The Filipino struggle for Intellectual freedom

Media

Part of The Cabletow

Title: The Filipino struggle for Intellectual freedom
Creator: Yabes, Leopoldo
Language: English
Source: The Cabletow I New Series (No. 4) April 1959
Year: 1959
Subject: Intellectual freedom -- Philippines
Rights
Fulltext: The Filipino Struggle For Intellectual Freedom Leopolda yabcs This article bn Prof. Leopoldo Yabes, Asst. Head. English Dept., U.P., is presented with pride. Though not a Brother, Prof. Ya bes is deeply interested in the pre servation of freedom for all, the same interest 'hat we Masons The Filipino struggle for freedom of the intellect has been long and arduous. It has been attended with setbacks and defeats and with some periodic successes. As of today the struggle enters a criti cal stage and the light ahead appears to be more arduous than ever because of the cunning and insiduousness ol the enemies of Irccdom. If the strug gle is not waged with the dedication and wisdom that it needs, we may vet lose again, maybe lor a long period of lime, our freedom to think and act for As this piece is intended for people ••dccjuatelv informed on their own his tory, it should not be necessary to go back to the distant past except to state that the Muslim and Medieval Chris tian religious systems, which have ruled large portions of the country for about half a millennium, were not noted for any libertarian tradition or intentions. So it was necessary lor those yvho be lieved in freedom ol the mind to work lor that freedom under conditions of indifference and even hostility. During the Spanish occupation, ecclesiastical or military censorship was ever on the alert to clamp doyy n on thinking believed to be suversive of the regime. Interestingly enough, among the first to protest against the enslavement ol the intellect yvere some members of the clergy, notablv Pedro Pelaez and Jose Burgos. Of course these men lought for emancipation of the mind not as clergymen but as Filipinos. It was as much for this freedom of the intellect as for the assertion of Filipino nation ality that Gregorio Aglipav and Isabelo de los Reyes founded the Philippine In dependent church at the turn ol the century. Foremost among the Filipinos yvho led the intellectual light against en slavement of the mind during the pre revolutionary period yvere Jose Rizal, M. II. del Pilar, and Graciano Lopez Jaena. It is interesting to note that these yvere all Masons. Masonry then, it may’ be said, led in the fight lor the emancipation ol the Filipino mind dur ing the closing decades of the nine teenth century. After these men died, outstanding intclectuals like Apolinario Alabini,_T. II. Pardo de Tavera, Anto nio Luna, Cccilio Apostol, Fernando Guerrero, 1 omas G. del Rosario, and Felipe Calderon took over and led the fight.* Of course, this light would not have met much success if the Revolu tion led by Andres Bonifacio and Emi lio Aguinaldo—more men ol action than of the intellect—had not come and made the atmosphere more conducive to free and independent thinking. The provision in the Malolos Consti tution which makes Church and State separate and which recognizes the Iree115 dom and equality of religious worship —basic tenets in the American con cept of democracy—was very significant because it was adopted by a Congress whose membership was composed al most completely of Catholics. Although the approval was onlv bv a majority of one vote, it was a bold new step, a com plete turning back against tradition. The Philippine Bill of 1902, the Jones Law of 1916, the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act of 1933, the Tvdings-MeDuffee Act of 1934. and the Constitution of 1935 onlv affirmed what had been decided in Malolos in 1899. The principle of separation of Church and State is fundamental to freedom of the mind. The intellectual histories of states with official religions reveal that whatever great thinkers such states may have produced, were made possible because thev fought against the crippling influence of the church. Throughout the Spanish re gime here the Philippines was not able to produce any great thinker with the possible exception of Rizal, who was a Mason. The case of T. II. Pardo de Tavcra may also be cited, but this man began producing his courageous articles cnlv after Spanish rule had been thrown out. Other thinkers like Ra fael Palma and Epifanio de los Santos, both born in the 1870's, began to ma ture only after the opening of the pre sent century. And of course such men as Teodoro M. Kalaw, Vicente Sotto, Fernando Maramag, Ignacio Manlapaz, and Claro M. Recto could not have thrived except under a regime where Church and State are separate and where freedom of religious worship is recognized. An enumeration of civil Tights, first introduced in the Biacnabato and Ma lolos Constitutions, was expanded into a Bill of Rights in the Autonomy Act of 1902 and in the Jones Law of 1916, was