The triumph of tagalog and the dominance of the discourse on english language politics in the philippines during the american colonial period 6

Santos is just too aware of the translator’s role in bringing a whole new culture and way of thinking to the common Filipino people: Lumabas nga noon ang mga mananagalog at mamamahayag s

CHAPTER SIX

MULING PAGSILANG, 1903-1906

El Renacimeinto (and its Tagalog counterpart Muling Pagsilang) will always be

enshrined in popular, textbook Philippine history because of the famous “Aves de Rapiña” (Birds

of Prey) libel case that made easily identifiable protagonists and antagonists in the story of

anti-colonial struggle during the American period In 1908, El Renacimiento published an editorial,

written by its city editor, Fidel A Reyes Dean Worscester, one of the members of the Philippine Commission at the time, brought a suit against the newspaper as he felt the editorial alluded to him and he felt insulted by it In a much-publicized trial that lasted several years, Worcester (through the justice system that was controlled by Americans) won the case and managed to have the newspapers closed In the century since it happened, the libel case has been recounted in various books and the inclusion of its story an imperative for every Philippine history textbook The essay itself has been republished many times and the characters involved have become stereotypes of American colonialism in the Philippines: Worcester, the evil colonial official bent

on snuffing out any expressions of freedom and El Renacimiento and its writers and publishers,

the brave nationalists who stood up to America

In as much as there is truth to them, these stereotypes, however, do not tell a story that reflects the actual complexity of how the concepts of “nationalism” and “colonialism” came into play during this period

El Renacimiento/Muling Pagsilang have been characterized as brave voices that were the

“vehicles of nationalist views” during a period of suppressed nationalism390 and as “popular because of its vigorous campaign against dishonesty and corruption in the government” through its “strongly worded comments on the abuse of …unscrupulous government officials.”391

There is, however, an alternative view of El Renacimiento/Muling Pagsilang Michael

Cullinane, for example, describes them this way: “During the Guerrero392 years (1903-1907), El Renacimiento became the leading ‘radical’ newspaper the most ‘radical’ staff member was probably Lope K Santos, the editor of Muling Pagsilang.”393 Cullinane’s skepticism of the description of “radical” for the newspaper and its writers and editors comes from his analysis of the period during which the newspapers functioned as a period when interests and focus in Manila politics shifted from militant labor movements and the sedition dramas “toward the campaigns of

El Renacimiento, and a somewhat more moderate and distinctly more ilustrado style of political

propaganda.”394 Thus, Cullinane tells us “little of what the paper reported or editorialized on was radical or even particularly extreme” and that they served as “a responsible voice for its primary constituency, the ilustrado opportunists.”395

This description of El Renacimiento and Muling Pagsilang reflects the dramatic changes

in Philippine politics From 1898 onward Philippine politics was increasingly moving away the idea of revolution and armed struggle as a way toward an independent nation toward more

“democratic” models for struggle, through legislative efforts, through political negotiation, through the pen rather than the sword The height of Philippine participation in the Philippine-American war and the height of the popularity of the seditious plays lasted just a few years, until around 1905 With American hints that independence would eventually be granted, that America would tutor the Philippines in self-government and slowly hand the reigns of the country back to the Philippines (the proof of which was the institution of the Philippine Assembly in 1907), radical, anti-colonial protest slowly gave way to peaceful, even cordial negotiations for

independence This is no more dramatically illustrated than in the surrender (and betrayal) of Katipunan leader, Macario Sakay in 1906 Convinced by former labor leader Dominador Gomez

that the Philippine Assembly was the way toward independence, Sakay and his staff surrendered and were quickly arrested, tried, and executed,396

This shift would, of course, create a schism between the different meanings given to

“freedom,” “independence,” and “nationhood.” The ideas that were gaining currency during the first years of the American occupation and that were mostly borrowed from the West and initially adopted by elite nationalists, contrasted from the ideas that were generated through the Katipunan and the revolution and were held mostly by the peasant and laboring classes.397 The modern idea

of the nation as a location with definite and clearly-defined territorial boundaries, politically independent, citizens with unified aspirations and who pledged allegiance to the government and constitution, would conflict with other more organic ideas of the Philippine nation The work then of the nationalist elite during this time would have been to toggle between these two worlds

To comprehend the meaning of politics and the politics of meaning during this time, one necessarily has to consider the interplay and negotiation of meaning between these two

“factions.” This is done, for example, by Reynaldo Ileto in his study of a Tagalog awit (metrical

romance) “written” (more precisely narrated) during the Philippine-American War.398 The authorship of the awit is unknown but Ileto deduces from the author’s familiarity both with folk beliefs and his knowledge of Spanish and of anti-clerical literature that he would have been a

“rural ilustrado,” someone who occupied a middle position who was “engaged in the activity of translation, comprehending late nineteenth-century concepts of history and nation through the meaning-matrix of Tagalog, and rendering them into verses comprehensible to his audience.”399

This description might easily apply to Muling Pagsilang Though El Renacimiento, written in

Spanish and run by Western-educated elite like Guerrero, and would have had a “principal

constituency” of illustrados, as Cullinane argues, this could not have been true of Muling

396

For an explanation of Gomez’s use of particular vocabulary of the Katipunan to convince Sakay

of the legitimacy of the Philippine Assembly to fulfill the distinct Katipunan ideal of freedom (kalayaan)

see Reynaldo C Ileto, Pasyon and Revolution, 192-197

Pagsilang which was published in Tagalog which was then, most decidedly, the language of

ordinary folk Its editor, Lope K Santos, had a working class background (his father was a printer) and had gotten his education at the Normal College through a scholarship He became known as a journalist because, according to him, there were few journalists at the time writing in Tagalog He had gained a reputation because of his style, which had the “lilt of revolution” in them400 and because of this was asked to head Muling Pagsilang

