25 April 2019

HI 166 - AH 674 words

Ordinary Filipinos: Active Creators of History

There is no doubt that the colonization of the Philippines has drastically shaped our
history. In my experience, history textbooks have focused on the influence of colonizers and
famous Filipino heroes in our nation’s history. However, the ordinary Filipino is often
missing in the historical narrative.
Education is one area where Filipinos proved that they were not passive in the
creation of their own history. The Baldwin Primer was made during the American colonial
period in order to teach American ideals and the English language to Filipinos. However, a
Filipino edition of the primer which was better suited for a Filipino audience was produced.
This showed that ordinary Filipino teachers and students were agents in the cultural
appropriation of educational materials. In addition, ordinary Filipinos saw the Baldwin
primer as a tool for liberation from manual labor and the colonial society. They actively
reestablished a new meaning for the primer different from the Americans’ intention to use it
as a tool to produce skilled laborers.
Asides from education, the active role of ordinary Filipinos in the shaping of history
is also evident in the invention of the hagotan, an abaca stripping machine. It was ordinary
Filipino workers who used these machines that represented a hybrid of the American
industrial spirit and a sense of Asian community. Filipinos showed that Davao was not totally
an American frontier because they actively participated in the creation and collective use of
the machine that has shaped our country’s history in terms of abaca production. The
modification of foreign influence is also manifested in the history of Filipino food. The
pancit, though originally Chinese, have been modified by ordinary Filipinos in various
regions by using different ingredients and spices (e.g. Pancit Malabon, Pancit Lucban, etc).
We do not deny the major role that the colonizers and the elites have played in
Philippine society and economy. American colonial officials allowed Filipino elites to hold
higher government positions, further increasing their economic and political power. They
usually worked hand-in-hand because the colonizers relied on the elites to to rule the country.
Colonialism is a significant factor in the peasant farmers’ revolt in Central Luzon. Colonial
officials strengthened the local elites’ power while simultaneously making the elites less
dependent on villages to obtain support and maintain their social status. The American
colonial regime implemented policies that led to the Philippine economy to be increasingly
capitalistic. A particular example is the monetary incentives that the American colonial
officials gave for cash crop production dominated by the elites. The elites were pressured to
demand more from workers while minimizing their costs for labor. The elites also influenced
government policies to benefit their personal interests, resulting to an incoherent bureaucracy.
The influence of both elites and colonizers in Philippine society extended to the
Japanese regime. The elites cooperated with the Japanese to secure their economic and
political position in Philippine society. The Japanese colonial officials found this to be
mutually convenient because their administrative policy is to leave Philippine civil affairs
with the existing administrative structure.
It was not just the elites, but also the ordinary Filipinos, who made their presence
known in twentieth-century Philippine history. An example would be the revolt of peasant
farmers in Central Luzon which did not attain the goal of restoring the paternalistic
landlord-tenant relationship. However, it was able to make a change in terms of making
agrarian issues a national priority and the peasants’ recognition of their agency.
The EDSA revolution that ended Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship was also a testimony
of the power of ordinary Filipinos, especially when united. Their determination to express
their disapproval of the abuses and worsening economic conditions during the Marcos’
regime changed the course of Philippine history. Every ordinary citizen who participated
risked their life when they went to EDSA. They showed the world that though they did it
through nonviolent means, they are a force to be reckoned with.They even served as an
inspiration to other countries that their own ordinary citizens can make a mark in their own
country’s history.