THE REAFFIRMATION OF WHAT IS FILIPINO (I)

THE REAFFIRMATION OF WHAT IS FILIPINO (I)
Guillermo Gómez Rivera
(1 June 1985-May 8, 2017)

1. WHAT IS A FILIPINO?

What is a Filipino? Who is the Filipino? Why is he called a “Filipino?”

Why is there a “New Filipino?” Is there a traditional Filipino? Is he the same persona as the “New Filipino?”

Why is there such a thing as a “Pilipino?” Who is a “Pilipino”? What is a “Pinóy”?

Who were the first Filipinos? When did they start calling themselves “Filipinos?” Are the “New Filipinos” and the “Pilipinos” or “Pinoyes” Filipinos also?

Was there a transition, or an evolution, from the Filipino to the “New Filipino” and to the “Pilipino” and down to the “Pinóy”?

Why is “Pinóy” so degrading or insult-sounding”? Is “Pinóy” not the name given to Filipinos that are taken for granted in their inferiority as persons? If so, what historical events or vicissitudes caused this evolution in these other sub-names for the Filipino?

After twenty years of a “New Filipino” rule, with a “New Society” that was imposed after the declaration of Martial Law, in 21 September 1972 by President Ferdinand E. Marcos, the inquiries go on.

And these inquiries, these questions, coming from a younger generation of Filipinos, keep on resurfacing even after the “new Filipino society” was replaced by the “yellow society” of the slavish Corystas and Noynoying with a new Cory Constitution that has given away to U.S. WASP globalization the entire economic patrimony of the Filipino people since 1986 as it started the deadly era of drugs exemplified by that one called “shabú” that came into the Filipino milieu with the ascension to power of a never elected “President” like Cory Aquino followed by the later election of her derided son, Noynoy who called himself “PNoy”?

But the answers to what is Filipino continue being terribly scarce and, if given, remain sadly inadequate.

Most of the time the questions simply remain unanswered. And due to that, the questions themselves lapse into oblivion.

2. ANSWERING THE QUESTION.

But should the foregoing questions remain unanswered? We believe not. These questions have to be answered. And well answered at that, lest the deterioration of the Filipino, due to his present system of mis-education and other circumstances that brought in so many harmful influences that now rule his life, get to maim the Filipino and the Filipina beyond recognition aided by “shabú”.

As teachers, we began asking our students and co-teachers: what is a Filipino? To our surprise and near consternation, most of them answered that they did not know. Those who gave us some answers apologized that the definitions they gave were not really satisfactory. They, however, suggested that we check out Philippine history textbooks something which many of them never do anyway.

For us, this fact about a good number of Filipino college teachers and students not knowing what is a Filipino, when in fact they are Filipinos, is really amusing if not disturbing. How could educated and professional Filipinos not know what is a Filipino to a satisfactory degree? Somewhere, somehow, our system of education has failed or violated specific provisions in the Philippine Constitution (of 1935, as well as that of 1972-1973 and even 1987) if Filipinos today can’t put together an accurate definition of what is a Filipino. We mean the constitutional provisions of the Filipino youth’s education.

We consulted an early edition of Teodoro Agoncillo’s “A Short History of the Philippines,” published by the University of the Philippines in the 1960’s. And to our great consternation, this historian wrote on Page 5 of his history book that “it is difficult, if not impossible” (for him at least), to define what is Filipino”.

The same “State Historian” advised, on the same page of his book, that if any of his readers, or students, would like to know what is Filipino that they had but to observe what is “general and common” in the characteristics of the present-day people of the Philippines. This explanation or definition does not really help since, upon a second look, is a frankly lame “definition”.

From that day on, we could not rely on the history book of Teodoro Agoncillo. More so when we finished reading it. Local writer Jolico Cuadra, in a review of this Agoncillo history book published in the Solidarity Magazine of writer-editor Francisco Sionil José, called Teodoro Agoncillo “an historian of prejudices.”