reiterated in the Independence Bills of 1933 and 1934, and was con secrated in the Philippine Constitution. Even the Constitution of the Japanesesponsored Republic, promulgated un der a totalitarian regime, recognized certain freedoms of the individual. These civil liberties guaranteed to the individual citizen by the Constitution and laws of the land make possible the development of an atmosphere where the individual can cultivate his facul ties to the utmost. They provide the opportunity for the full flowering of the human spirit. It is onlv in an at mosphere where the fundamental civil liberties arc recognized and protected that one may find the fullest opportu nity for self-development. Of course it is to be expected that certain persons and institutions which have never believed in freedom will al ways try to render innocuous or sup press altogether such civil liberties. They use a variety of devices, strategems, and tactics to achieve their aims. When they iind the going rough, they may abandon their project tcmporarilv to resume it again when the times arc more auspicious. That’s what they ac tually did during the American regime. No matter how much thev disliked the American concept of civil liberties, they found it futile to fight that concept frontally. Besides, this concept seemed to be acceptable to the people, as they observed it in actual practice. With the exception of the abuses the Amer ican military perpetrated on portions of the civilian population during the Fili pino-American war at the turn of the century and on the dissidents during the early years of the American civil rule, it can be said that on the whole 116 THE CABLE TOW April, 1959 the American rule respected and pro tected the civil rights of the people. Even the Republican Party, which was opposed to Philippine independence at an early date, could not publicly deny to the Filipinos the very freedoms the Americans were enjoying. In fact it should be stated that while they doubt ed our capacity for political indepen dence, they affirmed our right to the civil liberties. It should be said there fore that were it not for the American rule, our struggle for the preservation of our civil liberties could have been lost earlier. As it was, the enemies of these freedoms, realizing the futility of any frontal attack on these freedoms then, chose to lie low to wait for some more opportune time. The time came during the Constitu tional Convention and after the estab lishment of the Commonwealth. The last overt attempt to nullify the prin ciple of separation of Church and State occurred with the presentation, by a prominent member of the Convention, of.a proposal to the Chairman of the Committee on Bill of Rights, to the ef fect "that in all public schools there shall be prescribed a course in moral ethics or the religion of the parents of the school children, at the option of the parents," for inclusion in the Bill of Rights. The Committee, however, did rot include this in its draft on the Bill of Rights. Not to he daunted, the ene mies of the separation of Church and State, when the draft of the Constitu tion was presented for discussion on the floor of the Convention containing the present clause on religious instruction, presented an amendment, as follows: "En todos las clases publicas se incluija entre kis asignaturas la moral o instruccion rcligiosa a opcion de los pa dres o cncargados de los discipulos." When reminded by other delegates that there was already a law permitting re ligious instruction in public schools un der certain conditions, the delegate who presented the amendment said, "That is precisely what I am opposing, the present provisions of the law.”1 The amendment failed of passage. But this defeat did not dishearten the opponents of freedom of thought. With the support of the ecclesiastical autho rities of the majority sect, a bill was passed by the First National Assembly in 1938, “to carry out more effectively the provisions contained in Section 928 of Act numbered 2711, known as the Administrative Code, and in Section 5, Article XIII, of the Constitution, re garding optional religious instruction.” When President Quezon vetoed the bill as unconstitutional and contrary to the principle of separation of Church and State, the authorities of the ecclesiasti cal province of Cebu issued a pastoral letter urging the reenactment of the ve toed bill. This enraged Quezon, who issued a statement in which he said in part:2 I am amazed at the boldness of the metropolitan archbishop and suflragan bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Cebu in taking up at an episcopal conference a matter con cerning the constitutional duties and prerogatives of the officials and branches of the Government of the Commonwealth. I had so far ignored charges made to the effect that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the Philippines had instigated and was behind the morevement