For centuries now, 490 years to be exact, we have heard over and over again the same “fact”.
Starting with Miguel Lopez de Legaspi’s report on the Philippines in the 16th century (translated from Spanish by Alfonso de Salvio in The Spaniards’ First 50 Years in the Philippines):
…each man does whatever he pleases, and takes care only of himself and of his slaves…no law binds relative to relative, parents to children, or brother to brother. No person favors another, unless it is for his own interest…
These people declare war among themselves at the slightest provocation, or with none whatever…privateering and robbery have a natural attraction for them…
The land is fertile…[but] the natives are the laziest people in the world [or] they have so little authority over their slaves. They are satisfied with what is necessary for the present, and are always more ready to rob their neighbors of their possessions than to work and cultivate their own land.
…because of their sloth and the little work done by their slaves, they do not even try to become wealthy, nor do they care to accumulate riches. When a chief possesses one or two pairs of earrings of very fine gold, two bracelets, and a chain, he will not trouble himself to look for any more gold. …in some places where we know that mines exist, the natives do not care to work them; but, on the arrival of the foreign vessels for purposes of barter, they strike a bargain with those foreigners and allow them to work in the mines for a period agreed upon.
From this it is clearly evident how slothful these people are. [Italics mine.]
Throughout three centuries, the above sentiment was resoundingly echoed in these colonized islands until it was perceptively intercepted in the 19th century, when Jose Rizal wrote against it in his La Solidaridad article, The Indolence of the Filipinos.
From his birth until he sinks into his grave, the training of the native is brutalizing, depressive and anti-human…There is no doubt that the government, some priests…have done a great deal by founding colleges, schools of primary instruction, and the like. But this is not enough; they amount to five or ten years…during which the youth comes in contact with books selected by those very priests who boldly proclaim that it is evil for the natives to know Castilian, that the native should not be separated from his carabao, that he should not value any further aspirations, and so on…[Italics mine.]
…our contemporary writers we say find that the native is a creature something more than a monkey but much less than a man, an anthropoid, dull-witted, stupid, timid, dirty, cringing, ill-clothed, indolent, lazy brainless, immoral, etc. etc. [italics mine.]
The Spaniards came and went; and the Philippines “changed hands”…but the “mark” has remained etched, it seems, in the Filipino soul.
Ten years after the death of Rizal, Campbell Dauncy wrote An Englishwoman in the Philippines describing Rizal as the William Tell of the Philippines. This was her account of Rizal Day 1904 in Iloilo:
On account of this state of affairs, the native seize on this anniversary to give relief to some of their patriotic emotions. The day is a public holiday, they hang out flags and lanterns, and every Filipino knocks off what little work he ever does… [Italics mine.]
The same is endorsed in the upper echelons of the American colonizers. President McKinley’s benevolent reason #3 and #4 for putting the Philippine Islands in the US map were:
3) That we could not leave them to themselves–they were unfit for self-government–and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was;
4) That there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize them and Christianize them…[Italics mine.]
There is something about a lie repeated over and over again, it has a ripple effect. A lie was the hinge of the Holocaust movement, where the number one Nazi propagandist of Hitler, Joseph Goebbels had a mantra — “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, it becomes the truth.”
And for centuries, we have been told over and over again that we were uncivilized, moronic slaves with no culture and no brilliance whatsoever so that after some time, we began to believe that it must be true. A lie can never become truth but a lie can become a belief and that belief will make a mark in the character of a people.
Hinilawod challenges what we’ve believed for decades about ourselves. That before the first colonizers came, we were a people with our very own culture, oral literature that rivals the Greeks of that western civilization,. We were industrious and creative proven by the gold ornaments from the Surigao treasure found in 1981. We were a courageous people as demonstrated by the ornate metalworks, battle swords and the mighty kampilans we wielded before colonization.
A nation is no smaller than their belief of themselves.
It is time to rise. It is time to remember.
May I borrow from the words of Nelson Mandela when I say, “This country is hungry for greatness.”
Hinilawod is not just a play nor a performance. Hinilawod is a memory. Make it yours.(Charity M. Oh)
Hinilawod
Aug. 23 & 24 at 8pm
Luce Auditorium,Dumaguete
Sept. 3 & 4 at 3pm and 8pm
Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila
For more details, you may call or text 0927 478 0487 or
0917 304 3228 or visit www. hinilawod.com