Muling Pagsilang then would have been in this middle position, translating for the

popular masses the new ideas that were coming to the fore through ilustrado or western-style politics Lope K Santos himself describes this situation in his autobiography The first few years of the American occupation, he tell us, was a time when very few people knew either Spanish or English and it is during this period when people like Santos (who knew Spanish and had learned some English) became important for their ability to translate speeches, letters, directives, etc into Tagalog Santos is just too aware of the translator’s role in bringing a whole new culture and way of thinking to the common Filipino people:

Lumabas nga noon ang mga mananagalog at mamamahayag sa wikang Tagalog

at doon nila nagamit sa pagpapakilala sa bayan ang kabutihan ng bagong rehimen, ng kasamaan ng nagdaang panahoon ng mga bagong panukala at mga alituntunin na iniisip itatag sa Pilipinas , upang makilala ang iyong tinatawag na Demokrasya, at yakapin, gayundin naman ang pamahalaang Republikano.401

At that time, the Tagalog speakers and the journalist in the Tagalog language came out and were used to introduce to the nation the goodness of the new regime, the evil of the previous rulers, the new plan and objectives that they had for the Philippines, in order to introduce what is called Democracy, and for the Philippines to embrace a Republican government

The work of translation, however, cannot be seen simply as verbatim transposition of these ideas into Tagalog Ileto tells us: “In order for ‘history’ and ‘nation’ to make sense [to the Tagalog audience], popular ideas of community, of self and others, of the past and the future, and of the interaction of human and divine agency, needed to be articulated and translated into ‘modern’ yet

‘localized’ discourses.” Yet, “translation” here is not a matter of “dumbing down” the concepts Such Tagalog translations would be witness to, as Ileto tells us, “the resistance and limits of the imposition of notions of modernity in their raw, alien forms.”403 The modern notions would be remade into something quite unique and quite different from its originating idea

An additional idea has to be asserted here about the process of translation in Muling Pagsilang and particularly for the language campaign In as much as new concepts of

nationhood, progress, and modernity were disseminated to the Tagalog readership through Muling Pagsilang, so were the sentiments of the common readership about language and Tagalog and the unrelenting campaign of the Muling Pagsilang writers for Tagalog disseminated to the nationalist

elite who would soon have control of the government

"Translation" goes both ways Muling Pagsilang did operate on a rubric that was

adopting the new politics, ilustrado in character, that was shying away from radical politics and

from the meanings generated from below However, in the language issue at least, Muling

Pagsilang "translated" ideas also upward Ideas of the connection of the revolution to Tagalog

and the nation and sentiments of ordinary folk about the absolute essentialness of Tagalog were brought forward into the legitimate political realm and made a permanent part of what would eventually be Philippine national identity The importance of this cannot be underscored enough

If colonial politics were simply a matter of the imposition of the colonial will upon the colonized, then English, and only English would have been the language of the Philippines If Philippine politics were simply a matter of the nationalist elite imposing its will upon the whole Philippine population then Spanish (or maybe even English) would have been the languages of the

Philippines However, through these Tagalog language campaigns and through the tremendous popularity of the Tagalog language itself not only in the Tagalog region but throughout the

Philippines, (as witnessed by the popularity of Tagalog writers404, popular films, magazines and other forms of literature in Tagalog) Tagalog shifted from being a language under threat of

extinction to the basis of the national language not merely in name but in effect

Tagalog Under Threat

The Muling Pagsilang essays on language were of two kinds The first were the output

of an organization called the Kapulungan ng Wikang Tagalog (Convocation for the Tagalog Language), set up in September, 1903 by Lope K Santos and Faustino Aguilar The Kapulungan met regularly throughout 1903 until mid-1904 and its meetings would have a designated speaker who would talk on a variety of topics: a discussion of general ideas about language such as the reach of Tagalog throughout the country or the relation of language to culture, language

pedagogy, Tagalog literature, and Tagalog linguistics The lecture or speech would later be

published in Muling Pagsilang, sometimes over several days, in a manner that was intended for it

to be snipped out of the newspaper and folded into a pamphlet (the pages as they appeared in

Muling Pagsilang were sometimes not in order but would fall into order if collected, cut, and

folded into a pamphlet) The second kind of essay were those that were published as opinion articles Most of these were written under pseudonyms and generally were more open about making statements against the English policy and against colonialism in general These essays were also different from the essays written under the Kapulungan as they quite often referenced the revolution and Philippine nation, the Inang Bayan (mother nation) and the role of Tagalog in this nation

The tone of these essays, especially the pseudonymed essays, is decidedly emotional In them one detects an almost furious but very moving desire to save Tagalog This desire to save Tagalog was a reaction to the equally furious English policy and campaign to transform the whole Philippines into an English-speaking nation English had become an obsession for the colonial officials; it was everywhere and, as an official from Malaya observing the Philippine school systems had noted: “The curriculum on the theoretical and academic side is simple in all the courses of study The note of it is English, more English, still more English.”405 American colonial officials would even go as far as to predict the eventual demise of all the local Philippine languages.406 Given this very real threat to Tagalog, the Muling Pagsilang writers launched a

campaign that thoroughly implicated the heart, soul, mind, and body in its envisioning of the Philippine nation and of the place of Tagalog in that nation

This campaign is described here by Tagalog novelist Valeriano Hernandez using chivalric elements (bravery, strength, the quest to save, romantic love)

