CHAPTER 3

PHILIPPINE MODERNITY AND POPULAR CULTURE: AN ONTO-HISTORICAL INQUIRY

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
The student must be able to:

 Explain the brief history of Pop Culture in the Philippines.

 Determine and evaluate the significant events that influence the
development of Pop Culture.

"Building a culture has to start with a foundation, and that foundation must necessarily
be the culture of the Filipino people if this could be separated with the encrustations
grown on it by colonial rule."

3.1 History of Popular Culture in the Philippines

Popular culture, according to National Artist for literature Bienvenido Lumbera in his
book Revaluation: Essays on Philippine Literature, Theatre and Popular Culture (1984, as cited
in Garchitorena, n.d.), is highly different from the folk culture and nationalist culture of the
Filipinos. In a nutshell, folk culture is the way of living in a place in a specific time and portrays
the practices of a certain people, and on how they cope to survive with nature. Nationalist
culture is the culture created through colonial resistance with the collective of a people on a
given place and time. These two are different from popular culture which can be traced even in
the period of Hispanization of the Philippines.
According to Lumbera, popular culture in the Philippines was created and used by the
Spaniards to the native Filipinos or Indios via plays and literature to get the heart of the natives
and win it. The colonial origins of popular culture found in the Philippines can be traced by
looking at salient developments in Philippine literature. The first permanent Spanish settlement
began replacing the native culture with a Christian and European tradition. The children of the
native elite under the tutelage of missionaries became a core group of intelligentsia called
'ladinos', as they became instrumental "in bringing into the vernacular, literary forms that were to
be vehicles for the "pacification" of the natives".

Popular culture as introduced by the Forms of popular theatre and literature

Spanish was "popular" to the extent that it was a such as "the pasyon, sinakulo, and
"watering-down of Spanish-European culture for korido ensured the acceptance and
the purpose of winning the general populace over spread of Christianity, and the
to the 'ideology' of the colonial regime." Popular komedya and awit did the same for the
monarchy."
culture at the time was created by colonial authorities, with the aid of the local intelligentsia, to
promote the interests of the Church and the State.
However, once the native intelligentsia saw the effects of popular culture and knew how
to work its way as propaganda, they soon used the Example:
Spanish weapon against them. In the 19th century,
through the Propaganda Movement, the native The work of Marcelo H. del Pilar when
intelligentsia used the same forms of popular he used prayers such as the 'Aba,
culture to "undermine the power of the abusive Ginoong Maria' and 'Ama Namin' in a
friars and rally the populace to put an end to sort of parody to strike against the
colonial rule". abusive Spanish Friars.

The advent of American colonialism

brought, the properly so-called, popular culture to the Philippines. The liberal policy regarding
the printing press, soon through radio, television and film, increased the circulation of popular
culture forms. Not only through these forms but also in new media then, such as films.
Hollywood films had a near-monopoly in the Philippine market especially in the absence of
European movies due to World War I.
Early on, the local intelligentsia has the same apprehensions over mass media as they
called it commercialization, or vulgarization of art. According to Lumbera, the local intelligentsia
noticed that "Popular literature as a commodity intended for a mass market was seen to pose a
threat to serious artistic work, because the writers accommodated his art to the demands of the
publishers and editors who were more interested in sales rather than aesthetics." More so,
"...popular culture is not created by the populace... rather, it is culture created either by the
ruling elite or by members of the intelligentsia in the employ of that elite, for the consumption of
the populace."; it is "'packaged' entertainment or art intended for the profit of rulers, be they
colonial administrators or native bureaucrats and businessmen."
To see it in Lumbera's lens, "Popular culture is power, and whoever wields it to
manipulate minds is likely to find its literary and technological machinery turned against him
when the minds it has manipulated discover its potency as a political weapon."

