Ako Ay Pilipino, Part II

Ako ay Pilipino, Part II

Reading the article on the building of the balangay ( http://www.balangay-voyage.com/) and the voyage it plans to trace in the Philippine seas and on to Madagascar, it got me thinking. First of all the romance of it took my breath away, it is so marvelous. It is dazzling, so moving, it stirred pride and joy in my heart, “ Ako ay Pilipino”.

I am happy to observe that this inspirational project is conceived by the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Undersecretary Art Valdez, the same person who put together the Pinoy Mt. Everest team in May 2006 and May 2007. I’d like to believe that there are many people like him in government who are there to serve rather than to pillage. But then perhaps it is just time, for in every thing there is a season. While our historians are reinterpreting our history from our perspective, our artists and novelists are going back to our roots to find our soul. It was lost a long time ago when the Spanish friars baptized us to save our soul, then we reinvented it under the spell of the American dream.

I am moving with the times, and this recapturing of our roots phenomenon resonates with me. The balangay voyage articulates that quest so elegantly. I fervently wish that it can attract the masses in all their ports of call and successfully convey that our ancestors, long before the Spaniards came, were skilled sailors and navigators and had been crossing the Pacific to Polynesia and to Africa in seaworthy watercrafts, and were as fearless and inventive just like any sailor worth his salt. But without a big movie star or musical artist or sports figure headlining their arrival, this message may just fizzle with the waves lapping the shore.

Francisco Sionil Jose, our National Artist for Literature, and author of the Rosales Saga, a five-novel series that spans three centuries of Philippine history, is translated in 22 languages, but how many know of him or of his books? Until these books are transformed into blockbuster movies for the masses with big star names on the marquee, we are silent to the masses, and they do not hear Sionil Jose’s voice telling the story of how it really was. For 3 centuries, a span of 9 generations, the Filipino suppressed his soul in order to survive colonial rule. Through the centuries his self image was defined by the characteristics assigned by the friars and colonial officials, that he is inferior, childish, incapable of invention or learning, that he is weak, that he is ugly, that his value lies only in serving the master dutifully and completely. He believed this sincerely because defiance was met with severe punishment or death. He is given praise when he served well, ans so he became subservient, compliant, loyal, efficient and dutiful at his task. These earned him rewards and he began to feel good about himself so he concluded that his masters were really good, and he began to wish he could be like them. So he desired to have light colored skin, and blue eyes, he began to look for high noses in his offpsrings, and he imitated their ways and adopted their values. In time he forgot who he was, and as he accumulated rewards, he began to treat others like the way he was treated, for now there were those who has not earned sufficient rewards that were placed under his authority. At this juncture he completely lost his soul.

So I am looking for role models who can show me that it’s beautiful to have brown skin and broad nose. I’d like to see images of early Filipinos looking beautiful in aboriginal fashion, so I can attend cultural events in them instead of the Spanish terno. I’d like to have a broader understanding of the Philippine Muslim conflict. They resisted Spanish colonization. Four centuries ago they were just one of many tribes, just like the northern datus who succumbed and accepted baptism. Catholicism made the rest of the Philippines an alien nation among its Southeast Asian neighbors, and this isolated us, unlike the American and Caribbean colonies. We were also very far away, and precluded migration, so that limited contacts of the natives to mostly officials and the friars. In the Americas, not only Spaniards but other Europeans migrated in droves and they came from various stations in life, and this influenced Spanish policy in administering the colonies. I’d like to understand, given these differences among the colonies, is their journey to nationhood different from us? Must all the colonies go through the fight for independence, a dictatorship phase, and government corruption phase, and employment diaspora phase before developing unity and prosperity and national pride?

I am elated by the balangay voyage and would like to be a witness to the fruition of a dream and maybe I’ll catch them at one of their ports of call or maybe meet them in Madagascar.