Ang wikang Tagalog na sadyang may sariling dangal, yaman at kaayusan, ay wari bagang nagbibigay wili sa sino mang umiirog ng tapat sa kanya at dahilan dito’y may katwirang pang hinayangan ang kanyang pagkasira at paglubog na siyang tiyak na pinaghahabol ng buong kaya, buong lakas at buong tapang ng loob nitong aming maralita nguni’t mayaman sa pagirog na pahayagan.407The Tagalog language which has an honor, a richness, and a logic seems to give enjoyment to whomever loves it truly Despite this, it has been left to sink and be destroyed This impoverished newspaper, which is however, rich in its love for it, will, with all its capability, all its strength and all its bravery, work to save it Sympathy for Tagalog and for the campaign to save it is generated by emphasizing pity and the underdog position (“left to sink and be destroyed” and “impoverished newspaper”) More importantly, though, Tagalog is quietly personified as a beloved (most likely) woman This is

done through the use (twice) of the specific word of irog instead of the more general mahal Though both terms mean “love,” the more general mahal, is used to refer to a beloved but also anything of value (mahal also means “expensive”) Irog, however, is used almost exclusively to

refer to the object of romantic love The word has an almost personal and private quality to it and the use of it brings the experience of Tagalog to a deep and intimate level Both times, the word

is used as a verb and in the first instance, umiirog, as an active verb; and thus in “whomever loves

it truly,” “sino mang umiirog ng tapat sa kanya,” the reader, while reading these lines is made to

simultaneously participate in deep and true love for Tagalog

Hernandez is a master at teasing out an emotional response, at generating excitement, and, for an inanimate concept like a language at that He managed this because he knew the tangible quality of many of its words In these lines, he describes the emotional/physical response

to the death of Tagalog:

Mamatay ang wikang Tagalog! Oh, isang bagay na nakapanglulumo, gunitain lamang.408

The death of the Tagalog language! Oh, even the thought of it makes one weak

The power in these lines is all centered on the nakapanglulumo, which cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be simply translated as “to make one weak.” Nanlumo does not mean only to

become physically weak, and is never used to express the experience of feeling faint because of a lack of food or sleep It is used only to express physical weakness brought on by emotional stress; it is most commonly used to describe the condition one feels when one is given news of the

death of a loved one It is not, however, only an emotional response as nanlumo also suggests

physical reactions such as feeling faint and feeling so weak that the knees buckle and one is

almost unable to stand All the palpable connotations that nanlumo carries with it is brought to

the discussion of Tagalog’s fate More importantly, the experience that is described when

thinking about Tagalog is both a physical and emotional one The reader is here, thinking about Tagalog, and later, by extension, the nation with heart and body

A different tact is taken by Anak-Bayan (a pseudonym meaning child of the Nation) to

drum up support for Tagalog Whereas most other Muling Pagsilang writers who were writing in

1903-04 picture Tagalog as being in need of rescuing, Anak-Bayan talks about a resurgence of Tagalog Anak-Bayan begins with describing the lowly position of Tagalog used to occupy:

Iyang sariling ari na hangang kahapon ay di natin natutunghan at naririnig kung

di lamang sa ‘Pasion,’ sa mga ‘Novena,’ sa mga ‘corrido’ at awit at sa mga noo’y pagpupulungan ng mga hamak at taga-bukid at kung nasangkap sa mga

matatandang libro, ang lahat ng ito ay pawing ukol lamang sa mga buhay buhay

ng Santo

That which is ours but which, up until yesterday, we never met with or heard unless it was in the ‘Pasion,’ in the ‘Novena’ and in the ‘corrido’ and awit (traditional metrical romances) or at the meetings of the lowly and the peasants or

in books of old that tell of the lives of the saints

The lowly position of old is established by recounting Tagalog’s folk and uncosmopolitan

character, its formerly exclusive association with the lowest elements of society, mga hamak at taga-bukid, and with folk religion and folk literature Then its resurgence:

ang sariling wikang iyan, ay napapakarurukan na ngayon sa mga dulaan, natutunghan na sa maraming pahayagan, pinalalaya na ng mga pinuno, pinagpupumilitan nang matutunan at magamit ng ibang mga bayan, pinanonood

na at pinakikingang malugod ng mga tagaritong pagsusuklam-suklam at naggagaril garilang dati

That language which is our own is now used in plays, is met with in many newspapers, is used by many leaders, is excitedly being learned and used by other nations, is respectfully watched and listened to by locals you used to despised it and could not be spoken

There is joy in reading these lines simply because it narrates a rising up, a resurrection, if you will The spirits of the reader are being lifted up simply by the positive surge that is described

and by the movement from the association of Tagalog with sullen earth (taga-bukid or “from the countryside” and hamak which is the strongest word to select to personify abject pitifulness

because it means “lowly” but also means “harmed” or “endangered”) to its association with the most respectable and intelligent symbols of society (plays, newspapers, leaders, international recognition) Anak-Bayan continues:

sa biglang sabi hindi na iilan lamang ang nagbibigay buhay sa wikang tanging kaluluwa ng ating Lahi, upang ito ay mabuhay naman magpasa walang hangan.409

In other words, it is not just a few who now give life to the language, which is the single soul of our race, so that it may live again in eternity

A reader might recognize a subtle illusion to resurrection and though Christ is never mentioned, the passage certainly suggests a connection between the Tagalog language and spirituality with

the mention of “the soul” and the idea of eternity (magpasa walang hangan) The description of

the rise of Tagalog here is a holistic one that links the aspects of the human person to that of a society: Tagalog is at first simple, and dwells within (those who are normally considered as

mindless) bodies (taga-bukid, peasants or folk practices) but then comes to be recognized by the

mind (writers, leaders) It is at that point, when the mind or those above recognize what the body

or those below have valued all along, and it is at that point of unity that the soul of the race

