Lim Teck Ghee (ed). 1988. Reflections on Development in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies !'r.
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From the momenl ihe typical Filipino student begins to learn about himself, his society, history artcl culture in books, the niass-media and the classroom, he becomes immersed in ideas of development, emergence, linear time, scientific reason, humane pragmatism, governmental ordering, and nation-building. He becomes so immersed in them that he takes them to be part of the natural ordering of things. J.itlle does he know that such categories are historical, that they were devised at a cerlain time by men borrnd by their unique interests and environments. The operations by which sorne events are highlighled while others suppressed, the establishment of chains of cause and effect, the temporal ordering of phenomena in a certain way, such as from primitive to advanced, religious to secular revolts - all
6
Outlines of a Non-Linear Emplotment of Philippine History
lhese are obscured in textbooks and teaching methods. The student is made to learn the facts as they are strung out in some linear fashion, not the relationship of histories to power groups, the silences of the past, or the history of the linear scheme itself.2 This paf:er will, first of all, look into the common struclural features that underlay linear Philippine histories of different political persuasions. These texts have dominated the educational scene for at least a decade, and have become part and parcel of the intellectual baggage of the present generation of politicians, radical activists, and technocrats. By interrogating these texts one may begin to understand why it is so difficult for lhe men and women at lhe top to escape the'linear developmental'mode of com' prehending national 2roblems ancl prospects. But it is not enough to discern lhe structure or discourse of Philippine history. The second part of this
REYNALDO C. ILETO
Most sensitive thinkers today regard the concept of 'development" not as universl but as historically conditioned, arising from social, economic, and ideological trends in eighteenth-century Europe. The idea of progress - thc belief that the growth of knowledge, capabilities and material produclion make human exstence better - placed science at the summit of knowledge. It gave birth to high imperialism, as the West identified progress with civilization and set out to dominate the rest of the worlcl. lbday, the idea of progress and the developmental ideology it engendered are under attack. People are generally aware of how scienlific knowledge and technique can bring disaster, how increased material production does not necessarily lead to a better life. The reality of poverty, exploitation of workers, dominalion of certain groups by others, and destruction of the environment, flies in the face of rational planning by lechnocrats.l As lhe awareness of what tlevelopmenl" really means grows, it becomes nevertheless difficult to identify and negate the features of this outlook that have been internalized for decades and continue to shape one'-s lhinking. In the Philippines, the developmental outlook is deeply implicated in power relationships within the society as well as between the Philippines and the outside world. Il shapes behaviour and thought without being fully articulated itself. The concept of development is still understood as a universal 'given' the livenl for example, of any text enranating from the nalional government and its technocrats. Surprisingly enough, even the critics of government and the technocralic 6lite, whether of the right or left in the political spectrum, while pointing out distortions and misapplications, fail to escape the very discourse of development. It is as if to beconre an educated Filipino one had to internalize this central organizing concept of the age
paper will look into the late nineteenth-century context of its irruption, particularly the still unexplored rise of medical power. Finally, the question of what to do with the data lhat is marginalized in the dominant histories will be discussed. It is suggested that an alternative historical project might consist of retrieving such data and allowing it to challenge the dominant constructs, fomenting what Foucault calls 'the insurrection of subjugated knowledges" which were'present but disguised within the body of functionalist and systematizing theory".3
Linear History The late lbodoro Agoncillq the Philippines' most influential history textbook writer, is famous for his construction of a history that begins after 1B?2, the year of the exccutions of three reformist priests, or lhe -r,'ear that a 'national consciousness" was born.a Agoncillo justified this view on the grounds that one cannol hear an authentic Filipino voice prior lo L872 in the masses of Spanish colonial records that have survived. At most there are isolated, regional and tribal assertions against the colonial order, but hardly one that articulates a common experience and destiny of the
Filipino people.
in which one lives. 130
a
I
i I
I
l
i 1
132
llqnal
Agoncillo blames this on spanish colonialism. According to him, before the ionqucsr in the sixteenth century the people had a sense of belonging to the Malay worlcl; they were literate, prosperous and united under their respective chiefs. spanish rule encouraged the docility of the masses, the corruption of leaders, their collaboration with the foreigners, and, above all, a loss of authentic customs and beliefs. Only with nineteenth-cenlury economic development and the consequent rise of a native intelligentsia called iluslrodo, would things be set straight again. Agoncillo's textbooks are considerecl exemplary in the nationalist tradltion, but an examination of o/l modern history textbooks will reveal that they contain the.following categories and chronological sequence: A Golden Age (pre-Hispanic society), the Fall (that is, the conquest by Spain in the sixteenth century), the Dark Age (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), Economic and social Development (nineleenth century), the Rise of Nationalist consciousness (post-1872), the Birth of the Nation (1898), and either suppressed Nationalism or Democratic Thtelage (Rost-1901, the American regime). The year L872,or sometimes 1896 - when the Katipunan revoh against spain occurred - is the lynchpin of several binary oppositions: forward/ bickwarcl, reasonlsuperstition, enlightenment/enslavement, modern/traditional, religion/progress, and so forth' To put it another way, some time in the late nineteenth century lhere seemed to be a breakthrough out of darkness and subjection, towards independence, progress and the Filipino nation-state.Ib understand how deeply rooted this conception of history is in the Philippines we musl go back to the late nineteenth century. The ilusfrqdos were the offspringpor excellence of thg Spanish ordering of society. The effect of the colonial intervention was to gather together the scattered barungays (villages) into more compact, Hispanized pueblo' centres, where the naiive and mestizo gentry called principolio, educated by the Spanish friars in the convents, began to assimilate the basic elemenls of a progressivist outlook, such as the Judaeo-Christian concept of man working out the Divine Plan over lime, or the notion of man's perfectability. Even the common masses, through local versions of the Old and New Testament came to be familiar with the notion of 'history" as a series of evenls
with a beginning (the Creation) and an end (the final Judgment). After the fall from an original state of perfection in ihe Garden of Eden, history consists of man's strivings for salvation which ultimately is to be found in the afterlife, in the City of God.S The well-known opening of the countryside to capitalist penetration from the 1820s onwards, but particularly after 185O, was accompanied by the crystallization of new knowledge which was readily accepted by the generations of upper- and middleclass Filipinos who went to Spanishlanguage schools. Up to the eighteenth century man's perfectabilily was deemed impossible on earth. The Spanish clergy was determined to keep
tffi
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133
this perception intact in the colony. By the mid-nineteenlh century the educated, l/usl;"odo, segmenl of the princrpcrli,:, resenlful of the archaic dominance of the Church over practicallv all aspects of inclio life, was prepared to assimilate nineleenth-century ideas of secuiar progress. Ironically, their exposure to Christian catechism and Church history predisposed them to linear, progressive ideas of history. The ilusfroclos, despite their attacks on what they saw as Spanish-controlled religiosity that kept the ordinary people in subjection, nevertheless retained the Christian conslructs of "Fall" and 'Recovery" in writing anti-colonial history. The first native students of Philippine history - Jose Rizal, Gregorio Sanciangco, Isabelo de los Reyes, Ramon Paterno and Tlinidad Pardo de Thvera - saw lheir generalion as the first to be guided by reoson ralher than supers/ition. As a way of liberating themselves from their colonial consciousness, lhey studied the ancient alphabets, literature, religion, and other aspects of pre-Hispanic society, and posited a time in the past when the Philippine archipelago was a flourishing civilization that, however, succumbed to the proferred benefits of alliance with the Spanish conguis/odores. History hence, begins with a "fall". As heirs of the Humanist tradition, the iluslroclos further posited a break in their lime between the 'clark age' of Spanish colonialism when religion and ignorance ruled men's minds, and a new age of enlightenmenl when the glory of an ancient past would be fused with the progress of nationhood. The future hope was no longer bliss in heaven but a prosperous nalion stale lhat would take its place in rhe international community.6 Wilh ilustrqdo writing, then, Philippine history became intelligible, progressive, linear and, to some extent, "purposive". The people, or its intelligentsia vanguard, could help push history to its goal by education/reform, or revolulion. Subsequent histories, both of the liberal and radical varieties, have reproduced this nineteenth-century emplotment. In fact, this has formed the backbone of the dominant state ideology and intelligentsialed opposition to it since the triumph of the First Republic in 1898. In E,E. Marcos's multi-volume series, Tbdhona: The History ofthe Filipino fuople, a guarter of the volumes is devoted to the pre-Hispanic 'roots of Filipino heritage'i In this view of the past, the seed of the future Filipino nation is to be found in the idealized pre-Spanish barungay - a community bound togelher by kinship ties and loyalty to the paternal leader - whose evolution was inlerrupted by the Spaniards. Another guarter of. Tadhana, nearly completed, discusses thc Spanish regime, tluring which the Fi-
lipinos struggled first to assimilate and participate in the Hispanization process, gradually and consciously moving towards the idea of a national community in the reform or propaganda movement". The "counter-socieiy' thal emerged in 1872 would find fulfilment in the birth of the nation-state in 1898. From 1898 to 1946, when political independence is granted by the United States, the story - to be told in another quarter of the series -
134
ReynalCc C. Ilelo
