The origins of Filipino Nationalism and the Revolution

The Filipino history is known for its long struggle for freedom from Spain during the 18th century. Revolutions are apparent and the people pushed reforms for changes. There are several factors that gave them the discourses. One major factor that sparked nationalism was the Economic growth of the Philippines. The said economic advancement, particularly during 1830’s, brought prosperity to Filipinos. The exportation was sufficient to support the Filipinos in middle and upper classes who has businesses as well as the Chinese and western merchants. The opening of the Philippines to the world trading brought machineries that improved the production. The Philippines mainly exports agricultural products. As the figures of total trades increase, the population also increases. Due to the issue, the Filipinos needed more rice. The demand for rice gave prosperity to those who run the farms of rice as well as sugar and abaca on Central Luzon. They profited much because of the demand. The said agricultural lands are located on friar haciendas. When the profit grew larger, so was the value and rent on lands. This event led to disputes and discrepancies among the inquilinos or the land owning hacienderos and friars of about who will harvest the fruits of labors of the farmers. It further questioned the rights of the friars on these issues. From this point, it is clear that prosperity and economic development was from Filipinos’ initiatives.
Although the Philippines developed economically, it faced a gradual decline mainly because of political instability. The Spain prioritized Cuba that Philippines on managing its colonies. It resulted to inconsistent policies. The lack of good infrastructure that would support the economic progress, also contributed to the economic decline. By the same time, a movement was born to suffice the issue, they are the Modernist movement. This movement was composed and initiated by criollos, Spanish borned in the Philippines, lawyers and merchants. These modernizers only seek economic progress and modern legal system. They never want to separate from the government of Spain. They just want equal rights and enjoy liberties the pain is also enjoying. But this movement was not enough to advocate economic change, due ti this, another movement was created. The Political Reformists. This movement was seeking political changes. This is because of the following reasons; The failure of the government to satisfy the needs and desires of the Filipino people, inefficient and corrupt leadership, antiquated and contradictory laws, exploitation of the Philippine treasury and the failure to maintain peace and order. These problems rooted to the greedy bureaucracy of the Spanish clergy on their interplay with the government. It was Gov. Carlos Maria Dela Torre who articulated the discourse of this movement. He opened the freedom of expression and introduced reforms for the colony. He even joined these people on demonstrations.
Catholicism or the Church was the foundation of Spanish tyranny on the Philippines. These churches run the first catholic universities and schools such as college de San Juan de Letran, University of Santo Tomas and the Ateneo. The spread of education throughout the country made the aspiring Filipinos who can afford the tuition fees, to study in these institutions. In these schools, The Dominicans and the Jesuits taught the subjects like literature, natural science and philosophy. They inculcated them humanistic education and the principles of equality, dignity and justice. They didn’t intended to teach these Filipinos the nationalistic thought but with the subjects that they impart was an eye-opener to the students such as Rizal, Mabini, Del Pilar all other nationalist proponents. They taught each of them how to become a critical thinker and propagated liberal and progressive ideas without knowing that they are already invoking the self-awareness of these Filipinos. With what Schumacher suggested about “the creation of an institutions that caters for higher education for a colonial state is impractical” is because ,in spite of being a colony of Spain, Philippines was given the education by the Jesuits by the order of mother Spain without knowing its consequences after all. The impracticality of Spain is visible because of what they gave the Filipinos was an enlightenment and would be considered as a failure of controlling the colony from emancipation.
There were conflicts among the Filipino priests and the Spanish clergy. Considering themselves as the “elites”, Spanish priests render Filipino priests as an “inferior” basically because they were indios or not a son of Spain. Because of the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Philippines, the church had a shortage of priests. It eventually led to the option of appointing of secular priests and gives them their own parishes. If given the position, these Filipino priests will be exempted from the bishop’s authority and can be easily promoted as parish priests without diocesan authorization. Recommending these Filipino priests would mean the loss of opportunity to position and power of greedy Spanish priests. The Filipino priests and the Spanish priests are given the same training, so there was no reason to deprive these secular priests from the same privileges that the Spanish priests are enjoying. The gradual increase in priests again in 1825, produced a new generation of priests and with the leadership of Fr. Pedro Pelaez, they attempted to disapprove the accusations against them. But the Spanish clergy was determined to justify that Filipino priests do not deserve the privilege. They started presenting issues and events justifying their reluctance. One issue is the unpreparedness of the Filipino priests in governing the parishes. Another issue is about the education. These priests might teach values from the content of the bible that is contradictory of what the Spanish clergy teaches. They also might, unknowingly uncover the political wrong-doings, abuses and anomalies of Spanish government and might aw well contribute to enlightenment of the people. And main event that put the secularist movement into a failure. The Cavite Mutiny. Some insurgents on Cavite revolted and the Spanish clergy blamed the GomBurZa as the masterminds of the revolt. The execution of the 3 Filipino priests marked the end of the secularist movement.
The Liberal Propaganda movement is the heir of what the Filipino clergy was fighting for. They are the carriers of the ideas of national identity that is initiated before by Fr.Burgos and other secularist proponents.
There is no clear shift from Secularist-Modernist-Political reformist chiefly because these movements are overlapping in time and all of them continued the preceding goals of each movement. However, it is clear that when the leaders of the secularist movement died, the modernists are long before, starting their movement. But with the failure of its campaign there came the political reformists. The ideas of the secularists were not for the general welfare of the whole country but only for the equal rights among priests. In short, it’s personality. As the new movements emerge, the urge for different reforms and changes for the whole country was becoming a trend. It resulted to the assemblage of mixed objectives and eventually led to a common national ideologue.
The Nationalist-Separatist movement was the final stage of these movements because its goals seeks the separation from Spain, opposition to the friars and believed that the freedom will not be attained if the Spaniards are still residing in the country. This movement was the generalization of all the movements. Rizal, although approved the means of a revolution, was a nationalist-separatist by his objectives and aspirations. Rizal compared to the early proponents, separation from Spain was realized already,and long before the different movements was established.