A special Nexus Episode.

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Alright, fantastic. It's almost 1am here but we have friends joining us over TikTok, YouTube, Facebook. That's how interesting the discussion in the previous episode was. We talked about the movie Gomborza, Pepe Jocton's movie Gomborza. Let's just say right off the bat, it looks like my major disagreements coming in later except for me.

As a movie, I think the final scenes were very important but I explained that a lot of that was also because I was influenced by Nick Joaquin's explanation of last moments of Burgos. I just felt that was important in a sense of, you know, it's a movie after all.

Bro, gusto ko yung last moments si Burgos. Ayaw ko na pinakita si Rizal.

Ah, okay, okay. Sorry, sorry. Yes, okay. Then we don't have a disagreement. Okay, sorry. Oh my God, I'm so sorry.

Yes, I asked him for me. It's more like, wait lang, parang child abuse yan.

Like, what are you implying? You won't bring about 7, 8, 9, 10 people to watch people being garroted. It's a bit too crazy for me. But you're right also about yung naka-costume sila, magtitinikling na ba sila. I mean, I get what you're saying about that. Sana we just kept it at super, you know, the darkness of it should really shock us.

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

I really appreciate that. Personally, Cedric is fantastic. I mean, all actors were fantastic. I found the

um

Enchong D one.

Oh, wow. Ang galing na Enchong D.

Actually, si Enchong D yung pinakamagaling na actor for me doon.

Si Enchong D.

Again, Cedric was fantastic. I'm just saying, given the role that he was playing, like, he brought to life yung nangyari kay Zamora. Kasi, kaya nga sabi ko, it speaks to me. Kasi, yun, nakakatapos ko lang mag-review at magbasa ng mga libro ni Patricia Vangelista, you know, about EJK, about the weaponization of the legal process. So, I think the Zamora

example,

it just brings to home this fact na how

crazy our legal systems can be that

a person who just made a joke

about, you know, bala and barel

in the context of, you know, sugal

will be just dragging because of

affiliation. And let's be honest, that's

kind of like the nanlaban situation

with Atatatikong. But for me, that was

the other thing that was very pulsating

about the movie. Yung, yung, just the

inanity of the

judicial process that,

especially Zamora's case was really crazy.

It was really crazy.

But, bumalik na rin ulit tayo sa movie.

But, sige, I think that's a good way of starting this discussion

still, yeah.

What do you want to talk about ba? Kasi ako,

I wanted to talk about 1872.

Ano ba talaga yung relevance nung year na yun?

Why are we so focused

on 1872? And actually,

a good way to think about, and I've been

pushing this, medyo, medyo

medyo creative,

but to compare 1872 to 1972,

these are two years of

the worst repressions in Philippine history,

both 72s.

72 is the Hues de Cuchillo,

wherein the Spanish government

tried to end, practically end, the secularization

movement of the priests that were

considered the most radical at the time.

And then, of course, yung

liberal movement, of course. And then,

1972, this is

Marcos trying to crush

a kind of what he felt was a conspiracy

between the liberals and the communists.

And I suspect

that in both instances,

yung mga movements that

were organizing against the government,

were critical of the government, were driven

underground. In 1872, some of them

were also driven into exile. But same thing

sa 1972, driven into

exile. So, it's nice

to think about those two

years in conjunction

with each other. Yung 1872 is

interesting. Bakit ba ang

obsessed ng Spanish government with

priests, in particular, Creole

priests? The very simple

answer, and pinakita na ito sa gumbusa

ng ponte.

Well, the precedence of Mexico,

wasn't the...

The precedence of Mexico, diba?

In fact, yung mga revolusyonaryo

na pare sa Mexico, parang

mas radical sila

kaysa sa mga revolusyonaryo sa Pilipinas.

These were people who were openly

flaunting Spanish laws, and were

people who were actively advocating

for armed revolution and armed

rebellion. That would happen much later

sa Pilipinas. You would have secular

clergy sa Pilipinas na supported

ng katipunan. And in fact, the reason

why many people supported the

katipunan, mga masa, ay dahil

yung mga Spanish parish pristinal

naniniwala sa katipunan. So, eventually,

naging ganun din yung proseso sa Pilipinas.

Pero nung time na to, what the Spanish government

was trying to do is, nakita nila yung nangyari

sa Mexico, ayaw nila maulit

sa Pilipinas. And when they saw Pelaez,

when they saw Burgos, ang nakita

nila doon, ay mga parang

na-remind sila na

naalala nila yung mga Mexican radicals.

So, they said they wanted to forestall

that movement. And it's very interesting, you know,

what happens after 1872, apparently,

U.S.T. stops,

as I was reading about this, stops

offering a Ph.D. for priests.

Interesting.

Because they have a Ph.D.

in Canonic Law.

Yeah, in Canonic Law. Tinigil nila after

1872. Meaning, takot na talaga

na magkaroon ng isa pang Burgos.

And that's why, yung mga intellectuals mo, they're no longer

priests. They are now

people in exile. So, di ba,

tignan mo yung trajectory.

Yung mga radical mo, sina Burgos, sina Pelaez,

homegrown U.S.T.

pare. Nung tinigil

yun, you couldn't become a homegrown

priest intellectual anymore.

The way you became a critical intellectual

or an ilustrado was, mostly

nag-abroad ka, para kang risal.

So, yun yung two movements.

So, connected. So, what are you saying?

Kasi, essentially, these secular

friars were like, well,

they were like judicial experts. They were kind of a lawyer,

right?

Sobrang, sobrang

galing nila dahil,

and this is what people forget,

galing ang U.S.T. nung panahon na yun,

mga kaibigan ko from U.S.T.

Top sila sa bar last year, ha? Number one ulit yung

U.S.T.

Ang U.S.T. mo, ang

kananlo program mo sa U.S.T. nun,

ilalaban mo yan sa mga kananlo

program sa Madrid. So,

ito sina Pelaez,

ito sina Burgos na faculty at saka teacher

ng U.S.T. Talagang may

K yan. Ang problema mo,

yung mga parahil na napadating sa Pilipinas,

mga latak. Bakit mga latak yung

mga parating na parahil sa Pilipinas?

Number one, nung binuksan mo yung

Suez Canal, ang dali nang pumunta sa

Pilipinas. So, hindi mo na kailangan

maging dedicated friar to get to the

Philippines. Pangalawa,

there were

various moments in Spain where

magkakaroon ka ng liberal

government. Ngayon, kung liberal government ka at

kung conservative friar ka, gusto mong

takbukan yung liberal government na yun, pupunta

ang Pilipinas. Third reason,

yung mayama na ang Pilipinas nung panahon,

export wealth. So, kung priley ka,

medyo,

naka sa Spain, ayaw mo yung liberal

government, gusto mong kumita dahil maraming

lupa yung order mo sa Pilipinas, pupunta

ng Pilipinas. So, what's happening during

this period? Yung native priests, people

like, and by native, I mean, Creoles,

Indios, Mestizos.

Pagaling

ng pagaling, patalino

ng patalino, yung

parahil na dinadala mo sa Pilipinas, pabobo

ng pabobo.

Pabobo ng pabobo.

So, and yet,

yung parahil na pabobo

pabobo ng pabobo, humihingi ng

privileges. So, what

does it feel like to be a very smart

person being lorded over by idiots?

It must

piss you off. It must really piss you off.

So, you...

You have the same blood and features as you,

right? Because I found the

scene where, who's a

Borgo's, who is with De La Torre,

De La Torre, open-minded, liberal,

etc. But he kept on emphasizing lugar,

your place, know your place.

Even the most liberal,

Governor General, supposedly, allegedly,

was, at the end of the day, had this

strict notion of hierarchy, which a lot

of these friars were subscribing

to. But I have one question for you,

Lele, and I know we can talk more about this, but

one of the, I won't say controversial,

but one of the things that stood out for me in this,

I mean, obviously, Jesuits were behind this production

and I think we have to keep on emphasizing

the contribution

of these folks to the fruition of this

movie, aside from Pepe Choc, not a fantastic team.

One of the argument was

Dubai Yung Sinabin, my friars,

tayong sisisiin nila sa lahat

ng nangyaring mali. When, in fact, ang idea

was, the rot in the apple

really is in the secular imperial

machinery. That Izquierdo,

in a way, was symbolic of

this violent lashes of a

dying beast, which is this pathetic empire

in the late 19th century, barely

holding on to Cuba, and now also

facing serious problems in the Philippines.

How do you see that thesis? Is it an

you know, do you see that thesis

as an apologia or kind of

a counterpose,

contrarizalis,

you know,

theory?

Well, I think we should really step back din naman.

I mean, madaling santoyin si Pepe.

Pero si Pepe naman talaga, galit na galit

sa mga praile.

And sometimes, he was kind of

unfair to the

friars. Kasi,

he thinks in many, like,

for example, sa morga,

sa annotation of morga, it makes it seem as if

many of the friars deleted

Philippine culture, which is

absolutely not true. In fact,

a lot of the friars, they were the ones who preserved the

dictionary. So, what we know about

you know, ancient Tagalog

silabari, for example, a lot of it comes out of

the friars. Kung walang friars,

wala tayong appreciation ng culture na yun.

In fact, as early as

the 16th century,

kararating pa lang ng mga misionary,

marami sa mga dumarating

na encomendero

sa Pilipinas

were kind of caudillo style

expecting to do,

in the Philippines, what they did in Mexico

meaning, you know, kill people

and make money out of the new

colony. Ang mga humaharang dun

were the priests and the friars.

