"National Character" - Part 7

     Most people outside of Asia think of the Philippines as a small Pacific island country populated with people with strange Spanish sounding surnames and speaking English and native dialect called Tagalog.  The Philippines and the Filipinos are all that, and much more!  The Philippines is made up of over 7,000 islands comprising 115,831 square miles.  It has a population of well over 100 million people that speak 19 different dialects!  The main languages are Tagalog, Visayan, Llocano, Bicolano, Waray, Llonggo, and thirteen more!  The population is said to be 90% Christian, of which 80% are Catholic and 10% Muslim.  Those are official government figures.  The Philippines is the 7th most populated country in Asia and 12th in the world with over 12 million Filipinos residing overseas!  So, it is not a little island country in the Pacific, it is a country of significance, both in size and population.
     Early Filipino history consisted of various small kingdoms and sultanates, populated and controlled by a variety of different ethnic groups.  Depending on the island, it was ruled by Muslim Sultans, Hindu Rajahs, native Datus and Lakans Chiefs, and Chinese Huangs.  If ever there was a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural area, it was the archipelago that came to be known as Philippines. The Spanish colonized it beginning in 1521 when Magellan first landed. In 1543 it was named Philippines by Ruy Lopez de Villalobos in honor of King Philippe II of Spain.  The Spanish colonized the islands and established an oppressive rule for over 300 years. 
     Throughout Spanish rule, there were numerous periodic attempts by various groups to overthrow the Spanish, but none succeeded.  It wasn't until the Spanish-American War in 1898 when Spain was kicked out of Philippines and America stepped-in.  American rule was not quite as oppressive or brutal as the Spanish, still, it was a foreign power that ruled over Philippines. 
     There was briefly Philippine's First Republic after the Philippine Revolution of 1896, but it was unsuccessful.  Essentially, it wasn't until 1945 with the birth of the Second Republic that Philippines became an independent nation.  Prior to that, it was Spanish for over 300 years, then American for half a century or so, and Japanese for four years with their brutal wartime occupation of the islands.
     Given these historical circumstances, it is not surprising that Filipino "national character" had not been identified until very much later.  It was perhaps with the country's most recognized hero, Jose Rizal (1861-1896), that the "national character" began to emerge.  Rizal was a true Renaissance Man who was a novelist, poet, scientist, artist, and a doctor to boot!  Rizal's status as a Philippine's national hero is somewhat debated in some circles.  Some say that he was more of a creation of the United States, who pushed him forward as a figure of national hero because Rizal was a non-violent revolutionary.  The thinking is that the U.S. wanted Filipinos to take Rizal's non-violence lead in their protest against U.S. rule.
     Rizal opposed Spanish rule, but lived in Spain and Germany for a period and was educated in those countries.  Rizal was arrested and executed by a firing squad for being a revolutionary in 1896 at the age of 35!  This was during the time when the Philippine Revolution was taking place.  Actually, his only guilt was that he associated with some true revolutionaries. While he himself never participated in any physical acts that can be considered as anti-Spanish, he did write anti-Spanish material, and as mentioned, associated with known revolutionaries. 
     Jose Rizal is the first Filipino identified as a national hero who opposed Spanish rule and died for his beliefs.  There were others, of course, like Andres Bonifacio who is given credit for starting the Philippine Revolution and establishing the secret organization, Katipunan.  Also, Emilio Aguinaldo, who split from Bonifacio to challenge his leadership.  But overall, it is Jose Rizal that is celebrated as the greatest national hero!
     Like the Vietnamese, the Filipino "national character" is tied to opposition to foreign rule.  However, unlike the Vietnamese Trung Sisters who fought the Chinese almost 2000 years ago, the Filipino national heroes are much more recent.  Rizal stands out as a giant, but there were many more that appeared during World War Two.
     Next to the Chinese, the Filipinos had the largest guerrilla force that opposed the Japanese.  Over all, there were said to be over a million Filipinos who participated in one form or another of resistance to Japanese.  However, the Philippine government recognized only about 260,000 individuals as having participated in the fight against the Japanese, because after the war, the government had to pay restitution to the participants. Some believe that the government officials purposely kept the numbers low so as to avoid paying too much money! There were dozens of guerrilla groups ranging in sizes anywhere from a couple of hundred to thousands of men and women.  Many guerrilla groups were led by American soldiers and officers who fled to the jungles and hills to become guerrilla fighters rather than giving up to the Japanese. 
     Filipinos had many guerrilla groups such as the 10,000 man army that Ramon Magsaysay led.  Magsaysay after the war became a very popular president of the Second Republic.  Another guerrilla group was known as Hukbalahap (Hukbong Bayan Laban, sa mga Hapon), which translates into English from Tagalog as, "People's Army Against the Japanese."  The Hukbalahap was a large 15,000 man communist guerrilla group.  Its first leader was the charismatic Luis Taruc, popularly known as "El Supremo." 
     After the war Hukbalahap became a problem to the Philippine government and it was one of Ramon Magsaysay's success stories when he was able to rid the country of the communist insurgency.  Even the controversial and disgraced Ferdinand Marcos claimed during his life that he had led a guerrilla group against the Japanese.  Later investigations proved that, like so many of his claims, it was all a lie.  Marcos never led any guerrilla groups during World War Two.
     Perhaps the most interesting figure to come out that part of Filipino history was a woman guerrilla leader during the war, Nieves Fernandes.  Nieves was a mild, mousy-looking spinster school teacher in her thirties when the war broke out and the Japanese occupied the Philippines.  The Japanese atrocities and brutalities against the Filipinos changed her completely.  She organized a small guerrilla group of perhaps a dozen or so, mainly women, and began a terror campaign against the Japanese.  By the end of the war her guerrilla group had grown to a force of about 100 men and women.  The Japanese even had a 10,000 Peso reward for her capture or death!   Regular "Wanted, Dead or Alive" posters circulated around Tacloban, Leyete, where she operated.
     So, the Filipinos, like the Vietnamese, like to identify their "national character" as that of perseverance in the face of adversity, loyalty and belief in the cause, and courage in the face of danger and hardship.  Perhaps phrased differently, but basically the same as the Vietnamese "character."  Considering what took place during World War Two in Philippines, it is not very difficult to agree with the assessment made by Filipinos of their own "national character."