BOOK
REVIEW Love in a time of
revolt Love, Passion and
Patriotism: Sexuality and the Philippine
Propaganda Movement, 1882-1892 by
Raquel A G Reyes
Reviewed by George
Amurao
In the middle of the 19th century,
the opening of the Philippines to foreign trade
saw the emergence of a sizeable middle class,
composed mostly of colonial Spaniards born in the
archipelago and mestizos (half-Spaniard,
half-indio), who sent their children to Europe for
further education.
The core of these
students educated abroad comprised the likes of
Jose Rizal, the brothers Luna, Graciano Lopez
Jaena and others. They found to their amazement
the wide gulf that existed
between Spain and the
Philippines in terms of social inequality and
civil liberties and effective governance. Seeking
reforms, they banded together, called themselves
Ilustrados, or "enlightened", and launched
a propaganda campaign.
Though these men
advocated for reforms rather than revolution or
separation from Spain, their ideas, as embodied in
their writings and other media, served as the
spark for the revolution of 1896. Most Philippine
history books have always upheld these men as
national heroes, their biographies adhering closer
to hagiographies than serious works of history.
Though several historians have researched and
showed the more human side of these national
icons, many Filipinos still venerate the men
rather than objectively probe their real
contributions to the Philippines’ development.
Raquel A G Reyes' new book, Love,
Passion and Patriotism, explores how the ideas
and opinions of selected Ilustrados like
Jose Rizal, Juan and Antonio Luna and Marcelo H
del Pilar on male machismo and the role of both
men and women in society helped shaped their views
on patriotism, nationalism, and the need for more
civil liberties in the then Spanish colony. Reyes
connects the personal and the national by delving
deep into the psyche of these Filipino heroes,
plumbing how their social milieu shaped them and
in turn determined the destiny of their homeland.
Their Manila Manila at the turn
of the 19th century was emerging from centuries as
an isolated outpost of the Spanish Empire. With
the opening of Manila to foreign investors and
international trade came wealth followed by the
formation of new values. There was a great demand
for things European - from the latest fashion in
clothes to symbols of newfound wealth, like
opulent furniture.
Beyond the mimicking of
European standards of new-found wealth, there
arose a new set of mores termed urbanidad
which emphasized "decency, respectability and
civility". Social behavior that conformed to these
rules separated the urbane from the provincial.
Urbanidad also included guidelines on love
and sex, influenced in no small part by the Roman
Catholic clergy in the Islands.
Men and
women were assigned clear roles in society, their
every conduct the subject of monitoring and
censure. Reyes outlines a contrast between
romantic or passionate love to idealized love as
prescribed by the guidelines of urbanidad. There
was a strong patriarchal touch to
urbanidad, complemented by the demand that
women remain passive to male authority.
Significantly, the Ilustrados grew up in
this milieu, where expression of passion was
restrained, especially among women. These social
rules played a major part in how the
Ilustrados carried out their campaign for
reforms in the motherland itself, Spain.
Rizal and his compatriots in Europe always
appeared dressed to the nines in their
photographs, with matching poses that made them
look grave. With Spanish colonial masters over the
centuries ridiculing Indios (or the natives
of the archipelago) as allegedly effete, lazy and
stupid, the Ilustrados sought to prove the
Spaniards wrong by imbibing not only Western ideas
but Western dress and manners as well.
Reyes shows in her book that it was not
just a case of personal vanity but a conscious
effort of the Ilustrados to prove that they
were "civilized" colonial subjects, unlike the
popular impression among many Europeans at the
time that the Indios (the word Filipino at
that time was used only to refer to Spaniards born
in the archipelago) were savages.
In
short, the Ilustrados tried to beat their
colonial foes at their own game. Antonio Luna in
one of his essays ridiculed Madrid as an overrated
colonial capital and poked fun at the ignorance of
many Spaniards about their colony in Southeast
Asia. His older brother, Juan, won the gold medal
in the 1884 Madrid Exposition of Fine Arts for his
monumental work Spoliarium.
La
Solidaridad editor Marcelo H del Pilar parodied
Roman Catholic prayers such as Ave Maria in his
attacks against abusive friars. The
Ilustrados wrote mainly in Spanish,
demonstrating that they were adept in their
colonial master's mother tongue (Spain did not
instruct the Indios in their language;
instead, friars took the trouble of learning the
scores of languages and dialects in the islands)
with Rizal being the most well-known polyglot
among the group.
The Ilustrados
also cultivated a strong sense of machismo to show
that they were not the effeminate males depicted
and ridiculed by their colonial masters. Aside
from their sartorial taste, they took up body
building and fencing and even marksmanship.
Slights not only to their pride or self-esteem
(amor propio) but also to the Filipino
nation in general (it was at this time that
historians claimed that the formation of a sense
of Filipino nationhood began) were enough to
provoke them.
To redress wounded pride,
personal or national, the Ilustrados were
quick to challenge the offending parties to a
duel, as shown by what Antonio Luna did to the
Spanish journalist Celso Mir Deas (whose name Luna
punned "Mier Das", the Spanish word for
excrement). Mir Deas, who had written disparaging
remarks against Filipinos in one of his articles,
prompted Luna (the brothers were infamous for
their quick tempers) to travel to Barcelona,
publicly slap the journalist and challenge him to
a duel.
Reyes writes: "Luna's public
challenge to duel not only put on display his
courage and mettle but also vindicated the
collective male honor of the Filipino community in
Madrid." The Ilustrado concept of manhood
(and the corresponding view of womanhood and the
role of women in society) also heavily influenced
the propagandists' sense of patriotism and
nationalism, the author notes.
The
weaker sex It should be remembered that
these young students grew up under
urbanidad. They all cherished the idealized
qualities of a Filipina as "[having] a retiring
refinement, coyness and passivity ... [W]omen
could only respond with blushes, breathlessness
and meaningful glances."
The
Ilustrados have always set the Filipinas'
qualities as the standard with which to measure
the "value" of women from other nations. Nothing
is more accurate in describing the true Filipina
(as the Ilustrados see her) than Rizal's portrayal
of the doomed heroine of his novel Noli Me
Tangere.
Maria Clara - whose mother
died while giving birth to her - grew up in a
convent under strict nuns and later under the
watchful eye of her spinster aunt. The novel shows
her suffering from repressed emotional (and
sexual) expression. Reyes notes that Rizal most
probably modeled the fictional Maria Clara from
his own childhood sweetheart, Leonor Rivera, who
pined for Rizal's return from his studies in
Europe for several years, spurning suitors and
falling into bouts of depression until her parents
forced her to marry someone else.
It is no
surprise then, that these Ilustrados had
mixed feelings when they reached Europe and met
its women. The young students, freed of the
suffocating social rules imposed at home, readily
embraced the more open sexuality of European
women. Reyes catalogues the numerous instances
where the young heroes enjoyed the intimate
company of these ladies.
Felix Roxas, who
was studying civil engineering in Madrid at the
time, described one such romp: "Sometimes [the
girls] would organize a party ... I never missed
such engagement ... At the picnic site, and by
affinity, each girl would find her partner, while
their mothers would busy themselves preparing the
food. In all that hustle and bustle, there were
always opportunities to slip away and inspect the
wooded areas, shady trails, etc, from where the
girls would return somewhat tired and rosy-faced
from their exertions."
Rizal was more
poetic when describing the women of Spain, "The
beautiful women of the black eyes, deep and
ardent, with their mantillas and fans, always
gracious, always full of fire, of love, of
jealousy, and sometimes of vengeance."
Yet
for all these opportunities and adventures, most
of the Ilustrados felt a strong longing for
the idealized image of the Filipina. Antonio Luna
wrote of his Spanish girlfriend whom he loved
until he realized that there was a deep cultural
chasm between them, even hinting that his lover's
assertive behavior threatened his own sense of
self-esteem. Rizal had a string of girlfriends in
various countries in the Continent, but fled from
them every time he felt that they were getting too
serious about the relationship.
Juan Luna
used his brush to paint portraits of the women of
Paris and Madrid, their open sexuality intriguing
him, as in the case of the working women of Madrid
- whom he portrayed in his series of paintings
entitled Chula; or repelled him, as seen in
his painting of a French prostitute in Le
Parisienne. Among his compatriots, he was
among the few who married a non-Filipina, in his
case, a Spanish woman. Their marriage soured,
according to Reyes, apparently because Luna felt
his wife Paz Pardo de Tavera (despite her being
born and raised in the islands) did not measure up
to his standards of what an ideal wife should be.
Of the four subject heroes of Reyes' book,
Rizal has been documented as having the most
number of lovers - Filipino, Japanese, Spanish,
Belgian, English, among others - finally settling
down with his Irish common-law wife in Roman
Catholic rites only hours before his execution in
Manila for rebellion charges in December 1896.
(The supposed marriage is still contentious among
historians as it was inconceivable that the
Freemason Rizal, well-known for his strong
opposition against the friars, would recant and
return to the Catholic fold).
Marcelo del
Pilar never saw his wife and daughters again as he
died of tuberculosis in July 1896 in Barcelona.
Antonio Luna, a chemist by training and a writer
for the Propagandists' publication, La
Solidaridad, like Rizal, had his share of lovers
in Europe. He did not marry, having met death at
the hands of his own men in 1899 (he had become
the commanding general of the Philippine Army in
the war against the United States). His older
brother Juan's story was more tragic: known for
his rages, the multi-awarded painter shot dead his
wife and mother-in-law in what a Paris court later
ruled as a crime of passion. He was acquitted.
Revolutionary feelings The
value of Reyes' work lies in its documentation of
the factors that contributed to the
Ilustrados' notions of reform and sense of
nationhood.
These were gleaned through
their works - novels, essays, journalistic
articles, personal correspondence, diaries,
paintings and sculptures. The book also draws
heavily on the prevailing milieu of the time to
contextualize the Ilustrados' ideas and
actions. Reyes should commended for exploring this
hitherto under-studied aspect of Philippine
history.
Rizal, the Lunas and the others,
judging by their views of men and women, would be
easily seen as male chauvinists by modern
standards. Reyes reminds us, however, that they
were products of their time and environment.
The prevailing ideas of gender relations
more than a hundred years ago which we might find
unacceptable today can be considered partly
responsible for the Ilustrados' motivation in the
late 18th century to campaign for reforms in the
Philippines before the Spanish government.
It is thus intriguing that the impetus
that drove these men to seek reforms - and in the
end inspiring an armed revolution against a
Western colonial power, the first in Asia - was as
much libidinal as cerebral.
Love,
Passion and Patriotism: Sexuality and the
Philippine Propaganda Movement, 1882-1892 by
Raquel A G Reyes. National University of Singapore
Press. ISBN: 978-9971-69-356-5. US$28. 304 pages.
George Amurao, a former
journalist in Manila, until recently worked for
the Southeast Asian Press Alliance. He is now with
Mahidol University International College in
Bangkok, Thailand.
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Raquel A G Reyes' new book, Love,
Passion and Patriotism, explores how the ideas
and opinions of selected Ilustrados like
Jose Rizal, Juan and Antonio Luna and Marcelo H
del Pilar on male machismo and the role of both
men and women in society helped shaped their views
on patriotism, nationalism, and the need for more
civil liberties in the then Spanish colony. Reyes
connects the personal and the national by delving
deep into the psyche of these Filipino heroes,
plumbing how their social milieu shaped them and
in turn determined the destiny of their homeland.
