Even as China earthquake magnitude revised to 8.0, here at home, 4.6 magnitude quake hits Calapan City. And Typhoon Cosme claims eight lives.
Banko Sentral toying with the idea of pumping additional funds into UCPB. While San Miguel’s thinking of taking over the Bank of Commerce.
And Hermogenes Esperon is made a human Colt Revolver and named chief presidential peacemaker.
The Inquirer editorial looks at the appointment of Jesus Dureza, former head of the peace process, to the Press portfolio. The editorial says it can only result in Dureza’s reputation being diminished, and along the way takes a look at how Dureza’s predecessor shrank in public stature:
Bunye has appeared on television and been published in the papers countless times … But out of all that footage and film stock, one image will define him for all time: that time, three years ago next month, when he appeared before the cameras with two compact disks in hand, just as the “Hello, Garci” scandal was breaking. He told a rapt nation that he had evidence that the President’s alleged wiretapped conversation with election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano (the CD in one hand) were a fabrication, because the conversation was actually between the President and a certain political aide named “Gary” (the CD in the other hand).
This bold attempt to immediately contain a political crisis immediately backfired, because it turned out that the object of the wiretaps was not the President, after all, but Garcillano. In other words, and as the recordings and transcripts circulated or published online immediately made clear, President Arroyo’s supposed conversation with “Gary” could not have been part of the Garci tapes.
The flaw in the plan to cover up the crisis was that it was based on a faulty reading of the problem (Palace operatives thought it was the President’s phone which had been bugged). The faulty reading of the problem, however, proved that there was in fact a cover-up. A Palace official – the President’s spokesman, no less – had been caught with both hands inside the CD jar.
Much later, under questioning in Congress, Bunye alleged that the package of CDs had only come into his possession, sub rosa. He said he didn’t even know where the package came from. The brainless excuse, from an otherwise careful lawyer, led many to conclude that Bunye, at the very least, was part of a cover-up about a cover-up. If Bunye really did not know the provenance of the two CDs, why did he present them to the media? As his old and new friends from the banking industry might say, It doesn’t compute.
Fr. Joaquin Bernas offers up an interesting glimpse into the strict limits on the judiciary, and says the JELAC is basically unconstitutional:
Under our Constitution the judiciary as judiciary may not give advisory opinions whether to the President or to Congress. As judiciary, its language must have the force of law which must be obeyed. Advisory opinions do not command obedience. Giving advisory opinions can demean the judiciary.
It is true that individual justices sometimes give advisory opinions. But they do it on their own, and improperly. Neither they themselves nor the courts are bound by such opinion.
In the 1987 Constitution there is also a provision which says that the “Members of the Supreme Court and of other courts established by law shall not be designated to any agency performing quasi-judicial or administrative functions.”
(photo above taken at Mendiola last Saturday; “Suportahan ang Presidente. Ibagsak presyo ng koryente.”)
Amando Doronila says the government and the Lopezes would both be better off if they manage to pull off a compromise when the President and Manuel Lopez, big boss at Meralco, meet today:
The Bohol summit is the first time that the Arroyo administration is confronting the economic power of the Lopez family, which has during the past 50 years survived attempts to crush it by several post-war governments, notably those of President Diosdado Macapagal, Ms Arroyo’s father, in the 1960s and President Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s who confiscated Meralco and ABS-CBN with martial law powers. In those battles, the Lopezes fought with their media weapons, something they are now using to damage the present administration, with considerable success.
The current Arroyo-Lopez confrontation is no less fierce and no side is emerging unscathed. The summit in Bohol has far-reaching implications for the balance of power between the political sector’s interventionism in business and autonomy of private sector economic power centers. It is not a battle merely between Ms Arroyo and the Lopezes.
The meeting ought to be compared, then, to Napoleon and Czar Alexander of Russia’s Treaty of Tilsit, famously described as a meeting of two sovereigns on a raft. See Two hundred years after the ‘peace’ of Tilsit.
My column for today is An essential experience . Some reminiscing about a childhood visit to Santa Ana Church kicks the column off (some pictures over at Traveler on Foot). I’m uneasy with terms like “Kingdom of Sapa,” which is supposedly what the area we now know as Santa Ana was, because it may be a misleading description of the locality in pre-Spanish times.
Anyway, the column came about because last Saturday, I had the chance to visit Gold of Ancestors: Pre-colonial Treasures in the Philippines at the Ayala Museum. Any museum display involving gold artifacts is a sure crowd-pleaser (see Market Manila), and this display is no exception.
Until this exhibit was opened, the collection of the Central Bank of the Philippines was the focus of public awareness of prehispanic gold artifacts.
The sadly no-longer-updated blog, Pu-pu platter — a delectable selection of oriental appetizers, contains an extract from Ramon Villegas’ Ginto: History Wrought in Gold (see photos from the book, in Flickr):
Harrisson compared Borneo finds with gold artifacts in important Manila collections, particularly of Leandro and Cecilia Locsin’s (Harrisson 1968: 43). He concluded that the Limbang hoard shows close Philippine affinities, though the group is strongly “Javanese” as well. Second, small but significant “Hindu-Buddhist” influences are suggested, or more vaguely as Indonesian (“Indian”) influence rather than anything “Chinese.”
Also, “as in West Borneo, few gold pieces can be dated very early and the major goldsmithing appears to have occured after 1000 AD — and perhaps especially between 1200 and 1400 AD…as in Borneo so in Philippine pre-history, remarkably few fine things of gold seem to have been made later than about 1400 AD — perhaps because of a change in trade patterns and export requirements to the mainland after the start of the Ming dysnasty (or the equivalent), and/or the new attitudes evoked by Islam after 1400” (Harrisson 1968: 77)
Finally, he reiterated that Philippine gold artifacts in general tend to be more elaborate and better crafted than most from West Borneo.
Harrisson looked at the Dr Arturo de Santos collection (part of which was acquired by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) as well, and observed that “…the range of Philippine gold jewelry…includes many pieces of a complexity and finesse that is beyond anything attempted in Borneo” in so far as what had been found at that time (Harrisson 1968: 56).
Throughout Indonesia there was a relationship between gold artifacts and the ruling aristocracy, in the class-power centers which developed on the coastal plains around the middle of the 1st millenium AD (Harrisson 1968:44). Precious metals were worked ‘exclusively in those areas where the influence of Hinduism was strongest’: he includes Java, Bali, southern Celebes and the coastal districts of Borneo. These areas developed as centers with established hierarchies, which necessitated the conspicuous display of wealth (Harrisson 1968: 47).