(which is language) may live in eternity

Unlike some of the other depictions in the Muling Pagsilang essays, the depiction here of

the simple folk and their practices is not derogatory The high position of Tagalog now is

achieved through the recognition by the more “respectable” aspects of society This is important

409

Anak-Bayan (pseudonym), “Ang Wikang Tagalog,” El Renacimiento, 16 February 1903, 1

because it is through this coming together and the fact that “it is not just a few who now give it life” that the soul (Tagalog) can live in eternity However, it used to be that “that which is ours” (emphasized twice) was recognized and respected only by the lowly; in this respect the lowly served as a kind of vanguard or originator of the idea The idea of the nation (and here also the

word used is not a modern concept of nation but lahi—the following section will discuss this

further) is the coming together of the two sectors of society through the language that originates from below

It is rather strange that the condition of Tagalog is here placed positively while all the other writers spoke about, often times in very emotional language, a fear for its demise The mystery is even more puzzling when one realizes that Anak-Bayan was one of the pseudonyms of Lope K Santos410, the moving spirit behind the Kapulungan ng Wikang Tagalog Within a seven months of writing this essay, Santos will deliver his inaugural address that launches the

Kapulungan.411 In this address, Santos harps over the near death of Tagalog and therefore the need to resuscitate it by purifying and promoting it.412 Tagalog at that point was really at a point between being strong after having gone through a resurgence but also being weak and in danger

of demise Its strength (as will be explained later) comes from the idea, forwarded by some of the

Muling Pagsilang writers, that the recent revolution had united the nation in spirit and through the

use of Tagalog during the revolution, had brought it to the fore Soon after, with the arrival of the Americans and with the implementation of the English policy, Tagalog is again under threat The fate of the language here parallels the state of the nation and the Filipino people and Tagalog under threat is a nation under threat

The call of the Kapulungan, done through their essays and answered through them as well, was a reaction to the threat to Tagalog and the local languages brought by the American

410 See Virgilio S Almario, Balagtasismo Versus Modernismo: Pamulaang Tagalog sa Ika-20

Siglo, (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1984), 49 Almario here identifies the many

pseudonyms of various authors who were writing in the early part of the century Lope K Santos,

according to Almario wrote under the pseudonyms “Anak-Bayan,” “Doktor Bejuco,” and “Katubusan.”

411

The address is published as the first of the series from the Kapulungan in September of the

same year in El Renacimiento Although El Renacimiento had a Tagalog version beginning 1903, it was only in 1904 that it received its own name, Muling Pagsilang, which also means “rebirth.”

412

See the discussion of this particular essay in the previous chapter

colonial language policy The call was for the preservation, modernization, standardization, and promotion of Tagalog This was to be done, as the essays recommended, through various venues: the writing of dictionaries and grammar books, the establishment of schools dedicated to the study of Tagalog, the writing of histories, the translation of important books from other cultures, the lobbying for the use of local languages or Tagalog as the medium of instruction, the conscious use of a more pristine Tagalog in novels, poems, and plays

Though the project of rescuing Tagalog was envisioned as a mammoth task involving much study, academic production, and political maneuvering, it was to be accomplished as well through declarations of pride in the language as Andrea Vitan, here demonstrates:

Dapat nating ikaligaya ang matuto ng Wikang Tagalog, sapagka’t ang isang taong kusang magtapon ng wikang sarili, wari’y hindi anak ng kanyang Bayan kung di nakikipamayan lamang tawad ang aking hingi, sapagka’t itoy udyok

ng nais na mapatunayang di sapala ang karangalan ng paggamit ng sariling wika.413

We should find joy in learning Tagalog because those who willingly throw away their language are not children of their nation but are merely visitors of the nation I ask for forgiveness [for my arguments] for they come from a desire to prove that there is no greater honor than to use one’s own language

The almost hyperbolic declaration here that there is great honor in doing the most mundane thing—speaking one’s own language—is symptomatic of the threat these writers felt Tagalog was

in The anomalous situation that these writers found themselves in was the situation where the most natural and ordinary parts of one’s culture was at risk of being forcibly transformed

Although the task outlined by the Kapulungan for the revival of Tagalog was centered around intellectual production (writing of books, opening of schools), Vitan here specifies that saving the language is also an emotional task: Tagalog must be approached with joy The

proposal is put forth by Vitan with some amount of shame as she asks for forgiveness for bringing

the discussion into the realm of the emotional Although the begging for forgiveness (paghingi ng tawad) and the feigning of humility are common parts of Tagalog aesthetic conventions, they

appear here to be quite sincere The project of the Kapulungan was perceived by its members as a

413

Andrea Vitan, “Kailangan pa Kayang Pag-aralan ang Wikang Sarili?”, 14

rather scientific and systematic project The attempt to appropriate a modern approach toward language would have been part of the new and larger objective of transforming Philippine society into a modern one Yet, here Vitan lets slip the impossibility of approaching one’s language purely from an intellectual perspective and hints at the relationship between Filipinos and their language as being intimately tied to their being and that the full understanding of it cannot be accomplished through the use of the mind alone

