Rizal's
Madrid:
The Roots of the Ilustrado Concept of Autonomy
Jaime
B. Veneracion Ph. D.
Professor of History, UP
Visiting Professor, BSU
Introduction
My paper consists
of two parts: the first is a visual presentation of the places
in Madrid associated with Rizal and the second, a discussion of
the Filipino ilustrado's political notions -- with emphasis on
the subject of autonomy.
Rizal's Madrid refers, first of all, to places the national hero
frequented with his friends -- his boarding houses, the place
of publication of La Solidaridad, places of entertainment and
education such as the Ateneo, the Bellas Artes de San Fernando
and the University (Colegio de San Carlos), as well as clubs and
bars (Los Gabrieles and Viva Madrid) where he whiled his afternoons
away. Also within the same district is the Hotel Ingles where
he delivered his testimonial to painters Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion
Hidalgo in 1884. These are within walking distance of each other
in no more than 500 meters radius. Just across the places of residence
is the Cortes, the site of a Filipino manifestation in support
of autonomy. A bit farther away is the Parque del Buen Retiro
of which we learn from Rizal his wounded sentiment on the exhibition
of Filipino natives during the 1887 Philippine Exposition.
The slide presentation is therefore putting in geographic context
the development of Rizal's ideas. If we know the crowded atmosphere
in most of Spanish lodging houses where Rizal had lived, we can
have a sense why he, and the Spaniards themselves, spent time
outside -- in bars and cafes and in the Ateneo. Forced to live
a social life, political discussions could not have been avoided
especially since the Cortes was not far from where they had lived.
The Cortes was a site of many manifestations witnessed by the
ilustrados. There were also people of other nationalities in this
crowded environment, among them the Cubans and Puerto Ricans whose
stories of their own struggles had contributed to the refinement
of the ilustrado's political thought.
The other Rizal's Madrid is more than the place -- it is the Madrid
that developed over time. Beyond the facades of buildings are
meanings that gain currency through the experiences of people
who had fought or got killed there, or even, of celebrations of
events that occurred hundred years before. My own attraction to
the subject of autonomy and federalism as a political option for
the Philippines is a product of my familiarity to its Spanish
practice. In spite of the violence that regularly erupts in the
Basque region and in Catalonia, regional autonomy is alive and
well in Spain. What the propagandists saw in Spain, the local
ilustrados implemented in the Philippines during the Revolution
(with the Malolos Constitution). My aim therefore is to put in
historical context the Madrid of Rizal, that which represented
to Rizal their political struggles for autonomy. A copy of the
petition for autonomy is preserved in the Biblioteca Nacional
of Madrid.
Historical
Context
The fuero is the key concept in understanding the historical context
of autonomy. It originated from the Latin "forum," or
a place where issues are discussed. Through the years it became
literally "the code of rights and privileges" enjoyed
by the citizens of a municipality or a region guaranteed and respected
by the government. When the Visigoths occupied Spain in the sixth
to the seventh centuries, a two-tiered political system emerged
-- a law for the Visigothic community and another law for the
natives of Hispania. In other words, the various localities maintained
their own practices, codified and respected by the occupying barbarian
hordes. The respect accorded by the Visigoths to the local custom
was both in recognition of the higher level of civilization already
attained by their subject people and a strategy also to easily
integrate them into their empire. When the Muslims colonized Spain
in the 8th century, they likewise respected the fueros or rights
enjoyed by the native residents. The various communities followed
their respective fueros.
Spain under
the kings never achieved a centralized bureaucracy due to the
fueros. The privileges could be cancelled only if there were rebellions
against authority. Neither had the fueros been cancelled in the
colonies. During the time of King Philip II, various edicts were
forwarded to colonial governors enjoining them to respect existing
rights. This was the reason why the "sandugo" or "blood
compacts" were almost always used to legitimize the colonial
occupation. The natives would have to accept the foreigners as
"brothers" according to the local custom of "sandugo."
