Reynaldo Ileto Research Articles

Ginhawa and the Interpretation of Colonialism

The majority of historians and teachers of history tend to believe that it was the Propaganda of the educated elite that led to the Philippine Revolution of 1896. Reynaldo Ileto already made a powerful critique on such perspective by analyzing the mentalité of the pobres y ignorantes, and showed that they indeed possessed a certain worldview that was far different from that of the Ilustrados of the Propaganda Movement. Ileto, however, remained within the limits of the Catholic ideology and its appropriation by the masses in the 19th century. This paper aims to study ginhawa, a Filipino concept, as both a concept and an ideology. The paper argues that ginhawa was used by the natives in interpreting the workings of colonialism.

Pamitinan and Tapusi: Using the Carpio legend to reconstruct lower-class consciousness in the late Spanish Philippines

Reynaldo Ileto, in his classicPasyon and Revolution, sought the categories of perception of the Filipino ‘masses’ that guided their participation in the Philippine Revolution. Among the sources he examined was the Carpio legend, which he unfortunately subsumed to the separate, elite Carpioawit(Tagalog poem). Through a detailed examination of the legend's historical and geographical context, with its invocation of two locations, Pamitinan and Tapusi, I arrive at a different understanding of lower-class consciousness than Ileto. Rather than a counter-rational expression of peasant millenarianism, the legend of Bernardo Carpio was a ‘hidden transcript’ celebrating the history of social banditry in the region.

Tulong: An Articulation of Politics in Christian Philippines by Soon Chuan Yean

Reviewed by: Tulong: An Articulation of Politics in Christian Philippines by Soon Chuan Yean Yeoh Seng Guan SOON CHUAN YEAN Tulong: An Articulation of Politics in Christian Philippines Manila: University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2015. 275 pages. The author, Soon Chuan Yean, is a Malaysian political scientist based at the Universiti Sains Malaysia with research interests in local and cultural politics “from below” in Malaysia and the Philippines. The book grew out of his doctoral thesis submitted to the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. Because Soon was supervised by the eminent Filipino historian Reynaldo Ileto, the book is arguably yet another elaboration of the long-standing concerns of his mentor. In 2001 Ileto had thrown down the gauntlet at scholars imbibing an Orientalist mode of interpreting and representing Philippine politics. With the scholarship of the influential American political scientist Carl Lande serving as the paradigmatic example, Ileto (“Orientalism and the Study of Philippine Politics,” Philippine Political Science Journal 2001:1–32, p. 28) observed “how a certain kind of politics, which is really never understood from within, gets to be constructed as a negative ‘other’ of the Euro-American post-Enlightenment political tradition.” By positing an impervious binary of “personal versus public” and “personal versus impersonal,” these so-called Orientalist scholars depict the “peculiar” nature of Philippine politics as an undesirable confounding of these two domains. More to the point, studies on Philippine politics and society have been stereotypically portrayed in terms of instrumentalist patron–client relationships animated by the shared cultural values of utang na loob (debt of gratitude) and hiya (shame) but deployed in an hierarchical register. Soon’s rendition of the “everyday politics” of Barangay Angeles, a lowland settlement situated close to the shores of Lake Taal and a short distance away [End Page 126] from the poblacion (town proper) of Tanauan City, Batangas province, is an attempt at a post-Orientialist scholarship. He argues that elites stationed at the higher echelons of a political hierarchy are not always able to shape the terms of the aforementioned relationships. Conversely, nor are the articulations of the masa (ordinary people) manifested in a monolithic or predictable fashion. To support his claims, Soon paid close attention to the reflections of his informants, made up of “clients” and lider (sub-leaders). For this purpose, Soon had to acquire a working fluency in Tagalog. He also adopted a research strategy associated more with anthropologists than with political scientists—ethnographic fieldwork. Inclusive of his language training, he spent a total of thirteen months between 2004 and 2005 in his fieldwork site. Besides drawing his key theoretical coordinates from Ileto and Benedict Kerkvliet, Soon also appropriates the work of Filipino philosopher Fr. Leonardo N. Mercado to decipher recurring Tagalog phrases that his informants use as indicative of their worldviews “from below.” Oddly, the pioneering work of Virgilio G. Enriquez and his colleagues in the Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino psychology) movement, which arguably shares a similar objective in decentering the use of Western epistemology in understanding Filipinos, is left out in Soon’s literature review and subsequent discussion. The book is organized into six chapters. Three of the chapters situate the research problem theoretically while the remaining chapters—chapters 3 to 5—form the empirical spine of the book. Chapter 3 unpacks the nuances between tulong (help) and pera (money) as played out between patrons and their recipients, and chapter 4 continues in the same trajectory by turning our attention to the lexicon and politics of emotions in everyday life. Chapter 5 examines key religious idioms that undergird these meanings and expectations. Briefly, the author maintains that expressions as espoused by the masa (ordinary people) need to be better appreciated as complex utterances that exhibit various nuanced layers of meaning. In the context of receiving tulong from political patrons, these meanings include notions of mabait (good), loob (inner being), lakaran (journey), sariling sikap (self initiative), malapit/malayo (closeness/aloofness), pagsubok (trial), pagmamalasakit (compassion), kaligtasan (salvation), and liwanag (light). Nevertheless, undergirding this melange of idioms and values are popular religious ideas stemming from Christianity, which frame the Tanauan residents’ understanding and experience of everyday politics. [End Page 127] Tulong thus cannot be...