Vitan also uses a trope that is often used in Tagalog to describe one’s relationship with one’s language and inevitably one’s nation: the mother and the child The use of the image of the

mother (ina) to refer to the nation (Inang Bayan), the language (Inang Wika) and the race or heritage (Inang Lahi), common in the Tagalog language, suggests that the relationship between

the people and the nation, language, or heritage is seen as a natural, genetically-encoded one; it is also seen as a caring one when one is under the loving protection of the nation, language, or heritage The image of the mother carries with it many positive emotions (care, concern,

kindness, protection, nourishment), which become employed when used to describe the nation,

language or heritage When Vitan identifies those who throw away their language (kusang magtapon ng wikang sarili), as not being children of their nation (hindi anak ng kanyang Bayan)

she emphasizes her point by suggesting the idea of wayward children and the pain of a just exclusion and disinheritance from an imagined family The onus is not on the parent who

disinherits but on the child who has rejected the loving and natural bond

Lope K Santos also drives the point of one’s emotional connection to Tagalog in his inaugural speech:

Ito ang totoong di ko maatim, ito ang kahawa-hawala: salita ng ating mga ina ay di natin nalalaman Ipatong sa dibdib ang kanang kamay: sandali tayong makiramdam sa tibok ng puso, at saka itanong: Ilan na sa ating Tagalog ay marunong ng Wikang Tagalog?415This is the truth that I cannot accept: this is the reality: we no longer know the language

of our mothers Place your right hand on your chest: let us feel the beat of our hearts for

414

The summary report delivered by Faustino Aguilar for the Kapulungan lists decisions mode on such matters as spelling, the correct alphabet, the proper use of ng, the attitude toward foreign words, etc See Faustino Aguilar, “Ang Mga Nagawa ng Kapulungan ng Wikang Tagalog, Mula Ika-3 ng Setiembre ng

1903, Hanggan Ngayon,” Muling Pagsilang, 24 February 1904

415

Lope K Santos, “Isang Wikang Filipino,” (serialized) This quote appears in the September 9 issue

a moment, and then let us ask ourselves: How many of us Tagalog know the Tagalog language?

Here, Santos also makes use of the image of the mother and of the possibility of a separation from her However, the emotional power from these lines comes more from the use of the word

maatim (accept) which is more specific and emotionally charged than the more general word for

“accept” which is tanggap Maatim is always used only in the negative, and therefore always hindi maatim, (I cannot accept) and only used to refer to the inability to accept a painful reality and never for anything else (thus one cannot say Hindi ko maatim ang regalo, I cannot accept the

gift)

The experience of the language is emotionally charged because the language itself is emotionally charged The local languages were also under serious threat from the English policy and thus it becomes clear why the discourse on Tagalog was such: often expressing strong emotions of fear (of loss), loyalty and love When Santos commands his audience to put there hands to their chest and feel their hearts in order to find the truth about their knowledge of their language, he puts into tangible form the Tagalog’s experience of Tagalog: you feel a real

heartbeat in order to know The experience of Tagalog is physical, emotional, and intellectual, and, as we will see in the following section, the experience of Tagalog is spiritual as well

Lahi and Recent Philippine History

The key to really understanding the connection between the Tagalog language and the

idea of nationhood is in the understanding of the concept of lahi.416 The word lahi, translated for convenience to either “race” or “heritage” makes an appearance in many of the essays One

suspects that it is sometimes used interchangeably for bayan or “nation” as it is used in this 1906

essay by Taga-Danaw (a pseudonym which means “observer”) which encourages the reader to:

416

The kind of analysis used here, one that finds meaning by focusing on particular significations

of words, is similar to the kind of analysis used by Zeus Salazar to explain how the ideas of nation (nacion,

bansa, banua) and revolution (rebolusyon, himagsikan) take on particular meanings (different from that

imposed from Western culture) through a nuanced understanding of words and word origins See Z.A

Salazar, Wika ng Himagsikan, Lengguwahe ng Rebolusyon: Mga Suliranin ng Pagpapakahulugan sa

Pagbuo ng Bansa, (Quezon City: Likas, 1998)

Ibaliog ninyo ang alaala sa mga nakaraan, inyong masdan at kuruin ang ang kasalukuyan, hinaharap at haharapin, at sa pagmumuni-muni sa mga aral ni Rizal, Mabini, Bonifacio at iba pang bayani ay makikilala ninyo ang kahalagahan ng pagpapayabong ng sariling wika, na siyang tunay na Diwa ng Bayan.417Etch the past in your memory, study and learn from the present, that we face and will face, and in your reflections on the lessons of Rizal, Mabini and Bonifacio, and other heroes, you will recognize the importance of enriching our own language which is the true spirit on the nation

The author lists a number of things that should be done: see to the production of Tagalog

grammars, teach our children in the mean time that the proper books have not been written, campaign for education in our own language, etc The writer then reminds the reader:

Huwag ninyong kalimutan ang ganito, yayamang siyang totoong pangangailangan ng ikabubunyi at ikadadakila ng ating pinakairog na Lahing Pilipino

Do not forget these proposals as they are sorely needed for the pride and honor of our most beloved Philippine heritage/race

The concepts of bayan (nation) and lahi (race or heritage) here work as interchangeable ideas, the spirit of which are both found in the language The concept of nation or bayan is a more

modern concept and yet in the second quote, the work of the modern nation (education, textbook

production, legislative campaigns) are connected to bringing honor to the lahi/heritage; while in

the first quote knowledge of the past (Rizal, Mabini, Bonifacio) which more directly connects to the idea of a heritage is made to have bearing on the nation

What these essays on language evidence is the struggle in the process of creating the concept of the nation: between a new, modern concept (political sovereignty, clearly defined boundaries, a citizenry under one government) and a recent lived experience of a united struggle against a colonizer In the essays, one finds an effort to insert other meanings into this new, quickly becoming reified definition of the nation

The bond between these three concepts of language, nation, and lahi are best illustrated in

these lines from 1903:

Kung unang kailangan ng bayan ang wika, gaya baga ng kaluluwa’t buhay sa isang katawan, ay di matututulang ang wika ay siyang kaluluwa’t buhat ng Lahi,