READING ACTIVITY!!!
Read the following articles:
History and Cultural Identity by Rolando Gripaldo (refer to page 51)
Philippine Popular Culture: Dimensions and Directions. The State of
Research in Philippine Popular Culture by Doreen Fernandez (refer to page
58)

3.2 SUMMARY
1. Definition. A stable definition of "popular culture" in the Philippine context must be reached.
More than the choice of topics that can be included under popular culture study, this also
involves defining boundaries or overlaps with respect to other relatively established fields of
inquiry (for example, mass communications, drama, literature) in terms of theory, methods, and
concerns.

2. Review of Literature. There is a need for critical review and integration of all the related
literature, to define the problems of and possibilities for future research.

3. Identification of Issues. Since popular culture in the Philippines was brought about mainly by
the entry from the United States of mass media into a culture already heavily American in
orientation because of the colonial experience, discussion of popular culture should consider the
following and related issues:

a) Commodified culture and consumerism, exemplified in the generation of false

needs through advertisements and the exposure to an alien lifestyle through forms of
popular culture;

b) Westernized taste and consciousness, or cultural imperialism and cultural

satellization, through imported films, television shows, publications, and popular songs;

c) The mystification of Philippine social realities and the pacification of any

feelings against current reality by means of the legitimization of economic and political
structures not only through the content of TV, radio, film, and comics stories, but also
through slogans, government advertising, programming, and the like.

4. Identification of the "public. " The audience, the populus, that makes culture popular rather
than elite should be identified in the concrete Philippine context. What is the popular writer's
concept of his public? How is his, or the industry's idea of what "sells" formulated? Is there a
feedback mechanism?

5. Definition of the popular writer. Considering the size of his audience, the popular writer is
definitely a significant intellectual. Since the Pilipino writer generally writes for the popular
magazines, is he then also a "serious" writer? How is the popular writer then linked to the
literary tradition? To what socioeconomic status does he belong, and how is this differentiated
from that of his audience? From that of other writers? Does this have bearing on the "popularity"
of his work?

6. Identification of purpose. "Popular culture is power," and since it is not created by the people
who "consume" it, who does, and to what purpose? Is it for profit? or for development? or in
manipulation?

7. Deepening of inquiry into fields already explored. The preceding survey has shown that much
of the work done to date on popular culture has been survey work: the history of the field, its
current state, its significance in Philippine life, perhaps an evaluation. In these fields - film, radio,
television, comics, magazines, - it is now necessary to start narrow-field, in-depth studies. An
underlying aesthetic may be determined; the link to tradition; the Filipino quality in the form or an
aspect of it; how it functions as a cultural indicator.

8. Identification of other fields of inquiry. A few other fields not mentioned here have already
been explored by one or two individuals: popular arts, namely the ceramic and crocheted
objects that the low-budget housewife buys with which to decorate her home; popular
languages, like swardspeak, Taglish, the young slang; popular religiosity, (e.g. the Sto. Niño,
the icons hanging in jeepneys, the rites and rituals in Quiapo); food habits; disco culture. But
how about the language of gesture, popular architectural taste, sports, graffiti, and that
tremendously rich expanse, the pop icon? What Filipino pop icons are there besides the
jeepney, and what effect do they have on the community's understanding of itself?

Popular culture as a form of discourse serves as a potent force for persuasion and
value-building and for the perception of consciousness. In the Philippines today, as we have
seen, it is largely available to the urban population in Metro Manila, the primate city, and in the
urban centers of education, planning and work, In the rural areas, ethnic culture dominates
among the tribal groups; folk culture among the rest. The latter, however, because of rural
electrification and the transistor radio, are starting to be touched as well by popular culture. In
the small, Third World, developing nation that is the Philippines, in which the majority are the
poor, the mass, the populus, popular culture is indeed power, and therefore demands
systematic and purposeful attention.

KEYWORDS

Artifacts Civilization Cultural Citizenship Cultural Identity

Damaged Culture Film Folk Culture High Culture
Hollywood Komiks Literature Low Culture
Mentifacts Nationalist Culture Popular Magazine Popular Music
Propaganda Radio Spanish-European Socifacts
Movement Culture
Symbolate Vulgarization

REQUIRED READINGS!!!
 Chapter 3

HISTORY AND CULTURAL IDENTITY: THE PHILIPPINE CASE

Rolando M. Gripaldo, Ph.D.
De La Salle University, Manila

Cultural identity evolves with historical development. Sometimes the evolution is so slow
that the cultural identity of a community is identified as virtually the same as that of centuries
ago. This is usually the case for primitive ethnic or tribal identities. In another case, the
evolution is fast compared with the first case such that the cultural identity of a community
contains many foreign cultural elements although it is still identified with many important ethnic
cultural traits. In the third scenario, the evolution is much faster than the second case such that
the cultural identity of the group assumes most of the foreign cultural traits, usually those
brought about by Westernization. In the last scenario, the evolution is fastest such that the
cultural identity of the community is very similar to the Western cultural identity although slight
vestiges of its ethnic or racial origin may still be noticeable. The Philippine case belongs to the
fourth scenario and the purpose of the paper is to philosophically explain how such a scenario
comes about.

Certainly, the current usage of the term “cultural identity” is contextual and will have
different meanings in different contexts. This is especially true when one migrates to another
country and, depending upon the context, he or she will be culturally identified as of ethnic,
racial, national, etc., identity.

This paper will argue that Filipino cultural identity is still something in the making within
the greater purview of the Western culture—a positive cultural identity which Filipinos can be
proud of and which foreigners can affirm in a favorable light.

Introduction

History, on one hand, is defined as the study of the records of the past. This includes
written records, archeological artifacts, ruins, and even traditions and literature orally transmitted
from generation to generation. Cultural identity, on the other hand, is that aspect or aspects of a
culture that a people are proud to identify themselves with and which foreigners usually mention
with awe or admiration. “Cultural identity” connotes something positive, admirable, and
enduring. It also connotes an ethnic or a racial underpinning. The Ibanag culture is ethnic while
the Ibanag as a Filipino (Malay race) is racial. In ordinary everyday speech, however, “ethnic”
and “racial” are sometimes used interchangeably.
A nation generally consists of different tribes, and so there is a tribal cultural identity and
a national cultural identity. It is possible in a war-torn country, as in a civil war, or in a
postcolonial nation that there are only tribal cultural identities without a national cultural identity.
And each tribe may want secession or complete independence. They would not want to avail
themselves of a national citizenship. Cultural traits are aspects of culture and, at least, one or a
group of these may serve as a benchmark for cultural identity for as long as the people can
positively identify themselves with that benchmark and generally foreigners recognize it. The
Japanese sumo wrestling is one example. A negative cultural trait or tradition, as in a tradition of
corruption, could not serve as the identifying mark for cultural identity acceptable by the people
concerned even if foreigners would keep on mentioning it.
This paper will examine the role that history plays in the molding of a people’s cultural
identity. In particular it will sketchily trace the evolution of the Filipino national culture and
identify aspects of culture that would explain the present state of the Filipino culture.

History and Culture

The term culture may be defined broadly as the sum total of what a tribe or group of
people produced (material or nonmaterial), is producing, and will probably be producing in the
future. What they produce—consciously or unconsciously—could be tools, clothing, cooking
utensils, weaponry, technologies, unexpected outcomes, mores, or codes as in religion, and the
like. And they will continue producing these things, probably with more improved efficiency,
design or style, and finesse. The “make” can be distinctly identified—generally speaking—with
their tribe or their period in history. If they discontinue producing, (e.g., a particular tool), it is
probably because it is replaced with tools of much improved efficiency. The criterion of utility is
one consideration here. The former tool has outlived its usefulness.

