Monthly Archives: November 2010

Filipinos and Freemasonry

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Filipinos and Freemasonry

by Manuel L. Quezon III

Talk for the Annual 2010 Multi-District Convention for All Masonic Lodges in the Philippines

Plaridel Masonic Temple, San Marcelino St., Manila

November 27, 2010

FREEMASONS, n.  An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremonies and fantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II, among working artisans of London, has been joined successively by the  dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces all the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming up distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of Chaos and Formless Void.  The order was founded at different times by Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confucius, Thothmes, and Buddha.  Its emblems and symbols have been found in the Catacombs of Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and the Chinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in the Egyptian Pyramids -always by a Freemason. —Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Today Masonry is viewed as a civic organization not very different from the Rotary Clubs and Kiwanis to which these Masons may, in fact, belong to as well. And yet there was a time -not so distant at that, as we will soon see- when Masons and Freemasonry were viewed with alarm in certain quarters, not just in the Philippines, but throughout Europe as well.

The Catholic Church, for one, has, since the 18th century, condemned Freemasonry, and subjected Masons to the most severe ecclesiastical sanctions. The latest revision of Canon Law undertaken during the reign of Pope John Paul II retains the penalty of automatic excommunication for any Catholic who becomes a Mason. This is a relic of the acrimonious relationship between Catholicism and Freemasonry which continues to have repercussions up to the present.

Other groups have persecuted Masons in their time: Napoleon detested them (although his brother Joseph was a Mason). Hitler loathed them; indeed dictators in general have displayed an aversion if not outright hostility to Masons.

For Freemasonry carries with it a mystique accumulated over the centuries, historical baggage which has amused skeptics like Ambrose Bierce, and delighted aficionados of conspiracy theory and mysticism verging on the occult. The phenomenal success of Umberto Eco’s novel, Foucalt’s Pendulum , an intricate tale of secret societies, from the Knights Templar to the Rosicrucians to the Ilumminati and (naturally) Freemasonry, attests to this. The only other organization which has as strong a grip on the popular imagination are the Jesuits, the traditional nemesis of Masonry.

The traditional view is that Freemasonry is a global conspiracy, which has taken on an antireligious character. It is viewed as a shadowy organization which aims to infiltrate the corridors of power, all the better to facilitate the rise into prominence of fellow Masons, to the exclusion of all others. The governing elites of entire countries -France, the United Kingdom, to name just two examples- are said to be dominated by Masons, and the same thing used to be said of the Philippines.

No wonder then that Freemasonry remains a favorite subject for speculation, from the alleged murder of Pope John Paul I in the book In God’s Name , to a journalistic expose of Masonic domination of the British police and legal system in The Brotherhood. But speculation as to whether Masonry is a “secret society” -or “a society with secrets”- overlooks a central fact, which should rapidly demolish any attempts to portray Masonry as a global conspiracy. Masonry is not an organized global movement. There are individual Masons who belong to autonomous Masonic lodges which may be linked to other lodges within the same country; but there is no world-wide super body that gives orders to the different national lodges.

So what is Masonry? Is it what the Masons claim it is -a fraternal society with secrets, a civic entity with benevolent aspirations? One among civic organizations which undertake philanthropic tasks? You would find it impossible to convince conspiracy theorist sthat this is so. The truth is that the average citizen pays no more attention to it than it does to the fraternities that are so prominent in the public’s consciousness. No one pays more particular attention to Masonic symbols, the ubiquitous compass-and-straight-edge, displayed on the vehicles of some Masons, than they to to say, a Rotary International sticker or Toastmaster’s sign.

This nonchalant attitude is, after centuries of hysteria, quite welcome, but it is as misplaced as the paranoia that used to accompany the mere mention of the word “Mason”. For what sets Masonry apart from other fraternal organizations -indeed, what made it worth the while of various governments to expend energy arresting Masons- are ideals it espouses, best summarized by the glorious motto of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. The Enlightenment ideals of our very own Propagandists and Revolutionaries. Over the past two centuries Masons have been the proponents, and then the guardians, of Enlightenment thinking; Rationalist, Deist, essentially Democratic and always stressing Political Compromise. No surprise then that it has often been at the vanguard of resistance to absolutist regimes, including the totalitarian regimes of the recent past. Masons were active in the French and American revolutions; they were prominent during the long process of the reduction of the governing powers of British sovereigns; they were central figures in the attempts to establish a more liberal regime in Spain, and were still persecuted during the time of Generalissimo Francisco Franco; they helped undertake the Risorgimiento which finally united Italy and which, ironically, forced the Catholic Church, through the elimination of its temporal power, to reassess itself and make itself once more a potent force in word affairs because of its strictly religious prestige. And Masons were central figures in the long campaign to secure independence for the Philippines in war and peace.