consists of realizing this dream, this destiny, in the face of American, Japanese, rightist, leftist arrd other ihreats to it.7 Marcos's history departs from Agoncillo's in taking a more positive view of the "Conquista' (that is, the 'fall") and the 'dark agei It accommodates the research of Phelan and others lhat have shown that while the native perception of reality was strained by the impositions of colonialism, there was no break or disruption arising from the conversion and relocation of the lowland populace. Phelan demonstrates that Spanish missionaries could not have succeeded vrithout building on pre-existing notions of curative waters, amulets, anito worship, family alliances, and the like. The process of Hispanizing the native 6lite was as much through the latter's initiative as it was Spain's.8 Marcos develops this notion of indio creativity and assertion
into that of the'bounter-society" - the substratum of indigenous civilization - taking the form of a primitive yearning for liberty lhat simmered beneath the surface of Spanish rule. The tounter-society" in Marcos's history in the process of revealing itself, of making liberty manifest, gradually lransforms itself into a state. Here is the culminalion of ilus/rodo efforts to construct a chain of events leading lo the modern nalion-state. "Marcosl', in fact, is also the name of a large group of contemporary scholars who have used the idiom of modern scholarship to essentially fulfil the dreams of their forebears. They see the origins of the state in the pre-Spanish borongcry, which was gradually transformed during the cclonial period into the much larger pueblq dominated at the centre by the municipal hall and church/convent complex. Thus, from this pueblo cenlre emerged the pnhcipolio anci ilustrado classes which wrote and subscribed to a history organized from the centre's perspective. Ib put it another way, if history was continuous iind progressive, the pueblo and its fulfilment, the state, would be the very site of progress. Thus, there is a disproportioned celebration, in both history books and national festivities, of the founding of the first Philippine republic in 1898, despite the latter's suppression of religio-political movements that preceded it and plagued its shortlived experience. The sacred character of the state is evi denced in Marcos's selfconsciously Hegelian argument that the state was the "self realization of the Absolutdl and that the form of constitutional authoritarianism his regime practised - in which through him as "world historical" leadet the guidiqg hand of history/progress operated - was the only way that lhe ilustrado dream could be realized.e The most effective critics thus far of the "statist" construction of history have been those who go by the much-misunderstood name, "Marxist'i Ilruo examples will be mentioned here: Renato Constantino, author of a best-selling textbook, The Philippines: A ^Fosf Revrsiled, and the National Democratic Front (NDF), whose version of Philippine history is derived from A. Guemero's Philippine Sociefy and Rqolution.ro Constantino pointed out, in reply to Agoncillo's dismissal of the 'dark age" of Spanish rule, that
Outlines af a Non-Linear Emplotment of Philippine History
135
Spanish coioniai poiicy, and even Spanish history and society, from the beginninc "had profor-rnd effects on the evolving Filipino socicly and cannot therefore be ignored'l His criticism of Agoncillo's 'great men" approach was also an attack on Marcos's history at the height of martial rule: 'All powerful leaders, and especially tyrants, exerled efforts to insure that the history of their lime would be written in their imagel' In the final analysis, however, "it is the people who make or unmake heroes". The NDF has likewise rejecled lhe lreat heroes" approach; leaders or rebels are thrown up by the particular social and economic formatiorrs in which they livcd. In [acl, one
of the preoccupations of the NDF (as well as other; competing, Marxist
groups) has been lo locate states in the Philippine past so that development and its concomitant struggles can be more scientifically plotted.rt 'There must be no segmentation of the different stages of our history'l argues Constantino. Despite the 'evolution and disappearance of forms of social life and institutions'l there is a conlinuity in the people's material and subjective growth. Constantino calls revolts and other assertions during colonial rule "the schools of lhe masses'l 'From blind responses to foreign oppression, mass actions against the Spaniards and later against the Americans underwent various transformations until they finally became a conscious struggle for national liberationl Nole that lhe end poinl of popular struggles is not state formation but "nalional liberation'or, as Constantino says elsewhere, "the birth of a naliort'. Note, too, thal revolts are shown lo be increasingly self-conscious and secular, evolving in states as lhe economy develops. Variations on the theme are found elsewhere. For example, Constantino-inspired church aclivists picture religious unrest as developing in stages, from Hermano Pule's primitive Cofradia movement of 1840-41 io the highesl stage in Fr. Gregorio Aglipay's schisrn from the Roman Catholic Church during the revolution. The former is pictured as a blind groping, with the leader, Hermano Pule, still encumbered by idark agd superstition; hence his failure.l2 The problem is that, their sincerity noti,vithstanding, Conslantino and the NDF have failed to exlricate themselves from the discourse of the liberal
nationalists they condernn. Like Agoncillo and Marcos, they present an image of a pre-Hispanic feudal order bastardized by colonialism and a native
culture contaminated by Christianity. What these texts have in common with their liberal rivals is that they proceed from the same construct of falldarkness-recovery (or triumph), where there is a necessary development ffom a point in the past lo the present and everything in between is either taken up in the march forward, or simply suppressed. Older ideas of progress can be gleaned in these texts' insistence on consciousness of lhe 'laws of motionl and on torrect" organizalional responses to hislorical opportunities for revolutionary change. While Constantino and the NDF look upon the masses as the real'makers of history". the masses are not allowed to speak. They exist only to be
136
Reynaldo C. Ileto
represented by articulate leaders who are said to have a deeper understanding than ''ordinary people' of the causes of oppression, and who began to emerge in the second half of the nineteenth century. Here we see another intersection of nationalist establishment writing and nationalist/ Marxist oppositionist writing. It is a very subtle kind of 6litism, because it draws upon the Filipino 'bommon sense'view that colonialization made the masses passive, that Spanish colonialism preached such virtues as 'resignation, passivity and respect for autt5ity". An example cited by both Marcos and the NDF is the Spanish use of such lexts as the Posyon indigenous versions of the New lbstament story - to make the masses submissive.r3 Naturally, if such writers ignore the creative appropriation of Spanish-Christian texts by the masses, then it follows that the coming of the intelligentsia is sorely needed. It is not surprising that such ostensibly diverse texls share a common hisiorical emplotment. The reason most educated Filipinos find the lineardevelopmental mode a natural one for ordering such phenomena as revolts and the consolidation of state power in the name of nationalism is because this framoauork puts lhem at the forefront of the development process.
Whether as apologists or activists, they are able to recognize themselves in a comfortable way in the past, and they are assured of a primary role in the fulfilment of the end towards which history moves.
Physicians and the State Rizal alwap comes to mind as the foremost nationalist writer and interpreter
of hislory in the late nineteenth century. It is often forgotten that he was trained as a medical practitioneq and that much of his scholarly investigations had to do with the natural sciences. But having situated his historical writing in the episteme of the period, it is no longer possible to separate Rizal, the writer, from Rizal, the physician. Nineteenth
autlines of u Non-Linear Emplotment of t'hili1:pine History
137
were attracted to lhe pattern or construct described at the beginning of this 1-raper:
fall-dark ages-enliglrtenment and progress.
Our alternalive reading of the nineteenth-century rise of the medical profession - a sign of progress - is based on the actual intersection of
medicine, politics, and society during the cholera epidemics lhat swepl the colony from 1820 to 1902. The 1820 epidemic was particularly frightening since Asiatic cholera had not been experienced previously. colonial (that is, European) doctors were guite helpless about preventive and curative procedures. The 1820 expcrience was particularly remembered for the antiforeign riots that originated in the native district surrounding Manila, which resulted in the deaths of many foreigners. Afflicted natives of the lower class abandoned the pueblos, and turned in droves to what the Frenchman Gironiere, himself a physician, called "native sorcerers". The almost total disruption of public order al the height of the epidemic was as equally feared by the colonial establishment as the disease itself.ra The experience of the 1820 epidemic as a time of chaos was constantly al the back of the minds of colonial health officials during subsequent visitations. Mec.ical and sanitary practices that were devised in succeeding decades had the additional, if not essenlial, function of preventing a repeti-
tion of chaos.rs Soon after 1820, Spanish health officials were in touch with physicians from British India, and much of the developmenls in cholera cures els€where were adopted. From hindsight it is easy to smile at the noi'uetd of the cures and such "mistaken' conceptions as the dreaded mrosmo. But documents of the sanilary and health commissions reveal a reverence towards the advances in knowledge and technigues in the nineteenlh century. Baltling a killer disease such as cholera with the weapons of science gave the Tunfo.s sonrlonos, or sanitary commissions, a rising prestige among the nascent Filipino middle class, a prestige previously enjoyed only by
ihe Church. The fairly exlensive documentation on the 1882 and 1889 epictemics reveal a situation far different from that of 1820.16 sanitary commissions were quickly mobilized in each torvn at thc first sign of an outbreak. Inilially, parish priesls, either Spaniards or Filipinq served as presidents of these commissions but, increasingly, gobemadorcillos (justices of peace) were allowed lo assume this function. Individuals who showed a lack of enthusiasm and competence were immediately sacked. By and large, local
officials, municipal policemen, top rnembers oI the princrpolia, and the Guardia civil, worked remarkably well as a team to enforce state regulations. These consisted principally of the daily moniloring and inspection of houses and public facilitieg daily accounting of infected persons and cholera deaths, strict quarantines, the banning of idangerous'food items (such as the foul
smelling shrimp paste, or bagoong), and even the policing of oullying villages and hamlets which could be the source of pollution or infection.
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A schccltrle of fines and detentions for infractions of sanitary rules
was
strictly obsen'ed.
The reorganization of society and surveillance over ritual practices and individual consciences that accompanied conversion to Ctrristianity in the sevenleenth century was repeated in the nineteenth century by the colonial state which made its presence felt through the system of door-to-door inspections, the monitoring of casualties, and the bans on visiting the sick urra t" deacl. Furthermore, lhere appears to be a continuity between the surveillance and the curtailment of population movements practised dur.ing epidemics, and similar iechniques of "bandit suppression' that were pJ.t""t"A at about the same period. The cholera attacked both rich and poor. But the local sanitary commissions vvere well aware of the threat of contamination offered by unhygienic clusters of peasant dwellings and movements of people. The principolro's energetic response to anti-cholera programmes was at one level a measure of its desire to survive as a Class. it, ittitrau towards "banditry" was not different. For example, the Spanish infantn,3 campaign to eradicate banditry in southern Luzon in 1881 was tantamounl lo a massive quarantine operation that isolated the'hard working and peacefuf inhabitants of town centres from rough and unsettled elements in the peripheries that posed a threat to the centres. In both operations, that is, epidemic and bandit suppression, Spanish commanders, parish priests and thepnncipolio were allies. The saga of progress in health ind sanitation is also that of the involvement of the p rincipalia in the deploy-
ment of state power under ihe aegis of disease control. After the middle of the nineteenth century lhe nascent ilustrodo segment of the pnncipolro began to assert itself in the name of scientific medicine. During the 1882 cholera visitation which rivalled in intensity that of 1820 (34,000 died in Manila alone), the frequent appeai to Manila of provincial !orurno.., parish priestq and municipal officials was,'Send a medico titular at once!" A medrco lilulor was a bona fcle graduate of a medical course, a physician, variously called 'Medico" or "Licenciaddi In the mid-1860s the University of Santo Tomas had opened its medical faculty to F'ilipinos (natives and mestizos), and so by the late 1870s the native physician was becoming a powerful figure in the pueblos which had one.17 Due to the scarcity of medicos in 1882 they had to be rotated. The majority of towns, and even some provinces, had to do without one, relying (officially, that is) on the vocunodorcillo, the vaccinator who had been around since the beginning of the century, and the mediquillo, a name designating anyone with a smattering of formal training who could prescribe medicines, apply poultices, set broken bones, and the like. There was no slrict line separating mediquillo from curondero, the Spanish name for a herbalist or a healer aided by spiritual powers. One glaring fealure of the rise of "medico poweC' was the full support it had from the colonial state. The words and deeds of the medicos were
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Nort-Linear Emplotment
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thus framed by the aura, the power, of "Ciencial and "Medicina Racional'l r,r'hich in turn were harncsscd by the stale for its consoliclation. With support
from the centre. meclicos easily ciisplaced the vocunadorcillo rvhom they regarded as backward and ineffective practitioners of molos orles. The post of Vacunador General was taken over by a medico titulor in 1889. In some cases, though, power struggles between the two erupled, usuaily as a result of meclicos clumsily allempting to subordinate long-established vaccinators in the lowns. The meclico did not really know mtrch more about cholera control than the vaccinator who had the experience of past epidemics to his credit, but an arena of conflict was created by the distinction that had arisen between "licensed" and "unlicensed" medical practitioners, with the vaccinator slipping into the lalter category.18 The medicos inevitably encountered rhe power of the parish priests, particularly the Spanish friars. The latter, armed with handbooks that encapsulated the missionary experience with tropical disease, had in the past assumed the role of doctors in the pueblo centres, though, as far as they were concerned, being in a proper moral condition was still the best weapon against disease. It u'as still common for parish priests to head the local sanitary commissions in 1882. With the appearance of the medico, clerical dorninance in health rhatlers began to decline. The medrcos'struggle against the priests was an uphill one, however. Since meclrcos, apafi from being few in number, were generally helpless against the 1882 visitation, priests still ruled lhe scene as deaths multiplied. The rise of scientific medicine in the context of the epidemics of lhe 1880s also signalled the delegitimation of the activities of the mediquiilol curandero. The municipal police and Guardia Civil tried to prevent access lo curers. The epidemics were also a time of war on illegitimate doclors. Tb quote an 1889 proposal for reforms in lhe vaccination service, "hopefully these changes, without added cost to taxpayers, will diminish the numbers of curunderos and mediquillos, and will advance the public's education in the methods of rational medicine. . ..'re Mediquillos, formerly indispensable in lhe pueblo centres, were steadily pushed back to the peripheries, their aclivities increasingly coming to coincide with those of "illicit associalions". There was, needless to say, resistance even in lhe pueblo centres to disease control measures. Documents of the sanitary commissions complain of stubborn, secretive, apathetic, filthy, undisciplined towndwellers, generally of the poorer class. They are accused of egorsfo indifercncio and posrvo rcsr'sfencro. Worst of all, as far as the commissions were concerned, rvas the 'irrational' preference of many for the mediquillo and curundero, resulting in discernible population movements to the fringes of. pueblos or lo nearby hills where these curers continued to practise their art virtually unimpeded. The 1882 cholera epidemic began lo subside, nol so much as a result of aclion by the locallunfos sonitorias, but in the aftermath of powerful slorms that washed oui the sources of infection. The onset of natural immunily
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amongst the populace was also a tactor. I'he Filipino metlicos titulores errr€rged nevertheless as powerful figures in ihe comrnunity.20 Il quitc naturally fell upon lhern to speak on behalf of the Filipino people during the propaganda, or reform movemenl, from 1BB2 to aboul 1895. The meclrcos in the towns, together with the schoolteacher, or moeslro, sccretly disseminated the views that their compatriots were publicly advocating in Europe: Filipinos should be recognized as equal to any Spanish citizen; the people's education and livelihood should be properly attended to by the state.2r The friar quite easily became the figure of backrvardness, the 'bther" of the rising medico lifurlor. When separation from Spain became a reality at the turn of the century physicians and pharmacists were actively involved in setting up the shorllived Republic under Aguinaldo's leadership.
Medical ProgressAVarfare The irony of the story narrated above is thal when thc Uniled States began to take over lhe reins of the stale at the beginning of this cenlrrry (1901 and after), the progress of the earlier decades was simply consigned to another
tlark agel In other
words, the whole process described above was repealed,
with a slightly different constellation of characters. The great cholera epidemic of 1902-3, like the ones treated earlier, gives
us a privileged glimpse of the relationships between medical knowledge and practices, and the consolidation of power by the state. Former Secretary of the Interior, Dean Worcester, in his History of Asiatic Cholem in the Philippines (1909), reviewed the earlier epidemics, particularly that of 1862, and blamed the feeble and incompetent Sparrish health authorities for the massive 'runawaf deaths incurred. In contrast, the most rccenl epidemic of L9O2-4 wilh which he was involved, was relatively quickly controlled. Worcester naturally viewed it as a triumph of modern medicine and public health measures under the aegis of the U.S. governmenl. In facl much, if not all, of lhe literature on the subject treats lhe American handling of ihe 1902-3 epidemic as a lriumph of rationality and science over Filipino superstition and obstinacy. The disease is seen as a biological, physical (in short, objective) fact requiring direct, scienlifically-proven solutions.22 What is concealed in this saga of triumph of Weslern medicine? When the disease appeared in Manila in March 1902 and spread to the rest of Luzon in subsequent months, il provoked a massive medical, quarantine and sanitation effori on the part of the newly installed colonial government. Ib this lhere were various kinds of resistance on the part of the populace. The burning of infected houses, burial in mass graves and atlempled cremations, application of unfamiliar treatments and solutions, to name a few, were met with flight, concealment and a general "sullenness" of people in some areas. The segregation of infected persons in cholera hospitals was particularly resisted. Quarantine measures were broken whenever possible.
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Curonderos were secrelly atlracting villagers to their mountain redoubts. In thc errd, the objective presence of a killer disease rvas justification enough for colonial policies to be pushed through by force, if necessary. American cavalrymen and soldiers were recruited by Worcester to serve as crack officers of his sanitation brigades. Here, we have the image of the conquering soldier quickly transformed to thal of the crusading sanitation inspector.23 In southwestern Luzon, cholera appeared at the tail-end of years of guerrilla iesistance to U.S. occupation. In a final attenlpl lo break the resistance, the U.S. army under Gen. j. Franklin Bell implemented populationreconcentration and search-and-destroy strategies in late l90l up to the middle of the following year when the cholera began to threaten the region. The rapid spread of the disease was, in fact, greatly facilitated by the movement of U.S. troops, as well as the crowding of villagers in the pueblo centres, now called 'prolected zones". War, disease, and hunger were inextricably linked logether in the experience of the southern Thgalogs, yet in accounts such as \,lbrcester's one finds nothing but the saga of cholera suppression, with its concomitant disciplining of the native and the sanitiz-
ing of his
habitat.2a
With the final surrender of most guerrilla officers in May 1902, the discourse of lerm-warfare" guickly replaced "pacification" discourse. Military surgeons supplanted the strategists and combal troops. As one veteran surgeon wrole, 'the sanitary work of combating this disease among an ignorant and suspicious people, impoverished by war, locusts and rinderpest and embittered by conguest was an exlremely difficult task, calling for much patience, tact and firmness, the brunt of which fell on the Armylzs In effect, the epidemic was the scene of another war, a "combal zone'of disputes over power and definitions of illness and lreatment, involving American military surgeons, Filipino medico titulorcs (veterans of '82 and '89), parish priests, lhe principalia. stricken townspeople, and ahernative curers in the
fringes of the towns. Why was there a conflict between Filipino/Slanish medrcos and their American counterparts, if both were lhe standard-bearers of progress? Worceste4 at ihe onset of the epidemic, met with the Filipino and Spanish medicos who promised without exceplion to aid the Board of Health. However, with few exceptions they not only failed to give assistance, but in many instances, by neglecting to report cholera cases, by falsely reporting them, and by decrying the sanitary measures deemed necessary by the authorities, added materially to the crushing burdens which rested upon the Board of Health.26 The Board had to threaten Filipino physiciang heads of familieg and olher responsible persons with prosecution for concealment of cases. At one level, the medicos'passive resistance may be explained by their threatened loss of influence over lhe masses occasioned by the advent of U.S. rule. Filipino medicos, in particular, were chafing under the overbearing