The Philippines. Colonial counterpoint: Music in early modern Manila. By David R.M. Irving. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. 394. Maps, Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

Colonial counterpoint: Music in early modern Manila By DAVID R.M. IRVING Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. 394. Maps, Plates, Notes, Bibliography, Index. doi: 10.1017/S0022463413000726 Colonial counterpoint is a unique study on the colonial cultural encounter and develops new paradigms in historiography and musicology. Meticulously exploring a series of musical encounters between imperial Spain and colonial Philippines in the early modern period, the book embodies the 'history of cultural globalization' which seeks a 'bigger picture of increasingly entangled global histories' (pp. 234, 231). Simultaneously, Irving, the author, blends historical musicology and ethnomusicology in connecting the music of the periphery of Europe and its transplantation in Asia. Elements of postcolonial critique also make the work relevant to contemporary discourses with a multidisciplinary flavour. With hints of Edward Said's 'contrapuntal analysis' (Said 1994), Irving employs the metaphor of counterpoint, a compositional technique for polyphony in Western classical music, as a governing principle of the arguments throughout the book. As counterpoint regulates imitative and oppositional (and other) movements of notes in the raw, the metaphor is certainly a helpful guide in reaffirming Filipinos' proactive and strategic engagement with colonialism, through adoption and adaptation of Spanish elements and eventual inversion and subversion against colonialism. Such a perspective confirms and advances the arguments found in such masterpieces as Reynaldo Ileto's Pasyon and Revolution (1979) and Vicente Rafael's Contracting colonialism (1988). It is suggested, however, that further clarifications be made about how to reconcile the premise of independence and equality of each voice in counterpoint and the unquestionable colonial hegemony. As Homi Bhabha suggests, 'the menace of mimicry is its double vision which in disclosing the ambivalence of colonial discourse also disrupts its authority' (Bhabha 1994, p. 88). But mimicry is, as Bhabha declares, 'almost the same but not quite' (p. 89). Among a number of valuable contributions Colonial counterpoint makes, some are worth particular mention. First, pointing to the significance of 'Manila 1571' as the starting point of (musical) globalisation by referring to Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Giraldez is a fascinating wake-up call to Philippine and global historiography; 'Manila was the final link in the world's first circumferential trade network' (p. 9). Second, following the path of William Henry Scott (e.g. 1982, 1994), Colonial counterpoint reveals the richness of Spanish resources on indigenous culture as manifestations of Spaniards' interest in and strategic employment of it, rather than disrespect. …

Privileging Roots and Routes: Filipino Intellectuals and the Contest over Epistemic Power and Authority

Reynaldo Ileto’s “Orientalism in the Study of Philippine Politics” (1999) highlighted the problematical relationship between colonialism and knowledge production in American scholarship on the Philippines. In recent decades the target of the critique has shifted to Filipino-American and overseas Filipino intellectuals. This article examines the changing intellectual and material contexts in which Philippine-based, often middle-class, intellectuals claim epistemic privilege in representing the Philippines by virtue of “authentic” experience and knowledge. These claims involve a contest over the power and authority to speak (on behalf) of the Philippines and the role and subject positions of intellectuals in relation to a “Filipino nation” that is in the throes of transformation.

