Filipino cookies, Rizal toilet paper

A few weeks ago, I received a message asking if I knew of the Spanish toilet paper brand: Rizal. Wasn’t I bothered that Spaniards were wiping their behinds on Rizal? Was this a Spanish insult to our national hero and to all Filipinos? I checked online and found “Papel higiénico celulosa virgen gofrado Rizal Extra.” It had nothing to do with Jose Rizal, it was manufactured by the Sanchez Rizaldos company. Fortunately, this did not go viral like the issue on the Spanish biscuit brand “Filipinos.”

In 2019, the trade secretary was trapped by a reporter who asked him to comment on the “Filipino” biscuits being imported into the Philippines from Spain. Some people took to social media to express that they were offended by the brand name, particularly the “chocolate negro” or dark chocolate type. Others were insulted by the white chocolate version because they said these were “white on the outside and brown on the inside.” I guess the keyboard warriors were born before 1999 when a resolution was filed in Congress urging the Department of Foreign Affairs to lodge a diplomatic protest with the Kingdom of Spain over these allegedly racist and insulting biscuits. Fortunately, then Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon nipped the issue in the bud, replying with this short remark: “Why should we complain [about Filipinos biscuits]? Do Austrians complain about Vienna sausage?” In retrospect, I would have reminded Siazon that the Austrians should complain, tongue in cheek, about the diminutive size of Vienna sausages compared with frankfurters that Germans can brag about.

The trade secretary took the bait in 2019 and commented that Philippine trademark law prohibits using the name of a country or nationality as a trademark. He added that since the cookies were manufactured in Spain, where our trademark laws do not apply, it was a complicated issue. I think someone then reminded him that if he had strolled in a grocery, he would find Argentina corned beef. Then there are staples like pancit canton, chorizo de bilbao, and java rice that do not exist in Canton, Bilbao, or Java. Isn’t this false advertising? Then we have hamburgers, frankfurters, and Vienna sausages. To extricate himself from the issue, the trade secretary concluded by promising he would act on a formal complaint from either the National Commission for Culture and the Arts or the National Historical Commission.

The above controversy and the one that follows stems largely from lapses in K-12 history education. Another social media issue erupted in 2019 over the Spanish-produced animated film “Elcano y Magallanes: La Primera Vuelta al Mundo” that was to be shown in the Philippines under the English title “Elcano and Magellan: The First Voyage Around the World.” Unfortunately, the Philippine distributor edited the movie poster, highlighting “with the Philippines’ very own hero Lapu-lapu” who appears as one of the villains in the film. Twitter erupted with comments like: “Stop depicting colonizers as good guys.” Or “Put this colonialist garbage in the trash.” Reacting to this, the representative from Agusan del Norte asked the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board to “ban the film’s showing or remove certain scenes, as may be warranted, to prevent a possible bastardization of the memory and heroic legacy of Lapu-lapu and his people who first resisted Spanish rule in the Philippines.” People were complaining about a film based on a trailer. There were calls for censorship over a film nobody had seen.

If you take the time to check out the Internet Movie Database or IMDb website, you will see more than the differences in titles. Being a Spanish production, top billing was given to the Spanish Elcano who completed the voyage home rather than the Portuguese Magellan who was killed in Mactan. The Spanish title gave tribute to both navigators, but in the Basque country, the film was known as “Elcano Lehen Mundu Bira” (Elcano’s First World Tour). In Portugal, the film was known as “Uma Aventura nos Mares — A Primeira Viagem de CircumNavegaçao” (An Adventure of the Seas, The First Voyage of Circumnavigation [of the world]). There is no mention of Magellan who, though Portuguese, sailed for the competition, the Spanish king. Nothing is innocent, even in the titling of an animated film. Everything has a point of view regarding the story of the first circumnavigation.

Filipino reactions to these two issues underscore the need for a more nuanced study and understanding of the Spanish colonial period, 1565-1898.

Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu