The company that manufactures Arnis equipment
The longest three days of my life were perhaps the days I began training in Arnis, the Philippine national martial arts. For seven hours each day, I twisted my arms and bent my wrists in ways that they had never been twisted or bent before. Despite also cracking in places that convinced me I would be leaving the gym in several pieces, learning the basics of the art was entertaining, exhilarating, and empowering. With every new nerve that I excited and with every muscle that I agitated, I became more aware of my body’s capacity to extend and feel. And, apparently, I have the capacity to feel a lot.
My bruises can attest to how many times I failed to block an attack because I was too busy launching my own offensive.
Crack! The air whistles and our sticks tremble as my opponent and I rest against each other’s energy.
A quick counter and another loud Crack! And an arm – my arm –involuntarily jerks from the pain as my opponent’s stick zeroes in on my unprotected flesh and executes one punishing blow after another.
Whack! That’s for forgetting to block
Whack! That’s for forgetting to counter
Whack! That’s so you will remember!
Master Rey says training is his least favorite part of the sport because he has been doing it nearly everyday for over 30 years
Master Rey tells me to adjust my grip on the stick, and to begin to regard it not as a stick at the end of my arm, but as a weapon that is part of my arm. The next day, I was able to use this piece of instruction and bit of education to beat both of my opponents on sparring matches.
Although I have just recently learned to regard the Arnis stick as an extension of my body, I have long regarded education as an extension of myself. On my second blog, I wrote that, “Education will be a weapon that they [young immigrants traveling abroad] can wield even when their eyes begin to smart from seeing the realities of life, and their voices grow hoarse from shouting against the political, social and cultural injustices and inequalities that pervade the system.”
At the time, it made sense to write that Filipinos need only pick up the weapon of Education in order to fight the prevailing systems of inequality and oppression. It made sense to write that the Philippines could be blinded by inexperience as a fledgling country or muted by its lack of power as a developing nation and, still, she would triumph as long as her children attained the education that would enable them to extend their reach and hold their own in global matches. However, our nation’s history has presented us with pages upon pages of social, political and cultural bruises that clearly document the Philippine’s struggle to block and counter the various offensive attacks of foreign powers.
Bruises my sister and I sustained during the tournament. Others did not fair as well as we did
Whack! This one’s from 300-years of colonial rule by Spain
Whack! This one’s from three years of brutal occupation by Japan
Whack! And this one’s from the continuing imperial subjugation under the United States.
In the article “The Miseducation of the Filipino,” Renato Constantino asserts that “Education is a vital weapon of a people striving for economic emancipation, political independence, and cultural renascence.” Philippine education, he goes on, must produce Filipinos who are “aware of their country’s problems, who understand the basic solution to these problems, and who care enough and have courage enough to work and sacrifice for their country’s salvation” (117).
At the time, it made sense to have such an unwavering belief in the ability and reliability of Education to be the means by which “a nation of long harassed and persecuted slaves” (Twain) can strive for and achieve “economic emancipation, political independence, and cultural renascence” (Constantino). Now, after learning Arnis, visiting Ateneo de Manila, and immersing myself in discussions with Anakbayan, lectures by Dr. Jose, and this week’s articles, I realize that besides posing as a solution to some of the country’s various ills, Philippine education might in itself pose as one of the nation’s greatest problems. Guided by the right pair of hands, (the hands of caring and courageous Filipinos), the Philippine education system could serve not only to defend the Philippines, but also to elevate her children.
Taken from Emilio Aguinaldo's house in Tagaytay
What has gone wrong is that since its inception, the Philippine education system was fashioned by the hands of the United States, a foreign power that sought to subjugate the Filipino people by capturing their children’s minds. Using education as a colonial tool was of such importance to the United States that only Americans were appointed to head the department of education up to 1935. In this way, the US successfully remade what it meant to be Filipino by measures and policies that subtly eroded Philippine nationalism, and by producing a new generation of Filipino-Americans who thought and acted like “little Americans” (Constantino).
