RIZAL'S MADRID

The Roots of the Ilustrado Concept of Autonomy

Jaime B. Veneracion Ph. D.
Professor of History, UP
Visiting Professor, BSU

Introduction

My paper consists of two parts: the first is a visual presentation of the places in Madrid associated with Rizal and the second, a discussion of the Filipino ilustrado's political notions -- with emphasis on the subject of autonomy.

Rizal's Madrid refers, first of all, to places the national hero frequented with his friends -- his boarding houses, the place of publication of La Solidaridad, places of entertainment and education such as the Ateneo, the Bellas Artes de San Fernando and the University (Colegio de San Carlos), as well as clubs and bars (Los Gabrieles and Viva Madrid) where he whiled his afternoons away. Also within the same district is the Hotel Ingles where he delivered his testimonial to painters Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo in 1884. These are within walking distance of each other in no more than 500 meters radius. Just across the places of residence is the Cortes, the site of a Filipino manifestation in support of autonomy. A bit farther away is the Parque del Buen Retiro of which we learn from Rizal his wounded sentiment on the exhibition of Filipino natives during the 1887 Philippine Exposition.

The slide presentation is therefore putting in geographic context the development of Rizal's ideas. If we know the crowded atmosphere in most of Spanish lodging houses where Rizal had lived, we can have a sense why he, and the Spaniards themselves, spent time outside -- in bars and cafes and in the Ateneo. Forced to live a social life, political discussions could not have been avoided especially since the Cortes was not far from where they had lived. The Cortes was a site of many manifestations witnessed by the ilustrados. There were also people of other nationalities in this crowded environment, among them the Cubans and Puerto Ricans whose stories of their own struggles had contributed to the refinement of the ilustrado's political thought.

The other Rizal's Madrid is more than the place -- it is the Madrid that developed over time. Beyond the facades of buildings are meanings that gain currency through the experiences of people who had fought or got killed there, or even, of celebrations of events that occurred hundred years before. My own attraction to the subject of autonomy and federalism as a political option for the Philippines is a product of my familiarity to its Spanish practice. In spite of the violence that regularly erupts in the Basque region and in Catalonia, regional autonomy is alive and well in Spain. What the propagandists saw in Spain, the local ilustrados implemented in the Philippines during the Revolution (with the Malolos Constitution) . My aim therefore is to put in historical context the Madrid of Rizal, that which represented to Rizal their political struggles for autonomy. A copy of the petition for autonomy is preserved in the Biblioteca Nacional of Madrid.

Historical Context

The fuero is the key concept in understanding the historical context of autonomy. It originated from the Latin "forum," or a place where issues are discussed. Through the years it became literally "the code of rights and privileges" enjoyed by the citizens of a municipality or a region guaranteed and respected by the government. When the Visigoths occupied Spain in the sixth to the seventh centuries, a two-tiered political system emerged -- a law for the Visigothic community and another law for the natives of Hispania. In other words, the various localities maintained their own practices, codified and respected by the occupying barbarian hordes. The respect accorded by the Visigoths to the local custom was both in recognition of the higher level of civilization already attained by their subject people and a strategy also to easily integrate them into their empire. When the Muslims colonized Spain in the 8th century, they likewise respected the fueros or rights enjoyed by the native residents. The various communities followed their respective fueros.

Spain under the kings never achieved a centralized bureaucracy due to the fueros. The privileges could be cancelled only if there were rebellions against authority. Neither had the fueros been cancelled in the colonies. During the time of King Philip II, various edicts were forwarded to colonial governors enjoining them to respect existing rights. This was the reason why the "sandugo" or "blood compacts" were almost always used to legitimize the colonial occupation. The natives would have to accept the foreigners as "brothers" according to the local custom of "sandugo." In addition, much effort had been exerted by the friars in familiarizing themselves with local laws and custom as shown by the assiduous efforts of Fray Juan de Plasencia (Tagalog and Kapampangan custom law) and Ignacio Alcina (study on the Visayas). To top them all, early on in the Spanish occupation, King Philip II directed the holding of elections where natives would have to elect him as their king. Again, the overall intention was to ensure that the new political arrangement (colonial rule) would be consistent with the local practice.

In the 19th century, the fueros had not been lost on the natives of the Philippines. In a document I discovered at the Philippine National Archives recently, a group of inhabitants along Manila Bay sent in the 1820s a petition to a government official known as the "Protector de los Indios." As some of their "baklads" were being ordered removed by the Admiral of the Cavite fort because these interfered with the operation of the newly-acquired steam-powered vessels of the Navy, the people from Navotas and Malabon invoked the fueros or rights that had been theirs long before the Spanish king exercised sovereignty over the archipelago. The issue was open-ended since I could not find the continuation of the document explaining how it was resolved. But what it proved was that the concept of local rights which the colonizers ought to respect did not die with the defeat of Soliman and Lacandula in 1571.