In addition, much effort had been exerted by the friars in familiarizing
themselves with local laws and custom as shown by the assiduous
efforts of Fray Juan de Plasencia (Tagalog and Kapampangan custom
law) and Ignacio Alcina (study on the Visayas). To top them all,
early on in the Spanish occupation, King Philip II directed the
holding of elections where natives would have to elect him as
their king. Again, the overall intention was to ensure that the
new political arrangement (colonial rule) would be consistent
with the local practice.
In the 19th
century, the fueros had not been lost on the natives of the Philippines.
In a document I discovered at the Philippine National Archives
recently, a group of inhabitants along Manila Bay sent in the
1820s a petition to a government official known as the "Protector
de los Indios." As some of their "baklads" were
being ordered removed by the Admiral of the Cavite fort because
these interfered with the operation of the newly-acquired steam-powered
vessels of the Navy, the people from Navotas and Malabon invoked
the fueros or rights that had been theirs long before the Spanish
king exercised sovereignty over the archipelago. The issue was
open-ended since I could not find the continuation of the document
explaining how it was resolved. But what it proved was that the
concept of local rights which the colonizers ought to respect
did not die with the defeat of Soliman and Lacandula in 1571.
In Spain itself,
the fueros as community or regional rights had been made even
more intense with the institution of the Cadiz Constitution of
1814. Through this basic law, the monarchy was forever relegated
to obsolescence, such that even if it continued as an institution,
it had to accept a new construct of a constitutional monarchy.
Through the various changes of regimes, what did not change was
the recognition of regional rights in the tradition of the fueros.
What the Propagandists were fighting for
At the Biblioteca
Nacional in Madrid is found the document presented at the Cortes
which forwarded the demand for a representation from the colony.
This was made in the light of the constitutional provisions that
recognized both Cuba and Puerto Rico as belonging to the Spanish
nation yet excludes the Philippines on the ground that its level
of development was much lower than the two. As written in the
Spanish Constitution of 1871which retained many provisions of
the 1869 Constitution, we read the following:
Art. 1. Componen
la nacion española los Estados de Andalucia Alta, Andalucia
Baja, Aragon, Asturias, Baleares, Canarias, Castilla la Nueva,
Castilla la Vieja, Cataluña, Cuba, Extremadura, Galicia,
Murcia, Navarra, Puerto Rico, Valencia, Regiones Vascongadas.
Los Estados podran conservar las actuales provincias o modificarlas,
segun sus necesidades territoriales.
Art. 2. Las
islas Filipinas, Fernando Poo, A nnobon, Corisco y los establicimientos
de Africa componen territorios que, a medida de sus progresos,
se elevaran a Estados por los poderes publicos.
Art. 42. La
soberania reside en todos los ciudadanos, y se ejerce en representacion
suya por los organismos politicos de la republica constituida
por medio del sufragio universal.
Art. 43. Estos
organismos son: el municipio, el Estado regional, el Estado federal
o nacion.
Art. 45. El
poder de la Federacion se divide en poder legislativo, poder ejecutivo,
poder judicial y poder de relacion entre estos poderes [ejercidos,
respectivamente, por las Cortes, ministros, jurados y jueces y
presidente de la republica: art. 46-49].
[Art. 50-70.
las Cortes se componen de dos cuerpos colegisladores: Congreso
y Senado.]
Inspite of
the change in government with the collapse of the Republic and
the beginning of the Restauracion in 1874, these provisions continued
in the next twenty years, or up to the Philippine Revolution of
1896. That this fact is not alien to the ilustrado consciousness
can be seen in the writings of Rizal, in his "Filipinas dentro
de cien años" and in Marcelo H. del Pilar's political
comments on the Constitution of 1871. The almost pathetic struggle
of Pedro Paterno to discover a Tagalog civilization complemented
by the more scholarly works of Isabelo de los Reyes and Mariano
Ponce may be understood also as the ilustrado's way of contradicting
the accusation that the Indios were not ready yet for self-government.