Father and Son in the Embrace of Uncle Sam

This essay offers a reflection on the American sojourns of two Filipinos, Reynaldo Ileto and his father, Rafael Ileto, at two different historical periods. It brings to the fore the interplay of personal experiences and regimes of knowledge that constitute one’s belonging and response to the US empire. Rafael Ileto’s beliefs and actions are framed in light of his upbringing and his times, resulting in a military career that exemplified the special relationship between the United States and the Philippines. But the historical moment of Reynaldo Ileto’s graduate studies at Cornell University led to a path that diverged ideologically from that of his father.

Translation as Argument: The Nontranslation of Loob in Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution

This article discusses Ileto’s nontranslation of the Tagalog concept of loob as integral to the argument and rhetorical persuasiveness of his seminal work, Pasyon and Revolution (1979). The meaning of loob that readers gather is a deeply religious and mystical one. However, the idiom of loob has multifarious and varied usages, and in the vast majority of cases loob is a prosaic term. Using some methods in the field of corpus linguistics, this article demonstrates that reambiguating Ileto’s translations could lead to different interpretations. KEYWORDS: CORpuS linguiStiCS • loob • REYnalDO ilEtO • anDRES BOnifaCiO • PhiliPPine revolution

Piecing Together a World in Which We Can Dwell Again: The Art of Imelda Cajipe Endaya

602 Feminist Studies 40, no. 3. © 2014 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Flaudette May Datuin Piecing Together a World in Which We Can Dwell Again: The Art of Imelda Cajipe Endaya Beloved, ever since you left My body and heart do not know where to go Slow is the flow of blood in my veins In these opening lines of an untitled poem by Gregoria de Jesus, the world is suddenly strange and unlivable.1 The writer—fondly called Oryang (or Oriang)—is remembering her husband Andres Bonifacio, leader of the Philippine Revolution against Spain, founder and Supremo (supreme leader) of the Philippine revolutionary society Katipunan, of which Oryang had been among the most active members. As the Lakambini (princess) of the Katipunan and widely acknowledged as one of the heroines of the Philippine Revolution, she performed dangerous tasks which only women can undertake undetected by the police.2 Although independence was won from Spain in 1898, Andres and his brother Procopio were arrested by rival revolutionaries, charged with treason, and executed, despite scant evidence. Oryang searched for their bodies for 1. The untitled poem in Filipino is in Encarnación Alonza and Gregoria Nakpil (de Jesus), Julio Nakpil and Philippine Revolution (Manila: Carmelo and Bauermann , 1964), 177la. An English translation by Teodoro A. Agoncillo of the University of the Philippines can be found at http://tl.answers.com/Q/ Tula_na_ginawa_ni_gregoria_de_jesus. 2. “Hero of the Philippine Revolution: Gregoria de Jesus,” Philippine Culture website, http://www.msc.edu.ph/centennial/gdjesus.html. Flaudette May Datuin 603 months and months, but failed to find them. In her poem, Oryang transfers the pain outside her body, relaying her inner state through language. Grief and suffering (dusa) are given form, disseminated, and shared, stirring the community to commiserate and take action (damay). In the words of Philippine scholar Reynaldo Ileto, damay thus becomes “a social experience, a Katipunan (collective) experience. Since damay is a manifestation of whole and controlled loob (inner sense), the Katipunan radiates heat and flame, just as Christ and other individuals of exemplary loob radiate liwanag (light).”3 The art of Imelda Cajipe Endaya exemplifies the aesthetics of damay, where, as in Ileto’s description of damay as “a social experience,” emotion becomes social and the social becomes emotional. In a parallel to Oryang’s experience, Cajipe Endaya’s work also transfers pain outside her body into her art and relays her inner state through art. Her work grew out of a period of ferment in the Philippines during the 1960s and 1970s. Graduating from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, she began her artistic career as a printmaker, pursuing an avid interest in Philippine history through her use of archival images, old prints, drawings, and photographs. From her first series of etchings and serigraphs in 1976, titled Ninuno (Ancestors), Cajipe Endaya exhibited an original approach to the theme of national identity, which she viewed with a historical sense. One work, Saan Ka Nanggaling, Saan Ka Darating? (Where have you been, where are you destined?) (1979), for example, poses questions that suggest the tensions that arise out of the uneasy encounter between colonial and indigenous cultures. The work traces the complexity of cultural change experienced by an indigenous woman and features aquatinted silhouettes, some shrouded and others erased, and strewn with native and Spanish scripts. In this and similar prints from that period, we see indications of the techniques that would be carried to full maturity: photo-transfer and cutting and pasting of figures that emphasize the flatness of the picture 3. Reynaldo Ileto, Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines , 1840–1910 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1979), cited in Patrick Flores, “Postcolonial Sufferance,” in Imelda Cajipe Endaya: Stitching Paint into Collage, ed., Patrick Flores, Flaudette May Datuin, Scott Koterbay, Ruben Defeo, and Elizabeth Lolarga (Manila: Lenore RF Lim Foundation for the Arts, 2000), 14, http://www.blurb.com/b/818947imelda -cajipe-endaya-stitching-paint-into-collage. 604 Flaudette May Datuin plane, even as they stand out of its surface. In her exhibit Paintings in 1981, a title that marks her shift from printmaking to painting, a similar set of tensions persist. The push and...

