Hi, I'm Leloy Claudio. I'm a historian and a teacher of history at De La Salle University. Happy Independence Day.
Today, I want to talk about the concept of independence and the concept of who is really the Malaya here on Independence Day. We're saying that the Malaya on June 12th are the Filipinos. But what is really the Filipinos?
Is this the Kayumanggi? Is this the Malayan race? Let's think about this. I had a student one day, he approached me and said, Sir, I have a bad breath.
Why? He said, my parents are white Americans. But I grew up in the Philippines.
This is the only country I know of. I'm a Filipino citizen. He said that when he was abroad, he missed the sea, he wanted to drink Red Horse.
But for some reason, he thought he was of a different class. He's not Filipino. When he rode a taxi, the driver was surprised that he was good at Tagalog.
He said, Why are you surprised? This is the only country I know of. The Philippines.
Do I lack in being a Filipino? This is also what some Filipino-Chinese feel when they are being called in-Chic and not Filipino because they have roots in, say, Fuchan Province. Recently, there are articles in the newspaper that say that we should suspect all Filipinos-Chinese because they might have an allegiance to China.
So Filipinos have an idea, or some of us, that that the Philippines is a race. But is this true? Let's think about where this myth comes from that the Filipinos are a race. When you were young, your teachers taught you a myth, a creation myth about the Filipinos that is very racist. This myth, you might laugh if I tell you about it now, was made by the Batala of the people.
And the first thing he did, he cooked the people, the first thing he did was to peel the white ones. Then he cooked them again. It's burnt. This is the black one. After it's cooked, you say it's correct.
This is the Filipino one. Isn't that racist? It means that some are inferior compared to us and the Filipino one only says it's correct.
This one, maybe when you're in grade 2 or grade 3, there's a story that your AP teacher or CBK teacher tells you that three kinds came to the Philippines. First, Negrito, then Indonesian, then Malay, and then they mixed them up. or sometimes not.
And this is what made us Filipino. First, it was proven that this theory is wrong. Second, there are hints of racism because this assumption is that the people are beautiful, from Negritos to Malay, and we are the Malay. But is this true?
Now, if we think about where the term Filipino really came from, this is my Independence Day recommended reading for you. One of the best history books on the Philippines I've ever read. Nick Joaquin's A Question of Heroes.
Nick Joaquin's take on the notion of Filipino is very fresh. Nick Joaquin tells us that in the late 18th century, early 19th century, there was a Creole named Luis Rodriguez Varela. The Creole of that time was what we call insulares.
In other words, they were Spaniards, white Spaniards, but born in the Philippines. in contrast to the peninsulares that the Castilians were born in. in Spain.
Now, these insular people, they call the government of Spain Filipino. But at first, they didn't call themselves Filipinos. They called themselves Creole or simply Spaniard.
But sometime in the late 18th century, early 19th century, Luis Rodriguez Varela, who also called himself the Conde Filipino, referred to himself in nationalistic terms according to Nick Joaquin as a Filipino and he claimed it. He claimed it. So what Joaquin also said, Technically, the first Filipino is a white man. When I tell this to my students, they're surprised. But let's think about this carefully.
Varela knew nothing but the Philippines. All of her friends are here. All of her attachments are here. Her work is here.
And the suffering of the people she saw, she saw it here. And she became a critic of the Spanish government because of what they're doing here in the Philippines. Because of what they're doing to the people Varela called kababayan or compatriots, actually. So it's surprising on the one hand, but think about it this way. Who were the first people to call themselves Americanos, say, in the US and A?
Were they the Apaches or the Native Americans? No, in fact, they were white Americans like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, etc. They were the first persons who called themselves Americans.
They were the Creoles of that generation. So why are we surprised that the first people to call themselves Filipinos here in the Philippines or Creoles as well. Think about it this way. If an Asian American approaches you and says, I'm an American.
I grew up in California. You're not gonna go, you're an American? How come you're not white?
So why is it that when my student approaches you, she's white, and she says, I'm a Filipino, you ask, why are you not brown? It makes no sense, right? And in a way, this comparison of the America is weird, but it's actually very apt because from the Conde Filipino, from Luis Rodriguez Varela, that nationalism came from the generation of our martyr priests, like Jose Burgos, who is a friend of Varela.
And from Jose Burgos, nationalism was born to Pasiano Rizal, and it was born to Jose Rizal. That's why Joaquin says, whence came the propaganda? It actually came from Varela.
It did not start with people like Rizal. It started with a white man. But by the time the propaganda or the nationalism got to Rizal, you already had an expansive notion of what Filipino was.
Writing to Ferdinand Blumentritt in 1887, Rizal said, We are the ones here in Spain. Some of us... are Creoles, meaning white Spaniards, born in the Philippines.
Some of us are mestizos, and at that time when you said mestizo, you mostly referred to Chinese mestizos, Chinese mestizos like Rizal. By the way, it's good to emphasize that Rizal was a Chinese mestizo, and Indios. So some of us are Creoles, Chinese mestizos, and Indios. But he said, we all choose to call ourselves Filipino.
Let's repeat that. Some of us are Creoles, some of us are Chinese mestizos, some of us are Indios, but we choose. to call ourselves Filipino. And I think that's an excellent way to talk about independence now. The notion of calling yourself a Filipino.
So being Filipino is not something given to you because your skin is brown. It's not given to you because you have a passport that says you're a Republican of the Philippines. It's not given to you because your grandparents or your great-grandfather fought for the country. If we are to take our national hero in his own words, ang pagiging Filipino is a constant act of calling oneself Filipino.
So this is my Independence Day challenge for you. There are times when it's hard to call yourself Filipino. For example, right now, it's obvious that I'm criticized by President Rodrigo Duterte. And that hurts because 70% of my compatriots, of my fellow Filipinos like him, and I don't. I'm a minority.
It's very hard to call myself a Filipino given that most Filipinos disagree with me. And it's painful because you want your compatriots to agree with you. And yet every day, I call myself Filipino because I continually want to engage those people who disagree with me.
Every day, I decide that this is an identity and this is a political community worth serving. And I think if you look at all of our heroes, whether they be the white Varela, the Chinese mestizo Rizal, or Bonifacio, who was not pure Indian either, it wasn't about the color of their skin. It wasn't even about their blood. It was about the choices that we made. So, ladies and gentlemen, for this Independence Day, I challenge you, can you call yourself Filipino?
Maraming salamat po.