Rizal's reaction
to the Exposicion Filipinas of 1887 was instructive of the ilustrado
perception of their nation and nationality. On the one hand, they
were angry that the natives of the Philippines were exhibited
as if they were animals in a zoo. One of those exhibited in scanty
clothing or in bahag in the cold of winter died which made Rizal
angrier and so provoked him as to despise the so-called Spanish
civilization. Yet while sympathetic to the plight of the tribal
peoples at the exhibition, most of the ilustrados did not think
that those exhibited could represent the level of Filipino civilization.
At an artistic
level, the relationship with Spain was pictured in the paintings
of Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. The "Pacto de
Sangre" or blood compact between Legazpi and Sikatuna recalls
a time when Castilla and Filipinas were co-equal as siblings under
the aegis of a common ruler. That this consanguinity would evaporate
was shown to be a working of monastic forces, whose greed for
land and money rendered Filipinas to abject poverty and misery.
In a metaphorical way, the suffering of Filipinas was pictured
as one of those gladiators in the Roman coloseum, in the award
winning painting known as the "Spoliarium." The symbolism
of the purity of Filipinas as a woman but deprived of dignity
by powerful persons was continued in a painting of Resurreccion
Hidalgo in his "Las Virgenes Christianas Expuesta al Populacho."
Yet not everything was lost. In another painting by Luna, the
doting mother Spain was shown leading daughter Filipinas by the
hand towards the light of progress.
We have here
all the elements constituting the ilustrado perception of what
the Philippines should be vis-a-vis Spain. As in all other "estados"
of Spain, as mentioned in their constitution, there was a demand
for the recognition of fueros, or the rights and privileges already
there upon Spanish occupation. Nor was this an individual effort
of Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. Rizal was the model
for Sikatuna while Pardo de Tavera served as model for Legazpi
in the "Pacto de Sangre." Even in the case of the "Spoliarium,"
the Rizal connection could be established with the admission by
our national hero that he wanted to write a book on Philippine
history to be entitled the "Spoliarium." The Filipino
womanhood whom some Spanish writers had described as of "easy
virtue, by nature debased" was already a cause for the Filipino
colony to provoke these writers into duels. W.E. Retana who wrote
one such piece was so provoked, insulted in public and pushed
but unfortunately, did not take the challenge.
The Hope for Victory
The question
of separation or assimilation was highlighted in the conflict
for leadership of the Filipinos in Madrid between Rizal and Del
Pilar. In justifying the election of Rizal, his supporters advanced
the idea that he was "more radical and more straightforward
in approach and in his ideas; he was one hundred per cent separatist."
On the other hand, Del Pilar was thought of as "a moderate
and a partisan of assimilation." But the differences between
the two was perhaps exaggerated by their supporters and antagonists.
In reality, both separatism and assimilation at that time could
have been an option within the same pardigm. They were nuances
within the same political situation in Madrid which provided them
the luxury to think of these as possibilities.
During the
period of "Restauracion" of the monarchy after the collapse
of the Republic beginning 1874, the constitutional impasse of
highly politicized parties had been broken through an arrangement
known as "turnismo." The two leading parties (Canovas
del Castillo's Partido Conservador and Praxedes Mateo Sagasta's
Partido Liberal) would take turn running the government. The arrangement
would prevent the instability that had been the hallmark of the
political situation since the Liberal Revolution (in Cadiz) of
1812-1814. Indeed, the politics of accommodation and negotiation
that followed made possible the relative quiet in Spain which
Rizal and the ilustrados experienced while they were there.
Both federalism
and regional autonomy (contained in the Spanish Constitution)
provided the model upon which the ilustrados could frame their
ideas. Under a system of federalism, the estados freely chose
to become part of the federation. But having said that, it also
had the right to secede since a federation presumed a commonality
of interest. Of course, separation was not an easy option since
the power of the State to protect itself from whimsical parochialism
had been anticipated with the deployment of a national army and
reenforced by a strong tradition of loyalty to the monarch. Even
if some ilustrados held the illusion of eventually being assimilated
to Spain, this was not very different from the separatism advocated
by the Rizalistas. Again, under the system prevailing in Spain
at that time (which, by the way, continues up to now), the various
autonomous regions were not obliged to follow the national culture.
This had been the reason why each region could have its own language,
literature, and customs or even local laws. Assimilation, unless
understood in a very broad sense, was therefore a meaningless
jargon that carried no meaning in Spain then and now.
The real issue
then, could have been revolution versus autonomy. At the time
of the Rizal-Del Pilar conflict, there were those among them already
toying with the idea of revolution. But even after a successful
secession from the mother country, they still framed their ideas
within the liberal tradition of Spain. This could be seen in the
constitution that they would construct in Malolos in 1898 -- which,
though unitary and with no provision for a constitutional monarch,
was nevertheless aware of the necessity to uphold autonomy at
the local level. Fearful of dictatorial and militarist rule, it
gave more power to the Legislature (whose members were elected
at the local level) than the President and his Executive department
(with its presumed centralizing role).
Epilogue
The image
of Mother Spain leading Filipinas towards the light of progress
was adopted by Andres Bonifacio and the Katipunan in visualizing
the struggle. Like Del Pilar and Herminigildo Flores before who
made Filipinas plead for her rights with Mother Spain, Bonifacio
metaphorized the daughter saying goodbye. But to Bonifacio, Spain
was a false mother; Filipinas was the real mother, the Inang Bayan,
for whose defense of honor, the "mga Anak ng Bayan"
were ready to die. This means that the question of autonomy or
revolution was a theme that both the ilustrados and the Katipunan
explored, the subject of a dialogue of their generation. Assimilation,
autonomy, separatism and revolution belonged to one spectrum of
resistance by the colonial peoples of that time.
ENDNOTES:
Miguel
Rodriguez Berriz, Diccionario de la Administracion de Filipinas.
Anuario de 1888 (Manila: Imp. y Lit. de M. Perez, hijo, San
Jacinto 30, Binondo, 1888)
PNA, "Pesquerias," petition to the "Protector
de los Indios," 1823-1830.
Filipinas en las Cortes. Discursos pronunciados en el Congreso
de los Diputados sobre la representacion parliamentaria del
archiepelago Filipino (Madrid: Imp. Jaramillo, 1890), 56 pages
under signatura CV 1853/14.
Estrella Cardiel Sanz, et. al., Historia (de España)
( Madrid: Editorial Editex, S.A., 2001), pp. 128-129.
La Solidaridad, vol. I , Translated by Guadalupe Fores-Ganzon
(Q.C.: UP Press, 1973), p. 587.
"Spoliarium" is the main attraction of the National
Museum gallery at P. Burgos Avenue, Manila.
"Las Virgenes..." is at the main gallery of the Central
Bank's Metropolitan Museum, Roxas Blvd., Manila.
A replica of the Juan Luna painting is exhibited at the Philippine
Embassy in Madrid.
As noted by John Schumacher, The Propaganda Movement.
Encarnacion Alzona, Galicano Apacible. Profile of a Filipino
Patriot (Manila: National Historical Institute, 1971 first edition),
pp. 26-29.
Alzona, Ibid., p. 31.
Rafael Palma, The Pride of the Malay Race. Trans by Roman Ozaeta
(New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1949), pp. 74ff. Quoted by Teodoro
A. Agoncillo, "Rizal and the Philippine Revolution,"
in Patricia Melendrez-Cruz, et. al. eds., Himalay. Kalipunan
ng mga Pag-aaral kay Jose Rizal (Manila: Cultural Center of
the Philippines, 1991), pp. 280-284.
Bienvenido Lumbera, Tagalog Poetry, 1570-1898 (Q.C.: Ateneo
de Manila University Press, 1986), pp. 143-148.
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