. A long-established trading and commercial entrepôt through which passed goods from around the world,7 Free Hanseatic (Hansa) Bremen was not a stranger to the Philippines. Before its assimilation to the German empire in 1871, the sovereign state of Bremen had a consulate in Manila that helped to oversee the aforementioned trading community.8 Manila was a fairly important business station in EuropeanAsian trade and travel. Bremen ships regularly carried Manila sugar to England, and the archipelago’s sugar, hemp and dark wood to the east coast of the United States, and a combination of variegated freight to its west coast. In the 1880s and 1890s Bremen ships routinely docked in southern Philippines, took part in the East Asian coastal travel network, and assumed a significant role in the region’s larger and more complex trade and transport system.9 Like other foreign traders, Bremen merchants were subject to the Spanish colonial administration in the archipelago and suffered under its notoriously strict trading tariff regime.10 While these restrictions discouraged further growth of German trade on the islands, they also convinced a number of traders of the advantages of colonisation and empire in the Pacific region. The idea of expansion split merchants into opposing camps, however. Wary of competing with and earning the animosity of their long-time British trading partners, a number of Bremen merchants, who distributed English goods on the continent, opposed German overseas expansion.11 Others, heartened by the growing power of the navy and the apparent expansionist orientation of the Berlin government, pushed for full protection of trading investments abroad and subsequently for the establishment of an overseas empire.12 This divide mirrored the split between conservative and liberal sentiments on the issue of

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colonisation among Germans as a whole, as became evident in the newspapers coverage of the revolution in the Philippines. This article examines in-depth two Bremen-based newspapers: Der Courier an der Weser and Weser Zeitung. Professing contrasting viewpoints, these two papers provided their readers with uniquely German perspectives on the revolution. Looking to guard against destabilising Germany’s diplomatic relations with Spain, Der Courier an der Weser (hereafter CW) covered the rebellion in an understated manner, treating it rather matter-of-factly for its readers. Locally known as a progressive paper, the Weser Zeitung (hereafter WZ) recognised the uprising’s significance in terms of German interests in the region, an importance it displayed through a near daily recounting of the insurgency. More than the CW had done, the WZ expressly illustrated the place of the unified German nation-state and its enterprising subjects in the rebellion. The WZ saw the revolution as a proxy for European competition over profit and influence in Asia and at home; and through its coverage, it projected a mature and diplomatic image of a powerful Germany in world politics. Using news reports published in the important trade port of Bremen, this paper makes two interlinked arguments. First, the newspapers’ extensive coverage embodies a unique account of the revolution in the Philippines. The CW and WZ painstakingly published minutiae of events, issues and controversies on the islands. They showcased a conceivably inclusive narrative of the uprising, preserving unique sources of historical data on the struggle for independence in the Philippines. Second, through these reports the newspapers sought to distinguish the German Self and its place in Asia and Europe for the benefit of their domestic readership. For example, they showcased the contemporary German hero—the trader—who boldly embarked on trade adventures abroad to bring

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prosperity to Germany. The reports also fed the German desire for and fascination with establishing a colonial presence in the Pacific. For colonialists, the region represented an opportunity to participate and subsequently be respected as a power in Weltpolitik (world politics).13 Taken together, the news reports comprise a unique narrative on the Philippine Revolution as a spectacle consumed by a German readership. By foregrounding an ideal of German distinctiveness as a people, the accounts, through an intensive narration of an Other, brought to the fore the manifold roles that came to define the omnipresent German Self: an observer, a victim, an expert, an outraged European, a sympathetic advocate for freedom, a potential coloniser, and ultimately a decision-maker in international affairs.

Competition for Empire: German-American Encounters in the Philippines In May 1898, in the context of the Spanish-American War, the armada of American Commodore George Dewey destroyed Spain’s aging Pacific fleet in Manila Bay.14 Soon thereafter, Dewey’s men sought to enforce a blockade of incoming ships along the archipelago’s coasts, preventing the arrival of aid to the Spanish administration and marking the territory to ward off the colonial designs of other nations. Yet, to the Americans’ consternation, foreign ships continued to crowd Manila Bay.15 In response to the escalating tussles between the Spanish and Filipinos on the ground (see below), Britain, France, Russia, Japan and Germany sent vessels for the possible evacuation of their citizens. For the Americans, the increasing number of German ships was particularly worrisome.16 By mid-June a formidable contingent of German ships under the command of Vice-Admiral Otto von Diederichs, aboard the ironclad Kaiserin

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Augusta, had gathered in Manila Bay, dwarfing the American armada.17 Having been instrumental in Germany’s acquisition of Qingdao (Tsingtao) and the adjacent Jiaozhou (Kiaochow) Bay area in China, the German fleet under Diederichs was looking for more opportunities to show its mettle.18 Sensing this growing German presence, leaders of the Filipino revolution submitted a plea for Germany to intervene on their behalf against the Spanish.19 Dewey, for his part, distrusted the Germans. He kept Washington, however, unaware of the tense situation in Manila and took matters into his own hands.20 For instance, as the comings and goings of German ships without American permission made a mockery of the blockade, an infuriated Dewey communicated his impatience to the German foreign ministry and inquired about the intended length of stay of the German squadron. The ministry responded diplomatically, relating the message that Germans harboured no ill intentions towards the United States, and that Diederichs’ ships were there merely to safeguard German, Austrian, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and Swiss interests, and to facilitate the exchange of relief crews from Germany.21 Diederichs claimed to have no political instructions from Berlin on the Philippine situation.22 Tensions between Dewey and Diederichs continued to escalate. Still awaiting reinforcement, Dewey feared that the 1,400-strong relief crew on board the newly-arrived Darmstadt was a pretext for a landing force that might establish a more permanent German presence on the islands.23 Rumours swirled that Germans were helping the Spanish to build torpedo boats in Manila’s Pasig River in order to gun down American warships. That Diederichs and the Spanish governor-general in Manila, Basilio Augustín y Dávila, exchanged personal visits added fuel to the fire.24 Meanwhile the German vessel Irene headed for Isla Grande, an island in Subic Bay, to evacuate Spaniards under attack by Filipino rebels. Learning about the impending German intervention, Dewey sent the

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Raleigh and the Concord to investigate. With guns drawn and heated words exchanged, the Irene retreated. Subsequently the Americans took custody of some thirteen hundred Spaniards on Isla Grande.25 US-German tensions eased once the Kaiserin Augusta was recalled to the Netherlands East Indies. At the same time, the arrival of an American monitor, the Monterey, re-established American dominance.26 An armoured vessel, the Monterey had two 12 and two 10 inch-guns which could be effectively used for enemy bombardment on both sea and shore. It provided the Americans with more than sufficient firepower to withstand any encroachment on their blockade of Philippine waters. By the end of the year Spain sold the Philippines to the Americans, and the Marshall and Caroline islands to the Germans, securing for themselves long-sought after coaling stations in the Pacific. In the end, these events--collectively known as the ‘Manila Incident’--had generated much controversy that strained US-German diplomatic relations. Subsequently the leaders in Berlin resolved to keep a low profile and sought to reconcile with their American counterparts.27 The Americans had correctly gauged German colonial ambition. From the outset of the Philippine Revolution in August 1896, Germans had adopted a watchful stance. The consul’s request for protection of local subjects led to the arrival of the battleship Arcona, later relieved by the Irene.28 Mindful of the possible loosening of Spanish hold over its Pacific possessions, the Germans were poised to seize a share of the spoils,29 and Diederichs’s squadron had this in mind in 1898.30 Other historians have detailed this late German colonial ambition. William H. Carr, for one, suggested that colonialism became fashionable among German politicians once the European powers partitioned Africa after the Berlin

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Conference in 1880. Agitating for colonies on economic and nationalist grounds, pressure groups were established in different German states.31 Additionally, this new enthusiasm for empire was reinforced by a firm belief that the possession of colonies was in itself profitable.32 For Robert-Hermann Tenbrock, the economic drive for colonisation, anticipated by a clamouring for ‘a place in the sun’ among the populace at-large, stemmed from a genuine rivalry with England and France for the partition of the world.33 Others like Woodruff D. Smith have emphasized the political nature of this drive for empire by pointing to a set of ideologies prominent in Germany at the time that was a result of the economic and social changes brought about by industrialization.34 Mary Evelyn Townsend has taken a similar stand. She argued that after the unification of the German empire an enhanced national consciousness among Germans at home and abroad put great stock in blood relations. In this way, the protection of German emigrants and ventures overseas was seen as a logical course of action. Moreover as the industrial revolution generated great wealth, German industrialists set their sights abroad, both to alleviate domestic overproduction and to penetrate new markets—just as Karl Marx had theorised would happen almost four decades earlier. A tight labour market brought about by a growing population also made emigration overseas (Auswanderung) a practical safety valve. And an increasingly buoyant navy itching for imperial-like encounters transformed many of these changes in worldviews and society into very realistic options.35 Agitation for a colonial empire was prevalent in Wilhelminian Germany. In 1890 William II diverged from the Bismarckian policy of strengthening a European Germany. With parliamentary support, he embarked on what was called the New Course, characterised by an aggressive, overseas colonial push.36 Having built trade centres, plantations and naval coaling stations—and thus from time to time subject to strict Spanish tariff laws and customs regulations in

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the Pacific basin—German entrepreneurs from such Hansa cities as Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck as well as Prussia expressed mixed feelings about this. While some saw colonisation as a means of boosting trade and investment overseas,37 others feared that such expansion might threaten their special relations with Great Britain, thereby spoiling their lucrative position as middlemen in the British-central European trade.38 Nonetheless, as the Kaiser’s mania for colonies grew, he found firm support from various sources: the Colonial Department that took charge of administration in the African colonies, the reinvigorated navy that lobbied for overseas expansion, and public organisations that distributed colonialist propaganda. Soon privately-run newspapers jumped on board and contributed to the popularisation of the benefits of colonisation. The Bremen newspapers—and their extensive coverage of the rebellion in the Philippines— exemplified this trend.

The Philippine Revolution as Read in Bremen Between them, Bremen’s Weser Zeitung (WZ) and Der Courier an der Weser (CW) published 121 news items concerning the Philippine Revolution from 1896 to 1898. Managed by the R. Oldenburg group, the WZ was recognised as the area’s politically pragmatic newspaper,39 whereas the E. Fitzer group’s CW championed the conservative view. Their contrasting outlooks were reflected in their coverage of the revolution. While the CW essentially promoted the official Spanish line on the uprising, the WZ took pains to gather its information independently, and deployed its findings to both supplement and at times question the Spanish position. Despite these differences, both papers covered the rebellion extensively, and in so doing shed instructive light on German aspirations for possession of a Pacific colony. In a dispatch from Manila on 23 August 1896, the CW reported the discovery of a Filipino conspiracy against the

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Spanish.40 In response, authorities made twenty-one arrests and confiscated a number of important documents from the Spanish-Filipino Club in Manila. In Madrid the senate, committed to protect the integrity of the motherland, officially gave its support to extirpate the disturbance. In conveying this news, the CW sought to portray a formidable and well-informed Spanish government that took decisive measures in handling any problems it faced in its colonial possession. This initial report also unexpectedly established the CW as a savvy German paper familiar with and up-to-date with the goings-on in a territory ‘across the world’ from Germany. Days later the CW incorporated the same report on the conspiracy into a larger exposé on the Spanish colonial empire, again praising the government for maintaining control over its territories.41 For example, with regard to the Philippines, the CW recounted how the Spanish minister-president in Madrid dealt sternly with filibusteros (violators of state regulation and/or Church dogma) and reported that if necessary, the government was prepared to send additional troops to the islands. Similar themes were related in its report of 3 September, when the governor-general in Manila, having gained knowledge of the insurgency, began detaining conspirators who were ‘all natives to the islands’.42 The CW did note, however, the seriousness of the uprising; insurgents captured an armoury in Cavite, a coastal province south of Manila, for instance. In response, Spanish authorities brought an additional four thousand soldiers based on the southern island of Mindanao to Manila as reinforcements. The CW reported on the rebellion for weeks. Its 8 September edition reprinted parts of a dispatch from the governor-general in Manila that told of more arrests in Cavite. To reassure its readers, the article also highlighted that the

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reinforcements from Mindanao had arrived safely in Manila, while others from Spain were to set sail shortly from Barcelona.43 While its September coverage continued to spin developments in a positive light, the CW’s intermittent mention of the rebellion’s spread—which of course necessitated additional reinforcements—betrayed its politically-conservative and pro-Spanish stance. A careful reader could glean the growing precariousness of Spanish control of the situation.44 The WZ took a noticeably different position. For one thing, rather than spotlighting the strong-willed nature of the Madrid-based government, the paper kicked off its coverage by foregrounding the apprehensions of an unnamed colonial administrator who feared the contagion of the anti-colonial rebellion in the Greater Orient (Grob-Orient).45 Subsequent reports further distinguished the WZ’s position from that of the CW. On 10 September, for instance, the former recounted the lightning-like spread of the revolt.46 This coverage featured a telegram from a soldier stationed in Manila who estimated the number of armed revolutionaries in Cavite alone at two thousand; at this point, the CW had not offered any estimates. This same WZ report detailed how four hundred revolutionaries (die Aufständischen) had captured San Isidro, a town in the province of Nueva Ecija, some one hundred thirty kilometres north of Manila, and how Spanish soldiers were immediately dispatched to confront them.47 As important, this lengthy WZ report situated the rebellion in the larger context of Franco-German competition for prominence in Europe and Asia. Tellingly, it published a telegram from a German living in Manila who reported: [T]he Press here, which is briefed by the Agencia Fabra from Paris, talks about rumours that are circulating and

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cheerfully passed [in Paris] about German agents who are fighting with the revolutionaries. It is rumoured that at the least, prominent Germans [in Manila] are leading members of secret societies. Other telegrams negatively report on Germans leading the revolution. Whichever way one chooses to see it, the French use every opportunity to smear our name against other nations.48 While the CW avoided publishing such politically provocative accusations against the French, the WZ sought to refute the above accusations against the Germans. In doing so, it published an announcement by the GovernorGeneral Blanco, who swore that affluent members of the native population, and not Germans, were behind the insurgency. The WZ further opined on reasons behind the revolution’s outbreak. Focussing on Spanish religious despotism and corruption, the WZ essentially suggested that the Spaniards were now reaping what they had sown. Here, the figurative German Self, embodied by the apparently well-informed and more sophisticated WZ, appeared to be concerned and sincerely interested in the rebellion while underlining the wrong done to Germans on the archipelago. Accusations of German involvement in the revolution reflected nationalist animosities. The French kept a wary eye on an increasingly powerful neighbour at home and one seemingly threatening to its Asian colonies.49 Germany, meanwhile, enjoyed pointing out what it saw as its neighbour’s follies as an attempt to divert attention from its own strategic colonial aims. The WZ’s reports on the Philippine affair were illustrative of these cat-and-mouse games. On 13 September the WZ again drew attention to the ‘laughable allegation that Germans started the uprising in the Philippines’.50 A telegram by a German in Spain narrated that the Carlist newspaper, El Correo Español, picked up on the French accusation. Under the headline ‘Die Deutschen auf

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den Philippinen’ (Germans in the Philippines), El Correo attested to the charge against the Germans. It reported that visitors to Manila were greeted by a suspiciously large number of resident Germans, most of whom could not explain their activities or occupations. These Germans, according to El Correo, were members of the so-called Nactajau Club, which sponsored concerts and balls. It also housed a bar that catered to Malays and Mestizos. Germans were also guilty of being too numerous and of being found in distant outposts like Mindanao. More damningly, El Correo suggested that the Nactajau Club sponsored dubious elements by hosting a known autonomist who had fled to Hong Kong after the uprising’s outbreak and José Rizal, a champion of the separatist cause and wellknown friend of the Austrian professor Ferdinand Blumentritt. A respected ethnographer of the Philippines, Blumentritt was a liberal constitutionalist who publicly sympathized and worked with the reform movement of the Filipino intelligentsia in Spain. Other Spanish newspapers followed El Correo’s lead and contributed to the smear campaign against German subjects and companies in the Philippines. The WZ would not let the matter rest and continued its own campaign to defend German honour. As an aspiring player in world politics Germany, after all, could not afford a tarnished record. Hence the WZ published a letter by a resident German who wrote that Englishmen, not Germans, comprised the Nactajau Club, which was locally known as the English Club.51 Germans, on the other hand, organized themselves under the name Casino Union, commonly called the German Club. In his four years of membership at the Casino Union, the writer said, the club had ceaselessly avoided suspicious German-speaking elements. Originally from Galicia and Wallachia, these unsavory characters tried to pass themselves as Germans and sold questionable jewellery. Still, the writer could not hide his pride in the fact that most businesses in the

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Philippines were in German hands thanks to their tenacious business spirit (Unternehmungsgeist) and industry (Fleib), qualities conspicuously lacking in their Spanish counterparts. The issue of German involvement (and even leadership) in the revolution was revisited in December.52 A WZ correspondent in Manila reported that the Spanish colonial government denied this claim, pronouncing there never had been any evidence to back such accusations. But the story would not die. On 29 December, according to the WZ, another Spanish newspaper, the ‘French-friendly’ Heraldo de Madrid, sought to connect the actions of German researchers and the German embassy to the outbreak of the revolution. Taking the Heraldo’s lead, the Spanish paper Epoca added that German businessmen in Borneo had sold weapons to the insurgents.53 It further warned its readers to be wary of German interest in Spain’s colonies. To dissuade the Germans of such intentions, the Epoca urged the Cánovas government to crush the so-called Tagalog uprising, which would fittingly demonstrate its power to its upstart European neighbour. Such Spanish diatribes fuelled further WZ reporting on the revolution. For instance, it found that the ‘enemy in Cavite was stronger than what was thought of in the beginning’.54 Unimpeded, the revolutionaries rampaged through the countryside and small towns because the colonial army lacked enough soldiers to confront them. Although casualty figures were not cited, the WZ believed them to be quite high. Yet the WZ’s coverage was not entirely biased against the Spaniards. It reported on Spanish successes such as the bringing to light of a number of anti-colonial conspiracies and arrests. And while the uprising was concentrated in Cavite and a few parts of Nueva Ecija province, colonial troops did seem to have the situation generally under control. Still, leaving nothing to

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chance, the Cánovas government decided to send reinforcements in the form of two army battalions, four hundred fifty artillery pieces, one battalion of marines and (if necessary) a battalion of cavalry.55 Following the Cortes’s (Spanish empire’s house of representatives) decision to give the effort to repress the Philippine uprising an unlimited budget, the WZ wondered how many military reservists the crown could afford to summon.56 Following the Cuban revolt that erupted in February 1895, the crown’s armed forces grew from eighty-four thousand to one hundred thousand. Spain was now clearly in crisis as revolts in its colonies seemingly spun out of control, and the question of where it would get soldiers to combat the Philippine insurrection remained unanswered.57 The WZ ensured this problem would not go overlooked by its readers. Even the conservative CW was forced to admit that the Philippine revolt was more advanced than had been believed. In early October it reported on the fighting’s spread to Batangas province (some one hundred kilometres south of Manila) as casualties grew.58 The CW continued to trust in the power of the Spanish empire, however. Later that month it reported on the subduing (gemächtigt) of Nasugbu, a town in Batangas, by General Jaramilla.59 According to the CW, the Spanish spilled the blood of over one hundred insurgents, while only losing two men—an unquestionable success. And with its publication of impressive figures of Spain’s military might in late 1896—some 368,930 men, of whom 128,815 were stationed in Spain; 200,000 in Cuba; 34,115 in the Philippines; and 6,000 in Puerto Rico—the paper confirmed its belief in the crown as a world power, strong-arming its hold on empire. But a close reading of the CW shows that at times it did report on the growing tenuousness of Spanish control. While it recounted the Spanish

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expectation of regaining full control of Manila,60 via a report in the Spanish newspaper Imparcial, the paper in early November touched on disturbing news: the number of armed rebels had grown to an estimated twenty-five thousand; Cavite and Batangas provinces were in revolt; Spaniards from the far reaches of the archipelago were fleeing to the capital; and the archbishop declared the situation perilous. The CW added that Governor-General Blanco seemed helpless (thatlos). In the meantime, the rebels took control of a fort in Cavite and waited for assistance (or intervention) from the increasingly powerful Japanese.61 A full-scale war was on hand.

