La Gira, part I

In what could be a first in a series of historical pilgrimages, we were toured around Binondo and Sn. Nicolas Manila by the great Filipino artist-historian, future artista nacional, Señor Gomez Rivera. With his astonishing grasp and familiarity of the locale, he took this two (Pepito y yo) tyro chroniclers into the begrimed esquinitas of Binondo and the crumbly old Spanish era houses of Sn. Nicolas, telling tales and legends of what was once the beautiful arrabales of old Spanish Manila.

One street, concealed, dark and filthy, was where the house of Pepe Rizal's relatives once stood, no marker just some new shops selling stuff (the products you see labeled in Mandarin) and a horde of beggars asking for some change. Here was Don Francisco Mercado final stop before joining his popular hero son in the afterlife. He died in this place, he lived a silentious life, he was the typical Chinese Filipino, he was frugal, cautious always and was a devoted family man. It was (the Mercado residence), according to Señor Gomez, a small house compared to the other rich casa's "pero elegante", and so is the streets where this casas stood. Now, this gutterless, cramped street - this part of Calle Estraude is but a shadow of what was once an alluring little mestizaje neighbourhood with a living small estero for a view (now, I think if ever you fall in that estero you'll die, not from drowning but because of its  mephitic water!).

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="240" caption="Calle Estraude (Don Francisco's house once stood here)"][/caption]

This awful looking buildings are testament of what can be referred to as the districts progressive transformation, from the old Binondo town to the new town (literally ‘new' because the old houses are being phased out!). Economics often times dictate what would become of a locality, its future is always tied to its commerce. A rustic Macati then is a financial city now, with all its skyscrappers hoovering up above, a farm, a hill could become a residential villa. At this rate (accelerating phase as can be observe this past decades), we are losing more and more of this heritage sites. Once we lost them, we lost them forever - this we have to remember. Is this really progress?

Another building left to decay is the celebrated Hogar Filipino. This hotel was the loftiest structure in the 30's, arguably the finest concrete building created by its generation, in that legendary street called Anloague. The wedding gift (yes, it was for a Zobel daughter) hosted foreign dignitaries and notable personage. It was spacious, elegant and  yes, a very expensive place to spend the night in!  but like many structures after the war, it was neglected. Prestige drifted away from this part of the town (partly due to poor city management & planning) so in this once graceful belt, whose edge tips the river Pasig, whose fresh water joins the sea, died, not too long ago. It can be revived - how? this is the challenge for this new Manileño generation.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="240" caption="Hogar Filipino"][/caption]

And the list goes on.

As we were driving around Binondo, we came into a screeching halt, I thougth that we ended up in a jeep terminal, then my passengers reminded me that Luna St. usually are like this. So you'll just have to drive around the jam. Good thing was its Sunday, so taking direction from Señor Gomez, circling some esquinitas, with some twist and turn he brought us to Urbiztondo, the Antonio Luna birthplace.

Unlike the sad fate of that Estraude home of the Rizal's, The tagailog's place of birth was intact. Thank God. Its fronting the institution named after that prehispanic hero Rajah Solaiman. The abode's fascade at least is preserved with some marks of decay, it was decorated by some banners and small flags commemorating its famous son Antonio's birthday. Since no one can go in, one could only wonder what's inside. It was an elegant, noble house, one thing that you can say about this old casas of Binondo and San Nicolas is that, although their confined in space due to the population of the district (compared to the bahay na bato in the countryside), they never forgot about style, they were western in their sophistication and taste! architecture was detailed from the wide windows, classy iron grills, chic doors, genteel roof -  Ah, I think they heard William Morris, that British Socialist and Poet (1834-1896), when he said "have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be useful".

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="240" caption="Luna Residence"][/caption]

Exiting Urbiztondo heading straight towards San Nicolas all of the old casa are lined up. like pretty maids all in a row -- the Sunico house, built on Calle Barcelona corner Jabonero, is now deserted but a closer look would show how this propertied families built their houses. From its wide windows, one could see all the way to Intramuros. Down to the very last piece in this disintegrating houses is art. Right across the Sunico's, another old house went down. (Nalungkot talaga ako), it broke my heart seeing something so beautiful destroyed. Some excavation was taking place already, looks like a high rise project - century old adobe bricks and lumber being scrapped. We all look and felt funereal, standing there and seeing those people hammer away, are they even aware what their doing? In this town, its just another old house, but for Manila another piece of history ditched.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="240" caption="Sunico house"][/caption]

The Casa Vizantina (I already featured this here), arguably the grandest of all the San Nicolas houses, three storey high extended for almost a block. It currently it holds a sizeable squatting community inside. Now, considered a dangerous structure, it was once a hotel and an institute (Instituto Manila, now UM). This marvel of Filipino architecture is headed to the slaughterhouse, there are already plans to tear it down. Same story here.