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manners of their American superiors. The only way they could be macle to co-operate was when they were given some measure of conlrol themselves. In Manila this came when Filipinos were made heads of auxiliary boarcls of healrh. That meclicos simply desired what later would be called ..Filipinization'of government the - in this case control over health programmes involving their countrymen - is only part of the story' Their ionflict with American health authorities appears to have run deeper. The fact that their exemplar, Jose Rizal, had been an associate of the German physician and scientist, Rudolf Virchouw, has sorne implications here' In an investigation of an epidemic in Upper Silesia in 1847, Virchouw traced its origins to heavy rains which had ruined the year's crops, resulting in famine. The winter following had been extremely severe, forcing the poor people to hudclle together in their homes, cold and hungry. It was then ihat a typhus epidemic broke out and spread rapidly among the poorer class, eventually attacking lhe wealthy classes as well. Virchouw's experience
1848 to found a new journal, Medizinische Reform, in which he professed that poverty bred disease, and that physicians must support reforms that sought to reconstruct society in a manner favourable lo man's health. Epidemics, he said, "resemble great warnings from which a statesman in the grand style can read that a disturbance has taken place in the development of his peoplel In the control of crowd diseases, social and even political action was necessary.2?.If it is assumed that, in general, Filipino
led him
in
medicos lilulores were sympathetic io Virchouw'." ideas, here is one explanation of their antipathy towards American anti'cholera efforts. American physicians by 1902 almost universally subscribed to the germ theory or more generally lhe doctrine of "specific etiology". of disease. Pasteur'.s writings on the subject appeared at about the same time as Darwin's theory of evolution. At a time when relationships between living beings were being set in a context of a struggle for survival, where one was either friend or foe, the germ theory gave rise to a kind of aggressive warfare against diseasecausing microbes, which had to be eliminated from the stricken individual and from lhe community. lbwards the end of the nineteenth century the notion of disease as, in the final analysis' a lack of harmony between man and his environment, was giving way in the W'est to
the search for the specific germ and the specific weapon against il. In
Germany, Emile von Behring regarded Virchouw's ideas as an antiquated expression of the vague nineteenth-century Nofurphilosophie - a charac' teristic, incidentally, of some of Dr Rizals writirrgs.2s Accounts of the 1902 cholera epidemic show the contrasl between Fili pino and American views of disease control. U.S. military surgeons tried
out all sorts of germ-killing preparations. These treatmenls, experimental in nature, were based on the assumption that some drug ought to be able lo attack and destroy the cholera vibrio within the patient. In a report from the Santa Mesa cholera hospital it was admitted that'the definite lines
Outlines of o Non-Linear Emplotment of Philippine
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143
uf trealmenl advocatcd from tirne to lime have rrcver proved o[ niatcriai service in true cholera]V/heiher or not it was due to thc medicine used, the American doctors' method of treatment brought nothing but aversion among cholera patients. Significantly, though, when "a few simple medicines" were distributed to the auxiliary boards of health under Filipino direction, the effect on popular attiludes was decidedly positive. These medicines did not cure many cases of cholera, but did so diarrhoea, "lhus removing a predisposing cause and gratifying the people, as the poorer class firmly believe undcr these circumstances that ttrey have been cured of true cholera'.2e Filipino patients encountered American physicians only in hospitals, and we have noted the horror with which confinement was viewed. Filipino meclicos, in the cities at least, generally visited their patients in their homes. They treated families with which they presumably had had long-standing relationships. They applied what Americans termed with derision, "mixed treatment", which meant the inclusion of some features of what used lo be the official treatmenl throughoul mosl of the nineteenth century. The relatively backward and unscientific Filipino meclrcos - as lhe American surgeons viewed them - thus lurned out to be more effective vis-d-yrs the populace.3o It was somewhat like 1882, when victims were more attracted to the mediguillos and curanderos than to the new, Manila-trained medrcos! In 1902, lhe medrcos were applying old treatments and keeping patients in a familiar and reassuring environment, where lheir "morale" as well as body would have been altended to. Families were delermined to keep it that way even if their doctors had to conceal cases from the government. For the alternative was lhe hospital, and the frightful treatmeill (whatever it ccnsisted ofl) rendered by alien physicians. The fear of detention only began to subside when hospital reforrns were enacted which placed Filipino medrcos in contact with native patienis. All this interaction between Filipino and American physicians took place in Manila and a few other larger towns and cities. In the vast majority of cholera-stricken townq lhe principalio-run boards of health and the parish priests were the local agents of disease control, and they invariably collided with the American military surgeons and other agents of Worcester. The contrast between their enthusiastic impiementation of sanitary measures under Spain, and lheir lethargy under U.S. supervision, is striking. But the explanation for this is obvious: the revolution was not yet over for most of them; memories of the guerrilla war were not easily cast aside; their tradi tional dominance over the pueblo centres was threatened by a new, still unfamiliar, colonial ruler. Only lhe strict surveillance of U.S. Army surgeons from the local garrisons, and the brute facl of acceleraling cholera deathrates, brought lhe principolia around to acquiescing to lhe colonial solutions. After a long "military" phase, the colonizing process began lo shape the people's daily lives and thinking in lhe inescapable context of surviving the cholera.
Rqnaldo C. Ileto
144
whatever worcester may have claimed, germ-warfare methods, including rhe use of powerful clrugs, strict quarantine, and attempted cremation of the cleacl, all failecl for various reasons. In the end, as in 1882, it was the combination of heavy rains and the growing immunity of the populace
that causecl the epidemic to subside. As a result of this event, however' modern meclicine ancl sanitation are said to have been implanted in the Philippines - a fact that not even nationalist histories can deny. \{hal needs to be pointed out in an alternative history is that fine, humanitarian
.obje(:tives mask other dimensions of colonial health and welfare measures:
the ,clisciplining" of the masses, the supervision and regulation of more and m-p*re- aspects of life, and the suppression or elimination of what the
slate.perceived as forms of resistance, disorder, and irrationality. The par-
ticipalion of natives in colonial health and sanitation matters implicates the,m in the process. Not surprisingly, for in the twentieth century as control of the reins of the state passed on to Filipinos, the latter's attitude lowards forms of indiscipline, disordet irrationality and deviancy was no different from that of their colonial predecessors.
Beyond lhe Pueblo Centre The plague as a form, at once real and imaginary of disorder had as its medical and political correlative discipline. Behind the disciplinary mechanisms can be read the haunting memory of contagions, of the plague, of rebellions, crimes, vagabondage, desertions, people who appear and disappear, live and die in disorder.3r
once again, Foucault's suggestions have a ring of familiarity in the Philippine context. Disease control in 1882 and l9O2 are repetitions of other
events in which the taming of disorder figures prominently. Historical writings, in giving emphasis to the integration of. pueblo cenlres and central administration, and the leading aclors of both (pnncrpoles, bureaucrats), have relegated to the margins the events taking place beyond the control of such centres. Much of recent Philippine social history deals with the
expansion of the frontiers, the rise of cash crop agriculture and urban entrepots, the links of the Philippine economy to the world capitalist system, and the activities of the inqreasingly entrepreneurial principalialChinese mestizo class.32 After all, these are what the colonial archives tell us most about. But, to cite W.H. Scott, there are'hracks in the parchment curtain', through which we can fleetingly glimpse the unique wala in which Filipinos reacted to Spanish rule. Unfortunately, says Scott, 'these insights do not generally appear in the official histories'.s Even "non-official" histories can be at a loss as to how to situate such insights. For example, Cruickshank's recent history of Samar offers us fascinating glimpses of the bther sidd' of
Oullines of
a
Non-Linear EmPloimcnt ol Philippine History
14s
the pueblo centre rvltere vagalt<.rnds are a "plaguc', alternative priests beckon the populace, and a pilgrimage site constitutes a powerful focus of popular aspirations. But, in the end, Cruickshank warns us that all this may give us "a distorted image of the major lhemes of Samar's hislory'l a history lhat was largely enacted on the coasls (with settled populations) and that reflects
the long impact of Catholicism and economic/commercial development.3a Research into the records of the Guardia Civil and provincial courts enable us to reread the nineteenth century saga of development quite differently. The pueblo, we argue, can be read as aa ambiguous centre of Philippine life, coming into play when "proper" Catholicism, bureaucralic centralization, the rise of the export economy, technical advancements, and
the activities of the 6lite, are the foci of investigation. The consolidation of the Spanish colonial state which was inherited by the princrpqlio al the turn of the nineteenth century, 'happened" or was accomplished through countless encounters with the phenomenon it named 'banditry'l and with many small but authenlic communities - "illicit associations" to the estab-
lishment - led by non-principalia, non-pueblo dwellers, who lowards the end of that century were forming lheir own image of community and nation. We suggest that,jnstead of aberrations or'problems'l they can be read as lhe suppressed "other", the condition for the possibilily, of the pueblo cenlres. One of the suppressed figures of Philippine history is the /ulr'son (bandit, highwayman). In lbgalog literature, he signifies contempt for lhe law and for settled pueblo life. He is often a victim of false accusations by the parish priest or some member of the princlpolro, arrd lhus resort io flight. EJ. Hobsbawm has inspired a whole generation of historians to view the "ideal type" of bandit, based on peasant perceptions, as the embodiment or expression of peasanl hopes for liberty and justice. Banditry is regarded as a rural and pre-political phenomenon; the bandit is a substitute for lhe peasantry's failure to lift itself from its condition.3s There is, indeed, a lot of evidence lhat Robin Hoods exisled in the Philippines. What concerns us here is the bandit as the emblem of disorder, of the fundamental discontinuity of any pueblo-based hislory. The bandit or lulrson had, in fact, already been lhere sirlce the Conquista, as lhe name given by the establishmenl to the shadowy rival of the proSpanish dotu, or gobemadorcillo, for control over terrilory and followers. In a recenl dissertation, Medina argues that banditry was'a revolt against the policy of the reduccion". "Reducclbn" at one level is almost synonymous with 'conquistd': the religious and civil aspects of friar missionary activities, Its second, laler, meaning is "the process of resettling or consolidating a community". According to Medina, Filipinos who did not recognize Spanish authority and laurq thus refusing lo become part of the rcduccion,Iled to the hills and were called lodrones monreses ("mountain thieves"), fulisones, or toga-lobos (literally, butsiders'l that is, outside the established reduccion).
146
Rqnoldo C. Ileto
\\'as an Medinas conclusion, in deference to linear history, is that barrditry period, a phettomenon the Spanislr during peasant unrest of form inciroale peasant that clevelopect through the nineteenth century into a full-blown
"already movement. His ciata, however, suggests that banditry was always pueblo existence'36 to settled, threat perpetual therel a The bandit was ubiquitous, yet he remained a hidden and slipperSr figuls. In contrast to the inhabitants of lhe pueblo centre, particularly the prinor cipales, the bandit often lacked a proper christian name and lineage, *as kno*r, by an alias signifying a certain character or physical trait. He was illiterate, yet helct in awe by the common folk for his bravery and invulnerability. He robbecl and killecl the rich, particularly chinese merchants pueblo' ancl native lancllorcls, including the occasional spanish priest. Unlike "wanderer" definition,.and by a people, he usually hacl no fixed abode, was when a base was stakecl out, lhis was in distant and isolated borrios or in
forests and mountain caves.3? It is almost impossible to trace the origins of bandit chiefs and their followers. After the middle of the nineteenth century, their presence was intensifiecl as the economy developed and theprincrpo/io prospered, prompting the organization of the Spanish-commancled r6lite constabulary force, rhl Cuarctt Civil, in the 1860s. In the 1870s and early 1880s, a special regiment of the spanish army under captain (later, Lt. col.) Faustino villa anritte triecl to flush them out of their hideouts in Luzon and the visayas. But, despite massive arrests and the capture of a few key bandit chiefs, ihe terrain and the lack of central control outside the pueblos prevented this "hydra-headecl monster" - as slurtevant calls it - from being slamped out completelY.3s The proliferation of archival records dating from the 1870s to the 1890s is a meisure of the cellral government's attempts to eliminate this plague callecl banclitry. The police network was periodically reorganized, the keeping
of dossiers systematized, and the judicial system streamlined. The charac' ter ol pueblo life itself was shaped by the preoccupation wilh banclitry. Settlements were relocated into more compact units, and ways to Control population movements between them were put into practice. Scott points
ori tnut a member of the Guardia Civil
was allowed "to enter houses situated
in populated areas at any hour of the day or night if he believes it useful
for the service". The police.regulations of the day'amounted to virtual martial law, with no civil rights to redress for military abuses". For bandits rvhatever thc4, really were - were /eored. Spanish leaders and lo.:al principolia alike imagined an army of them poised to attack not only towns but also at one point Manila itself. In the sugar districts of Negros, such grouPs proliferated, creating the need for extensive police surveillance and military operations. The abaca plantations of Bikol, the districts of cagayan planted wiih tobacco, and just about every region where economic development took place, all witnessed the same phenomenon.3e
Outlines of a Non-Linear Emplotment of Philippine History
147
One obvious explanation for briganclage is that it is a mark cf the onslaughl of capitalism upon viliage society, creating a deprived class that then turned to pillage. While not denying this, it can be pointed out that lhe lerrain of the nincteenth-century brigands had almost alwal's been the site of'clisorder'] "assertion'or "resistance'in earlier periods, and revolutionary guerrilla warfare at the turn of the century. Inslead of. seeing banditry as a unigue nineteenth-century response to new socio-economic forces, it can just as readily be seen as another, perhaps more visible, embodiment of -that shadowy 'bther side' of the developing pueblo and its principolia. The intensity of banditry in the nineteenth century may perhaps be explained by the fact that the Spanish colonial state was determined to become self-supporting and financially independent from Spain and Mexico. tooking to its neighbour, the Netherlands East Indies, for inspiration, it tried to implement a new ethic of efficiency and profit. Spaniards, Englishmen, Americans, Frenchmen, Chinese and mestizos were invited to finance the Iabour-intensive clearing of virgin lands. Sturtevant, following Hobsbawm, sees the coalitions of bandit groups that emerged after 1850 as another sign of lhe attempt of the Little Tladition "to lurn back or resist unwelcome changes'l Certainly, the colonial state undertook to subjugate what it regarded as pockets of resistance to central authority, represented by the spread of capitalist agriculture. By depicting "banditry" as a form of resistance to change, Sturtevant, like Medina and mosl others who have looked into this phenomenon, incorporated it into another form of linear history through the implication that 'change'was inevitable and historically determined, and lhat more effective forms of resistance to its negative consequences would appear later. On lhe contrary to reslate whal we said earlier, banditry was lhe hidden bther side" of the developing pueblo centre. The bandit was one of the signs .of fundamental disorder in the colonial polity, of the gap between pueblo .centre and periphery..In combatting the bandit, the colonial state and its local pnrtcrpolio allies were extending the state's authority and legal appar-a-tus beyond lhe pueblo centre, literally attempling to put the countryside in order. Cruickshank describes how the new system of head tax, or cedulo, the proliferation of bureaus and regulations, and the increase in number of provincial and pueblo police, functioned to tie the Samareflo people to the administrative centres, and isolate vagabonds and bandits. Local leaders, especially the gobernodorcillos, saw in bandit suppression a chance to gain
distinctions and rewards, and a longer lerm of office, within the colonial bureaucracy. The town-dwellers' consciousness of the difference behileen them and 'outsiders' was heightened. The principalia's self-conception as leader or spokesman of the townspeople was made possible not only througtr its co-operation with or opposition to the colonial power, but lhrough its difference from the bandil chiefs.
ReYnaido
148
C lleto
whether as Robin
in Philippine histories' However banclitry is treated to thc rebellion' its status renrains tied piu'ur't of Hooci-ism or a precursot bandits against wars the about is silence 'clark age'of such t'i'toti"""' iftt'e it pueblo-based Filipino idcnrily. tnstead' ;h";; ," much so lhal that servccl idcas libcral of influx an
ban
consiclerable;;fJ;;' ilthe eyes of the tlr'"11' were they revolutionaries authorities alike as t" th" ;;;iity of banctits in the Montalbanrldoubts tittintuin or plain bandits? fn" refuges of the secret society' The
There was
U"came San Mateo area, east crt:no*ii"' semi-eclucated leacler
Bt;ift;;" b;;ii;hi"f;
of betng accusecl by Cavite principalia he defeated iI that admittecl
he himself
nothing more than " woulcl turn to banditry'4o banditry is what really thrusts the issue of The Philippine-American war guerrilla resistance the During into contempo.urv t i"to.r""iconsciousness. new colonial governrrtent controlled to the U.S' takeover tt"* igOi' the loyal municipal governments wherthe puebloor town "".r;;;,;"ablishing originated from the princrpolio' largely who ever possible. Guerritta ciiiefs' chiefs' arch-enLmies and rivals: the bandit now occupied the site oi ttt"it with resislance' guerrilla on identifying American propaganda ;;;;;; Americans' pursued ihis
;;;;l;itiatlv wrltten bv banctitry. Accounls Malvar "f uy cl.iefs ,,"h u" Agrrinaldo and. line. There *u" u f,unti"- "u"*p' bandits' from soldiers Ls to distinguish to procure the proper "^ii"t*t "" of the lou'n centres to lhe very resiclents tft" n't"tghi war of The exigencies them from the'other side"'ar margin that normally ilti'is;t"hta the educatecl in American 56[6615' Thus, to gur,u.utio#"J'"r';li;i;;t episode in history' since the grealer Philippine-American
*ut *""
u
U'i"t
oartofithadbecome.conflateclwiththefamiliarthemeoftowncentres parr of official town historics
ffi;;il;;;;;;il"
countryside. A major
the line betrveen anti-American unabashedly srl""'b"1o itti" i'u*"*otk; Not surprisingly' one of clrawn'a2 resistance ancl bandit[ i"';;t;;;"rly concerns
ilittory in recent decades the most heated aeUate" in Philippine to fight the Americans and precisely the status of guerrillas who continuecl most famous among them' the was 1902: their nelv Filipino "d;-;iter a patriot? It is a sensitive issue because General Mar:ario Su^"-V, u funait ot at"'uguitl for life' property aird settlcd.exisr the term'bandil' *tl"t"tl A^paramount concern even during ence, and Sakay's gto;p'diJfit rtre-filt' for the lives and property of resithe height of ttre reruoiiiion *u, security segment of the principorio that became clents of the puebro centre. Tb that iiheritect the colonial state, brigands attracted to na,onalilt'-"a"1"-."a example, turned into romantic rebels for had at reast to r. .t.rn".,estrc;*.r of national unity' o, put.iot. i[ rror rvoicled in discussions
-
Outlines of
o
Non-Linear Emplotntent of Philippine
llislory
149
lllicit Associations, Disjointed Histories The theme of brigandage or banditry as the 'bther side' of evenls in the pueblo centre is repeated in the phenomenon of curers, kings, gods and goddesses, who promised peasants release from the ravages of cholera and other diseases, a life of abundance, and freedom from taxes and the
police. Curiously enough, these figures, more or less evenly distributed around the archipelago, multiplied in the 1880s, during and after the great cholera epidemic of 1892, at precisely the time when, one would think, the state, gentry, and praclitioners of scientific metlicine had things under control. They again made tl'reir presence felt, as "anti-revolutionaries", during the shorllived Republican period in 1898-99; and again, this time as 'fanatics'l during the years following the official end of resistance to the United States. Research inlo the bundles of documents labelled Sedrciones y Rebeliones (Seditious Movements and Rebellions) and Erpedtentes Gubemativos (govern-
ment files of cases and investigations) covering roughly the years 1880 to 1897 when the iluslrodos were making their statements, has revealed a starlling piclure of "fanatical" religious movements all over the archipelago. Some of lhem are named - for example, Pulajan, Dios Dios, Babaylar, Colorum, Santa Iglesia, Ttes Crislos. Others are identified in the records by place names, such as the "Dapdap affair" in Samar, or the names of lheir leaders, such as the "Gabinista'in Pampanga and'Ruhawi" in Negros.a3 It is a startling scene because conventional Philippine history, in valorizing the saga of lhe ilusfrocloJed propaganda or reform movement, has ignored this parallel set of events. Where they are given ample trealment, as in the works of Constantino and Sturtevant, they are subjected to a classificatory scheme that includes categories like primitive, prolo-nationalist, nativist, fanalical, religious, millenarian, and irrational. The understanding is lhat primitive becomes modern, religious becomes secular, fanatical becomes pragmatic and rational, and so forth. The.vantage point is rationality and progress, rather than the inner logic of these movements, their plain and simple difference from familiar, "modernl ones Spanish officialdom called these movemenls or communities'illicit asso-
ciations" (osociociones ilrcilos), discovering them around such sites as a mounlain regarded as sacred, an efficacious statue of a saint (for example, St. Francis or the Virgin Mary), or a curer residing in an outlying village. Sonre leaders identifiecl lhemselves as Christs, Virgin Marys, and other figures of the Bible. They claimed to have the power lo deliver men from the smallpox, cholera and lesser ailments through a combination of herbal cures (some of lhem were the very mecftguillos displaced by the medicos tifulores) and spiritual powers recognized by their followers. These gods and kings altracted mainly illiterate peasants, particularly those who lived in villages beyond the influence of the pueblo centre and
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150
workers imCatholic church. Among those who joincd were sugar-cane
poverisheclbythepricecrashofthel880s,debtors,displacedfarmers,tax
epidemics Lr labour evaclers- Many were survivors of cholera and smallpox vorvs Others their of fulfiiment in sites pilgrimage journeyecl to *no nua
wereptalnvaga-bonclsanclseekersofmagicalpower.Someassociations powers was were iominatect or led by women, rryhose access to magical
,.ot"..potentthanthemen's'Thebrethrencametogetherinformally,perand i,up. to'p.uy, to listen to the leacler's homilies, to partake of a meal, to be cured.