Ateneo students walking to class in front of Faura Hall
Yesterday’s visit at Ateneo de Manila, UP’s rival and one of the top four universities in the Philippines, acquainted me with a new kind of Filipino – the kind who are born on Philippine soil and breathe Philippine air, but who cannot speak the Philippine language. The majority of the Filipino students at Ateneo are fluent in English, the language of our oppressor, yet deplorable in their skills in wielding Tagalog, the language of our ancestors. They are, in more ways than they themselves might realize, “little Americans.”
According to Constantino, “the master stroke in the plan to use education as an instrument of colonial policy was the decision to use English as the medium of instruction.” He goes on to describe the English language as the “wedge” that “separated Filipinos from their past and later was to separate educated Filipinos from the masses of their countrymen” (181).
This “wedge” was palpable as I walked side-by-side English-speaking Ateneo students who are insulated from the oppressive realities experienced by the majority of Filipinos by their name-brand clothes, foreign-manufactured toys, imported cars, beautifully-manicured lawns, and securely-guarded campus.
Our program director entering the Ateneo de Manila campus
They have the money, the brains, and the connections to shake things up and make things happen, yet there appears to be no great conviction stirring within them to use either talent or position to help exact positive change in Philippine society. They have learned, as Constantino says, “to live peacefully, if not comfortably under the colonial order” (italics are my own).
At what I can only guess is the university’s attempt to change things up and allow its students to experience a moment of disquiet and discomfort, a student told me that the university has programs designed to immerse students with social issues and situations. For example: taking up a blue-collar job for a few weeks, visiting the slums and helping educate children on Saturdays, and living with a poor family for a whole weekend.
A whole weekend with a poor family!
Slum areas: the view from the Commission on Filipinos Overseas office
Now that’s something to think about.
Did the poor Filipino-speaking family and the wealthy English-speaking students even manage to communicate with each other? If so, what did they talk about? With the time constraint and the language barrier, I imagine many things were not discussed, such as the fact that many of the very poor sift through the garbage receptacles of the McDonalds, the Jollibees (Philippine-based, but still American-style), and the other internationally-owned food corporations here in the Philippines, in order to scrap up a meal for their families (Anakbayan). A representative from Anakbayan told us that, oftentimes, the people have to sift through maggot-infested food so that they could feed on days-old scraps.
My sisters ordering meals for the entire family at Jollibee. The workers behind the counter are a few of the Filipinos who make minimum wage (less than $10.00) for an entire day's work
The poor Filipino-speaking family and the wealthy English-speaking students likely also didn’t discuss the fact that these kind of abominable living conditions exist partly because the minimum wage in higher-paying Metro Manila is only P404.00 a day (less than $10.00 a day), while the cost of living is P1,000.00 a day (Anakbayan). In the provinces, it is even lower at P350.00 for an honest 8-hour day’s work producing the nation’s wealth, all of which goes to the elite class, 1 percent of the Philippine’s 92 million inhabitants comprised of bureaucrats, capitalists, and landowners.
But seriously, who could blame the students, the majority of who, with their English proficiency and their top-tier education, are promised the choicest positions in the business and political world upon graduation? I don’t envy people who have to resort to eating maggot-infested Jollibee meals in order to survive, and I don’t envy Hacienda Luisita farmers who are only paid P9.50 a day (less than a quarter of a US dollar) because landowners like the Aquinos and the Ayalas of this country are too dulled by generations of holding power and money to give a shit to the other 99 percent of the population.
A handkerchief I bought from the Ateneo gift shop. According to Frank, our coordinator, my purchase at Ateno coming from UP was akin to buying something at WSU coming from UW
Who could blame the students? I, for one, couldn’t. For all my apparent critique of Ateneo’s placid countenance and contended manner, I couldn’t blame them because I see myself in them: a “little American,” a product of five years of Filipino miseducation, and over 10 years of biased American education; I have the name-brand clothes, the foreign-manufactured toys, the beautifully-manicured lawn, the top-tier University of Washington education, and proficiency in the English language.
However much I am implicated in my own critique of Philippine’s well-to-do, just-up-and-rising students, I do have the advantage of being here re-learning my people’s history. And, finding the Filipinos still under colonial rule, a huge part of me wants to be counted among those Filipinos who “care enough and have courage enough to work and sacrifice for their country’s salvation” (Constantino). I have the advantage of gaining the education many clamor to get, but don’t.