War Atrocities War-related violence between Spaniards and Filipino rebels escalated. The number of acts of cruelty by each side was so great that neither the CW nor the WZ could ignore the horrors. In early November 1898, the CW published a letter by an English businessman in Manila, which attested to this ugly turn of the war, including the execution of priests and other Spaniards by Cavite rebels. Not to be outdone, colonial troops routinely shot and tortured prisoners-ofwar. Executions had become a public spectacle and social activity, and Spanish townswomen gleefully gathered to witness their occurrences.62 Elaborating on Spanish cruelty, both newspapers published a letter of a German businessman that also detailed such atrocities.63 It graphically illustrated the commonplace use of thumbscrews, so-called Spanish boots and other medieval torture apparatuses to force confessions from captured rebels. And stories circulated about the infamous ‘dark hole’ incident in which dozens of suspected rebels drowned in a subterranean cell in Fort Santiago in Manila. In Nueva Ecija, some one hundred thirty kilometers north of Manila, Spaniards

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drowned prisoners in the river–a practice, according to the correspondent, deemed more economical than transporting them to Manila. Holding to its anti-Spanish bias, the WZ reported on rebel intransigence in the face of such cruelties. Advances in the provinces of Batangas and Laguna provinces, for instance, forced Spanish forces to split, which threatened the security of Manila.64 And despite ferocious encounters, the insurgents kept their hold on Cavite.65 Nor did the WZ fail to point out how newly arrived casadores— renowned Spanish foot soldiers—suffered under tropical conditions and from rebel fortitude. In fact, as conditions deteriorated, the once-aloof, non-Spanish Europeans like the English grew increasingly concerned. An English gunboat, Pigmy, harboured in Manila Bay, while another, the Daphne, was expected to arrive shortly. The WZ derided English fear of an imminent rebel attack on Manila. Its reporter lavishly described the state of panic among Englishmen, while betraying a false sense of security among their German counterparts. Although the WZ’s correspondent acknowledged rebel victories elsewhere, he trusted in the security that Manila seemed to offer. For one thing, the roads leading to the capital across which the rebels might traverse were impassable due to the monsoon rains. He was also critical of the insurgents’ firepower and claimed that ‘only their poor weapons kept us safe from harm’.66 Outside Manila, things grew dim for the Spanish, as the WZ covered in typical detail.67 The rebellion, for example, had reached the southern island of Mindanao, where in highland Lana(o) locals murdered a Spanish officer. In addition, there was a sizeable prison break in Cavite in which prison guards were killed.68 Although Spanish troops slaughtered scores of escapees, this fighting drew Spanish manpower and energies away from other trouble spots

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like Batangas, where, in addition to bloody clashes, the prison break forced the Spanish to prevent a similar incident.69 Inmates found to be plotting such an escape were transferred to more secure surroundings in Manila.

The Death of Rizal: A German Kin Wasted As the Spanish public at home grew increasingly concerned over the deteriorating conditions in the Philippines, the Spanish government trumpeted the capture and execution of the supposed leader of the revolt, the intellectual Jose Rizal.70 Expectedly, the CW’s coverage of his death recycled Spanish propaganda.71 Its reporting on Rizal and his 1896 execution was decidely mechanical and methodical. It recounted that Rizal had studied in Europe, particularly in Paris, where purportedly he collected three doctorates, one of which was in medicine. Upon returning to the Philippines after his studies, he was immediately captured and deported to Mindanao. Instructively, the CW failed to mention why the Spanish considered him a threat to the regime. Instead, it reported on the bizarre tale of Rizal’s final months, during which Rizal, who had asked to serve the crown as an army doctor in Cuba and had reached Barcelona in this quest, was promptly rearrested and redeported to Manila. There, he was tried and sentenced to death. His last day was spent in a chapel, where Jesuit priests unsuccessfully pried information about the uprising from him. The CW also detailed Rizal’s last wish to wed his Canadian girlfriend72 and his family’s failed petition to have him pardoned, and failing this, to recover their slain son’s body. The Spanish government had achieved, for the CW, a great moral (and tactical) victory against the rebels. For the WZ, Rizal’s death meant more. It put on display the inhumanity of the Spanish empire, whose leaders had sacrificed not only an intellectual who

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was not physically leading the revolt, but more damningly, one who had strong German ties. Rizal was shown to have had personal and professional relations with the renowned Professor Blumentritt, who helped Rizal with some academic assertions in his writings.73 In all, Rizal was pictured as a man of German integrity who became a scapegoat at the hands of Spanish arrogance. WZ’s sentiments on this matter came across clearly in its two extensive reports on Rizal’s life and execution.74 The first resembled that of the CW’s account, in that it recounted the main facts of Rizal’s life and his capture and subsequent execution, although it did dramatize his death far more than the CW had done to draw attention to the cruelty behind this ill-advised Spanish plot. With dramatic flair, the paper painted the following picture: [W]ith his last steps, the sentenced walked towards the square, packed with Spaniards and Mestizos. He refused to bow and refused a blindfold. He uttered his last words: ‘Consumatum ést!’ (It has been done!) A troop of indigenous soldiers then fired. As he fell, the gathered crowd broke into exaltations of Spain and [Governor-General] Polavieja.75 While for the Spanish—and even the CW—Rizal’s death marked the triumph of empire, the WZ thought otherwise. Its second report comprised a letter from a member of a German family with whom Rizal briefly lived while studying in Heidelberg.76 For two months in 1886 Rizal was a guest at their farmhouse in Wilhemsfeld (Obenwald) while he worked on his German language skills and on his novel Noli Me Tangere, which would later inflame anti-Spanish and anti-clerical sentiments among Filipinos back home. When the book was finished in Berlin, Rizal sent his host a copy along with the author’s photo. Rizal and this family, according to the letter, engaged in friendly correspondence for another three years. The writer of the letter attested to Rizal’s gift for languages,

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his devotion to his native land and people, and the number of friends he made while in Germany. The news of Rizal’s execution filled those who had known him with great sorrow, and only convinced them of Rizal’s lifelong struggle to promote dignity and respect for those living under colonised oppression everywhere. The WZ shed further light on Rizal’s humanity by publishing one of his letters to a German priest named Ullmer. The head of the family who had once hosted Rizal, Ullmer had been transferred recently to a church far from their farmhouse in Wilhelmsfeld. Rizal’s letter expressed the poignancy behind the tensions of balancing professional commitments and attachment to home, which—as the newspaper implied—was impressive for a foreigner unaccustomed to such typical German conundrums. Happy for the priest who would be venturing into a new parish, Rizal also sensed the sadness that would beset the priest upon leaving his beloved home. He wrote, I would be most happy to greet his [Ullmer’s] wife, Eta and Friedrich [their children]. We could relive the old days of strawberry punch and woods games and mushroom collection. Those were good, jovial days. Because of my book I had left my fatherland; the governor wanted to make an example out of me; the priests were not impressed. Some wanted to put me on trial, but did not know why or with which crime; because everything that I have written was historically proven and true.… You will make me very happy, if you would write me once in awhile. I will never forget the pleasant, quiet days that I spent with you.77 Rizal’s letter went on to speak of the hardships he and his family had suffered under the tyranny of the governor-general and the priests. He felt remorse at having involved his family in his quandaries; and as much as he would have loved to stay at home, such political pressure forced him into exile in Europe.

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In all, compared to the CW’s coverage, the WZ reports illustrated the heartless execution of a kind, soft-spoken man of intellect. As importantly, the WZ played up Rizal’s German connections, his intimate understanding of German language, family and culture that further coloured Spain’s folly. For the WZ Rizal’s death was the slaying of an adopted son; he was a loyal friend, a hard-working scholar and a resolute intellectual, whose only wish was to expose Spain’s tyrannical oppression of his people.

The Violence Continues To the dismay of German observers at home, the executions in the Philippines did not stop with Rizal. In fact, as the WZ pointed out, they increased. In Manila eighteen conspirators, including a wealthy banker named Rojas, were found guilty of conspiring against Spain and sentenced to death. Papers captured by the Spanish showed that as leaders of the secret, separatist organization Katipunan78 that was leading the revolt, they had smuggled some three thousand muskets and other weapons into the country.79 The motivation behind Rojas’s arrest, however, the WZ implied, came from a different source. The evidence against him was sketchy, but the clerics, who were bound to receive a large portion of Rojas’s estate, pushed hard for his conviction.80 Like the torture and cruelty committed against the insurgents, the public killings did little to stem the uprising. The WZ narrated battle after battle, as if they were the daily episodes in a long running, serial story.81 In Bulacan, for instance, the insurgents lost a staggering number of men—over one thousand— including the famed General Eusebio. The Spaniards lost a ‘mere’ twenty-three in the battle.82 But a Spanish commander admitted that rebels had taken control of key monasteries and offices further south in Cavite.83 As dutifully reported in

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the WZ, he further detailed how the insurgents dug trenches around captured buildings and used monasteries as warehouses of supply. Insurgents even had guns with a range of two thousand meters. The commander concluded that only wide-ranging and immediate reforms could bring the revolution to heel. And, according to the WZ, his proposal was taken seriously by Madrid, where after thorough study the queen was set to announce such reforms.84 Once again, rumours circulated throughout Manila that German soldiers were leading the uprising, for no one believed that such sophisticated trenchworks could have been built by local insurgents. The only explanation was that the insurgents must have had European help. This time, as reported by the WZ, these accusations had spread so wide that when the German consul in Manila, von Möllendorf, arrived in Berlin to deliver his report, he was forced to answer directly the charges whether four German officers had participated in the uprising. Von Möllendorf denied any knowledge of their involvement, and the WZ, not surprisingly, backed him. This latest allegation of German involvement, however, drove the activist WZ to pay the issue of leadership in the revolt more heed. In late January 1897, for instance, it featured a story of a mestizo named Edilberto Evangelista, a Belgian-trained engineer who was the alleged leader of the uprising in a part of Cavite. And in so doing, the paper sought to prove that he was not German.85 Quick to include details, the WZ expounded that Evangelista was influential, but he answered to the leader of the revolution, Andres Bonifacio. Both men were members of the previously mentioned organization Katipunan, which, according to the WZ, collected from citizens monthly contributions ranging from fifty cents to one peso.86 For the WZ, the rebel’s war chest in Cavite—estimated at some one hundred thousand pesos—reflected the

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amount of support the working folk (heimischen Laboranten) lent the revolt’s leaders. As for the revolt’s expenditures, the WZ reported that fighters received half a peseta daily and a regular ration of rice. Bonifacio even promised them a pension when the revolution was won. Purportedly the rebels also spent a considerable amount of money in Hong Kong paying for shipments of Belgianmade weapons.87

A Democratic Government? Despite the seemingly systematic manner the rebels employed in procuring and administering their money for the war, their vision for a national government remained ambiguous to outside observers. The WZ proceeded to tackle this issue and update their German audience in 1897. The paper reported that the Filipino rebels’ agenda for a governmental system outstripped the democratic reforms that Cuban revolutionaries had championed.88 Emilio Aguinaldo, a prominent leader of a revolutionary faction in Cavite, even sent their proposal for future self-governance to Washington, D.C., to enlist a ‘fellow democracy’, the United States, to support their struggle against Spanish feudalism and colonialism. 89 Notably, in the same article, the WZ mentioned the suspicions that in fact an American, not the revolutionaries, was behind the design of a future Philippine government. Along with the doubts about the sophistication displayed by the insurgents in the field, this foregrounded the prevailing European belief that anything smart or clever coming from the rebels had to have European (or, in this case, American) origins.

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Small Spanish Victories, Big Filipino Gains Even as the rebels reached out to enlist international help, bloody encounters between the administration forces and the rebels raged on the islands. The Spaniards were quick to claim victories, which led the WZ in February 1897 to report on the growing anticipation in Spain that the uprising would soon draw to a close.90 Such events as the gory retaking of a fort in Cavite that resulted in the deaths of some two hundred rebels and the conquest of Imus and Cavite Viejo, where four hundred rebels were purportedly killed, gave credence to these expectations.91 These victories were not lost on the conservative CW. In March it revisited its reporting on the revolution, recounting the death of one hundred rebels at the hands of Spanish troops in northern Luzon.92 It also noted that the Spanish had retaken Malabon (a district in greater Manila), where they killed four hundred rebels, captured another thirty, and seized a number of cannons and weapons.93 As the WZ was at pains to show, all was not well for the Spanish on the warfront, however. They had already lost thousands of men in their campaigns against the rebels, most of whom succumbed to tropical diseases.94 As important, the war was a drain on the crown’s financial reserves.95 As of early 1897, the war ministry claimed to have spent six hundred million pesetas.96 And this fiscal pinch was felt by Spain’s generals in the field. Governor-General Polavieja, for instance, had rebels on the run in Bulacan province and thus requested a reinforcement of twenty thousand men from Madrid to finish the job.97 However, citing fiscal concerns and threats by the Carlists in Spain—who supported the establishment of the Carlist dynasty within the Spanish Bourbons as the legitimate heirs to the throne—the government denied Polavieja’s request. Astonished at the refusal,

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Polavieja threatened to resign,98 whereupon Madrid promised him an extra ten thousand soldiers. Published in the WZ, a letter by a German seemed to confirm Polavieja’s fears: ‘[W]hen the rebellion would end, no man could even come near answering this’. 99 The WZ highlighted the fact that Filipino rebels continued to elude the grasp of Spanish troops. With Aguinaldo at the helm, rebels fled to the hills, thereby disappointing the Spanish soldiers who were hoping for a decisive battle.100 In June they ambushed and killed some fifteen hundred rebels, but failed to capture Aguinaldo and about three thousand of his well-armed men.101 The WZ asserted that Spanish control of the islands was continuing to ebb, as rebel movements were reported in the southernmost islands of Sulu.102 Adding to Spanish woes was the severe sickness and eventual resignation of Polavieja as governor general.103 As

the fighting approached its one-year

anniversary, even the

conservative CW was forced to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation. Instead of elaborating on the situation on the islands, however, the CW concentrated its report on the woes that the Spanish government was facing at home.104 In contrast, the WZ continued its watch on the Philippines, where the Spanish government now believed a full-scale suppression of the rebellion was unlikely without significant reinforcements.105 For one, the rainy season hindered Spanish advance, while Aguinaldo’s ten thousand-men army was receiving a steady flow of ammunitions from abroad. In Cavite, recounted the WZ, lethal ambushes by mountain-based rebels were now commonplace and not a day passed without the murder of a Spanish soldier. Newly-appointed GovernorGeneral Primo de Rivera complained to the central government in Madrid of his diminishing supplies and logistics. To make matters worse, wealthy Filipinos

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increasingly felt estranged from the colonial government, which, in turn, facilitated increased collaboration of the former with the rebels. A damaging fire on 28 September 1897 that ravaged more than two dozen buildings in Manila did not help the newly appointed governor-general’s cause either.106 For the Spanish, things were not going well.

An uncharacteristic turn in the war In November 1897 Spanish fortunes took an unexpected turn for the better. The CW was quick to pounce on this development, publishing Polavieja’s earlier claim that he would soon bring peace to the islands. As evidence Polavieja pointed to an increase in the number of insurgent Filipino officers who wished to surrender.107 Expectedly, the WZ qualified this latest development, noting the following preconditions for surrender: a prescribed place and date, a general amnesty for all rebels, and a grant of ample compensation for the officers to live in exile.108 For the CW, Spanish triumph was near. Its confidence stemmed from the 26 November 1897 surrender of rebel leader Aguinaldo, who—according to the CW—was convinced that the rebellion was lost.109 As negotiations for peace began, Aguinaldo requested that his life and that of his comrades be spared in exchange for the surrender of arms and ammunitions and recognition of Spain, once Aguinaldo had arrived safely in Hong Kong. He promised to forever respect Spanish rule. The Spanish authorities accepted these conditions. About a month later, the WZ solemnly announced that hundreds of rebels and some seven thousand rebel-controlled districts had surrendered.110 In the peace of Biak-na-Bato, insurgents were expected to march behind Spanish

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lines, surrender their weapons and, along with Aguinaldo, formally recognise Spain’s sovereignty over the islands.111 According to the WZ, in celebration of the end of the uprising, the central square of Madrid was fully lit on 22 January 1898.112 The fighting ceased and peace seemingly prevailed in the Philippines. Coverage of the Philippines slipped from the pages of the CW and WZ. This peace would be brief, however.

Resurgence of War In March 1898 the vigilant WZ reported that the new governor-general of the Philippines, Basilio Agustín y Dávila, left for the islands from the port of Barcelona. An inexperienced politician, Agustín was tapped for the job due to his his military background.113 His appointment proved prescient as fighting would soon flare up once again. On 14 March, the WZ reported that that rebels had seized control of a small town some 275 kilometres north of Manila.114 Apparently a leader of a religious cult had declared himself king and led some ten thousand men in a rampage from Tarlac northwards. His army overpowered the Spanish military, derailed transport trains, and seized an important telegraph station on the Bolinao coast. A few days later a combined force of three thousand soldiers from Manila forced them from the telegraph station.115 Meanwhile, in Manila the authorities discovered new conspiracies and captured a cache of arms and ammunitions sent by rebel leaders in Hong Kong.116 Accordingly, Manila residents braced for another escalation of violence. Businesses stocked up. Numerous members of the local elite previously accused of collaborating with the rebels fled the country and denounced the colonial

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government as a magnet for trouble.117 While the CW remained silent on the matter, by late May the WZ was declaring the uprising resurgent. Apparently, displeasure with the peace pact of the previous year was rife. On the one hand, Spanish officers, soldiers and administrators felt dishonoured for not being given a chance to finish the war. They were also insulted by the government’s decision to pay their enemies to surrender; clerics grumbled over being forced by the government to assist in compensating rebel leaders; and businessmen and industrialists doubted the sincerity of both sides in keeping the peace. On the other hand, rebels treated the pact, not as an agreement with the Madrid government, but as a personal accord with Governor-General Rivera. And when he took his leave, they expressed their discontent. In all, the WZ believed that the future of the rebellion in the Philippines would hang on the outcome of the impending Spanish-American War. If Americans provided the rebels with a sufficient number of weapons, then Spain would lose the archipelago. According to the WZ, only the absence of modern weaponry prevented the rebels from seizing control from the few Spanish battalions.118 Ignoring the revolt’s resurgence, the CW opted to discuss Spain’s quandary in world politics. It reported that Spain would not transfer the Philippines to Germany.119 This announcement was a strategic decision—the leaders in Madrid were aware that the English were wary of the increasing German presence in southwest Pacific. Spain chose to placate England by publicly acknowledging its dominance in the South Seas, hoping that the English who were on good terms with the Americans would then support the Spanish colonial claims to the region. As would be apparent later, the Spanish government miscalculated that winning England’s favour would temper U.S.

