IN DEPTH: RP INDEPENDENCE DAY - View of revolt in provinces spurs revision

THE PHILIPPINE Centennial celebration came to an end

yesterday, which was the 101st anniversary of the proclamation

of the Philipine revolutionary government at Kawit. The

Centennial celebration left a monstrous, decaying carcass of a

white elephant--the Centennial Expo at Clark field where the bulk

of the Centennial money was poured.

In the wake of this financial disaster and the grand Centennial

parade at the Luneta, which was a fitting theatrical climax of the

celebration, Filipinos ask whether the Centennial has raised their

awareness and knowledge about their culture and history, has

aided them in the search of their identity, and has given them a

more nuanced conception about nationalism, beyond the

wallowing in an enduring sense of grievance over their colonial

experience under Spain and the United States.

The answers to these questions do not lie in the theatrical

manifestations of the Centennial. They are to be found in the

output of writings and research on the Philippine Revolution of

1896 and the events that followed it. It is the output of

scholarship that, more than anything else, that has rebuilt the

nation's memory without which Filipinos would be wandering in

a vast desert without any compass of where they came from and

of where they are heading for.

What blazed a new trail in revolutionary scholarship is that the

University of the Philippines led the effort for the rediscovery of

the Revolution by shifting the focus on the investigation of the

Revolution to local revolutionary events and personalities,

away from the well-beaten path of Manila-centered

revolutionary historology.

As pointed out by Dr. Ma. Luisa T. Camagay, professor of

history at UP, ''for a long time, the history of the Philippines has

been written and narrated in a manner whereby events

transpiring in the provinces, towns and barrios were but ripples

created by Manila, the political, economic, social and cultural

center of the country...(The) history of the country has been

told and retold with the Philippines being one monolithic

homogenous structure with Manilas as the gauge of the

national pulse. This kind of historiograpy has persisted for a

long time until an awareness of local units exhibited a dynamism

of its own.'' The materials collected from this shift of accent

through seminars and visits to local revolutionary landmarks

throw a richer and more insightful dimension on the history of

the Revolution.

The materials collected and written in the course of this research

on local history reveal a wealth of data and insights which

indicate, at least, (1) there was a nationwide revolutionary

ferment prior to the Kawit declaration, which fused into the

struggle for freedom sparked by the Katipunan rising; (2) the

short-lived Malolos government had feeble authority over the

revolutionary movements in at least the Visayas and Mindanao;

(3) the Visayan revolutionaries acted with wide autonomy in

carrying out the revolution; (4) there were tensions between

Malolos authorities and regional revolutionary governments

over political ideas; (5) in the Visayas, the Federal Territorial

Republic of the Visayas proclaimed in November 1898 in Sta.

Barbara, Iloilo, ahead of the inauguration of the Malolos

Republic in January 1899, was fuelled by federalist tendencies.

These clashed with the unitary and centralized tendencies of the

Malolos Congress where Tagalog representation

overwhelmingly outnumbered delegations from the Visayas and

the outer regions.

For example, a paper written by Jose Manuel Velmonte, a

research associate at the UP Third World Studies Center, found

that the Visayan revolutionary elites not only had sophisticated

political ideas but also resented attempts by Malolos to assert

its authority. A Tagalog military expedition sent by Malolos to

Panay to assert is presence was met with hostility. The Luzon

force led by Generals Ananias Diocno and Leandro Fullon was

regarded by the Visayan revolutionaries, led by the Visayan

supremo, Gen. Martin Delgado, as an ''invasion'' force.

Accounts like this from local history view the revolution from

the ''periphery''--not from the center that was Manila. This view

from ''below'' rather than from ''above'' is a departure from the

orthodox Manila-centered approach. The new perspective to be

gained from this revisionism is one of the more enduring

outcomes of the Centennial celebration.