Colonialism by Another Name

Colonialism By Another Name: Discourses of Nationalism and Colonial Mentality and the Inception of
Filipino Hegemony
An Essay Presented
By
Jerome Patrick D.R. Cruz

Andrei Miguel Postrado
Submitted to the Department of History of the

Ateneo de Manila University in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Class of
History 166: Philippine History
January 28, 2009

That we are still colonial, and that the specter of colonialism still haunts us--- of the commonly-
held and widely-spoken accounts that refer to the problematic state of the Filipino nation, few
are as commonly-held and as widely-spoken as the discourses of colonial mentality and
nationalism. From the denigration of our „colonial complex‟ by nationalist politicians, to the
perplexities of self-definition that are still encountered whenever Filipinos are pressed to
account for their cultural identity, their polemics have become so established among the
diagnoses of our time as to critique nearly all aspects of contemporary Filipino nationhood and
lifestyle. While at many points in the past decade the discourses of colonial mentality and its
corresponding „cure‟--- that of Nationalism--- have been criticized for their theoretical
insufficiencies, the reality that they have been and still are a pervasive force in the discussion of
our historical legacy remains. Charges of colonial mentality in the past have indicted the cast of
Philippine foreign policy; nationalist economic reforms based upon them ushered in the
hallmarked, but controversial phase of Import-Substitution in the 1960‟s; cultural allegations
have situated it within our aesthetic and economic judgments, our usage of the English
language, and even in the references that are often drawn from in order to give an account of
our national identity. Detractors of the discourses, on the other hand, have depicted their
projects as anathema to economic competitiveness, and as flights of cultural romanticism.
However, while it seems that academic debacles aplenty have characterized the treatment of
Colonial Mentality discourse in the past decade, these debacles, all in all, appear to have
neglected one critical question: provided then that the discourse of colonial mentality may be
conceptually unsound, what has its pervasiveness as a practiced discourse mattered in the
schemes of inequality that we have found, and continue find our society mired in?
Our ultimate aim in this paper is not to argue for or against the diagnostic relevance of the
discourses of colonial mentality and Nationalism to the context of the Philippines. The topic has
been disputed enough in the past, waged across the scale of disciplines, entrenched into the
spheres of the press and the academia. But as long as the discourse continues to make its
mark on discussions of Philippine nationhood today, we believe that--- beyond investigating the
reductionisms within in it--- it is exactly because it makes its mark on real-world imaginings and
practices, that it produces effects and consequences that extend far beyond the orbit of
theoretical speculation. The tacit thing at stake whenever „colonial mentality‟ is invoked as an
overriding national problem, is not so much a misconstrual of the „actual case‟ of Philippine
nationhood--- as we will argue, nothing less than the forgetting of other modes of politics, and
with it the possibility of contesting other sites of inequality, are occasioned. It is with this in
foresight that we would like to argue that the discourses of colonial mentality and nationalism
should be sifted not merely for the contradictions that define them, but that they should also be
probed for the strategic effects that they have furtively imposed upon the general population
throughout the course of post-independence Philippine history. In what follows, then, we would
like to undertake a critical reassessment of the significance of colonial mentality and nationalist
discourses in purview of the Philippine political economy and cultural identity.
A Nationalism for Whom?
The origin of the Nationalist discourse goes back into the American and Spanish colonial period.
The place that it has played in the Philippine revolution against Spain, in the writings of the
secular movement, and in the lobbying of the Nacionalista Party for „Filipinization‟ under the
American Commonwealth have become cultural icons within our colonial history. During the
Spanish occupation, the discourses of the secular movement and the La Liga Filipina were
riveted about the issue of equal rights with Spaniards; later on--- after Aguinaldo‟s rise within the
Katipunan--- with the founding of an independent nation-state. Throughout the passage of
American colonial rule, orthodox nationalist views circulated about the necessity of establishing
a Filipino government and securing the grant of state autonomy from the USA. In this regard,
Manuel Quezon is continually referenced for his famous proclamation: “I would prefer a
government run like hell by Filipinos, rather than a government that would be run like heaven by
the Americans.” Yet after the 2nd World War, mainstream discourses of the subject took a
definitive turn from the pursuit of sovereignty and rights, to the protection of the national
economy from foreign competition, and the expurgation of colonial suggestions within the
identity of the Filipino. It will be these discourses of nationalism and their concomitant
indictments of colonial mentality that will be the object of our focus.
When the Philippines had finally been granted with political independence from the United
States in 1946, such a granting of independence had presented the main discourses of
nationalism with a new array of conditions and problems that required a similar shift in its
agenda. While it was still believed that „Nationalism is an attitude that insists that the power in a
sovereign state must be exercised by its own citizens,”1 the terrain that was to be confronted by
nationalists had been completely altered. Independence meant that former colonial powers were
no longer menacing as a proximal, physical presence--- at least, not in the same specific sense
as was perceived during the colonial period itself. Yet in no way did this mean that the
eradication of all obstacles to nationalist politics had been attained. Agenda-wise, what had
occurred was a shift from the scheme of establishment, to the maintenance of the
independence of the Filipino nation-state; a defensive mode of governance was perceived to be
essential. This same defensive turn to nationalist politics was exemplified by Renato
Constantino in writing that: “The Philippines is our homeland. We must therefore act to sustain,
develop and preserve it. Filipinos have the power to govern over our land and direct its affairs
both internal and external. We should therefore act with faith and determination: the faith that
we can exercise our power as well as, if not better than foreigners; and the determination to use
that power so that the blessings of our country will accrue to all our people and not primarily to
only some, nor to those who are not Filipinos.”2
Despite the assurance of political independence and the relative peace attained with the end of
the 2nd World War, numerous spheres of potential threats to the autonomy of the Filipino nation
were to be openly targeted by the discourses of nationalism. Not the least of these spheres
were those of cultural identity and that of the Philippine economy. Culture was picketed as a site
for nationalist struggle due to the need to recover one‟s traditional cultural identity from the state
of „corruption‟ induced by past colonial influences, and the necessity to prevent that culture from
being further eroded by foreign cultural exchanges. It seemed to be believed that when the
cultural identity of the Filipino had been diluted by the influx of foreign cultural practices and
understandings, any national solidarity throughout the population would be imperiled because
the cultural allegiances of Filipinos would now be oscillating between that of the Philippines and
of America. The nation, it appeared, could not simply afford to have Filipinos who were
obstructive to the formation of a national unity.3 Meanwhile, the targeting of the Philippine
economy by nationalist politics was similarly rooted on the belief of the precariousness of
leaving the resources and economic decisions of the nation at the mercy of foreigner
speculation. Because the autonomy of the nation was prioritized above all other ends, national
interest would appear to dictate that the economic power of the Philippines should be lodged in
the Filipino people, who could be entirely expected to have the „national interest‟ inscribed within
their consciousness. Such logic is emblematic of Manuel Quezon‟s rationalization of his
nationalist economic policies, where he writes:
1
Lichauco, Alejandro. Lichauco Paper: Imperialism in the Philippines. Monthly Review Press, New York, 1973
2
Constantino, Renato. The Nationalist Alternative, Foundation for Nationalist Societies, Quezon City, 1979.
3
Torre, Nestor. “Negative Effects of Colonial Mentality” Philippine Daily Inquirer 21 Oct. 2003: A24
“One of the aims of my administration has been to grant to the Filipinos every facility
they may need to an increasing share in the business activities of the country. This
policy is prompted by more cogent reasons than merely a narrow or emotional
nationalism. Our national economy can never gain stability and strength, unless it is built
permanently upon the brain and brawn, the work and wealth of our own people.”4
The same conviction appeared to apply as well to Alejandro Lichauco‟s affirmation of the
importance of economic nationalism. Beyond mere stability, the coincidence of the interests of
the Filipino due to their „intrinsic‟, shared nationality was seen to be infinitely more certain than
to the chance event of full foreign agreement with the national interest. He averred that a
nation‟s political independence would be meaningless unless its people would have the power
to completely control and make economic decisions for their country. Any other set-up was
permitting means of advantage for potential adversaries for what would be within the benefit of
the nation. Thus:
“Economic considerations on the other hand stems from the conviction that if the primary
objective of economic development is the modernization and industrialization of the
country, there can be no substitute for policies that drafts the maximum involvement of
Filipinos themselves. If the Filipinos are to reap the benefits of industrial development,
then they should not let foreigners do the industrialization for them. “5
In speaking of a shared, national community and the fellow-feeling that each Filipino should
have for each other it seemed to be presumed within these discourses that Filipinos, by virtue of
their being Filipino, should have only the best interests of their nation and countrymen at heart.
This indeed appears to be the case when Claro M. Recto assert that „Look you always upon
your countryman as something more than a neighbor [….]‟ As long as the frontiers of nations
exist, to him alone should you unite in perfect solidarity of views and interests, in order to gather
strength, not only to fight the common enemy, but also to attain all the goals of human
existence.‟6 Other advocates of nationalism such as Renato Constantino, Salvador Araneta,
Joaquin Elizalde, and Carlos P. Romulo were to present similar views. The dilemma that had to
be wrestled with, however, was that the actual constitution of many Filipinos themselves was
inimical to the foregrounding of such interests. It was to be here that the discourses of colonial
mentality were to discover their greatest utility with regards to nationalist discourses. The more
pressing reality that was revealed to nationalists was that a number of Filipinos, as a matter of
fact, were failing to live up to their ideal of national solidarity and concern, and they were
inclined, due to their tastes and predilections, to engage with actions and practices that led to
the weakening of the nation. The defensive politics of nationalism had to operate both within
and outside of the boundaries of the Philippines: outside the nation, the influence of
colonizers/foreigners upon the spheres that were fundamental to the autonomy of the nation
had to be reduced to the barest possible minimum; internally, nationalist projects were to ensure
that each and every member of the nation was assimilated the national unity, and maintained
the image of the national good before him/her at all times. To this end, they depicted colonial
mentality as the greatest detriment possible to forging this unity. Because colonial mentality
involved the implicit belief that the Philippines was inferior compared to other nations, it was
ultimately conceived as a predisposition to servility and blind imitation.
4
Quezon, Manuel L. "Policy of the Commonwealth." NEPA : objectives of protectionism in the Philippines, essays
on political economy. Bookman Publishing, Manila, 1960. pp.1-4.
5
Lichauco, Alejandro. Lichauco Paper: Imperialism in the Philippines. Monthly Review Press, New York, 1973
6
Constantino, Renato. The Nationalist Alternative, Foundation for Nationalist Societies, Quezon City, 1979.
Thus, the discourses of colonial mentality oftentimes served to diagnose the state-of-affairs
wherein the nationalist ideal had yet to gain fruition. If nationalism could only „aspire for the good
of every Filipino‟ then any scenario where the ideal appeared to have fallen short would
necessarily be where „subservience to the foreigner‟ and the „bastardization of Filipino identity‟
had taken precedence. The „Americanization‟ of the Filipino lifestyle was commonly seen to be
the culprit; indigenous identity, and simultaneously, the elementary concern for the fellow-
Filipino was argued to have been consequently denigrated.7 Primarily, this was to work on the
level of the self-understanding, the identity and the consciousness of the individual Filipino, but
because the mode of consciousness in this case determined economic choice, its discourses
were to have a corresponding effect upon the evaluation of the workings of the Philippine
economy. Because of colonial mentality, it was argued, foreign products had been valued over
local ones--- Filipino products, due to their Filipino origin, were perceived to be inherently
inferior to that of the foreign one. The sum total that these predispositions were to amount to
was conceived to be a general condition of exploitation of the Filipino people. The weakening of
the standing of Philippine-made products within the Philippine economy translated into the
atrophy of the state‟s self-sufficiency and capacity to provide economically for the welfare and
daily needs of its own people. At the same time, because it now had to rely upon other sources
to provide those daily needs, the entire nation was rendered vulnerable to being coerced and
manipulated on an economic plane by foreigners. The following quotation does much to
summarize the general placement of the discourses in the hierarchy of nationalist politics:
“In the fifties and sixties, our nationalists found themselves campaigning against colonial
mentality. They identified every department of life in which colonial mentality was
pervasive and most harmful to the common good of and to the progress of the republic.
In their writings and speeches, they exhorted Filipino leaders, lawmakers and the
masses to combat every instance of slavish approval of western, especially American-
projects that worked for Western and American interests and against our own interests.
The nationalist tide grew into a tsunami. At one point, the government had an economic
“Filipino-First” policy that demanded from the masses the exclusive consumption of
Philippine products and industry the use of Philippine-processed materials.”8
In the practical business of running Philippine society and government, these discourses of
nationalism and colonial mentality were to have a monumental effect upon the trajectory that the
Philippines was to take for the next couple of decades. The lobbying efforts for protectionist and
import-substitution policies by nationalists for economic governance, were to become ascendant
throughout the 1950‟s and 1960‟s, characterizing the country‟s most remarkable period of
economic growth and industrialization. All in all, this was to involve government subsidies for
local industries, tariffs levied against imported goods, in order to shield our industries from the
welter and extortions of foreign competition, providing them with time, latitude, governmental
support and the initial resources. In terms of cultural identity, the same will-to-negate all possible
sources and manifestation of colonial mentality was to imbue the research programs and
agendas of local social sciences and the arts with a moralistic, and anti-colonial cast that
continues to pervade Philippine academia until the present. Such was the case with both
anthropology and history, which were to take upon themselves the epochal burden of „creating a
national identity‟ premised, not so much on foreign contagion and dependency, but on what was
alleged to be the unmitigated grandeur of a purely indigenous mode of existence.
7
Torre, Nestor. “Negative Effects of Colonial Mentality” Philippine Daily Inquirer 21 Oct. 2003: A24
8
Unknown Author. “A Different Kind of Colonial Mentality” Manila Times 20 Dec. 2005: A4
A Critique of Nationalist Reason
After the attainment of Philippine Independence from the USA, the discourses of economic
protectionism and colonial mentality were to acquire currency among nationalist lawmakers.
Fresh from the experience of foreign subjugation, enthusiastic about the promotion of their
political independence, yet concurrently guarded about the potential hazards to the same
independence, Nacionalistas sought to structure the national economy in ways as to certify its
congruence to the national good. In particular, the threat to economic autonomy and prosperity
was pinned down upon the Bell Trade Act, which was disputed to be an exploitative, legal
instrument of Americans to safeguard their assets and economic interests in the Philippines.
Some of the stipulations which had been accounted for within the act, as exchange for the $800
million fund that the United States had provided for post-war reconstruction were:
“- American citizens and corporations to be granted parity or equal access to Philippine