for the enactment of the bill regarding religious instruc117 lion in the Philippines. But the pas toral letter signed by the metropoli tan archbishop and suffragan bi shops of that ecclesiastical province is an incontrovertible evidence that we did face at the last session of the Assemble, and we do face now, one of the most menacing evils that can confront the government and people of the Philippines, namely, the in terference of the church in the af fairs of the state. It seems that the archbishop and the bishops who have written this pastoral letter are blind to the lessons of history, including our own during the Spanish regime. Being a Catholic myself, I am less interested in preserving the inde pendence of the church from the state than I am in preserving the in dependence of the government from the church. It should not be necessary to re mind the ecclesiastical authorities in the Philippines that the separation of the church and state in this couli tre is a reality and not a mere theory, and that as far as our people are con cerned, it is forever settled that this separation shall be maintained as one of the cardinal tenets of our Government. The ecclesiastical au thorities should realize, therefore, that anv attempt on their part to in terfere with matters that are within the province of the Government will not be tolerated.” Quezon challenged the opponents of separation of Church and State to bring the question to the people as an elec tion issue, but they did not accept the challenge. They remained silent, bid ing their time. Then the war and enemy occupation came. Still thev remained silent. It seems thev were cowed bv a stronger evil force. When the enemy regime de creed the liberalization of divorce, no vocal opposition came from their direc tion. Buc, strangely enough, when the war ended and the regime of freedom was restored once more, these people were again busy sabotaging the -very freedoms for which we had fought the war. The old demand for a more ef fective implementation of the Consti tutional provision regarding optional re ligious instruction in the public schools was again revived. Quezon, their po werful cnemv, was dead. The use of Roman Ozaeta’s English translation of Palma's biography of Rizal in the pub lic schools was violently opposed and some education officials were accused as Masons. The publication, by the na tional government, of T. A. Agoncillo’s llrvolt of the Masses, prize-winning en try in a Republic-sponsored contest on toe life of Andres Bonifacio, was de layed many times and finally given up because of protests from certain secta rian agencies. Another fight between the liberal and the reactionary forces was over the Rizal bill. The authors of the bill wanted to imbue our people, especially our youth, with our libertarian traditinn, of which Rizal was one of the foremost exponents. The enemies of that tradition fought the bill with all their resources. Happily' the Filipino people knew who their real cnemv was, and the bill was enacted into law. In the University of the Philippines a sectarian agency proposed the estab lishment of a department of religion, and the president of the University, taking the cue, formalized the proposal in a speech on what he called his phi losophy of education, made in Decem ber 1954 in connection, paradoxically enough, with the bicentennial celcbra118 THE CABLE TOW April, 1959 tion of Columbia University the theme of which was, “Man’s right to know ledge and the free use thereof.”1 In that speech and in some other speeches and messages, instead of coming out in defense of academic freedom, he tried to discredit it. When the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts decided to publ.sh Agoncillo’s Revolt of the Masses after the failure of the national govern ment to publish it, sectarian opposition was again voiced over the radio and in the press. Complaints were made with the President of the University and with the President of the Republic. Happily so far the complaints have not been entertained. For if outside agen cies can succeed in interfering with the academic freedom of the University, then the University is completely lost as a center of learning and becomes a mere propaganda agency for certain vested interests. At regards the Rizal bill, the Univer sity community seems to have been a a little more enlightened than other communities. The opposition here was not as strong as it was elsewhere and it was more circumspect. Even some of those who were expected to oppose it violently, remained outwardly non committal? Those who opposed the bill, curiously enough, made use of the right of freedom of conscience as their main argument against the bill, a right, hv the way, which thev don’t believe The attack on intellectual freedom is not always direct. Sometimes it as sumes subtle and therefore more insi dious forms. Sometimes an influential man with liberal ideas but not