Edward Tylor (1974) looks at culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge,
belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member
of society” (italics supplied). My emphasis is on the human production or creation of culture.
Production connotes an interiority, (i.e., coming from within the subject himself or herself), that
reflects a lived experience. Albert Dondeyne (1964) talks of historicity as emanating from
humans, and—to my mind—so is culturicity. Aspects of culture can be acquired, but once
acquired they are adapted, reconstituted to fit the existing cultural terrain (either of the individual
or the group), or reproduced. Cultural outcomes as in habits, norms plus sanctions, and
customs are sometimes unexpectedly, unintentionally, or unconsciously produced. They are
noticed as patterns or ways of thinking or behaving much later in life. From time to time they are
evaluated, reevaluated, reproduced, reinforced, discarded, modified, or replaced. In other
cases, when these outcomes are determined by some goals or purposes, they are consciously
produced. Charles Taylor thinks of culture as a “public place” or a “common [social] space” by
which an individual is situated or born into, and by which he or she grows in political association
with others through a shared communication vocabulary. While the person grows with culture,
culture likewise grows with him or her. A national culture is one that towers over and above the
minority cultures (multiculturalism) that aspire to become a part of the national culture by first
availing their members of “cultural citizenship” by gradually assimilating their individual cultures
to the culture-at-large.

If we reflect on the life of our ancient ancestors, it is unimaginable to think that their
collective memory is not essentially or virtually the same as their cultural history, although much
of these may have been forgotten or buried deep in the unconscious. Their culture is
distinctively the collective repository of all things: political, social, artistic, linguistic, educational,
economic, religious, mythical, legal, moral, and so on. UNESCO (2002) stresses this collectivity
of culture as a “set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional features of
society.” It includes “art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems,
traditions and beliefs.” It is only very much later that these divisions of culture are given
individual emphasis by social scientists and by humanists. And more often we forget that they
are parts or features of a people’s culture. Nothing goes beyond culture, as culture over time is
history.

Culture and Civilization

We all know that civilization grows out of culture. That is why we can say that while we
can have culture without civilization, we cannot have civilization without culture. The word
culture etymologically means “to cultivate” while civilization originally means “citizen” (from
civitas), which suggests urbanization or city life with a strong political organization and
bureaucracy. The former reflects the process of refinement while the latter reflects the partial or
completed process of organized refinement. The refined person is a civilized person. He or she
is usually referred to as a “cultured person.” Culture in this regard, that is, “high culture” is
usually taken as equivalent to civilization. Below the civilized culture is mass culture, or what is
sometimes referred to as “primitive culture,” “barbaric culture,” “low culture,” “uncultured,”
“without culture,” or the like.

No doubt social scientists think in terms of their specializations. Even among

anthropologists they tend to focus on their respective fields. Leslie White (1949) invented the
word “symbolate” to refer to a cultural object that comes about from the act of symbolization,
such as a work of art, a tool, a moral code, etc. It is argued that culture comes about
simultaneously with symbols, for humans have the capacity to use symbols (a type of sign), the
capacity to invent or acquire a type of language. Noam Chomsky (1975) argues that every
human being has an innate “language acquisition device.” Julian Huxley (1957) classified the
social world into “mentifacts” (ideological or belief subsystem), “socifacts” (social relationships
and practices, or the sociological subsystem), and “artifacts” (material objects and their use, or
the technological subsystem). Archaeologists are diggers of past cultures and can only
generally uncover the material remains of a culture while cultural anthropologists focus on the
nonmaterial or symbolic aspect of culture.
Quite recently, an attempt is made in postmodernism to level off high and low cultures.
The pragmatist John Dewey (1960) started it all by arguing that we should not limit art and its
appreciation to art museums and art galleries. We can find art in everyday life; in the quality of
experience we enjoy. There is art when we see a person with a beautiful face walking by, or one
who is exquisitely dressed up, or the elegant clothes in tribal festivals. We find art in a
basketball player who gracefully shoots a ball at the ring, or in a nicely decorated cooked food,
or in a superb workmanship by a car technician. Mike Featherstone (1991) describes the
leveling off process—the elevation of mass, tribal, and popular (“pop”) culture to an equal
footing with high culture—as a postmodernist feature of our present civilization.