natural resources such as minerals and forests
- The free trade act to continue until 1954, with tariffs to be increased by five percent a
year until 1974 where the full amount to be reached
- Quotas for Philippine goods exported to the US but no quota for the importation of
American goods
- The Philippine peso was to be pegged with the US Dollar which the US Government
can control.”9
The unequal terms of exchange were stark and incontrovertible. The quota requirements on
exported goods were not to apply to American imports; the exchange-rate of the Philippine peso
was to be determined at the convenience of the American government; the US citizens who
were more likely to possess the technological and financial capital that most Filipinos lacked
were to have complete, unrestricted access to the nation‟s natural resources. It was for this
reason that the inequalities portended by the Bell Trade Act were to serve as a rallying-point
and a major watershed for nationalists. To summarize what most of the ensuing nationalist
discourses had propounded: it confirmed the suspicion about the continuing foreign domination
and subjugation of the Philippines. Because the economy was still under American control, the
recognition of political independence was paralleled by a violation of it on the economic level.
Independence, right as it was granted, retained the unfair policies and the dependencies
imposed upon us on the US market; furthermore, many of local industries themselves continued
to be run by the Americans. Thus it was understandable that the desire for economic
independence and self-sufficiency gained a wider base of support amongst the population.10 To
the nationalists, the eventual abolition of the Bell Trade Act and its specious propositions was to
be the true measure of the Philippines‟ sovereignty. In this regard, "Our noble aspirations for
nationhood, long cherished and ardously contended for by our people, will be realized,” avowed
Manuel Roxas.
Beyond the contestation of the Bell-Trade Act, further political debates would ensue with the
issue revolving between the full-scale industrialization of the Philippine economy, and the
maintenance of our competitive, but colonial, advantage in agriculture. Ultimately, in the
aftermath of these debates, industrialization came to be favored with less concomitant priority
being given to the local agriculture sector. Import-substituting industries that were run by
Filipinos themselves were given the full and unmitigated backing of government economic policy
9
Sachs, Jeffrey D. Developing Country Debt and Economic Performance. University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
1991
10
Dolan, Ronald Philippines: A Country Study, US Government Printing, New York, 1993.
and intervention. Tariffs were imposed on imported products and subsidies were dispensed to
local firms in the hope that Filipino-produced goods would eventually replace imported ones.
Foreign banks were similarly not allowed in the country in the desire to spurn non-Filipino
capital, although the four foreign owned banks that were already extant in the Philippines at that
time were allowed to continue operation.11 Another key policy was pursued was that of retail
trade nationalization. Discursively, the aim projected was to protect small Filipino retailers and
sari-sari store owners by closing the doors to foreign retailers. It was primarily directed against
foreign retailers who sold imported goods, and hence enabled another channel for the
weakening of the self-sufficiency of the national economy. Nevertheless, the downside of such a
policy was that of the limitations it imposed upon the opportunities for these foreign firms to
purchase our merchandise and sell them in outlets abroad.
Throughout the phases of industrialization, import-substitution and economic protectionism,