Becoming Rey Ileto: Language, History, and Autobiography

This article inquires into the relationship between translation and autobiography in the work of Reynaldo Ileto. In Pasyon and Revolution, English and Tagalog are juxtaposed in a relationship of translation, indicating linguistic complexity and a politics of language that are deflected in Ileto’s later autobiographical writings. Yet, autobiography can also work like translation, but in the opposite direction of Pasyon and Revolution. Rather than loosen linguistic and social hierarchies, autobiography reinforces them. Ileto’s narrative tells of the splitting and substitution of selves, the excavation and overcoming of the father’s name, and the replacement of the “unfinished revolution” project with stories of gendered and generational succession. Keywords: translation • autobiography • ileto • english • tagalog

Local Discourse, Identity and the Search for a Filipino Philosophy: A Re-exploration through the Lens of Reynaldo Ileto

Local Discourse, Identity and the Search for a Filipino Philosophy: A Re-exploration through the Lens of Reynaldo Ileto

Local Discourse, Identity and the Search for a Filipino Philosophy: A Re-exploration through the Lens of Reynaldo Ileto

Working within the framework of Reynaldo Ileto’s postcolonial discourse, this paper re-explores the Filipino philosophy question and its contem- porary relevance. Re-exploration in this context means re-reading and arguing for sustained discussions on Filipino philosophy. Divided into three parts, the paper presents the history and development of the Filipino philosophy debate and proceeds to an analysis and reflection on Ileto’s writing from Pasyon and Revolution to his more recent work. The third and final part proposes a rethinking of what has been identi- fied as Filipino philosophy in the light of Ileto’s ideas. At the core of this endeavor is the contention that a culture-grounded philosophy is indispensable in nationhood and state-formation. Thus, whether it shall be called “philosophies in the Philippines” or “Filipino philosophy,” or whatever possible nomenclature for such an endeavor, the most es- sential thing is that Filipinos consciously identify and shape their own discourse as a people. Finally, this paper argues for the relevance of continually discussing the question concerning Filipino philosophy.