Cultural Identity
 There is a political or an ideological underpinning in the notion of “cultural identity.” An
ideology is a set of values and beliefs that propels an individual or a group of people into action.
An identity, ideologically speaking, connotes a feeling of oneness, an emotional acceptance of a
totality or, at least, of features within a given totality that one is proud of, an internal or
psychological desire to project this totality or its features to others with exuberance, and the
anticipation that others will recognize and accept it (totality) or them (features) with respect.

Cultural identity is an evolving thing—sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Usually the

dominant tribe of a nation will assume the national cultural identity. In other cases, if there are
two or more tribes whose cultures are congruous, then they assume an identity using a national
name other than the names of their individual tribes, a name that is historically influenced or
determined.

It is possible that a civilized nation will evolve into a post-nation. Postcolonial nations of
Asia are toying with the idea of a regional identity while the nations of Europe are gradually
being transformed into post-nations, or they are evolving into a newly emerging regional identity
called the European Union (EU). The European Union has a common monetary exchange and
has generally transcended national boundaries in terms of commercial and labor concerns. Its
corporations are transnational: they do business everywhere. An EU citizen can travel,
purchase items, and work anywhere in the Union without a passport or a working permit.
Eventually, the EU will assume a regional cultural identity.

Unfortunately, some nations—usually postcolonial ones or those nation-states that were

once colonies—are still struggling to evolve a cultural identity which they can be proud of, an
identity that is not just racial or ethnic but one that lies above ethnicity.

The Philippine Situation

Four Groups of Filipinos

In the Philippine situation, there are many tribes and in the hinterlands we can still find
tribal identities—small groups of people wearing their tribal clothes and doing their tribal ways.
They are Filipinos in the “cultural citizenship” sense, that is, their national identity is defined in
terms of the provisions of the constitution: namely, they are native inhabitants (born here with
indigenous parents) of the country. For many of them, their cultural citizenship does not mean
anything at all (the Aetas, for example). They know that their ancestors have been living in this
country several centuries ago.

We can also find a second group of tribes in the Philippines whose cultural identities
have been touched by modernization (which in this context is the same as Westernization) in a
minimal way. Some of them sent their children to school and they are generally aware of their
cultural citizenship. They go to urban areas in either tribal or modern clothes but when they go
home, they wear their tribal attire. They identify themselves more as a tribe rather than as a
Filipino.
 A third group of tribes are those that are more modernized compared to the second
group. They send their children to school and when they visit the urban areas, especially the big
cities, they wear modern clothes and adapt to the ways of modernity. Their identity is defined in
terms of their religious persuasion. Some of the educated attend parties and dance in disco
houses. They generally identify themselves as Filipinos. But when they go home to their native
places, they adjust themselves again to their native or religious ways. There are sectors in this
group that spurn being called Filipinos and prefer a different label such as “Moro” or something
else.

The last group of tribes is the highly modernized (Westernized). They are the largest
group consisting of various tribes such as the Tagalog, Bisayan, Ilokano, Kapampangan, and
others. Their common perspective is outward or global rather than inward or national. The
nationalists or the inward-looking Filipinos in this group are a minority. Renato Constantino
(1966) identified them in the article, “The Filipinos in the Philippines,” as the genuine Filipinos.
The nationalists are proud of their cultural citizenship and their cultural heritage. They want the
country to become a first world in the coming centuries. They want the country to be
industrialized and later super-industrialized. They want to see light and heavy industries
churning out cars, tractors, airplanes, ships, rockets, and the like. They want political parties
with broad programs of government on how to make the country industrialized or super-
industrialized and not a crop of political parties and leaders whose main concern is to be in
power or to grab power to serve their own selfish interests or pretend to work for the national
interests where their idea of “national interests” is vague or misdirected. They reject any group
whose economic perspective is provincial despite the advent of the Third Wave civilization,
whose outlook is limited to only agricultural and small and-medium-scale industrial development
and modernization, and whose labor scenario is to train the workforce into global “hewers of
wood and water,” into a “nation of nannies,” or into a nation of second- or third-class workers.
They want to build institutions that run into decades but whose fruits are of great significance to
nation building. But they are a minority.

