Michael C.

Jamillon Philippine Political Thought

MA in Political Science

IS THERE SUCH THING AS FILIPINO POLITICAL THOUGHT?

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether or not there is such thing as Filipino

Political Thought and whether or not it is valid to think so. When we consider the history

or the origins of political thought, we can surmise that it dates back to the times of

antiquity, first stretching through the Medieval period and the Renaissance, through the

Age of Enlightenment up to the modern era now. Political thought has changed and

evolved overtime and they (political thought) were formed as responses to different

political and social upheavals which were characteristic of specific periods of time.

It is commonly held that political thoughts or political philosophies all “vary in

originality and profundity” as we have “original” political philosophies by the likes of

Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas to Hegel and “less original” works thought of and written by

the Roman Cicero to Edmund Burke whose ideas and works were influenced by earlier

writings and political ideologies. But in the end, as an essay written by Remigio Agpalo,

“Pro Deo Et Patria: The Political Philosophy of Jose P. Laurel”, puts it, political thought

“is a gradual development, painfully synthesized in the mind of the thinker after time,

place, personalities, institutions, and experiences have interacted together with the

man”. It is safe to assume then that although there are indeed 'original' political

philosophies, we should not discount the idea that the 'less original' philosophies are by

no means not “original” philosophies at all as they are still original in the sense that they

are responses to specific socio-political issues and responses to those specific socio-

political issues necessitate the need to come up with 'original' thought unconsciously
and unwittingly based from “more original” ideas.

The primary question here is not about the originality and profundity of political

thought however. It is the question whether it is valid to think that there is such thing as

Filipino Political Thought when there are Asian countries such as China and India which

had produced their respective political ideas not influenced by the Western

epistemology. The answer is YES, there is such a thing as Filipino political thought.

To understand the Filipino political thought better, let us take into consideration

the history of the country. For as Agpalo puts it, “no person's (or a country's) political

philosophy can be well understood if not related to its setting, which includes the place

where he was born, the personalities and institutions with which he came into contact,

the historical movements which impinged on him, and the experiences he underwent

during his eventful life”. However, there are little to no written, available records from the

pre-Historic Philippines (there is of course that infamous Maragtas Code and other

codices which supposedly outlined some crude judicial system for trials of crimes and

stuff but was later proven to be ingenious hoaxes). Same thing with the Archaic epoch

(900 – 1521) of the Philippines. In this period, there were no significant documents

written and published until the publication of the Doctrina Christiana of the late 16th

century. But the Doctrina Christiana is not exactly political as it is strictly a secular

writing.

Let us focus our attention then to the colonial period (1521 – 1946) up to present.

Following the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 and the establishment of the official

colonial government in the year 1571 with Miguel Lopez de Legazpi as the first Spanish

Governor-General, there has been little to no noticeable and tangible political thought
(and subsequent writings) whatsoever from that period. Filipinos during this time were

not exactly rebellious; they were largely docile, like cows contentedly eating grass from

the green pastures. There were sporadic revolts here and there but there were no

unified Filipino front against Spain yet. What we had then were regionalistic Filipinos

who were forced to mind their own personal causes by our very own geographical

feature and were too busy minding these personal causes to even write or contemplate

about things that would concern the Philippines as a country which should be free from

Spanish colonial rule and oppression in the first place. But unfortunately, no, as the

“resistance against Spanish rule was regional in character, based on ethno linguistic

groups”.

It was only in the late 18th to early 19th century when the Spanish oppression and

cruelty became so massive that the Filipinos, notably the creoles or insurales, mestizos

and Indios, began to think of ways to end their suffering. Furthermore, these

precipitating factors, to wit: “infusion of liberal ideas from Europe to the Philippines,

demand for the secularization of the clergy and the conflicts between the regular and

secular priests which culminated in the execution of Fathers Gomez, Burgos and

Zamora, demand for the abolition of statute labor, which was perceived as a clear

violation of the principle that all men are created equal, advancement in material

prosperity and cultural maturity of the Filipinos, increased education and literacy of the

Filipinos, increased “weight of taxation on that segment of the population least able to

bear it and further buses committed by the Spanish authorities against the Filipinos”

paved the way for the rise of Filipino nationalism and subsequently the beginnings of

the Filipino political thought.

 This budding Filipino nationalism was credited to several key Filipino nationalist

figures however, notably several Creoles (white Spaniards, as the DLSU Professor

Leloy Claudio puts it) such as the former Archbishop of Manila, Pedro Pelaez who

actively supported and fought for the secularization and “expulsion of Spanish friars”;

and Luis Rodriguez Varela, a Spanish-born Filipino, who became an outspoken critic of

the Spanish colonial rule and whom Nick Joaquin, in his book “A Question of Heroes”

credits as the First Filipino. Nick Joaquin would go on claiming that “whence came the

Propaganda, it actually came from Varela”. This statement by Joaquin actually merits

some serious credit because Jose Burgos, one of the GOMBURZA, was in fact a friend

of Varela's and Burgos, a frequent visitor of Rizal's home in Calamba, would then

influence Paciano Rizal, who in turn would influence Jose Rizal, one the key figures of

the Propaganda movement in Spain.