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antagonism against itself. The CW prophetically proposed that Spanish-American hostilities were inevitable. In preparation, the Spanish senate earmarked one billion pesetas for war expenditures overseas.120Additionally the crown’s defensive capabilities in the Philippines were scrutinised.121The Ministry of War concluded that Manila was well enough secured to withstand a protracted attack by an external aggressor.122 This discussion on the archipelago’s defences comprised part of the socalled ‘Philippine question’ that the CW intermittently tackled in the following weeks.123 This issue centred on the continuing rebellion and the colonial scramble for the islands after the predicted exit of Spain. The CW fingered the United States as the culprits behind the rebellion’s resurgence.124 Meanwhile, Spanish politicians debated the wisdom of their policies over the deteriorating conditions on the islands. Acrimonious finger-pointing was only halted by the prime minister who declared that everyone should be accountable for the past.125 In any event, according to the CW, the Madrid government already viewed the Philippines as a lost cause. Ministers were hopelessly divided on the issue, while the situation on the ground remained dangerous.126 Turning pragmatic, the CW appeared to be cutting ties with the waning Spanish empire. Instead of discussing details of battles, it became engrossed in the complexities of world power diplomacy. At this point Spain was indeed in murky waters. Lurid news reports about Spanish atrocities in the ongoing Cuban Revolution outraged citizens of the rising world power, the United States. Fuelled by demands from its Republican Party to intervene in the conflict and rid the region of a corrupt European power, the United States demanded that Spain resolve the Cuban Revolution in a peaceful manner.127 In February 1898 the two country’s mutual antagonism came

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to a head when an American warship, the Maine, was blown up in Havanna, an incident the United States used as a casus belli for a declaration of war against the Spanish Empire.128 Cuba and the Philippines were the two theatres of this war. As its decisive battles played out, it was not lost to the CW that Germany might be poised to pounce on the war’s Pacific spoils. In particular, the CW zeroed in on the so-called Kaiserin Augusta crisis, which was triggered by the clandestine departure of Spanish Manila’s highestranking official to Hong Kong with the help of the German navy, which had a more powerful force in Manila than did the Americans. To be sure, the CW noted that the Americans were fearful of Spanish plans to transfer the islands to the Germans.129 Clearly, the CW revelled in the political intrigue and controversies brought about by the Spanish-American War. According to the CW the Americans had already won this war.130 Four months earlier the American squadron led by Admiral George Dewey decimated the Spanish naval force in the Philippines, represented by the fleet under the command of Admiral Patricío Montojo, in the so-called Battle of Manila Bay. The CW’s assumption proved to be correct, for soon thereafter the Spanish conceded victory to the United States. However, they stubbornly refused to accept defeat at the hands of the Filipino rebels. The CW, demonstrating its newfound pragmatic turn and an apparent anti-American tendency, highlighted the fact that the Spaniards demanded that the Americans prohibit Filipino insurgents from marching into Manila side-by-side with the Americans. Yet, the American-Filipino relationship appeared to be tense. Despite American orders, the Filipino rebels entered the city and immediately seized the main arsenal. In retaliation the Spaniards accused Filipino rebels of committing atrocities within the city’s walls, which, according to the CW, strained American-Filipino

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rebel relations. The former, for instance, gave the latter an ultimatum to stand down or face reprisals. Anticipating both Spanish and American aggression, the revolutionaries fortified their trenches surrounding the city. Their leader, Aguinaldo, left Manila and headed northwards to distance himself from American firepower.131

Paris Peace Negotiations The complicated nature of the ensuing peace talks in Paris that concerned the Spanish empire, including the Philippines, attracted the attention of the CW. From the outset, representatives of the Spanish government refused to countenance any form of annexation by the United States. Spaniards clung to the hope that a European power would come to its aid. But in the end, for fear of antagonizing the United States, France, Germany and Russia all turned down Spain’s offer to take over the islands.132 Belying its conservative nature, the CW even reported on the ‘café talk’ among Parisians concerning the negotiations. The prevailing view was that the pact would entail the establishment of an international commission to administer the Philippines. Spanish government representatives were amenable to this resolution for it would spare them of the humiliation of defeat by the United States. Their hopes remained unfulfilled, however. The American finance commissioner, authorised to transfer money to Spain in exchange for the Philippines, had already arrived in Paris.133 According to the CW, his arrival and the further threat of war convinced Spain to give in to U.S. demands.134 For twenty-five million dollars the United States gained the rights to annex the Philippines from Spain.135

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Noticeably these developments appeared to have been lost on the liberal WZ. It reported on the fate of the archipelago in May 1898, when it rightly guessed that the future of the Philippines would depend on the outcome of the Spanish-American War. Behind the WZ’s baffling and subsequent silence might have been disappointment that the people’s revolution it had painstakingly covered had failed. It is also possible that the newspaper was reprimanded by local financiers for displaying an overly liberal perspective on the rebellion. The WZ adopted a wait-and-see attitude, opting to not antagonise the Americans, newcomers to the world stage. Picking on a decaying imperial power like Spain was one thing; taking on a rising global power like the United States was another. It should be noted that the signing of the Paris accord did not bring immediate peace to the islands. Revolutionaries still held around ten thousand Spanish prisoners, and in the provinces, rebel leaders could not maintain order.136 Businesses were routinely plundered.137 Indeed peace seemed to be evasive. Not unexpectedly, clashes between American and Filipino troops broke out, plunging the islands into another bloody war. By now, official German interest in the Philippines had ebbed, as did German newspaper coverage.

Causes of the Revolution Thus far, we have presented an account of the 1896 Philippine Revolution as told by two German newspapers from the city-state of Bremen, but postponed a discussion of what the newspapers believed laid behind the uprising. Why did a ‘rag-tag’ bunch of insurgents take up arms against their colonial masters? Only the liberal WZ appeared interested in uncovering its causes. It published European opinions on the matter that fingered the Spanish religious and colonial system as culprits. For instance, a month after the outbreak of the rebellion an

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apparently German correspondent noted that: I believe that besides religious despotism and administrative excesses, the other reasons for discontent are the manner and way they [the Spanish] went about handling matters before the revolt. Beforehand a big amount of tribute was required of an inhabitant, now an unbelievable amount of taxes was introduced.… It is this point that the separatist propaganda emphasizes, demanding a full report on how these taxes are variously handled. These taxes unfairly burden the peasant Malays because they are at the mercy of the economically influential Chinese mestizo, who stands between the colonisers and the colonised.138 Two months later the paper published an account of a Swiss resident who confirmed what their German correspondent had stated earlier. Like the German, this Swiss also blamed Spain and its domineering clerics for the outbreak of the revolution. He claimed that Spaniards beat everyone, including local women, who could not pay the required head tariff and other forms of taxes. Everything appeared to be levied; in fact, the Catholic Church even competed with the colonial administration in the quest to extract money from the local inhabitants. He recounted: [F]or example an Indio may not renovate his house without the government’s consent, which costs $2.50. The house is often worth not more than $2.50.... Even more painful are the taxes incurred through a death in a family. An Indio could manufacture a wooden box as a casket. However, besides charging $4.50 as death tax, the church also requires another $5.00 for permission to bury a corpse in a casket. Unfortunately most Indios consider it a shame not to be buried in a casket; the permission to be buried in a straw mat only costs $2.00. The church only provides holy water; depending on the size, candles can cost twenty-five to thirty cents a piece. Moreover, digging a grave costs $1.00 to $2.00. As such a woman weeps nearby her dead husband while her children howl for food and she has nothing to pay for the burial. The friar yanks her earrings, her last items of value, to momentarily appease the church.139

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It would seem then that the Catholic Church and its overbearing monks were to blame for the revolution. In September 1897 the WZ published the correspondence of a resident Englishman in Manila who attested that indeed the clerics were the reasons behind the local uprising. He declared that in the Philippines … the most powerful monks reign in their earlier glory. They assume to be more than the power of the people, living in worldliness and luxury. They control the Catholic Church along with all its means and enormous wealth, which they have taken from the patient locals. They … are the instigators of the present uprising and the cause of the bloodshed and the torture of the imprisoned.140 This Englishman blamed the clerics for the grim situation of the archipelago, as most Filipino propagandists of the time had done. The most prominent among them—José Rizal, Marcelo del Pilar and Graciano LopezJaena—referred to the dominance of the clergy as a social cancer, a friarocracy, or a monastic supremacy.141 This view saw the outbreak of the rebellion as the consequence of the people’s anger with the insidious dominance of the religious, hardly implicating the colonial government in the process. The WZ did not publish any retort against the aforementioned accusations from any member of the clergy in the Philippines, just as it had not come out with a statement about the reasons behind the outbreak of rebellion from any representative of the Spanish colonial government. Instead it printed an interview in Spain with Polavieja, the former governor-general of the Philippines who had resigned due to tropical illness. On the causes of the uprising he said,

[F]or me the causes are unclear. The opening of the Suez

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Canal had facilitated the political awakening of the peoples in the East. The ideas of freedom, independence, and nationalities, which we daily take for granted, were very new for those populations. They thought about these ideas and their consequences. Japan’s fast rise to power, renaissance among nationalised states and brightness of triumphs echoed even in the smallest villages across the oceans of East Asia. The indigenous population of the Philippines wanted to follow the Japanese example, and that was the reason for their rebellion.142 Blind to the failures of the Spanish Catholic Church and the colonial government, Polavieja blamed everything and everyone else. He discounted the possibility that Filipinos had revolted of their own volition. For him external factors that eventually brought about the politicisation of the populace lay behind the rebellion. Apparently, the WZ thought that there was some truth in this line of reasoning. That external factors were behind the rebellion complemented earlier European pronouncements, which blamed the Catholic Church and the Spanish administration for the outbreak of the rebellion. Although evidently liberal, the WZ also trusted in the fact that the rebels were reacting to exogenous stimulus. It was unthinkable that there were other reasons behind the rebellion. Significantly, traditional historiography of the Philippines has agreed with the WZ, perpetuating the interpretation that external factors caused the revolution.143 Historical scholarship chastised and ultimately displaced Filipino rebels in their own narrative, situating their rebellion within the seemingly more relevant context of Spanish (and European) history.

Concluding Remarks Ultimately, these two Bremen newspapers, the CW and the WZ, despite their contrasting coverage and divergent politically-inspired perspectives, situated

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the Philippine Revolution of 1896 in a decidedly European context. Presenting the minutiae of battle after battle—something to which German readers could relate—took precedence over understanding what Filipino rebels themselves thought they were fighting for. The uprising was covered as a linear, unfolding narrative; events, places and characters of the episode were put on display as a spectacle for European readers. As Germans, readers were enjoined to witness not necessarily the exotic but the dangerous side of colonial adventurism, the hostile and threatening environment in which German traders toiled. In this way, the imaginary trader-reader relationship illustrated the possible consequences of being away from and the advantages of being in the homeland (Heimat).144 Through their inevitable simplification and dramatisation of news accounts,145 these reports were written not to impress intellectuals, but to mould public opinion on both the potentials and abilities of Germans and the German state as a whole. In this regard these accounts on the revolution in the Philippines unwittingly featured the colonial aspirations of the recently unified German nation. Colonisation appeared to be a convenient outlet for the growing German trade and industry, and a significant stage where Germany could compete with and be respected by other European powers. Middle-class aspirations resonated in this perspective, projecting the dream of a competitive German empire in the Pacific region. An economically-driven ambition, this position provided a guide at home as to who the Germans were and the heights to which Germany could aspire. Ineluctably, the newspapers were at pains to make their mark on the German nation-state, one not only predicated on a people and culture, but one that equally fed the imagination of what ‘Germany’ (Deutschland)—near or far—could mean as well.146

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Processually the German Self of the news items became reinvigorated in this process. Besides being omnipresent, the Self was inevitably illustrated as the more enlightened or the ideal. In particular, unlike the gossipy French or the negligent and decaying Spaniard, the German was featured as upstanding, intelligent, masculine and responsible. Like the English—the colonial merchant par excellence—he was industrious and dedicated to his job as a trader in the Philippines. That the German was projected as a more enlightened coloniser than the Spaniard, resolute in providing a humane administration in the archipelago, implied the moral lessons of what were wrong and right in a German society. Of prominence was not conveying reality as such, but prescribing what it should be. Missing in this extensive coverage, of course, was the Filipino her/ himself. That both papers drew solely from European sources—German, Spanish, English, Austrian and the like—made this inevitable. Fittingly, José Rizal was the sole Filipino prominent in the news accounts because his person, as portrayed, could pass as German. Even the ‘pro-rebellion’ WZ only published the opinion of Europeans on the causes of the rebellion, and not that of Filipinos. Elitist in perspective, the news accounts tended to criminalize, belittle, exoticize and demonize the rebels, devaluing their motivations to rebel. Whatever good these Filipinos were believed to have accomplished, the readers were consistently told, turned out to be a consequence of external influence: their military prowess was either German or Belgian in origin, their idea of nationhood American. Why the rebels doggedly fought a militarily superior enemy was beyond these newspapers to explain. Law and order were needed in the islands, and sacrificing the lives of rebels was an acceptable price to pay. Filipinos—rebel and non-rebel alike— were treated as fleeting shadows in accounts of their own revolutionary struggle. In the end, this scrutiny of Bremen newspaper accounts as untapped

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sources of historical data on the 1896 Revolution reveals the complex entrenchment of Europe (Germany in particular) in written sources of Philippine history. This European intrusion in the country’s historical record is something that Filipino historians are forced to recurrently navigate. Ideally their task here would be, in the spirit of Dipesh Chakrabarty’s counsel, to provincialize Europe, that is, to seek the connection between violence and idealism, which serve as primary signifiers in national narratives of citizenship and modernity.147 To put such linear histories under intense scrutiny and to highlight their contested, challenged, and renegotiated historiography would prompt a renewed acknowledgment that history-writing always strives for something that a historian her/himself engineers, but also, from time to time, is compelled to change.

Endnotes 1 This work originally came out with Itinerario. International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction Volume 32, No. 2 (2008), pp. 105-33. 2 Wigan Salazar, “Uneasy Observers: Germans and the PhilippineAmerican War,” in Angel Velasco Shaw and Luis Francia (eds.), Vestiges of Warand the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream, 1899-1999 (New York: New York University Press, 2003), pp. 22-23. 3 “Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 10 February 1897. Supreme Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, who was responsible for the subsequent shape and direction of the German navy, headed this expedition. On Tirpitz, see Baldur Kaulisch, Alfred von Tirpitz und die imperialistische deutsche Flottenrüstung: eine politische Biographie (Berlin: Militärverl., 1982); Christian Rödel, Krieger, Denker, Amateure: Alfred von Tirpitz und das Seekriegsbild vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg (Stüttgart: Steiner, 2003); and Gerhard Koop and Klaus-Peter Schmolke, Die Schlactschiffe der Bismarck-Klasse: Bismarck und Tirpitz: Hohepunkte und Ende des deutschen Schlachtschiffbaues (Koblenz: Bernard & Graefe, 1990). 4 Peter J. Humphreys, Media and Media Policy in West Germany: The Press and Broadcasting since 1945 (New York: Berg, 1990), p. 15.

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5 Thomas Schröder, “The Origins of the German Press,” in Brendon Dooley and Sabrina Baron (eds.), The Politics of Information in Early Modern Europe (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), p. 141. 6 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, [1980], 2000). 7 See Robert Lee, “Configuring the Region: Maritime Trade and PortHinterland Relations in Bremen, 1815-1914”, Urban History 32:2 (2005), pp. 24787. 8 Although the first known contact between Bremen and Manila was in 1836, it was only after Spain allowed the establishment of foreign consulates in the Philippines in 1852 that the Bremen office in the capital was recognised as a consulate. In 1868 it was replaced by the Foreign Representation of the North German Federation. “Bremens Beziehungen zu den Philippinen,” Ausarbeitung durch Herrn Garbas für die Senatskanzlei (9.2.1978), in Bremerische Staatsarchiv: Sammlungwissenschaftlicher Auskunfte, p. 2. 9

Ibid., pp. 1-2.

10 Thomas Schoonover, Uncle Sam’s War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2003), p. 42. 11 Woodruff D. Smith, The German Colonial Empire (Chapel Hill: University of Carolina Press, 1978), p. 5. 12 Mary Evelyn Townsend, The Rise and Fall of Germany’s Colonial Empire, 1884-1918 (New York: Macmillan, 1930), pp. 54-57. 13 Imanuel Geiss, German Foreign Policy, 1871-1914 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976), pp. 75-95. 14 From the outset, this was a disproportionate battle. Dewey’s modern and more powerful squadron--comprised of four protected cruisers (Olympia, Raleigh, Baltimore and Boston), two gunboats (Concord and Petrel), one revenue cutter service (Hugh McCulloch) and 2 cutters (Nashan and Zafiro)--towered over Montojo’s aging armada of one steel cruiser (Reina Maria Cristina), one wooden cruiser (Castillo) and five small cruisers and gunboats (Don Antonio de Ulloa, Don Juan de Austria, Isla de Cuba, Isla de Luzon, and Marqués de Duero). The Americans destroyed the Spanish fleet, even those vessels in the navy yard (gunboats Elcano, General Lezo and Velasco and trasport Isla de Mindanao) which did not take part in the action. Stephen Howarth, To Shining Sea. A History of the United States Navy, 1775-1991 (London: Weidenheld & Nicolson, 1991), pp. 253-54; Jack Sweetman, American Naval History (Anapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991), pp. 103-04. For a German account of this battle, see M. Plüddemann, “The Spanish-American War,” in Karl-Heinz Wionzek (ed.),

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Germany, the Philippines, and the Spanish American War: Four Accounts by Officers of the Imperial German Navy (Manila: Philippine National Historical Institute, 2000), pp. 56-59. 15 Thomas Clark, “Introduction,” in Wionzek (ed.), Germany, the Philippines and the Spanish-American War, xvi-xvii; Salazar, “Uneasy Observers,” p. 23. 16 Ivan Musicant, Empire by Default: The Spanish-American War and the Dawn of the American Century (New York: Henry Holt, 1998), p. 558. 17 This formidable German squadron was composed of the warships Kaiserin Augusta, Kaiser, Prinzess Wilhelm, the cruisers Irene and Cormoran, and transport Darmstadt. Diederich’s flagship was the Kaiser, but he sailed from Tsingtao to Manila on the Kaiserin Augusta. The vessels Deutschland, Gefion and Arcona were still anchored by Tsingtao. See: Admiral von Diederichs, “An Account of Events off Manila,” in Wionzek (ed.), Germany, the Philippines and the Spanish-American War, pp. 1-36. 18 Clark, “Introduction,” in in Wionzek (ed.), Germany, the Philippines and the Spanish-American War, p. xvi; Diederichs, “An Account of Events off Manila,” in Wionzek (ed.), Germany, the Philippines and the Spanish-American War, pp. 1-2. 19 These representatives were Doroteo Cortes, Jose M. Basa and A.G. Medina. See Zeus Salazar, “A Filipino Petition to the Kaiser for German Intervention in Favor of the Philippine Revolution,” in Zeus Salazar (ed.), Ethnic Dimension. Position Papers on Philippine Culture, History and Psychology (Cologne: Councelling Center for Filipinos and Caritas Association for the City of Cologne, 1983), pp. 131-53. 20 George Dewey, An Autobiography of George Dewey. Admiral of the Navy (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, [1913], 1987), p. 220; Musicant, Empire by Default, p. 58. 21 Diederichs, “An Account of Events off Manila,” in Wionzek (ed.), Germany, the Philippines and the Spanish-American War, pp. 1, 10. 22

Ibid., pp. 5, 10.

23

Musicant, Empire by Default, p. 560.

