Ikon, Friar, and Conquistador Notes

On Being Filipino Christian

Filipino Christians often question their identity, similar to how saints are aware of their imperfections. A saint who believes they are perfect ceases to be saintly. Christian culture encourages constant self-examination, questioning, and confession.
The paradox of Christianity is achieving selflessness through intense self-awareness. Self-denial requires a strong will and a defined self.
Christian Filipinos are acutely self-conscious, unlike the Igorot and Moro. This isn't about superiority, but a heightened awareness of their flaws. They are uncomfortable when the Philippines is called "the only Christian nation in the Far East" due to the prevalence of negative traits like greed and corruption.
They question religious education and view folk pieties with disdain, seeing the faith as a foreign concept irrelevant to their people.
Some may see this as Christianity's decline, while others view it as ultimate expression of the faith, characterized by humility and unworthiness rather than self-satisfaction.
Even if Christianity disappeared, its influence would remain ingrained in the character of the people. The faith has shaped their thinking, values, and the internal conflict between will and conscience.
Conversion to Christianity is a pivotal event in Philippine history.
Remaining within tribal structures might have brought a different kind of happiness, but Filipinos deny this, believing they would have eventually moved beyond tribalism regardless.
Conversion shattered the tribal structure, leading to the evolution of the individual "I" (soul) and the collective "we" (nation).
Nationalism surpasses patriotism. Lapu-Lapu was a patriot defending his locality, while a nationalist defends a broader, mystical concept of the nation.
Nationalism is hard to instill to a tribesman since their loyalties are limited to their own tribe and territory.
A Christian Filipino will defend distant territories as if they were their own, driven by boundless nationalism.
Tribal loyalty is confined to tribal boundaries; fighting beyond is done as an ally, not for a nation.
The failure of Philippine tribes left to themselves over 400 years to unite suggests that national unity doesn't happen inevitably.
Despite Islam's unifying potential, it failed to unite the Moro tribes in Mindanao.
The Moros, instead of uniting, splintered into numerous sultanates, demonstrating an aversion to large-scale cooperation.
The unification of the rest of the Philippines is a remarkable achievement, considering the diversity of languages and cultures.
The conversion and unification period under Spain is a crucial part of Philippine history.
It's a distortion to omit the 300 years of Spanish influence from Philippine history, similar to how Spanish historians might exclude the Moorish period if it hadn't fundamentally changed Spanish culture.
If Spain had become a Muslim nation due to Moorish influence, a Spanish Muslim historian couldn't ignore that period.
Similarly, a Moro historian couldn't dismiss the arrival of Islam and the conversion of their people as irrelevant.
Rejecting those 300 years is impossible because they shaped the present identity.
Skipping the Spanish period would create an incoherent historical narrative, jumping from warring tribes to a nation fighting for nationhood under Christian and Enlightenment ideals.
The religious, cultural, and political forces during this period are vital and can be represented by the Santo Niño, Friar Urdaneta, and Conquistador Legazpi.
The Santo Niño symbolizes Philippine Christianity, blending pre-colonial and colonial influences. It became a pagan idol, was re-established by Legazpi, and has been nativized in legends.
Within 44 years, the Santo Niño was fully integrated into the culture, with Cebuanos claiming it had been with them since time immemorial.
Legends of its origin include falling from the sky or rising from the sea, both indicative of Philippine origins.
The failure to destroy it symbolizes the resistance of native priestesses during its time as a pagan god.
The integration of pagan rituals into Christian worship exemplifies folk Catholicism, where the Church assimilated and preserved elements of old cults.
Critics of Christianity in the Philippines ironically lament the loss of pre-Hispanic culture while attacking its surviving forms.
Attacking town fiestas means attacking old pagan harvest festivals, which also involved feasts and conspicuous consumption.
Christianity adapted to paganism to reach primitive minds, similar to how it became a magical nature religion in Dark Ages Europe.
To the Gauls, Christ was a powerful witch doctor, not a metaphysical figure. It took centuries for Christian Europe to produce intellectual and spiritual figures like Aquinas and Teresa.
The faith respects human development, with every Christian nation beginning in spiritual infancy.