Freemasonry’s origins in the Philippines are traced to Spain, but masonry as it exists today owes little to Spain, its present-day characteristics and existence being linked to American freemasonry. After the defeat of the First Philippine Republic by the forces of the United States, and the “pacification” of the country, restrictions on peaceable assembly and private associations were relaxed; Masonry was allowed to flourish since the American regime imposed retained the separation of Church and State accomplished during the Revolution.

The surviving Filipino Masons decided to revive their links to the Gran Oriente Español, the mother lodge which had been headed by Miguel Morayta, and with which most Filipino lodges had been affiliated with during the Spanish regime. The Regional Grand Lodge of the Philippines was created on September 14, 1907, with Felipe Buencamino, Sr. as the first Grand Master.

But there were American Masons, too, and the promptly set up their own lodges; in 1912 the three American lodges united to form the Grand Lodge of the Philippine Islands -which promptly provoked a protest from the Filipino Masons, who pointed out that they had priority of jurisdiction in the country. The result was the decision to fuse the Spanish-oriented Filipino Grand Lodge with the American Scottish Rite Grand Lodge, creating the Grand Lodge of the Philippine Islands. This was in 1917. By 1918, the unified Grand Lodge was headed by a Filipino, with Filipinos and Americans alternating as Grand Masters thereafter.

The Japanese Occupation was marked by the suppression of Masonry by the Japanese Military Government, while Masonry contributed its own martyrs to the cause of the war effort, most notably Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos, a past Grand Master. The Scottish Rite Temple on Taft Avenue, which had been confiscated by the Japanese, who had destroyed the Masonic paraphernalia and records kept there, was heavily damaged during the Battle of Manila in 1945, resulting in the loss of even more documents.

Freemasonry was reestablished, however. In 1950, the Grand Lodge of the Philippine Islands became autonomous from Scottish Rite Freemasonry in the United States. The Supreme Council for the Philippines was recognized by the Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, which had formerly had jurisdiction over the Philippine lodges. Soon after the Supreme Council for the Philippines was renamed Grand Lodge of the Philippines.

These were the antecedents of Scottish Rite Freemasonry in the Philippines today; but as to the origins of Masonry itself…

It is ironic that what began as a medieval Catholic guild eventually became the object of Catholic ire. Masonry is called masonry because it was once a Catholic trade guild for the stone masons who were engaged in building the great Cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Stonemasons were considered an elite with special skills, who lived an itinerant existence according to where projects were available; it is said that part of the mysticism and mysteriousness of Masonic institutions was derived from the stonemasons’ efforts to keep their guild exclusive.

These stonemasons gathered in “lodges,” a word which has been traced back to the year 1277.  But by the late 16th century, the age of the great Gothic cathedrals had passed; stonemasons’ lodges became an anachronism, representing a dying craft.

Then, in Scotland, non-masons began to be accepted in the lodges. The name of this first non-mason, accepted into a lodge, is known -as is the year he joined. He was John Boswell, Laird of Auchinleck, who joined the Edinburgh lodge in the year 1600. By 1646, the English lodges had also begun to accept gentlemen, the first being Elais Ashmole, of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum fame. This was in 1646. By 1670 it seems non-stonemasons outnumbered the masons in the lodges. Soon after that gentlemen began establishing their own lodges, and Freemasonry as we know it now began. The thirty years that followed, leading up to the foundation of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717, saw the development of the characteristics that distinguish Masonry to this day.  The secrets of the society were laid down, as were its rituals and initiations. Its fraternal ideals, which cut across class divisions, emerged, as well -a remarkable development. It also had its political foundations which would endure and contribute to its appeal, in that many of the first gentlemen-masons also supported the rapid reduction in the governing prerogatives of the Kings of England taking place at the time.

Masonry was reorganized along British lines soon after, and then it began to spread to other European nations. Members of the aristocracy became Masons, as did some sovereigns, following the lead of members of the British Royal Family who became Masons. Freemasonry had already entered France in 1718, and the Austrian Empire by 1726 -with the Emperor Joseph II and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart being two prominent early Masons. Spain had lodges by 1728, the American Colonies had theirs by 1731, and within the next six years Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and parts of Germany had Masonic lodges too. Between 1743 and 1776, Masonry would be established in Scandinavia, the Canadian colonies, Finland and Luxembourg.