24 Diederichs, “An Account of Events off Manila,” in Wionzek (ed.), Germany, the Philippines and the Spanish-American War, pp. 12-13. See also See also Musicant, Empire by Default, p. 560. It was believed that the second meeting between the governor-general and Diederichs took place at the Kaiserin Augusta at night, fueling rumours that Spain would secretly trade the

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Philippines to Germany. Diederichs belied this, however. According to him the second meeting took place at the German embassy in Manila on the same day that he paid a call to the Spanish governor-general in his office. 25 Musicant, Empire by Default, p. 563. For German accounts, see Diederichs, “An Account of Events off Manila,” in Wionzek (ed.), Germany, the Philippines and the Spanish-American War, pp. 20-27; Captain Liutenant Pohl, “The Activities of S.M.S. “Irene” in Philippine Waters,” in Wionzek (ed.), Germany, the Philippines and the Spanish-American War, pp. 43-45. 26 According to Dewey a cable from Washington, dated 18 June 1898, stated that two monitors, the Monterey and the Monadnock, was on the way to Manila. The Monterey was supposed to arrive first; then the Monadnock would follow soon after. Dewey accounted for the arrival of the former in Manila, but not of the latter. (Dewey, An Autobiography of George Dewey, pp. 220-31.) As the arrival of this monitor already eased tensions between himself and Diederichs, Dewey might not found it necessary to narrate further on the arrival of the second vessel. However researchers agree on the flood of American reinforcements after the Battle of Manila Bay. The Monadnock might have certainly been part of that influx. 27 William Harbutt Dawson, The German Empire 1867-1914 and the Unity Movement. Reprint (London: George Allen & Unwin, [1919], 1966), p. 392. 28 “From the Reports of S.M. Ships, Two Reports by Commander Becker, Commandant of the H.M.Cruiser Arcona to the Head of the Cruiser Division,” in Wionzek (ed.), Germany, the Philippines and the Spanish-American War, pp. 47-53. See also Salazar, “Uneasy Observers”, p. 23. 29 Erich Brandenburg, From Bismarck to the World War: A History of German Foreign Policy, 1870-1914. Translated by Annie Elizabeth Adams (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), p. 123. 30

Ibid., pp. 123-24.

31 William H. Carr, A History of Germany, 1815-1945 (London: Edward Arnold Publishers, Ltd., 1969), p. 177. 32 A.J.P. Taylor, Germany’s First Bid for Colonies, 1884-1885: A Move in Bismarck’s European Policy (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970), p. 4. 33 Robert-Hermann Tenbrock, A History of Germany. Translated by Paul J. Dine (München/ Paderborn: Max Hueber/ Ferdinand Schöning, 1968), p. 235. 34

Woodruff D. Smith, The German Colonial Empire, p. 10.

35 Townsend, The Rise and Fall of Germany’s Colonial Empire, pp. 57-58; Mary Evelyn Townsend, Origins of German Colonialism 1871-1885 (New York:

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Howard Fertig, 1974), pp. 16-17. 36 Brandenburg, From Bismarck to the World War, pp. 18-19; Dawson, The German Empire, p. 380; Smith, The German Colonial Empire, p. 121. 37

Schoonover, Uncle Sam’s War of 1898, pp. 40-42.

38

Smith, The German Colonial Empire, p. 5.

39 Reinhard Allings, Das Bild vom Nationalstaat im Medium Denkmal— zum Verhältnis von Nation und Staat im deutschen Kaiserreich, 1871-1918 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1996), p. 574. 40

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 23 August 1896.

41

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 25 August 1896, Morgenausgabe.

42

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 3 September 1896, Morgenausgabe.

43

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 8 September 1896.

44 See “Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 9 September 1896; “Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 10 September 1896; “Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 15 September 1896. 45

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 24 August 1896.

46

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 10 September 1896.

47 The Weser Zeitung and Der Courier an der Weser were ambiguous in discussing the ethnic make-up of the so-called Spanish army in the Philippines. Research has established, however, that due to insufficient personnel and logistics, Spanish control of the archipelago relied more on Catholic missionaries than on an army. See: Nicolas Cushner, Spain in the Philippines (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 1971); John Leddy Phelan, The Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1959). Gregorio Zaide claims that the standing Spanish army, which totaled to less than 2,000 in the late nineteenth century, was so small that Spain could not have maintained the islands, if not for their friars. See: Gregorio Zaide, Catholicism in the Philippines (Manila: Santo Tomas University Press, 1937), pp. 59-60. To keep the peace on the islands, the Spanish employed native troops (mainly Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Pampangos and Visayans) to serve under Spanish officers. As such we can safely say that Filipinos comprised a large portion of the so-called Spanish army in the Philippines. Also see Uldarico Baclagon, Military History of the Philippines (Manila: St. Mary’s Publishing, 1975). 48

“Der hierigen Presse wird von der Agencia Fabra aus Paris gemeldet,

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dab dort das Gerücht verbreitet sei und lebhaft besprochen werde, dab deutche Unterthanen in den Reihen der Aufständischen kämpfen. Es sei wenigstens Thatsache, dab verschiedene in Manila anfällige Deutsche Vorstandsmitglieder geheimer Gesselchaften seien. Andere Telegramme melden schlanweg, dab die Deutschen an der Spitze der Bewegung ständen. Wie man sieht, lassen die Franzosen keine Gelegenheit unbenutzt vorübergehen, um uns bei den andern Nationen zu verdächtigen.” “Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 10 September 1896. 49

Brandenburg, From Bismarck to the World War, p. 5.

50

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 13 September 1896.

51

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 15 September 1896.

52

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 6 December 1896.

53

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 29 December 1896.

54

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung 12 September 1896.

55

Ibid.

56

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 17 September 1896, Morgenausgabe.

57 On the unlikely support for the Cuban and the Philippine revolutionaries from anarchists in Europe, and on the connection between European anarchism and anti-colonialism in the Philippines more generally, see Bendict Anderson, Under Three Flags, Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination (Manila: Anvil Publishing, 2005). 58

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 1 October 1896.

59

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 20 October 1896.

60

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 4 November 1896, Morgenausgabe.

61

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 4 November 1896.

62 “Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 7 November 1896. Also discussed in: “Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 29 September 1896. 63 “Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 19 December 1896; “Manila,” Der Courier an der Weser, 20 December 1896. 64

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 6 December 1896, Morgenausgabe.

65

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 8 December 1896.

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66 “Nur ihre schlechte Bewaffnung hat uns bis jebt vor gröberem Unheil bewahrt.” Ibid. 67

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 17 December 1896.

68

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 22 December 1896.

69

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 28 December 1896.

70 Jose Rizal’s novels Noli Me Tangere (Berlin: 1887) and El Filibusterismo (Ghent: 1891), fueled nationalist sentiments in late nineteenth-century Philippines. For some of the more renowned studies on Rizal, see José Arcilla, Rizal and the Emergence of the Philippine Nation (Quezon City: Office of Research and Publications, Ateneo de Manila University, 1991); Austin Coates, Rizal. Philippine Nationalist and Martyr (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1968); Nilo Ocampo, Istilo Ko: Rizal Romantik: Mga Tala ng Pag-aasam at Pagibig (Quezon City: Lathalaing P.L., 2001); Rafael Palma, The Pride of the Malay Race. A Biography of Rizal. Translated by Roman Ozaeta (New York: Prentice Hall, 1949); Ricardo Pascual, The Philosophy of Rizal (Manila: Pedro B. Ayuda & Company, 1962. 71

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 3 January 1897.

72 Here the CW was referring to Josephine Bracken. However, contrary to the newspaper’s information, she was not Canadian, but Irish. Bracken first met Rizal in Dapitan, where he was in exile. 73

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 3 January 1897.

74 The WZ came out two times a day, one in the morning and another in the afternoon. The two editions on 7 January contained two extensive reports on Rizal. It should be noted, however, that the WZ first reported about Rizal’s death in “Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 31 December 1896. 75 The original: “Mit seinen letzten Schritten ging der Verurtheile nach dem Richtplab, wo sich viele Spanier und Mestizen angesammelt hatten. Er weigerte sich, niederzuknien und eine Augenbinde anzulegen. Seine lebten Worte waren: “Consummatum ést!” Eine Abtheilung eingeborener Truppen gab die Salve ab. Als er stürtzte, brack das Publikum in Hochrufe auf Spanien und Polavieja.” “Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 7 January 1897. 76

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 7 January 1897, Mittagsausgabe.

77 The original: “Ich werde mich sehr freuen, wenn ich wieder die gute Frau Pfarrerin, Eta und Friedrich grübe; wir wollen die alten Tage der Erdbeerbowle und Waldmeister und Champignon-aufsuchen, erneuern: es waren gute, freundliche Tage. Meine Buches wegen mubte ich mein Vaterland verlassen: der

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Governeur lieb mich rufen, um ein Exemplar zu bekommen; die Priester waren sehr aufgeregt. Man wollte mich anklagen, aber man weib nicht, wodurch und weswegen und aus welcher Grunde; da alles was ich schrieb, historisch treu und wahr war.… Sie werden mich eine grobe Freude geben, wenn Sie von Zeit zu Zeit mir schreiben wollen: ich vergesse nie di guten stillen Tage, die ich bei Ihnane gelebt.” Ibid. 78 Shorthand for Kataastaasang, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (Greatest, Most Venerable Union of the Children of the Nation). 79

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 8 January 1897.

80

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 14 January 197.

81

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 3 January 1897.

82

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 4 January 1897.

83

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 19 January 1897.

84

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 21 January 1897.

85

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 31 January 1897.

86 The newspaper made little mention of the coercive nature of these “contributions”, however. On this theme, see Telesforo Canseco, Kasaysayan ng Paghihimagsik sa Cavite. Translated by Jose Rhommel Hernandez (Manila: Philippine Dominican Center of Institutional Studies, [1871], 1999). 87

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 31 January 1897.

88

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 11 February 1897.

89 In this communiqué, as reported by the WZ, Aguinaldo wrote: “Unsere Regierung wird bestehen aus einem Präsidenten und sechs Mitgliedern. Sie wird also ganz ähnlich wie die Regierung der Verein. Staaten sein. Wir werden eine stehende Armee von 30000 Mann haben und unsere Regierung wird je nach Fortschritten der Revolution eingerichtet werden. Die Gemeinden sollen in Verwaltung und Rechtspflege unabhängig, und nur verpflictet sein, zum Heere Mannschaften zu stellen und Munition zu liefern. Jede Gemeinde entsendet einen Vertreter zum Congreb, der über die Angelegenheiten der gesammten “Philippinischen Nation”.” Ibid. 90

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 23 February 1897.

91 “Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 1 April 1897; “Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 6 April 1897.

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92

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 12 March 1897.

93

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 9 April 1897.

241

94 “Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 7 April 1897. 95 “Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 6 March 1897. 96 “Spanien”, Weser Zeitung, 17 March 1897. This figure was confirmed in another news item on the empire of the following day: “Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 18 March 1897. Government ministries announced slightly different figures regarding this matter: the finance ministry attested that two million pesetas— estimated as then eight million German marks—were needed monthly to suppress the uprising, while the war ministry cited one and an half million. 97

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 4 March 1897.

98

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 23 March 1897.

99 The original: “Wann die Rebellion ihr Ende erreicht, das kann kein Mensch heute auch nur annähernd jagen.” “Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 7 March 1897. 100

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 8 April 1897.

101

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 19 June 1897.

102

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 2 May 1897.

103 On May 13, 1897, Polavieja was celebrated upon arrival in Madrid. The Te Deum was played for him at the cathedral. “Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 14 May 1897. 104

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 30 August 1897.

105

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 30 September 1897.

106 These included an armoury, a museum, a library and the national archives. “Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 15 October 1897. 107

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 19 November 1897.

108

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 23 November 1897.

109

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 20 December 1897.

110

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 24 December 1897.

111

For accounts of actors involved in the negotiations that led to the Pact

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of Biak-na-Bato, see Emilio Aguinaldo, Resena veridical de la revolucion Filipina (Tarlac: 1899); Pedro Paterno, El Pacto de Biyak-na-Bato (Manila: Imprenta “La Republica”, 1910); and Primo de Rivera, Memoria dirigida al Senado (Madrid: 1898). 112

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 24 January 1898.

113

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 3 March 1898.

114

“Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 14 March 1898.

115

“Von den Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 29 May 1898.

116 “Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 25 March 1898. See also “Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 31 March 1898. 117

“Von den Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 29 May 1898.

118

Ibid.

119

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 21 May 1898.

120

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 8 June 1898.

121

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 11 June 1898.

122

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 11 June 1898, Mittagsausgabe.

123

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 22 June 1898.

124

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 23 June 1898.

125

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 25 June 1898.

126

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 25 August 1898, Mittasausgabe.

127 Paul Kramer, The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States and the Philippines (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2006), p. 82. 128 Renato Constantino, The Philippines: A Past Revisited (Manila: Tala Publications, 1975), p. 204. 129

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 26 August 1898.

130

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 2 September 1898.

131

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 13 September 1898.

132

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 14 November 1898. After agreeing

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to the American annexation of the Philippines, the European powers planned to discuss the transfer of the Spanish Carolines to Germany. According to the CW, rumours about the intentions of Germans to take the Philippines, Carolines and other Spanish colonies were spread by the Americans during its war with Spain. As such, the Germans expected that the negotiations for the Carolines would be long and controversial. 133

“Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 15 November 1898.

134

“Zur Philippinen-Frage,” Der Courier an der Weser, 17 November 1898.

135 “Spanien,” Der Courier an der Weser, 26 November 1898. The quoted amount in this news item is incorrect. For ceding the Philippines to the United States Spain received $20,000,000. 136

“Philippinen,” Der Courier an der Weser, 28 December 1898.

137

“Phlippinen,” Der Courier an der Weser, 30 December 1898.

138 “Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 10 September 1896. The original: “Abgesehen von religiösen Despotismus und der Ausschreitungen der Verwaltung wird mir als ein Hauptgrund zur Unzufriedenheit auch die Art und Weise der Abgabenerhebung bezeichnet. Während früher einfach ein gröberer Tribut zu zahlen war, sei jetzt eine Unmenge kleinere Steuern an seine Stelle getreten… und hier setze die separatistische Propaganda ein, um ihm völlige Abgabefreiheit künftig in Aussicht zu stellen. Auch belasteten diese Steuern unverhältmäbig mehr die armen ackerbautreibenden Malaien, als die den Handel beherrchenden chinesischen Mestizen, die sich zwichen Herrcher und Beherrschte drängten.” 139 “Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung 24 December 1896: “So z. B. darf der Indier sein Haus nicht ohne eine Regierungserlaubnis ausbessern. Diese kostet 2 Dollars 50 Cents. Häufig ist die ganze Hütte nicht mehr als 2 Dollars 50 Cents werth… Noch schmerzlicher ist der Kirchentribut beim Tode eines Familienangehörigen. Eine hölzerner Kiste als Sarg kann sich der Indier selbst zimmern, aber abgesehen von 4 Dollars 50 Cents, die der Todte der Kirche fürs Sterben zu zahlen hat, verlangt die Kirche noch 5 Dollars für die Erlaubnib, in einem Sarge begraben zu werden, und leider halten es die Indier vielerorts für eine Schande, nicht in einem Sarge bestattet zu werden; die Erlaubnib, den Todten nur in Strohmatten einzuwickeln, kostet nur 2 Dollars. Die Kirche liefert gar nichts als das Weihwasser; die Weihkerzen müssen je nach Gröbe mit 25 und 50 Cts. das Stück bezahlt zu werden, und das Grab graben kostet auch noch immer 1 bis 2 Dollars. Nun steht die Frau weinend an der Leiche ihres Mannes; die Kinder schreien nach Nahrung und si hat nichts, um die Beerdigung zu bezahlen. Da reibt ihr der Pfaffe die Ohrringe aus den Ohren, wohl irh Einziges, das noch einen kleinen Werth hat, und damit mub die Kirche befriedigt werden.” 140

“Philippinen,” Weser Zeitung, 29 September 1897: “Dort regiren die

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allmächtigen Mönche in aller ihrer früheren Glorie. Sie behaupten mehr zu sein als die bürgerlichen Gewalt, leben in Wollust und Ueppigkeit und troben selbst der katholichen Kirche, und Alles das mittelst des enormen Reichthums, welchen sie den geduldigen Einwohnern abgenommen haben. Während des jebigen Aufstandes sind sie die Anstifter des Blutvergiebens und der Folterung der unglücklichen Gefangenen gewesen....” 141 Zeus Salazar, “A Legacy of the Propaganda: the Tripartite View of Philippine History,” in Salazar, The Ethnic Dimension, pp. 107-126. Also see Magno S. Gatmaitan, Marcelo H. del Pilar, 1850-1896 (Quezon City: Muñoz Press, 1966); Graicano Lopez-Jaena, Discursos y Articulos Varios (Manila: Bureau of Printin, [1891], 1951); and José Rizal, Noli Me Tangere (Manila: Comision Nacional del Centenario de Rizal, [1887], 1961). 142 The original: “Meiner Ansicht nach ist die Ursache nicht klar. Die Eröffnung des Suezcanals hat in erheblichem Mabe das politische Erwachen der Völker des äuberten Ostens erleichtert. Die Ideen der Freiheit, Unabhängigkeit, Nationalitäten, deren wir uns hier täglich bedienen, waren für jene Völker ganz Neues; sie haben über diese Ideen nachgedacht und die Folgen daraus gezogen. Die plöbliche Gröbe Japans, die Renaissance dieses durch und durch nationalisirten Staaten, der Glanz seiner Siege haben bis in die kleinsten Dörfer der Meere Ostasiens einen auberordentlichen Widerhal gefunden. Die Eingeborenen der Philippinen wollten das Vorgehen der Japaner nachahmer und das ist der Grund ihres Aufstandes.” “Spanien,” Weser Zeitung, 10 July 1897. 143 Teodoro Agoncillo, History of the Filipino People (Quezon City: Garotech Publishing, [1960], 1990); Constantino, The Philippines: A Past Revisited; and Gregorio Zaide, The Pageant of Philippine History, Vol. II (Manila: Philippine Education Company, 1979). 144 In contrast with the Vaterland, the Heimat discourse that pervaded Germany during this period featured a warm and resilient homeland. Here the natural beauty of the German landscape was believed to nurture honest, strong and hardworking Germans, anticipating the later nationalist ideology of Blut und Boden (blood and soil). For further discussion, see Elizabeth Boa and Rachel Palfreyman, Heimat: A German Dream. Regional Loyalties and National Identity in German Culture, 1890-1990 (London: Oxford University Press, 2000); Jost Hermand and James Steakley (eds.), Heimat, Nation, Fatherland. The German Sense of Belonging (New York: Peter Lang, 1996). 145 In late nineteenth century simplification and dramatisation characterized popular writings, which, in turn, contributed to the development of the German identity and idea of the nation. See Richard Münch, “German Nation and German Identity: Continuing Change from the 1770s to the 1990s,” in Bertel Heurlin (ed.), Germany in Europe in the Nineties (London: Macmillan Press, 1996), pp. 13-43.

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146 For an account of the development of German identity, see Harold James, A German Identity: 1770 to the Present Day (London: Phoenix, [1989], 1994). 147 See Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000).

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HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION FOR “NAIJA PINOYS” OVERSEAS FILIPINO WORKERS IN NIGERIA Saliba B. James

Abstrak:

Nagsimula ang internasyonal na migrasyon ng mga manggagawang Pilipino sa Nigeria noong dekada 60. Lumakas ito sa pagitan ng dekada 70 at 80 hanggang sa unti-unting humina nang dahil sa mga suliraning pangekonomiya ng Nigeria. Muling dumami ang mga migrante noong dekada 90, na nagbadya ng pagbabago ng kaisipan ng mga migranteng manggagawa mula sa pananatili nang panandalian tungo sa pamimirmihan sa Nigeria. Ang mga “Filipino expatriate” ay naging “Naija Pinoy,” mga migranteng may opisyal na pahintulot na mamuhay at magtrabaho sa Nigeria. Dahil dito, naging simbolo ang katawagang “Naija Pinoy” ng integrasyon at pakikiramay ng mga migrante sa pinaghahanap-buhayang lipunan. Nagpapahiwatig ito ng positibong karanasan sa migrasyon. Ipinaliliwanag ng sanaysay na ito ang nasabing penomenon sa pamamagitan ng pagsusuri sa mga karapatang pantao ng mga Pilipinong migrante, gayundin ang mga epekto nito sa kanilang pananaw sa pinaghahanap-buhayang lipunan.

