Introduction The Philippines: pieces of a jigsaw state
Introduction The Philippines: pieces of a jigsaw state
In March fifteen twenty-one three ships under Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese navigator in the service of the king of Spain, landed in the Visayan islands. One ship later completed the first circumnavigation of the globe, an event for the history record books but more importantly it changed that history of the islands, now home to one hundred ten million people. A few decades later, Spain assumed ownership of the archipelago stretching from the Luzon Strait to the Sulu Sea and named it Islas Filipinas. The Spanish left a religion, a few genes and some aspects of culture, but the people were and remain predominantly of Malay or Austronesian race, language and culture, albeit with other influences from America and China.
The Philippines is unique in many ways; its geology, its fauna, in its history of rule by two successive Western powers, Spain and the United States. It has been a political identity with a singular name for nearly five hundred years, much longer than many of its neighbours. It is the only predominantly Christian nation in Asia south of the Caucasus and is fervently Catholic. In the nineteenth century it spawned the first modern nationalists fighting Western imperialism.
However, this singularity does not make for an identity which is readily understood even by its own citizens, let alone by foreigners. It is part of the vast Malay Archipelago and shares a basic language and some culture with its Indonesian and Malaysian neighbours but it is separated from them by five hundred years of history and itself divided by fragmented geography and regional loyalties. That history explains its current problems as reflected in its weak post-nineteen forty-five economic and social performance compared with most of its neighbours, and its continuing high levels of violence. Democracy flourishes, elections are regular, noisy and competitive yet little progress is made towards changing a system dominated by dynasties as seen in the contests in the twenty twenty-two election. After the grip of two distant empires, Spanish and American, it now lives under the shadow of another, closer one, China.
Geology divides it into more than two thousand inhabited islands. Regional rivalries and the widespread but not universal use of English have thwarted the acceptance of Filipino, essentially the Tagalog of Central Luzon, as the national language. Regional languages and loyalties remain strong so that imported languages and the Church seem at times the main unifiers. It is also an administrative jigsaw in that power locally lies not with its geographically coherent seventeen regions but with eighty numerous provinces and cities with province-level powers, some very small.
A basic Malay culture has been so influenced by Spain, the Catholic Church and then by America that its identity is sometimes seen as Latin as much as Asian. Indeed, many Filipinos in California, where they are the second largest Asian community, often self-identify as Latino or Pacific islander not Asian. The Catholic Church, as adapted locally, provides some common bond, other than for the Muslims, but faces its own challenge from evangelicals and populist preachers. Religious division is an underlying historical reality exacerbated by the concentration of Muslims in western Mindanao and Sulu and more recently by extremist Islamism from abroad. Yet the cultural roots and language, even aspects of its politics, remain essentially Malay from Ilocos in the north to Sulu in the south. However, fragmented by religion, local languages and quasi-tribal identities, the Philippines is at once identifiable yet hard to define or describe.
The very notion 'Filipino' began with local born Spaniards, known as creoles, and only very gradually spread to Spanish mestizos, Chinese mestizos and urbanized indigenous people accepted into the dominant principalia class. The nationalism of the ilustrados, the reformist educated elite, in the late nineteenth century raised national consciousness and the struggles against America and Japan saw mass participation. Independence brought the masses into the Filipino embrace but despite shared urbanization and education, the sense of national identity developed fitfully. Added to the centrifugal forces of geography were the strength of elite links to the United States and of many leading businessmen to China. Suggestions to change the colonial name to a Malay one have failed - many late nineteenth revolutionaries preferred 'Katagalugan', which became the name of a short-lived Tagalog republic. More recently 'Maharlika', a word denoting a Tagalog noble warrior class, has been suggested but attracted little support.
Five hundred years on from the arrival of Spain and Catholicism fissures remain. Muslim Mindanao's on and off warfare has been about local rivalries as well as opposition to Manila and Christianity. Meanwhile, non-Muslim parts of the island also continue to see conflicts, mainly over land rights between local ethnic groups, particularly in Mindanao and the broader population whose composition has been changed by decades of migration from the Visayas. That internal colonization continues. Visayan
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
languages now predominate in Mindanao. Generally, regional loyalties and in political terms local patron-client relationships remain important. They remain crucial even if weakened by urbanization and the shared identity of the millions of Filipinos now working overseas or brought together via social media such as Facebook or by international beauty pageants. National politics is still partly driven by the regional appeal of particular candidates. Local identity is mostly stronger than national identity, perhaps a reflection of the lack of esteem of the national government.
After years under a backward Spain and the aegis of friars, American imperialism brought education and new legal and administrative systems. Seventy years ago, the then recently independent Philippines boasted higher literacy levels than most of Asia and the highest income levels of populous Asian countries apart from Japan. It had an admired - at least from a distance - United States-inspired legal and democratic system. Today, despite two decades of reasonable economic performance, it is widely seen as having failed to match most of its neighbours in income growth and progress in education. It remains better known for natural disasters, flamboyant leaders, political violence and sporadic insurgencies, and for its major export - its own citizens finding work abroad which they could not find at home.
Its social structure has changed only modestly over time, with huge gaps in income and wealth, the dominance of certain families, particularly in the provinces, the preference for the fairer skins of mestizos, European or Chinese, and even place names celebrating colonialists, for example the posh enclaves of Makati - Magallanes, Forbes, Legazpi, Urdaneta and Dasmarinas. Violence is an all too constant ingredient in politics. President Duterte's so-called War on Drugs killed particularly large numbers. Killings of political rivals, critical journalists and of farmer and worker activists had long been common but accelerated dramatically under Duterte. Lawyers abound but the state of law and order varies widely, ever subject to political and pecuniary influences. The state structure is weak for historical and geographical reasons which partly explain the persistence of insurgencies and of dynastic politics at both national and local levels. Senses of nationalism and civic duty appear weak compared to the demands of kinship and client relationships, blurring lines between public and private spheres. These features have especially flourished under the decentralized political system and weak central bureaucracy bequeathed by America. Trading and sailing have always been essential elements of economic life and smuggling a natural outcome of attempts to tax it.
However, the nation has strengths too. Filipinos may be divided among themselves at home but in the outside world they have an identity and solidarity that is strong and recognized as such. Gender equality is ahead of most of Asia; Filipino workers are valued overseas for their skills and commitment, and command of English carries global benefits. Its Catholicism is sometimes more about ritual than ideology and society has relatively few hang-ups about racial mixing born of centuries of practice and the more recent impact of migration. It is welcoming of foreigners and renowned for its love of music and fiestas. There is a tradition of free speech - and sometimes gaudy rhetoric - and a media which is often too lively for those in power. In the much longer run, a generation or two away, its high fertility rate, which has long been a burden, will in a generation prove a bonus as most of its neighbors face aging and falling populations. One day the nation may even acquire a name which reflects its Malay core identity.
As a nation, the Philippines needs to be taken more seriously by itself as well as by outsiders. Already it has one hundred ten million people, or ten times as many as a century ago, and still growing by about one point three million a year. Its island chain separating the Pacific Ocean from the South China Sea, and hence the Indian Ocean, is strategically vital to bigger powers. Its own West Philippine Sea (the eastern part of the South China Sea) is now largely claimed by China, while the United States, Japan and others demand freedom of navigation. Despite its close ties to the United States, and its stunning twenty fourteen victory over China's sea claims at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, its attitude to China has been equivocal. Now, as in the past, money sometimes trumps patriotism. Its own ethnic Chinese are also sometimes an issue given their prominence in big business, and in the preference (also partly colonial) for fair over the browner skins which are the Filipino norm.
Philippine fortunes have often reflected global power shifts - Spain at the height of its sixteenth century power, the United States as it moved on to the imperial world stage in eighteen ninety-eight, Japan briefly between nineteen forty-one and nineteen forty-five until the United States became the regional hegemon. Now the question is whether China, with economic as well as military power, will be next, or can this fundamentally Malay people find common cause with their Malay cousins in Indonesia and Malaysia, and their ever-proud Vietnamese neighbors and, helped by outside powers such as the United States, Japan and India, keep China in its mainland box?
For the Philippines itself, much may depend on its own social and economic development, in particular broadening the base of power and prosperity in a country where government, local as well as national, has been the domain of dynasties and rent-seeking politicians and where those of mestizo origin (Western or Chinese) and appearance are often favored. Ethnic Chinese dominance of much big business adds to the gap between elites and the rest. Foreign investment has been held back by vested interests cloaking themselves in nationalism. The islands have had numerous changes of rule, foreign and local, but no revolution and only half-hearted efforts at land reform. Communist insurgency still troubles some rural areas but not enough to be a sufficient threat to generate change. Meanwhile, the shared values and identity that the Catholic Church, or at least its saints and symbols, has provided to the majority have made reconciliation of the Muslim minority more difficult.
Filipinos have a reputation for being hard-working and quick to learn new skills but these attributes have mainly benefited the foreign countries to which millions have migrated. Their remittances support the domestic