Science and Bonifacio’s nation

Written by Giovanni Tapang, Ph.D.

Tomorrow, November 30, marks the birth date of the founder of the Katipunan Andres Bonfacio and is a holiday for most of us. There will be mobilizations and marches of rank and file workers, ordinary men and women, as well as different sectors near Liwasang Bonifacio and the adjoining shrine. It will also be the start of the 150th year celebrations of the great plebeian’s birthday.

According to our history books, Bonifacio was the son of a tailor from Tondo and a cigarette worker mestiza. He was orphaned early in his life and sold various items he made himself to support his siblings. He worked in various trading firms as a bodegero carrying different goods that passed through the port of Manila. He joined La Liga Filipina and continued on even after Rizal’s deportation to Dapitan. Later on, Bonifacio established the Kataastaasan Kagalanggalangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan or the Katipunan.

Together with Emilio Jacinto, Gregoria de Jesus, Pio Valenzuela and other heroes of the revolution, they put out the Kartilya, the newspaper Kalayaan and expanded the membership of the Katipunan to different parts of the archipelago. He gained strength for the Philippine Revolution as it shook the Spanish army and sparked resistance in different provinces around Manila.

It was after the Tejeros Convention where we lost our hero due to internal strife and the shift of leadership in the revolution but his legacy was the Philippines as a nation itself. His dream of having to free our nation from Spanish colonizers was denied from us at the turn of the 20th century and resulted in our neo-colonial situation.

We find ourselves in a largely backward agrarian economy with a lack of basic industries to support manufacturing and growth. We have a large service economy and nearly ten percent of our population away from our shores as overseas contract workers. Our ability and potential to provide the basic needs of our country is impeded by the current social setup despite the availability of the knowledge of how to manufacture these things.

The land monopoly in the countryside by the elite runs hand in hand with the control of the import and export trade dominated by comprador bourgeoisie to limit our economy, deny us domestic industrialization and stunt the growth of science and technology. Current Bonifacios remain bodegeros for importers of manufactured goods and exporters of our natural resources.

Agriculture remains largely unmechanized and irrigation remains a problem throughout the country. We also do not have an industrial base that generates capital goods. Heavy and basic industries are non-existent except for semi-processing of metals for export. We lack a strong machine tool industry, basic metal and chemical industries, engineering industries and the like. 

Existing industries merely reprocess components from abroad and are mainly dependent on technologies from advanced countries. Vital industries such as power, oil and mining have been liberalized and deregulated.

In a forum series on “Remembering Bonifacio” which started last Wednesday with its opening salvo on nationalist economics in the University of the Philippines Diliman, speakers tackled the relevance of nationalism in our economic development. The speakers included National Artist Dr. Bien Lumbera, former UP Student Regent Ms. Krissy Conti, CCP Thirteen Artists Awardee for 2012 Ms. Kiri Lluch Dalena and IBON Executive Editor Ms. Rosb Guzman. The series is spearheaded by IBON together with the Dean’s Office of the UP College of Mass Communication, the Associate Dean’s Office for Student and Public Affairs of the College of Science, the UP Center for Nationalist Studies, SOLIDARIDAD, AGHAM-Youth and the Bonifacio 150 Committee. Many more of these lecture series will be offered in different colleges in the University.

In order to fully realize Bonifacio’s dream of freedom, we need to engage in altering the neocolonial pattern of production, investments and trade based mainly on the export of agricultural and extractive raw materials, the import of finished goods, agricultural commodities and capital, and the re-export of reassembled or repackaged imported manufactures.

We need to embark on national industrialization and agricultural modernization and development that judiciously utilize the rich natural resource base and the skilled personnel available in the country. This industrial base would provide the basic needs of the country including our food, mass housing, clothing, education, healthcare, communication and transportation services. It will in turn boost the development of science and technology. We would need more and more scientists and engineers to meet the needs of such a dynamic local industrial base.

In remembering Bonifacio, let us put our sights on a clear vision of economic growth based on domestic needs, potentials and capability. His pen name, May Pagasa, is truly a source of inspiration for those of us who realize that a better future for us is in the hands of those who dare to shape it today for the many Filipinos who desperately need change.

Dr. Tapang is the chairperson of AGHAM-Advocates of Science and Technlogy for the People.