In Protestant countries, Masonry flourished, as it continues to flourish, there being no incompatibility in the views of Protestant clergymen, between the tenets of Masonry and their religion -to this day many members of the Anglican church are Masons.

But in Catholic countries the Catholic Church and Catholic principalities eventually opposed Masonry. While a Catholic, the Duke of Norfolk, had had no problem in becoming the tenth Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England, by 1738 no Catholic could become a Mason without incurring condemnation by the Church -partly as a response to the number of Catholic prelates who had joined Freemasonry.

In Countries where the union of Church and State was particularly firm, it was inevitable that Church policy would be adopted as the policy of the State. This is what happened in Spain -and as Spain went, so did its little backwater of a colony, the Philippines. Even more virulently so.

On December 2, 1956, during the Second National Eucharistic Congress in Manila, President Ramon Magsaysay read an act consecrating the Philippines to the Sacred Heart. He simply reiterated the consecration of the Philippines to this popular devotion undertaken by then Vice-President Fernando Lopez in 1950 -but his action provoked a storm of protest.

One of those who objected to Magsaysay’s action, an Evangelical leader named Dr. Gumersindo Garcia, said, “In accordance with the principle of the separation of Church and State, the President of this country should not give preference or favor to any particular Church.” Two young leaders came to their President’s defense. Senator Soc Rodrigo said the President was acting as a private individual, while Raul Manglapus maintained that it was wrong to take the separation of Church and State to mean that a private individual was not entitled to publicly display his faith.

The protest to Magsayay’s act was joined by the Philippine Independent Church and the Philippine Federation of Christian Churches. But a citizen’s group, called “The Spirit of 1896,” headed by Judge Guillermo Guevara, joined the fray.   As the lines of battle were drawn, another thing became apparent: this was as much a fight between generations as anything else. The point of separation between the views of  elder Filipinos, as represented by Judge Guevara, and the perspective of outstanding young leaders such as Soc Rodrigo and Raul Manglapus, was  the proper role of the Catholic Church in a secular state.

Judge Guevara’s generation would have remembered that less than twenty years earlier,  President Quezon had deliberately absented himself from the country in order to avoid participating in the International Eucharistic Congress held in Manila in 1937, explaining that “as President of the Philippines, I am not in a position to do what your program calls for.” He also declined to petition the Pope to appoint a Filipino archbishop of Manila (the Archbishop then was Michael O’Dougherty, who would prove to be the last foreign archbishop), saying that this would constitute a violation of the separation of Church and State.

They would have remembered, too, that a campaign begun by the Catholic Church, to allow religious instruction in public schools, bore fruit when the National Assembly passed an Act authorizing religious instruction -by any denomination- as an acceptable alternative to a new course on character building, good manners and right conduct mandated by the same Act. The bill was promptly vetoed by Quezon, resulting in a pastoral letter criticizing the executive action, and something of a tiff between the Palace and the bishops.

Memories of the squabble over the Religious Instruction bill certainly could account for the alacrity with which the restoration of religious instruction in public schools was met. In 1953 administrative charges were filed against Secretary of Education Cecilio Putong and three others “for allegedly intending to sabotage the religious instruction provision” of the Administrative Code. During the investigation that ensued (Putong would be absolved after a presidential inquiry), it was maintained that religious instruction in the schools was being “sabotaged” by, among other things (as stated in one complaint), religion classes were being held beside the room where the school band was practicing. Not a good way to keep the students’ attention, particularly when the rooms were divided by a sawali wall.

It was alleged that Putong was part of a committee aimed at “the elimination of religious instruction in public schools.” Grandmaster Emilio P. Virata was quoted as having said that,

“At present we have a law permitting religious instruction in public schools. There is a strong movement to make this instruction compulsory. This I take as a violation of our Constitution and I urge everyone of you to use all your power and influence to not only to frustrate this movement but also to have the religious instruction law repealed.”

For the next couple of years it seemed that the Propaganda Movement was alive again. Cries of Masonic conspiracy were raised, for it was true that Masons figured prominently in attempts to enforce a strict definition of the separation of Church and State. But it was also true that the issue was also important to non-Masonic groups, such as the Evangelicals (the case of the Philippine Independent Church was a special one, for it had always had friendly ties with the Masons as some of its clergy were Masons themselves).

