http://www.LivingInthePhilippines.comis theORIGINAL, firstPhilippines Expat site on the Net, since 1989. This is not one of many knock-offs, copycats, imitations. Some have permutations of the names,misspellings and "in" and "the" or "ing." left off to deceive you. This is the original, by: Don A. Herrington
Defining the
Filipino Through Songs (By Prof. Felipe M. De
Leon, Jr)
If the Spaniards tried to
convert the Filipino to their ways primarily through
religion, the Americans did it through education.
The American military regime in the Philippines
never underestimated the importance of education as
a colonial tool. Although the Jones Act granted the
Filipinos more autonomy and Filipinos were given
government posts, the Department of Education was
never entrusted to any Filipino. Americans always
handed this department up to 1935. And when a
Filipino took over under the Commonwealth, a new
generations of brown Americans had already been
produced. There was no longer any need for American
overseas in this field because a captive generation
had already come of age, thinking and acting like
Americans.
This Americanization is most profound among the
elite, having had the closest contacts with the
colonizers. But this kind of transformation is more
or less shared by almost all adult Filipinos who
have gone through formal education both in public
and private schools.
A subtle but most effective medium of colonial
education was music. The seemingly innocent thrust
into the psychic world of Filipino children through
song helped much to produce an unconscious dislike
of their own culture and a high preference for
American culture.
American thoughts, values and practices were
introduced as models for the desirable, the modern
and civilized. In contrast, the pleasantness of
traditional Philippine life was made to appear as a
liability. What was there to be proud of the little
nipa hut when, in book illustrations, impressive
American homes design for a colder climate captured
the imagination. Even the brick houses in the
stories of "The Little Red Hen" and the "Three
Little Pigs," appreciated out of context, reduce the
nipa hut to inferior status. So who would realize
the advantages of the bahay kubo in tropical
setting?
Deliberate or not, the Westernization of our
education provided the Filipino children with a
point of reference for contrasts which tended to
glorify an alien tradition and discredit our own.
The educators structured an outlook which has
succeeded in alienating us from our roots. Thus, in
Philippine society until now, we put at the top of
the social ladder those who most Westernized and at
the bottom those who are the least. This places the
Manileño at the top, followed by the provincial city
dweller, then the poblaciones or town-dweller, next
comes the taga-baryo or taga-bukid, or what we call
promdi or from the province, and lastly comes the
taga-bundok, especially if the taga-bundok is
indigenous or one of the so-called minorities, who
many Filipinos regard as almost subhuman. If only
the Manileño realizes that the Filipino New Yorkers
looks down on him, too.
But our Westernized education makes it very
difficult for most Filipinos not to look down on our
indigenous peoples living in the mountains. What
were made available in the schools were books
containing sceneries of wealthy Americans urban
life. So what would like to be "poorly born on top
of a mountain"?
The consequence of glorifying an alien lifestyle is
to make us dream of dreams that are irrelevant to
our real needs and existing social and material
conditions. Many of us dream of a white Christmas
complete with Santa Claus, sleighbells and
mistletoes. The scent of apples, somebody has
remarked, "attracts the Filipino elite and middle
class like bees to a flower and sends them to a
frenzy like a stud smelling a mare in heat. "Our
experiences as a people have been so devalued that,
according to a survey, 80% of farmers' children do
not want to become farmers but would like to land
into a white collar jobs and live a burgis
lifestyle. Indeed, who would like to labor in the
fields when planting rice is never fun? Though we
can have fun singing it.
The imposition of the English language, particularly
the practice of translating every Filipino song into
English and teaching it in that language, has given
the Filipino the impression that the many beautiful
songs they have been singing in the schools are of
American origin. Even such an intimate and lyrical
expression of Filipino feeling, as in the lullaby "Tulog
Ka Na Bunso" or "Tulog na Neneng" was not spared.
Its English version "Sleep My Darling Baby," has
been sung generations of Filipinos thinking it was
as American song. But we love this song because it
is really ours. It is actually a kundiman from
Bulakan.
How tender and sensitive is this song. Could it be
anything but Filipino? Masyado nang maraming
Pilipinong tinatawag na Baby dahil siguro sa
pagkanta ng English version, bihira na tayong
gumamit ng Neneng o Nena.
The use of English in Filipino folk songs oftentimes
produces an incongruous and ridiculous combination
of words and music. The flowing melodic style of our
folk music is incompatible with the choppy syllables
and hard consonant clusters of English. And when
this happens to a lively and humorous song, as in "Sitsiritsit
Alibangbang," its spontaneity is lost and we fail to
get its humor, although the incongruity may make us
laugh.
The alienation of the elite from his cultural roots
while producing only a half-baked understanding of
the colonizer's culture may have produced a profound
split in his personality that is the basis of such a
masterpiece of incongruity as the English version of
"Sitsiritsit Alibangbang."
This disturbing but perhaps unconscious dissonance
in the Filipino soul is evident even in Filipino
names, where a girl can have the first name old
Marie Antoinette but with a surname of Dugaduga. We
feel ashamed if our names sound too native. Some of
us do not even want to be identified as a Filipino
at all, as in this case of a local pop singer during
a singing tour in the U.S. because Fillipinos
supposedly do not have good image there.
Fortunately the Filipino masses and some
conscientisized elites have managed to retain pride
in their culture and continue to cultivate some of
the best aspects of our character as a people, like
the new capacity to laugh at our own misfortunes, to
achieve grace under pressure and flow with the life
process. These are very evident in the very Filipino
"Leron Leron Sinta."
The English version "Maria Went to Town" did not
become very popular because again the lyrics do not
fit the music plus there is something puritan about
the message. Who would like to be Puritan or a WASP?
So the Filipinos decided to make fun of the English
version.
Filipinos have a curious habit of thinking that
anything good and beautiful must be foreign, to the
extent that our genuine achievements as a people are
belittled as copies, imitations or derivations from
foreign ideas. This is true of our ancient script,
which even our scholars attribute to Sanskrit, no
matter how farfetched; of our National hero Jose
Rizal, whom we hail as the Pride of the Malay Race
rather than of the Filipino people, even if
anthropologically speaking, there is no such as a
Malay race.
This is also the case with our National Anthem,
which a noted Hispanophile who became a National
Artist for Literature by Presidential Decree,
seriously believe is derived from the "Le
Marsellaise of France," Verdi's "Triumphal March"
from the opera Aida, and the "Marcha Real" of Spain.
Similarly, many highly educated Filipinos still
believe that "Philippines My Philippines,"
translated in Filipino as "Pilipinas Kong Mahal" is
an imitation of "Maryland My Maryland." Both songs
were actually inspired more by local traditions,
such as religious processional music and the
kundiman, than by any foreign model.
Much work needs to be done, especially in the field
of education, before we can truly reclaim our
identity as Filipinos in the realm of consciousness.
But since the American period we have come along way
towards defining ourselves through song. If we took
at the developments since the sixties and seventies,
we have seen how poet-musicians or song writers have
tried to use song as a force for liberation from
imperialism and colonialism, a way of breaking down
barriers between the elite and the masses, a means
of serving the people and not simply treating them
as consumers in a capitalistic environment, as
criticism and an instrumental for confronting
problems, and for developing our sense of identity
as Filipinos.
Without a strong and positive identity as Filipinos,
we will never feel any commitment to the Nation, and
without this commitment, as the anthropologist Dr.
F. Landa Jocano always admonishes us, we will not be
capable of worthy achievement.
*From a lecture on the occasion of the celebration
of the International Museum Day, May 18, 2004
**Prof. de leon is a faculty at the University of
the Philippines in Dilliman, Quezon City
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