critical players were to be the specific nationalist organizations that advocated, spread
awareness and assisted in the implementation of the process. Here, one of the earliest
nationalist economic organizations formed was the Nationalistic Economic Protectionism
Association (NEPA) in 1934. The driving force behind the formation of NEPA was the then
Speaker Manuel Roxas and the Philippine Chamber of Commerce. Speaker Manuel Roxas
organized a political campaign in 1930 called Ang Bagong Katipunan in order to promote
economic nationalism. Prominent Filipinos such as Gonzalo Puyat, Salvador Araneta, Toribio
Teodoro and Joaquin Elizalde who were supporters of the campaign later assisted in the
formation of NEPA in 1934.12
In its handbook, NEPA was largely to reiterate the then-current nationalist discourse that the
development and prosperity of the Philippines depended on how free our economy was from the
interests of foreign states. “Economic independence is to be attained by developing our own
industries,” it was likewise argued. This development of industry was to be achieved by
patronizing locally made products and the government protection upholding their industries, by
imposing higher amounts of tariffs upon imports, and by the provision of subsidies for the local
firms. It was, essentially, to combat the same „colonial complex‟ that deformed economic choice
in favor of the foreign over the local, and a perpetual state of underdevelopment over
modernization:
“The main objectives of national economic protectionism are dependence upon the local
supply as much as possible for the necessaries of life. It does not necessarily mean an
undue sacrifice of the people practicing it. The promotion of domestic production
enriches all the factors involved. Land, labor and capital would be profitably employed.”13
Through its discourses, NEPA was to have a significant influence on promoting economic
nationalism. Its members included politicians and businessmen such as Joaquin Elizalde who
served as the economic adviser to President Manuel Quezon during the Commonwealth and
the flour mill mogul Salvador Araneta. They campaigned for import-substitution and protectionist
policies from the government. They also sought public support to choose locally made goods
over foreign products. In their discourses, the same public support for economic nationalism
11
Hutchison, Jane. "Pressure on Policy in the Philippines." The Political Economy of Southeast Asia, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 1997. P78
12
NEPA. NEPA : objectives of protectionism in the Philippines, essays on political economy. Bookman Publishing,
Manila, 1960.
13
Razon, Benito, “The Necessity of Economic Protectionism” NEPA: objectives of protectionism in the Philippines,
essays on political economy. Bookman Publishing, Manila, 1960 p.163
was represented to return to the common person through the promise of prosperity and the
actualization of the national good. Advocating the self-sufficiency of the economy was argued to
be tantamount to honoring the liberal virtues of social justice, solidarity, equality of opportunity,
and national equity. These appear to be manifested in the NEPA Decalogue which runs as
follows:
1. Cherish your own above all others

