The original nationalist condemnation of the friars and of Spanish 'theocracy', reaffirmed by the first generation of American administrators and commentators, has persisted as the dominant bias of the writings of American and American-educated Filipinos ever
48
since. From the beginning, the history of the church and the revolution has been confined, in the secular-nationalist tradition, within a set of assumptions about religion, Spanish Catholicism and
the church which goes beyond anti-clericalism or scholarly
'objectivity'. The idea that the friars were obstacles to progress and the enemies of Filipino aspirations became mixed up with a later assump tion that they were 'un-American'. It was usual to dismiss the friars as 'anachronisms, seeking to perpetuate a despotism which had gone
. 49
out of date . In time, these assumptions, without being re-examined, have become part of the orthodoxy of one of the two major schools of
Fred W. Atkinson, The Philippine Islands (Boston, New York, Chicago, London. 1905), 6, 11.
There are exceptions, of course. Gregorio F. Zaide, whose books have had a gr^ut influence on the teaching of Philippine history in Philippine schools is a Knight of Columbus and a Catholic. Even his works, in so far as they are modelled on American writing, contain American assumptions.
49
Frank Charles Laubach, The People of the Philippines (New York, 1925), 915.
thought in Philippine history.
If Teodoro A. Agoncillo can be taken as perhaps the most influential writer in the secular-nationalist tradition in the past twenty years, it is apparent that the mutual incomprehension and hostility which divided Spanish Catholic apologists and Filipino revolutionary nationalists in 1898 has not yet been overcome. The friars were the nationalists' worst enemies: they
suspected every Filipino of being an insurgent. They launched a campaign of vilification and false accusations against all Filipinos.
They advocated torture, even of Filipino p r i e s t s . S p e a k i n g of Felipe Calderon and the Malolos debates on religion, Agoncillo condemns ’the conservative mind, deeply rooted in the marriage of church and state.... protruding like a buoy swaying in all directions but unable to free itself from its anchorage’.^^ Again: ’one of
the most severe indictments against the Spanish colonial rule was the 52
predominance of the priestly caste in all sectors of life’. The abuses committed by the friars caused the revolution of 1896:
That the Katipunan had succeeded in extending its sway to many places and had won the faith and con fidence of the masses was due less to the
Malolos, op. cit., 10.
Ibid., 298.
extraordinary brilliance of the men who led it than to the insolence of the fra its who, in conducting their campaign of bitter and tenacious opposition to the reformers, had exasperated the hitherto tolerant m a s s e s . ^
The religious legacy of Spanish Catholicism was ’characterised by "outward ritual formalism rather than solid doctrinal knowledge
[and] the tendency toward idolatry, superstition, and magic"
The intellectual traditions which shaped the ilustrado nationalists condemnation of the friars and the colonial church were equally hostile to the apocalyptic beliefs of mass movements. Of all the ilustrado leaders of the revolution in its second phase, Apolinario Mabini, possibly because of his humble origins, was most
responsive to the aspirations of the people. He also had what might be called a religious vision of the ultimate goals of the revolution: in the dedication in his history of the revolution he wrote that though he was not fated to fulfil his mother’s wish that he become a priest, he was convinced 'that the true minister of God is not one who wears a cassock, but everyone who proclaims His glory by good
55
works, of service to the greatest number of His creatures. Yet even Mabini, when he argued that 'all authority over the people
The Revolt of the Masses, op. c i t ., 61.
Teodoro A. Agoncillo and Oscar M. Alfonso, History of the Filipino People (Quezon City, 1967), 114.