417

Taga Danaw (pseudo.), “Pagtuturo sa Mga Anak II,” Muling Pagsilang, 12 June 1906, 1

pagka’t ang lahi ay siyang bayan: pag may lahi ay may bayan at pag may bayan

ay may lahi.418

If the nation’s first requirement is language the way a life and soul is needed by a

body, then it cannot be denied that language is the life and soul of Lahi, for lahi

is the nation: when there is lahi there is a nation and when there is a nation there

is lahi

The argument is actually quite simple: lahi and the nation are one and the same and language is it its soul Here there is no confusion in the terms The nation is found most certainly in lahi

The term lahi can correspond to any of the three following concepts “race; people of the

same ancestry” or “clan; lineage” or “breed, stock.”419 In this case it most closely resembles

“lineage” not so much in the sense of “blood relations” as much as a common historical lineage

The use of the term lahi to refer to stock, ancestry, or parentage (blood relations) is almost never

used in a wider or more general context such as it is used here When it is used in the context of ancestry and parentage, it is used in a more personal context One, for example, claims that

someone else is “ka-lahi” or related by blood The concept of lahi here also does not correspond

to the concept of “race” in the sense of “similar physical characteristic” as much as it might mean

“ethnicity or having a common language, culture, and history.” The lineage referred to in this

sense of the word lahi is not a certain genetic similarity but rather a collective knowledge and even experience of history that will tie a people together Lahi is probably a difficult terms to

translate, not only because it has many different and nuanced meaning but also because it is a word that, even when carefully translated, cannot fully convey a sense that the word carries with

it of the intimate connection of one’s identity with one’s lineage

In this quote then from Liborio Gomez, the nation is not something that is yet to happen

or to be granted; instead it is already present through a shared heritage Heritage does not

function merely as a symbol of the nation but is the nation itself in as much as language is not a symbol of the nation Life, body, and soul cannot exist separate from each other and thus the shared heritage and the language are what make the nation

The most remarkable thing about most of the references to a shared history or lahi in

these essays is that they are really a reference to a very recent but very decisive moment This moment is of course the Philippine Revolution, of which, in reference to around 1905 when these

Muling Pagsilang essays were written, was not ten years old and could therefore hardly qualify for the term often used for them: kasaysayan (history)

In this excerpt from another essay by Apo ni Kapampangan (pseudonym meaning

grandchild of someone from Pampanga or Wiseman from Pampanga), the term lahi is used in all

the senses of the word but then finally emphasizes history as the unifying factor

Bagaman tunay na ang ating Lahi, na binubuo na may mahigit na 8 angaw (miliones) na Pilipinong bihasa, ay nababahagi sa maraming angkan, gaya ng tagalog, bisaya, iloko, bikol, kapampangan, pangasinan at cagayan, hindi nararapat ipalagay na ang mga Pilipinong civilizado at cristiano ay mga tribu lamang at hindi iisang bayan

Although it is true that our Lahi, which is made up of eight million people, who

belong to many families like the tagalog, bisaya, iloko, bikol, kapampangan, pangasinan and cagayan, it is not correct to assume that the civilized Filipinos are members of tribes and not actually one nation

Here, lahi refers to people of the same ancestry, who, although they belong to different families

(different language groups) actually compose one nation The reference to the nation here,

contrasted to tribes, is the modern concept of the nation In this sense, lahi does approximate one

of the elements of the modern nation, which is a unified people The passage continues:

Tayong lahat na mga Malayo-Filipino ay galing sa iisang lahi at lugar Ang katotohanang ito’y pinagtitibay ng atin ding wagas na kasaysayan, ng atin din namang sing isang pagmumuka, sing isang kulay, at magkakawangis na kaugalian, magkakawangking mga wika o “dialekto” na pawing mga anak ng kaisa-isahang Wika sa una ng Katagalugan (Kapilipinuhang Taga-ilog)

All of us who are Malayo-Filipino come from one lahi and one place The truth

of this is strengthened by our true history, by our common physical characteristics and skin color and our similar character and similar language or dialect which are the children of just one language, the one of the tagalogs (Filipinos from the river420)

Here, the term lahi is used in another sense, that which most approximates “race.” Genetically,

therefore, we are one people because of the many similar “outward” characteristics: similar skin color and physical characteristics, similar dispositions, similar language and history Yet when

420

The origin of the name “Tagalog” is supposed to come from “taga-ilog” meaning “from the

river.” Ilog means “river.”

talking of race (similar physical characteristics), the qualifier of “Filipino” for “Malayo-Filipino”

is added as it would have been impossible to think of a unity with the Malay people of nearby Borneo Yet there was a need to include as well “Malayo” and the idea of race (similar physical characteristics) as it alludes to an even longer history It is clear here that nationhood, race, and

heritage intertwine Then, in the rest of this passage, becoming of one lahi happens through the

unity of “inward” experiences

Malimit namang mangyari na tayong lahat ay mangagdamayan at magmalasakitan sa pagtatangol laban sa mga dayuhang may nais maminuno o maghari sa ating lupain gaya ng nagyari (kailangan isaala-ala kailan pa man) pagbabanging puri at paghihimagsik ng buong Kapilipinuhan sa Kastila at sa Americano (1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1900).421

It often happens that we are united in our help/sympathy (damayan) and care (malasakit) against foreigners who want to take over and rule our lands, much

like what happened (we should forever remember) in the defense of our honor and in the revolution by all Filipinos against the Spanish and the Americans (1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1900)