2. Honor your country‟s products, her industries and her commerce.
3. Think and act as a Filipino on economic matters.
4. Do not consume foreign goods if the same are produced locally.
5. Give protection to the business of your own countrymen rather than to that of aliens
6. Bear in mind this great truth: that a country without patrimony is miserable
7. Exert your will to the end that the wealth of the country shall fall in the hands of
Filipinos, and let that wealth be the foundation of our nationalism
8. Help exalt the welfare of workers of your own blood, and obey that natural law that
orders a brother to help a brother.
9. Practice nationalism with deeds, not words.
10. Be constant and strong in the exercise of discipline for self and national
advancement.14
All in all, due to the Economic Protectionism and phases of Import Substitution that nationalist
and colonial mentality discourses after the granting of Philippine Independence were to usher in,
the industrial sector showed dramatic improvement. Where the agricultural sector where the
Philippines already had constituted the primary share of economic production during the colonial
period, this share was to shrink dramatically in the following years. While in 1950 agriculture had
comprised 42% of our national GDP, with industry only constituting only 14%, by 1960,
agriculture had decreased to 26% with industry doubling its share to 28%. The growth of the
national economy was also astronomical compared to the growth experience within the country
in the years before: an average growth rate of 6.5 % was sustained from the period of 1950-
1960. The country, it appears, had become a powerhouse in the ring of regional economies. Yet
despite memories of the illustrious time when we were „only second to Japan‟, or „the greatness
of the days before Marcos‟, the same badges of prosperity that Import Substitution appeared to
have brought were to conceal profound structural incongruities that had been carried over from
the colonial period.
Through a neoclassical optic, despite the growth and industrialization that protectionism was to
herald, the industries that it was to protect were, ironically, to accomplish less development
quality-wise. Precisely because foreign competition and the possibility of loss to extra-national
markets had been culled out, the industries supported by the regime remained armed merely for
the domestic market rather than the heightened challenges that were corollary to exportation.
Despite the incentives that were made available for exporting firms, most of the fruits of
Philippine manufacturing appeared to have succumbed to complacency with regards to
production standards, and were simply not competitive enough to participate in the burgeoning
international economy. Further reinforcing the parochialism of industrial activity was the stark
fact of the cost of expansion, where most firms were markedly lacking in resources and capital
in order to spark an extension into the terrain of foreign markets.15
14
NEPA. "The NEPA Decalogue." NEPA : objectives of protectionism in the Philippines, essays on political
economy. Bookman Publishing, Manila, 1960. p.163
15
Sicat, Gerardo. Philippine Economic Nationalism. University of the Philippines Press, Quezon City, 2002.
It was for this reason that neoclassical economists such as Gerardo P. Sicat have criticized the
poor economic development of the Philippines that was to follow from the 70‟s onwards from the
misallocation of resources to inappropriate and inefficient economic activities. True, protectionist
and import-substituting trade policies were successful in encouraging capital-intensive
industrialization, particularly in manufacturing. But while they were able to substitute
commodities considered as essential such as clothing, they remained oriented towards the
domestic market with little elbowroom for exports; importation of finished products decreased,
but were compensated by a corresponding increase in the importation of raw materials because
of the inadequacy of the non-manufacturing sector of the economy to provide for itself.
Regardless of the fund of an „abundance of natural resources‟, the main competitive advantage
which had been marked by our previous exportation of natural resources and agriculture to the
US, these competitive advantages suffered from inattention. While they continued to form the
main body of our exports (ex. sugar and coconut), the inordinate focus that was devoted to the
industrial sector was claimed to be the primary source of inefficiency. The same myopia was to
be noticed, argued Sicat, in the Filipinization of the retail sector which further compounded the
Philippines‟ exporting and domestic competition difficulties. Protectionism, he claimed, instated
a legacy of monopoly.16 A widespread dissatisfaction amongst the population appeared to
result:
“These nationalist policies were subverted, however, by monopoly capitalists and rentier
industrialists to protect their own inferior enterprises that could not compete effectively
against their world-class competition in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and
of course, the Western countries. Filipinos were forced to make do with badly-made
products that were artificially expensive here when you can order them cheaply abroad,
if only protectionist laws were repelled.”17
Yet, beyond the resultant lack of international competitiveness and the inefficiency of production
standards, even deeper cleavages were to be reinforced within Philippine society. In articulating
these cleavages, political economists such as Jane Hutchison have contested that as opposed
to their populist rhetoric of „social justice‟, „western exploitation‟, „the national good‟ and „the
solidarity of the Filipino people‟, nationalist discourses were largely to feign ignorance of the
actual class divisions that they were to fortify. In discourse, industrialization of the Filipinos was
to spread equitably throughout the population by generating employment, increasing incomes
and ensuring stability of resources through a self-sustaining economy. In practice, however, this
was to be contradicted by the real and discriminatory barriers that were erected throughout the
industrialization process itself. While it was also the case that a few who hailed from the middle
classes were also able to climb up into the rung of industrialists, the divide between the local
oligarchy and the disenfranchised majority was to be replicated through the use of legal controls
that severely restricted who could gain from the boons of industrialization. Thus, as is implied by
her argument, when looked at through the lens of class politics, the effects of protectionism
were far more ambivalent to the actual development of the nation. Contrary to the allegations of
nationalist and colonial mentality discourses at the time, protectionism and import substitution
merely seemed to supplant foreign subjugation with class subjugation.
“It is believed that half of the new industrialists were members of the landed oligarchy,
while the other half already had experience in manufacturing. Thus, industrialization
produced new opportunities for investment in manufacturing, construction and
16
17
commerce. It further reinforced their monopoly and dominance of the market. Income
was not equally distributed and the class structure remained largely unchanged.”18
As opposed to the nationalist credo that the wealth gained from the success of local industries
would be enjoyed equitably throughout the Filipino population, only a few people seemed to
ultimately benefit from it. Owners and shareholders of the few corporations that have made a
fortune through protectionism, as expected, were not to share their profits with ordinary
employees. The political-economic oligarchy mainly persisted though the arc of the entire
process, and the inequality that had been definitive of the Philippine colonial experience was to
broaden. To this day, some of these policies continue to show their aftereffects throughout the
Philippine political economy.19 Moreover, when even the founding members of organizations
such as NEPA and the Philippine Chamber of Commerce are examined for their points of social
origin--- more often than not, hailing from business owners among the elite rather than the
masses--- the altruistic and demagogic cast of their cause begins to fall suspect. Against the
propositions of nationalist discourses that subsidies and shielding from foreign competition by
the governmental system were only to be employed to establishing local industries, the same
subsidizing and protection was to extend far beyond the establishment of firms to the mere
aggrandizing of funds.20 As it appears, they themselves became a source for the maintenance
of the elite‟s socio-economic status and the bracing of their patrimonial interests. Nationalistic
politics, done in the protectionist sense, appeared to have become a caption for class politics
turned imperceptible.
Nationalists had lobbied for political, as well as economic independence, and had argued that
the Philippines should be self-sufficient in order to develop. Because of this, many import-
substituting policies were implemented in order to protect our own industry against foreign
competitors. Yet the contradiction that was to follow from so much policy and so much
discoursing about the „national interest‟ and the „development of the Filipino‟, was that right
alongside industrialization, the political-economic conditions of American colonialism were
largely to repeat themselves. More than a matter of economic inefficiency and improper
technical governance that was to leave most of the Filipinos with underdeveloped agriculture
and an industry sector grown paternalistic, what can be gleaned is the utter abnegation of
colonial class politics even while its systemic effects were to perpetuate into the era of
independence. The identical figure of the imperialist, though with a different color of skin.
Neither This, Nor That
On a cultural level, colonial mentality and nationalist discourses revolved about the issue of
national identity. In here, as is commonly emphasized, the main indictment of the discourses
were riveted to the supposedly „defilipinized‟ state of Filipino consciousness and identity.
Foreign lifestyles, foreign forms of knowledge, foreign modes of thought, foreign languages and
institutions--- in summary, foreign cultural practices were depicted by the discourses as elevated
in importance to the detriment of „authentically Filipino‟ ways of living. A dependency upon
objects and exemplifications of colonizers‟ culture was seen to be institutionalized. The
18
Hutchison, Jane. "Pressure on Policy in the Philippines." The Political Economy of Southeast Asia, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 1997. p.75
19
Example: Companies such as SM continue to reap the benefits of the past nationalist policies, yet its ordinary
employees are hired on a contract basis with little job security. Similarly, the case of some of the most powerful
families in the nation, such as the Lopezes, were to accrue much of their corporate base throughout the protectionist
period.
20
denigration of actual practices as „corrupted‟, „hybrid‟, „inorganic‟ practices because to the mark
of colonial influence within them took precedence. Hence, the lament of Renato Constantino
about the effects of American colonialization: „Tragically the Filipino lost himself as he was
discovering his identity.‟21
The beginnings of widespread discourses regarding colonial mentality in Filipino culture can be
traced to the period immediately after independence from America was attained in 1946. But
while economic nationalism was to leave its imprint upon the economic policies and institutions
that the country would eventually adopt, the domains in which cultural nationalism would wage
its wars were far more diffuse, and difficult to pin down. One vital area, at least, was to be in the
arena of socio-cultural research: the mobilization of the social sciences as a tool for „forging a
national culture,‟ became a matter of paramount concern. As one social scientist himself put it:
„‟The importance of cultural research to the creation of national art and culture cannot be
overestimated.‟22 It became the overriding task of every upstanding, ethical researcher to inform
artistic and cultural projects that would embody the ideal of Philippine national identity.
Research, in a sense, was sublimated through the discourse of nationalism into the echelon of
moral struggle--- to locate the „authentic‟ Filipino in the mass of corrupted cultural practices was
symbolically equivalent to combating the evils of imperial domination. 23 Despite the glamour of
the nationalist-ethical vision of cultural research and identity formation, however, profound
incongruities were to penetrate into its core.
The ultimate problem, as it seems, arose from how the quest for a national cultural identity
translated into the questing for a monolithic cultural identity. Yet when identity „simultaneously
includes and excludes‟24 the practice of promoting such a monolithic culture and identity
inevitably ended up obscuring the violence that it did to those who were caught upon its
margins--- sometimes even the very one to whom such a culture was claimed to belong to. It
was, in fact, a violence whose force consisted in the way that it coerced Filipinos to exhibit
themselves as Filipinos.
This violence penetrated to the origin of the concept of „the Filipino‟--- which in turn owed to the
organizational activities of the first Filipino himself, Jose Rizal. Despite all appearances to the
converse, the emergence of the concept of „the Filipino‟ was inextricably tied to American
conceptions of what constituted an „indigenous identity.‟ Sharon Delmendo, in The Star-
Entangled Banner, argued that „Through Rizal‟s establishment of an early nationalist
organization, Los Indios Bravos, Rizal co-opted the image of American Indians in order to
overthrow Spanish colonial hegemony over Filipino indios.‟25 The image of American Indians---
which was representative of the objectifications of American Indians by their Anglo-American
subjugators, rather than of their „authentic‟ identity and culture--- was to make a profound
impression upon Rizal‟s psyche. From it he would conceive an „imagined fraternity‟ between the
history of the American Indians and the indios, which would be of paramount importance in the
activation of his sense of „national identity.‟ Yet this basing of his conception of Filipino identity
21