At this writing, Teodoro Agoncillo is dead. He has passed away. And his “A Short History” or “A History of the Filipino People,” or whatever title it might have today, might as well pass away with him, too. Considering the need among the Filipino youth of today to know their national identity, it appears that Teodoro Agoncillo has failed them as an historian. More so, because since the 1950’s up to the late 1960’s, a good number of newspaper magazine articles appeared talking about the “crisis” in the Filipino identity.

3. A CRISIS OF IDENTITY WITH SPANISH AS A SOLUTION?

It was then precisely due to this crisis in the identity and in the realm of contemporary Filipino thought and culture that Senator Enrique Magalona convinced a still largely Spanish speaking Philippine Legislature and the President of his time, the Spanish-speaking Elpidio Quirino, to pass a law including the teaching of 12 units of Spanish in the college level of Philippine education. It was expected that with the knowledge of Spanish, the enigma that is the Filipino will at last be clarified. But another problem surfaced. Many of or English mis-educated “Diploma mill educators” and druggie students, took the coming in of the Spanish language not as a solution to better define what is the Filipino but as a burden because this is what the still strong American neocolonial mentality and direct influence, kept on telling them in “history books” of the Teodoro Agoncillo genre.

Senator Enrique Magalona pointed out that since the Vicente Sotto Spanish Law for Philippine High Schools was not being implemented by the laxity prevailing in the educational ministry of the Government and the dereliction going on in a good number of local high schools, private as well as public, there was a need to strengthen the place of the Spanish language in the Filipino youth’s education so that what is Filipino may be better understood, loved and preserved by them as logic, common sense, and as the Organic Law of the land ordains. Lest we forget, the Magalona Law was to reinforce the teaching of Spanish in the high school, or secondary course or level, of the country’s educational system is authored by no other than the great nationalist and labor leader from Cebú, Congressman Don Vicente Sotto y Yap (the grandfather of Senator-actor Vicente “Tito” Sotto III and Vic Sotto of the “Eat Bulaga” fame. ). Spanish was still an official language of this country at that time.

But the quest on what is Filipino went on and on in spite of the Magalona Spanish law because of the Diploma mills that had as many as sisty students in every classroom because they had to make money. Education, after all, was also a lucrative business enterprise for many school owners masquerading as “educators” of the youth that was already in drugs.

4. THE WEBSTER DICTIONARY’S EARLY DEFINITION OF FILIPINO AS PROVOKED BY A CARLOS P. RÓMULA COMMENT

The quest to define what is Filipino almost ended when we had to write a letter to the then Manila Times Daily, defending General Carlos P. Rómulo who was being accused “of denigrating the Mountain Province people” because he, more or less said in a speech, that they, the Ifugaos et al were not Filipinos. A small controversy ensued among the existing newspapers. But it was precisely because of this controversy about what is Filipino that we had turned for help to the “Webster’s Second New International Dictionary of the English Language,” copyrighted in the Philippines since 1925 (and subsequently in 1950, 1953, 1954, 1957, 1959, and 1961).

And then and there, under the letter F we got the following definitions of the word FILIPINO from this credible source:. And it wrote after the word Filipino:

1. a Malayan member of a Christianized tribe as distinguished from
the Pagan and wild tribes and the Mohammedan Moros.

2. a citizen of the Republic of the Philippines.

As it is obvious, Webster, the great authority that it is in the English language, gives two (2) definitions of the Filipino. The first definition is ethnographic in nature. The second definition is merely political.

It is the first definition that almost satisfies us in our quest for the answer to “What is a Filipino?”

Webster’s ethnographic definition categorically says that the Filipino must be “a member of a Christianized Malayan tribe,” meaning the Visayans, the Tagalogs, the Bicolanos, the Pampangos, the Ybanagues, the Ilocanos, the Zambaleños, the Zamboangueños, the Davaoeños, the Palaueños, and several other tribal/ethnic groups. Not content with this first indication, Webster’s definition emphasizes that these Christianized Malayan tribes have to be “distinguished from the pagan and wild tribes,” possibly those in the Mountain Province who have had no news still about the word of God, “. It has also to be distinguished from the Mohammedan Moros.”. It is a fact that the Muslims of Mindanao are not native to the Philippines. Mohamedanism is a foreign idea and thought. The real natives of Mindanao are the lumad ethnic groups.