It is extremely difficult to translate and capture the sense of mangagdamayan and magmalasakit but it is in the understanding and experience of these concepts where unity happens Damay (from Mangagdamayan) means a combination of to being involved, sympathizing, and helping Damay includes within it the concept of the receiver of the help or sympathy or the occasion or

event in which one sympathizes with That receiver or even or occasion is usually one who is

experiencing suffering or that involves suffering Thus, damay is a concept that involves the act,

not just of anonymous helping or alms giving but of actually empathizing with the suffering

victim or experiencing the difficult even Through pagdadamay one becomes one with the victim

or with the experience Malasakit (from magmalasakit) is only very limitedly translated into

“care” and probably means something closer to the idea of the combination of care and sympathy

The kind of “care” provided by someone who is nagmamalasakit is a kind of care that is also not

anonymous but is a care that is given by someone who is in sympathy with the whole situation What these two words have in common is a kind of extension or giving of one’s self (a kind of

421

Apo ni Kapampangan (pseudo.), “Ang Bayang Pilipino at ang Kanyang Sariling Wika,” (part 2)

Muling Pagsilang, 19 May 1905, 1

generosity), but not in any anonymous sort of way but in a way that truly understands and feels the situation

Thus, lahi is consolidated through all the senses of the word: common ancestry, race,

shared experience The stress, however, of what brings us together as a nation is not language but history, and in particular, a history of resistance against colonialism It is a very recent history, which the author underscores by listing the years It is a history that is so recent that for almost all Filipinos during the first ten years of American occupation (when these essays were written), it was an experience that was not learnt from history books or from oral accounts and thus is not

simply a symbol of the nation The experience was total and involved damayan and

pagmamalasakit: not just knowing the struggle but feeling it as well One almost understands

why an understanding of the nation often had to be phrased in terms of the body and the soul

The understanding of the nation and of lahi was a physical, emotional, and spiritual experience that one felt all the way into one’s inner being or loob and all the way down to the bone

Contrast this declaration of unity and nationhood to a parallel description of the Filipino people by Worcester:

they are descendants of originally distinct tribes or people which have gradually come to resemble each other more and more, and have more and more in common The very large majority of them have been brought up in the Catholic faith In physical characteristics, dress and custom they resemble each other quite closely They are alike in dignity and bearing, their sobriety, their genuine hospitality, their kindness to the old and feeble, etc Two things tend to keep the several people apart The first is the present lack of any common medium of communication The second important barrier between the several Filipino peoples is built up of dislikes and prejudices, in part handed down from the days when they were tribally distinct and actively hostile.422

Here, Apo ni Kapampangan and Worcester agree on the unity of physical characteristics and character attributes but also differ dramatically Whereas Worcester attributes unity to

Catholicism, the Muling Pagsilang writers hardly ever discuss nor mention it For Apo ni

Kapampangan, unity and nationhood is evident in the exact two points that Worcester identifies

as the two points that are the cause of disunity Apo ni Kapampangan envisions Tagalog as the

422

Dean C Worcester, The Philippines Past and Present, (New York: The Macmillan Company,

1921), 933-936

language that was historically the source of the other Philippine languages; it’s use as a common language strengthened even more during the revolution The revolution itself, or the practice of having to constantly fend of foreign occupiers, is also seen as the moment/s that bring us together

as a nation The difference could not be more striking One perspective sees the potential for unity in religion and Catholicism, which is traditionally seen as an institution that reinforces obedience and submission while the other sees it in resistance

A more thorough discussion regarding the connection between lahi, bayan (nation), and wika (language) is found in another psudonymed essay, this one the most openly critical of the

American language policy and of American colonialism in general From the essay’s title alone,

“Pagbabaka ng mga Wika’t Lahi,” (“Struggle off the Language and Race/Heritage”), one gleans a

clear concern with the intimate connection between language and identity In the essay, the

author, Simoun, seems to be using lahi and bayan (nation) as two distinct terms As he is

concerned in this essay with a discussion of how a people become subjugated, not politically or

militarily, but culturally, the use of the term lahi is favored and the essay is replete with it To

say, however, that Simoun is speaking merely of cultural imperialism does not fully capture the kind of subjugation that he is talking about He seems to be concerned with an even more total subjugation, perpetrated through the imposition of language; one that captures even the spirit

pag-inamin ang isang wika ay di mangyayaring di sumunod naman ang pag amin

sa ugali, hilig at pananampalataya.423

in admitting a language [into one’s world] it is impossible that what will not follow is the admittance of attitudes, inclinations and faith

Once again, translation will fail when dealing with the words ugali and hilig, “attitude” or

“custom” would be the easy translation for ugali but the dictionary offers a second meaning for it

which is: “character or nature (of a person).”424 Hilig, as it is most commonly used, refers to

“likes” or “inclinations” but a less common meaning for it, is also “natural inclination” or even

“inner call or summons.425” Pananampalataya is translated easily to faith, although it carries with

423

Simoun, “Pagbabaka ng mga Wika’t Lahi,” Muling Pagsilang, 19 May 1905, 1 This citation

applies to all quotes from this essay

it a strong connotation of religious faith Thus, Simoun here really talks about a total conversion

of the identity and being of the subjugated even to the point where that which is natural to a people, their inner selves, are converted

Simoun’s perspective about the clash between America and the Philippines is seen not as

a matter of just territorial occupation but as a struggle between two races or lahi, what he

describes as: “walang hintong pagtutungali ng dalawang lahi: ng nananaig at ng nasusupil”

(non-stop battle between two lahi: the one who vanquishes and the subjugated.) Simoun refers to an

apparent denial of the existence of this battle:

Dito’y may nag lulupigang dalawang lahi—mamutla mutla ang tanang ayaw makarinig ng ganyin, ni mabangit na dito’y may pagtutungaling lihim ng lahi!—

at sa paglulupigang iyang di maiilagan ay maghanda tayo o upang ilagan ang pasaning iniaatang sa atin o upang isabalikat hangang tayo’y mapisanan tuloy Here there is a battle for conquest between these two lahi—they can turn pale, those who refuse to believe this or who refuse to accept that there is a secret

conflict between the lahi!—and in that conquest which cannot be avoided we

have to prepare in order to avoid the burden given us and we will be made to carry this burden until we are truly married to it/accept it

As this essay is a strong critique of the English policy, the “secret battle” alluded to here most probably refers to the American discourse on the language policy, that the imposition of English

in no way is an attempt to Americanize Filipinos Simoun, however, sees this battle as a quiet and insidious one that aims to make Filipinos quietly accept Americanization in familial terms; as though it were a marriage Simoun of course objects to this and, as the next passage will show, takes issue with the American idea of the relationship between language and nation:

Here, Simoun finally uses the term bayan (nation):

Isang halimbawa ang ibinibigay sa atin ngayon ng Estados Unidos, sa gawa niyang iyang pagpapalakas sa lahat nang sulok ng wikang ingles, na

pinagnanaisang maging wikang salig ng pagkakaisa ng bayan, sa loob nang

lalong madaling panahon; sa makatwid baga’y maging pangulo’t pinakamatibay

na sangkap ng ating pagiging bayan [italics are Simoun’s]

An example [of language imposition] is what is given us by the United States, in Its action of strengthening in all the nooks and crannies of the English language,

which they hope will be the language upon which a unified nation will be based,

in as quick at time as possible; in other words the thing that will become the

primary and strongest ingredient of our nationhood

Bayan here is associated with an objective of the Americans for the Filipinos As language

imposition necessarily means the colonization of the self (as he explained earlier), this idea of a Philippine nation with English as the central unifying ingredient was, for Simoun, an alien and unacceptable concept Yet, Simoun is not averse to the concept of the creation of a nation Instead, for him, a nation cannot be imposed as it is inseparable from a people’s lahi

Sumapit na ang taning upang ang bawa’t bayan ay magsimula sa pagguhit ng sarili niyang palad at pagka nacion, upang idaos ang kapangyarihan ng

Here, the focus of nationhood is the lahi Nationhood is something that is yet to be achieved; lahi

is already there and preceded it, although is also the central element of it The purpose of

determining or scripting one’s nationhood is in order to “idaos”—make happen or carry on—the

lahi Again, translation is difficult with idaos The most popular meaning for the word is actually

“to celebrate,” however, here, the sense is beyond just that of a celebration (as merely celebrating

the lahi makes it almost just a symbol of the nation) but rather an allowing of the lahi to be For

Simoun, the focus of nationhood is clearly not determined by an outside force and therefore is not accomplished by a simple legislative act that grants it Nationhood is yet to come and yet,

because lahi is strong, ever-present, and the essential element of nationhood, nationhood is, in a sense, already there The nation is imbricated in the lahi, the heritage, the common history, the oneness of the inner selves or loob

The historical importance of the loob or “inner self” in defining the Filipino path toward independence has been discussed thoroughly in Reynaldo Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution.426 Ileto

tells us that among the members of the Katipunan, the concept of loob and finding the right path

for the inner self was inscribed into the understanding of freedom Andres Bonifiacio had called

on the Filipino people to “be one in our inner selves and one in thought” and that wholeness was

to be achieved through kalayaan (freedom), which Ileto tells us is a complex concept that melds a political sense of kalayaan (freedom) with a familial one (laya, meaning a kind of pampering care

426

Reynaldo C Ileto, Pasyon and Revolution, 85-88 for the Katipunan and 115-117 for Aguinaldo

from parents) Later, during the American occupation, politicians fighting for independence will

appropriate the idea of loob in the sense of the unity of the loob in aspirations and views but will,

Ileto argues, drop the old Katipunan sense of the transformation of the inner self and on the emphasis of the individual experience of struggle

The importance of that inner self in the struggle for the lahi and for nationhood is evident

in the next few passages:

Pagalingin nating lalo sa ating sariling pagsisikap ng pagpapakalinis sa tunay na kagalingang ayon sa kabihasnang dapo, nguni’t alin man dito’y huwag manaig sa layon na mahalinhan ang ugali at lahi

Let us further improve ourselves, and try hard for the refinement of our true abilities based on the foreign civilization, however, none of it should ever be

overtaken by the objective of the replacement of the natural self (ugali) and lahi

Simoun here reveals his position as also being somewhat in the middle, that is, of one who

accepts foreign influences or western concepts but maintains the ugali and lahi There is an

admission here of a need to improve the self along the lines of someone else’s civilization Perhaps the idea of improvement here is based on a modernization of certain aspects of the culture and practices The primary concern though, should be, first and foremost, always with the

preservation of that which is essential to the self and to the nation, which is lahi This is

emphasized again in these lines:

ibig kong ang lahi ko’y magkaroon ng sariling pananagumpay, sa pamamagitan

ng isang gawang buhat sa loob na papalabas at huwag buhat sa labas na papaloob

I wish for my lahi to have its own life, through an action coming from inside

going outward and not from without going in

The sense of loob used by Simoun is unlike the Katipunan idea of “the right path that the inner

self must take.” However, neither is it referring to the more modern notion of a nation as a people unified in views and aspirations Bonifacio spoke of the task, yet to be accomplished, of

“magkaisang loob” or uniting the inner beings The American colonial government spoke of a

unity through the common language that is also yet to be achieved In the Muling Pagsilag essays, the concept of lahi, the race of people whose inner selves (loob) are united by a heritage,