a cofra' An illicit association coulcl be a rnore structured affair: a church, natural sites clio, or an association (somohon) of brethren' These became generally of resistance 1o control bypueblo'cenlres and the state. Members
."t*"a to pay the poll oi heacl tax and thus were called indocumentadb the larger in short, they refusecl to be..processed'' by the state. Furthermore, boundaries associaiio.,s transcended not onlypueb/o but also provincial of populacontrol their to bolster aclministration the those lines clrawn by movements, iions. This was the situation in the 1880s; in later decades, these or others that arose in their place, would widen their field of altraction. In the late 1880s, the time - in linear history that is - of the Propaera' ganda Movement, there seems to have been an expectation of a new or one under unified be in which all inhabitants of the archipelago would would particular' in poor dispossessed, and the in which more native kings; "knowleclge (lishil, prosperitv, and phvsical well-being' The of ;;j;;;* had to Ciiy of God woull become i .uuiity on earth. But first, the brethren associatheir growth of the nurturing in sacrifice exierience harclship ancl tions.IndepresseclareassuchasNegrosandcentral'Luzon,lheb.rethren
Civil armed themselves and raicled the houses of the ricl-r. Tb the Guardia brigandsfrom them distinguished nothing and the viciimized principalia, it"U, *".", above all, siins of irrationality and disorder surrounding and threatening lhe Pueblo centres. "illicil assoIn this paper there is no attempt to enter the world of these complex of the of elaboration a cletailed require woulcl ciations", ioi tt i. spanish-catholic and Malay cultural elements that shaped their perception and oi reality. We can, however, ieflect on their function in the construction movelhese regard to a mistake It is history. developmental challeniing of They ments ai simply reactions to accelerated social and economic changes. the because records archival appearecl in ihe 1880s - that is, in the process 1he in them 'discovered" concernedprincipalia Spanish police and
oi putfin! prcler in the countryside. The language of investigative reports
holcl of the centre would be contaminated, subverted, if these associations were allowed to exist and spread. While some movements saw lhe participation of. principalio elements - mainly headmen of villages loosely iiu.l to the pueblo centre - the majority precipitated the antagonisms between the gocl-kings and princrpoles, or landlords, in
sho*s
a
iorl""r., that the
Oullines of a Non-Lircar Emplotmenl ol Pltiiippine History
151
pueblo centres. Ib the i/us/roclos, joining illicil associations was not the proper rnode of challenging th.e colonial order. Thus, both native 6lite and colonial state felt it had to conquer and re-form this phenomenon. What is the furrction of this type of event in an alternative history that allows it to enter.into play with more "traditional" elements? Since it is now evident that the ilus/rodo construction of reality is indeed a consrruc/ion along the lines of enlightenment and progress, and not the "trudl "correcl", or "proper" view, in effect it has the same status as the world of the Tles Crislos and l)ios-Dios. The differerrce is thal the i/usfrodo construclion has been upheld by current standards of objectivity and truth while the Tles Cristos and Dios-Dios were marks, precisely, of what had to be excised
from history.
Illicit associations, as their name implies, have been cast outside the mainstream of Philippine history and for understandable reasons. They were marginal, archaic, and undecideable in their orientation to progress and change. Yet, despite attempts to ignore or marginalize this "dark side' of Philippine history it appears in the gaps of this history. For an example of ironic reversals there is no need to go farther than the career of the ver1, archetype of ilusfroc/o-ness, Jose Rizal.aa Here is the principal and ilusfrqclo, the phlaician and historian, whose popular biography was conflated rvith that of Christ's life and various Ihgalog mythical figures. In 1888 this Filipino reformist, based in Madrid, was expected to return as the Messiah by people 'in the mountains'l When he returned he was hailed as a magical curer. The Spanish courts decided that because Rizal was regarded by the 'ignorant classes' as a god-man and redeemer he must be publidy executed. Just the same, his mode of death was a scattering of signs that the Passion and Death of Christ (a popular epic) was being re-enacted. Rizal the Filipino .Christ, rather than Rizal the physician and historian, was the rallying point of thousands who joined the Katipunan rebellion in 1897. After his death, he became the source of healing and other powers to peasant leaders way into the twentieth cenlury. The word "Katipunan" means hssociationl The revolutionary organization's full Thgalog name means "Highest and Most Venerable Association of the Sons and Daughters of the [,and". It was, in fact, an illicit associalion, not too different in some respects from the others mentioned. Historical wriiing, however, has turned it into an emblem of development. The uprising against Spain that it instigated in 1896 is regarded as a turning point in the struggle for national indcpendence, a stage higher than the ineffectual reform movement of earlier decades. The sanitized version of this period of history portrays a working man, Andres Bonifacio, fusing the ideas of Rizal and the French revolutionists and calling for armed struggle against the evil colonizer. The Philippine Army and Communist Party find common inspiration in this historical episode. Yet,'Katipunali also means those illicit associations in the peripheries
152
Reyrrcldo C. Ileto
of their basic ambiguity, switched -of the pueblo centres who, as a measure figirters. The Colorum, now lhe F.alias revolutiorrary re-elnerged antl -signs
punan of san cristobal, with their saints and magical ropes attacked the spanish garrison at thyabas. The Gabinistas resurrected as the santa lglesia oi Fulipe Salvador. The followers of Buhawi became a Katipunan under Papa (Pope) Isio. In the name of the Katipunan revolution these groups threatenecl, not just the spanish establishments, but also the princrpolro of lb-e puablo ccntres. Many members of the princrpolio regarded the 'briginal" IGtipunan itself not just as a bandit gang, as already mentioned, but also as a fanalical, illicit association. In Cavite province, the heartland of the revolution, principolio elements accused the Katipunan's supremo, Bonifacio, of entertaining ambitions to kingship, and ridiculed him for' among other things, making' the unlettered folk think that the mythical Thgalog King Bernardo Carpio would soon escape from his mounlain prison 1o aid the Katipunan forces. In the revolutionary era, it was anathema for the supreme leader to hold such'clark age'views. Bonifacio had to go; indeed, he was executed by his forrner comrades. A replacement, this ti-me from theprincrpolio, was needed to rid the movemenl of its unsavoury characteristics. Thus, the emergence of a new leader, Aguinaldo, who put the Katipunan in'proper order" as a liberal nationalist movement seeking to form a republican state that would be recognized by all civilized nations.as Philippine histories conveniently ignore the idark age" aspects of Bonifacio's career. His death is attributed to a variety of causes: personal or factional rivalry class antagonism, his hot ternper, his stubborn commitment lo the secret sociely mode of struggle, and so forth. His death has left a troublesome gap in the otherwise smooth transition to the hext stage of the nationalist struggle. The first Philippine republic of 1898-1901 is universally regarded as the crowning achievement of nationalist efforts from the 1880s onwards Advanced state institutions were created: a Cabinet, a Cougress, a bureaucracy, a legal system inherited from Spain, an army, a school syslem, and so forth. Only in recent historical writing, however, has the chaos and disorder of this period come to light. Newly-installed officials all over the nation complained to President Aguinaldo of centres of power beyond their control, frequent bandil attacks and fanatical movemenls - all of which Aguinaldo labelled as "anti-revolutionary".a6 Are these simply to be regarded as technical problems faced by a fledgling nation-state? The {act is, most of these "bandit" groups aud'fanatit',a1" associations. had participated in the liberation of pueblo centres from Spanish control in 1898. But their support for the national revolution - insofar as this was orchestrated by the pueblo centres - was inconsistent. The conlroversies
involving these groups cannot be discussed here individually. However, the roots of their differences with the first Philippine republic will be out. lined below.
Oullines of o lJon-Linear Emplotmerrt of Philippine History
fJJ
From scattered poems, songs and interrogation rccords it is possible to glimpse the rnentalily thal brought clisorder io the Republic. With the defeat of Spain, a new era or condition of independence was expected to set in. "Independence' or "liberty" was imagined as a kind of paradise on earth
where those, at leasl, who participated in the unfolding of victory would enjoy prosperity and comfort. There was an expeclation of authentic, even Chrisllike, leaders manning the government: individuals with courage and elidence of inner powers who also showed compassion and willingness to undergo sacrifices, evcn to die, for the sake of the whole.a? "Government" was a term with negative connotations, implying the management of people by some superior force, based on superior/subordinate relationships lhat characterized colonial society. If there had to be 'government'l it was expected to be based on a covenant between the chosen leader and his followers. An ou.til (song, metrical romance) about the life of "Mother
Country'l dating from 1900, starts with the Parable of the Lost Sheep.ae The refreated image of the enclosed space into which the sheep are to be led is an emblem of salvation, unity and identity. This fenced-in space is substituled later in the poem with images of kingdom, nation, and molherland. In this oruil as well as other slalements collected, the nation and its administrative apparatus are to be built upon closely-knit, village-based, associations; it is to be a voluntary toming together" of many small clusters of people rather than the forging of a whole. There are lo be no taxes, no surveillance, no police, and no forced labour. 'History" might take on a different complexion as well in the new order that was imagined. As an example, in the abovementioned awit there is mention of a Rajah Malanda (Old Man), who is the ancestor of the Thgalog people. In ilusfrodo history Rajah Matanda is one of those who signify the pre-conquest civilization. In the ouif, however, Rajah Matancla is prefigured by Noah, described as "old beloved father". Furthermore, his immediate ancestor is no less than Jesus Christ himself. Unlike ilustmdo history the ou.rif refuses to recognize a pre-Christian past. There is no anxiety about some losl purity of race. "lktoliko" and "Kristiano" are appropriated and made emblerns of Filipino identity in the 'Holy War" then being waged againsl the American invaders. Not all groups and individuals subscribed lo the same set of ideals. Challenges to the Republic were not necessarily on ihe side of the good and the moral. And lhere were Republican officials who had similar ideals in mind but simply could not put them into action. This is not necessarily outlining better alternatives to the goals of the first Republic and its Presentday successor..The point of this is to show that the Republic cannot be abstracted as a slage in the development of political institutions, national .consciousness and the struggle for freedom. Despite the good intentions of most of its leaders, the Republic failed to break out of the structures ihat preceded it. Differences characterized it from the start. It then reproduced
1s4
Retnaldo C. Ileto
the same instruments of domination and controi as its Spailish predeccssor. In shorl, it became caught up in the age-old problem of establishing order in what seemed, to its representatives in the pueblo centres and provincial capitals, to be a sea of anarchY. This rereading of the past can be extended indefinitely. The saga of nationalism and progress as it continued into the American colonial period, theJapanese occupation, and the New Society can be confronted with suppressed data similar to those presented above. It is even possible to speculate on the kind of history that will emerge from the present regime that toppled the Marcos dictatorship through, among other factors, the popular energies released by a Rizalesque martyrdom, and whose leader is hailed as a modern 'iloan of Arc'l Enough has been said, however, to enablc us to relurn to the original issue addressed in this paper. A reflection on tlevelopment" has to take inlo account those things which have stood in opposition to it, those irreducible differences which in the final analysis may be the only way out of the present development bind. In examining historiography, criminality, epidemics, and popular movements, one has only begun to reflect upon those crucial moments when the state,
or the historian, or whoever occupies the site of the dominant
centres,
performs a cutting operation: remembering/furthering that which it deems meaningful for ils concept of development, and forgetting/suppressing the dissonant, disorderly, irrational, archaic, and subversive. For historians, in parlicular, such an operation enables the data of lhe past to be strung together into a trajectory of emergence, growth, complexity, and increasing rationality, and enables greal moments and individuals to be celebrated. Such an operation, however, also leaves behind a surplus of
data that can be retrieved and reslored into play in an alternative history, in which an event, to cite Foucault's reading of Nietzsche,
is not a decision, a lreaty, a reign, or a battle, but the reversal of
a
relationship of forces, lhe usurpation of power, lhe appropriation of a vocabulary lurned against those who had once used it, a feeble domination that poisons ilself as it grows lax, the entry of a masked 'bther'las
This history should lhrow into focus a whole range of phenomena which have been discredited or denied a history. It should have a conception of historical beginnings as lowly, complex and contingent. It should give eqtral slatus to inlerruptions, repetitions and reversals, uncovering the subjugations, confrontations, power struggles and resistances that linear history tends to conceal. It should reveal history for what it has been: a weapon in ihe struggle for and against domination of all shades. As has been shown here, the subversion of linear history also strikes at the tevelopmentalism" that presently dominates the core of the state/centre's ideology.
Outlines of a Non-Linear Emplolmenl of Philippine History
155
NO'I'ES Ar;krrowledgcr:rents arc due to lbrry Commins, Ranajit Guha, Albert Hirschman. Norman Owen, Craig Reynolds, William H. Scotl, my Southeast Asian and African colleagues in the'Reflections on Devclopment" project, and the project advisers, for eilher cornmenting on an earlier draft or providing me with new insights through our conversations. My thanks, also, to Benedict Anderson, Andrew Gonzales, F.S.C.. and Anthony Reid for helping me get started. My apologies to all of the above for the shortcomings of this final product.
1. Rather than plowing through the morass of development lilerature, I have allowed myself to be guided by the following: Alain Birou, Paul-Marc Henry and John Schlegel , Tbward a Redefinilion of Derrelopmenl, Essays and discussions on lhe nature of developmenl in an inlernational perspective (Paris: Development Centcr, OECD/Pergamon Press, 1977); George Aseniero, n reflection on developmentalism: from development to lransformation", in Development os Social Tfansformation: Reflections on the Global hoblemotigue (lnndon: Hodder and Stoughton/UN University, 19BS), pp. 48-85; and PJIV. Preslon, Theories of Development (tondon: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982). 2. On this subject, see also R. Ileto,'Bonifacir.r, lhe text, and the social scienlist", Philippine Socrblogrcol Review 32 (1984): f9-29. 3. Pouer/Knowledge: Selected InteNietDs and Qther Writings, 1972-77 (New York: Pantheon, 1980), pp. 80-81. 4. This idea was first broached by Agoncillo in 1{ re-interpretation of our hislory under Spain", Sundq Times Magazine, 24 August 1958. See alsq'On the rewriting of Philippine ldstory", Historical Bulletin 17 (Philippine Historical Associalicn, f973): 178-87. The scheme was applied in his textbook, initially co-authored with Oscar Alfonsq Hislory of the Filipino,Feop/e (University of the Philippines, 1960). Ttte textbook's fifth and current edition, co-aulhored with Milagros Guerrerq appeared in 1977. R. Iletq Paslnn and Rewlution: hpular Mot/ements in the Philippines, 184OI91O (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila, 1979), pp. f8, 38. 6. R. Ileto, 'Rizal and the undersidc of Philippine history", in Moral Order and Chonge: Essqa rn Sourheosl Asion Thought, edited by D. Wyati and A. Woodside (New Haven: Yale Southeast Asia Studies 24,1982), pp. 2?6-78. For an introduction to ilus/rodo historical wdting, see John Schumacher SJ., 'The Propagandists' reconstruclion of lhe Philippine past-, in l\rceptions of the Pos/ rn Sou/heosfAsio, ediled by A. Reid and D. Marr (Singapore: Heinemann, 1979), pp. 264-80. ?. In 1976 or early 1977, Marcos published Outline: Tadhona, The History of the Filipino People, which skelched the overall design of his new hislory projecl. 8. John Phelan, The Hispanization of the Philippines: Sponish Aims and Filipino Respcnseg 1565-1700 (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1967). 9. Marcos spoke of his role in history and state construction in i\ sense of national history" (Keynote address, annual seminar on history Philippine Historical Association, 29 November 1976), published in llis/oricol Bulletin 26 (f982):
Reynaldo C. Ileto
156
1-15. For an exposition of ?oc/honds Hegelian underpinnings, seeJaime Vener' acions review in Koscysq'on I (Dept. of History University of the Philippines, November 197?), pp. 213-16. 10. The immensely popular A Past Revisited was first published in 1975, as the firsl of a trilogy, of which two volumes have so far appeared. We guole liberally from chapter 1,'Towards a people's history'i Our source for NDF history is their mimeographed "Handbook for the Middle Forces" (undated); chapter 3 is titled 'The historical view of Philippine society'l The work of Amado Guerrero (pseu' donym) was originally published in I970 by the "Revolutionary School of Mao Tsetung Thought'i Its first chapter is titled "Review of Philippine history'l 11. For representative examples, see the essays in Feudalism ond Capitalism in the Philippines (Quezon City: Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1982). See also, Ricardo Ferrer, 'On the mode of production in the Philippines: some oldfashioned questions"; and Julieta de Lima-Sison, J<.rse Maria Sison on the ' mode of production' - both in the Ner-u Philippine Review | (1984): 1-3. 12. Examples abound in the magazine Kalinangan (lnstitute of Religion and Cul' ture, Bicutan, Metro Manila). Organizations aligned with the NDF apply the basic historical construct in text written for the respective'sectors" they represent. For example, the Ecumenical Institute for l,abor Education and Research has published an illustrated history Monggagowo, Noon ot Ngalnn lahor lThe Worker, Past and Present] (Manila, 1982). TheJoint Committee for Moro Concerns has its own illustrated history Ang Moro [The Moro] (Marawi, 1985). 13. F. Marcos, An ldeology for Filipinos (1983), pp. 90-91; NDF llondbooA, p. 73. 14. P. de la Gironiere, Adrrenturcs of .o Frenchman in the Philippines (orig. pub. in French in 1853),9th ed. (Manila; Burke-Miailhe, 1972), pp. 3,9-10; Ma. l,uisa Camagay,'Manila - a city in the throes of epidemics", Historical Bulletin 26
(1982): 105-8. 15. The changes in governmenl and medical attitudes to disease control after the 1820 epidemic are outlined irr fragments of a long treatise by Fernando Gonzales Casas, with the endorsement of the Junta Municipal de Sanidad, daled 15 January 1822 (Philippine National Archives [hereafler cited as PNA],
Colera 74). 16. Our main sources of information on the 1882 and 1889 epidemics are lhe bundles in ihe PNA with the following markings: Colera 1, Colera 4, Colera B-S 86, Colera 101, Colera 121, Colera 6 (B-S 93), and Colera 7 (B-S 90). Therc are also fragments of information on epidemics in 1843 and 1863. Scattered throughout these bundles are government orders, daily reports of sanitary commissions, and complaints of medrcos, vaccinators and parish priests.