“Webster’s Second New International Dictionary of the English Language” (unabridged and copyrighted in the Philippines in 1971), has modified the above given definition of the Filipino. It has substituted the word “tribe” with the word “people” in its ethnographic definition. But the etymological information on the word Filipino remains the same.

According to Webster, the word Filipino is a Spanish word, a Spanish noun, and a Spanish adjective. Hence, etymologically speaking, the word or name Filipino does not come from any of the indigenous languages and dialects of the Philippines (i.e., Tagalog, Visayan, Ilocano, Bícol, etcetera); nor does it come from the English language, nor the Chinese language(s), nor from the Japanese language, nor any other foreign language that may have been spoken by other immigrants to the Philippine Islands. It is categorical: the name, word, noun, and adjective FILIPINO is SPANISH. Those who may further doubt or contradict this fact will also see in the same dictionary the other related words derived from FILIPINO. These are:

FILIPINA/Noun singular capital/Spanish feminine of Filipino/: a female Filipino.

5. THE WORD FILIPINO BEING SPANISH IN ORIGIN EXPLAINS WHY SENATORS VICENTE SOTTO AND ENRIQUE MAGALONA AUTHORED LAWS FOR THE TEACHING OF SPANISH IN OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

When an English language dictionary like Webster’s clearly states that the word Filipino is SPANISH derived, then we began to understand why old Spanish-speaking Filipino legislators (both were Senators) like Don Vicente Sotto and Don Enrique Magalona, authored laws to include the teaching of Spanish to the new generations of Filipinos for they knew, Spanish speaking as they are, the close link that exists between the knowledge of Spanish and the definition of what is Filipino.

Etymologically the word FILIPINO is followed by the information that it is: a noun that is singular capital/Spanish adjective and noun from (Islas) Filipinas Philippine Islands/. This etymological information is given before the modified definition of FILIPINO. To wit:

FILIPINO: 1. a native of the Philippine Islands; specifically:
a member of a Christianized Philippine people as distinguished
from a member of a people predominantly pagan or Muslim.

2. a citizen of the Republic of the Philippines.

As it is obvious, the second definition of FILIPINO, which is the political definition, is the same in both the SECOND and THIRD New International Dictionaries of Webster.

And the pagan tribes as well as the Muslims are again pointed out as not being native Filipinos. Therefore, the Muslims in Mindanao with a newly invented idea about a “bangsamoro”, are not native Filipinos ethnically speaking. They are foreigners and don’t deserve any “ancestral land” or any “ancestral domain”.

To any discerning and open-minded people, the given Webster definitions are correct in substance. But then, what about the word PILIPINO?

Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language has not yet admitted the word PILIPINO. Were it not for the P, the placement of the letter F would make it FILIPINO.

6. THE NAME “PILIPINO” IS NOT FOUND IN WEBSTER’S DICTIONARY, EVEN IF IT’S TWO ROOT WORDS ARE STILL SPANISH DERIVED..

Those who are, however, familiar with the controversy over the validity of Lope K. Santos’ grammar for Tagalog, wherein he emphasized a 19 or 20 letter (or syllabaric) alphabet, the existence of the letter F has been removed from Tagalog after 400 years of use and Spanish influence.

Since the present Government of the Republic of the Philippines –despite the existence of specific provisions in the 1973 and 1987 Philippine Constitutions– has not stopped the imposition of the Lope K. Santos alphabet and grammar in the teaching of this native language, a definition of PILIPINO had to be formulated.

“Pilipino” is said to be a composed word. The two (2) words composing it are said to be pure Tagalog words. These are: pilî, meaning “selected” or “elite,” and; pino which means “refined.” Thus, PILIPINO means that one is “a member of a selected elite who is refined” – if we are to formulate a definition for it in the phraseology of Webster’s dictionary.