There was a demand for gold, which the Philippines could have supplied. It would be reasonable to suggest that one of the main sources of Javanese and Bornean gold was the Philippines. That trade would have been important enough to have been direct, by-passing minor pass-on players say, in Sarawak or Sulawesi. Moreover, the early interest in gold from the Philippines would have been in the raw material rather than wrought artifacts. In turn, local interest would have been on goods not made of gold, which they had plenty of.
To paraphrase Harrisson, “This, in turn, liberated the (Filipinos) from conventions in gold-craft not ideally suited to local materials and outlook, thus producing the much livelier (forms) seen in Manila” (Harrisson 1968: 80). Indianization in Philippine gold ornaments, therefore, was a matter of selective adaptation, rather than wholesale adoption.
Incidentally, a comment by pupuplatter on May 3 in Market Manila is well worth reading, with its account of the conquistadores avidly excavating graves to loot them for gold:
Your ancestors in Bohol, Cebu, and elsewhere in the Visayas were also wearing beautiful pieces of gold jewelry that they crafted with their own hands. In 1565 Miguel Lopez de Legazpi issued a proclamation in Cebu requiring Spanish soldiers and sailors who dug up Cebuano graves in search of treasure to properly declare their finds to the authorities in order for the King of Spain to take his “royal fifths and rights,” his majesty’s “cut” in the loot.
Such a great “quantity of gold and other jewels” was found in the “many graves and burial-places of the native Indians” in Cebu and so invested were Spanish officials to collect what they deemed was their rightful share in the stolen goods that more drastic measures had to be taken.
The commenter then quotes a Jesuit writing about a hundred years after Legaspi:
“I do remember that once when I was solemnizing a marriage of a Bisayan principala, she was so weighed down with jewelry that it caused her to stoop - to me it was close to an arroba or so (1 arroba = 25 lbs.), which was a lot of weight for a girl of twelve. Then again, I also heard it said that her grandfather had a jar full of gold which alone weighed five or six arrobas. Even this much is little in comparison to what they actually had in ancient times.”
pupuplatter, in another comment on May 4, provides a reading list, too (and since all good things come in threes, pupuplatter also points to online resources for Philippine artifacts held in Spanish collections), and this caveat:
I doubt that the makers of what has been called the “Surigao Treasure” were Muslim. Islam came to the Philippine rather late, less than 200 years before the Spanish conquest. We should also avoid idealizing, even as we begin to appreciate, the pre-colonial past: some of the pre-colonial jewelry recovered in Mindanao and elsewhere may have been hastily buried to hide them from Cebuano, Tagalog, or Samal slave raiders and looters. And it is difficult to determine who the “original” inhabitants of Mindanao really are. For much of the Spanish colonial period, agents of the maritime state of Sulu conducted slave raids throughout much of the Philippines. (Bisayans in particular resented this since before Christian conversion they claimed that they were so mighty that they would have been the ones looting, pillaging, and slave raiding their way across the Philippine waters.) These slaves gathered pearls, bird’s nest, wax and other products that were then sold to the agents of the British East India Company who, in turn, sold those products to China. It’s a complicated, global history.
The danger of romanticizing things is something I pointed out in my column, too. All the bling was not freely given, I think it’s safe to assume. The exhibit actually goes to great lengths to use precise terms -e.g. “stratified society”- and to point out that these were items meant to convey wealth and status
Rizal’s “Nuestro perdido Eden” and Bonifacio’s nostalgia for the blissful, civilized, land of the Taga-ilogs may just have been places with societies not too different from the kind of society we criticize today. The rape and rapine of conquistadors took place with the help of native allies, leaders playing what may have been, to them, simply the latest round in the power games they were used to. Sociologists and anthropologists have been pointing out how local cultures have survived foreign influence; and we’ve all heard anecdotal evidence of this (a friend once told me, for example, that in the vicinity of Iloilo, babaylan could be found until the 1950s). I haven’t read anything on the subject but it seems circumcision could be a cultural holdover from the days of Islam.
There are two things I mention in my column all-too-briefly. The first is The Laguna Copper Plate Inscription (Ambeth Ocampo, in a column, recounted that he’d had dibs on buying it but rejected it; he also says there remain many unanswered questions concerning the artifact). Here’s the inscription, as reproduced by Hector Santos:
As Ocampo recounted in his column, the story behind the discovery of the copperplate, and the debate over its authenticity and what the inscription means, is quite interesting. See The Laguna Copperplate Inscription by Paul Morrow (which has a Filipino version) and Sulat sa Tansô´: The Laguna Copperplate Inscription, a Philippine Document from 900 A.D. by Hector Santos.
As for the inscription itself, Morrow puts forward the inscription transcribed into our Latin writing system, while Santos provides the first translation by Antoon Postma and then his own translation. Morrow was also asked by Santos to do another translation. Here is Morrow’s English approximation of his translation:
Long Live! Year of Siyaka 822, month of Waisaka, according to astronomy. The fourth day of the waning moon, Monday. On this occasion, Lady Angkatan, and her brother whose name is Buka, the children of the Honourable Namwaran, were awarded a document of complete pardon from the Commander in Chief of Tundun, represented by the Lord Minister of Pailah, Jayadewa.
By this order, through the scribe, the Honourable Namwaran has been forgiven of all and is released from his debts and arrears of 1 kati and 8 suwarna before the Honourable Lord Minister of Puliran, Ka Sumuran by the authority of the Lord Minister of Pailah.
Because of his faithful service as a subject of the Chief, the Honourable and widely renowned Lord Minister of Binwangan recognized all the living relatives of Namwaran who were claimed by the Chief of Dewata, represented by the Chief of Medang.
Yes, therefore the living descendants of the Honourable Namwaran are forgiven, indeed, of any and all debts of the Honourable Namwaran to the Chief of Dewata.
This, in any case, shall declare to whomever henceforth that on some future day should there be a man who claims that no release from the debt of the Honourable…
The Ayala Museum exhibit displays the text of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, and it made me chuckle, because of the way it bristled with honorable so-and-so and honorable such-and-such. Our obsession with titles certainly goes back a long, long way.
And the second item I mention is The Boxer Codex. A brief introduction to this document and what it contains was written by the late Petronilo Bn. Daroy. The codex is used as the launching pad for connecting the little we know about prehispanic life, with the items on display, in the video presentation of the Ayala Museum.
Take the image above, which is from Wikipedia, and is one of the Boxer Codex’s illustrations of Tagalog notable types.
And take a look at the biggest crowd-pleaser in the exhibit, below:
This is from the Surigao Treasure, and you can immediately make the connection between the 10th-12th Century object and the 16th Century illustration. Weight? About 4 kilos. It’s something the curators suggest might be an Upativa, a symbol of belonging to the Brahmin caste. A general sense of what an Upavita is, and its ritual significance, can be gleaned from reading Upavita and Rules of Chanting. In the extract from Villegas’ book at the beginning of this entry, and in the articles of Morrow and Santos, one grey area in our prehispanic past is how we define the colonial period, in the first place.