The Pio Valenzuela house was next, thank God it has a marker, I hope no ones pissing on it becaue its placed in a corner and its just a feet from the ground. The NHI marker was Installed commemorating what was the house of a hero and the site where the revolutionary paper, "Kalayaan" was printed.  Pio figured popularly in the life of Rizal and the revolution for it was him who announced that the national hero denouced the revolution, much to the dismay of Boni, he did however, had another version after the war ended, this time he claims that the Calambeño was supporting the movement.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="240" caption="Pio Valenzuela's residence where the Kalayaan was printed"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="240" caption="Rogelio de la Rosa once was here!"][/caption]

Just before we head out we dropped by what was once Rogelio de la Rosa's house, the matinee idol live in San Nicolas with his wife Lolita Bayot. He raised his son, Rogelio II in that old house in Calle Lara. The Señor claims that Rogelio was not proficient in Castillian and that his lines are often dubbed. This Kababayan of the Macapagals would become a senador under the Partido Liberal. He could be considered the Father of Showbiz turned politicos, his bid for the presidency was not successful. He was assaigned ambassador to various countries.

Every inch of Binondo and San Nicolas has a story to tell, Some streets are no more (a Calle Nueva is now renamed Yuchengco), old houses are slowly diminishing (this year we witnessed several houses taken down) - their like those endangered animals, if not conserved, without planning and vision, they would become extinct. "There was once a house there..." - the Señor would tell us, this line would soon become ours, as we tell the sad fate of this houses.

THE BLACK LEGEND ON THE STATE OF EDUCATION

THE BLACK LEGEND ON THE STATE OF EDUCATION

By Pio Andrade

Filipinos in the 20^th Century were repeatedly taught or told in schools and in the press, that Spain always kept their ancestors uneducated to have them ignorant and the always docile subjects of Spain. The blame was, in particular, thrown upon the friars, "who, from motives of their own, discouraged the learning of Spanish by the natives, in order that they may always act as intermediaries between the people and the civil authorities, and thus, retain their influences over their charges". The most common proof cited for the alleged uneducatedness and ignorance supposedly reigning in Hispanic Philippines is the incontrovertible fact that only the Philippines, among all the other former Spanish colonies, is not Spanish-speaking today. But was this really so?

The 1896 revolution, the first revolution in Asia by a colonized people for independence from the colonizer, refutes the charge that Spain did not educate the Filipinos, for revolutions are not made by the ignoramuses but by the educated folks. Indeed, most of the leading lights and leaders of the 1896 Revolution were Ilustrados, or educated folks. The propaganda literature and the communications coming from the Revolutionaries were mostly in Spanish; and, the Malolos Constitution was debated and drafted in Spanish. The revolution was made possible by the widespread knowledge of Spanish. Thus, Spanish was the language of the 1896 Revolution and Philippine nationhood.

King Philip II's Law of the Indies (Leyes de Indias) mandated Spanish authorities in the Philippines to educate the natives, to teach them how to read and write and to learn Spanish. However, the latter objective was well-nigh impossible given the realities of the time. First, there were very few Spaniards in the Archipelago to teach Spanish at that time. Second, the Philippines, at the coming of Spain was inhabited by diverse tribes with different languages, customs, and religion. Third, the geographical barriers - - - the seas, the mountain ranges, lush virgin forest and the absence of enough roads made travel and communication difficult during those years. Thus, the friars, the vanguard of evangelization and education, opted instead to learn the native languages first and in order to use them as tools to evangelize and teach the natives in the missionary schools.

But Spanish was also taught to those who wished to learn the language. Among these were the native principalía and the Chinese traders who only began to come in greater numbers after the coming of Spain to the Philippines.

Another proof that Spain's language education was taking place in the first years of Hispanization in this Country was the Galleon Trade. The Galleon Trade would not have been possible if the Filipinos, Spaniards and Chinese could not communicate with each other in Spanish.

In 1863, with the passage of the Education Reform Act in the Spanish Cortes, the Philippine public school system was born. Separate schools for boys and girls were established in every pueblo for the compulsory education of Filipino children. The law also established the Escuela Normal to train male and female teachers. This was ten years before Japan had a compulsory form of education and forty years before the American government started a so-called public school system in the country.

One of the most vociferous voices claiming that Spain did not educate the Filipinos was UP historian emeritus Teodoro Agoncillo who wrote in THE REVOLT OF THE MASSES that "When the Americans took over the Philippines, only 2.5% of the Filipinos spoke and wrote in Spanish". This figure was taken from the 1880 book of Cavada Mendez de Vigo. Later, in his history textbook , THE HISTORY OF THE FILIPINO PEOPLE, Agoncillo also claimed that "it is safe to say that the literacy rate of the native population was somewhere between 5% and 8%". These Agoncillo claims are wrong for these two statements on the Philippine literacy can not be sustained by factual evidence.

Agoncillo failed to see that since 1811 with the publication of DEL SUPERIOR GOBIERNO, the Philippines had a popular press which further disseminated the Spanish language in the country. The Philippines was the first country in Asia to have a popular press in Spanish and, by the coming of Dewey, there were many more popular newspapers and books published in Spanish. The several newspapers in the native languages most always carried Spanish language sections. Manila, itself, (then with about half a million people) had three Spanish language dailies in the morning and three other dailies, also in Spanish, in the afternoon. These dailies in Spanish had no equal counterparts in other Oriental countries.

Another factor for increased Spanish literacy was the Chinese population. The Chinese community obligates Chinese cabecillas or Chinese barangay captains to teach rudimentary Spanish to new Chinese immigrants. After a month in these Chinese-owned schools, the Chinese immigrants spoke kastilang tindahan, or Caló Chino Español, a kind of Spanish Chabacano, that later become fluent albeit accented Spanish . When these Chinese immigrants intermarried, they brought forth Spanish-speaking mestizos. The 100,000 Chinese population at the turn of the century were all conversant in Spanish though in varying proficiency, from the kastilang tindahan of the new Chinese immigrants to the fluent Spanish of Chinese old timers.

Actually, Spanish grew even more during the 1900-1920 period. Professor Henry Jones Ford of Princeton University in his 1913 secret report on his six months travel and research about the Philippine situation to President Woodrow Wilson, had this to say on the use of Spanish in the country at that time: "There is however, another aspect of the case that should be considered. I had this forcibly presented to me as I traveled through the Islands, using the ordinary conveyances and mixing with all sorts and conditions of people. Although on the basis of School statistics the statement is made that more Filipinos now speak English than any other language, no one would think of the testimony of one's own ears. Everywhere Spanish is the speech of business and social intercourse. For one to receive prompt attention, Spanish is always more useful than English and outside of Manila, is almost indispensable. Americans travelling about the Islands, use it habitually. What is more, they discourage the use of English. This was a development that took me by surprise. I asked an American I met on an inter-island steamboat why he always spoke Spanish to the stewards and waiters, and whether they could not understand him in English. He said that probably many of them could but one would not be treated with as much respect using English and not Spanish; that Filipinos seem to loose their manners using English, becoming rude, familiar and insolent."

Professor Ford further underscored the widespread use of Spanish in the country by writing about the existing press thus: "There is unmistakable significance in the fact that there is not in all the Islands one Filipino newspaper published in English. All of the many native newspaper are published in Spanish and in the dialect.

It is relevant to mention here that as late as 1930, the Spanish dailies had a much bigger circulation than either Tagalog or English dailies. Noteworthy also is the fact that in the 1930's there were a few Chinese periodicals in both Chinese and Spanish.

Modesto Reyes Lim in a 1924 issue of the Rizalian Magazine ISAGANI vehemently criticized the imposition of English upon the Filipinos. He wrote: "¿No es acaso de sentido común, que hubiera sido muy fácil propagar más el castellano, que ya se usaba como lengua oficial y se hablada ya por muchísimas familias filipinas dentro y fuera de sus hogares, y del cual contaba entonces el país con muchos literatos, poetas y escritores distinguidos?" (Is it not of plain common sense to know that it would have been far easier to further propagate Spanish, which was already the official language and the mother tongue of so many pure Filipino families, in and out of their homes, and from whom where born so many writers, poets and distinguished men of letters?)

"Indudablemente, como dice un ilustre filipno miembro actual prominente de la administración de justicia, que con el mismo tiempo y dinero gastado, sistema y otros medios modernos de instrucción empleados en la enseña del inglés, si en lugar de éste se hubiera propagado en mucha mayor proporción que se haya hoy propagado el inglés."

(There is absolutely no doubt, says a Filipino jurist of today, that if the same time and money, and the same teaching system and methods, now employed in the teaching of English were instead dedicated to the teaching of Spanish, the latter would have been propagated in a much larger proportion in which English has been propagated.)

MESTIZAJE

MESTIZAJE
By Señor Guillermo Gómez Rivera
Filipino dance and music researcher, historian and Bayanihan Consultant

When Suzie Moya Benitez, Bayanihan’s executive director, wanted a name for the projected super-show involving Bayanihan and the visiting Folklorical Group from the Island of Palma de Mallorca, Spain, the word "re-encuentro" (re-encounter) was given. She paused to think and found the word "warlike" for that is the word for "shoot-out" in present day Tagalog and Visayan. So "re-encuentro" would not do. The lady opted for another given word "Mestizaje" which means "fusion", "unity", "a dynamic step forward". She then directed the use of "reencuentro" for the suite where both Bayanihan and Palma de Mallorca dancers do dances to the same music of the jota, the fandango and the bolero.


And indeed, "Mestizaje" is the right word for this over-all new meeting with folklorical Spain of the Mallorcan variety. This new meeting is the of-shoot of Bayanihan’s victory last year as the world’s best folklorical group in a worldwide "concurso" held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

It is obvious that the word "Mestizaje" is kindred to that other word we all know in these Islands. Mestizo. And Mestiza if feminine. For us who were born in old native Cabeceras like Vigan, Malolos, Lingayen, Iloilo, Zamboanga and Cebú the "Sector de Mestizos" or "Pari-án" is a place familiar to us. But the mestizos there, or the "kamistisuha ng Par-ián", are not blood mestizos of Spaniards. They are cultural mestizos because Native and Chinese by blood but Christian Catholics by religion and Spanish by their language, their food, their songs and their dress. Thus the first mestizos were the children of a Chino Christiano father and an Indio mother.

And since the Chinos Cristianos were traders, usually involved in the Galleon trade, the "Sector de Mestizos" was an enclave of the rich and the educated who spoke and sang in Spanish and wore the "traje de mestiza" and lived in those big Vigan houses and those Malolos mansions, to cite but two examples. Those who ignore history rashly label these "Sectores de Mestizos" as "a gheto" when these are not enclaves of poverty and misery but precisely of opulence and good taste.

The hispanization by blood of these old "Sectores de Mestizos" became later intensified when many Spanish government officials, employees, businessmen and military settled in the Islands and married into the families of these "Sectores" or "Pari-ánes". The offspring of these latter marriages were called "Mestizos terciados" because aside from Native and Chinese, they also had Spanish blood.

These dynamic fusion of Catholic Spain and the Philippines is Christian "Mestizaje" and the virtues of this fusion can be seen in all Christian Filipino dances which are classified into three kinds: (1) bailes criollos (the creole dances). These are dances that directly came from the Spanish Peninsula and New Spain (Mexico) but which were later indigenized, (2) bailes urbanos (dances from the big cabeceras and ciudades), and (3) bailes municipales y rurales (rural dances). The pre-Hispanic dances were called danzas tribales ( tribal dances).

Bayanihan’s multi-awarded Choreographer and Director, Ferdinand "Bong" José, has observed that many of our Filipino regional dances are very similar to the regional dances of Spain. This merely confirms our thesis about Mestizaje and the fact that under Spain, all Filipinos were Spanish citizens or subjects upon the acceptance of King Felipe Segundo as their "natural sovereign"..


But the Mestizaje of Filipino native dances is not only limited to what is Spanish and native but also to what is Filipino and Chinese (El collar de Sampaguita) and to what is Filipino and Japanese (Habanera Japonesa de Paco). These dances we have offered when the suite called Extramuros de Manila (Beyond the Walls) was staged, ----with the 1873 Manila visit of Hong Kong Governor-General, Sir John Bowring, as the theme. While Intramuros had purely Spanish or creole dances, (kri-olyo in old Tagalog), the arrabales beyond the walls, like Binondo, Santa Cruz, Quiapo, San Miguel, Paco, Ermita and Malate had their respective Mestizaje dances.

Some sectors of course did ask: What about "American Mestizaje"? And the simple answer is that there is no such thing as a fusion between native and American dances and songs. This never happened since Filipinos were never made, wholesale, American citizens like they were previously made Spanish Citizens. With English as our compulsory medium of education, no such fusion took place. We simply were made to adopt, wholesale, American pop culture with its Hollywood movies, popular jazz, blues and the cowboy square dance. Thus, although still under American suzerainty up to now, its either Filipinos sing and dance jazz, the charleston, the boogie-woogie, the swing as they are wont to do, or we change what folkdance means within the accepted concept of authentic Filipino dance culture.


This re-encounter with the folkdances from Palma de Mallorca, Spain, should prove to be an experience for Bayanihan and Manilas culturatti. It is a pity that with the destruction of Intramurso de Manila, the grand old Palma de Mallorca Hotel y Panadería, the cultural center then of old Intramuros and of greater Manila, has also disappeared. If Intramuros had survived, Mestizaje would have been also staged in its big function hall complete with a good sized stage. Bienvenidos a Manila, amigos mallorquines.

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MESTIZAJE
EN CCP Sept. 4, 8PM, Sept. 5, 3 y 8 PM, Sept. 6, 3 y 8 PM.

NATIONALISM: THE PHILIPPINES' EXPERIENCE THUS FAR'

In line with the questions raised by some of our friends on the topic below, I'm posting this article.

i would like to apologize that I misquoted Bro. Andrew's book, it was not 1% but 2.8% - that's the percentage of Filipinos according to him that spoke in Spanish (at the turn of the century, 1900's).

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A REVIEW OF BROTHER ANDREW'S BOOK: "LANGUAGE AND

NATIONALISM: THE PHILIPPINES' EXPERIENCE THUS FAR'

By Pío Andrade

(Historian, Researcher and regular contributor of the Philippine-Chinese weekly magazine TULAY published by Teresita Ang See in Binondo, Manila. Author of the best selling book, ‘The fooling of America'.)

Brother Andrew's treatise "Language and Nationalism" was praised in the forword by Cecilio López as "the most exhaustive and up-to-date treatment of the language problem in the Philippines".

It may have been up-to-date when it was published, but by no means could it be described as exhaustive. One look at the list of references shows the absence of very important sources such as the following but which were not consulted at all:

1)The Official Census of 1903;

2)The Ford Report of 1916, which shows that the use of Spanish

was more widespread than commonly admitted, and,3)Velenzuela's History of Philippine Journalism.There are many big and important facts on the language question that are not mentioned at all in Brother Andrew's book, such as the fact about Spanish being the language of the Revolution, the role of Spanish in effecting the unity of the various Filipino ethnic groups which made the 1896-99 Revolution possible; the role of the Chinese Filipinos in disseminating the language of Cervantes all over the country due to the fact that the Philippines was the most thoroughly educated Asian colony in the last decades of the 19^th century, and, the fact about the much higher circulation of Spanish language dailies than either the Tagalog or English dailies in the 1930s.
Brother Andrew González, FSC, uncritically accepted the figure of 2.8% as the percentage of Filipinos who can speak and write in Spanish at the turn of the century given by Cavada Méndez y Vigo's book. This book was printed in 1870, just seven years after the establishment of the Philippine Public chool system in 1863 by Spain.

Surely by 1900, more than 2.8% of the Filipinos were speaking and writing in Spanish and there was incontrovertible proof behind this assertion.

Don Carlos Palanca's Memorandum to the Schurman Commission listed 8 Spanish-speaking provinces in the islands in addition to the 9 Tagalog-speaking provinces which, according to him, are also Spanish-speaking. To this total of 17 Spanish speaking provinces, Don Carlos added that there were only 5 other provinces where "only a little Spanish is spoken". Don Carlos Palanca was the gobernadorcillo of Binondo and the head of the Gremio de Mestizos. (Chinese Christians were the ones referred to as Mestizos since the Spanish half-breed was called Criollo).