Postcolonial Fissures and the Contingent Nation: An Antinationalist Critique of Philippine Historiography

This article examines instances in Philippine historiography where nationalism, as a unitary end, has been used to elide and obscure class difference. It begins with a partial explanation of the lacunae in antinationalist thinking in the Philippines, and then proceeds to a critique of contemporary nationalist historiography. Using historians Zeus Salazar and Reynaldo Ileto as case studies, it examines how nationalist historiography can serve as means to implicitly justify localized acts of class oppression. The works of these scholars, while crucial in forwarding critiques of colonialism and neocolonialism, privilege nationalist unity over thorough examinations of disjunctures produced by class difference.

“Wedded in the Association”: Heteroglossic Form and Fragmentary Historiography in Nick Joaquin’s Almanac for Manileños

Almanac for Manilenos (1979) by Nick Joaquin (1917-2004) is “a calendar, a weather chart, a sanctoral, a zodiac guide, and a mini encyclopedia on the world of the Manileno.” Undergirded by Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia, Walter Benjamin’s montage method in writing history, and Reynaldo Ileto’s notion of non-linear emplotment, the essay engages with the Almanac’s calendars and essays and offers four claims. Firstly, although multiple genres embedded in the Almanac—which include, apart from the abovementioned, horoscopes, recipes and light verse— stratify the text, temporal associativeness offers a sense of cohesion. Secondly, the formal strategy of the calendars— typified by correspondence and compression of the categories of nation and religion—allows for both past and future temporal orientations. Thirdly, Joaquin’s fragmentary historiography results in temporal discontinuity as well as conjunction and resemblance: dualities in the essays—the aesthetics and politics of disjuncture and coherence— offer the possibility of recognition and actualization. Finally, the Almanac—which takes its cue from modernist techniques—interrogates linear and developmentalist ways in which Philippine history is depicted and the nation is represented.

“Wedded in the Association”: Heteroglossic Form and Fragmentary Historiography in Nick Joaquin’s Almanac for Manileños

Almanac for Manileños (1979) by Nick Joaquin (1917-2004) is “a calendar, a weather chart, a sanctoral, a zodiac guide, and a mini encyclopedia on the world of the Manileño.” Undergirded by Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia, Walter Benjamin’s montage method in writing history, and Reynaldo Ileto’s notion of non-linear emplotment, the essay engages with the Almanac’s calendars and essays and offers four claims. Firstly, although multiple genres embedded in the Almanac—which include, apart from the abovementioned, horoscopes, recipes and light verse— stratify the text, temporal associativeness offers a sense of cohesion. Secondly, the formal strategy of the calendars— typified by correspondence and compression of the categories of nation and religion—allows for both past and future temporal orientations. Thirdly, Joaquin’s fragmentary historiography results in temporal discontinuity as well as conjunction and resemblance: dualities in the essays—the aesthetics and politics of disjuncture and coherence— offer the possibility of recognition and actualization. Finally, the Almanac—which takes its cue from modernist techniques—interrogates linear and developmentalist ways in which Philippine history is depicted and the nation is represented.

Bourdieu, Historical Forgetting, and the Problem of English in the Philippines

This article explores the nature of historical forgetting in the Philippines through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu's notion of forgetting as misrecognition, which is invested with power and struggle. The notion is concretized in the context of Reynaldo Ileto's discussion of the Schurman Commission, which was tasked to gather information about the Philippines as part of the United States' pacification campaign. Because historical forgetting is rooted in the structure of society itself, policies concerning language and education are imbued with power and class dimensions. The necessity of change in consciousness is enmeshed in the broader politics of social change, which is thus the context of the debate on the critical role of English in the Philippines. The political imperative to forget is inherent in - and partly sustains - the fundamental structure of social relations in the Philippines.