Introduction This paper is written in honor of one of my academic mentors--Dr. Zeus A. Salazar. I am indebted to Dr. Salazar for his inspirational role in drawing my attention to the field of international labor migration, in particular, the migration of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) to Nigeria, which became the subject of my Ph.D. dissertation. Dr. Salazar had done a similar pioneering study on Filipino migrant workers in Germany.1 Equally important to note is

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the fact that the methological approach to such a subject of Philippine social history fitted into the historical perspective espoused by Dr. Salazar, that is, the Pantayong Pananaw. It is an historical theory or dialogue that consists of both active (speakers) and passive (listeners) subjects in their own discourses.2 However, even more important for our purpose is the advocacy and reliance of Pantayong Pananaw on “oral histories” or oral accounts, as means of substantiating and buttressing ideas and concepts incongruent with other common forms of historical sources.3 My study of Filipino migrant workers in Nigeria over the years have relied largely on oral accounts from the workers themselves. Thus, even though I do not belong to the Pantayong Pananaw school per se, partly because I wrote in English instead of Pilipino, the influence of the perspective on my work is undeniable. It is for this reason that I am honored to contribute a paper in honour of Dr. Zeus Salazar, especially on Overseas Filipino Workers.

Migrant Rights in Nigeria The human rights of migrant workers have always been a significant issue for the Nigerian state. Since its independence Nigeria was both an important sending and receiving country.4 Due to an acute shortage of manpower it sent out migrant students mostly to Europe and North America for training. By the 1980s Asia, including the Philippines, began to receive large numbers of Nigerian students. As a continuation of this trend, the Nigerian community in the Philippines today consists mostly of students and businessmen.5 However, under the Technical Aid Corps (TAC) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nigeria has since the 1990s sent out professionals to other developing nations. The same manpower need compelled the new Nigerian state to continue

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with the recruitment of “overseas officers,” began by the British colonial government before independence. The Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC), recruited officers from west African countries, especially Ghana and Sierra Leone. By 1967 this exercise was extended to Europe, North America and Asia. India, Pakistan, Sri lanka, Bangladesh and the Philippines were among the first sources of Asian migrants to Nigeria.6 Nigeria’s status as both a sending and receiving country and her membership to the United Nations Organization necessitated close attention to the question of migrants’ rights. National and international instruments for the promotion and protection of the rights of migrant workers were either promulgated or acceded to. The Nigerian Immigration Act of 1963, guided by relevant international laws on fundamental human rights of workers, constituted the basis of immigration laws and policy for the nation. Among these international instruments were the 1948 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, International Council on Civil and Politics Rights (ICCPR), Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). In 1975 the landmark formation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) led to an even more focused attention on the issue of migrants’ human rights. Through its Protocol on Free Movement of Persons and its Community Laws the ECOWAS provided for the free flow of migrants and their right of establishment.7 The ECOWAS Protocol relaxed immigration laws on entry, residence and establishment thereby encouraging the emergence of the ECOWAS citizen. An increased inflow of ECOWAS citizens from poor neighboring countries to oil rich Nigeria followed suit. The promotion and

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protection of the rights of these migrant workers from the sub-region accounted for the highly accommodating immigration laws that were, at some point, abused through the high influx of illegal migrants.8 Nevertheless, the 1960s and 1970s provided a convenient environment for the accommodation of migrants in Nigeria and the protection of their rights.

Filipino Migrant Workers in Nigeria The protection of Filipino migrant workers’ rights in Nigeria was predominantly determined by their legal status as migrants and their occupational standing as professionals in different fields. Filipinos were high profile migrants. During the four waves of migration the occupational characteristics of the workers differed. In the first wave, 1964- 1975, migrants were made up of doctors, engineers, architects, radiographers and surveyors. The second wave, migrants from 1975 to 1985, was predominantly comprised of teachers and education officers, who worked in different parts of the country, especially in the northern states. The third wave migrants from 1982 to 1992 were few and their sojourn short-lived. These were mostly entertainers, brought in illegally to serve in clubs in Lagos and Port-Harcourt. Their presence provided occasions for a few cases of human rights abuses. During this wave a new class of professionals, mostly aircraft engineers and technicians, were also brought in by private airlines operating in the expanding aviation industry. Their presence would dwarf the issue of entertainers and open a new chapter in the Filipino inflow to Nigeria.9 What can be described as the fourth wave has been the growing number of skilled office and professional Filipino workers. Equally important is the growing presence of entrepreneurs, who are beginning to set up manufacturing outfits in the country.10 The over 7,200 “Naija Pinoys” or Overseas Filipino Workers in Nigeria

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today fall under this new category. The 2008 Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), which focused on migration, human rights and development, identified some parameters for measuring the enforcement and protection of the rights of migrant workers. The parameters correspond with the three basic stages in international labor migration process namely, pre-departure, post-departure and work stage and the return stage.11 During these stages origin and destination countries share different responsibilities in promoting migrants’ rights. The second GFMD emphasized the connection between “mutual benefits of migration” and “the degree to which migrants’ rights are protected by origin and destination countries.” However, the People’s Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights, a civil society sponsored alternative forum, advocated the “mainstreaming of migrant workers voices” into the global debate on their human rights.”12 Both positions reflect the significance accorded to Filipino migrants’ rights by the Nigerian state since the beginning of Filipino migration to the country. The migrants’ human rights’ indices observed in the three stages of the migration process include the system of recruitment and contracts at the pre-departure level; salaries, paid holidays, social security, accommodation, remittances, gratuity, health care, freedom of association, ownership of business etc., at the post-departure or work stage; and re-integration measures at the return stage. The indices in the first and second stages will be discussed in relation with Filipino experiences in Nigeria. From the outset the Philippine and Nigerian governments handled pre-departure issues, mindful of the rights of the migrant workers. Recruited in 1964, the first batch of 24 Filipino engineers and architects were formally

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invited by the Nigerian government through the Philippine embassy in Lagos.13 They went through a battery of interviews by the Nigerian Federal Public Service Commission, headed by Chief S. O. Williams, and during which fortyfive (45) out of two hundred (200) professionals interviewed were recruited. Contract appointment letters were promptly signed and issued in Manila. The involvement of the sending and receiving governments and the signed contracts guaranteed the workers’ rights. During the second migration wave, migrants signed offers of appointments in Manila at the Overseas Employment Development Board (OEDB) which later became the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA). But the actual contract agreements were signed upon reaching Nigeria.14 To assure workers of their rights, government agencies processed and directly returned the migrants’ travel documents. Since Nigeria had no Embassy in the Philippines, the British Embassy, which covered African Commonwealth interests, processed travel documents and issued visas on behalf of the country. The Nigerian High Commissioner in Hong Kong took over the responsibility, before an embassy was opened in 1981. The OEDB processed the basic travel documents before the visa issuance. It also received tickets from the relevant Nigerian agencies and issued them to the migrants. The migrants did the accreditation of their credentials either at the Supreme Court or Malacañang (Presidential office) which issued the presidential seal. Later this was done at the Department of Foreign Affairs. These pre-departure preparations, including the airplane tickets, were done at no expense to the migrants.15 The involvement of governments and their agencies adequately protected the rights of the workers, who for several years worked without experiencing any violation of their rights. A few instances of human rights

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violation happened to some workers, who were recruited by private bodies and had no formal contracts. For example a hotel management recruited three male professionals and one female manager without contract or letters of appointment. The male workers returned home while the female manager married the manager and stayed. In later migration waves this pattern of abuse resurfaced among some professionals, recruited through private agencies by private companies. The involvement of governments and their agencies at the pre-departure stage is therefore critical to the observance of migrants’ rights.16 The protection of Filipino migrant workers’ rights was clearly manifested in the working conditions in the work place, that is, the post-departure period. Since economic gain or the “search for greener pastures” was a strong motive for accepting the invitation to come to Nigeria, the issue of wages was important. The Nigerian state offered attractive salaries that were the same as those offered to nationals. There was no discrimination in salaries, if anything, additional financial incentives, such as the fifteen percent special contract addition that were not enjoyed by the nationals, were given to the migrant workers.17 The professionals recruited in the 1960s were paid a monthly salary of 150 British pounds or 1,800 pounds sterling per annum. After 1973 when the national currency, the “naira,” was introduced migrant workers were paid according to existing national salary structure. Since most migrants were graduates of universities, their starting points were never below Grade level 8, which was the approved starting point for fresh graduates in the country. The cash equivalent was ₦4, 104 for step 1 and ₦5, 136 for step 7. Migrant workers with many years at working experience were placed on higher salary levels such as Grade level 10 and earned ₦6, 624.18 Apart from the attractive salary package gratuity, amounting to 15

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percent of the annual salary, was provided for in the contracts and paid to the workers at the end of each contract period. The contract period was initially 3 years at a stretch with 9 months leave, broken into 3 months each year. This was later revised to 18 months or 2 years as one tour with 4 weeks’ vacation and paid round trip ticket at the end of it.19 The round trip vacation ticket was itself an additional incentive. Furthermore, another fifteen percent special contract addition was given to all expatriate migrant workers.20 This contract addition was informally called “Bush allowance,” a reference to the rural conditions under which many Filipino teachers served, particularly in northern Nigeria. It was an incentive for serving in such remote rural locations. An added incentive was the substantial amount given as car loans to the migrant workers. The amount, sometimes exceeding six thousand naira (₦6,000.00) or over five thousand, five hundred United States dollars (US$5,500.00), was described by one migrant worker as “hospitality incentive” for the migrants.21 Many migrants took the car loans and bought second hand cars. The balance of the money, together with other earnings, were pocketed and remitted home. The freedom enjoyed by the migrant workers in remitting their earnings in Nigeria was equally a mark of respect for their human rights. The migrant workers used various methods, both formal and informal in remitting money back to the Philippines. Initially, remittances were done through “bank-to-bank transaction, by means of bank draft and also via “mail transfer,” which migrants said they have used.22 However, most admitted using the informal channels that is, sending money “through returning Filipinos” on home leave. This enabled their relations back home to earn more since the bank drafts sent could be sold at the black market for higher sums than that offered by the banks.

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The migrant workers were also properly accommodated. Some were given three or four bedroom flats or bungalows, either in school or hospital premises or even choice areas like Government Reserve Areas, “GRAs,” meant for top government officials. The migrants at times found the houses too big since their families were not with them. Some, therefore, moved in to live with their colleagues to minimize loneliness and acquire a sense of security.23 Their dignified working conditions also served to respect the rights of migrant workers. Many held positions of responsibility as heads of Departments and controlled well equipped laboratories where they produced excellent students. This resulted in job satisfaction and provided a sense of pride among them. One migrant expressed this, declaring that “the peak of my teaching career was when I produced a grade one student in biology. I am proud of it. I felt satisfied that I could go home.”24 The terms of their contracts forbade migrants from directly or indirectly engaging in any other service or business in Nigeria. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, when conditions began to change, some started small businesses. Kiosks, selling Filipino snacks like siopao, and mami, lumpia, empanada and cake were set up. Others exported Nigerian hide and skin to the U.S where it sold for higher prices. Some Filipino doctors did part time in private clinics. A civil engineer who had worked with the Nigerian army established a public liability company called Niger-Filco Nigeria (PLC).25 These actions attracted no official sanctions or disapprovals, paving the way towards the assumption of freedom of entrepreneurship among migrants. Filipino migrant workers also enjoyed freedom of association in Nigeria. By the 1970s such freedom was expressed in informal birthday celebrations, Valentines’ Day parties, Christmas and Independence Day celebrations. In

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different states more formal groupings began to emerge, including the Filipino Community Association in Borno State (FCA), Filipino Association in Bauchi state (FA), Samahan ng mga Filipinos sa Sokoto (SAPISO), Filipino Camp Residents Association in Port- Harcourt (FCRA) etc. In 1974 the Philippine Barangay Society of Nigeria (PBSN) emerged as the “Mother Association” for all migrants.26 From its inception the PBSN has protected migrants’ rights and welfare through the promotion of good relations between themselves and their host society. The PBSN organized Award Nights, Community Awards, Ambassador’s Awards, and Fiesta Philippines Cultural Show. Recently, under the leadership of Mrs. Esperanza Derpo, the PBSN embarked on a charity drive that provided informed and credible advice on the security situation and working conditions of Naija Pinoys in Nigeria. It helped the government understand and appreciate the high preference for Filipino professionals “for supervising, management and other key positions in various industries throughout Nigeria.”27 This effort assisted in lifting the ban on Filipino workers in Nigeria in 2009. PBSN declared that the security situation in the Niger Delta only affected sea-based Naija Pinoys in that region, not their land-based counterparts. This declaration attested to the human rights enjoyed by Naija Pinoys today.

Recent “Naija Pinoys” In the 1980s, in relation to the global economic slump, Nigeria’s economic fortunes changed, leading to negative tendencies that compromised the migrant workers’ rights. The value of the naira began to drop relative to the dollar. In 1984 the General Mohammadu Buhari military regime imposed restrictions on remittances. Previously workers could remit as high as fifty to seventy five percent (50-75%) of their earnings; under the new foreign exchange control

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measures, they were allowed to remit only twenty-five percent (25%) of their salaries.28 Consequently many Filipino migrants in Nigeria either went back to the Philippines or moved to the United States of America. By the mid-1980s the working conditions of migrants were radically altered, with negative consequences for their human rights. The government itself stopped recruiting new expatriate workers. Privileges enjoyed by workers such as remittances, car loans, paid holidays etc. were gradually withdrawn, as the economic situation worsened in the 1990s. The fortunes of the new wave of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) recruited into the Oil and Aviation industries were negatively affected by the changed working environment. Changes in predeparture conditions, especially recruitment by private agencies, opened the floodgate for the abuse of migrants’ human rights. In the oil sector, the Japanese company Chiyoda offered Filipino workers fifteen-months contracts, with a provision for fifteen-days’ vacation and a round trip ticket for home leave. In order to increase their working hours their home leave was often converted to cash without the workers consent. Also as their contracts stipulated their salaries, which ranged from $5, 379 or $358 monthly to $4, 500 or $300 monthly, would be paid to the workers’ account through the recruitment agencies in Manila. In Nigeria they were given ₦620 plus an additional $20 stipend. But the amounts stated in the contracts were not always paid correctly.29 The rights of these skilled and semi- skilled workers were violated. In the aviation industry, technicians and engineers were equally offered attractive salary packages of up to $1, 500 monthly plus an extra sum of $70 to be received in Nigeria. But again, payments were not always made according to the specifications in the contracts. The airline workers were also promised

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fully furnished accommodation but were kept in one room apartments. Their contracts required them to work 48 hours a week, but they worked 24 hours a day, without any overtime payments. Unlike the first and second generation migrants they enjoyed limited freedom of association within the industry itself. In recent times, insecurity particularly in the oil-producing Niger Delta region of Nigeria, threatened migrants’ rights especially their freedom to work anywhere in the world. The spate of kidnappings of foreign workers threatened sea-based migrants in particular. Measures, taken by the Nigerian government to guarantee workers’ security, removed the threat and allowed Naija Pinoy oil workers to remain in the region. The involvement of some sea-based migrants in oil theft or “oil bunkering” also posed another threat, which, fortunately, was resolved amicably.

Conclusion Naija Pinoys or Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Nigeria are among the active “unsung heroes” of the Philippines, contributing to the over 16 billion dollars remittances to the country. Protecting their human rights is therefore a crucial issue. The experiences of Naija Pinoys reaffirm the convergence of opinion in the U.N. high level dialogue between the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) and the parallel forum of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) that “the positives of international migration far outweigh the negatives.”30 Part of the truism here lies in the fact that Naija Pinoy migration experiences confirms the possibility of combining economic benefit and respect for migrants’ rights. The PBSN and the Philippine Embassy, in conjuncture with the relevant agencies and Departments in the Philippines, have been addressing issues around migrants’ rights. The issuance of Overseas

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Employment Certificate (OEC) by the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency both in Manila and its regional offices shows the determination to respect the rights of migrants and make their lives easier. The PBSN has metamorphosed into a strong association that plays a key role in protecting workers rights in Nigeria. It has also contributed in promoting bilateral relations between the Philippines and Nigeria through positive intervention in matters pertaining to migrants’ rights or in issues that could create friction between the two states. Overall the prospects for an increasingly positive Naija Pinoy migration experiences in Nigeria are bright.

Endnotes 1 See: Dr Zeus A. Salazar, “The Outflow of Filipino to the Bundesrepublik Deutschland since the 1960s,” in Philippine Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 31, No. 4, October 1987. 2 Ramon Guillermo, “Exposition, Critique and New Directions for Pantayong Pananaw,” Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, 3 (2003), p. 1. 3

Ibid.

4 Olaide A. Adedokun, “The Right of Migrant Workers and Members of their Families: Nigeria,” in Unesco Series of country Reports on the Ratification of the UN Convention on Migrants, 14th October, 2003, p. 11. 5 Matikas Santos, “Ph- firms in Nigeria very well foreign minister, July 3oth 2015,” in Philippine Daily Inquirer, http:// globalnation. Inquiver.net/ 81787/. 6 Saliba B. James, Filipino Labour Migration to Nigeria: A study in Labour and Bilateral relations (Ibadan: Loud Books Publishers, 2007), p. 161. 7

Olaide, op. cit., p. 13.

8 During the Second Republic in 1981 Nigeria had to deport hundreds of illegal aliens who violated the ECOWAS Protocol. This created tension between Nigeria and the migrants’ home countries, especially Ghana. The term “Ghana Must Go” became a symbol of that incidence.

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Saliba, op. cit., p. 163.

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Matikas Santos, op. cit.

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11 Global Forum on Migration and Development “Background Paper,” Manila, 27-30 October, 2008. 12

Ibid.

13 This was confirmed by the Philippine Ambassador to Nigeria, S. T Sabalones in New Nigerian, Tuesday, February 21, 1984. It was also reiterated in my interview with Dr. Juan B. Corpuz and Dr. (Mrs) Teresita Barios Corpuz, who were among the first doctors recruited in 1965. Date: February 7, 1994 in Lagos. 14 Interview with Mrs. Aurora Casumbal Minoza, Teacher, Maiduguri, December 13, 1993. 15 Interview with Mrs. Lilian Raz Ng Adikwu, Teacher, Gboko, Benue State, February, 27, 1994. 16 Interview with Mrs. Erlinda Rivera Bello, Medical Assistant, Lagos, February 18th 1994. 17

Interview with Dr. and Dr. (Mrs.) Juan D. Corpuz, Lagos 1994.

18 Interview with Dorina S. Bartholomew, Teacher, Michika, Adamawa State, December 14, 1993. 19 Interview with Mr. Jordan Kapili, Teacher, Azare, Bauchi State, January 6th, 1994. 20 Interview with Mrs Ophelia Lagos Daleon, Teacher, Toro, Bauchi State, January, 1994. 21 1994.

Interview with Mrs. Grace Abrazado, Azare, Bauchi State, January 5,

22

Interview with Mr. Ernesto Faje, Azare, Bauchi State, January 6, 1994.

23

Interview with Ophelia Lagos Daleon, 1994.

24

Interview with Mr. Jordan Kapili, 1994.

25

James, op. cit., p. 242.

26

Ibid., p. 289.

27 “PBSN Chairperson (Mrs. Esperanza Derpo) Meets with VP Noli de Castro”, Nigerian OFWS, posted by Naija Pinoy on htt:// www.gmanews.tv/

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story, March 27, 2009. 28

Saliba B. James, op. cit., p. 250.

29

Ibid., p. 258.