Constantino, Renato. Neocolonial Identity and Counter Consciousness: Essays on Cultural Decolonization.
London: The Merlin Press, 1978. 82.
22
Culture of Nationalism in Contemporary Philippine Society. Baguio: UP Cordilleras Studies Center. 30
23
Zialcita, Fernando. Authentic Though not Exotic: Essays on Filipino Identity. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila
University Press, 2005. 13-14.
24
University Press, 2005. 3.
25
Delmendo, Sharon. The Star-Entangled Banner: One Hundred Years of America in the Philippines. New Jersey:
Rutgers University Press, 2004. 22.
was to eventually support the repetition of the very historical atrocities that had subjugated the
Indians in the first place. In constructing his imagination of „Filipino identity‟ from the icon of the
Indian as perceived through the eyes of Americans, Rizal was not only aligning idioms of Indian
identity with the situation of the Filipino indio which other revolutionaries would later adapt and
refine; he was implicitly setting motifs which would ultimately activate the American imperial
memory of conquering Indians during the Philippine-America War. In providing a garb for
Filipinos to display themselves as Filipinos, the same objectifying logic with which the
Americans had treated the Indians within their shores was to receive a new target: it was, in a
sense, role-playing of the same Wild Wild West shows which Rizal had once seen, only the
stakes were sky-high and the violence which ensued was atrociously real.26
The violence which traced its origin from the conflation of the Filipino indio with the American
Indian continues to show its traces until the present. Filipino identity, in other words, has been
constituted in the international arena in a way that violently binds the Filipino to his own identity,
irregardless of what he or she may think of it. This would be a simpler thing to contest if the
origins of this conflation of the Filipino with the tribal „savage‟ (and eventually, the „little brown
brother‟) were not imbricated with the origins of Filipino national identity--- yet exactly because it
is, the nationalist drive to enflesh a purified „non-colonial identity‟ is apt to showcase the idioms
which fortify the imperial remembrance of conquering, and to reinforce the present hegemonic
state of cultural relations which the imposition of that identity is embroiled in. The same desire to
return to our „glorious, uncorrupted past‟ is only paralleled by the foreign voyeurism which seeks
to exoticize the Filipino as „tree-dweller‟ or „head-hunter.‟ In the business of what Filipinos are
sanctioned to display of themselves in the international culture industry, such a double dynamic
of „seeking the authentic native‟ generates profound repercussions. The single domain in which
Filipinos can present themselves is the tribal domain which has been superimposed upon them,
rather than organically arising from their circumstances. Wherever Filipino „genius‟ lies in a
cultural product (architecture, religious celebration, cooking or clothing) which bespeaks of a
colonial influence, the product is derided by nationalists as „defilipinized‟ and is commonly
ignored altogether by foreigners. „Even in the Third World,‟ so it appears, „we Filipinos are
marginal.‟27
The other violence which a monolithic national identity was liable to enforce was more internal in
nature. It governed the relations of marginality with which Filipinos were culturally recognized
within their own borders. Some controversial lines from Alfred Yuson are instructive in this:
“I am not advocating that we all write in English. I try to write in Filipino, but am better
trained in English, as was most of my generation that grew up in Manila. Let us
strengthen Filipino, and all other languages in our regions. Let us not however equate
writing in Filipino (or Tagalog), or favoring the writing of Filipino (or Tagalog), with
stronger or more authentic nationalism.”28
The entire commotion about the overutilization of English as a national language, and the
defilipinization of Filipino consumers‟ economic and lifestyle choices, are almost always
premised on the fact of Filipinos „not being Filipino enough.‟ The excerpt from Yuson above was
drawn from an article in which he contended against the nationalist grain that elevated those
26
Delmendo, Sharon. The Star-Entangled Banner: One Hundred Years of America in the Philippines. New Jersey:
Rutgers University Press, 2004. 42-43.
27
University Press, 2005. 7-9.
28
Yuson, Alfred. “A Language for Nationalism.” The Philippine Star. 3 April 2006. F2.
writers who are said to be more „intrinsically nationalist‟ by their usage of Filipino. By the logic
that he worked against, because it was presumed that there is a distinct national identity among
Filipinos, it seems that it should also apply that a certain orientation to the Filipino language
should define who is more properly nationalist, or even more radically, who is more Filipino,
compared to others. Paradoxically, however, this necessity that each Filipino should be „Filipino
enough‟ was a conception of cultural identity that itself devolved from a non-Filipino origin.
Moreso even than the actuation of Rizal‟s sense of national identity based upon the objectifying
displays of American Indian identity and history, the liberal-anthropological conviction that each
nation, however instituted, must contain a „homogeneous national culture‟ is a conception of
culture that more accurately refers to the European rather than Filipino historical experience29.
In reality, the boundaries of what would eventually constitute the Philippine nation-state had not
drawn by an „organic‟ group of Filipinos, but rather by colonial authorities, and correspondingly,
the cultural identity of Filipinos was to be of a far more heterogeneous nature than of their
European counterparts. Despite sharing a common historical experience of colonial domination
and influence, divisions of region, religion and ethnicity would articulate cleavages in the actual
cultural landscape of the nation.
While this may merely seem to be innocuous speculation, in actual practice it has served to
enforce a tacit and unacknowledged cultural violence upon Filipinos. Returning to the case of
Alfred Yuson, for instance, one finds that even the partisanship of the Filipino language in
literature as more nationalist than its English counterpart is emblematic of this violence. The
implication is that Filipino writers in English are somehow rendered as more anomalous (in his
terminology, more „unnationalist‟) because of their inability to conform to the nationalist ideal. A
politics of labeling is already present. Yet the repercussions extend further. On one hand, the
practices and institutions that seek to maintain a national culture inevitably end up excluding
those who are caught on the peripheries of the national culture, and imposing such a national
culture when it does not necessarily correspond to their actual cultural experiences. One can
easily draw upon the cases of social exclusion in Muslim Mindanao and among the indigenous
peoples of the archipelago (ex. Aetas, Mangyan), or the regional tensions that perceive the
promotion of the Filipino language as the workings of Southern Tagalog hegemony (ex. Cebu
and Mindanao preference for English over Filipino). On the other hand, because the conception
of Filipino national identity as a monolithic identity is doomed to confront contradictions in the
actual plurality of Filipino cultural experience, it inability to live up to orthodox anthropological
standards leads typical Filipinos themselves to vitiate their own identity. In the end, Fernando
Zialcita writes:
“Filipinos love their way of life. However, problems appear when they reflect on their
identity and try to explain this to themselves, to fellow Filipinos or to outsiders. This is not
helped by the readiness of biased Anglo-Americans and fellow Asians who scorn the
Filipino for not being truly Asian.”.”30
As a result of the monolithic standard, Filipinos were disenabled from situating the authenticity
of their own cultural practices. All foreign influences were debased on the basis that they „taint‟
and „bastardize‟ national culture, yet when the actuality of local cultural practices revealed
29
Although in most studies, this has been the position taken towards the problems of „nationhood‟ within
postcolonial developing countries, it may just as well be that this process was applicable to the formative phase of
most European nations. Zialcita contends that Germany itself exemplified this by borrowing models of French and
Roman nationhood in order to constitute itself nationally.
30
themselves to be inextricably wound up with those influences, the critics of „colonial mentality‟
were themselves left in a discordant state between a present that failed to measure up to their
criteria and a past that, almost by definition, never existed. Zialcita thus offers an argument that
criticizes the diagnosis of „colonial mentality‟ within Filipino cultural identity, and the implicit
violence of the nationalist cultural project. By instating a false dichotomy of „foreign influence‟
and „indigenous culture‟, in conceiving of culture as an end-product rather than a dialectical,
ongoing process, the nationalist model of cultural identity threatened to leave Filipinos even
more upheaved, identity-wise, compared to before. „Authenticity‟, Zialcita states, „is confused
with exoticism,‟31 while the exact archetype which such exoticism derives from is determined,
not internally within Filipino culture, but from the prevailing coterie of countries with established
„national‟ cultures. Again, a hegemony of cultural relations. And the hidden irony that such
hegemony foreshadows for nationalist discourses is that despite adopting the semblance of
veneration for „national identity‟, their projects only serve to entrench a monolithic mode of
culture that force-feeds the ostracism of Filipinos from themselves. In other words: „To ignore
our peasant and urban heritage just because of the obvious Spanish influence, does violence to
our identity.‟32
It was not, as Renato Constantino might say, that the Filipino national „consciousness‟ had been
diluted by the ingress of colonial forces. Colonialism and the idioms of colonial mentality that it
engenders could not and should not be condoned--- but one should also be wary of the
alternative that most nationalist discourses have erected in its place. The return to a glorious
past, the acknowledgement and/or creation of a national identity: while these may have
appeared to be ideal for problematic makeup of Philippine nationhood, the monolithic cast which
informed their cultural projects was, in itself, a foreign and hegemonic product. Like in the case
of economic nationalism, one finds that a movement away from so-named „colonial influences‟
was not sufficient: the process of resistance in line with nationalist logic leads from one set of
contradictions to the next, and the inequalities which were proposed to be eliminated exposed
themselves again under another aspect. The broader implications of these critiques of both
economic and cultural colonial mentality discourses and the nationalism that aims to counteract
their oppressive consequences, and what place those implications may have prefigured
throughout the course of recent Philippine history will be assessed in what follows.
The Matter of Discourse
The common trend which runs in both critiques of the discourses of colonial mentality and its
solution of Nationalism is that they both appear to engage the discourse on the level of its
theoretical value. For example, economically, this was seen in Sicat‟s criticism of economic
nationalist policies. Deriving from theories of „competitive advantage‟ in the international market,
„dead weight loss‟ due to the government intervention in local industry, and the ideal of „foreign
competitiveness‟, he assessed the grounds of nationalist discourses based upon the yardsticks
of neoclassical economic theory.33 In the same way, Ziacita‟s admonition of the nationalist
disdain for the „bastardization‟, „creolization‟ and „imitiativeness‟ of Filipino cultural identity stems
from what he perceives to be a misunderstanding on the part of nationalists on the actual
dialectical processes of culture. In both cases, the idea of Colonial Mentality is derided on the
31
32
33
Sicat, Gerardo. “Philippine Economic Nationalism.” Symposium on Economic Ideas and the Philippine
Constitution. University of the Philippines: 1February 2002. 3-4.
basis of a fundamental divide between representation and reality: a supervening „truth‟ to
economic and cultural phenomena exists which the discourse does not rightly correspond to, as
a representation of those economic and cultural phenomena. This is the level at which Colonial
Mentality and Nationalist discourses are appropriated: in effect, they become truth-propositions
to a situation that is neither the past nor the present case of the reality of Philippine culture and
society. At this level, the point that they converge upon is of critical importance. Because
colonial mentality discourses are suspect to theoretical challenges in the subject that they claim
to represent, the nationalist projects that they espouse are equally prone to supplanting the old
horde of subjugations with new ones. From a broader, structural angle, this means that while it
may be true that strains of neo-imperial domination are still at work, the measures which are
propounded as solutions to them must also be cross-examined for the hidden ways in which
they are complicit in such domination.
Yet, to echo what was mentioned earlier at the introduction, despite exposing the contradictions
within the discourses, both lines of criticism fail to account for the success of colonial mentality
and discourses as a practiced discourses--- that is, for the consequences that they achieve as
discourses that are strategically used and spoken within the realm of everyday practice,
exigency and understanding. These consequences are entirely different from the long-run
economic outcomes that Sicat derides. Economic effects in the sense that he investigates them
are attained irregardless of discourse, and examined in a theoretical frame where the
consequences of the shifts in practices and conceptual understandings produced by discourse
do not technically exist. Pure necessity, at the beckon of aggregated economic laws, instead
takes the place of what is a tenuous social unity which requires a constant reestablishment.
The practical consequences of colonial mentality and Nationalist discourses, as practiced