In “A History of Paradox: Some Notes On Philippine Public Education in the 20th Century,” Digna Apilado writes that the tertiary level, established in 1908 with the creation of the University of the Philippines, was intended for the “leaders and the economic elite” (90). Both at the public UP and at the private Ateneo (but more so at Ateneo, where the tuition is three times the amount of the former), one glance at the student body would confirm that these youths constitute a portion of Philippine’s elite.
Many clamor to get in, but don’t.
One of the Ateneo students who guided us through campus and answered all of our curious questions about student academic and social life
One of our student tour guides said that if a student from the middle or lower classes attempted to gain admission into Ateneo through scholarships, that student would have to score at the top 10 percent of the student body in order to be considered.
Considering the fact that there are numerous problems plaguing the Philippine public educational system, (including the high drop-out rate and low achievement of primary and secondary school students, as well as the lack of qualified schoolteachers, and the inability of most Filipino students to learn correct English (Apilado)), a student educated in the extremely lacking and problematic public school system and aspiring to attend a UP or an Ateneo will have to surmount serious challenges – or be a Jose Rizal – in order to succeed.
Jose Rizal banner at Ateneo. Rizal is one of the national heroes of the Philippines, was conversant in 22 languages, was a prolific poet, essayist, diarist, correspondent and novelist. He was legit, but he was executed by the Spaniards in 1896
Before he drove me to UP’s Balay Kalinaw, my father told me how proud he was that I was attending the UW and, now, for this little bit of time, the UP.
The University of Washington, Home of the Huskies
“You know, UP was my dream school when I was young,” he tells me. “I took the exam when I was a senior in high school, but didn’t get in.”
I don’t know what to say so I stay quiet. Listening to people’s broken dreams usually has this effect on me. While I nodded my head and blinked sympathetically, he told me how his primary and secondary education up in the mountains of Bohol could hardly prepare him – or anyone – to do well on the national exams that would determine his education, his reach in society; that, despite this, he did get accepted into his second choice of schools: the University of Mindanao (UM). For a portion of his college career at UM, he lived off of a meager living allowance that forced him to walk back and forth from Tagbilaran to Duero for 20 kilometers in order to save money, and to climb fruit trees and pluck star-apples along the way in order to supplement his nonexistent source of meals. Even at UM, the exclusive and elitist character of higher education managed to make him the object of ridicule among his peers.
“They laughed and told me that, at the rate I was going, I would never make it,” he says to me. “They laughed at me but I just smiled at them and worked on obtaining what nobody expected.”
He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering.
Education is a double-edged sword: capable of defending the Filipino and equally capable of plunging into him and destroying him. Thinking back to how strongly I championed Education as a weapon for individual and national growth, I can’t help but cringe now knowing that it is by using this very same weapon that the United States enslaved the minds of earlier Filipino generations and continue to colonize not only the Philippine masses but also its Spanish- and English-speaking elites.
I cringe, and who wouldn’t, when the weapon that I have so steadfastly promoted the use of and personally sought after stands guilty, stained by the blood of numerous Filipinos who have been pacified, Americanized and whose nationalism has been diluted?
Who wouldn’t cringe, when in a sparring match, you realize your stick or blade has been blunted, and, much worse, refashioned to suit your opponent’s needs? Adroit and confident, he dances around you continually bruising you with the slaps of his stick, and wounding you with the slashes of his blade.
After a 1.5 hour van ride, we arrived at Taguig City University still drowsy from our midday nap
This past Monday, our group crowded inside a blue van that spirited us from the University of the Philippine campus to Taguig City University, where we were to participate in the first and, perhaps (for most of us), only Arnis tournament of our lives.
Three days of [fairly] hardcore training brought us face-to-face/stick-to-stick against students who had been training for months in this sacred Philippine national martial arts. We competed in two matches – each of which were preceded by anxious stretching, nervous twitching and unnecessary visits to the restroom, and both of which allowed us to see [and feel] what this huge disparity in training would personally mean for each and every one of us.
This is me during my first sparring match against Angelo
When it came my turn, my sight dimmed, my heart screamed, and my stick swayed in front of me and – before I could faint – I had somehow maneuvered another clear strike and judges were raising red flags signaling a victory for UW.
A victory for UW. The cup tasted good, so I drank from it twice. And it was easier to tip the cup my way because I was taller and crazier than my opponent. My lack of substantial training allowed me to pull off moves that she probably never even expected. Also, it helped boost our overall confidence to hear TCU students cheering “Washington!” throughout the game. Unlike this Arnis tournament, nobody is cheering for the Philippines to win (and if there are, they are quickly silenced by the pro-American Philippine government).
I cringe because the fight is unfair and the match is not even.
I cringe because America used to play fair, but now doesn’t!
In the satiric essay “To The Person Sitting in Darkness,” Mark Twain delivers a scathing critique of how quickly America switched from playing its traditional “American game” of being champions of freedom to imitating the “European game” of being perpetrators of colonial oppression when, upon chancing one glance at what Twain calls “the Philippine temptation,” America’s ambitious political leaders ignored all legal laws and proper sensibilities in order to colonize a people already struggling for independence from Spain.
The educational system is designed so that the masses learn only what is needed to keep the Philippines a dependent semi-colonial, semi-feudal nation (Anakbayan); so the working class learn only how to be in desperate need of labor and never on how to consolidate and fight for increased wages and benefits.
The educational system is designed so that the peti bourgeois learn only how to be good colonials, that it is better to be light-skinned and best to be white; so that the local merchants learn only that, eventually, their small businesses will get swallowed up by big foreign corporations who detest any kind of competition for the surplus goods being dumped in the Philippine market.
And it is designed so that the Philippine elite learn only how to best cater to American interests – desecrating the Philippine flag by yielding her government over as a puppet to the US, and devaluing her natural resources by allowing foreign invades to bayonet her breast in their effort to steal her charms. According to Anakbayan, the Philippines is the second largest exporter of gold in the world.
And, yet, our people dig through the trash and eat maggot-infested meals.
The first Educational Discussion we had with Anakbayan
Twain laments America’s materialism: that she chose land, money and dominion over “something worth many times more than that dross:…the spectacle of a nation of long harassed and persecuted slaves set free through our influence” (8). His satire is dense when he also chides America for being too obvious about her aims and for invoking confusion and suspicion upon the fragile sensibilities of The Person Sitting in Darkness (aka the Philippines).
My brief stay here has allowed me to see first-hand the ravages of colonial rule, and the even more acute disease of colonial mentality from which a majority of Filipinos suffer from and nurse without their awareness.
Twain’s satire is denser still when he asserts that these kinds of observations is bad for the “Business” and that “we must persuade him to look at the Philippine matter in another and healthier way. We must arrange his opinions for him. I believe it can be done”
Through the miseducation of the Filipino, It was done.
We didn’t win all the matches that day at TCU, but we definitely held our own. There were no plaques or awards, but there were plenty of bruises to go around, and paraded them in all their gnarly hues and impressive sizes as if they were badges of honor. It was an exhilarating experience. I felt more complete after yielding both my body and mind over to an art the originator of which is the Philippines, and the inheritors of which are her children.
My Arnis stick carrier
It’s been a week since I’ve returned to UP. My bruises are fading, and my red and blue sticks are resting, but, during my time back in this academic setting, my mind has continued to wrestle with information that, I suspect, will keep on agitating my spirit long after I return to the United States
I’m agitated and disoriented. I know freedom is the answer to the question of enslavement, but I don’t know how to get from one to the other.
Is it, as Constantino alludes, by reforming the Philippine public education system?
We certainly can’t continue on fighting with this blunted blade! Our education system is corrupted by American educational architects who designed it to teach Filipinos how to be good colonials and not on how to be an autonomous people. However, to reform the system, Philippine educational leaders must let go of what Constantino critiques as their “timidity” and let go of their conviction that an American-based school system will serve the interest of Filipino students.
Anakbayan stand at UP
Otherwise, the bruises might deepen and it might come to what Anakbayan hopes will be a strategic and well-executed armed revolution to topple the one percent ruling class and place the 99 percent Filipino masses in power.
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