“The history of ‘failure’ ends with the birth of the
THE MYTH OF BERNARDO CARPIO
secular, progressive enlightened Republic.”
KAPANGYARIHAN (POWER)
Animates the universe and concentrated in certain RIZAL AND THE UNDERSIDE OF PHILIPPINE HISTORY
powerful beings and objects
“What we shall seek to uncover in particular is the play
LAKAS VS. LOOB
of meanings which his dramatic execution in 1896 set
Bernardo has lakas but lacks loob.
into motion. If this event were simply a condemned
BERNARDO AS SAVIOR-KING
man’s attempt to perpetuate his own memory, or his martyrdom against oppression obscurantism, then why,
THE PRINCIPALIA
among many other acts of martyrdom and execution,
“Close to the center, the preoccup ation with
was it singled out, remembered, commemorated for
kapangyarihan is disguised or hidden. But farther and
decades after? What modes of thought apart from t hat
farther away from the pueblo center, ‘tradition’
of the ilustrados informed the event?”
becomes the dominant element in the interplay.”
INDIO’S RESIGNATION
THE PASYON
Spanish influence (religion + divide-and-rule tactic)
“device for drawing the native population towards the
formed the irrationality of the indios, thus they reacted
pueblo-center” pueblo-center”
blindly of the situation. “Only with the advent of Rizal
“tool in the center’s continual attempt to dominate and
and the ilustrados is there a clear understanding of the
codify its surroundings” surroundings”
causes of dissatisfaction. Only with the founding of
“The incorporation of the Tagalog race into the Biblical
Andres Bonif acio’s acio’s Katipunan is superseded by Emilio
scheme of history was to the ilustrados one of the
Aguinaldo’s Republican government, the Filipino people
symptoms of the ignorance and backwardness of the
are finally released not only from the colonial Mother
common tao under friar domination. Rizal sought to
Country but from a dark past. The history of ‘failure’
rectify this by establishing a continuity between his time
ends with the birth of the secular, progressive
and that of the flourishing pre-Spanish past. To him, the
enlightened enlightened Republic.”
formation of a national sentiment depended greatly on a sense of racial affinity and pride that only a
THE FORGETTING OF ORIGINS MARKED THE ONSET OF
documented image of past wholeness and greatness
DARKNESS
could provide.”
“These traditions [of links with Sumatra] were completely lost, just like the mythology and genealogies
THE TEXTUALIZATION OF RIZAL
of which the old historians speak, thanks to the zeal of
“The problem of Rizal’s status as national hero follow
the religious in extirpating every remembrance of o ur
from the context in which the nineteenth-century
nationality, of paganism, or of idolatry.”
Philippine history has been constructed. Ironically, notions of evolution and rationality from the nineteenth
TH
ILUSTRADOS’ 19
Century European Influence
century itself are responsible for excluding from this
“search for a total history , in which all the differences
history the ‘repetitious’ and ‘false’ or ‘mythical’ aspects
of a society might be reduced to a single form, to the
of reality. The pervading discourse of subjectivity has
organization of a world-view, to the establishment of a
led to a preoccupation with Rizal’s intentions, the
system of values, to a coherent type of civilization.”
authentic voice behind his texts.”
“Ignorance and naivete are the familiar explanations for what appears to have been the absence of fixed
DEATH
boundaries in the conceptual world of the early
“Dying is not an extinction of self but a passage into a
Filipinos.”
state of pure, brilliant potency. It is a passage to the depths of the earth, to the center of the world, where potency is supremely concentrated.”