discourses, are too many for the scope of this paper to span in their entirety. However, a crucial
area which can nevertheless be attended to despite that scope, are the shifts in the sites of
meaningful contestation precipitated by such discourses--- shifts in politics--- and the
inequalities that are reinforced and concealed by such shifts. To phrase this in the vocabulary of
Antonio Gramsci, the establishment of a hegemonic bloc, defined by the locus of its politics and
the consent of groups that could otherwise be opposed to one another, is the crux issue that
must be settled by the practice of these discourses. Floro Quibuyen explains, in the case of the
organization of the Katipunan against the Spanish, and their eventual collapse before the
Americans:
“There seems to be a direct relation between narrative and what Gramsci calls the
„historic bloc‟ in the case of Philippine Nationalism. A change in the historic bloc seems
to be accompanied by a corresponding change in the narrative. As with the nationalist
struggle, the historic bloc that constituted the counterhegemonic struggle in the
Philippines at the turn of the century was always fluid and unstable. Thus to understand
the development of Philippine nationalism, two interacting levels of historical phenomena
need to be explored. On the one hand is the impact of colonialism/imperialism on the
political economy and the culture of the colonized society; on the other is the internal
dynamics of the nationalist resistance, the formation of historic blocs and the creation of
nationalist narratives.”34
34
Quibuyen, Floro. A Nation Aborted: Rizal, American Hegemony and Philippine Nationalism. Quezon City:
Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1999. 250
Gramsci renders a vision of a society that is premised upon divisions: divisions of class and
nationality35. No primordial „unity‟ exists between all the members of any social body, and thus
the differences that cleave the said body are not only capable of producing divergent interests
on the part of those who belong to different social groups--- they enable, more fundamentally,
an entire scheme of inequality to propagate across the body politic. But while there is the infinite
potentiality for conflict in such a scenario, different classes are nevertheless able to establish a
semblance of cooperation (a „hegemonic bloc‟) between the dominant and subordinated due to
what Gramsci terms as „ideological hegemony.‟
Ideological hegemony, here, refers to „ideas, meanings and practices which, while they purport
to be universal truths, are maps of meaning that sustain powerful social groups.‟36 It denotes the
proliferation of ideas, beliefs, commonsensical norms and practices that allows the possibility of
discord between otherwise divided social groups to be overridden through the formation of a
„cultural-social unity‟--- an equal and common conception of the world that is claimed to apply to
all those whom ideological hegemony operates on. In this cultural-social unity, narrow group
interests are either seen to be oriented towards a broader „common good‟ or concealed
altogether; the eradication of inequalities that are both the precondition and the consequence of
class subordination are seen to be merely secondary, sometimes even antagonistic, to the
realization of the alliance‟s goals. While Gramsci does not overtly comment whether the
implications of such bloc alliances are intrinsically exploitative or not 37, he does note their
capacity to immure bloc sub-groups in conditions of inequality and domination. Thus, when they
are incorporated as part of a hegemonic bloc, dominated sub-groups are far less able to contest
the cleavages that are still extant within the bloc, partly because the inequalities that hegemonic
alliances reinforce are rendered invisible to them in the cultural-social unity that they are alleged
to be part of, and partly because resistance to those inequalities are usually co-opted in a way
as to perpetuate their schemes of subjugation.
The event of nationalistic projects and their subsequent inattendance to class and regional
cleavages showcases one of the most immediate examples of ideological hegemony and the
formation of hegemonic blocs in the Philippines. In his study, Floro Quibuyen employs a
Gramscian framework in illumining the underlying relationships between the dissolution of the
Katipunan, the internal politics of the Filipino revolution, the iconography of Rizal and the style of
narration regarding imminent national independence.38 What emerges is a narrative of the
formation of a counterhegemonic bloc--- based upon ideals of national unity and solidarity
drawn from liberalism, infused with a religious-masonic-mythological vocabulary, and united
across the classes of the masses and provincial elites through the lionized figure of Rizal--- that
despite its initial promise after the revolution against Spain, eventually self-combusted due to
intra-bloc tensions that were exposed throughout its struggle with the Spaniards: A Nation
Aborted, as Quibuyen entitles his work. He argues in this that the original intent of forging a
national moral community at the hands of Rizal and Bonifacio, ultimately fell victim to clamor for
an „independent sovereign state‟ of the elite factions within the Katipunan, and the implicit shift
35
Gramsci‟s original application of ideological hegemony/hegemonic analysis was initially centered about issues of
class struggle, due to his Marxist background. Yet as has been demonstrated by many other scholars since, the
concept of ideological hegemony can be applied to other sorts of group formations.
36
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. London: Sage Publications, 2008. 60.
37
The same bloc alliances that oppose ideological hegemony work on the same dynamic, for example. Hegemonic
and counterhegemonic blocs are manifestations of the same process, though opposed to one another in orientation.
38
Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1999. 246-250
in priorities that such clamor presupposed.39 The counterhegemonic bloc, with the entrance of
the Americans, had silently taken upon hegemonic overtones. Hence as early as the 1896
revolution, the nationalist movement in the Philippines, it appears, had already become
exemplary of the schemes of domination that characterize ideological hegemony. The later
„insurrections‟ by so-named bandit gangs once American imperialism had been embedded
within the consciousness of the typical Filipino and the local elite, were to be the primary
resistance against the resultant, hegemonic state-of-affairs.
The phase of nationalist economic policies occurred more than 60 years after the fragmentation
of the Katipunan movement, and the hubbub about the demolition of Filipino identity under
„Western‟ influence continues well into the present. Yet if anything has been made clear in the
paradoxes that go hand-in-hand with the discourses of nationalism and colonial mentality we
have examined, it is exactly that these discourses persist in waging--- even in part--- their
hegemonic consequences within Philippine society. To put it broadly, the rhetorical strategies
that are deployed within them have constituted one of the primary tools by which ideological
hegemonies since the time of the Katipunan have been established and renegotiated. Where
narratives and symbols of the nation change with shifts in the makeup of hegemonic blocs, the
discourses of colonial mentality and nationalism that have been articulated here have also
predominantly been mobilized to reaffirm and reinforce certain aspects of the hegemonic
„cultural-social unity‟ of post-WWII Philippines. Ultimately at stake is the cast of the Filipino
„national imagination‟--- yet the national imagination and the emergent perception of national
unity from it must also be recognized as a hegemonic product, producing real-time hegemonic
effects over an unequal terrain of opportunity.
More specifically, this can be discerned in the politics that are propounded by the discourses.
Nationalist rhetoric, in this end, sets up colonial exploitation as the ultimate target of
contestation--- Spanish, but especially American influence is seen as inimical, while the general
lot of Filipinos who are subjected by these influences are portrayed as a unified people. The
space for what is legitimate, meaningful contestation is centralized around the struggle against
the imperialist; to oppose one‟s countryman (if that countryman has not explicitly allied with the
colonizers) is depicted as tantamount to treachery, and destructive to the binding fabric of the
nation. What can be noticed through such a way of managing the latitude of possible struggle is
that other locuses of conflict are left as imperceptible or inaccessible to the common person. In
order for Nationalist rhetoric to grant the assumptions of its logic a modicum of credibility, it
seems that other sites of resistance must be dispensed with. This is the key insight in the way
that mainstream nationalist and colonial mentality discourses are constructed when Fernando
Zialcita claims that the past trajectory of the discourse has masked horizontal conflicts.40
“For nationalism to succeed in inspiring people to work together for a common goal, it is
important that it understands both the factors that divide and the factors that bring them
together. Unfortunately, sources of horizontal conflict are often ignored. It is assumed
that Filipinos are by nature full of fellowship and cooperation. If they lack this, blame
39
Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1999. 250-256.
40
Zialcita defines horizontal conflicts as conflicts between people of similar status and power, because each
perceives the other as belonging to an external group, therefore posing a threat. Vertical power is defined as
conflicts owing to people, within the same group, having different statuses and positions of power. Though his
argument is focused on ethnic conflicts such as those among the Tinguian, it is also possible to apply his train of
thought along vertical lines as well, as the earlier section of the paper shows.
Western colonial influence. To recover this original state of bliss, it is regarded as
imperative that Western influence must be excised.”41
In the terminology of nationalist discourses in culture, the masking of local conflicts is prompted
by the depiction of Filipino culture as one of neighborliness, community togetherness and
mutual concern. The evocation of the bayanihan spirit is one renowned example of this. The
same masking in the sphere of economic policy took the form of catchphrases such as
„capitalism for all‟, „the modernizing role of nationalism‟, „nationalism, economic development
and social justice.42‟ For instance: „Explanation for Philippine underdevelopment and therefore,
the poverty of the masses, lies in the colonial structure of the national economy,‟ wrote
Alejandro Lichauco. The reality of these nationalist projects, of course, was never to be as
roseate as was guaranteed by their discourses. But due to its shift from other modes of politics--
- class and regional politics especially--- their consequent invisibility was oriented to a
productive end, in that it was able to instantiate a mode of imagination that other modes of
politics would have been antagonistic (though not intrinsically) to. This was the same case in
Nationalist discourses in India, where gender politics--- particularly, politics against a time-
honored but repressive allocation of social roles among women43--- was to flag in terms of its
urgency, after the rise of nationalist politics in the nation‟s ethical-political consciousness.
Despite the retention of one of the most oppressive gender systems in the world, „this very issue
disappeared from the public agenda by the end of the century,‟44 due to the interrogative force
that „the women‟s question‟ posed to the national confraternity between Indians. Where women
had been beatified as de-historicized avatars of the „spirit of the nation‟, to promote a politics for
them as historical agents was to threaten one of the most fundamental shrines of India‟s
national imagination. In the Philippines, it was this same national imagination, where the only
site of struggle would be between a unified Philippines and an equally unified imperial
opposition that would lead one self-professed layman to reflect upon nationalism: „But what is
nationalism? It is the spirit of love that impels a person or a group of people to live, work and
spend themselves for the full and total development or self-realization of every Filipino.‟45
The quotation above, in equating nationalism with love, total development and self-realization
apotheosizes the tendency of colonial mentality and nationalist discourses to downplay and/or
negate other modes of contestation. National unity, solidarity, equality in spirit, comradeship,
and finally, love, had altogether surrogated for politics, and had become presented as total
solutions to the problematic conditions of Filipino nationhood. Other modes of politics became
unnecessary, simply because „If we use our God-given talents and build a culture of
nationalism, we might be able to […] create a culture that is just perfect.‟46 There was
undeniably some measure of hyperbole--- not to mention naivety--- within this. All the same it
exhibited the immense capacity for group sentiment and unification that the discourses were
able to set into motion for those that it functioned upon. This is common knowledge among the
41
Zialcita. Fernando. “Nationalism and Horizontal Conflicts.” Culture of Nationalism in Contemporary Philippine
Society. Baguio: UP Cordilleras Studies Center. 44-45
42
Taken from: Araneta et. al. The Role of Nationalism and Economic Development in Social Justice. Manila:
Institute of Economic and Social Action, 1968.
43
The incidence of „dowry death‟ and „bride-burning‟ still continues to be of utmost notoriety. In the mid-90‟s an
average 5800 cases of bride-burning were reported each year.
44
Radhakrishnan, Rajagopalan. “Nationalism, Gender and the Narrative of Identity.” Postcolonial Discourses: An
Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell. 192.
45
Munoz Jr., Mauro. “A Layman‟s Reflection on „Culture on Nationalism‟.” Culture of Nationalism in
Contemporary Philippine Society. Baguio: UP Cordilleras Studies Center. 50
46
Munoz Jr., Mauro. “A Layman‟s Reflection on „Culture on Nationalism‟.” Culture of Nationalism in
Contemporary Philippine Society. Baguio: UP Cordilleras Studies Center. 57
multitude of scholars on nationhood and national identity, and Benedict Anderson notes them
when he writes: „Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries,
for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited
imaginings.‟47 And yet the most arresting thing that remained to be considered about the
unifying power of the discourses was that in depoliticizing (eradicating all other sites of
contestation) the nation right as it fashioned compacts of imagined brotherhoods, they enabled
the same instruments of nationalism (ex. protectionist policies, socio-cultural research) to
invisibly reinforce the hegemonic state of affairs. For now that cleavages of class, region,
religion and ethnicity internal to the nation could no longer be interrogated by a politics apart
from nationalist politics (to which they were invisible), the cultural-social unity generated by the
nationalist solution became vulnerable to contradicting itself by buttressing, rather than
unraveling, the initial problems that it claimed that it was proposed to address. When foreign
capital had been spurned, the oligarchies of the colonial system were largely to be reproduced
on a hitherto-unprecedented scale; and when the image of the Filipino, excised of all colonial
influence had been presented before them, the Filipinos were to realize that they could no
longer fit within in the exoticizations that had been made of them.48
“Obsessively concerned with the West and other forms of local elitism, nationalism fails to speak
for its own people [….]”49 Inevitably it appears to be the case that the deployment of nationalist
and colonial mentality discourses throughout the Philippine‟s stint with protectionism and the
romance of its cultural authorities with indigenous identity have been essential in perpetrating
the same ideological hegemony that Quibuyen traced throughout the dissolution of the
Katipunan. By the formation of an alleged national unity that was founded upon the continuance
of internal contradictions due to the obscured origins of the nationalist project, by the masking of
sites of local conflict in their use of a fraternal and/or populist language, and the shifting to a
politics that was limited to the altercations between colonial subjugators and the colonial
subjugated, the gravest practical consequences of the discourses have been that of realigning
the colonization process to be perpetrated, not by any of the old imperial suspects, but by a new
one. Spanish/American hegemony had been substituted by Filipino hegemony. The colonized
had become colonizers of themselves. The precise conditions which had stigmatized American
ideological hegemony: the oligarchic structure of the Philippine political-economy, and the sense
of liberation from a corruptions of an identity--- the specific substance may have been different,
but the form---and moreover the contradictions--- were to be the same. Within all this, nationalist
and colonial mentality discourses were to play a role of the highest importance. They were to
conceal the colonial political-economic and epistemological origins of that the nationalist project
had devolved from--- not in an intentional, consciously-engineered sense among the local elite
maybe, but generally to the same effect. Economically, this was to be done by establishing
mass rapport through the import-substitution policies designed primarily for industry, while still
excluding the general population from the benefits to be reaped. Culturally, this was to follow by
depoliticizing, dehistoricizing and then transplanting a monolithic, Eurocentric conception of
national identity that many Filipinos themselves could not relate to, regardless of the implicit
47
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Rev. Ed).
Pasig: Anvil Publications, 2003. 6-7
48
A potent example of this can also be drawn from Zialcita. He recounts that “Most Filipinos will not look at the
animist or non-Muslim Filipinos of the Coredillera or Mindanao highlands as a possible image of what they were
before Christianization.” To provide a concrete example, he illustrates the incessant sanitizing of pre-Hispanic
Filipino culture during official cultural celebration of indigenous identity. (From: Zialcita’s “Authentic though not
Exotic”, page 32)
49
violence that it was to do to their actual cultural constitution. „Freedom from hegemony‟ was to
be trailed by more hegemony--- colonialism by another name.
Old Nationalisms and New Colonial Mentalities: A Conclusion
The thesis that this paper has advanced--- that the nationalist and colonial mentality discourses
we have examined have been strategic in fortifying ideological hegemonies within the
Philippines after American occupation had formally ended, that those hegemonies, in
themselves, were to form a new strain of hegemony, a colonialism no longer tied to the old club
of imperialists, but rather, evolving from them in order to be operationalized by the colonized---
is by no means limited to the scenario to the Philippines. It is indicative of most of the
conundrums that former colonized are left to deal with once the colonized has physically and
politically left them. It is no wonder, then, that as R. Radhakrishnan writes: „this divide [between
modernity and indigenity] the ideology of a dominant common world where the West leads
naturally and the East follows in an eternal game of catch-up in which its identity is always in
dissonance with itself.‟50 True, one can contend that we might „prefer a government run like hell
by Filipinos, than a government run like heaven by the Americans‟ but then one also has to
address the necessary question mark: in the mind of the layman who thinks that the separation
of heaven and hell is the same as the separation between up and down and hot and cold, just
how different, really are the contradictions that are faced by colonialism from the contradictions
that are faced the nationalist discourses we have analyzed? Less, perhaps, than what may be
immediately comfortable. One must be more critical of the „fraternity‟, the „national unity‟, the
„social justice‟, and the „spirit of love‟ that such discourses are wont to banner, when so much of
the political-economic and cultural paradoxes that characterized American and Spanish
hegemony continued after the granting of political independence to the Philippines in 1946. This
situation owed not only to the continued domination of the country by America via neocolonial
mechanisms such as its military bases, television programs, political and economic agreements
in the Philippines--- but also to how Filipinos had donned the aspect of the colonizer over
themselves. Where the origin of nationalism itself owes from the colonizer, any solution to the
problems that are engendered by the colonial past require a more radical interrogation. The real
tragedy is not that we are too un-nationalistic because of the stigma of our colonial mentality.
The converse might actually be truer: that we speak too much of nationalism that we can no
longer grasp the contradictions generated by how colonial to ourselves we really are.
Despite the arguments that we have posed within these paper, many more issues deserve to be
addressed. As nation is never a monolithic phenomenon, so is nationalism--- the nationalist
discourses that we have investigated here, as it turns out, are only some of the many variants of
nationalisms, which are to be located within the Filipino nation. One only needs to read Pasyon
and Revolution by Reynaldo Ileto to see this. On the other hand, a more precise relation to
Filipino and American Hegemony can probably still be forged: did American Hegemony weaken
due to Filipino Hegemony? Were these hegemonies to mutually influence or mutually
antagonize one another? To whom would these hegemonies apply and what would be possible
strategies of contesting them simultaneously? And still more importantly, the issue of other
modes of politics: What other modes of politics have been significant within the passage of
Philippine history after the wake of Philippine Independence and how have they been stifled?
How can one space for politics be fashioned while still maintaining latitude for another? Is it
possible for nationalist politics to dialogue with other modes of politics, with the politics of other
50
nationalisms? How can these politics be recuperated within the historical practice of Filipino
agency, and how must the practice of politics itself within the boundaries of the Filipino nation
be transformed in order to prevent the same historical error from repeating itself? How can it be
done that a new nationalism that does not exclude and does not over-value one politics of the
other can be born within Philippine shores?
These questions, however they may seem to be more rhetorical claptrap upon first viewing, are
important questions. Through the consideration of them, maybe, a more genuine answer to the
question of Filipino nationhood can then be crafted.
Bibliography
Books
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of