Then in the summer of 1955, Secretary of Education Gregorio Hernandez issued Department Order No. 5 which allowed religious instruction to be carried out during the school session of public schools,  instructing religious instructors to hand in their grades to school principles, and furthermore giving principals the discretion to take the grades into consideration in appraising the conduct of children. The order was challenged by a parent, who challenged a principal’s request for his child’s grade in religious instruction. The case reached the Supreme Court, which dismissed the case because, it pointed out, the parent had authorized his child’s taking religion classes, thus making the option requested in writing by the parent obligatory -you could not request something and then wriggle out of its consequences afterwards. Nonetheless, the case did result in a further clarification of the implications optional religious instruction in public schools had on this Constitutional principle.

More skirmishes lay ahead;  The famous fight lead by Claro M. Recto (not a Mason) and Jose P. Laurel (a Mason) to make Rizal’s novels mandatory reading in all schools; also Recto’s reaction to what he perceived to be illegitimate religious pressure exerted on the electorate by the Catholic clergy in the elections of 1953 and 1955. Recto even suggested, in an article in The Lawyers Journal (1958) that a Constitutional amendment be passed to further clarify the definition of the separation of Church and State in the Constitution.

You may be puzzled over all this hubbub over religious instruction, and may wonder about its significance today in an age when the Filipino people gave John Paul II the biggest audience in history, and when Filipino leaders and politicians regularly invoke religious authorities to support their candidacies; never before, it seems, has religion played such an important role in national politics -with the implication that the old, strict definition of the Separation of Church and State is obsolete.

But just as Masonic influences are evident everywhere -from the equilateral triangle in our flag and the seal of the president of the Philippines- so are the anticlerical feelings of the Propagandists deeply ingrained in many people’s psyches.

But from the grand vista of our political history, let me focus on the emerging crisis confronting all organizations built on fraternal ties and a strong civic sense. Many Freemasons are also members of fraternities; the Craft may be preeminent in their lives but it is also an aspect of their membership in clubs.

Clubs are one of the few institutions that have an institutional memory, and which cherishes traditions. They are organizations that serve, for their members, as part of the bedrock of society. I’ve long pointed out that our society, at least for the upper classes, and the middle class which tries to copy the upper class, is defined by three institutions. They are, church, club, and school.

All these institutions require a rite of passage. For Christians, your initiation into the religion begins with baptism. For schools, you have ceremonies to mark your passage from grade school to high school and when you finish college. For clubs, they invariably mark the acceptance of new members with some sort of ceremony, which at times requires some sort of hazing.

There’s a reason behind the existence of clubs, and their rituals. And it has something to do with a freedom Filipinos take freedom for granted. The freedom of association. As well as associations being a means to exercise not only freedom, but gain influence.

Filipino Sociologist Randy David has long been arguing, that our society is undergoing a crisis of modernity. The crisis comes out of our traditional values turning out to be incompatible with our aspirations to be modern. Modernity, as David pointed out, means institutions that operate according to impartial rules.

For example, what should matter more, merit or connections? What happens, when connections end up putting a few people ahead of the interests of everyone else? You have the crisis in modernity David was referring to.

Knowledge is power. Not only what you know, but who you know, confers power.

This crisis has actually been there for some time. Even if you try to establish a modern institution, the people who make up that institution, often operate to age-old values, and demonstrate behavior drilled into their minds by society.

The comfortable bonhomie of a Lodge is far removed from the days when membership could, literally, cost someone their life. The networking that characterizes much of the interactions that take place in Lodges and in clubs, is, itself, under threat: by new standards of modernity where connections are actually viewed as challenges to meritocracy; and by changes in the behavior of young people.

How many Rotarians, for example, do you know, who find it increasingly difficult to recruit new members, because their children and grandchildren find it more useful to network through FaceBook rather than attend a weekly Rotary luncheon; or who say, they aren’t interested in the Craft because they no longer see the advantages of a fraternal organization in an increasingly globalized world?

These are the challenges ahead: where, on one hand, the sense of civic pride, of historical obligation, both strong motivations for excellence and dedication, are confronted by new notions of what constitutes not only admirable, but useful, behavior. I cannot pretend to know how these challenges will be resolved. I can only say that to confront these challenges is the first step. And one, I am confident, organizations like the Freemasons have the integrity, brainpower, and love of country and of people, to successfully meet.

Thank you.

Tying up loose ends: The unfinished official record of the Commonwealth of the Philippines

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Tying up loose ends: The unfinished official record of the Commonwealth of the Philippines

By Manuel L. Quezon III

(Paper delivered at the 75th Anniversary of the Commonwealth of the Philippines Symposium of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, National Gallery, Manila)

It is a great honor to be asked to share some thoughts with you on this, the 75th anniversary of the inauguration of the Commonwealth of the Philippines.