The Propaganda Movement, organized by Marcelo Del Pilar and company in

Spain, was inspired by the deaths of the three martyred priests. The movement

advocated for the representation of the Philippines in the Spanish Cortes and eventually

pushed for the country's independence. Several writings written individually by each

Illustrado member of the group focused on reacting to the oppressive rule that governed

the Filipinos. Prominent members included Jose Rizal, author of Noli Me Tangere and El

Filibusterismo and several other nationalist essays, Graciano Lopez Jaena, publisher of

La Solidaridad, the movement's principal organ, Mariano Ponce, the organization's

secretary and Marcelo H. del Pilar, who in his later years would go on writing,

"Insurrection is the last remedy, especially when the people have acquired the belief

that peaceful means to secure the remedies for evils prove futile."
 After the Propaganda, came the Katipunan movement led by Andres Bonifacio

who would go on to write several essays, mainly in Filipino and “whose ideology is what

guided the Katipunan's liberal, radical and propagandist movements”; Emilio Jacinto,

writer of the Kartilla, the sublime paralytic, Apolinario Mabini, Emilio Aguinaldo to more

recent thinkers such as Maximo Kalaw, Rafael Palma, Claro M. Recto, Manuel Roxas

(Ang Bagong Katipunan), Benigno Ramos (Sakdal Movement), Jose P. Laurel to NPA's

Jose Maria Sison.

What unites all these Filipino political thinkers, past to present, is the fact that

their respective political ideas are responses to the socio-political events of their times

and eventually, all these thinkers have contributed to Filipino political thought where

their ideas, as reactions to their times, prove that nationalism is indeed highly-

appreciated and deeply-valued.

The fact that these writings and ideas reflect the ideas of the Filipino within the

context of the Filipino mean that indeed we have our very own Filipino political thought,

clear, distinct and comparable to other Eastern political thought, even the Western

political thought. If the standard for saying that we do not have a Filipino political

thought just because we have a late-blooming one and for the reason that most of our

political thinkers got their respective political ideas from mostly foreign thinkers belie the

fact that we actually have our very own, albeit “less original” than the others. The

Filipino political thought, based from my various readings, was a mixture of Western and

Eastern influences. Say for instance, Jose Rizal, whose ideas were inspired from

foreign writers and books he has read as a child and as an adult in Europe. His political

thoughts may have been tinged with foreign influences but he weaved those ideas
within the Filipino context, celebrating the Filipino and denouncing those that

discriminate the Filipino.

On the other hand, Jose P. Laurel's political thought and philosophy, according to

Agpalo, “is not original”. Agpalo writes: “His idea of democracy has much in common

with that of John Locke, James Madison, Baron de Montesquieu, Jeremy Bentham, and

John Stuart Mill. His sense of morality and righteousness has strong affinity to that of

Plato, Cicero, Christ, Buddha, Confucius, and St. Angustine. His nationalism was

derived from Marcelo H. del Pilar, Jose Rizal, Apolinario Mabini, and Manuel Quezon.

His internationalism was influenced by his reading of Stoic, Christian, Hindu, Buddhistic,

and Confucian literature and of international law. His liberalism was inspired by Oliver

Wendell Holmes. His conservatism goes back to Virgil, and his idea of flux and evolution

is akin to that of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. His concept of equilibrium has

Aristotelian overtones”.

Now then, if originality is the sole basis for rejecting the existence of a Filipino

Political Thought, then we do not have our own Filipino political thought. But if it is all

about profundity and relevance, then we have one. Our Filipino thinkers were “able to

choose the best in European, American,' and Asian thought and traditions and blend

them together into a political philosophy whose range and orbit begins with man; runs

through the gamut of the family as the beginning of the State, the nature of popular

government, the relationship between the sectors of society and the branches of the

government, and international relations; and culminates in God”. This, I think is what the

Filipino political thought is about. The Filipino political thought is a product of our

common struggle for freedom. It is a reflection of our belated yet now-celebrated

nationalism.

All these ideas ultimately have moved and will continually move our nation to

change.

REFERENCES:

Agoncillo, Teodoro A.(1990) [1960]. History of the Filipino People(8th ed.). Quezon City:
Garotech Publishing. ISBN 971-8711-06-6.
Agpalo, Remigio. Pro Deo et Patria, The Political Philosophy of Dr. Jose P. Laurel. Page 163-
192. Retrieved last October 12, 2017 from http://www.asj.upd.edu.ph/mediabox/archive/ASJ-
03-02-1965/Agpalo.pdf

Arcellana, Emerenciana. A Theory of Philippine Politics and Its Implications for National
Development. Retrieved on October 12, 2017 at
http://lynchlibrary.pssc.org.ph:8081/bitstream/handle/0/2901/11_A%20Theory%20of%20Philipp
ine%20Politics%20and%20Its%20Implications%20for%20National%20Development.pdf?seque
nce=1

Barrows, David (2014)."A History of the Philippines". Guttenburg Free Online E-books.

Cajes, Alan. (2008). The Political Philosophy of Mabini and Recto.. Retrieved on October 12,
2017 at http://alsalca.blogspot.com/2008/08/political-philosophy-of-mabini-and.html

Corpuz, O.D. (2005).Roots of the Filipino Nation. University of the Philippines Press. ISBN 971-
542-461-9.
Laurel, Jose P. Pro Deo Et Patria (For God and Country) retrieved on October 14 at
http://joseplaurel.com/jose-p-laurels-thoughts/

The Evolution of Philippine Political Thought. Retrieved last October 14 at

http://www.oocities.org/esie_32/filipinopoliticalthought.htm