Nationalism (Rev. Ed). Pasig: Anvil Publications, 2003.
Araneta, Salvador. Economic Nationalism And Capitalism For All In A Directed Economy.
Araneta University Press, Manila, 1965.
Araneta, et al. The Role of Nationalism and Economic Development's Social Justice. Institute of
Economic Studies and Social Action, Manila, 1968.
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies : Theory and Practice. SAGE Publications, Minnesota, 2008.
Constantino, Renato. Neocolonial Identity and Counter Consciousness: Essays on Cultural

Decolonization,The Merlin Press, London, 1978.
Constantino, Renato. The Nationalist Alternative, Foundation for Nationalist Societies, Quezon
City, 1979.
Delmendo, Sharon. The Star-Entangeled Banner: One Hundred Years Of America In The
Philippines, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, 2004.
Dolan, Ronald Philippines: A Country Study, US Government Printing, New York, 1993.
Hutchison, Jane. "Pressure on Policy in the Philippines." The Political Economy of Southeast
Asia, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997. pp.64-87.
Lichauco, Alejandro. Lichauco Paper: Imperialism in the Philippines. Monthly Review Press,
New York, 1973
Munoz Jr., Mauro. “A Layman‟s Reflection on „Culture on Nationalism‟.” Culture of Nationalism