Apolinario Mabini, The Philippine Revolution, trans. Leon Ma. Guerrero (Manila, 1969).
resides, by natural law, in the people themselves’, was thinking in European rather than indigenous Filipino terms. The ’reason and science’ which explained the 'immutable order of things' for Mabini were alien to the way the great majority oi Filipinos under
stood themselves and the revolution. With Rizal, he believed that the people had to be educated so that Filipino ’civilisation' could approximate what he considered to be universal but were in fact Western values.Jj Mabini was uneasy about the goals and methods of the Katlpunan and suggested it did not represent the 'true needs of the Filipinos’ which were for ’reforms demanded by [their] advancing civilization’.^
Other ilustrado nationalists were less sensitive to the popular view of the revolution. Their condemnation of the ’fanaticism’ and
'superstition' taught by the friars was also a condemnation of the syncretic folk-Catholic beliefs which inspired the revitalisation movements which prepared Filipinos for the revolution. As Reynaldo
lleto has pointed out, the revolutionary society, the Katipunan, although influenced by ilustrado liberal nationalist thought, conceived its goals in terms of the apocalyptic tradition of such religious movements as the Cofradia de San Jose of 1840-41 and the
58 Colorum movements which accompanied the revolution.
The inability of ilustrado na ionalists to understand or
Ibid., 7.
Ibid., 9. 58
a p p r o v e t h e w o r l d - v i e w o f i l l i t e r a t e p o o r t owns men a n d p e a s a n t s was n o t o v e r c o m e e v e n by t h o s e p o s t - w a r h i s t o r i a n s m o s t d e d i c a t e d t o r e d i s c o v e r i n g t h e r e v o l u t i o n f r o m b e l o w by e m p h a s i s i n g t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f t h e K a t i p u n a n . A g o n c i l l o ' s p i o n e e r i n g s t u d y , a l t h o u g h i t i s p r e m i s e d o n t h e n e e d t o s e e t h e r e v o l u t i o n t h r o u g h t h e r o l e o f t h e K a t i p u n a n l e a d e r , A n d r e s B o n i f a c i o , n e v e r t h e l e s s i s a m b i v a l e n t i f n o t h o s t i l e t o t h e i n d i g e n o u s r a d i c a l t r a d i t i o n . A g o n c i l l o , p i c t u r i n g t h e S p a n i s h P h i l i p p i n e s a s b e i n g e n v e l o p e d by t h e ’D a r k A g e s ’ , a s s u m e d t h a t r e d e m p t i o n c o u l d o n l y come f r o m W e s t e r n i d e a s o f p o l i t i c a l e q u a l i t y an d l i b e r a l i s m : ' H e n c e i t was t h a t t h e F i l i p i n o s t u d e n t s a n d i n t e l l e c t u a l s , u n a b l e t o s t e e r t h r o u g h t h e 59 t h i c k d a r k n e s s i n t h e i r n a t i v e l a n d , s o u g h t l i g h t i n E u r o p e ' . He e m p h a s i s e s t h e i l u s t r a d o i n f l u e n c e upo n t h e f o r m a t i o n o f t h e K a tip u n a n a l t h o u g h ' n o n e o f i t s c h a r t e r me mbe r s w e r e o f t h e m i d d l e o r a r i s t o c r a t i c c l a s s ’ I n s t u d y i n g t h e m e t h o d , p r o c e d u r e a n d s t r u c t u r e o f t h e K a t i p u n a n , o n e i s i n e v i t a b l y moved t o t h e c o n c l u s i o n t h a t t h e s o c i e t y , s u c h a s i t w a s , d r e w i t s i n s p i r a t i o n f r o m M a s o n r y i n m a t t e r s o f i n i t i a t i o n r i t e s , a n d p a r t l y f r o m R i z a l ' s La L i g a F i l i p i n a i n m a t t e r s a f f e c t i n g i t s s t r u c t u r e . ^ T h e R e v o l t o f t h e M a s s e s , 1 7. 60 I b i d . , 4 5 . 61 I b i d . , 4 8 . C o n t r a s t t h i s n e g l e c t o f t h e i n d i g e n o u s r a d i c a l t r a d i t i o n o n t h e K a t i p u n a n w i t h I l e t o ' s t r e a t m e n t , C h a p t e r I I I , ' C o l o r u m and K a t i p u n a n i n t h e War A g a i n s t S p a i n , 1 Ö 9 6 - 1 8 9 7 ' , o p . c i t . , 9 2 - 1 3 8
Rather than reconstructing what Max Weber called the 'implicit logic' of folk religious movements and identifying the influence of inherited religious values and cultural assumptions upon popular participation in the revolution, the secular n alionalists have con centrated on the influence of elite leaders whose rationalist