It was a time of transition – and of evolution. There are two statements Quezon made in private – subsequently published – which to my mind summarizes the evolution taking place not just nationally, or institutionally, but in the individuals tasked with playing a role in that era.

The first dates from 1922, as quoted by Teodoro M. Kalaw, in his autobiography[1]:

“The problem with you is that you take the game of politics too seriously. You look too far behind you and too far ahead of you. Our people do not understand that. They do not want it. All they want is to have the present problem solved, and solved with the least pain. That is all.”

The second was an observation recorded in Francis Burton Harrison’s diary in 1938, in the second year of the Commonwealth[2]: “The people care more for good government than they do for self-government… the fear is that the Head of State may either exceed his powers, or abuse them by improprieties. To keep order is his main purpose.”

This was an observation pregnant with meaning, and rife with opportunities for debate, indicating, as it did – and does – which of the two contending attitudes reflects the true nature of our society when it comes to civic and political participation, and their expectation of our leaders: do we naturally gravitate, to borrow Sergio Osmeña’s term, toward a “directing class,” or is the challenge before us that posed by a society stifled by a leadership which itself acts and rules like an alien power?

Or is this an alien dichotomy in itself, which owes more to colonial notions than anything else?

I have argued for some time that if we want to understand the Commonwealth of the Philippines – what it was, and where it was headed – we must look to our Asian neighbors. Specifically, we must look to those nations that achieved independence in a similar manner: by negotiation, and without resort to a war of independence.

But first we must dispense with what can only be called Revolutionary Envy, an ideological affliction that has colored the approach to this period of our national development, with increasing intensity, since the 1960s. Its origins lie in the great national trauma of the Second World War and the Japanese Occupation; it grew and came to be endemic in the great confrontation between Left and Right during the Cold War; and to be sure, all these had its origins during the period under consideration itself – the Commonwealth.

Revolutionary Envy presupposes that the only authentic expression of sovereignty and independence is to seize it by force; that everything else is a sham; that the Jacobin and the Bolshevist, on one hand, are the only truly Enlightened Ones: though their mortal enemies on the Right insist that they have it wrong, and that if rivers of blood must flow, it must be the blood of the enemies of property and not those labeled as Class Enemies.

Both sides believe in force and in the elimination of certain categories of people to establish a utopia maintained by the ruthless application of force. Both share contempt for negotiation, for compromise, for evolution, and liberal democracy. Both sides believe that a country that evolves is inferior – in terms of its institutions and the people tasked with turning those institutions into productive tools for achieving social justice, development, and peace – to countries that have been forged in the crucible of revolution.

As Rigoberto Tiglao recently wrote, “my friends and I had often speculated that our problem as a nation—in contrast to Indonesia, Korea and Vietnam through its fierce internecine wars, and even the US through its civil war—is that we never really went through episodes when blood really flowed, which forces a citizen to cherish his nation.”[3]

Therefore there is envy of the achievements of Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh, or of Sukarno and Suharto; all engaged in great purges. I suppose there is something admirable in taking such a clinical approach to entire populations: so many tens of thousands or millions to be excised or amputated from the body politic, so much to be desired in achieving a Bionic Nation.

The organic, or evolutionary reality, mind you, may not be much more palatable either: the strongman rule of Mahathir or Lee Kwan Yew, presiding over cozy one party governments spanning generations and adept at using the law and state power to put critics and the population in their proper, that is, thoroughly subordinate, place.

But it is to these contemporary examples that we must turn, if we are to hazard a glimpse, however shadowy, of what might have been. The Commonwealth as it had evolved prior to World War II would have been a familiar place to any present-day Malaysian or Singaporean or even Thai or even, until recently, Indian politician: a well-entrenched, near-permanent political class, acting in league with big businessmen, assured of generations-old networks of patronage extending from the public to the private sector, subject to the control of a succession of increasingly elderly, but durable, peers who rose to rule the roost.

All could claim the outward appearances of the institutions operating to the rule of law, couched in the language and invoking the rituals of the colonizer; all could –and did, and do- claim to be authentic expressions of values the colonizer attempted to inculcate by means of the educational system; all would –did, and do- claim to be finding ways to transform these into more authentic expressions of their native culture. And all –did, and do- bristle at being challenged on these assertions by their former colonizers and their own intelligentsia.

As Al McCoy once asked, was there any difference from Quezonian caudillismo and the rajah pretensions of the Marcosian New Society? He put forward his own answer, but let me propose another.

