Independence and progress

The “Rise of the East” came after decolonization following the end of World War II. Formerly, almost all the countries of Asia, except Japan, were colonies or semicolonies of Western nations. In the history of the world, the colonies counted for nothing because their political and economic systems were determined by their colonial masters.

The natural resources of the colonies—gold, minerals, lands and seas—were possessed and controlled by the colonial masters. So were the labor of the colonial subjects and the fruits of their labor.  All colonies, like individuals who are slaves, are poor, while their lords are rich.

World War II changed all that. The seven-year global carnage weakened the colonial powers except one—the United States.  In the framing of the Atlantic Charter of 1941 in which they laid down their aims for the war, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt prevailed on British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to join him in proclaiming the right of all peoples to “self-determination.”

Roosevelt, one of the greatest of American presidents, was the one who signed the 1934 Tydings-McDuffie Act that promised Philippine independence in 12 years. That Act, unprecedented in colonial history, was the fruit of our forebears’ unceasing fight for independence since the Philippine Revolution of 1896 against Spain, and our self-proclamation of independence on June 12, 1898, in the midst of a ferocious battle against American military conquest.

The Filipino struggle for independence has inspired similar struggles for freedom throughout Asia.  On Oct. 21, 1940, while Malaysia (then called Malaya) was still firmly under British rule, the radical Malayan newspaper Mailis, in advocating Malayan independence, editorialized:

“All the Asian countries had to struggle to achieve their freedom against western powers … The Philippine Revolution was a good example of struggle to get rid of the colonial power.  We should follow the footsteps of our brothers, who were willing to sacrifice their lives for their own freedom.” (From a paper submitted by Prof. Ramlah Adam of the University of Malaya to the International Conference on the Centennial of the 1896 Revolution in Manila)

With independence attained after 450 years of colonial subjugation, the Filipinos reasonably expected to finally enjoy prosperity as they would now be in full control of their natural and human resources, and be free to make their own policies.  But it was not to be.

While our neighbors, like China, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Brunei and South Korea prospered after gaining their independence —crossing the threshold of the economically advanced societies of Europe and the Americas—we have stayed out in the cold, still holding the proverbial begging bowl for aid and instruction.

We are told that we have failed economically because of corruption.  But other countries have the same problem.  China, a former semicolony, has not gotten rid of corruption, which daily hits the headlines, but this did not stop that nation, once the world’s beggar, to become the world’s second biggest economy.

During the Spanish regime, Filipinos were told that they were poor because they were lazy. Jose Rizal wrote the “Noli” and “Fili” to show that our poverty was due, not to our alleged indolence, but to Spanish colonization.  In his essay, “Indolence of the Filipinos,” Rizal showed that in pre-Spanish colonial times, Filipinos enjoyed flourishing trade, industry and agriculture.

So it is not corruption or indolence that makes the Filipinos today the laggard in economic development in Asia. What then?  Is it because while we have been granted our “independence,” we have not really exercised it?  Is it because while we are nominally free, we have never really believed in the reality and desirability of our freedom and sovereignty?

Our foremost postwar nationalist, Claro M. Recto, famously called this malady “colonial mentality.”  It is that of a slave who, after emancipation, chooses to remain in the bondage of his master.

Stanley Karnow, an American journalist and historian, wrote in his 1989 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “In Our Image, America’s Empire in the Philippines,” that: “Despite its modern trappings … [the Philippines] was still a feudal society dominated by an oligarchy of rich dynasties, which had evolved from one of the world’s longest continuous spans of Western colonial rule.”

Karnow added that the United States had “preserved the archipelago as an agricultural society dependent on the American market. It also perpetuated the power of the Filipino upper class, which derived its wealth from the land.”

On the 116th anniversary of our June 12 Independence Day celebration, 68 years after the grant of independence by the United States, we should ask ourselves why we have failed to reap the benefits of independence, which we can leave as a legacy to our descendants. We also have failed our duty to fulfill the hopes of our forefathers who sacrificed so much for our liberty.

In making this self-examination, we should not flounder in self-deception by believing that the glitter from the high-rise condominiums and luxurious gated communities is the reflection of national reality, and not the murkiness of the sprawling slums, and the hunger and indignity of the humanity that populates them.

Manuel F. Almario ([email protected]) is a semi-retired journalist, and spokesman of the Movement for Truth in History, Rizal’s Moth.