To the incisive researcher, the word PILIPINO is etymologically ridiculous and inaccurate. For one, pino is derived from the Spanish word fino which means “refined” or “fine.” Etymologically speaking, the purist term PILIPINO is not even purely native Tagalog. It is half-Spanish. If the intent of this neologistical coinage is to avoid the use of the name FILIPINO in Tagalog because it is Spanish-derived, the word PILIPINO is a failure from the start; it is still Spanish influenced.

What makes the coinage the more Spanish is the existence of its feminine counterpart inside a Tagalog language that is supposed to be genderless in its nouns and adjectives. We mean the word PILIPINA. There is a song, for instance, called Ang Dalagang Pilipina (The Filipina Damsel). If we were to take into account the genderless of Tagalog nouns, the name of that song should read Ang Dalagang Pilipino. But to a people already used to Spanish influence in their native tongue, to say Ang Dalagang Pilipino is as jarring and as un-Filipino. For any maiden of these islands, to say or sing Ako’y Pilipino is wrong Tagalog grammar because the feminine modifier thereof has been wrongly left out. To correct that phrase, the maiden or singer saying so should declare Ako’y Babaeng Pilipino. But then, that would be too wordy, tedious, or even ridiculous. Why would one have to declare his/her sex when stating his/her nationality when it is already obviously known?

But then, the tendency and policy in purist Tagalog, also known as “Pilipino,” is so emotionally schizophrenic that phrases, meant to identify the nationality of the person in the ethnographic and political aspects, literally go wrong even within the grammatical context of the language they are supposedly using out of haste (hate maybe) and plain mis-education and ignorance.

The least we can and should expect from these people, who follow the Lope K. Santos grammar, is to be consistent and correct according to that same grammar and language.

PILIPINO, and all its connotations, is the fruit of the crisis that afflicts the Filipino’s national identity due to his/her individual loss of Spanish and the basic culture that comes with it. Any individual Filipino can go wrong in many things he does because of this situation.

And then we have the coined word PINÓY that comes from the ending “pine” of “Philippine” and the ending “óy” of “Unggóy” meaning monkey or simian.

7. WHO IS A FILIPINO?

It is then etymologically established that the word or name FILIPINO is a Spanish word derived, according to Webster’s Dictionary, from another Spanish word known as FILIPINAS. And Filipino is the name of the archipelagic state that was founded with its capital, Manila, on 24 June 1571, and to which the pre-Hispanic Tagalog, Ilocano, Visayas, Moro Ethnic States, etc., adhere to as a result of the 1599 synod held in Manila that resulted in the incorporation in the FILIPINO STATE of all the pre-Hispanic ethnic States that agreed to accept the King of Spain as their “natural sovereign”. Therefore, what is Filipino is, to a great extent, Spanish in origin and character.

To determine now WHO is FILIPINO becomes easier. All we have to do is review that part of Philippine History where the names Filipino, Filipina, and Filipinas appear.

And, with the word FILIPINO being etymologically Spanish, we turn to those chapters of Philippine History wherein the Spaniards play a definite role, a role that explains the direct Spanishness of the name Filipino and the identity of he/her, WHO IS THE FILIPINO as well as the identity of those who are not Filipino or no longer Filipino.

8. HISTORICAL AND ETHYMOLOGICAL ORIGIN OF THE NAME “FILIPINAS” AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE FILIPINO PEOPLE

Ruy López de Villalobos, on his way to Mindanao from an expedition on 2 February 1543, passed by the island of Leyte and called it Ysla Felipena in honor of the then Principe de Asturias, later Felipe II of Spain. Miguel López de Legaspi, the adelantado and the First Spanish Governor General of the Philippines, extended the name Felipena, originally given to Leyte, to all the other islands comprising the same archipelago. This led to the pluralization of the name Ysla Felipena to Yslas Felipenas.

Due to the evolution of the Spanish language between the 16th century up to the present time, the name Yslas Felipenas became Islas Filipinas, whence Webster’s Dictionary, among several other authoritative sources, derived the name FILIPINO.