The difference is fundamental but little noticed: the deliberate mentorship of successors by the former and the studious elimination of all possible successors by the latter.

On the eve of World War II, Quezon had engineered a three cornered fight between three putative successors: his vice president, Osmeña; his candidate for the newly-restored Senate Presidency, Yulo; and the man he eventually anointed his successor, Roxas. The eldest, Osmeña, had every reason to expect to succeed to the presidency in 1943, as Quezon retired to the wings, knowing by then which of his two protégés, Yulo and Roxas, would gravitate to Osmeña as all prepared for what would surely have been a great showdown in 1945 to determine who would become the first president of the independent republic.

This included the possibility that the eventual winner would not be one of the dueling duo of Quezon or Osmeña, but someone else –one groomed to be a successor. In that sense, Quezon arguably had more foresight, perhaps by force of physical circumstances: like Mohammed Ali Jinnah of Pakistan, who was also afflicted by tuberculosis, the ambition to be the father of his country literally consumed him. Osmeña never focused, as keenly, on grooming protégés, much less anointing any possible successors.

On the eve of martial law, Marcos was preparing the opposite: to perpetuate himself by force of arms and not by means of political maneuver or any –however brief- respite from office. And he proceeded to incarcerate his potential successors, none of whom could be considered his protégés: he probably feared outright persecution from Ninoy Aquino and could not have been too keen on the blander prospects of Gerry Roxas, either.

Here enters one thread that may be worthy of exploration, in order to unravel just how long a thread it may be. The question of confidence, of optimism shared between populace and presidents. There have been times when public confidence was, arguably, prevalent, in contrast to more protracted periods of national self-doubt and even defeatism. For the sake of argument let us propose them as the period of the Revolution and the First Republic; the Commonwealth; the brief administration of Magsaysay; it was attempted, possibly even merely simulated, during the New Society, and flowered all too briefly in the immediate aftermath of Edsa Revolution.

Since today is about the Commonwealth, let me briefly point out that if one accepts the Commonwealth as a period of optimism, with its ambitious nation-building programs of Social Justice, National Defense, Economic Planning and the more controversial Partyless Democracy (interestingly, still debated in India), then what happened to that optimism should be worthy of exploration.

This brings us to the inevitable question of trying to determine just what place the Commonwealth should occupy in the development –or lack of it- of our nation, its people, and their institutions. In Singapore I proposed[4] that the preoccupation of leaders such as Quezon, at the time independence seemed nigh, was what would serve as a rallying cause once the independence movement bore fruit.

As it turned out, this was followed by the obsession over Communism, and the question of social order and material progress. In that lecture, pointing out something our part of the world has only had in common very, very recently –we are the first generation of Southeast Asians to see leaders assume the height of power not having been born during the colonial era- the question confronting those leaders, and us, is a fundamental question of civic, in contrast to cultural, identity. In a globalized world, can the very concept of a nation, a state, have primacy of loyalty or even relevance, to its citizens?

However, returning to the Commonwealth itself, the verdict might be, that what might possibly have been achievable within the full, uninterrupted period preparatory to independence, became not only impossible, because of World War II, but that the looming shadows of war and the national trauma that was the Japanese Occupation, permanently crippled the nation-building project on which the prewar generation had so confidently –even hubristically- embarked[5]. The trauma has been so deep, and so protracted, it has led to what can only be called the perpetual avoidance of opportunity[6] as the default, because less perilous, option for most Filipinos, particularly their leaders.

We should all be wary of ex post facto conclusions –of indicting the past in terms of what could not conceivably have been foreseen, or the tendency to attribute too much foresight to those dealing with day-to-day events of the calamitous kind. To my mind the fairest and most perceptive summary of this period (and those who lived through it) was penned by Randy David[7] and it deserves lengthy quotation:

“Our elders will likely tell us that we have moved backward politically despite the growth of a middle and educated class, and despite the presence of a more informed public. They will say that there was a more reliable and professional civil service in their time, that our leaders behaved like statesmen, and that there was less corruption. They will also say that political parties played a bigger role in politics then than they do today. If they are right, how do we account for this deterioration in the quality of our public life?

“Perhaps we can begin to answer this question by noting that recruitment to leadership roles in Philippine politics up to 1972 was distinctly elitist, controlled by a two-party system dominated by the landed oligarchy. Filipino leaders were conscious of their responsibility as builders of a free nation. They were keen to show the world that Filipinos were capable of governing themselves. A whole generation of Filipino professionals was educated to take over the reins of government. In a sense, that golden period concealed the underlying weakness of our society—the mass poverty and sharp inequalities that reduced most of our people into dependent spectators.

“With the passing of that pre-war generation, the stresses and strains of an underdeveloped society struggling to govern itself democratically began to surface. The old feudal values of restraint and nobility quickly vanished, as the logic of a cash economy prevailed. The intervening martial law period destroyed the political parties. With the return of democracy, the doors to the nation’s political system opened widely, but minus the gate-keeping role of political parties. Gone is the goal of nation-building. The result has been the steady depreciation of politics and governance. We are in transition. We can neither return to the old nor be content with the present. We have no choice but to re-invent the nation.”

I would only note that the two party system itself was an accident and one not envisioned as an integral part of our politics prior to the outbreak of the war, a tendency and attitude, as I’ve mentioned earlier, many Southeast and even East Asians in their own political milieus would have recognized postwar.

Having put forward my opinions, let me move to the main point I want to put forward today: it is, how the official record of the Commonwealth itself remains unfinished. I will set aside the tricky question, itself worthy of debate, whether such an official record can or should be completed after the fact; obviously you know on which side of the question I stand: for collation and if necessary, completion. Let me argue that even as scholars undertake their exploration of the official and unofficial record, and here the recent work of Cullather[8], Gueraiche[9], and McCoy[10] show how much more there is to explore and propose, there is a need, institutionally speaking, to complete the official record.

From Quezon to Quirino, the Messages of the President[11] series of volumes was published, containing, on the American model, the public papers of the presidents. All executive issuances, laws, and important speeches, statements and other For Quezon, the years 1935-1940 were covered; for Osmeña, as far as can be determined, no such official compilation was ever published; and only one volume for Roxas, published in his lifetime, was prepared; while the Quirino volumes do not include the final year or so, of his administration.

As you can see, for this official series of volumes alone, the situation is problematic. For Quezon, the final period before the outbreak of the war, and the war years themselves, officially speaking, have never been fully compiled. The same applies to Osmeña. Roxas’ official record remains unfinished, too; and the Republic’s situation is even worse: the series of volumes was not continued by Magsaysay or his successors. President Aquino, almost alone of the postwar presidents, had an official compilation of her public papers, but again, the final year was never compiled.

We have proposed to the President, and he has approved, that the Messages of the President series of volumes be restarted, and this includes the long-overdue work of compiling what should be the official papers of each of our presidents. This will, of course, require a massive effort, one that will require the participation of the various foundations that exist covering our former chief executives, not to mention the National Historical Commission, the National Library, and private and public institutions of learning working with the Presidential Museum and Library and the office in which I serve.

The raw material is there, and many editorial decisions that might be problematic –how can a proper determination of documents to be included in the official compilations be made, long after the principals have died? – have actually been solved, and at the time. The Official Gazette, particularly the postwar volumes, contains precisely not only the executive issuances of the presidents, but their statements, selected correspondence, and speeches, as well, together with an official chronicle that serves as the definitive official account of the various administrations: at first monthly (The Official Month in Review) and then, starting with Magsaysay, weekly (The Official Week in Review), until, at least, the proclamation of martial law.

The period of World War II, however, is a problem, due to scarcity of materials –I understand an Official Gazette was published by the government-in-exile[12], but we have yet to find copies- and may require more involved editorial decisions, with the template of the prewar Messages of the President as a guide.

For the postwar years of the Commonwealth, there are rare exceptions when the official record, as published in the Gazette, did not include particular documents, considered classified: the problem, as we have found out, is that the classification endures unless otherwise determined, and procedures are still being proposed for adoption in this regard.

The Gazette, with the onset of martial law, becomes more problematic as a source of documents whose inclusion in the official papers of a president can be deemed properly vetted at the time. At this point it is only a theory, but it seems to me that with the elimination of all institutional checks-and-balances on the presidency, after martial law there was little incentive for the official record to be thorough. I would also add another theory, which is that the period of martial law also coincided with the retirement or dismissal of those who’d served continuously in the Executive Office since the time of the Commonwealth.

However, there were many other compilations of official documents and state papers that should fill in whatever gaps may exist; though this does not solve the problem of identifying and including, secret decrees and other controversial material, even if of an official nature.

But first things first. The modern presidency began with the Commonwealth; whether one likes it or not, the institutional foundations and traditions of the office were put in place in that era and have, remarkably, endured. The official record –the official papers- of an administration gives an insight into what that administration considered important. It summarizes what each administration believed constituted its legacy and, by extension, where it considered itself accountable.