well cir cumstanced financially, is brought out by the offer of a lucrative job. Maybe without knowing it, he soon finds it harder and harder to be assertive on the very freedoms that are the basis of a democratic society, and in the end he will not find it hard to walk the path marked out for him bv his benefactor. So one more independent mind is si lenced. Sometimes the attack is made as an offer of preferences or arrange ments advantageous socially, political ly, or economically. The unwarv arc quite likely to fall for such attrac tive arrangements. As a matter of fact a considerable number of such people have flourished under such arrange ments, but have ceased being respected lor their courageous and independent thinking. Some are now with the nonvcaitx riches, some are on the higher echelons of government, some are in industrial and business management, and some arc in the highly profitable business called the higher learning. In such fields it is more safe and advan tageous to hold no views or hold onlv views that are harmless. Such people therefore constitute so manv more souls lost to the cause of intellectual freedom. As we said in the beginning, our struggle for intellectual freedom, des pite some successes in the past, has not been won. As it is now, it is still an uphill fight. The ]X)wer and endur ance of the enemies of freedom, on the right as well as on the left, are not to be underestimated. Those on the right are perhaps as dangerous as those on the left, if not more so, because they arc more socially and intellectually in fluential and so can be more cunning and insidious. So we should guard against both. This is no time to despair, though, 119 in spite of the not very bright outlook. We can depend on the innate intelli gence and sound judgment of the Fili pino people. Some of them may now and then be deceived by people who don’t believe in freedom. But in due time thev will join with the libertarian tradition of intellectual leaders like Ri yal, del Pilar, Lopcz-Jaena, Mabini, Par do de Tavcra, Palma, Jose Abad San tos, T. Al. Kalaw, and Recto; of reli gious leaders like Burgos, Aglipay, and de los Revcs; of statesmen like Quezon, Osmena, and Juan Sumulong; of poli tico-military leaders like Bonifacio, Aguinaldo, Luna, Alejandrino, and Vinzons; and of educationists like Fran cisco Benitez, B. M. Gonzalez, Camilo Osias, Vicente G. Sinco, Esteban Abada, and Florentino Cayco. That tradi tion is bound to prevail over the nihi list and obscurantist traditions. But we should do our utmost to make it prevail soon. That is our sacred duty to our selves, to our posteritv, to our country, and to the cause of democracv. AAA DISTRICT GRAND LODGE CONVENTIONS The officers and brethren of the nine lodges composing the First Masonic District under the leadership of Verv Wor. Bro. Mariano G. Almeda met in convention on Feb. 21, 1959 at San tiago, Isabela with Cagayan Valley Lodge No. 133 of that town as host lodge. A number or Grand Lodge of ficers led by the Grand Master mo tored to Santiago to be present at the convention and to give the main adA week after, the Grand Lodge of ficers flew to the south in Cagavan tie Oro City to attend the convention of the Seventh Masonic District un der Very Wor. Bro. Jose L. Araneta, cn February 27 & 28, 1959. MEDINA IS COMMISSIONER AND TECHNOLOGIST FOR PAEC Wor. Bro. Florencio Medina, PM, Quezon City Lodge No. 122 and a full colonel in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, has been appointed a member and technologist of the Phil ippine Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). Shortly after he took his oath of office, Wor. Bro. Medina made a hurried trip to Washington on orders of President Garcia to confer with Washington officials re final arrange ments for the immediate construction of an atomic reactor plant in Diliman, Quezon Citv on the edge of the Uni versity of the Philippines campus. While in Washington, Bro. Medina worked hard and far into the night with Washington authorities of the U.S. Ato mic Energy Commission on plans for the plant. It will be recalled that for sometime there was doubt as to the construction of the plant in the Philip pines, it having been tentatively decid ed to be built in some other country in Asia. It is now definitely known that the construction of the plant in Quezon City will commence early in June this year. Machineries for the plant are expected to arrive shortly. Before his appointment to the PAEC, Bro. Medina was chief of the Research Division of the Armed Forces and parttime professor in the University of the Philippines and other universities in Manila. He is an honor graduate in Chemical Engineering of the State Uni versity and has travelled extensively in Europe and the United States for con ferences, studv and observation on ato mic reactor plants and the production of atomic energy for peaceful uses. 120 THE CABLE TOW April, 1959
pages: 115-120