I recall attending a lecture by Prof. Luis Camara Dery (see Milestones in Moro historiography for a glimpse into some of his writing) and if memory serves me right, he said that Lapulapu was a Tausug.
It’s interesting to see how Lapulapu himself could be the subject for more interesting discoveries to come. See a lecture delivered in Biliran Province by Prof. Rolando O. Borrinaga, From Bagasumbul to Naval: A Historical Review:
These were the questions that led me to theorize that the great victory suggested by the folk mind was probably the native victory over the Spaniards in the Battle of Mactan in April 1521, that the person referred to as Bagasumbul was Lapulapu of history, and that the people who walked behind his steps were the legions of Lapulapu followers who were among the earliest settlers of Barangay Caraycaray.
And so, after the writing of the annotated history of Naval in collaboration with several local intellectuals in 1989-1990, which was published in Kinaadman journal in 1992 (Borrinaga, et.al., 1992), I proceeded to write another paper with the tentative hypothesis that Lapulapu was the person attributed to as Bagasumbul in our folklore. The paper was published in the same journal in 1995 (Borrinaga 1995).
A dozen years after its publication, I still collect evidence to strengthen the Mactan-Naval connection and to bolster the “Lapulapu was Bagasumbul” theory. At the least, this theory has not yet been totally debunked or refuted in the literature.
Returning to Dery, if Lapulapu wasn’t a Cebuano, this is a problem if you subscribe to the cartoon version of our past. Or take this article on The Muslim Rulers of Manila, which basically points out they were Brunei royals. You would then have to start defining what you mean by native and non-native, by colonialism, too: is it colonialism if involving alliance and conquest by a European power, and not if it means one ethnic group being ruled by members of a family from another ethnic group? What does it say of Cebuano assumptions concerning their identity, if Lapulapu was, indeed, Tausug? Or for Tagalogs if Rajah Matanda a member of an interrelated set of ruling families in Manila, Sulu, and Brunei and the grandson of Sultan Bolkiah of Brunei?
This is simple if you view it from the point of view of a pan-Brunei sort of identity, with Brunei as the center; but you’d be dodging the question of how they came to be leading families of those areas.
And this brings us to the Upavita above. In general in quest of a prehispanic identity we go back to a Muslim one; but that identity, in turn, was it imposed or adopted? If imposed, then the colonial period might have to include a possible Islamic conquest of areas that were formerly Hindu in terms of belief and culture (the story of the spread of Islam in Indonesia would be useful to look at, from this point of view, as Bali became the Hindu holdout in the otherwise succesful Islamic conversion and conquest of the rest of present-day Indonesia). If by conversion, and without force, how was conversion achieved? Was it a case of rulers ethnically different from their subjects, adopting a new faith and their subjects going along with the conversion? Or something in between?
Anyway, this goes to show how very many interesting questions need to be discussed both among the experts and with the public. See Jessica Zafra’s Newsweek article on the exhibit, Going for the Gold: A new permanent exhibit offers tantalizing hints to the Philippines’ precolonial history.
Some photos:
A sword hilt from the Surigao Treasure.
A belt. The collection features many other belts, and clasps, as well.
At times, the terse captions were frustrating. What on earth is a penannular, for example? The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archeology says,
In the shape of a ring, but with a break at one point. Often used to describe brooches and torcs as well as arrangements of posts, slots, and ditches forming the walls of round houses and enclosures.
Ah.
These “chastity covers,” or “ancient pek-pek protection” as I overheard one young museum visitor excitedly put to to a companion, were conversation-starters but how they were used (were they to preserve the modesty of the pudenda of the dead, or meant to preserve the virginity of living daughters?)
A kind of costume for what may once have been a household image. The spread of Catholicism resulted in the destruction of household images, and while the image this gold costume was once meant to adorn no longer exists, it does indicate the general appearance of the image, and also, it’s not far removed from the lavish costumes for Catholic religious images.
There is also an extensive collection of porcelain and other kinds of wares on display, from China and places like Thailand, recovered from graves and shipwrecks, on display. I’m completely uncultured when it comes to appreciating pottery and when confronted with porcelain my eyes glaze over. All the porcelain brought in from overseas, though, points to what I described as the precolonial origins of today’s “Gucci Gang” types. The Datu’s wife may not have worn Prada, but she might have spat out betel-nut juice into a porcelain bowl from China.
Anyway, people who appreciate these things are quite delighted by the pottery objects on display.
My column closes with a mild criticism of the exhibit. This book:
“The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead” (Heather Pringle)
among other things, discusses the problem of human remains when it comes to museums. Do you put them on display, and let people gawk at them, or having studied them, return them to the descendants of those remains? The question has led to a more respectful attitude towards human remains both during and after archeological excavations. I found little tangible signs that such an approach has had in impact here, at home. It’s something that needs to be pointed out in the case of exhibits such as the Ayala Museum’s, as one question that comes to mind is, what happened to the remains of those from whose graves these artifacts were taken? Not so much in terms of what can be done, decades after these excavations took place, but in case future finds come to light.
[Incidentally, once more, an appeal to the kindness of readers: if anyone can help be get a copy of Integrating History and Archaeology in the Study of Contact Period Philippine Chiefdoms, by Laura Lee Junker in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology, I’d be very grateful.] Thank you to pupuplatter for sending it to me!
See this 2005 entry on Pre-European Philippines and China over at ThirtySomething v 4.3.
In the blogosphere, Ellen Tordesillas points to a series of workshops citizens can attend, to understand how the national budget is formulated.
The journalist-versus-blogger debate, French style. See French Politics which is a great blog to follow for exposure to the richness of French political discourse.
the idea of elitism by ancestry is problematical when we consider that the tides of fortune are constantly changing. the elites of yesteryears can be the masa of today, and vice versa. i have spanish ancestry from both sides of parentage, a spanish maternal name and surname, and an infinitesimal trace of foreign element in my appearance. by no means an “elite”, i am as masa as you can get.
i bet my situation is no different from the average pinoy. the assimilation of races that is still a work in progress in the u.s. (still frowned upon in most cases) is almost generally complete and accepted except, perhaps, in some chinese communities. i don’t think there is racial/ethnic divide in the philippines, only separation according to wealth, education, religion or political position. i think these are the factors (other than religion) that determine who are the elites and who are the masa.
And UP n, I can never be a populist. I may use every rhetorical technique used by successful populists but I’ll never have the ear of the Filipino people. The most I can do is put a mirror on the elite’s face and ask them: is this really the best this country has to offer?
Bencard, of course four thousand years after the Egyptians have enslaved the Jews, the Jews kicked their asses during the 6-day war. Take note especially my subtle use of the words “four thousand years.”
blackshama, it was the mango tree under which the last cabinet meeting prior to going to corregidor was held. and it was uprooted by a typhoon before i was born, but i have a small table made from the wood of that tree. and the site is now concreted over where psba stands today.
brian, no. i don’t subscribe to your pet theories.
why go that far, brianb? perhaps more recent were the enslavement by the romans of the goths of germania, anglo-saxons of britanny, the franks and normans of france, among others, that have, in turn, became the conquerors and colonizers of many a nation down the line. elitism, to me, is a function of power which, in turn, is a function of wealth and technology rather than pedigree.
I think elitism (whether based on wealth, race or nationality) results from a combination of arrogance [of power] mixed with ignorance of the nature of the Social Systems that make up Modern Society.
Bencard, point is, should it take that long?
Elitism is the willful ignorance of those on top on nature’s propensity to change.
brianb, i think as long as man is man, there will always be “elites” and “masa” in every society. ultimately, it’s up to the individual to which grouping he would belong – lifting him up by his own bootstraps. i agree, though, that some have inborn advantages, e.g., inheritance, family connections. but then, a loser with those assets could dissipate them in time and almost never recover.
I do not understand what BrianB means when he wrote Elitism is the willful ignorance of those on top on nature’s propensity to change. I don’t think he intentionally wanted to be obfuscating, though (so that he can not be challenged). As for cvj, I have already reached the conclusion that cvj also does not conform to Merriam-Webster definition of “elite”. cvj (in my opinion)associates the word “elite” to the lowliest class (lowliest meaning “provides the least value to the greater good”). “The Technorati elite” or “the accounting elite” or the may not have meaning to cvj.
Now, both cvj and BrianB seems to say that only the elite can practice elitism. BrianB (and Madonna) has added the theme that non-Kastila Pinoys are victims of Kastila-elite. In my opinion, they are wrong. Elitism can be practiced by some among the “masa’ just as elitism can be practiced by some among the elite.
A definition of elitism in regards governance : Elitism is the belief or attitude that those individuals who are considered members of the elite  a select group of people with outstanding personal abilities, intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes  are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most weight; whose views and/or actions are most likely to be constructive to society as a whole; or whose extraordinary skills, abilities or wisdom render them especially fit to govern.
Now while JoMa may consider himself extraordinarily fit to govern the Philippines, he has consistently been thwarted from taking over Malacanang. Mar Roxas probably considers himself extraordinarily fit to govern the Philippines. If a large enough number of Filipinos agrees and Mar Roxas gets majority vote, BrianB may call this a continuation of elitism, but “it” becomes will of majority of the people.
Discussion here break down as soon as the word ‘elite’ is mentioned.
UPn, contrary to your assertion, i never claimed that only the elite can be elitist. As i mentioned previously, many in the middle class also have the ‘elitist mindset’.
I would also like to refer you to my previous discussions in this blog (mainly with Jakcast and Mindanaoan) where i said, among other things, that while various sectors [aka subsystems] of society can (and do) have their internal elites, there cannot be any society-wide elite. This is because (as per Niklas Luhman) Modern Society as a whole(unlike pre-modern society) is functionally (and not hierarchically) decomposed. That’s why i believe that the paradigm elite/masa needs to be discarded in favor of more appropriate and productive distinctions such as ‘specialist/generalists’ in the context of functions and roles.
Correction, my previous discussion was with Maginoo in this thread (The one with Mindanaoan was on a separate but related topic):
http://www.quezon.ph/1721/the-original-sin-and-the-continuing-crime/
Here also are earlier comments on the topic i made from last year’s threads:
http://www.quezon.ph/1506/a-trap-of-his-own-making/#comment-580949
http://www.quezon.ph/1589/v-for-vruha/#comment-631275
UP n,
that’s “of nature’s propensity to change.” Hm, elitism may not be the word I’m looking for but rather the false aristocracies that also qualifies as elite. Gucci anyone?
aristocracies that qualify.
cvj, how do you find those past comments. I tried the search bar but couldn’t find anything.
“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.â€Â
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
For some reason, being part of the elite in this blog seems to be something that is already taken against you…like being guilty even before th trial starts.
I don’t know why people here makes the knee jerk reaction that just because somebody is part of the so called elite, he’s already a bad person.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) people DO aspire to be part of the elite, whether it be intellectual, wealth, etc., etc., because THAT is human nature. It’s not really being elite that’s the problem. It’s the BEHAVIOR that’s the problem. AND that abhorrent behavior is not a monopoly of the ELITE, mind you. Now, I am sure somebody like CVJ will then say, “But the elites should know better!”. CVJ, grow up, who told you that education is the sole factor for a change in one’s behavior?”
Unfortunately also, I see a lot of intellectual elitism being inflicted in this forum.
“the Zobels weren’t “Kastilla†but Basques.”
For clarification, the Zobel family name is German. Zobel married into the Ayala family, which had the landholdings in San Pedro de Makati, as it was then known. The original Ayala was southern Spanish, I believe, from Andalucia. I am not sure about any Basque infusion into the family.
The Elizaldes are sometimes said to be Basque, but they hail from Navarre, which is beside the Basque region. But the people from Navarre do not want to be considered Basques.
It is the Aboitiz family that is Basque.
Also, if the term “Kastila” were used to refer to only those from the region of Castille, then it is correct that “Basque” and “Kastila” are not the same. However, if “Kastila”, as generally and commonly used, refers to anyone who is Spanish, then Basques are also “Kastila”. While there are separatist elements in the Basque region, it has been, and still remains, a part of Spain.
“Exhibit B: patronizing attitude by a Spanish descended elite: Mar Roxas and the way he conducts his drive towards the presidency. LOL. Mr Palengke my ass.” – Madonna
I once read that Mar Roxas is descended from Spanish friars. The Aranetas were Spanish brothers who were friars. One founded the Manila side of the family, of which Gregorio, Salvador and the parents of Greggy Araneta and Eking Araneta are descended. The other founded the Ilonggo side of the family, from which Mar’s maternal grandfather, Amado Araneta, of Cubao fame, descended.
There were also two Roxas brothers, both Spaniards. One founded the Roxas family from Batangas, from which the Sorianos and the present-day Roxas of Central Don Pedro descend. Another founded the Capiz side of the family, from which Manuel Roxas, Mar’s grandfather, descended.
