This
is my response to the blog Clarifying
a misconception on the definition of “Filipino” posted on August 30, 2015, by Pepe. The blog seems
to be a debunking of my own blog Ang
Malaking Pagkakamali ni Renato Constantino sa kanyang aklat na The Philippines:
A Past Revisited, which I posted on my webpage on August 14, 2015. I
will respond in English, since Pepe’s blog was written in that language. But
please be sympathetic with my English, for it is not my first language and I
lack mastery of it.
The Gist
The
gist of my own blog is to point out historian Renato Constantino’s colossal blunder
in his popular book The Philippines: A Past Revisited
(Quezon City: Tala
Publishing Services, 1975).
This is what Constantino exactly exposes
in the said book:
“There were five principal social
classes in Philippine society during this period. At the top of the social
pyramid were the peninsulares,
Spaniards who came from Spain and who were given the choice positions in the
government. Next in line were the creoles
or insulares – Spaniards born in the
Philippines who considered themselves sons of the country. They were the
original ‘Filipinos’ (p. 124).”
“The first Filipinos were the
Españoles-Filipinos or creoles – Spaniards born in the Philippines. They alone
were called Filipinos (p. 151).”
The “period” Constantino speaks
about was until the middle of the 19th century.
For Constantino, the creoles or insulares (Spaniards born in the Philippines) were the original
Filipinos, the first Filipinos, and until the middle of the 19th century the
only ones called Filipinos. Were this true, then the creoles or insulares were
the first people to be called Filipinos.
Such allegation clearly rams against
the records of history.
In the books of Spanish priests
Pedro Chirino (1604), Francisco Colin (1663), Francisco Ignacio Alcina (1668),
and Juan Francisco de San Antonio (1738), the natives of the Philippines were
called naturales (natives), nativos (natives), indios (Easterners), and Filipinos
(native-born inhabitants of the Philippines).
It was Chirino—in his book which he
wrote beginning in 1590 and which was published in 1604—who was the first to
use the term Filipino to refer to the
natives of the Philippines.
Hence, Constantino’s allegation that
the insulares were the original
Filipinos, the first Filipinos, and until the middle of the 19th century the
only ones called Filipinos is a fatal error.
Las Islas
Filipinas
On his blog, Pepe says:
“To my observation, Royeca and Regalado
did not tell us the complete definition of the term Filipino. Although
they did share primary sources showing how the word Filipino was defined during
the early years of our country’s vassalage under the Spanish monarchy, I
wonder if they even bothered to ask themselves WHY the early
Filipinos were called as such. I ask WHY because the name Filipino
is NOT EVEN INDIGENOUS, meaning to say, the term does not come from any
native language like that of the Tagálogs, the Visayans, the Aetas, etc.
“To further emphasize this: the term Filipino is not a Tagálog word.
The term Filipino is not a Visayan word. The term Filipino is certainly
not an Aeta word. And so on and so forth. The name Filipino is Spanish,
thus the impossibility of the notion that the demonym used for the indios
(as the indigenous were generally referred to at that time) had
some natural or indigenous etymological imprint whatsoever. Due to
this, Royeca and Regalado must now categorically point out WHY
Fr. Chirino called the natives as Filipinos. Certainly, there must be a reason
why the good friar called them as such.”
The Spaniards called the natives Filipinos
because they were the native inhabitants of las
Islas Filipinas—the official name
that the Spaniards had given to the archipelago. Since las Islas Filipinas was
already the name of the archipelago, it was only natural for the Spaniards to
call its natives Filipinos.
That the term Filipino is not
indigenous is very obvious because it came from the Spanish name of the
archipelago—las Islas Filipinas. Its
being very obvious instantly renders useless any effort of pointing out that it
is not a Tagalog, Visayan, or any other native word.
Natives: “We are Filipinos!”
On his blog, Pepe challenges:
“And, to reiterate, while both of them successfully
pointed out that Fr. Chirino called Tagálogs, Visayans, Aetas, etc. as
Filipinos, can they also point out any indigenous individual who
called himself a Filipino during the Spanish times?”
Jose Rizal and his fellow natives of the Philippines called themselves
Filipinos while living and studying in Spain and other countries in Europe. They
were the first generation of natives of the Philippines who called themselves
Filipinos. In a letter to his Austrian friend Ferdinand Blumentritt dated April
13, 1887, Rizal said:
“They are creole young men of Spanish descent, Chinese half-breeds, and
Malayans; but we call ourselves only Filipinos” (The
Rizal-Blumentritt Correspondence. Centennial Edition, Part 1, Manila: Jose Rizal National Centennial
Commission, 1961, p. 72).
Insulares
On his blog, Pepe charges:
“In addition, Both Royeca and Regalado are also proven wrong when they
implied, wittingly or unwittingly, that the insulares or Spaniards
born in the islands were not called Filipinos at any time in our history.”
I have not indirectly or directly made it appear that the insulares were never called Filipinos. I
was disputing Constantino’s claim that the insulares were the first, the
original, and until the 1850’s the only ones called Filipinos.
Peninsulares:
The First Filipinos?
In
blatantly claiming on his blog that the peninsulares
were the first Filipinos, Pepe relied entirely on a poem written by an insular,
Luis Rodríguez
Varela of Tondo, Manila, in 1812.
Varela’s edict that the first Filipinos were the vassals of Spain is frighteningly
incorrect. He must not have read the accounts of Spanish missionaries, which
categorically proved that the natives of the Philippines were the first people
to be called Filipinos.
Poems belong to the ambit of creative literature. They can be purely
fictional. And so utilizing them as a source for one bold historical claim—like
the peninsulares were the original
Filipinos—is an amateurish and slapdash crack at historiography.
I have a little more to say about this matter on my other blog, The
Term Filipino: A Question of Identity.