In Spain itself, the fueros as community or regional rights had been made even more intense with the institution of the Cadiz Constitution of 1814. Through this basic law, the monarchy was forever relegated to obsolescence, such that even if it continued as an institution, it had to accept a new construct of a constitutional monarchy. Through the various changes of regimes, what did not change was the recognition of regional rights in the tradition of the fueros.

What the Propagandists were fighting for

At the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid is found the document presented at the Cortes which forwarded the demand for a representation from the colony. This was made in the light of the constitutional provisions that recognized both Cuba and Puerto Rico as belonging to the Spanish nation yet excludes the Philippines on the ground that its level of development was much lower than the two. As written in the Spanish Constitution of 1871 which retained many provisions of the 1869 Constitution, we read the following:

Art. 1. Componen la nacion española los Estados de Andalucia Alta, Andalucia Baja, Aragon, Asturias, Baleares, Canarias, Castilla la Nueva, Castilla la Vieja, Cataluña, Cuba, Extremadura, Galicia, Murcia, Navarra, Puerto Rico, Valencia, Regiones Vascongadas. Los Estados podran conservar las actuales provincias o modificarlas, segun sus necesidades territoriales.

Art. 2. Las islas Filipinas, Fernando Poo, A nnobon, Corisco y los establicimientos de Africa componen territorios que, a medida de sus progresos, se elevaran a Estados por los poderes publicos.

Art. 42. La soberania reside en todos los ciudadanos, y se ejerce en representacion suya por los organismos politicos de la republica constituida por medio del sufragio universal.

Art. 43. Estos organismos son: el municipio, el Estado regional, el Estado federal o nacion.

Art. 45. El poder de la Federacion se divide en poder legislativo, poder ejecutivo, poder judicial y poder de relacion entre estos poderes [ejercidos, respectivamente, por las Cortes, ministros, jurados y jueces y presidente de la republica: art. 46-49].

[Art. 50-70. las Cortes se componen de dos cuerpos colegisladores: Congreso y Senado.]

Inspite of the change in government with the collapse of the Republic and the beginning of the Restauracion in 1874, these provisions continued in the next twenty years, or up to the Philippine Revolution of 1896. That this fact is not alien to the ilustrado consciousness can be seen in the writings of Rizal, in his "Filipinas dentro de cien años" and in Marcelo H. del Pilar's political comments on the Constitution of 1871. The almost pathetic struggle of Pedro Paterno to discover a Tagalog civilization complemented by the more scholarly works of Isabelo de los Reyes and Mariano Ponce may be understood also as the ilustrado's way of contradicting the accusation that the Indios were not ready yet for self-government.

Rizal's reaction to the Exposicion Filipinas of 1887 was instructive of the ilustrado perception of their nation and nationality. On the one hand, they were angry that the natives of the Philippines were exhibited as if they were animals in a zoo. One of those exhibited in scanty clothing or in bahag in the cold of winter died which made Rizal angrier and so provoked him as to despise the so-called Spanish civilization. Yet while sympathetic to the plight of the tribal peoples at the exhibition, most of the ilustrados did not think that those exhibited could represent the level of Filipino civilization.

At an artistic level, the relationship with Spain was pictured in the paintings of Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. The "Pacto de Sangre" or blood compact between Legazpi and Sikatuna recalls a time when Castilla and Filipinas were co-equal as siblings under the aegis of a common ruler. That this consanguinity would evaporate was shown to be a working of monastic forces, whose greed for land and money rendered Filipinas to abject poverty and misery. In a metaphorical way, the suffering of Filipinas was pictured as one of those gladiators in the Roman coloseum, in the award winning painting known as the "Spoliarium. " The symbolism of the purity of Filipinas as a woman but deprived of dignity by powerful persons was continued in a painting of Resurreccion Hidalgo in his "Las Virgenes Christianas Expuesta al Populacho." Yet not everything was lost. In another painting by Luna, the doting mother Spain was shown leading daughter Filipinas by the hand towards the light of progress.

We have here all the elements constituting the ilustrado perception of what the Philippines should be vis-a-vis Spain. As in all other "estados" of Spain, as mentioned in their constitution, there was a demand for the recognition of fueros, or the rights and privileges already there upon Spanish occupation. Nor was this an individual effort of Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. Rizal was the model for Sikatuna while Pardo de Tavera served as model for Legazpi in the "Pacto de Sangre." Even in the case of the "Spoliarium, " the Rizal connection could be established with the admission by our national hero that he wanted to write a book on Philippine history to be entitled the "Spoliarium. " The Filipino womanhood whom some Spanish writers had described as of "easy virtue, by nature debased" was already a cause for the Filipino colony to provoke these writers into duels. W.E. Retana who wrote one such piece was so provoked, insulted in public and pushed but unfortunately, did not take the challenge.