As for the “contrived and condescending” persona of Mar Roxas, it is most likely an affliction of politicians. In the U.S., you have feminist Hillary Clinton knocking back a few drinks in a bar, just to try to appear that she is like the ordinary Joe who knocks a few before going home. And you would have the patrician George Bush, Sr. downing beer and pork rinds, just to appear like a good ole’ Southern boy.
I guess people see through all this “plastikan”, but they accept it as part of the game.
to cvj: I do remember when you wrote about functionally (and not hierarchically) decomposed… and that the paradigm elite/masa needs to be discarded in favor of ’specialist/generalists’. They were interesting to read, but I thought the idea had marginal utility when it comes to choosing senators or presidents.
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I also get amused when I read the manner by which people bewail elitism especially during elections. Just consider this thought. Assuming that there are no changes to the Philippine constitution, then there will be 2 presidential elections between now and 2025. Now think of the PERSONAL incomes of the candidates for President. You’ll have to agree that the income will NOT be from the bottom three deciles (the bottom 30% based on family income).
What this means is that the bottomm 30% have to delegate the presidency to some one other than their economic peer. They will choose from candidates with higher incomes than them; from people most likely with more years of education than them; from people whose work-experiences are a whole lot different than theirs.
It does not take a lot of wordsmithing to paint every vote cast by someone from the bottom 3 decile (in family income) as an act of elitism, a vote for someone whose views and/or proposed programmes are most likely to be constructive to society as a whole; or whose extraordinary skills, abilities or wisdom render them especially fit to govern. [Unless, of course, one voted because one’s vote was bought.]
——————–
And each and every candidate is an elitist (though they will try hard not to paint themselves as such). It is pomposity, but every presidential candidate will claim claim that he/she has a full understanding of how the nation’s politics works; it is pomposity, but the candidate will claim that he/she has the programmes that will lift the country from its current morass; pomposity, yet the candidate will claim that he/she “understands the dreams of the poor, the goals of the middle class, the challenges faced by the rich”.
Every single candidate does say “… I am special! I am a whole lot better than a regular-schmoe, a whole lot better. Choose me!” It is the voter’s responsibility to vet each candidate as to how special they really are (and discover, then evaluate, any baggage that the candidate may carry, e.g. their spouse or their drinking buddies or their personal beliefs re divorce or right-to-choose); then pick the “most special”.
@ UP n Student
I agree with the views you just espoused. Ang dami kasing hirit dito pero honestly, sila rin mismo mga intellectual elites. May superiority complex when it comes to their brains.
I don’t think critics take it against the elite per se, as some say. It’s the way the system is skewed to favor the elite, and how there is little compassion (except for mouthing motherhood statements and generalities and paying lip-service, which is the criticism about politicians) for the less priveleged, that is being criticized.
It is also about how the elite prevent a wider, more level playing field, if only to maintain their dominance. Without having to explain at length, look at how legislators (bastion of the elite) have mangled land reform, tax reforms, social programs, etc.
Many of those who post here are probably part of the elite, but they are aware, and they lament, the fact that there is a large element of greed, callousness, and also narrow-mindedness, among our elite.
Because the elite have access to the best education, here and abroad (even U.P. has been crowded out by the elite), and also because they most likely have access to the best gene pool (they certainly get the best-looking girls and guys, if not necessarily the smartest), the elite should know better and should be more gracious and giving. What is lamented is that, inspite of so much inherent advantages, the elite still want more. Would “swapang” be appropriate? And many, if not most, of them are insensitive to the plight of the less priveleged.
This does not mean that there are more enlightened, more concerned members of the elite. But I would dare say that they are in the minority.
I believe the true few global elites now are Larry Page/Sergey Brin (Google), Jerry Yang/David Filo (Yahoo), Bill Gates (Microsoft), and to some extent Steve Jobs (Apple).
Through technology, these visionary men ‘flattened the world’ (Thomas Friedman), equalized the playing field, and empowered ordinary people to ‘connect, compete and collaborate.’
With these achievements, nobody could deny their ‘elitism.’
All I can say to those who don’t see themselves as an “elite” member of Pinoy society is this:
Tough luck.
And by the way, being “elite” is all in the attitude. If you see yourself as some kind of non-elite, that’s more of your mind at work than anything else. It is you who is limiting what you can be.
Having said that, not all of the “elite” are as enlightened as they think they are. Check out this article to understand why:
http://www.geocities.com/benign0/3-00_Makati/enlighten1.html
– 😀
Blackshama,
Peace. Nunca did I intend to fire a missile against “madre espana”. LOL, let’s not fight over semantics here. The point BrianB is trying to make I think is crystal clear, give and take some tugs at our bloodline heartsrings (Lol, me too I have Spanish blood, ehem, my grandfather on my father’s side is supposedly half Spanish. But naku, so what? hehe.) But hey, fyi, I certainly love Nick Joaquin (aka Quijano de MAnila) and his writings.
Elitism (no matter how many people are allergic to the tag) is the single most stumbling block of progress in the Philippines — and this is backed by scholarly studies. Elitism is particularly insidious and very sticky in our society due to the fact that we have such a horrible colonial past — Spanish and American. It is only a little more than sixty years that we have been supposedly “free” and look, we were virtual slaves for four hundred years prior to that. We want to establish a meritocratic society and how can we do this if we don’t take a critical attitude.
For semantics, the concept of colonialism to limit its scholarly meaning only started with Spain and England in the 15th and 16th century when they were scouring the world for commodities and resources.
And oh exhibit 3 of condescending, patronizing attitude of the Spanish descended elite: Jamby Madrigal, left out of the will, recently turned crybaby because her aunt’s wealth belongs to the Filipino people. Can you believe this drivel?
Of course it is a chicken and egg question: did the politician specie that we know of now hatch before the haciendero/conquistador. Historical fact: the haciendero/conquistador came first. Pre-Spanish rule, we were maybe disparate little baranggays, but ours was a communal society — not feudal, as introduced by the Spaniards. Values and mores in a feudal and communal society are way different.
In our current society, there is a strong correlation betwen elitism and political machinations. Look where they got us? And oh, GMA and her husband of course think, act like they are haciendera/haciendero of the bygone era. Brian Gorrel’s blog has only confirmed what we have suspected all along. It is real. This sense of entitlement and gross attitude certainly permeates the thin stratosphere of who are supposedly the best people we have here in this country — and it is certainly dangerous because they are all over the public sphere
and has power to influence.
UP n,
We are not in the same page. You misunderstand that I was pointing out at victimhood of the masa by the elite. We are talking here about attitude, whether conscious or unconcious. Certainly, even the middle class yuppie or the kanto boy or even the farmer are riddled with elitist attitude and fantasies.
The Kastila/Spanish connotation of elitism is a product of clear historical fact in our country.
I did not say that elitism automatically denotes Spanish elitism. Because that would be fallacious.
Denotation versus connotation. Please.
Brian (6:40 am), i linked to those comments above (at 5:57 am and 6:15am).
UPn, Silent Waters, i’m not arguing against personal wealth, that would be hypocritical. What i’m against is the mindset of someone holding a sense of superiority and entitlement because of advantages over other people in terms of wealth and education. This completely overlooks the level of specialization (and coordination) that is required for society to function and is therefore a manifestation of ignorance.
Now if you have an entire class of people living and propagating such an elitist attitude, then that goes a long way towards perpetuating a highly unequal society like ours. I believe the prevalence of such an attitude among the Middle Forces would spell the difference between Manolo’s soft landing (a-la England) and Devilsadvc8’s Bastille scenarios.
…and acquiring that ‘elite attitude’ is a key part of Jesuit education, and looks like they have so far been successful in that regard.
madonna, the only part of what you wrote above i’d dispute is the communal society part. the societies were highly stratified, and the proof of it was the existence of slavery. feudalism has a specific meaning of course and it was introduced, adding a new layer and eventually, the dominant one as it got entrenched.
brian’s point is essentially the old saying that property is a crime, because the system of property was introduced by the spaniards, and essentially untouched -and would have been left untouched, it seems, even if the republic of 1898 had endured, since its prime movers were the descendants of the leading families whose alliances with spain had helped establish spanish rule in the first place.
that system of property might not have endured if the katipunan had become the government and stayed under the leadership of bonifacio, but part of the difficulty of understanding what that might have been like is figuring out the precise meaning of the terms he used (for example, when he presented himself as hari ng katagalugan after the tejeros convention, was he styling himself a monarch, or should the title be understood another way?)
and is there an essential difference from precolonial slavery, the slavery that continued to be practiced by the sultanates of sulu, jolo etc., and the polo y servicios of the spanish? and the manner in which the spanish secured the recognition of spanish sovereignty by local chiefs by exempting them from tribute and required labor? i don’t know, all i’m saying is these are the questions that interest me.
the means by which the spanish extended their empire to include today’s philippines wasn’t purely by military means; the way that sovereignty was maintained for centuries went beyond constant repression; and the motivations for the former allies of the spanish ultimately challenging that rule is very interesting and it seems to be quite complicated. for example, in indonesia and in malaya and even india, the princely, etc. families who’d originally allied with the dutch, the british (or got used to being subordinate to foreign rule) remained loyal for the most part; in india, when independence was decided, the maharajahs, etc. were shocked and appalled to discover what they viewed as their individual treaty relationships with britain had been abandoned by the british in favor of the new indian and pakistani states. very few of them managed to maintain their wealth and influence post-independence except in malaysia, while here, after the schism in the katipunan, until the 1950s the dominant story was how the descendants of the original allies of spain had in turn divided on the question of violent revolution or a more gradual transition to independence, but on the whole, with independence as the ultimate goal.
“being “elite†is all in the attitude. If you see yourself as some kind of non-elite, that’s more of your mind at work than anything else. It is you who is limiting what you can be.â€Â
It sounds like a motivational piece. Is having compassion for the non-elite a limiting factor? Is “being elite†something that everyone should aspire for? I don’t think everyone thinks like a Robert Kiyosaki or a Donald Trump.
Manolo,
I subscribe wholeheartedly to John Locke’s dictum about private property (as postulated in the Second Treatise of Government). I am firm believer in individual property — equal to our rights to life, liberty, etc.
Locke also substantially explained slavery, the Western definition of it. Our pre-Spanish slavery has more like religious, cultural tones (imbedded in the society’s stucture) to it whereas in the West, one becomes a slave as a result of war or conquest. Certainly, Spain treated us because of the latter view.
I am not too sure really how to settle property disputes because this is quite complicated I see in our case, because when I precisely mentioned “communal” I was referring to how property was viewed by our pre-Spanish society. Correct me if I am wrong, but as I understood it — at least for those for those who were not slaves — property was owned communally, in name by the reigning rulers on behalf of all the free men and women in the society was it not?
And then the Spaniards came along and with legal framework, changed all of this. This is interesting because there may be ways to prove ownership of property by those who were wrongfully deprived of their land. One of these at least for the cultural minorities is the law on ancestral lands and of course, land reform law.
Except that in our courts, titulos even if spuriously produced and criminally acquired are given much too credence to prove ownership. That is how accordingly many landowning families who are the reigning political clans could trace their wealth nowadays. Just bribe officials at the government offices churning out property titles and bingo, one’s family becomes wealthy.
Hopefully, there will be reparations in the future concerning these property violations and to heal our colonial past.
Precisely, if we believe in property, not spurious entitlement — then we must fight for a system that stands firmly grounded in property rights. I think meritocracy and property rights go hand in hand.
madonna, this is something i’ve only begun to explore. an interesting point your comment brings up is whether what was called slavery falls more precisely under what the west called indentured servants. debt slavery, but very different from a system in which one is born a slave.
then this raises the question of what was taking place when raiders from the south raided the north, were christian filipinos taken by muslim filipinos to be sold in brunei or to become gatherers of bird’s nests, etc., slaves according to a new formulation that arose over the fight between christians and muslims?
the displays of gold artifacts got me thinking along the lines of what you’ve pointed out, now: that the definition of wealth is posession of land. what was it before? it seems wealth was portable: posession of prestige items and products such as china, gold vessels and jewelry, etc. a throwback to a more nomadic lifestyle, perhaps? a relatively unpopulated area and the kinds of things that created wealth -bird’s nests, beeswax, gems, whatever- may have made titular ownership of land irrelevant economically. but the fruits of the land, so to speak, were obviously concentrated in a few hands. and did those hands maintain their stranglehold by coercion or a social contract? a hereditary leadership is by nature one that operates on the principle of entitlement; from the little i know the only obstacle to inheriting power was direct challenge -but who could do the challenging? another faction of notables, perhaps, but not, say, an indentured servant?
and you point out the means by which vast estates were acquired, the spanish system by which someone could lay claim to tracts of wilderness, though the question is whether it was really wilderness (weren’t there people living there? if not, could it be the area became depopulated due to war, famine and disease in the early days of conquest, resettlement in towns, etc?) and as you pointed out, the way, once claims are made, that the legal system can perpetuate those claims. to the systems you identified i’d add another, which is, leveraging one’s advantages (say, as a lawyer) to transfer property from say, a penurious client but who owned land, by transfering titles from the grateful client to the lawyer; or through outright fraud.
whether the market can actually sort this out -forcing large landowners to sell either through land reform or simply by bankrputing them as they can’t compete in a modern economy- or extreme means such as proclaiming a year zero and decreeing all land titles originating in spanish times as null and void is the other debate, i guess.
Manolo has turned from a fairly rational person to a classic sophist, i.e. abogado.
He is saying that since the Spanish introduced land titles, their claim to land that they have underwrote should be valid to this day in the P.I. Property is not a crime, I never said it was. Heck if we raided Singapore and Singapore surrendered to us and we imposed some sort of land reform and gave Singaporean land titles to Pinoys, I’d say that’s as legitimate as it could get. Real estate throughout the ages has always been primarily conquered territory. My argument is that Spain don’t rule the Philippines anymore, so why should we respect ownership established during the Spanish era?
MLQ,
In short, John Locke’s view of property is not part of human rights but of a lesser set of rights, those which we respect and government protects for the benefit of peace.
CVJ,
I mean how did you go about looking for them? Google? Search bar here don’t work.
brian,
the basis for land ownership is the torrens system, and the titling system started with those with an advantage nailing down their claims by means of titles. from those titles, in turn, have derived the property ownership of anyone who owns land, including people who never owned land in the 1890s or even the 1990s etc. if you simply decree the non-recognition of land ownership based on claims dating back to spanish times, you also wipe out the claims of those who subsequently bought land. that is what has people in caloocan in hysterics, for example, because one claim on another mother title would in turn put all those who subsequently bought land in jeopardy, as far as their titles are concerned.
what is taking place is a more enlightened approach to land that goes beyond what one has grabbed, one can enjoy in perpetuity, because the circumstances surrounding the acquisition are now being taken into consideration as well as realizing how largescale ownership (i mean, many people owning land instead of a few owning vast tracts) is beneficial to society as a whole. this has the large landowners in hysterics in turn, remember hortencia starke threatening a revolt in the visayas over land reform? at the time i remember arguing with college friends from bacolod, etc, who sneered at land reform because according to one, “the land was nothing until we brought people there to farm our land,” which was precisely why those who’d been doing the actual farming ought to have their land after the hacenderos had already extracted generations of wealth from it, and ought to at least move on to commerce and industry, etc. etc.
and there’s ancenstral domain as a concept for tribal minorities who have entirely different concepts of land ownership and use.
what i’m disputing is not the injustice you’re pointing out, but how your wholesale solution would imperil many other people, too. and also, then we ought to scrap the entire legal system build on the napoleonic code as brought here via spain, etc. etc.
For reference, here are some Property and Social Reform Milestones in other countries:
USA
1861 to 1865: (Civil War) break up of Southern plantations,
1862: Homestead Act.
Japan
1862-1869: Meiji Restoration elimination of the Samurai class.
~1870 onwards: Oligarch led land-reform.
1946-1950: Land Reform under US Occupation.
South Korea
1945 to 1950: “The Korean government carried out a reform whereby Koreans with large landholdings were obliged to divest most of their land. A new class of independent, family proprietors was created.” (Source: Wikipedia)
China
1949: Warlords and oligarchs were kicked out of the Mainland. Start of collective land ownership.
1978: The use of the land was contracted out to individuals or families or small groups.
Taiwan
1949 to 1953: The same warlords who were kicked out from Mainland implement land reform to prevent the same thing from happening to them in Taiwan.
As can be seen above, the pattern of ‘property reform -> social equality -> industrialization‘ is a time tested one and needs to be considered in that ‘other debate’ (which has been dragging for some time now). In the meantime, for other countries, the debate itself has moved on to issues of intellectual property and control of the ‘commons’ where the similar pattern of enclosure & inequality is being carried out by those who can.
Manolo,
You don’t see the relationship between illegitimate land ownership, even that which goes under my definition, to the failed and failing Agrarian Reform?
The Conjuangcos, one can argue, don’t believe in property rights. What they believe is that if they think they own the property and have the power to protect that ownership, they own it legitimately
Just to add. ” “the land was nothing until we brought people there to farm our land,—
They all say that. They’ve all been brainwashed by their parents.
Correction and clarification on my comment above (at 5:12 pm) regarding the phrase ‘break-up of plantations’. This does not mean that the Confederacy’s [cotton] plantations were divided. Rather, a more accurate description would be the loss of power of the slave-owning/planter class and the greater dominance of the industrialists as described, among other places, here:
Source: http://www.wapedia.mobi/en/Slavery_in_the_United_States
Brian (at 5:04 pm), i just use Google.
The Philippine government continually gets stuck in its negotiations with the MILF precisely because of the issue of ancestral domain.
For the Bangsamoro, Ancestral Domain means:
“all lands and areas, including the environment and natural
resources therein of the Bangsamoro people, established
through occupation, possession and dominion since time
immemorial, by cultural bond, customary law, historic rights
and legal titles.â€Â
The historical and legal bases for this claim the Bangsamoro people identify as
follows:
• “Bangsamoro treaties with Spain and other foreign powers;
• International law and conventions;
• Customary adat law and Islamic law and jurisprudence, and
other historical documents during the Philippine and American
colonial periods.â€Â
• The Bangsamoro people maintain that historically, neither Spain nor the United States of America ever really took physical possession of the Bangsamoro territories under the Sulu and Maguindanao sultanates. It is understood to mean that the Bangsamoro were never conquered, and therefore were a free and sovereign people.
The Bangsamoro people likewise maintain that the Sultanate territories of Mindanao and Sulu were never subjugated by Spain. For this reason, their inclusion in the sale of the Philippines by Spain to the United States in the 1898 Treaty of Paris was immoral and illegal.
Those claims are mighty fierce and I don’t know how many non-Muslim Filipinos would go along with that. Anyway, that only illustrates how difficult and complicated land claims can be.
Furthermore, the Bangsamoro people claim as ancestral domain the Bangsamoro homeland,by their reckoning consisting of the entire Mindanao mainland, Basilan, Sulu archipelago, and parts of Palawan. This is the TERRITORY that the Bangsamoro people assert they gradually lost and are continuing to lose to force, subtlety, institutionalized fraud, stealth, and deception and which they now seek to reclaim.
The MILF also will NOT accept a plebiscite. The MILF will not listen to the votes/sentiment of the peoples residing in Mindanao (nor Palawan).
My perception is that the MILF is setting the stage for resumption of war. The MILF presents their demands as non-negotiable andn the MILF’s disregard of the sentiments and rights of the peoples currently residing in Mindanao is unacceptable intransigence.
“In short, John Locke’s view of property is not part of human rights but of a lesser set of rights, those which we respect and government protects for the benefit of peace.” — BrianB
Nope. John Locke’s definition of property is not just “property” as we know it. It covers an individual’s right to his own life, to liberty or freedom and his possessions or estate. Life, liberty, property — or just property in short, one and the same.