in Contemporary Philippine Society. Baguio: UP Cordilleras Studies Center.
NEPA. "The NEPA Decalogue." NEPA : objectives of protectionism in the Philippines, essays
on political economy. Bookman Publishing, Manila, 1960. p.163
Razon, Benito, “The Necessity of Economic Protectionism” NEPA: objectives of protectionism in

the Philippines, essays on political economy. Bookman Publishing, Manila, 1960 p.163
Quezon, Manuel L. "Policy of the Commonwealth." NEPA : objectives of protectionism in the

Philippines, essays on political economy. Bookman Publishing, Manila, 1960. pp.1-4.
Quibuyen, Floro C. A Nation Aborted : Rizal, American Hegemony, and Philippine Nationalism,
Ateneo de Manila University Press, Quezon City, 1999
Radhakrishnan, Rajagopalan. “Nationalism, Gender and the Narrative of Identity.” Postcolonial

Discourses: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell. 200.
Sachs, Jeffrey D. Developing Country Debt and Economic Performance. University of Chicago
Press, Chicago, 1991
Sicat, Gerardo. Philippine Economic Nationalism. University of the Philippines Press, Quezon
City, 2002.
Zialcita, Fernando. Authentic though not Exotic: Essays on Filipino Identity. Ateneo de Manila
University Press, Quezon City, 2005.
Zialcita, Fernando. "Nationalism and Horizontal Conflicts." Culture of Nationalism in

Contemporary Philippine Society: Conference Proceedings. Baguio Allied Printers,
Baguio, 1995. pp.31-57.
Newspaper Articles
Benigno, Teodoro “What is Nationalism?” Philippine Star 5 Dec. 2003: 15
Cerrano, Edgar. “We Need Recto‟s Nationalism” Philippine Daily Inquirer 10 Mar. 2008: A16
Excerpt fom the Bangkok Times Feb.23. “Dangers of Ultranationalism.” Manila Times 2 Feb
2007: A4
Jurado, Gonzalo. “Efren Bata Reyes and Nationalism” Manila Times 2 Feb. 2003: A7
Magno, Alex. “Cheap Nationalism.” Philippine Star 14 Oct. 2003: 10
Orejas, Tonette. “Nationalism Lacking in Gov‟t Plans, Says Tanada” Philippine Daily Inquirer 27
Aug. 2000: 12
Pangalangan, Raul. “Filipino Nationalism in English” Philippine Daily Inquirer 28 May 2004: A14
Pangalangan, Raul. “It‟s Time for a New Nationalism.” Philippine Daily Inquirer 12 Nov 2004:
A14
Philexport News. “Local Execs Promote Economic Nationalism” Philippine Star 7 Feb. 2003: C1
Torre, Nestor. “Negative Effects of Colonial Mentality” Philippine Daily Inquirer 21 Oct. 2003:
A24
Yuson, Alfred. “A Language for Nationalism” Philippine Star 3 Apr. 2006: F1

Colonialism by Another Name

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Colonialism by Another Name

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Colonialism By Another Name: Discourses of Nationalism and Colonial Mentality and the Inception of

Jerome Patrick D.R. Cruz

Submitted to the Department of History of the

History 166: Philippine History

January 28, 2009

A Nationalism for Whom?

“- American citizens and corporations to be granted parity or equal access to Philippine

Throughout the phases of industrialization, import-substitution and economic protectionism,

1. Cherish your own above all others

Neither This, Nor That

The Matter of Discourse

The practical consequences of colonial mentality and Nationalist discourses, as practiced

Old Nationalisms and New Colonial Mentalities: A Conclusion

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of

Constantino, Renato. Neocolonial Identity and Counter Consciousness: Essays on Cultural

Munoz Jr., Mauro. “A Layman‟s Reflection on „Culture on Nationalism‟.” Culture of Nationalism

Razon, Benito, “The Necessity of Economic Protectionism” NEPA: objectives of protectionism in

Quezon, Manuel L. "Policy of the Commonwealth." NEPA : objectives of protectionism in the

Radhakrishnan, Rajagopalan. “Nationalism, Gender and the Narrative of Identity.” Postcolonial

Zialcita, Fernando. "Nationalism and Horizontal Conflicts." Culture of Nationalism in

Benigno, Teodoro “What is Nationalism?” Philippine Star 5 Dec. 2003: 15

Magno, Alex. “Cheap Nationalism.” Philippine Star 14 Oct. 2003: 10

Yuson, Alfred. “A Language for Nationalism” Philippine Star 3 Apr. 2006: F1

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen