How sad indeed that aside from Jose Abad Santos, most
Filipinos cannot name another Kapampangan who deserves to be in the nation’s
pantheon of heroes and patriots.The reason for this ignorance is Manila’s control over
national history—the same control it has on national language and,
unfortunately, pretty much everything else. Nothing in this country ever gets
national attention or national recognition unless Manila says so.
Because Manila is a Tagalog city dictating its Tagalog
identity on the rest of the nation, we are made, for example, to read all 377
stanzas of 'Florante at Laura' and not even one stanza from the equally great
'Gonzalo de Cordoba,' the country’s longest literary work written by a
Kapampangan.
We are also required to know the name of practically every
Caviteño, Bulakenyo and Batangueño who ever fought in the Revolution, while all
the equally heroic Kapampangans, Ilocanos, Cebuanos, etc. are completely
ignored.
If there’s any justice in this country, these 10
Kapampangans must have their statues erected in parks all over the country and
their names written in history books:
1. PEDRO ABAD SANTOS, the Socialist Party founder who inspired
an entire generation of peasants and laborers to claim the land they tilled and
the just wages they earned. He influenced his younger brother Jose to become a
more pro-poor Justice Secretary and Chief Justice, and pressured his brother’s
boss, President Manuel Quezon, to initiate land reform. Because Jose later died
a glorious martyr’s death and Pedro only died from a bleeding ulcer, we have
streets, schools and hospitals across the country named after Jose, while all
that Pedro got is a small statue in his hometown.
2. BAMBALITO (a.k.a.
Tarik Soliman), the Macabebe chieftain who
rallied thousands of Macabebe warriors to Tondo to resist Miguel Lopez de
Legazpi in 1571. Abandoned by Tagalog leaders Lacandula, Rajah Matanda and
Rajah Soliman, he faced the Spanish
conquistadores alone at the critical Battle
of Bangkusay. His death sealed the fate of the country, and yet who remembers
him except us Kapampangans? Worse, Manila credits the Tagalog Rajah Soliman as
the hero of Bangkusay (he wasn’t even there). It was only in June 2016 that the National Historic Commission (NHCP) officially corrected the longtime claim that Rajah Soliman was the first native to die for freedom--but this this young warrior--now honored with a commemorative marker in Macabebe.
3. MARTIN SANCHO, the 10-year-old Kapampangan prodigy who was
shipped to Spain in 1587 to recite the entire Catholic Catechism (in Latin!)
before King Philip II. His performance convinced the King that the natives he
imagined to be savages were actually as erudite as Europeans, and that the
colony he was ready to quit was after all worth keeping. After creating a
sensation in Madrid, Martin next went to Rome where he studied and eventually
became the first Filipino Jesuit. Yet he only merited a tiny footnote in Jesuit
annals and no mention at all in history books.
4. REMEDIOS GOMEZ, the Huk soldier known as
Kumander Liwayway
who polished her nails and wore makeup before going to battle. Her feminine
ways amused and sometimes irritated her comrades, but she proved that a woman
didn’t have to act like a man to fight like a man. Her courage made Huk Supremo
Luis Taruc declare that “the role of women was one of the proudest features of
the Hukbalahap.” When President Manuel Roxas scolded her after her capture, she
told him “You are wrong, Mr. President” to his face. Filipinos romanticize to
death the stories of Nelia Sancho, Maita Gomez and other beauty
queens-turned-dissidents, yet don’t even know or care that
Kumander Liwayway is
still alive and living in Metro-Manila.*
5. FELIPE SONSONG, the Macabebe soldier-turned-missionary whose
reputation for holiness eclipsed that of mission leader Fr. Diego Sanvitores,
SJ and mission companion Pedro Calungsod, and prompted a contemporary, Fr.
Lorenzo Bustillo, SJ, to write a detailed account of Sonsong’s life—so detailed
that historian Fr. John Schumacher, SJ called Sonsong the most documented
Filipino before the time of Jose Rizal. When he died (in 1685), the top
civilian and military officials of the Ladrones islands (Guam) carried his
casket to the cemetery. Sanvitores has since been beatified and Calungsod
canonized, but Sonsong’s own cause for beatification is still neither here nor
there.
6. ZOILO GALANG, who holds not one, not two, but three
Philippine records: he wrote the country’s first English novel (in 1921), the
country’s first book of English poems (in 1925) and the country’s first
encyclopedia (in 1934). Galang wrote the novel 'A Child of Sorrow' three years
before Paz Marquez Benitez wrote the short story 'Dead Stars,' and yet all
textbooks in Philippine Literature in English begin with Benitez and 'Dead
Stars.'
7. LUISA GONZAGA DE LEON, the first Filipino woman to author a
book (in 1844). This country has honored every woman who pioneered something,
including first Filipina admitted to Harvard, first Filipina Ph.D., first
Filipina scientist, etc. Gonzaga de Leon wrote a book at a time when most women
didn’t even read books, so it’s puzzling why the nation shows no appreciation
for this Kapampangan woman’s extraordinary accomplishment.
8. THE MALAYA LOLAS of Mapaniqui, Candaba, all 100 of them,
raped all night by Japanese soldiers when they were still young girls and
forced to witness the massacre of their husbands and fathers—a story more
horrific than anything to ever come out of World War II. And yet the nation has
paid more attention to other comfort women with far less compelling stories to
tell.
9. PEDRO DANGANAN, the miracle worker from Sapangbato who
became such a national celebrity in the 1930s that pilgrims from as far as
Ilocos and Bicol flocked to his house by the thousands, sometimes hiding under
the
'batalan' to catch his bath water which they believed to be miraculous.
Estampitas bearing his image were sold outside churches, while newspapers
carried news stories proclaiming that he was
“gumagamot nang walang gamot at
walang bayad.” It’s amazing how a country obsessed with faith healers and
visionaries, from Felipe Salvador to Jun Labo to Judiel Nieva, would have
absolutely no memory of this enigmatic Kapampangan.
10. VOLUNTARIOS DE MACABEBE, not the better-known Macabebe
Scouts of the American Period, but their earlier version in the Spanish Period,
who helped the Spaniards stretch their colonial rule to 300 years, for better
or for worse. Even Gen. William Draper of the invading British Navy in 1762 was
in awe of their ferocity and military skills. Their do-or-die defense of the
fleeing Spaniards so angered Gen. Aguinaldo that he had the whole town burned
to the ground. By the time the Americans took over, the V
oluntarios were ready
to morph into the Scouts to avenge their fate. Today the Scouts are the stuff
of debates and movies, while the
Voluntarios, whom the Spaniards fondly
described as “the loyal companions of our disgraces and glories,” only had a
street named after them—and it’s not even here in the Philippines.
*Remedios Gomez died after the article was first published,
in May 2014, at age 95.
SOURCE:
ROBBY TANTINGCO, originally published 2014, posted on his FB Notes, 11 November 2015
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