The Hope for Victory

The question of separation or assimilation was highlighted in the conflict for leadership of the Filipinos in Madrid between Rizal and Del Pilar. In justifying the election of Rizal, his supporters advanced the idea that he was "more radical and more straightforward in approach and in his ideas; he was one hundred per cent separatist." On the other hand, Del Pilar was thought of as "a moderate and a partisan of assimilation. " But the differences between the two was perhaps exaggerated by their supporters and antagonists. In reality, both separatism and assimilation at that time could have been an option within the same pardigm. They were nuances within the same political situation in Madrid which provided them the luxury to think of these as possibilities.

During the period of "Restauracion" of the monarchy after the collapse of the Republic beginning 1874, the constitutional impasse of highly politicized parties had been broken through an arrangement known as "turnismo." The two leading parties (Canovas del Castillo's Partido Conservador and Praxedes Mateo Sagasta's Partido Liberal) would take turn running the government. The arrangement would prevent the instability that had been the hallmark of the political situation since the Liberal Revolution (in Cadiz) of 1812-1814. Indeed, the politics of accommodation and negotiation that followed made possible the relative quiet in Spain which Rizal and the ilustrados experienced while they were there.

Both federalism and regional autonomy (contained in the Spanish Constitution) provided the model upon which the ilustrados could frame their ideas. Under a system of federalism, the estados freely chose to become part of the federation. But having said that, it also had the right to secede since a federation presumed a commonality of interest. Of course, separation was not an easy option since the power of the State to protect itself from whimsical parochialism had been anticipated with the deployment of a national army and reenforced by a strong tradition of loyalty to the monarch. Even if some ilustrados held the illusion of eventually being assimilated to Spain, this was not very different from the separatism advocated by the Rizalistas. Again, under the system prevailing in Spain at that time (which, by the way, continues up to now), the various autonomous regions were not obliged to follow the national culture. This had been the reason why each region could have its own language, literature, and customs or even local laws. Assimilation, unless understood in a very broad sense, was therefore a meaningless jargon that carried no meaning in Spain then and now.

The real issue then, could have been revolution versus autonomy. At the time of the Rizal-Del Pilar conflict, there were those among them already toying with the idea of revolution. But even after a successful secession from the mother country, they still framed their ideas within the liberal tradition of Spain. This could be seen in the constitution that they would construct in Malolos in 1898 -- which, though unitary and with no provision for a constitutional monarch, was nevertheless aware of the necessity to uphold autonomy at the local level. Fearful of dictatorial and militarist rule, it gave more power to the Legislature (whose members were elected at the local level) than the President and his Executive department (with its presumed centralizing role).

Epilogue

The image of Mother Spain leading Filipinas towards the light of progress was adopted by Andres Bonifacio and the Katipunan in visualizing the struggle. Like Del Pilar and Herminigildo Flores before who made Filipinas plead for her rights with Mother Spain, Bonifacio metaphorized the daughter saying goodbye. But to Bonifacio, Spain was a false mother; Filipinas was the real mother, the Inang Bayan, for whose defense of honor, the "mga Anak ng Bayan" were ready to die. This means that the question of autonomy or revolution was a theme that both the ilustrados and the Katipunan explored, the subject of a dialogue of their generation. Assimilation, autonomy, separatism and revolution belonged to one spectrum of resistance by the colonial peoples of that time.

ENDNOTES:

Miguel Rodriguez Berriz, Diccionario de la Administracion de Filipinas. Anuario de 1888 (Manila: Imp. y Lit. de M. Perez, hijo, San Jacinto 30, Binondo, 1888)

PNA, "Pesquerias, " petition to the "Protector de los Indios," 1823-1830.

Filipinas en las Cortes. Discursos pronunciados en el Congreso de los Diputados sobre la representacion parliamentaria del archiepelago Filipino (Madrid: Imp. Jaramillo, 1890), 56 pages under signatura CV 1853/14.

Estrella Cardiel Sanz, et. al., Historia (de España) ( Madrid: Editorial Editex, S.A., 2001), pp. 128-129.

La Solidaridad, vol. I , Translated by Guadalupe Fores-Ganzon (Q.C.: UP Press, 1973), p. 587.

"Spoliarium" is the main attraction of the National Museum gallery at P. Burgos Avenue, Manila.


"Las Virgenes..." is at the main gallery of the Central Bank's Metropolitan Museum, Roxas Blvd., Manila.

A replica of the Juan Luna painting is exhibited at the Philippine Embassy in Madrid.
As noted by John Schumacher, The Propaganda Movement.

Encarnacion Alzona, Galicano Apacible. Profile of a Filipino Patriot (Manila: National Historical Institute, 1971 first edition), pp. 26-29.

Alzona, Ibid., p. 31.

Rafael Palma, The Pride of the Malay Race. Trans by Roman Ozaeta (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1949), pp. 74ff. Quoted by Teodoro A. Agoncillo, "Rizal and the Philippine Revolution," in Patricia Melendrez-Cruz, et. al. eds., Himalay. Kalipunan ng mga Pag-aaral kay Jose Rizal (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 1991), pp. 280-284.

Bienvenido Lumbera, Tagalog Poetry, 1570-1898 (Q.C.: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1986), pp. 143-148.