In this regard, I must pay tribute to the tireless efforts of the Presidential Library and Museum, which has completed the encoding of all the executive issuances and other official papers of President Roxas. We are in the process of uploading these in the online edition of the Official Gazette, while another interesting project, the scanning and uploading for public access, of these documents on the Presidential Library and Museum’s forthcoming website, is in the final planning stages.

The absence of a complete and comprehensive record, of a final official compilation of official papers, for the three presidents of the Commonwealth, is a tangible, that is, physical, manifestation of how either scrutiny or judgment can only be provisional so long as these compilations remain incomplete. This cannot be done overnight; yet it can be done with thoroughness and dispatch –and since, institutionally and politically, every era affects the next, we can surely strive to achieve a completeness in this regard, whether or the 85th anniversary of the Commonwealth or the 75th anniversary of our independence in 1946.

Thank you.

[1] Teodoro M. Kalaw, Aide-de-Camp to Freedom, Teodoro M.Kalaw Society, 1965.

[2] Francis Burton Harrison, diary entry for December 23, 1938, in Origins of the Philippine Republic: Extracts from the Diaries and Records of Francis Burton Harrison, Cornell University, 1974.

[3] Rigoberto Tiglao, “Learning from Indonesia,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 10, 2010.

[4] Manuel L. Quezon III, “The future of Asia: Whither Nation or State?”, paper delivered at the Asian Thought Leaders Forum, Singpore on December 3, 2008, accessible online at http://www.quezon.ph/2008/12/03/the-future-of-asia-whither-nation-or-state/

[5] Manuel L. Quezon III, “Elections are like Water,” Perspectives, PCIJ Special Election Issue, May 7, 2004, accessible online at http://www.pcij.org/imag/2004Elections/Perspectives/water.html

[6] Manuel L. Quezon III, “The perpetual avoidance of opportunity,” In Pursuit of the Philippine Competitive Edge: An Oral History of a Continuing Journey by 50 wisdom-keepers, AIM Policy Center, 2007, accessible online at http://www.quezon.ph/2007/12/19/book-chapter-the-perpetual-avoidance-of-opportunity/

[7] Randy David, “Political Change,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 12, 2010.

[8] Nick Cullather, Illusions of influence: The political economy of United States-Philippine relations 1942-1960, Stanford University Press, 1994.

[9] William Gueraiche, Manuel Quezon: Les Philippines de la decolonisation a la democratisation, Maisonneuve & Larose, 2004.

[10] Al McCoy, Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State, University of Wisconsin Press, 2009.

[11] The Presidential Library and Museum identifies the Messages of the President series under Quezon as including the following:

Volume 1:  Speeches, Messages to the National Assembly, Addresses, etc. for 1935, EOs 1-7, Procs. 1-17, Commonwealth Acts 1-19 (1935)

Volume 2 Part 1:  Speeches, etc., EOs 8-75, Procs. 18-118, AOs 1-29  (1936)

Volume 2 Part 2:  CA 20-232

Volume 3 Part 1:  Speeches, etc. (1937)

Volume 3 Part 2:  CA 233-253, EOs 76-137, Procs. 119-242, AOs 30-58

Volume 4 Part 1:  Speeches, etc., EOs 138-179, Procs. 243- 364, AOs 58-84, General Orders 1-4 (1939)

Volume 4 Part 2:  CA 254-412

Volume 5 Part 1:  Speeches, etc., EOs 180-247, Procs. 365-503, AOs 85-116, GOs 5-10 (1940)

Volume 5 Part 2:  CA 413-512

The Roxas volume is not entitled Messages of the President, but Important speeches, messages and other pronouncements of President Manuel Roxas published in 1947.  This collection only includes speeches until May 1947, and important addresses during his tenure as Senate President.  A two-volume compilation was published in 1954, pursuant to RA 345, and entitled Papers, Addresses and Other Writings of Manuel Roxas, with Volume 1 subtitled Speeches, Addresses and Messages as President of the Philippines: January 1946 to February 1, 1947.  The second volume contains speeches until his death on April 15, 1948.  Apparently, this too is incomplete, as it does not

contain papers and other writings.

The first Quirino volume is entitled The New Philippine Ideology published in 1949, and may be considered as Volume VII of the series.  The continuation of the series is entitled Messages of the President, with volumes VIII and IX published in 1950 and 1951, respectively.  The Quirino volumes do not include executive issuances and republic acts.

[12] Elizabeth L. Enriquez, footnote 131 in Chapter 4, Appropriation of Colonial Broadcasting: A history of early radio in the Philippines, 1922-1946, University of the Philippines Press, 2008.