Vestiges of war: the Philippine-American War and the aftermath of an imperial dream, 1899-1999

U.S. intervention in the Philippines began with the little-known 1899 Philippine-American War. Using the war as its departure point in analyzing U.S.-Philippine relations, Vestiges of War retrieves this willfully forgotten event and places it where it properly belongs-as the catalyst that led to increasing U.S. interventionism and expansionism in the Asia Pacific region. This seminal, multidisciplinary anthology examines the official American nationalist story of benevolent assimilation and fraternal tutelage in its half century of colonial occupation of the Philippines. Integrating critical and visual art essays, archival and contemporary photographs, dramatic plays, and poetry to address the complex Philippine and U.S. perspectives and experiences, the essayists compellingly recount the consequences of American colonialism in the Philippines. Vestiges of War will force readers to reshape their views on what has been a deliberately obscure but significant phase in the histories of both countries, one which continues to haunt the present. Contributors: Genara Banzon, Santiago Bose, Ben Cabrera, Renato Constantino, Doreen Fernandez, Eric Gamalinda, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Jessica Hagedorn, Reynaldo Ileto, Yong Soon Min, Manuel Ocampo, Paul Pfeiffer, Christina Quisumbing, Vicente Rafael, Daniel Boone Schirmer, Kidlat Tahimik, Mark Twain, and Jim Zwick.

The Health of a Nation: Race, Place, and the Paradoxes of Public Health Reform

Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco's Chinatown. By Nayan Shah. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2001. 384 pages. $50.00 (cloth). $19.95 (paper). Critiquing the benefits of Western medicine is difficult work. Although historical studies in the field of science, medicine, and imperialism have revised the heroic and benevolent depictions of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century western medical practices in primarily colonized areas by linking these practices to racialized violence, subjugation, and control, the pervasive cultural association of western medical reforms with universal humanitarianism continues to make even questioning such reforms a risky endeavor. 1 As Reynaldo Ileto observes, "even nationalist writers in the Philippines find it impossible to interrogate the established notion that among the blessings of American colonial rule was a sanitary regime which saved countless Filipino lives." 2 Such "gratitude," Ileto points out, is most often expressed in the context of public health reform, and specifically its focus on the control and prevention of disease. How dare one critique these efforts using the analytical category of race when disease sees no color and threatens us all? National Geographic's new series on "challenges for humanity," which debuted in its February 2002 issue and featured the "war on disease" as humanity's first challenge, powerfully illustrates the persistent [End Page 141] hold that medicine, and specifically public health, has on mainstream conceptualizations of what counts as universal and humanitarian in more recent times. World maps that chart the frequency of outbreaks of influenza, HIV/AIDS, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis, malaria, and measles emphasize that infectious diseases are our global enemies. Graphic images of a Guatemalan farmer's lesions and a Nigerien man's blind eye remind us of the casualties of this world-wide war. Photographs of a woman in the United States testing the amount of chlorine in a swimming-pool water sample and a woman in Bangladesh folding clean and dry sari material that will be placed over a jug before collecting water convey the international importance of employing specific sanitary measures to prevent disease. While these striking images effectively communicate that all of humanity has a stake in the battles against disease, Nayan Shah's study of epidemics and race in San Francisco's Chinatown poignantly reminds us that before we engage in this seemingly universal war in the new millennium, history has much to teach us. Within the span of almost a century, beginning in the 1850s, discourses of public health and hygiene informed the changing popular images of San Francisco's Chinese Americans, transforming them from medical menace into deserving citizens. While this dramatic and seemingly inclusive change might be employed as evidence of the progressive nature of public health over time, Shah rejects such triumphalist historical narratives. His exploration of the analytical category of race through the prism of public health reveals the ways in which public health discourses constructed hygienic norms, which, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, racialized Chinese and other Asian Americans as aberrant and inferior, and racialized white Americans as normal and superior. Although a contrasting image of Chinese Americans as deserving citizens became popular in the 1920s and 1930s, Shah observes that this transformation did not encompass the entire Chinese American community in San Francisco. Rather it was dependent on the performance of hygienic norms by primarily second generation Chinese American activists and achieved at the expense of an older generation of Chinese American bachelors whose lifestyles did not meet these normative standards. Thus, Shah's book exposes the limits as well as possibilities of a national citizenship based on hygienic and other related norms. By asking "Whose public?" and "Whose health?" we [End Page 142] have been referring to when we have formulated public health knowledge and engaged in public health reform in the not too distant past, Shah deftly critiques the seemingly inextricable link between public health...