30 Global Forum on Migration and Development, Civil Society Days 19-20 November, 2012, Mauritius, p. 6.

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PROMINENT MINANGKABAU IN JAVA (INDONESIA) DURING THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION* Gusti Asnan

Abstrak:

Nakatuon ang sanaysay na ito sa mga kilalang Minangkabau na nakatira sa Java sa panahon ng Pananakop ng mga Hapon sa Indonesia; ginagamit nito bilang pangunahing batis pangkasaysayan ang Orang Indonesia jang Terkemoeka di Djawa (Prominenteng Indones sa Java) na naimprenta sa pamamagitan ng Gunseikanbu, ang Serbisyo Panlathala ng Hukbong Hapon, noong 1944. Sinusuri sa papel na ito ang ibig sabihin ng pagiging kilalang tao para sa mga Hapon habang ginagamit ang Gunseikanbu bilang primaryang batis at pinagaaralan ang mga rehiyong pinagmulan ng mga kilalalang tao ayon sa aklat. Tinatalakay rito kung bakit itinuturing ang maraming Minangkabau bilang prominenteng tao sa Java at inilalahad ang katayuan ng kanilang edukasyon, hanap-buhay, pamayanan, kaabalahang panlipunan at pampolitika bago ang Panahon ng Hapon, at pinagmulang lugar sa Kanlurang Sumatra. Isinusulong sa sanaysay na ito na una, ang Java ang naging rantau ng mga Minangkabau mula pa sa simula ng ikadalawampung siglo; at ikalawa, ang mga Minangkabau ang pinakamalaking grupong edukado mula sa Outer Islands sa Java. Naglingkod ang karamihan sa kanila bilang empleyado ng pamahalaan, namuhay sa mga pinakaimportanteng siyudad sa Java, naging kabilang sa mga organisasyong politiko-sosyal bago ang Pananakop ng Hapon, at nagmula sa mga pamayanang matatagpuan sa puso ng rehiyong Minangkabau.

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Introduction In November 1944, Gunseikanbu, the Japanese Army Information Services in Java (Indonesia) published a book with the title Orang Indonesia jang Terkemoeka di Djawa (Prominent Indonesians in Java: henceforth OITD). This book was reprinted by Biblio Ltd., a Japanese publisher in 1973. In 1986 Gajah Mada University Press reproduced the Biblio Ltd. edition. No significant changes were made to the book by Gajah Mada University Press; even the format, the lay-out, the type and the size of font are the same as the Biblio Ltd. version. The difference of the new edition with the earlier publication were the two prologues, one by Akira Nagazumi a Japanese-American historian who had a great interest in Indonesian history and another by Sartono Kartodirdjo, the doyen of Indonesian history.1 Both scholars welcomed the publication and stressed its great significance as a source for students and researchers who are interested in studying Indonesian history during the Japanese occupation. As the book would constitute a valuable addition to the scarce sources on the Japanese period, its publication--both scholars hoped--will stimulate research and publishing on this period. This article is inspired by the OITD and uses it as its primary source. I hope to contribute at realizing the hopes of Nagazumi and Kartodirdjo--that the publication of their work, now more than two decades ago, would stimulate research and publication on the Japanese period of Indonesian history. Whereas the OITD is a “who’s who” for all of Indonesia in Java during the Japanese period, this article focuses its discussion on one particular ethnic group, the Minangkabau, who originated from West Sumatra in the island of Sumatra. There are two important reasons why this group deserves scholarly attention. First, even though there was a significant group of influential Minangkabau in

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Java during the Japanese occupation, this group was hardly studied. Second, this article will fill a gap in the migration history of Minangkabau, and their experiences in the rantau area (overseas or in a foreign country), in this case, the migration of Minangkabau to Java, their activities and their experiences there during Japanese period. It should be pointed out that even scholars such as Mochtar Naim and Tsuyoshi Kato who specialized in Minangkabau migration have not written about the Japanese period. 2 The OITD documents the number of prominent Minangkabau people in Java vis-à-vis the other ethnic group there. In addition, it maps out their educational level, occupation, their areas of living, and their involvement in social-political activities in the period preceding the Japanese occupation and their village of origin in West Sumatra.3 Finally the OITD also illustrates their date of birth as well as the books and articles they wrote and published. This article will discuss all these aspects.

OITD as an Historical Source The OITD is such a rich source for historians and social scientist alike because it defines why a certain group is influential and gives detailed information about the individuals that constitute this group. The Gunseikanbu employed four criteria to define someone as a “prominent person.” The first criterion was a university degree. The second was, in the absence of a university degree, a membership at the upper echelon of civil servants who earned at least f. 200 a month, such as Indisch Arts (native medical doctor) or wedana (sub-district head) in the Dutch era. This category could include those who held a high position in an administrative unit, but was not a civil servant. The third criterion referred to individuals who held high position in important or big privately owned

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companies or businesses, for example the owner or manager of a factory that employed at least 50 workers. The fourth category included different kinds of leaders who were not included in the above four classes, comprising of religious leaders (ulama or Islamic teacher, Catholic priest, Protestant clergyman, Hindu or Buddhist priest) or leaders of civil organization such as leaders of women’s organization, leaders of youth organization, leaders of social organization, leaders of labor organization, leaders or organizers of art and sport group. This last category included heads of school, as well as eminent journalists, artists, sportsmen (athletes), and teachers.4 The numerous curriculum vita in the OITD contained information such as the featured individuals’ names (some of them completed with the traditional and academic titles), date of birth (in the Japanese almanac system which is different from the Christian calendar system by 660 years), place of birth, education (including the name of schools and dates of graduation), occupation (completed with the name of institutions/companies and work time), social or political organizations (alongside their names and dates of association), articles and books that have been written and published (together with their full bibliographic details).5 Generally the OITD divided the occupations of the eminent people in Java into three main-categories, they are: 1) State Administration; 2) Economic Affairs, and 3) The Other or Non-State Administration and Non-Economic Group Affairs. The number of prominent figures that were grouped into the first category was 1,144; the second category, 697; and the third category, 1,168--totaling to 3,009.6 Gunseikanbu divided the first category (State Administration) into five sub-groups, namely: Public Administration (117), Civil Service (635), Financial Affairs (93), Domestic Security (52), and The Court (247). The second category

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(Economic Affairs) was divided into nine sub-groups; they were Agricultural Sector (111), Forestry Sector (30), Husbandry and Fishery Sectors (60), Handicraft Sectors (60), Transportation Affairs (80), Technical Affairs (232), Trading Activities (41), Finance Affairs or Banks and Pawnshop Services (48), Associations to Promote National Economy/ APNE (35). The third category, The Other or Non-State Administration and Non-Economic Group Affairs, was also divided into nine sub-groups; they were Information Services (60), Lawyers (Legal Aid Services) (25), Public Health Service (535), Education Affairs (189), Cultural Affairs (54), Religious Affairs (91), Political and Labor Affairs (103), Women and Welfare Affairs (54), Sport and Youth Affairs (57). Here it is evident that the OITD contained important information on the prominent Indonesian people on Java during the Japanese period. Those selfsame distinguished people, who incidentally lived in Java at that time, could have originated from varied regions and ethnic groups in the Indonesian archipelago. Unfortunately, the OITD did not mention where they came from (their native regions) and to which ethnic-groups they belonged.7 In order to ascertain their region of origin and their ethnicity this article uses their birth place as the basis of reference. This consideration is based on some factors; for instance, until the beginning of the 20th century Indonesians were generally born in their native region. If they lived outside their places of origin, they migrated to another region due to personal reasons, politics, or their duties as colonial soldiers, civil servants or students. People from certain ethnic-groups and born in other ethnic-group regions were also mentioned, but their numbers were not so high.8 If we found such a case, for example a Javanese man was born in West Sumatra or a Minangkabau man was born in Aceh, we determine their native region based on their name (first name, family name, or

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name completed with the traditional title). Until the Japanese period, a name (complete with the traditional title in front of or at the end of the name) could be said as an identifier of a particular ethnic group in Indonesia and might be used as a guide on the place of origin or ethnicity of someone. Specific distinctions of names were generally used by the Javanese, Sundanese, Menado, Maluku, Batak, Minangkabau and other ethnic groups. Someone named Budiardjo, with the title Raden Mas, might certainly have been Javanese, although he was born Sawahlunto in West Sumatra (the traditional title of Rades Mas only used by the Javanese people); or someone named Burhanuddin Datuak Bandaro Kuniang could be a Minangkabau, even though he was born in Meulaboh (Aceh)—the traditional title of Datuak, alongside one or two specific words used only by the Minangkabau people.9 Based on place of birth and ethnically distinct names and/or title, one can ascertain 21 different regions where the prominent individuals in Java originated; Java (2,036), Sunda (547), Minangkabau (137), Menado or North Sulawesi (61), Madura (53), Batak/Tapanuli (49), Maluku (31), Melayu/East Sumatra) (18), South Sumatra (18), Betawi (16), Kalimantan (11), Indo (8),10 Aceh (7), Bali (6), South Sulawesi (3), Lampung (3), Riau (2), Nusa Tenggara Barat (1), Nusa Tenggara Timur (1), and Jambi (1). As can be deduced from above, the Minangkabau comprises the largest immigrant ethnic group on Java. This information raises two questions: firstly, why did the Minangkabau people decide to live in Java at that time?, and secondly, in which fields did they play an important role on that island?

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Java as a Minangkabau Rantau Two answers could be easily given to the first question: the Minangkabau settled on Java due firstly, to their traditional practice of merantau (migration) tradition and secondly, to the fact that Java had been a leading rantau area for the Minangkabau since the beginning of the 20th century.11 Merantau refers to the voluntary migration of the Minangkabau, who thereby leave their village of origin, in particular, or their ethnic region, in general. Several factors formed the background of this movement. Some of these factors deal with demographical problems--for example, the increasing village population put more pressure on resources like land, paving the way towards the formation of new settlements in sparsely populated frontier regions. Other factors concerned economic problems or rural poverty-individuals left their village to seek their fortune elsewhere and migrated to other regions to trade or work as laborers. Some Minangkabau were driven by their political backgrounds; they went to other regions or countries to save themselves and/or escape the political turmoil in their native villages. While a few aimed to improve their stations and resolve certain social problems; for example, they went to other regions to seek further education.12 Tambo, Minangkabau traditional historiography, and several scholars who paid special attention to merantau tradition states that merantau has been done by the Minangkabau people since the legendary era, and continue until the recent time. The earliest merantau was carried out in relation to village segmentation, and as a way out of the increasing population in certain villages. As such, the histories of all villages in West Sumatra are related with each other. Many villages in Tanah Datar (a luhak or district in traditional Minangkabau geography) for example associate the beginning of their inhabitants with

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Pariangan Padang Panjang, the perceived oldest village in that district among the Minangkabau. Many villages in Agam and 50 Kota districts then relate their inhabitants with the villages in Tanah Datar.13 According to the Tambo, Tanah Datar is the oldest luhak in Minangkabau because it was in this luhak that the ancestors of the Minangkabau appeared for the first time (in the legendary period). Pariangan Padang Panjang was the first settlement (village) that they constructed. Agam and 50 Kota were the second and the third luhak for the Tambo. These three luhak were conceived as the heartland of Minangkabau and called Luhak Nan Tigo (Three Districts).14 The Tambo does not refer to the villages in Luhak Nan Tigo (especially in Agam and 50 Kota) as rantau area. It only states that rantau are the regions outside of the Minangkabau heartland (outside of the Luhak Nan Tigo). As a cultural area, a rantau is a region that always expands its territories. In the beginning rantaus were only the surrounding regions close to the Minangkabau heartland, which included Rantau Pesisir in the western part, Rantau Rao and Pasaman in the northern part, Rantau Kampar and Kuantan in the eastern part, Rantau Sijunjung, Solok and Sungai Pagu in southern part, and Rantau Pariaman and Bandar X in the western part of Luhak Nan Tigo. But parallel with the development of these regions are rantau areas in the relatively far region of the Luhak Nan Tigo. These rantaus are located in the western coast of Aceh, especially around Meulaboh and even in Negeri Sembilan (Malay Peninsula).15 The aforementioned rantaus could also be considered as Minangkabau “traditional rantau.”16 They are the main rantaus of the Minangkabau people since the legendary period until at the end of the 19th century. Migrants sought new land to be opened as new settlements; they would have been traders (merchants), who left their villages in Luhak Nan Tigo to seek economic/

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financial fortune; they would have been the Minangkabau royal families, who left Pagaruyung (the capital of Minangkabau Kingdom) to be appointed as raja in the tributary kingdoms; or they would have been political exiles (refugees), who sought safety. Unwittingly genealogical and historical relationships between the people in the Luhak Nan Tigo and the rantau areas persist. These relationships are found in the collective memories of the people in both regions, not only in the past but also in recent times. They apparently are often found in many myths and folklore in those areas. The oral tradition in the Rantau Pasaman, Kampar, Sijunjung, Solok and Sungai Pagu almost always insists that the early settlers in those regions were migrants from Luhak Nan Tigo. They apparently came there to seek new land, where they could build new settlements.17 Oral traditions in Rao and Kuantan claim that their noblemen came from Pagaruyung.18 Oral tradition among the populace Padang, Pariaman, and Bandar X assert that their early settlers had been traders from Agam, Tanah Datar, and Solok.19 Historical sources written by the Portuguese, Englishmen and Dutchmen (based on the oral traditions) attest that migrants from Minangkabau in Negeri Sembilan especially and Malay Peninsula were generally traders, family members of the Pagaruyung court, and political refugees from Minangkabau.20 There are two other interesting phenomena on “traditional migration.” The first involves the migrants’ use of traditional transportation means and infrastructures. Migration was done through foot, packhorses, canoes and sailing boats through footpaths, rivers and seas. The second concerns the migrants’ destinations. They generally moved to uninhabited regions (for migrants who sought to build new settlements); trading centers (for migrant who sought economic or financial fortunes); or political center (for members of the Minangkabau courts or political exiles).

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The Minangkabau migration to Java is different from the previously discussed phenomena. This migration began at the last quarter of the 19th century and increased gradually in the beginning of the 20th century. Initially migrants moved to attend variegated schools (or education institutions) there. In this regard, it could be surmised that early Minangkabau migrants to Java were young and relatively well-educated people. The intended migration region was an urban area, which offered access to the migrants’ needs (to continue their studies). Another characteristic that differentiate Minangkabau migrants to Java with their “traditional” counterparts was their means of transportation. The former used more modern means of transport compared with the latter. The change in orientation of Minangkabau migration at the end of the 19th century and in the beginning of the 20th century was connected to several factors. Since the 1840s the Netherlands East Indië government had introduced the western educational system in West Sumatra. In its initial phase this school system only aimed to bring up and recruit cheap labor (equipped with the writing and reading ability only) to support coffee cultivation system.21 But, in the last quarter of the 19th century and in the first decades of the 20th century western schools developed rapidly in West Sumatra. The number and kinds of schools (educational institutions) multiplied gradually. The colonial government required a good number of relatively educated people to fill many posts in several governmental institutions. This demand is parallel with the broadening of colonial political expansion, economic exploitation, and cultural penetration in the Netherlands Indië, and the positive response to the Minangkabau who attended many kinds of schools opened by the Netherlands Indië government in their region.22 In a sense, the Minangkabau suffered from the syndrome of “knowledge

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hunger” at that time. Someone who suffered from this syndrome was compelled to go to school elsewhere, especially to higher schools unavailable in West Sumatra. Going to educational institutions that were not available in West Sumatra was the best treatment to this syndrome. Heading to Java became almost compulsory among the afflicted because this would provide them the opportunity to go to any of the numerous higher educational institutions there. The opportunity to take part in institutions of higher learning became possible for some because most of their parents (fathers) were influential members of either the Dutch colonial bureaucratic government or the traditional society. Their fathers were high ranking individuals, native civil servants and members of the traditional elite. From 1823 until the 1840s, in order to strengthen and broaden its administrative and political machinery, the Dutch colonial government introduced the native bureaucratic network (Inlandsche Bestuur or IB) alongside its European bureaucratic network (Europeesche Bestuur or EB) in West Sumatra. The Dutch colonial government created several posts for native leaders, like hoofdregent (supra-district head), regent (district head), larashoofd (supra-villages head), nagariehoofd (village headman), among others. In the coffee cultivation system, the Dutch even created positions for the inhabitants of West Sumatra who were then able to access the colonial government’s economic exploitation program; among these positions were mandor kopi (coffee planting supervisor), pakhuismeester (storehouse keeper), klerk (clerk), and penghulu suku rodi (force labor supervisor). In the beginning of the 20th century, the government abolished the post of larashoofd and introduced the position of demang (native sub-district head). At the second half of the 19th century, parallel with multiplication of the western schools and government institutions, numerous Minangkabau worked as teachers, civil servants and other government employees. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the

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penghulu (adat leaders) was accorded with utmost respect by the people and special traditional rights by the Dutch government.23 Quite a large number of the Minangkabau became affluent in the new colonial system; they comprised a new segment of the populace who held high social standing, important political positions, and even good financial condition. It was, hence, not a surprise that many Minangkabau young men, the children of the “new Minangkabau society,” went to several institutions of higher education in Java. Indeed the Dutch educational policy only allowed children of distinguished people to enter the higher educational institutions. Another factor that made migration to Java notably easier concerned the introduction of modern transportation. After the colonial government invested on its development, the infrastructure around sea travel in West Sumatra improved. In the 1860s the government rehabilitated and revitalized the Muara and Pulau Pisang harbors (both in Padang); and in the last decades of the 19th century it constructed the Emmahaven (Teluk Bayur) harbor. In 1876 it founded a subsidiary national shipping company named Nederlandsch Indische Stoomvaart Maatschapij (NISM); twelve years later, this company changed its name to Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (KPM). The ships of this company connected Padang with Jakarta by two dients (services): service 1.a, which operated twice a month and service 1.b, operating once a month. The harbor of Teluk Bayur became officially operational in 1892;24 and this harbor served as a point of departure and arrival of the Minangkabau to and from Jakarta (Java).25 From the late 19th century to the start of the 20th century, the Netherlands East Indië government successfully transformed Jakarta as the capital city of the archipelago. It had successfully subjugated and united all parts of Indonesia and erected a colonial state of “Hindia Belanda.” The government had also centralized

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and introduced many kinds of political, economic and social institutions in Jakarta, in particular and in Java, in general. Corollary to these developments, the Outer Islands (outer Java) slowly became more dependent to Jakarta (and Java). Peoples from the Outer Islands also started to depend on Jakarta for access to institutions of higher learning. The aforementioned factors both stimulated and forced many Minangkabau young men, who hoped to have higher education, to go to Java. Another set of factors drove many Minangkabau to live in the selfsame island and became prominent there during Japanese Occupation.

Prominent Minangkabau in Java The data offered by the OITD portrayed the Minangkabau in Java through the following lenses: their educational attainment; their occupations; their residences; their activities prior to the Japanese period; and their village of origin in West Sumatra.

