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Musings on the Philippines
Sep. 30th, 2004 08:05 amLast night ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
_tvshow and I got talking on a lot of things, and one of the things we discussed was the problem of the Philippines. It got me talking about a theory I had working at the back of my mind why the Philippines is so chaotic.
My theory was this: the Philippines was conquered too early.
(disclaimer most of the facts here were not cross checked, my opinions are based on the things I remember from school.)
When Magellan arrived and declared his 'discovery' of the islands, the Philippines was just starting to build its own identity. We were developing our own alphabet, building up tribes and communities called Barangay.
Barangay came from the word Balangay, the boat in which our Malay ancestors used to migrate to the Philippines. The Datu ruled the Barangay together with a council of Elders.*
The laws were harsh, as all tribal laws are, but it was also fair (or at least in some Barangays), women were allowed to inherit property from their fathers and in some cases, they were even allowed to inherit the title of Datu.
Women were equal to men.
Then the Spanish came, and they came in swinging the sword and the cross determined to conquer the Philippines and they did.
Flabbergasted at our 'barbaric' tendency and reverence of women they set out to eradicate the system that the early Filipinos built and up to this day we're still hard pressed to find any artifacts of the ancient Filipinos.
Like I said, conquered too early before we could form a coherent culture, the only things that survived is well our laid back, happy-go-lucky attitudes, and our determination to adapt and survive under any circumstances.
But we don't have a national voice.
Take our writers for example, the books we've had sound exactly like the language we're writing in. Jose Rizal wrote Noli Me Tangre and El Filibusterismo and they really read like any other Spanish novel out there, F. Sionil Jose's novels read like an American novel. Books, that even if its set in the Philippines, deals with the issues surrounding Filipinos, does not have a tone that's uniquely Filipino.
Unlike the books from India, China, Japan and Mexico no matter what language they're translated they still feel like their respective countries.
--tbc
*Although Barangay was prevalent system, the Malays were not the only people who migrated to the Philippines. There are hundreds of tribes around the Philippines with different systems of government.
_tvshow and I got talking on a lot of things, and one of the things we discussed was the problem of the Philippines. It got me talking about a theory I had working at the back of my mind why the Philippines is so chaotic. My theory was this: the Philippines was conquered too early.
(disclaimer most of the facts here were not cross checked, my opinions are based on the things I remember from school.)
When Magellan arrived and declared his 'discovery' of the islands, the Philippines was just starting to build its own identity. We were developing our own alphabet, building up tribes and communities called Barangay.
Barangay came from the word Balangay, the boat in which our Malay ancestors used to migrate to the Philippines. The Datu ruled the Barangay together with a council of Elders.*
The laws were harsh, as all tribal laws are, but it was also fair (or at least in some Barangays), women were allowed to inherit property from their fathers and in some cases, they were even allowed to inherit the title of Datu.
Women were equal to men.
Then the Spanish came, and they came in swinging the sword and the cross determined to conquer the Philippines and they did.
Flabbergasted at our 'barbaric' tendency and reverence of women they set out to eradicate the system that the early Filipinos built and up to this day we're still hard pressed to find any artifacts of the ancient Filipinos.
Like I said, conquered too early before we could form a coherent culture, the only things that survived is well our laid back, happy-go-lucky attitudes, and our determination to adapt and survive under any circumstances.
But we don't have a national voice.
Take our writers for example, the books we've had sound exactly like the language we're writing in. Jose Rizal wrote Noli Me Tangre and El Filibusterismo and they really read like any other Spanish novel out there, F. Sionil Jose's novels read like an American novel. Books, that even if its set in the Philippines, deals with the issues surrounding Filipinos, does not have a tone that's uniquely Filipino.
Unlike the books from India, China, Japan and Mexico no matter what language they're translated they still feel like their respective countries.
--tbc
*Although Barangay was prevalent system, the Malays were not the only people who migrated to the Philippines. There are hundreds of tribes around the Philippines with different systems of government.