You’re right Madonna. Labor means property and labor precedes government, according to Locke. The fruits of man’s labor is only his and he can dispose of it in any manner. I got it the other way around, having gone to Wikipedia and saw this: “Locke is considered the first of the British Empiricists, but is equally important to social contract theory.”
Property as the Divine right of man to own the fruit of his labor, though, is not similar to life and liberty. Though what I find fascinating and remember about Locke (I’ve only truly read Human Understanding and not one more book of Locke’s) is how his theory of property justified the accumulation of wealth as long as one avoids wastage, i.e. the accumulation of gold, money and other imperishable property.
Though can you explain why you think John Locke’s theory of property is relevant. I’ve been reading up on him for about an hour and seems that the Divine right of man to own the fruit of his labor inasmuch as nothing goes to waste is very far from what you believe: property right is a human right.
If Locke were alive today and this is what he wrote:
“t is plain, that men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth, they having, by a tacit and voluntary consent, found out, a way how a man may fairly possess more land than he himself can use the product of, by receiving in exchange for the overplus gold and silver, which may be hoarded up without injury to any one; these metals not spoiling or decaying in the hands of the possessor. This partage of things in an inequality of private possessions, men have made practicable out of the bounds of society, and without compact, only by putting a value on gold and silver, and tacitly agreeing in the use of money: for in governments, the laws regulate the right of property, and the possession of land is determined by positive constitutions.”
He would be aghast on how people used his theory t justify greed. Gold and silver (money) were the perfect properties in that they are imperishable, and accumulation of money avoids waste. So, people with billions in the bank are only practicing their divine right to own the “fruits o f their labor” and because we al are “tacitly agreeing in the use of money: for in governments, the laws regulate the right of property, and the possession of land is determined by positive constitutions.”
I mean using the same meaning of property that John Locke used when applied to, say, a hacienda, doesn’t make any sense. Wouldn’t you say the Sakadas are “owned”? They have to work in order to eat. They cannot leave because leaving takes money. When Locke formulated that no man can own another because only a man can truly own himself he didn’t think of the fact that some men can “trick” other men into owning them.
So why do you subscribe to Locke’s theory on property?
BrianB,
“When Locke formulated that no man can own another because only a man can truly own himself he didn’t think of the fact that some men can “trick†other men into owning them.”
Of course he says, like Hobbes that men are predisposed to being selfish. But unlike Hobbes, he says man are rational beings and would more or less be guided by reason — one will be sated by consumption, although one can own as much as his labor permits him. Yes, money being the measure of the fruits of one’s labor and the accumulation of it — money theory — sorry I have to read more on this (the only work by Lock I’ve really read and absorbed in full is the Two Treatises of Government).Perhaps our resident economist, HVRDS can fill in here. Locke was also an economist and actually his ideas had been the foundation of modern day market capitalism — and Marx actually refuted him on his theory of property.
But anyhoo, I subscribe to his property concept because he props it up substantially and rationally. His theory on the state on nature, state of war, and on to formation of government. All logically sound. He also says that one not only has a right to revolt if one is living under an oppressive government but has an obligation to reinstate property rights under natural law — namely that oppression one individual by another is unnatural.
How can I not subscribe to his theory of property? LOL. He says property under natural law precedes government and everyone is born free and equal. One cannot even enslave even oneself — so how can one enslave another? Just my beliefs and of course it pays that a political philosopher has expressed and put forth clearly a conceptual structure that we all refer to now.
“for in governments, the laws regulate the right of property, and the possession of land is determined by positive constitutions.â€Â
Ok. I guess this will have to refer to his theory that people form civil societies and governments so that their “property” will be protected which are always in danger under what he calls a state of nature — because since men are all equal and free, all become judges of what rightly belongs to him or her, hence from a state of nature, it slides into a state of war. Under a government, a set of rules or constitution adjudicate promulgated by the people under a legislature — this is what is meant by “laws” regulate property — to settle disputes.
thanks. The way he uses the word “property” is almost similar in concept to a monad. Hence, all human justice begins with “property” and hence every man is his own property and so on. Doesn’t really apply.
right to property doesn’t mean automatic ownership of a thing. it simply means one’s entitlement to acquire “title” to it through the recognized modes of acquisition, namely, discovery and occupation (capture), succession (including gifts, bequests and inheritance), sale or exchange, or in the case of chattels, production or fabrication. no one becomes an owner of a piece of land simply by being born. once acquired, title can be lost either by abandonment (and someone else acquiring the title through adverse possession for a certain continuous period of time), voluntary alienation, or government forfeiture.
i believe “ancestral domain” is not a viable claim of ownership for purposes of defeating rights lawfully established and maintained for generations. under philippine law, a torrens title is indefeasible by adverse possession or claim.
Land in precolonial Philippines may not have been communally “owned” as we have been led to believe. Consider for example, an essay by Fernando Nakpil Zialcita in “Reflections on Philippine Culture and Society: Festschrift in Honor of William Henry Scott.” Since my copy of the book is in storage, here instead is a summary of the essay by Bernardita Reyes Churchill:
“Picking up from conversations with Scott on notions of property among non-Hispanized Filipinos, Fernando N. Zialcita reexamines Spanish chronicles and concludes that sixteenth century non-Hispanized Filipinos actually owned land privately and that landlordism did exist among those practicing sedentary agriculture. Zialcita proposes to rethink widely held views about precolonial communalism, as well as the impact of Western colonialism.”
While slavery — either through indenture or, classically, through conquest in “just wars” — did exist in precolonial Philippines and during the early years of the Spanish colonial period, it was eventually abolished through the efforts of no other than Spanish missionaries. And who resisted their efforts? Why no other than the indigenous, precolonial “elite.” Slavery in the “Sulu Zone” was hardly of the “cultural” or “religious” variety (which are hardly any better for the enslaved), it was thoroughly modern (well, not quite) and tied up with what at that time amounted to a global economy.
I suppose the “Black Legend” regarding Spain and her colonies persists to this day. How could it not when even the Spanish-mestizo Andres Bonifacio was one its avowed believers? But how Spanish was landholding in, say, 19th century Philippines? The landowners were rarely Spanish — there were so few of them around in the first place — even though their descendants may have “whitened up” through strategic marriages. And the means by which land was acquired and by which the products of the land were sold had more to do British, American, and French traders and lenders than with Spanish oppressors.
What Spanish colonialism did, in part, however, informs many efforts to seek justice for the Filipino dispossessed. For Spanish colonialism brought the inhabitants of Filipinas into the orbit of certain cherished, Western, universals — “rights”, “property”, “justice,” even the very concept of “humanity” — and it is that legacy, a legacy that drowns out “our own” sense of things, that we should also acknowledge.