But the name FILIPINO is not only Spanish-derived. The Spaniards did play a direct role, in the course of Philippine History, to substantiate that name and its national connotation. That substantialization has been denied by historians of the Teodoro Agoncillo school. Teodoro Agoncillo avers that those chapters, supposedly part of Philippine history wherein the Spaniards appear as the principal actors, are not Filipino nor should they be accepted as part of the history of the Filipino people. He reasons out that these chapters are but “the history of Spaniards in the Philippines.”

9. TEODORO AGONCILLO IS CORRECTED BY DAVID P. BARROWS

Teodoro Agoncillo’s theory doesn’t hold water. It is cock-eyed. We say this because we know that any thinking and true-blooded American, for instance, would find it hard to be told that the coming of the first English immigrants in the Mayflower and the landing at Plymouth “is not part of American History for the simple reason that it is the history of England in the United States of America.” Teodoro Agoncillo may have wanted to drive a point to buoy up the pride of the present-day misguided and miss-educated Filipinos. But to do that in the manner he has done it, is surely not the way to uplift the pride of present-day Filipinos. You can not have pride based obviously on lies fabricated just to slavishly please the Western Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) racists and their local ilk just to be corrected by an honest WASP like Dr. Barrows. That is more than embarrassing.

And, indeed, Dr. David P. Barrows, the American Director of Instruction, or Education, during the first two decades of American rule in the Philippines, is called by no less than the Enciclopedia Espasa, Volume 23, page 1,366, as a “very authorized Filipinist” because, unlike other WASPs, he wrote the following:

A la llegada de los españoles, no había grandes centros de pobla-
ción ni estaban los filipinos unidos en ningún punto en unidades
políticas de ninguna clase. La comunidad de unos cuantos miles de
almas bajo su independiente dato o rajá era la unidad más formidable
a la cual tenían que hacer frente los conquistadores.

And the Enciclopedia Espasa Universal, Europea y Americana, continues with what, more or less, Don Teodoro M. Kálaw, former Director of the National Library, wrote about his country. To wit:

En realidad, el pueblo filipino, con plena conciencia de su persona-
lidad y características claramente nacionales, es un producto de la
dominación española, que dió unidad y cohesión a los diversos ele-
mentos étnicos que poblaban el archipiélago.

10. WHO IS FILIPINO?

To produce the answer to the question of WHO IS THE FILIPINO, the concurrence of Philippine History is inevitable. But to clear the way for the true history of the Philippines, we are compelled to first put in “their true place” those historians of the Teodoro Agoncillo school, as well as those of the Blaire and Robertson documents and conclusions, who have clearly labored to disfigure and misinterpret what the true History of the Philippines conveys.

Thus, before pointing out WHO IS THE FILIPINO, we need to closely take note of the conclusion or thesis of an early mentor of the Filipinos, Dr. David P. Barrows. In effect, Dr. Barrows is telling us that it was the Spaniards who created what we know today as the Filipino centers of population. In short, the Filipino community that started with the 1599 Manila synod.

This is a fact because Dr. Barrows himself affirms that “the pre-Spanish Filipinos were never together, as a community or a political unit, in any place inside the present Philippine Islands. And if ever they have achieved that unity and had become aware of themselves as Filipinos, it is because the concept of what is the Filipino people, with full awareness of its personality and characteristics (which are clearly national and not regional in scope), is the product or the result of the Spanish domination.

Thus, in the name he sports as well as in the history of the country he now claims to be his, the Filipino is unmistakably Spanish in origin and character. And this is so because the Filipinos were Spanish citizens for over 300 years under Spain. In contrast, the Filipinos never became US citizens when their country, the Philippines, was under the Americans for 40 years of direct rule.

Moreover, his country’s separation from Spain, in the political aspect, has turned him into an Hispanic individual. As a people, the Filipinos were always Hispanics. And if they are not Hispanics, they will also, albeit gradually, stop being Filipinos in the long run. Thus, the men who symbolize the FILIPINO IDEAL are all, if not mostly, Spanish-speaking or deeply Hispanic in their sentiments and reactions.