Diseases from the West, or Baranganic Resistance Abandoned

The oppressive conditions that could not be transcended by the pockets of resistance continued until the Enlightenment. Reason and science prevailed and became influential on the global scale. Rebels and intellectuals like Andrés Bonifacio, José Rizal, Marcelo del Pilar, Graciano López Jaena,²and others used this influence from European ideas to drive the Spaniards away.

The revolutionary nationalist organization Katipunan, founded in 1892, claimed sovereignty. Sovereignty would mean the abolition of oppressive conditions that were approved by huge numbers of the poor and underprivileged. This was to be done by staging revolution and creating a republic with a centralized government that would rule the entire archipelago. The community beyond face-to-face politics was to be reinforced further.

The few privileged had their own way of creating nationhood. According to Josephine Dionisio’s introduction to Randy David’s book Nation, Self and Citizenship: An Invitation to Philippine Sociology(2002), the Filipino nation is in part an invention of European-educated Filipino intellectuals who we know now as our heroes.

Katipunan and its idea of sovereignty became the viable expression of freedom to many locals who were already influenced by the centralistic system brought by the Spanish monarchy and its political organizations.

The primitive autonomous and interdependent barangayswere not sufficient to resist the organizational patterns of the colonizers said to be superior to the primitive structures. But this was only true if we measure superiority by conquest. The colonial patterns are designed to colonize, while the primitive structures are characterized by cooperation, diversity, and the absence of private property.

Keepers of the Flame