The Making of a Cultural Identity

“Damaged Culture”

The present cultural situation has been described as the result of a “damaged culture”
(Fallows 1987) where there is lack of nationalism and where what is public is viewed in low
esteem, without much national pride. The argument is that the indigenous cultures of the
mainstream tribes have been supplanted with Christian and Western values brought about by
Spanish and American colonialism. Spain fostered docility and inferiority among the natives
while America introduced consumerism and the global educational outlook. Both Spain and
America supplanted the native cultures with the combined cultures of Christianity, capitalism,
and liberal democracy. Christianity was imposed among the natives and accepted with
reluctance, that is, it was blended with native religious and superstitious beliefs such that the
resulting Catholic religious version is theandric ontonomy (Mercado 2004), a blend of the sacred
and the profane, a compromise between acculturation and inculturation.
 The Chinese and Spanish mestizos (together with foreign transnational corporations)
whose Philippine nationalistic sentiment is generally suspect, basically control capitalism in the
Philippines. It is said, for example, that the brochures one read at the planes of the Philippine
Airlines (controlled by the Chinese Filipino Lucio Tan) do not promote the many Philippine
tourist spots and products while other Asian airlines promote theirs. A Philippine Airlines
brochure, for example, had the Malaysian Petronas Twin Towers at its cover.

The native political system, the barangay, was of different ideological persuasions, two
of which were fully documented: the autocratic and the democratic. The autocratic, of course,
was authoritarian or despotic while the democratic had a jury judicial system and a consultative
legislative system. The datu or chieftain always consulted the elders. Spanish colonialism
practiced the autocratic system while American colonialism trained the Filipinos in the
democratic system. However, the liberal democracy that developed was the presidential—not
the parliamentary—system, and the Filipino version of it always became a clash, instead of a
partnership, between the executive and legislative branches of government. The consequences
were inefficiency in the passage of vital laws, delays in the approval of the annual budget that
likewise delay the needed financial increases in the delivery of basic services, nontransparent
accountability of executive officials through the legislative system in terms of financial
expenditures on certain projects (thereby fostering accusations of alleged corruption), and the
apparent political opposition’s penchant attitude for legislative inquiries not in aid of legislation
but in aid of government destabilization (during the time of the Arroyo administration). The net
result of all these is the slow pace of national development.

Right now, a number of people appear to favor the shift from the presidential to the
parliamentary system. In fact, many of them believe that the main culprit why the Philippines lag
behind its Asian neighbors in economic development is the slow-responsive presidential political
system. They want distinct political programs such as a labor party that fights for labor rights as
against a party that favors the rich or other sectors of society.

CONCLUSION

While culture develops in history and history feeds on culture for its development, some
individuals and groups move faster in cultural and historical development while others lag
behind in various stages of growth. This is not only true among persons and tribes but also
among nations or states. Filipino nationalists and patriots describe the Philippines as a nation
without a soul, a cultural shipwreck that does not know where it is going. It is said to be a
“damaged culture,” with nothing much to be proud of historically as a nation. Its Christianity is
sacrilegiously adulterated (see Gripaldo 2005c), its declaration of independence shortlived, its
political leaders apparently directionless (their goals are at cross-purposes with each other such
that the net effect was to cancel out), and its culture largely draped with colonial and crab
mentalities. At this point in time, the Filipino
people should not think of what the Filipino nation or its political leaders can do for them, but of
what they as ordinary citizens can do for their nation. Some ordinary citizens are better situated
than others, and while their political leaders may still be wondering what is wrong with them,
these better-situated citizens can take the lead in pursuing a grand vision for their country
through civil societies. The task of these societies should be to restore hope among the
hopeless, provide the means for them to develop a sense of human dignity, and to take pride in
their own produce, on their own effort toward cultural development and nation-building.