Education The OITD asserted that a person could be categorized as a member of the prominent class if he has a university degree.26 There were only five kinds of educational degrees at the university level in Indonesia in the colonial period; they were BA (Bestuur Academie/Civil Servant Academy) in Jakarta, GH (Geneeskunde Hoogeschool/Medicine University) in Jakarta, LH (Landbouw Hoogeschool/ University of Agriculture) in Bogor, RH (Rechts Hoogeschool/ University of Law) in Jakarta, and TH (Technische Hoogeschool/Technical University) in Bandung. Most of Indonesian graduates finished their study in

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these institutions. Some Indonesian young men, however, gained their degrees from universities abroad--they studied in the Netherlands, England, or the USA. Most Indonesians of that time considered secondary schools as institutions of higher learning. The social status of secondary schools graduates were relatively high, especially if they received high salaries or held important positions in the governmental or private institutions. As such secondary school graduates were also categorized as prominent. Among others the secondary schools which could be considered as schools of higher learning included the STOVIA (School ter Opleiding van Indische Artsen/Junior High School of Medicine for the Native), NIAS (Nederlandsh Indische Artsen School/Senior High School of Medicine for the Native), STOVIT (School ter Opleiding van Indische Tandsartsen/Dentistry Junior High School for the Native), NIV (Nederlandsch Indie Veaartsenschool/The Netherlands-Indië Veterinarian School), RS (Rechtsschool/School of Law), OSVIA (Opleidingschool voor Inlandsche Ambtenaren/Junior High School for Native Civil Servant), MOSVIA (Middelbare Opleidingschool voor Inlandsche Ambtenaren/Senior High School for Native Civil Servant), BS, Bestuurschool/School of Civil Servant), AMS (Algemeene Middelbare School/Senior High School), KS (Kweekschool/Teaching Staff School for Elementary School), HIK (Hollandsch Inlandsche Kweekschool/ Teaching School for the Native in Dutch Language), and HKS (Hoogere Kweekschool (Teaching Staff School for Senior High School).27 According to the OITD there were 45 Minangkabau university graduates. Nineteen of them got their degrees from universities abroad--University of Amsterdam (13), University of Leiden (2), University of Utrecht (1), Nederlandsch Handelshogeschool Rotterdam (NHR) (1), Lyceum Rotterdam (Lyc. R) (1), and University of London (1). The graduate from University of London also

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graduated from University of Amsterdam, thus there were actually 14 graduates from University of Amsterdam. The rest of the graduates (26) finished their studies in several universities in Java, RH (13), TH (1), and GH (12). The book also noted that there were 66 Minangkabau who had a secondary school education in Indonesia. Five of them graduated from NIAS, 25 graduated from STOVIA, nine graduated from NIV, four graduated from RS, one graduated from BS, two graduated from MLS, four graduated from KWS, one from graduated KES, two graduated from KS, two graduated from Ambachtschool, one graduated from HIS, one graduated from Mijnbouwschool, three graduated from MULO, one graduated from Prins Andrik Handelschool (PAH), one from graduated Parmazische School, two graduated from Nippon Gakku, one graduated from AMS, one graduated from HBS. The OITD claimed that a number of Minangkabau people (six) also graduated from non-western (or governmental) educational institutions. They studied in several “nationalist” higher schools--one graduated from Sekolah Thawalib, one graduated from Islamic College, one graduated from Diniyah Puteri, two graduated from Taman Guru Taman Siswa (TGTS), and one graduated from Sekolah Kepandaian Putri (SKP). Universities and secondary schools conferred titles to their graduates; the titles (in form of abbreviation) are written in front of or at the end of their names. They bestowed a Dr. or Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy) to the graduate at the doctoral level, M.A. (Master of Arts) to the graduate of the magisterial degree, Mr. (Meester in de Rechten) to the graduate of RH, Ir. (Ingenieur) for the graduates of TH, Drs. (Doctorandus) for the university graduates in the humanities and social sciences below doctoral rank, Arts (Doctor of Medicine) for the graduates of Faculty of Medicine or Medicine University or GH, Ind. Arts

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(Inlandsch Arts/Native Doctor of Medicine) for the graduates of the STOVIA and NIAS, and Veerarts (Veterinarian) for graduates of the NIV, Tandsarts (dentist) for the graduates of STOVIT. In addition they also conferred the honorary title of ‘Professor’ (a college or university teacher of the highest academic rank) and Dr.Hc (Honorary Doctor), based on a person’s contribution in a specific field of study. Among the 117 universities and secondary schools graduates in the OITD, 84 achieved several of the mentioned titles. Six of them achieved a Ph.D. (incl. Dr.Hc.)--five graduated from the University of Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Leiden and one Dr. Hc. from University of Al-Azhar (Cairo-Egypt). One had an MA title, 11 had Mr., 2 had Drs., 1 had Ir., 16 had Arts, 34 had Ind. Arts, 9 had Veearts, and 1 had Tandarts. One person even had a title of Prof. (he also achieved Ph.D.) from the Ika Dai Gakku (University of Medicine) in Jakarta. As graduates of higher education they had opportunities to hold good positions in several governmental or private institutions during the Japanese era (and naturally, in the Dutch colonial era also). We now turn to the kinds of occupation and position they held in Java during this period.

Occupation The Minangkabau were found in three main groups of occupation categorized by the Gunseikanbu. In the first (State Administration) there were 22 Minangkabau people, in the second group (Economic Affairs) there were 29, and in the third, (The Other or Non-State Administration and Non-Economic Group Affairs) there were 86. Except in the first group, the Minangkabau people frequently ranked as the third in number after the Javanese and Sundanese people (in the

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first main group the Minangkabau were fourth after the Javanese, Sundanese and Maduranese). The Minangkabau were represented in each of the sub-groups of the first main group (State Administration). The five in Public Administration worked as civil servants in three governmental institutions, namely Shomin Ginko (People’s Bank) in Jakarta, Naimubu (Department of Internal Affairs) in Jakarta, and Shucho (Residency Office) in Cirebon. The one Minangkabau in Civil Service worked in Tukubetsu Shicho Joyaku (Assistant Mayor of the Special City) in Jakarta. The four representatives in Financial Affairs worked as employees in the state treasure bureau, custom office, and financial office in the Department of Health. The representative in Domestic Security worked as Nikyu Keishi (Police Commissioner Class Two) in Bandung Dai 1 Keisatsusho (Bandung Police Station 1). And the eleven in The Courts worked as Judges of Keizai Hoin (Economic Affairs Court), Judge of Chiho Hoin (Local Court), Shoki Keizai Hoin (Secretary of Economic Affairs Court), and Koto Hoin Shoki (Secretary of the High Court). In the second main group (Economic Affairs), the Minangkabau were not found in the sub-group of Forestry Sector. Those who worked in other subgroups were: Agriculture Sector (2), one was a researcher in the agricultural research center while the other one was the agricultural supervisor in Bogor; Husbandry and Fishery (9), all of them worked in the field of husbandry (in husbandry clinics and husbandry research centers throughout Java); Handicraft Sector (2), one was the owner of a metal processing firm and the other, worked as supervisor in an oil mine; Transportation Affairs (2), one worked in land transportation bureau and the other, in post, telephone and telegraph office; Technical Affairs (4), all four worked in public works (road, land measuring, and

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water system offices); Trading Activities (5), they were owners of export-import trading companies and other shops; Financial Sector or Banks and Pawnshops (1), worked in the Jakarta’s Pawnshop service; Association to Promote National Economy/ APNE (3), they worked as members of the executive board of the Indonesian Shop Owners Association and board of directors of the Indonesian Brokers Association. Except for subgroup Cultural Affairs, the Minangkabau featured in all the other subgroups of the third main-group (The Others or Non-State Administration and Non-Economic Group Affairs) of occupations during the Japanese Period. They were actively involved in the Information Services (7) particularly as employees in the Japanese information bureaus, authors in Balai Pustaka (national official publisher), journalists and editorial staff in several newspapers in Jakarta; in the Legal Aid Service (1) as lawyer; in the Public Health Services (56) as workers in state hospitals throughout Java, private medical practitioners, or as lecturers in medicine schools or universities in Jakarta and Surabaya; in the Education Affairs (6) as teachers and employees in the national education bureau (as student handbooks authors); in the Religion Affairs (6) as Muslim (Minangkabau is identical with the Islam) and members of MIAI (Supreme Islamic Council of Indonesia, federation of Muslim organizations) or as Islamic teachers in two secondary Islamic Schools; in the Political and Labor Affairs (6) as members of Chuo Sangiin (Central Advisory Council) and Jawa Hokokai Hokokaigi Fukugischo (Vice-Secretary of the Java Service Association Council), advisors to the Sendenbu Sendenka (Publicity Section within the Publicity Department), employees of Sendenbu-sendenka, employees of Tokubetu-Si (Special City) and former Dutch civil service; in the Women and Welfare Affairs (3) as teachers in the maid schools and “free-men;” and in the Youth and Sports Affairs (2) as sport trainers.

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In all, the majority of the Minangkabau in Java were government employees or civil servants. They were always known as government employees or civil servants in the colonial era; they continued in this profession during the Japanese Occupation, according to the OITD. Both the Dutch and Japanese needed help from well educated people in running their governments. There were two other reasons why so many Minangkabau people served as governmental employees or civil servants; first, the Minangkabau region was a well known civil servants producer since the Dutch era; and second, the Minangkabau considered the civil service as a high-status occupation. Civil servants were held in high esteem in the same manner as medical doctors, sub-district heads, prosecutors, lawyers, school teachers, among others. A Minangkabau “three eras” teacher (who lived and served as a teacher in the Dutch, Japanese and Indonesia periods) testified to this in his diary. He claimed, “in traditional Minangkabau society a man with penghulu (adat leader) or ulama (Islamic teacher) titles received high respect from the people, but in the modern Minangkabau society, a medical doctor, sub-district head, prosecutor, lawyer and school teacher received high respect from the people. Parents of a maiden (marriageable women) would be very eager to have such men as possible sonsin-law.” There were only a small number of Minangkabau prominent people who worked in the private sector—they were either in the Japanese private firms or associated with private companies in the export-import industry, workshop industry, textile industry, husbandry, and private medical practice. The limited number of Minangkabau involved in the private sector reflected the relatively stagnant status of the private sector at that time, i.e. the wartime era.

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Residential Places Based on the data offered by the OITD, the Minangkabau lived in 26 cities/ regions in Java. They lived in Serang, Jakarta, Bogor, Cianjur, Sukabumi, Bandung, Kerawang, Cirebon, Pekalongan, Semarang, Solo, Yogyakarta, Magelang, Kutoarjo, Banyumas, Tuban, Surabaya, Pare, Sidoarjo, Pasuruan, Probolinggo, Bondowoso, Jember, Malang, Banyuwangi, and Pamekasan. They lived in almost all the important cities and regions — from the westernmost to the easternmost areas of Java. Among the twenty one sub-groups of occupation in the OITD, the Public Health Service, the Court, and Husbandry contributed the most to the spread of the Minangkabau in Java. Workers in the Public Health Service lived in 12 cities/region; those in the Court lived in the 10 cities/regions; and those in the Husbandry sector lived in 9 cities/regions. The Minangkabau workers in the other sub-groups lived in about 1 to 5 cities/regions.

Map 1 Residential Places of the Minangkabau People in Java

The biggest number of Minangkabau people (63) lived in Jakarta, the

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capital of the late “Hindia Belanda” as well as the 16th Japanese Army and, by far, the largest city with the heavy concentration of governmental, political, social, educational and cultural institutions. The majority of the Minangkabau in Jakarta worked as civil servants. A small number of them worked in the private sector. The Minangkabau in the Public Health Services were 24; in the Political and Labor Affairs, seven; in the Civil Services, four; and in the other sectors, between three and one. The city with the second largest concentration of prominent Minangkabau was Surabaya. Ten of thirteen worked in the Public Health Service, the remaining three worked in the Court, Husbandry, and Education Affairs. The other cities which followed Surabaya were Semarang, Bogor, Cianjur, and Bandung. Their numbers in those cities (regions) ranged from seven to one. Most judges, as in Jakarta, worked as civil servants or worked in the private sector (especially medical private practice). Many Minangkabau medical doctors lived in the big cities (like Jakarta, Surabaya, and Semarang) due to the relatively good condition of economic life there. These cities were populated by numerous rich men who were very concerned with their health. They often visited doctors to get examined or obtain medicine; and they were known to prefer private doctors to the public health service, making the private medical practice there a lucrative sector. This “habit” brought a fortune to private medical doctors, a phenomenon that had been occurring since the Dutch colonial period. A. Rivai and Moh. Djamil attested, for instance, that they accumulated copious amounts of money since they opened a private medical practice in big cities during Dutch era. A similar trend also happened in the Japanese time.28 The dispersion of Minangkabau people in Java during the Japanese Period was, in fact, a legacy of the Dutch colonial period. As had already been

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established, since the beginning of the 20th century, many Minangkabau young men went to Java to continue their education. They studied not only in Jakarta, but also in several other cities/regions such as Bandung, Semarang, Solo, Surakarta, Yogyakarta, and Surabaya. When they are done with their studies, they worked in those cities/regions or became civil servants in several cities and regions. The Dutch government intentionally distributed favors among and rotated their civil servants so that they served only short periods in any city or region. This policy reduced their chances of building up personal powerbases and particularly caused the dispersed nature of the concentration of Minangkabau communities across Java.29

Activities Prior to the Japanese Period With ‘activities’ we refer to two issues here: firstly, the occupation (or the main source for living); and secondly, the social and political preoccupation, meaning actions that did not provide financial benefits. The OITD showed that prominent Minangkabaus had many preoccupations in the pre-Japanese period. Most of their activities were unrelated with the jobs they had in the Japanese time. There are two interesting things about the Minangkabaus and their jobs in the Dutch era. First, a great number of them worked in many kinds of activities; they easily hopped from one job to another. Second, in relation to the first phenomenon, they lived in many cities or region. Two good examples are the experiences of St. Syahbuddin and Rustam gelar St. Palindih. The OITD listed St. Palindih under the sub-group of Public Administration. From 1916 to 1917 he worked as aspirant landbouwleraar (teaching staff assistant in the agricultural school) in Lubuk Sikaping (Pasaman-West

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Sumatera); in 1917 to 1921, as aspirant landbouwleraar (teaching staff assistant in the agricultural school) in Bogor (West Java), in 1921 to 1923, as ambtenaar ter beschikking (assigned civil servant) and was detailed to the Tapanuli Residency Government, while also acting as a member of magistraat (local government body) and beedigd subsituut griffier (sworn substitute secretary of local government) in Sibolga (Tapanuli); in 1925 to 1926, as sub-district head (and a member of magistraat) in Lampung; in 1926 to 1938, as regenstchaps secretaris (district secretary) for the regions of Kuningan, Bandung, Indramayu, Cianjur, and Jakarta; in 1938 to 1942, as hoofd commies (head of administration affairs) in Cirebon Residency in Cirebon (West Java).30 Rustam gelar Sutan Palindih in the OITD is registered under the subgroup Association to Promote National Economy/ APNE. He had 23 jobs in five cities (regions). His long “journey” started in 1918 to 1919 as a lowly klerk (office clerk) in the coal mine in Sawahlunto (West Sumatra); in 1920 to 1922 he became the daggelder (temporarily worker) in the post office in Padang (West Sumatra), the owner of flower shop “Cultuur” in Jakarta, the owner of flower garden “Den Oord” in Patjet, Cianjur (West Java), a worker in “Evolutie” Printing House in Djakarta; in 1922 he became a member of editorial staff of Balai Pustaka (Governmental Printing House) in Jakarta; from 1923 to 1924 he was an editorial staff member of the Neratja newspaper while also serving as the vice director of “Evolutie” Printing House in Jakarta; in 1925 he was the owner of a bookstore in Jakarta; in 1926 he was the supervisor of “Indonesia Maatschappij,” a life insurance firm in Bandung; from 1927 to 1929, he served as a supervisor of a coffee plantation in Payakumbuh (West Sumatra); in 1930, editorial staff member of the Radio newspaper in Padang. From 1931 to 1932, he became the vice director of “N.V. Volkdrukkerij,” a printing house in Padang, he founded Berita, a daily in Padang while serving as the local head of editorial

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staff of Aneta (news agency which had its headquarter in Jakarta), published Hang Tuah magazine and taught in Islamic College in Padang; at the end of 1932, he worked again as a member of the editorial staff in Berita newspaper in Padang; in 1933, as the head of editorial staff of Sinar Sumatra daily in Padang; from 1934 to 1935, as the publisher and owner of the Persamaan daily in Padang; in 1936, as a journalist of Sumatra Bode newspaper and head of the editorial staff of Radio daily in Padang; in 1939 to 1942, as an editorial staff member of Suara Nirom in Jakarta; and in March 1942, as the owner of two restaurants in Jakarta, i.e. “Waroeng Besar Kita” and “Waroeng Kita”. In addition he was a member of local legislative councils (Gemeente Raad) in Jakarta (1924) and Padang (1938).31 A large number of Minangkabau people in the OITD had similar experiences with St. Sahbuddin and Rustam gelar Palindih. Only a few of them worked only in one or two institutions in one or two cities or regions (save for some young workers who held jobs in the last years of the Dutch colonial era). The great mobility and frequent change of jobs was brought about partly by Dutch colonial policy of rotating civil servants. The availability of many kinds of jobs in many cities/region and the Dutch government civil servant placement policy made it relatively easy for well educated people to secure positions. As was already established, the Dutch government checked the development of a close relationship between its civil servants in its apparatus with local people and the possible misuse of their position (corruption). The OITD also pointed out that many prominent Minangkabaus (32 persons) were involved actively in writing. Apart from being mainly medical doctors and veterinarians, they wrote academic articles and books. Almost all of the articles were written in the Dutch language and published in Dutch academic journals. The books--like novels, memoirs, popular books--were

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written in the Indonesian language and published in Indonesia. The two most prolific authors were Achmad Muchtar (50 publications)32 and Ahmad Ramali gelar Sutan Lembang Alam (16 publications).33 The other authors wrote novels and other non-academic works. Some of the most famous authors were Nur Sutan Iskandar (the author of Hulubalang Raja), Marah Rusli (the author of Siti Nurbaya), and Abdul Muis (the author of Salah Asuhan). In addition, there were several others who could not be separated from the development of the Indonesian history of literature, especially the history of the well-known Balai Pustaka and Pujangga Baru. As noted above, the OITD documented the participation of many Minangkabau in the world of mass-media. Some have been instrumental in the founding of newspapers and magazines while others have worked as journalists. Today the history of the Indonesian mass-media attests that the Minangkabau people have been involved in the press since the late 19th century. There were more than 42 newspapers and magazines which were published in West Sumatra by the Minangkabau until the 1930s. In addition the Minangkabau founded and published about 8 newspapers and magazines in other regions, for example in East Sumatra and Java.34 There were only 54 prominent Minangkabau people who provided information on their social and political activities in the Dutch era in the OITD. Almost all of the well-educated (Minangkabau eminent people) in the pre-Japanese period were members of many kinds of social and political organizations; in fact, several of them were even the founders of those organizations. Social and political organizations in Indonesia were founded in great numbers and ‘appeared like mushrooms in the rainy season’, as Abdullah said (1970), since the second decade of the 20th century. Only a small number

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of Minangkabaus gave information about their involvement in the social and political organization in the pre-Japanese period. The most likely reason why many Minangkabau were reticent about giving information on their prior involvement in social and political organizations was their apprehension of the possible consequences of such during the Japanese period. They were distrustful of those who collected information about a person’s nationalist inclinations or Dutch connections. Accusations of being nationalist or having close Dutch connections could lead to severe punishment, even death.35 The small amount of information they gave about themselves were apolitical and about “safe” activities that would not draw unwanted attention from the Japanese army. Examples included cultural activities, involvement in charities or sport, membership with professional organization. Some Minangkabaus were more daring and listed political organization they once belonged to such as the JSB (Jong Sumatranen Bond: Sumatran Youth Organization), JIB (Jong Islamieten Bond: Islamich Youth Organization), PPI, (Persatuan Pemuda Indonesia/Indonesian Youth Association), and PPII (Persatuan Pemuda Islam Indonesia/Indonesian Islamic Student Association). There were only six individuals who dared to list their past political parties: Permi (Persatuan Muslim Indonesia/Indonesian Moslem Association), SI (Syarekat Islam/Islamic Union), PSII (Partai Syarekat Islam Indonesia/Party of the Indonesian Islamic Union), PNI (Indonesian Nationalist Party), and Parindra (Greater Indonesia Party). Interestingly no one mentioned the banned PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia/Indonesian Communist Party).

Villages of Origin in West Sumatra In this article we posit that the villages of origin of prominent Minangkabau in

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Java during Japanese time are the villages where they were born in West Sumatra. Almost all of the Minangkabau people in the 19th century and in the beginning of the 20th century were born in their own villages. Only a small number were born outside their villages—among the 167 Minangkabau people in OITD only three were not born in their native villages. Giving birth to a child in their own village was an honorable thing for a Minangkabau couple. Giving birth in their own village had many advantages, i.e. the mother of the baby will be helped by the family at a critical time (especially at baby’s birth and its first days of existence), and the father of the baby could continue his work during this phase. Because of this many Minangkabau couples preferred that their babies be born in their own village.36 We found complete information on the birthplaces of the Minangkabau people in the OITD. The book mentioned 23 villages of origin, including Koto Gadang, Bukittinggi, Payakumbuh, Solok, Padang Panjang, Maninjau, Muara Labuh, Sijunjung, Talawi, Matur, Batusangkar, Sungai Puar, Bonjol, Suliki, Singkarak, Sulit Air, Alahan Panjang, Sumpur, Padang, Pariaman, Painan, Balai Selasa, and Air Haji. Geographically, the aforementioned villages could be divided into two main regions: first, the interior region, which covers eighteen villages, and second, the coastal region, which covers the five others. Upon close study we conclude that most prominent Minangkabau people in Java during Japanese time originated from the interior region. Two of three villages which produced prominent people in the greatest numbers also lived in the interior region. These villages were Koto Gadang and Bukittinggi. The number of prominent Minangkabau people from every village

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were as follows: Koto Gadang (37), Bukittinggi (22), Padang (22), Payakumbuh (9), Pariaman (7), Solok (6), Padangpanjang (4), Maninjau (3), Muara Labuh (3), Painan (3), Sijunjung (2), Talawi (2), Matur (2), Batu Sangkar (2), Sungai Puar (2), Balai Selasa (2), Bonjol (2), Suliki (2), Singkarak (1), Sulit Air (1), Alahan Panjang (1), Sumpur (1), Air Haji (1). There are several reasons that made the interior region a great producer of educated people. Many western education schools, from the elementary schools to secondary schools, were founded in the interior area. In contrast to the people at the coast, the people at the interior could have also been more responsive to the educational opportunities offered by the Dutch. They found a solution to Dutch discriminatory policies on education in modern Islamic schools (the colonial government limited and prohibited the children of the common folk to go to state schools). The people from the interior were forced to overcome several social and economic problems that whipped them. Higher learning was a solution to those problems—a degree from a higher school equated with ease at getting a job. Good job means good salary; someone with a good job and a good salary received higher respect from the people.37 Authors Amran and Djaja also noted other reasons why many prominent people came from a certain village in West Sumatra. Two of them were: first, the Dutch colonial government took a special interest in a certain village; and second, the people of this village practiced “collusion” and “nepotism” in the entrance test in schools where the villagers played important roles or in the recruitment of new governmental employees, as practiced by the villagers of Koto Gadang.38

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Epilogue There were 137 Minangkabau people in the OITD. This number—of course— did not cover all of the Minangkabau people in Java, who fulfilled the criteria of prominent people according to the Gunseikanbu. We believe that other Minangkabaus fulfilled the criteria of being prominent, but their names did not appear in the OITD. “Forgotten” names include Sultan Syahrir, Tan Malaka, and Djamaluddin Tamin. These figures were not included in the OITD--probably due to their political background and ideology. These traits made them unattractive to the Japanese government (Tan Malaka was listed by the Japanese as a “wanted” person). That the Minangkabau people were only behind the Javanese and Sundanese among the prominent people listed in the OITD meant that the Minangkabau region contributed to the growth of prominent people in Indonesia in general and in outer Java region in particular. The national awakening, concentrated in Java, is inseparable from well-educated Minangkabau young men. The foundation and action of most social and political organizations, from Jong Sumatranen Bond, Jong Islamieten Bond, Sumpah Pemuda, Syarekat Islam, PKI, PNI, Volksraad to Balai Pustaka and Pujangga Baru could also not be separated from the involvement of the Minangkabau people. The important role of the Minangkabau people continued in the revolutionary era (1945-1949). One of two proclaimers of the Indonesian independence was a Minangkabau (Mohammad Hatta). Hatta acted also as the first Indonesian Vice President. In that era the Minangkabau also placed two of his “best sons” as Indonesian Prime Minister, i.e. Sultan Syarir and Mohammad Hatta (Syahrir even acted as Indonesian PM three times and Hatta twice). Ten of eminent Minangkabau served as ministers in eight cabinets from 1945

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to 1949. One Minangkabau served in every cabinet at that period. When RIS (Republik Indonesia Serikat/ Republic of the United States of Indonesia) was founded (20 December 1949 - 6 September 1950), a Minangkabau was elected as its PM (Hatta); and one other Minangkabau was also elected as the President of Republic of Indonesia in Yogyakarta (A. Halim). The influence of prominent Minangkabaus was also significant in the outer islands of Indonesia, where they worked as civil servants, teachers, medical doctors, judges, and administrators and were involved in social and political activities. Some examples are A. K. Gani who was the Resident of Palembang, Hazairin and acted as Resident of Bengkulu, and Natar Zainuddin who was a member of the Regional Legislative Council of East Sumatra and many others. The influence of the Minangkabau people remained important in the social, political, economic, and cultural life of Indonesia during the 1950s. Mohammad Hatta was still the Vice President of Indonesia. Mohammad Natsir, the first Prime Minister of one of the early cabinets in the 1950s (6 September 1950-27 April 1951) was also a Minangkabau. In addition, Minangkabaus held numerous high positions in the government as ministers, members of national house of representative, Indonesian overseas envoys; and were also owners of several big export-import companies, well known journalists, famous authors, influential Islamic teachers and even high-ranking officers. American scholar Willard, hence, claimed that the Minangkabau was the most influential ethnic group in Indonesia in the 1950s.39 This changed from the 1960s onwards, however. The Minangkabau people in Java multiplied significantly, but their influence in the social, political, economic, and cultural aspects of the island decreased tremendously. In contrast, previously marginalized ethnic groups like the Batak/ Tapanuli, Bugis and Makasar from South Sulawesi, Minahasas (North Sulawesi)

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and Malukans successfully overtook the position of the Minangkabau. They held a great number of important, formerly held positions of the Minangkabau in the government. Why did this happen? The decline of the Minangkabau role in Indonesian history is directly related to the PRRI (Pemerintah Revolusioner Republik Indonesia/Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia), a Sumatra-based movement that aimed to establish a conservative, national government in place of Indonesia’s guided democracy. A great number of prominent Minangkabau were involved in this rebellion. The start of their movement could be traced back to the dismantling of the military unit in Central Sumatra, from the level of division to brigade in the last years of the revolution era. In addition, the central government in Jakarta limited the development budget of Central Sumatra, neglected the nominations of the Central Sumatra Legislative Assembly, and appointed a Javanese bureaucrat—Ruslan Mulyohardjo—as Acting of Governor of the province. Meanwhile, in the national political stage the Communist Party of Indonesia started to develop. Regional military commanders became discontented with the national army chief, who in an attempt to strengthen military discipline and limit corruption, transferred officers from their home bases. Moreover, in the latter half of the 1950s, political polarization characterized national politics. The coalition of Sukarno, the PNI, NU, and PKI (all based in Java) became increasingly powerful, at the expense of Masyumi (Consultative Council of Indonesian Muslims) Party and outer Javanese powers. On 20 December 1956, West Sumatran military commander Ahmad Husein took the provincial government and proclaimed himself as the regional head (ketua daerah). He found “Dewan Banteng Government” which handled

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all civil and military affairs in this province.40 On 10 February 1958 the rebels issued an ultimatum, demanding that Sukarno withdrew from the presidency, Mohammad Hatta form a new cabinet, and General Nasution be dismissed as the highest military commander. Jakarta ignored this ultimatum. Five days later the PRRI proclaimed its cabinet. In the meantime some national politicians, who were also Minangkabau, joined this movement. The central government in Jakarta used military action against this rebellion and restricted the Minangkabau from holding the highest positions in several civil and military institutions nationally. After the movement the PRRI was suppressed, the military regional government of West Sumatra proceeded to unfairly treat Minangkabau sympathizers. In order to leave these bad experiences behind many left their native villages; and Jakarta was the one their exodus goal region. In contrast to the “exodus” to Java in the late 19th century or early 20th century, however, most of the 1960s Minangkabau migrants to Java sought safety from military abuse. They were not as well educated and merely aimed to make a living in every occupational field. The fallout from the PRRI rebellion, as the aforementioned factors illustrated, were the reasons why the Minangkabau people lost their role in the national history stage. This tendency is still going on. Weather the Minangkabau prominence in the past--at least as shown in the Japanese period–would reoccur remains a question. This is a complex problem and, hence, not so easy to answer.

Endnotes 1 Orang Indonesia jang Terkemoeka di Djawa (Java: Gunseikanbu [the Japanese Army Information Services], 1944), vii-xii. 2 See: Muchtar Naim, Merantau: Pola Migrasi Suku Minangkabau, (Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press, 1977); Tsuyoshi Kato, Matriliny and Migration: Evolving Minangkabau Traditions in Indonesia (Ithaca and London: Cornell university Press, 1982).

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3 The cultural region of Minangkabau is identical with the administrative unit of today’s West Sumatra Province, which was the Nishi Kaigan Shu in the Japanese period or Residentie van Sumatra’s Westkust in the Netherlands East Indië era. 4 OITD, p. 5. 5 The curriculum vitae of these prominent people covered 488 pages of the OITD. 6 There were 3,322 names in the OITD. However, several names appeared many times in different sub-groups of occupations. For example, Mohammad Hatta appeared three times, Hussein Djajadiningrat appeared three times, Sanusi Pane appeared twice, Mohammad Yamin appeared twice and many others. As such there are only 3,009 names in a special field of occupation. All of these names can be found in pages 507 to 556 of the OITD. 7 Native region here means the administrative unit (region) where someone originated (in many cases administrative unit [region], at the level of residency or province, is identical with an ethnic group’s region), and ethnic group means the ethnicity or the cultural (ethnic group) region. 8 Similar information could be seen in Volkstelling 1930, especially in Book IV and V. 9 A relatively complete information about the names and the traditional titles in Indonesia could be found in Encyclopaedie van Nederlands-Indië (Vol. III; IV) (1919: 1-4; 1921: 361-66). 10 Even though their mother or father might have belonged with an Indonesian ethnic group, Eurasians are not categorized as a member of a certain administrative region or a particular ethnic group in this article. They are referred to as ‘Indos.’ 11 Literally rantau means “shoreline,” “reaches of a river,” and “abroad.” But in Minangkabau rantau particularly refers to areas outside of the darek, the heartland of the Minangkabau cultural region. Kato, Matriliny and Migration, p. 78. 12 Taufik Abdullah, “Minangkabau 1900-1927: Preliminary Studies in Social Development,” MA thesis, Cornell University, 1967, pp. 59, 65-69; Naim, Merantau, pp. 57-95; Kato, Matriliny and Migration, pp. 78-86. 13 Monografi Adat Sumatera Tengah (Bukittinggi: Jawatan Penerangan Provinsi Sumatera Tengah, 1953). 14

H. Datoek Toeah, Tambo Alam Minangkabau. 12th Edition, (Bukittinggi:

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Pustaka Indonesia, 1985), pp. 55-58; A.M. Maruhum Batuah and D.H. Bagintdo Tanameh, Hukum Adat dan Adat Minangkabau: Luhak nan Tiga, Laras nan Dua (Djakarta: Poesaka Asli, 1956), pp. 1-2; Ahmad Dt. Batuah and A. Dt. Madjoindo, Tambo Minangkabau (Djakarta: Balai Pustaka, 1956), pp. 13-19. 15 Toeah, Tambo Alam Minangkabau, pp. 108-32; Maruhum Batuah, Hukum Adat dan Adat Minangkabau, pp. 37-40; Naim, Merantau, pp. 61-73; Kato, Matriliny and Migration, pp. 78-94. 16

The migration itself could be considered as “traditional migration.”

17 Monografi Adat Sumatera Tengah. 18

Kato, Matriliy and Migration, p. 48.

19 Gusti Asnan, “Cerita Rakyat dan Mitologi Laut Masyarakat Pesisir Sumatera Barat,” Unpublished Study, (Padang: University of Andalas Research Center, 2001), p. 12. 20 Gusti Asnan, Dunia Maritim Pantai Barat Sumatera (Yogyakarta: Ombak, 2007), pp. 3-9. 21 The Dutch government called it Koffee Cultuurstelsel, a system of coffee deliveries that required every family to plant and take care of as many as 250 coffee trees. Families were also compelled to process the coffee kernels and bring them to governmental storehouses, where their produce was exchanged at a very low price. This system was introduced in 1847 and abolished in 1908. See: C. Lulofs, “Koffiecultuur en Belasting ter Sumatra’s Westkust,” Indische Gids 26 (II), 1904; Mestika Zed, “Melayu Kopi Daun: Eksploitasi Ekonomi Kolonial Belanda di Sumatera Barat, 1847-1908,” M.A. Thesis, University of Indonesia, 1983. 22 Elizabeth E. Graves, The Minangkabau Response to Dutch Colonial Rule in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Cornell University Press, 1981), pp. vii-ix; Sejarah Pendidikan di Indonesia (Jakarta: Dep. P dan K, 1980/1981), 72ff. 23 Graves, The Minangkabau Response to Dutch Colonial Rule, 77ff; Asnan, Dunia Maritim Pantai Barat Sumatera, pp. 80-104. 24 Gusti Asnan, “Perantauan Orang Minangkabau ke Malaysia,” Paper presented at the “Indonesia-Malaysia: Geografi Melayu dalam Perspektif Budaya,” Padang, 10 September 2007, pp. 274-84. 25 The harbor of Teluk Bayur and the ships that departed and arrived there were especially meaningful among Minangkabau students. This meaning is inscribed in a song. Entitled “Teluk Bayur” and sung by Erny Djohan, a stanza of the song goes as:

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Selamat tinggal Teluk Bayur permai Ku kan pergi jauh ke negeri seberang Mencari ilmu di negeri orang Bekal hidup kelak di hari tua

26 OITD, p. 5. 27 Sejarah Pendidikan, pp. 90-99, 111-121. 28 Parada Harahap, Riwajat Dr. A. Rivai (Medan: Handel Mij. Indische Drukerij, 1939), pp. 5-13; Gusti Asnan, Pemerintahan Sumatera Barat: Dari VOC Hinga Reformasi (Yogyakarta: Citra Pustaka, 2006), pp. 5-51. 29 Sofyan Aman (ed.), Kiprah Perantau Minang di Malang Jawa Timur (Malang: Yayasan Tuanku Imam Bonjol, 2007), p. 19, 31-ff; Ed Zoelverdi (ed.), Siapa Mengapa Sejumlah Orang Minang (Jakarta: BK3AM, 1995), pp. 15-16. 30 OITD, p. 14. 31 OITD, pp. 273-274. 32 Ahmad Muchtar was born in Bonjol in 1891. He got his Ph.D. in medicine from the University of Amsterdam in 1927, and from April 1943 he served as a Professor in Ika Dai Gakku (University of Medicine) in Jakarta. 33 Ahmad Ramali gelar Soetan Lembang Alam was born in Bonjol in 1903. He received his medical degree from the University of Medicine in Jakarta in 1929, and since 1942, acted as governmental doctor in Jakarta’s Hospital. 34

Asnan, Dunia Maritim Pantai Barat Sumatera.

35 p. 78.

Ishak Taher, “Kisah Orang Tua Kami,” Unpublished Manuscript, n.d.,

36 Tamar Djaja, Rohana Kudus: Srikandi Indonesia (Jakarta: Mutuara, 1980), pp. 26-28. 37 Abdullah, “Minankabau 1900-1927,” 43ff; Christine Dobbin, Islamic Revivalism in a Changing Peasant Economy: Central Sumatra 1784-1847 (Malmo: Curzon Press, 1983), 241ff; Graves, The Minangkabau Response, 77ff; Rusli Amran, Sumatera Barat Plakat Panjang (Jakarta: Sinar Harapan, 1985), 150ff.

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38 Amran, Sumatera Barat, pp. 170-74; Djaja, Rohana Kundus, 12-6. 39 Willard A. Hanna, “The Role of Minangkabau in Contemporary Indonesia,” American Universities Field Staff Reports 3, WAH-2’59, 1959, pp. 3-4. 40 The position of the governor and the apparatus of provincial government were symbolic and so do not signify political power.

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ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Gusti Asnan is a lecturer at the Department of History and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Andalas Padang, Indonesia. He was born in Lubuk Sikaping, West Sumatra on August 12, 1962. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Andalas and Dr. phil. from University of Bremen, Germany. Some of his books and articles include Adabiah: Perintis Pendidikan Moderen di Sumatera Barat (2013), Penetrasi Lewat Laut: Kapal-Kapal Jepang di Indonesia Sebelum 1942 (2011), Memikir Ulang Regionalisme: Sumatera Barat Tahun 1950an (2007), “’Faktor Jawa’ dan Kecemburuan Sosial di Daerah: Sumatra Barat Tahun 1950-an” (2013), “Persaingan di Pantai Barat Sumatera” (2012), “Sumatra’s Regional Government” (2010).

Cecilia S. De La Paz is an Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Art Studies, College of Arts and Letters, UP Diliman. She holds a MA in Art History (1993) and PhD in Philippine Studies (2011) from UP. She is the coauthor of 3 textbooks on the arts and the humanities and has published articles for academic journals dealing with cultural studies on Asia, particularly on the relationship of museums, local cultural research and communities, as well as the study of religious sculptures through performativity and material religion. Her advocacy includes the promotion of culture and arts education in the Philippines through both government (NCCA and CCP) and non-government organizations, such as Baglan Art and Culture Initiatives and Dalubhasaan sa Edukasyon at Kultura or DESK. She was a fellow with the Salzburg Global Seminar (2011) and Asian Public Intellectuals of the Nippon Foundation (2001) for her work on participatory community museums.

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ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Lino L. Dizon is presently a Professor of Philippine Studies and History at the Tarlac State University, where he is also the Director of its Center for Tarlaqueño Studies. He holds a PhD in Philippine Studies from the University of the Philippines – Diliman and serves as a Writer-in-Residence of De La Salle University – Dasmariñas. He is the author of more than a dozen books on local history and culture. He was a Fulbright Research Fellow for 2010-2011 at Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Ferdinand Victoria obtained his degree in history at the University of the Philippines-Diliman. He worked with the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs and served as Vice Consul to the Philippine Consulate General in Sydney, Australia from 2003 to 2008. A Certified Paralegal, he is a member of the National Association of Legal Assistants (NALA), the umbrella organization of paralegals/legal assistants in the United States.

Saliba B. James is a Professor of History at the University of Maiduguri, Nigeria. He obtained his Ph.D in Philippine History in 1995 and teaches Asian history in Maiduguri. He was formerly the Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Arts.

Portia L. Reyes is a faculty member of the Department of History at the National University of Singapore. She obtained her B.A. and M.A. in history at the University of the Philippines and her Dr.phil. at the Universität Bremen in Germany. She co-authored A New History of Southeast Asia (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and wrote Panahon at Pagsasalaysay ni Pedro Paterno, 1858-1911: Isang Pag-aaral sa Intelektuwalismo (Lunsod Quezon: BAKAS at Vibal Foundation, Inc., 2011).

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Marlies Spiecker Salazar is one of the respected authorities on Philippine linguistics. She is the author of Perspectives on Philippine Languages – Five Centuries of European Scholarship (Quezon City: 2012), which has recently received the National Book Award; European Studies on Philippine Languages (Quezon City: 1989); Franz Carl Alter: A Comparative Dictionary of Tagalog (Quezon City: 1981); and German for Filipinos (Manila: 1973). She was trained at the Freie Universität Berlin, Sorbonne, Ecole Nationale des Langues Orientales Vivantes, Leiden University and University of the Philippines. Her research languages include German, English, French, Russian, Filipino, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Indonesian and Latin. She is married to Professor Zeus Salazar since 1960.

Wilfried Wagner is Professor Emeritus with the Institute of History, Comparative Overseas History at the University of Bremen, Germany. He specializes in Asia-Pacific Studies, History of European Expansion, Colonial History and Mission History. He spent several years of field research in Southeast Asia; and held several Visiting Professorships in the region, including a year at the University of the Philippines Diliman and in China.