Says historian Ambeth Ocampo about the writer Nick Joaquin: “Joaquin, in one essay, says that if you peel the Pinoy like an onion, you will find nothing. Perhaps, what we are is not in the core but in the various layers of being or becoming.”¹
We as Filipinos are so obsessed with arriving at a “pure” Filipino identity, removing all foreign influences until we arrive at what we truly, authentically are. We think that finding it is like striking diamonds, and thus we take our pickaxes and chip away at our own culture. I’m going to tell you right now that the pureness we seek does not exist.
Staunch nationalists think they’ll find the answer in the ways of our ancestors before the arrival of Magellan. Surely those who originally settled in these islands, descendants in turn of the great Austronesian seafarers, were the true Filipinos. But they had a plurality of cultures, and the concept of “Filipino” did not exist to them! They were the Maranao, the Kalinga, the Sama Banguingui, the Iranun, the Ifugao. Neither was their culture what we consider to be pure - there were already foreign influences in the pre-Magellan Philippines. Indian, Chinese, and Islamic tradition had made their way into our indigenous civilizations before the coming of the Spaniards.² Our standards of purity would not apply to our ancestors pre-1521.
We always bemoan our Westernization, under the colonial powers of Spain and the U.S. We loathe the adobo and barong tagalog, not realizing that they are foreign things we made our own! In the adobo we throw in our indigenous vinegar, Chinese-Japanese soy sauce, and Mediterranean peppercorn. In weaving together the piña fibers sourced from the New World, we also weaved together the forms of the Indian kurta and the Chinese tunic, designing the barong for our tropical climate.³ If we are to say that adobo and barong tagalog are not Filipino due to having foreign influences, then tea is not British for it came from China, and pasta in tomato sauce is not Italian because tomatoes came from South America.
Our view of our colonizers is also reductive. Of the 235-280 voyagers on Magellan’s Armada de Maluco, only about 40 percent were Spanish. The rest of the racially-diverse crew were Portuguese, Italian and Frenchmen among other European groups, as well as Malays, Africans, and Muslims. The story of the first Spanish-Filipino contact was written in Italian, because the armada’s chronicler Pigafetta was Italian!⁴
Anthropologist Fernando Nakpil Zialcita puts the sentiment beautifully: “My model for nationalism is the French which revolves around sentiment rather than blood, which regards as ‘French’ anything excellent created on French soil even if by foreigners”. Thus, he considers French Scholasticism and Modern Art, which were made in France by people of differing nationalities.³ The American historian William Henry Scott (1921-1993) who dedicated his life to researching our indigenous groups was Filipino. Binondo, the world’s oldest Chinatown, is Filipino.
We should be proud of what we are now, and what we can be in the future. Our identity, ever-changing, is always up for redesign. One served a hearty plate of adobo would not reasonably fish out the peppercorn or filter out the soy sauce (if they even can). We can look at what’s on our plate and appreciate it for what it is, indulging an already bountiful meal.
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Sources:
1. Ambeth Ocampo's reaction to Nick Joaquin's essay "Culture as History & Culture and History" in Philippine Cultural and Artistic Landmarks of the Past Millennium.
2. "Cultural Landmarks and Their Interactions with Economic Factors in the Second Millennium in the Philippines" by Benito Legarda, Jr. in Philippine Cultural and Artistic Landmarks of the Past Millennium.
3. "More Original than We Think" in Authentic Though not Exotic by Fernando Nakpil Zialcita.
4. Pigafetta's Philippine Picnic by Felice Prudente Sta. Maria.
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