Writing for Foreign Affairs in 1968, Filipino national hero Benigno

"Ninoy" Aquinolamented: "Almost half a century of American rule

bequeathed to the Asian Filipino a trauma by making him uncomfortably
American in outlook, values and tastes..." No wonder then, in one survey
after the other, the Philippines has held the distinction of having the
most favorable view towards the United States, its formal colonial
master.
In the 2013 Global Attitudes survey, conducted by the Pew Research
Center, as many as 85% of Filipinos expressed a favorable view of
America, astonishingly beating even the Americans themselves (81%). By
2015, even a greater number of Filipinos (92%) expressed a favorable
view of the global superpower. In one war after the other -- from the
struggle against Imperial Japan during the Second World War to the
proxy wars against Communism in the Korean Peninsula and Vietnam
during the Cold War -- Filipinos stood should-to-shoulder with America.
Without a question, if there were anything like a "loyalty award" for
America's friends, the Philippines would have qualified as an undisputed
contender.
Throughout the world, the United States is praised and/or envied for its
cultural prowess (think of Hollywood), dynamic centers of innovation
(think of Silicon Valley), and military muscle. In the Philippines,
America is also broadly seen as a savior, a Knight in shining armor that
has protected the island nation from bogeymen and menace of
undemocratic ideologies. One can argue, however, that the Philippines's
love affair with America is partly a product of its historical amnesia. For
long, the glaring gap in the Filipino national discourse was the
Philippine-American War (1899-1902), a heroic struggle for national
independence, which Washington, quite hubristically, dismissed as an
"insurrection".

It is this largely forgotten part of the country's history that "Heneral

Luna" (2015), the Philippines' official entry for Oscars this year, tries to
decipher. Choosing General Antonio Luna as its main subject, the movie
manages to communicate the vast potentials as well as tragic outcome of
the Philippines' quest for national independence -- and the predicaments
of nation-building.
It is a movie not about aggrieved and aggressive nationalism, which
Albert Einstein rightly dismissed as an "infantile disease" and "measles
of mankind", but instead the moral logic of patriotism and the perils of
divisive tribalism. Heneral Luna isn't a tale about morality per se, but
instead an honest portrayal of the moral dilemmas of nation-building.
A Forgotten History
To be fair, within few decades of (overt) colonial rule, the United States
managed to leave a larger imprint on modern Philippines than Spain,
which brutally occupied the country for more than three centuries. As
historian Arnold Toynbee described, the Spaniards held onto to the
Philippines "by a handful of soldiers, administrators, and friars after the
fashion of the Spanish empire of the Indies."
The Southeast Asian nation, after all, was America's showcase colony.
Washington made a conscious effort to demonstrate that it wasn't just
another Western imperialist. As award-winning journalist Neil
Sheehan explains,"[h]aving overt colonies was not acceptable to the
American political conscience", for the American people, who themselves
had to valiantly revolt against British dominion, "were convinced that
their imperial system did not victimize foreign peoples." Under
America's rule, the Philippines saw the establishment of universal
education, a modicum of modern infrastructure, and liberal democratic
institutions. And it was this legacy that made the Philippines Asia's
second least poor (or prosperous) country in Asia.

And even after its formal independence in 1946, the Philippines

effectively outsourced its national security to the United States. In the
words of James Fallows, the Americans led the Filipinos "to believe that
they aren't really responsible for their country's fate." Thanks to a series
of landmark agreements, namely the Military Assistance Pact (1947), the
Military Bases Agreement (1947), and the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT)
of 1951, Washington became the de facto guarantor of (the nominallysovereign) Philippines against external aggression. And despite the exit
of American bases in the post-Cold War period, the United States is still
seen as the Philippines' best hope against a revanchist China, which has
been gobbling up contested features across the South China Sea at the
expense of smaller nations such as the Philippines.
Such long history of dependence conceals a past where the Filipinos
stood as a beacon of inspiration for nationalists across the world.
In From the Ruins of Empire (2012), Pankaj Mishra shows how the
Philippines' struggle for independence, first against Spain and later
against the Americans, inspired nationalists across Asia. For scholars
such as Benedict Anderson, the Philippines' nationalist movement,
inspired by the works of Rizal, was a trailblazer in Asia, representing the
first post-colonial struggle in the continent. As a biopic, Heneral
Luna captures the zeitgeist of this noble period in Philippine history,
when Western-educated Filipinos confidently demanded equality with
the Western civilization and valiantly risked their lives to build an
independent nation.
But the country's quest for independence was ultimately crushed not by
the inept Spaniards, but instead the (supposedly) benign Americans, who
the Filipino revolutionaries initially saw, quite naively, as dependable
allies (against Madrid). Unable to independently consummate its right to
self-determination, the product was a nation confused about its identity
and place in the world, for the struggle for independence is also a
struggle for self-identity. As Ninoy Aquino succinctly put it: "Filipinos

are bewildered about their identity. They are an Asian people not Asian
in the eyes of their fellow Asians and not Western in the eyes of the
West."
America's profound influence on the Filipino psyche, particularly its
ruling elite, is evident in the words of Salvador P. Lopez, former
ambassador to Washington, who gave a positive spin to the Philippines'
colonization by Americans, arguing that, among other supposed benefits,
American colonization helped "Philippine society to develop along more
democratic lines."
A Divided Nation
Among historical movies in the Philippines, it is quite common to detect
strong anti-Spanish or anti-Japanese sentiments. What is unique
about Heneral Luna is its unvarnished portrayal of not only American
deceit -- striking a separate deal to purchase the Philippines from the
Spaniards without the knowledge of their supposed Filipino allies -- but
also its brutality towards Filipino civilians.
The Philippine-American War led to the death of hundreds of thousands
of Filipinos, many of whom were ordinary civilians who couldn't cope
with the starvation and misery brought about the protracted conflict.
There were also wanton use of violence by American soldiers, while
others seemed to relish their defeat of Filipino revolutionary forces with
sadistic glee, with one solider describing the slaughter of fleeing enemies
as "more fun than a Turkey shoot". By invoking the doctrine ofManifest
Destiny, President William McKinley sanctioned a colonial project to
"educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them." The
subjugation of the Philippines was veiled by sanctimonious imperialism
and denigration of Filipinos as uncivilized people.
But far from a cheap anti-American movie, Heneral Luna is a
contemplative artistic work that sheds light on the internal divisions that
beset the Filipino revolutionaries; divisions that continue to undermine

the country until this day. Raised in Manila, Ilocano on his father's side,
and educated in the West, Antonio Luna was both cosmopolitan and
patriotic. He was, in the words of American Generals James Franklin
Bell and Robert Hughes, the Philippines' only true general. And he tried
very hard to establish a modern and professional Philippine armed
forces, which transcended tribal and ethnic allegiances.
It was his military genius that, in the initial stages of the war, inspired
some sense of panic among invading Americans, who weren't expecting a
sophisticated resistance by the indigenous population. A product of
modern education, Luna used cutting-edge military tactics against the
West, trying to beat them in their own game. Ultimately, however,
General Luna was no George Washington. His temper, frustrations with
insubordination, and traumas of war got the better of him. The movie
painfully portrays his struggles with his inner demons, culminating in an
incident where he wrongfully unleashed his anger on innocent
bystanders, the very people whom he should have protected above all.
He was not an ideal leader, for he didn't appreciate the necessity for
charm, persuasion and consensus-building when it comes to leadership.
And, as Filipino historian Vicente Rafael explains, Luna and his
revolutionary colleagues "never had a program for addressing social
inequities.... never planned to redistribute land or to democratize social
relations."
Yet, one can't deny how critical Luna was, despite all his frailties, to
securing Philippine independence. Luna's harsh language (to ensure
military discipline), constant resort to threats (to prevent
insubordination and mobilize troops), and temper (over tribalism and
divisions within Filipino leadership) should be seen within the context of
the traumas of nation-building, especially when a fledgling nation is
confronting one colonizing power after the other while struggling with
vicious internal divisions.

From Eugen Weber's Peasants into Frenchmen (1976) -- which

chronicles how dispossession and uprooting was central to French
nation-building and its emergence as a superpower -- to Niall
Ferguson's Civilization (2012) -- which chronicles Japan's disorienting
and oppressive process of modernization under the Meiji Restoration
that nevertheless secured the Asian nation's independence and dignity -one is confronted with the uncomfortable truth that nation-building,
especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, was an intrinsically violent
process that sought to shift individuals' loyalty from their families and
tribes to, in the words of Benedict Anderson, an "imagined community"
called nation.
The brutal assassination of Luna by his fellow revolutionaries, who saw
arrogance more than merit and prioritized personal vengeance above
national independence, serves as a cautionary tale -- a reminder of how
the Philippines' greatest enemy was (and is) not external predators, but
instead internal divisions and narrow loyalties, which have stunted its
nation-building quest to this date.