William Howard Taft's 1901 statement after his tour of the Philippines clearly says that Spanish was more widespread than Tagalog.
This fact about Spanish being even more widespread than Tagalog in the entire archipelago is further attested to by the well-documented fact that American soldiers during the Fil-American war had to speak bamboo Spanish to all Filipinos, ----not bamboo Tagalog----, in order to be understood without any interpreter. There is still that other fact about the early occupational government of the American Military in the Philippines having to publishe, in Spanish, not in Tagalog, all its official communications in order to be understood by the Filipino people. An English translation was appended whenever necessary for the consumption of the Americans themselves.

This official use of Spanish by the Americans themselves went on up to 1910 when they started to issue communications in English but still followed by a corresponding Spanish translation of the same. In view of this fact, if a national Filipino national language needed to be established other than English, the correct choice should have been Spanish, not Tagalog.

A big fault of Brother Andrew's book lies in his uncritical acceptance of Teodoro Agoncillo's History of the Revolution. Agoncillo's History book has already been proven to be heavily distorted by omission of facts, false interpretation of events and documents and by outright lies.. The omission of these other facts was done because the same could not be reconciled with Mr. Agoncillo's own personal bias in the narration and teaching of Philippines history.
An example of Brother Andrew's fault with regard his uncritical acceptance of Agoncilo's distortion of history is the conclusion that the founding members of the KKK (Katipunan) were Filipinos of lowly origin. The founding Supremo of the KKK is Andrés Bonifacio and it is not so that he is of lowly origin. Bonifacio was definitely not a poor man when he got into the Katipunan. Nor were the other Katiputan charter members. Agoncillo also failed to mention that the Philippine economy was booming during that decade and that Bonifacio, unlike most other Filipinos, approved of the torture of a captive Friar.

The years 1900 to the Commonwealth period (1935-1941) were not well researched by Brother and "Doctor" Andrew Gonzalez. Thus, the language issue affecting the Filipinos then are not well discussed. Had Brother Andrew researched more on the language issue of that period, he would have found out that as late as the 1930s Spanish dailies out-circulated both the Tagalog and English language dailies.

He would have found out also that the use of Spanish during the following decade of 1940 was bound to even get stronger had it not been for the devastating 1943-45 war.
The strength of Spanish is evidenced by the majority of cinema films shown between 1900 and 1940. These films, even if made in Holywood were in Spanish subtitles and talkies. And several of the Philippines produced full-length films had an all-Spanish talkies.
Another important fact not found in Brother Andrew's book is the role of the Spanish language in assimilating and integrating the Chinese emigrants into mainstream Filipino society. The 100,000 Chinese in the Philippines at the turn of the century spoke Spanish in varying degrees of proficiency. The Philippine Chinese Chamber of Commerce since its establishment in 1904 wrote its minutes in Spanish until 1924. When they ceased using Spanish in their official meetings and minutes, they reverted to Chinese, not English. Today, strange as it may seem, the last bastion of whatever Spanish language is left are the Chinese Filipinos, and not those of Spanish descent except the Padilla Zóbel family that maintains the annual Premio Zóbel.

Finally, Brother and "doctor" Andrew González treated very superficially the question of nationalism and language. There should have been more discussions on the point that adopting a foreign tongue, or using foreign words, are not per se against nationalism. If nationalism is love for ones country and foreign words and language can best help literacy and communication, it is nationalistic doing so.

Neither did Brother and Doctor Andrew González realize that nationalism in the question of language can be destructive as has been the case in the Philippines. Doing away with Spanish orthography and the cartilla, the educational authorities did away with a very inexpensive and very effective method for teaching reading skills to the young Filipinos.
Exterminating Spanish in the schools made the Filipinos today estranged to their Hispanic past and made Filipinos prey to nationalist historians who misled several generations of Filipinos in the sense that Spain had done the Philippines very little good when the contrary is true.
What is the prime purpose of language? Is it not to make us understand one another better. Yet, Brother and Doctor Andrew González' book gives the impressions that showing nationalism is the prime purpose of language.
To be fair to Brother Andrew González, we want to think that he is a victim of too many distortions found in Philippine History including the history of language among Filipinos. Thus, the remark of Cecilio López in his introduction to Brother Andrew's book "Language and Nationalism", that the same "is the most exhaustive and up-to-date treatment of the language problem in the Philippines" is only true in the sense that the very few books on the same subject are mostly superficial.
Perhaps it will be correct for us to recall a Spanish saying that prays: En el país de los ciegos el tuerto es rey.

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Thanks to Senor Gomez for sending me this article.