Blake Clinton Y

Blake Clinton Y. Dy / February 10, 2007

Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910

Throughout Philippine history it has been assumed that it was the enlightened middle class was at the leading edge of the fight for freedom against the foreign oppressor. These Illustrados or enlightened, termed so for their wealth and exposure to western thought and education articulated the desire of the Filipino people for sovereignty and freedom with such verve and verboseness that eventually our colonizers acquiesced to our cries and relinquished their claims to our land. Rizal, Aguinaldo, Quezon, Roxas at the feet of these names are laid the honor of having paved the way for our countrys attainment of independence at least that is what they would have you believe. The truth of the matter is that to give sole credit to these Illustrados would be playing in to their deceptions and doing a grand disservice to those thousands who fought valiantly against long odd and died in the name of kalayaan during the bloody revolutions of the colonial era. In truth the quest for freedom was hardly a homogenous endeavor, there was no grand ideal that all Filipinos strove for rather there were dozens of disparate groups from all walks and classes hoping to achieve some ever so mutable state of kalayaan. The groups would sometimes cooperate and as many times compete with one another until through many years of back stabbing, deal making and conflict we arrive at the clumsy contraption that we call freedom today.

This is the driving thought of Iletos work Pasyon and Revolution., the fact that the Filipino experience of revolution and freedom is not one straight and unified experience but instead it is the slapstick amalgamation of the millions of peoples actions and ideals rather than the few clean decisive strokes perpetrated by an elite and oft times overvalued few. His goal in this study, as he makes it plainly clear to us in his introductory chapter is to shed light on those below the Illustrado class to produce what he called A History from Below. This study attempts to give us a look at how the masses experienced the revolution, what were the motivating factors behind their fight for freedom, how did they go about achieving their goals and what was their idea of freedom in the first place. Ileto accomplishes this by undertaking a historical analysis of various texts produced during the time such as correspondences between revolutionary groups, constabulary reports and seditionist literature and then cross referencing them with the generally accepted histories under the scrutiny of the Marxist perspective.

In the first two chapters of his work Ileto makes it blatantly apparent that the motivating factors for revolution by the Illustrados and the masses could not be more divergent. Whereas the wealthy elite were driven primarily by Western political thought and economic concerns the masses were ironically enough motivated by religion. Ileto points out the Pasyon in particular or should we say the masses radical interpretation thereof as playing a substantial part as to the formation of the spiritual component of the revolution. While the elite would decry the Pasyon as a tool of oppression by the friars in spreading a message of meekness and submission among the populace, the masses on the other hand viewed the plight of the Christ as parallel to their own lives and that his persecutors were likened to ironically to the friars and elite who authored the piece in the first place. In effect the Pasyon could very well be considered the first piece of Marixst literature to achieve wide readership in the country, spreading a message that extolled the values of community, brotherhood and the simple life. It then comes to no surprise that revolutions of the time would take their lead from the Pasyon and folk tales such as Bernardo Carpio to organize themselves along religious lines with groups being led by various self proclaimed holy men and messiahs

Their organization along religious lines did not end there, revolutionaries also put into practice the rituals of the ideas that motivated them to revolt in the first place. This manifested itself in the various odd practices that these groups took to heart, the most blatant of which was their belief in the anting-anting and the strange rituals that each group practiced the most well known of which was the initiation rituals of the KKK. While our colonizers have been quick to dismiss these superstitions as nothing more than courage building exercises undertaken by suicidal fanatics to Filipinos this was something more complex. Throughout Iletos work the theme of the loob is quite recurrent, essentially the Filipino sought to cultivate self-discipline, asceticism and prayer his inner self and consequently harness the anting-anting or gain access to supernatural powers to vanquish his enemies. More so than supernatural power the loob also speaks of a persons character and his temporal fortunes, every victory or defeat is attributed to how well developed is a persons loob thus a leader seeks to surround himself with objects that would enhance his loob such as anting-antings, reliquaries and the like. A flagging cause speaks of leader whos loob is declining while those who meet success are those who have an inner liwanag that will triumph above all else this further bolstered by the fact that in their belief death is but the gateway to Heavy as evinced by certain pasyons incorporating the Garden of Eden into their scripts. Thus their followers are more than willing to brave a hailstorm of bullets with nothing more than bolos and lengths of rope where in such cases the elite would have capitulated and ran due to their overriding concern for their won status and well being. It is there supreme confidence in their loob that gives them such courage or some would say foolhardiness against such long odds.

Another trait by which such movements distinguish themselves from those led by Illustrados is their very definition of freedom. Whereas the elite would define it as the peace and sovereignty of the country under their beneficent rule the masses had a differing idea on the matter, termed by Ileto as the Kalayaan Ideal. For the masses freedom meant brotherhood, community and a return to the state of paradise similar to that of the Garden of Eden, essentially the ideal state of life preached by the communist ideology. This division is what hindered the Filipino struggle for independence for the elite would not deign to help the masses achieve such a goal as it was to their detriment to do so. In fact they would go so far as to work with the colonial rulers in stamping out such movements for they formed a credible threat to their power. This schism was dramatically illustrated by Aguinaldo ordering the execution of Bonifacio in the aim of preserving the predominantly Illustrado led Malolos government. Such a trend would continue into the American period of domination where leaders such as Sakay and Malvar would be defeated by American forces with the aid of Illustrado traitors while people such as Quezon and Roxas supposedly heroes today would be continually decried as false kings who colluded with the enemy.

In the end of the more than 70 years of conflict it would eventually be the Illustrados who would emerge as the victors and be the ones to shape the future of the country heralding the extinction of the ideals of the Katipunan. However despite being the defeated the more than 70 years of revolution has proven that while they are simple folk the masses are capable of going beyond their station to attempt to actualize a certain objective and a certain future. While majority of their movements eventually faltered during the revolutions those that built on the masses aspirations as well as their political and economic situations were the ones that achieved any lasting effect. The labels of uneducated, stupid, fanatic and like are merely but methods by which the better classes and out of the limelight put them down but as the revolutions have illustrated it is impossible to simply ignore them. To achieve true Kalayaan it is imperative that we listen to the voices from below.