The Santo Niño willingly became a pagan god, demonstrating the gradual process of spiritual growth.
Some argue that Filipinos were forced into an alien faith.
Early native converts may not have fully understood the faith, but if that argument had stopped the introduction of Christianity into Europe, the world wouldn't have had great works of art and literature.
Assimilation of new cultures isn't easy, but it's essential for progress. Limiting oneself to the familiar would keep humanity in the past.
The Filipino is no more virtuous than before, suggesting the faith had no moral or social effect.
The gradual evolution of the Faith in the Philippines has been revolutionary. The Filipina is not the same as she was in pre-colonial times.
Even Filipinas who romanticize pre-colonial times would not want all the old practices restored.
Comparing Christian and pagan arts reveals a transformation. Static pagan forms were succeeded by dynamic Christian forms.
The Pregnant Woman motif evolved into the Pregnant Virgin, demonstrating a shift from earthbound to liberated spirit.
Philippine folk art records a transfiguration comparable to the shift from classical serenity to Byzantine rapture in Greek art.
Within a century after Magellan, a mystical movement arose in Manila, contemporary with the metaphysical movement in 17th-century Europe.
The lives of native anchorites and contemplatives in beaterios, Third Orders, and confraternities show the Faith's deep impact.
The history of beaterios is the history of the Filipino as Christian, revealing the transformation of the country, society, and character.
Folk artists and mystics provide evidence that Conversion was a significant event.
Conversion is an ongoing process in the souls. In this process, one confronts the friar, who initiated this transofrmation.
The friar played a practical role, not just a missionary one, and can be associated with both the cross and tools of cultivation.
Economically, the friar was a culture hero.
Urdaneta embodies the friar in the Philippines, representing both the cross and the compass. He was Chief Pilot, a Renaissance man, and a man of action and thought.
He abandoned the world for the cloister, then returned to guide Legazpi's armada to the Philippines.
He built the first church, enthroned the Santo Niño, baptized converts, and discovered a safe return route to Mexico.
Only heroic ages produce warrior-priests like Urdaneta.
The Philippines attracted mystic men of action like Franciscan Pedro Bautista and Dominican Francisco de Capillas, who traveled to spread their faith, even dying for it.
The friar shaped our economy by introducing crops like tobacco, maize, cotton, coffee, cocoa, and numerous fruits and vegetables.
Convent yards were plant nurseries where imported seeds were tested and developed.
The friar turned the carabao into a draft animal by introducing the wheel and plow.
This would have made the friar a culture hero like Ceres or Dionysus in other cultures.
The friar could be seen as Parekura, a nature god who brought agriculture, technology, and the arts.
This is our history, not just the history of Spain in the Philippines.
Our entrance into wheel culture, introduction of new crops, rise of native baroque architecture, romanization of script, and native santero art are all part of Philippine history.
The friar had the wheel to do that. They were already building in brick and stone; did any of them care to instruct us in the art? Was a Javanese-style or a Siamese-style temple ever built in the Philippines to serve as model?
International contacts before Magellan did little for the Philippines; trade was passive and exploitative.
Only the Galleons made the country to play an active role in trade, on a global scale, for Manila became the point of exchange between East and West.
Other cultures were wheel cultures but didn't share that knowledge. The friar introduced the wheel, brick and stone architecture, and spice culture.
The Chinese sold us porcelain and silks/fabrics did they at least have the goodness to teach us their ceramic secrets?
The Arabs were then, vis-à-vis Europe, in the position of Russia today vis-à-vis America - that is, the rival culture.Yet what of Arab culture, aside from its faith, ever actually reached us?
All the things that the Javanese and Chinese and Siamese and Arabs could have brought us, could have taught us, we had to wait for Spain and the friar to bring us, to teach us.
Spain's economic impact was disinterested, not aimed at benefiting the mother country. There was no colonial economy tied to Spanish factories and markets.
The Philippines was economically independent when it broke away from Spain, unlike the later economic dependence on the U.S.
The americans introduced into this country not a single crop that may be said to have transformed our economy and affected our history, like the crops that Spain brought. Nor was the existing economy developed save to serve the interests of the American market.
The friar planted crops without considering the mother country, focusing on