17. For the history of medical education, we have relied onJose
P.
Bantug, Bosquejo
historia de lq medicina HisputoFilipino lunfinished historical sketch of SpanishFilipino medicirre], (Madrid, 1952). Part 2 is a history of medical and charitable institutions, and public sanilation projects. 18. For a representative text that illustrates these processes, see Director GraI. de Mministracion Civil, lnspeccion Gral. de Beneficia y Sanidad, "Expediente sobre reorganizacion del servicio de vacuna del Archiepelago e instalacion de un Ynstituto de vacunacion" (Manila, 6 May 1889). This document is accompanied by an assessment by the Faculty of Medicine, Real Colegio de San Jose, Mss.,
Outlines of
a Nort-Linear Ernploiment of Philippine History
1s7
in PNA, Colera 7. An example of a dispute between a medico /ilulor and a vacunador is that betr,;een ]r{edico 'fitular Don Mariano Felizardo and \hcunador General Don Nemesio Valbuena, Catbalogan, Samar, 1889, mss. in PNA, Colera 7. 19. de Beneficia y. Sanidad, op. cit. There were comparable situalions in olher parts of the globe. See, for example, Nancy Frieden, "The Russian cholera epidemic, 1892-93, and medical professionalizatiori',Journal of Social Hislory 10,no. 4 (L977):538-39; and Matthew Ramsey,'Medical power and popular medicine: Illegal healers in nineteenth-ceniury France", ibid., pp. 560-87. Wc owe nruch of the analysis of medical power in this paper to the suggestions of Michel Foucault in Modness and Civilizqtion: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, trans. by Richard Howard (New York: Random House, 1965), and ?he Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical krception, trans. by A.M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Vintage, 1973). 20. The local concerns and scientific outlook of meclicos in the provinces can be gleaned from their memorias or reports to the central government, in the bundle Memorios Medrcos; Varios Provincios, PNA. The PNA bundles labelled Medrcos Titulares are a still-untapped source of information. 21. A well-kno',,vn example is Dr. Pio Valenzuela of Polq Bulacan, who became an adviser to Andres Bonifacio and physician of the Katipunan secret society. See the investigations of Medico Don Felipe Zemora in Seclrciones
y Rebeliones (here-
after cited as SR), vol. 35, and Medico Rianzares of Nagcarlan, SR, vol. 17, PNA.
22.
Worcester's ideas on the epidemic and public health matters are also in his The Philippines Past qnd Prcsenl, 2 vols. (New York, 1914), chapter 16. For a thorough exandnation of early American attitudes towards medical progress in the Philippines, see R. Sullivan, "Exemplar of Americanism: the Philippine career of Dean C. Worcester" (Ph.D. dissertalion, James Cook University of
North Queensland, 1986). Chapter 4 is on the 1902 cholera.
23. This accounl of the Philippine experience of ihe 1902 visitation is based largely on the following: reports of commanding officers and surgeons of U.S. Arnry garrisons in the southern Thgalog provinces, in Record Group 395, United States National Archives (hereafter cited as USNA); Repori of lhe Philippine Commission for 1902; and the circulars and reports collected in the Bureau
of Insular Affairs, File 498f , USNA.
24. The precise linkages of rvar, disease and famine are examined in R. Ileto, "Cholera and colonialism in southwest Luzon, 1902" (Paper presented at a conference on "Death, Disease and Drugs in the Southeast Asian Past", Australian
National University, Canberra, 1983); publication forthcoming.
25. George de Shon, M.D. 'Medical highlights of the Philippine-American
war",
Bulletin of the Anrcrican Hrsloricol Colleclion 12 (1984): 69. 26. 'Report of the Secretary of the Interior", Report of the Philippine Commission (1903), part 1, p. 2?1. 27. Rene Dubos, Miruge of Health; Utopios, Progress and Biological Cftonge (New York: Harper, f959), p. 146; see alsq C.E. Rosenberg,'Cholera in nineteenthcentury Europe: a tool for social and economic analysis". Comparotive Sluclies in Sac..-i: and History B (1966): 453.
Reynaldo C. Ileto
158
The Microbe Hunters (New York: Harcourl Brace, 1926), captures very well lhe drama and excitement surrouncling the quest, mainly by colonial or military surgeons, for the "magic bullel" against microbes. 29. Report of Dr. E Bourns, Commissiorter of Public Health, August 1902; appendix to "Reporl of the Secretary of the Interior". 30. Sometime after 1895, the ideas of Pasteur, Koch, Klebs and olher "microbe hunters" were introduced to medical sludents in the Philippines via the work of E. Barcones , Estudio pora trn Nosologio Filrpino [Towards a Scicntific Classi' fication of Philippine Diseases] (Madrid, fB95), but the chaotic half-decad<: beginning with the revolution of August 1896 must have crippled medical education in Manila. Barcones, incidentally, was a naval surgeon who served in the Philippines. 31. Michel Foucault, Discipline ond Ifunish: The Birth of the Prison, lrans. by A. Sheridan (New York: Vintage, 1979), p. 198. 32. Representative examples of this genre can be found in Alfred McCoy and Ed de Jesus, eds. , PhiliPpine Socrol Hislory: Global Tlode and Local Tfansforma' tions (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila, 1982). 33. Scott, CrocAs in the Parchrnent Curtqin (Quezon City: New Day, 1982), p. 1. 34. Bruce Cruickshank, Samor: 1768-1898 (Manila: Historical Conservation Soci ety, 1985), p. 197. 35. Primitive Rebels,'studres in Archaic Forms o/SociolMorrement in the 19th and 2oth Centuries (New York, 1959), chapter 2. Much of this evolutionism is overcome in Hobsbawm's later work, Bondils (Netr York, 1969, revised 1981); see chapter ?,'Bandits and Revolution". 36. Isagani Medina,'Cavite beiore the revolution, 1571-1896'(Ph.D. dissertation, University of the Philippines, 1985), pp. l2O-210. 37. The generalized picture of banditry in lhis essay is based on a reading of operations reports and other official transmissions preserved in the Guardia Civil (hereafter cited as GC) bundles, PNA. The besi sources are the catalogued
28. Dubos, op. cit., pp. 151-52. Paul de Kruif,
bundles marked GC1864-98, GC18?0-77, and GC1889-91, and the uncatalogued bundles numbered GC27 and GC57. Other sources of information uscd are the Deportadoq Expedientes Gubernativos and Varias Provincias series of bundles which contain files of individuals caplured and senlenced rnainly irr the wake of Villa Abrillc's campaigns. 38. David Sturtevanl, hpular Upn'sings in the Philippines, 184O-194O (Ithaca: Cornell, 197,6), p. 119. 39. Scott, op. cit., pp. 25-26. One such threat to Manila is investigated in'Expediente gubernativo . . . en averiguacion de una cuadrilla de ladrones que merodean por esta capital y sus arrahales" [Oificial inve$tigation of a bandit gang marauding this capital and its outskirtsl,Jan. 1882, in EG1879-1889, PNA. Apart from the works of Medina and Sturtevanl cited above, banditry is given chapterJength treatment in Angel Cuesta O.A.R., History o/Negros (Manila: Historical Conservation Society, f980), pp. 427-35; and Ed de Jesus, The Tbboc'co Monopoly in the Philippines, 1766-188O (Manila: National Archives,
1971), pp. 57-?0.
Outlines of
40.
41.
a Non-Linear Emplotment of Philippine History
159
Ilelo, Poslon, pp.228-29. The best juxtapositions of Katipunan and tulr'son are found in Spanish reports from the August iB96 lo lr{arch 1897 period, in the Sediciones y Rebeliones bundles, PNA. Cuesta (p. 436 ff.) shows how support for the Katipunan in Negros came solely from groups tagged as bandits. These are conclusions based largely on research on the Philippine Insurgent Records lodged in the Philippine National Library and Record Groups 395 and 94, Military Records Division, USNA. See Renaldo C. Ileto, "Chiefs, gunq and men: the jefes insurrectos of Tiaong" (Paper presented at a conference on
"Elites in the Philippines", Australian National University, 1983); publication forlhcorning. 42. These accounts are mainiy in the Historical Data Papers series, in the Filipiniana Division, Philippine National Library. 43. The Tles Cristos, in the Libmanan area of Kabikolan, dates from an earlier period, 1865; SR vol. 28 (1864-68), PNA. The "Gabinista" in central Luzon and the'Dios Dios" lhat appeared all over the Visayan islands, are the most exlensively documented in the PNA. But there must have been countless tiny
44. 4s. 46.
47. 48.
reunrbnes rlrcilos such as the 4-5 women "fanatics" under one Severino Morales, discovered in the outskirts of Manila in 1887; 8G1886-89, PNA. For recently published studies: on the Dapdap affair and other'Dios Dios" phenomena see Cruickshank, op. cit., chapters 7-8; on Buhawi, see Cuesta, op. cit., pp. 433-35; on the Babaylan and others in the western Visayas, see Alfred McCoy,'Baylan: animist religion and Philippine peasant ideology", in Wyatt and Woodside, eds., pp. 373-82; on the Gabinista and Colorum, see lleto, Foslon. For a fuller account, see lleto, "Rizal", pp. 307-21. See lletq Pagon, pp. L35-44. See ibid., pp. 146ff.; and Milagros Guerrerq "Luzon at war: contradictions in Philippine society" (Ph.D. .lissertation, University of Michigan, 1977), chapter 4. See lletq .Fogon, chapters 3-4. Awit na Pinagdoonang Buhay ng Is/os Filrpinos [Awit of the life experience of
the Philippine Islandsl, by'Dimatigtig", 15 July 1900 (Ms in Philippine Insurgent Records, box I-19, Philippine National Library). 49. 'Nietzsche, genealogy, histoq/, inLanguage, Counter-memory, Pmctice; Sr.lelc,ted Esscaa ond Inle rviews by ltlichel Foucault, ediled by D. Bouchard (Ithaca: Cornell, 1977), p. 154.
