Filipino Identity and Imperialism

Relatively few people in the NCR realize just how deep the roots of cultural imperialism are. And I'm not just talking about Big Macs, Louis Vuitton bags, and HBO. It is a kind of cultural imperialism many here would be surprised to find actually exists, given that all Filipinos are victims of the same to some extent.

But before we can even discuss what is and isn't imperialism in the Filipino context, we first have to answer the old dog:"What is a Filipino?". The answer would be, to be trite about it, someone who is a citizen of the Philippines, or ethnically tied (a tenuous term) to it. Alright. What does a Filipino speak? If you answered "Filipino" you would actually be in line with what many people (including many so-called educators) think or want to believe. But you would be wrong.

Filipinos come from several ethnic groups, and speak several languages and related dialects, a result of our colonial heritage. None of these groups were able to create an internationally recognized state through self-determination. Whether you are Waray, Ilocano, Tausug, Tagalog, or any ethnicity that is tied to being Filipino, you are a Filipino simply because the Spanish, and later the Americans were able to control the area where your ancestors were born. You could very well have become Indonesian or Malaysian had the Dutch or the British controlled that little parcel of land where your ancestors lived. The problem essentially began thanks in large part to the fact that Filipino peoples (note the plural form) were not able to practice self-determination.

Marianas Islanders, Guamanians, and people from and the Caroline Islands and Palau would have been Filipino today too, had the Spanish not sold off these to Germany during the Treaty of Paris and had not the Americans decided to administer the Marianas separately when they finally took it from the Japanese (who had taken it from the Germans by the end of World War 1). They were part of the "Greater Philippines" under Spanish rule and were administered from Manila, not unlike all the other Spanish holdings in the Philippines.

The answer of what makes a Filipino is something many Filipino nationalists have some fundamental trouble with. To be a proud Filipino is to be proud that you were lumped in with other similar yet fundamentally disparate peoples without the chance to determine one's future and one's place among other nations. Essentially, to be a Filipino nationalist is to be proud that you are in the same shit bucket as everyone who has become a Filipino as a consequence of history. You can never say you are a proud Filipino unless you have accepted your colonial past.

And this is something I can live with. I love the Philippines, my country. I am proud to be a Filipino. I am proud of what we have managed to achieve, in spite of the circumstances. But I am an Ilonggo first. I do not call "Filipino" MY language. My language is Hiligaynon. I call "toyo" "patis", and "patis" "Rufina Patis". Where I live, a "pating" flies, and isn't an aquatic apex predator.

Of course, as a Filipino, and as someone who has been subjected to the Filipino educational system, I've been instructed in "Filipino", our so-called National Language. There are several problems with the language and the status quo. For one thing, a nation(technically speaking) is a group of people with a common ethnicity and history, and is different from a country or state, which have sovereignty, government, territory, and international recognition. And for another thing, it is pretty lame to pretend that the Filipino language as it is is anything other than a dialect of Tagalog. I, like most Filipinos, am not Tagalog.

So, having established that there are several peoples within the Philippines, the concept of a Filipino nation is arguable, ESPECIALLY if one chooses to disassociate the country with its colonial past, which would be disingenuous, to say the least. The only way we can can actually call ourselves a nation is to acknowledge our colonial past and history. By extension, because our country is comprised of so many peoples, a "National Anything" will always be a difficult thing to achieve without some controversy.

"Filipino" as a language however, was first conceived as a way of unifying the country. It was supposed to be a mix of all the most widely spoken Filipino languages, with Tagalog as a base. However, in practice, it has failed miserably, as do most artificial languages not used for programming computers. Even Ricardo Maria Nolasco, former Chair of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino has stated that "Filipino" is nothing more than Tagalog as spoken in Metro Manila. Yet, for several generations, it has been taught to all Filipinos in the Philippine school system, regardless of the failure of the language to evolve to its desired, egalitarian state.

Instead, it has become a tool of Tagalog cultural imperialism. Now, this might sound ridiculous for many of you, especially if you live or grew up in the NCR. But many of us, especially those outside of Luzon, very much resent the fact that Tagalog (let's stop pretending that there really is a viable "Filipino" language), has become an identifier of what makes one a Filipino. All the rest of us have been left by the wayside.

Philippine media broadcast and distribute material in Tagalog, with a Manilacentric slant, without much regard for local sensitivities. Even the national anthem is in Tagalog. History lessons, especially topics concerned with resistance to colonial rule, are even centered around Luzon and Manila, with very little attention paid to movements in the Visayas and Mindanao that in many cases were actually more successful.

Even before the struggle against the Spanish was concluded, Tagalog imperialism had already taken root. Andres Bonifacio even refered to the whole country as the Katagalugan, a term many outside the actual Katagalugan found, and still find illogical, not to mention insulting. Just think what would happen if the French started calling the whole of Europe, France. There would be a lot of non-French Europeans that would be understandably upset. Think about it.

NOW, this would not be so bad. We Filipinos could use a common language to communicate, and Tagalog is as good, if not a better language than any. What really cheeses a lot of us off is the perceived superiority complex that Tagalogs (and many other people from Luzon) have over people from the Visayas and Mindanao.

For example, calling someone "Bisaya" carries with it several negative connotations, not the least of which is that we are all uncultured and stupid. Whenever someone in a Pinoy movie or television show speaks Cebuano, Hiligaynon, or anything other than Tagalog as it is spoken in Manila, it is already understood that the writers intend it to be funny. Even people who aren't tagalog but are simply from Luzon have learned to be relieved that they are not from the Visayas.

What is funny really is the fact that people living outside the NCR have almost always been disenfranchised to some degree. The provinces produce the majority of the nation's real, unleveraged wealth but get back only a fraction of the share of tax money. Metro Manila always has and always sucked up most of the money, which is why a lot of people in the provinces support Federalism. Why is this even funny? Well, if a schoolyard bully takes your lunch money and then makes fun of you for being poor and hungry, then it's pretty damn funny.

People outside of Manila are often resentful of Tagalogs because of how oblivious many of them are to their own sense of superiority. I was chatting in Hiligaynon with some workmates afterhours when coworker from Manila once asked me "Ba't hindi ka marunong magtagalog? Pinoy ka ba?"(Why can't you speak Tagalog? Are you Filipino?"). It was a joke of course. But we were in Bacolod. People here speak Hiligaynon. I resisted the temptation to punch his face in, but then told him in Hiligaynon "Ikaw ang ara diri sa lugar namon. Ikaw ang matuon maghiligaynon" (You are in our place. YOU have to learn to speak our language). I made it clear that I wasn't pleased, through my tone. But I immediately reconsidered and pretended everything was fine and that I was joking.

It also annoys many of us here in the Visayas that a lot of people from Manila think that we are all the same. Cebuanos, Ilonggos, Aklanon, Waray, Boholanos and all the other peoples of the Visayas have distinct languages; none of which are mere dialects of Filipino, and unique cultures. What do you think a Scotsman would feel if you kept mistaking him for an Englishman? You'd probably have a fight on your hands. Many in the NCR have no such sensitivities. They've never needed them, from where they are, after all. And the brilliant collection of mishaps that is our country has an ingrained system that keeps it that way.

I have been learning Tagalog (or Filipino, if you want to keep pretending otherwise) all my life. I hear and read it everyday. Despite most never having formal training in their native tongues, most people outside of Manila manage to be trilingual, or even quadrilingual. Most in Manila only know Tagalog and English can't even speak any of those correctly. It was my coworker, not me, who used the word "Tagalog" and associated it with being a real Filipino, through implication.


by I'm not illiterate after all!