So, for example, in the 16th century,

yung Synod of Manila,

which explicitly said na kung

abusive encomendero ka,

wala kang

absolution from the church.

Napaka-clear nun sa records.

So, a lot of that history, in fact,

has been deleted by the radicalism

of Rizal. Rizal was,

kind of radical. And, as with

anything, it's

part of it tatanggapin mo, part of it

hindi mo tatanggapin. Dapat tanggapin mo na

during Rizal's time, abusive

naman talaga yung friars, lalo na in

states like, in places like Calamba.

But at the same time, hindi rin naman

totoo yung sinasabi ni Rizal na

ever since bulok na yung mga friars na yan.

It's absolutely

not true.

Like, you know,

especially, I have a student, for example,

who is working on the,

Dominican, on kind of

Dominican proto-liberal traditions

under the influence of a

theologian named Father Suarez, whose brother

was actually sent to the Philippines.

And, in many ways, yung kind of

ideas of proto-liberalism

that would be absorbed by the Philippine Revolution

were coming from these earlier

forms of thinking within the friar

orders. And, you need to recall

that the major critique of the

violence in Latin America had

come from the friars. Kaya,

nung dumating na sila sa Pilipinas,

ready na makipagbangayan yung mga

friars against the conquistadors, saying,

oops, you cannot bleed this

colony to,

you cannot bleed it dry the way

you did Mexico. I don't know, with

Incas and Aztec and all of that.

Kaya nga hindi nangyari yung genocidal level

of violence that we saw with conquistadors

and all. Yes, yes. Merong, merong ano,

may violence and merong actually may

declining population, significant declining

population. So, it's not true that it was

a lot less sanguinary

than yung colonization of Latin America.

But definitely may diferensya. And

one of the differences is because of

this intellectual movement within

the friars towards a kind of humanism already.

And a kind of proto-liberalism, I would say.

Interesting. Pero siguro

meron din aspect of, di ba, hindi naman

monolithic yung friars,

di ba? May mga times na more dominant,

may mga times na more liberal, may mga times na

more reactionary. Depended din dun

sa politika nila back in

the, you know, the madras.

So, pag sobrang liberal yung

government, especially, I mean, you mentioned this dun sa,

isang libro mo na, isa sa mga favorite

kong libro sa Pilipinas, yung, you know,

Liberalism and Postcolony, about, you know,

how the 18th, the Cadiz Constitution,

right? Probably, in a way,

reinforced yung reactionary tendency

bang fires because it was a huge leap

for Spain to go from Spain of the

17th century to, my God, Napoleonic

Spain, di ba? Yes, yes, yes. And then,

of course, talaga nung, by the

time that Carles wars, nagkakaroon ka na

parang similar to the United States ngayon,

nagkakaroon ka na talaga ng polarization

in Spanish society.

And in many ways, the polarization

would climax in the Spanish Civil War

in the 20th century.

And so, kung

prily ka, you were kind of

wala ng choice. It was either you chose

the liberals slash republicans

or you chose the conservatives

who were claiming to protect the church.

And that is why,

unfortunately, by the 1930s,

even a enlightened university

like the University of Santo Tomas

turned

General Franco into

their honorary rector, di ba?

So, yung ganong klaseng polarization

where talagang a lot of the

friars were funneled

into reaction and

fascism, actually. But that

wasn't always, what I'm saying is that that wasn't

always the case.

Yun nga, hindi monolithic, which is what you tend to

get dun sa Rizal thesis

essentially na ito yung mga pinakaugat.

So, for you, hindi

masyadong controversial yung sinasabi

sa movie na, you know, the

friars were the scapegoats,

quote, for the inherent brutality

of the imperial regime, reactionary

imperial regime towards the end of the 19th century. In fact,

the part where the bishop of Manila

ba yan, na nag-intervene to make sure na

they still keep their...

Is that

historically correct?

Yeah, I think that is historically correct.

This drove me back to Schumacher.

A lot of us read Schumacher

again after the film.

So, you know, our bias is like, we'd rather

read like Benedict Anderson and Constantine...

Oh, si...

Ben also never cited Jack Schumacher

because he was like, he styled himself

as a new left radical who would never

cite the kind of, you know,

more conservative

Athenians. Pero bumalik ako kay

Schumacher and mukhang

totoo yung part na yan.

Although, of course, di ba

may intervention dun? Alam naman, nakikisausaw

ako parate dun sa back and forth mo.

What's the name of that Filipino scholar in

Cambridge who did this fantastic

dissertation on the role of

Vatican during the... Ah, si Jethro.

Si Jethro's still working on his dissertation.

I went to be like, wow.

Magiging eksposib yung paglumupas.

Sobrang ganda nung dissertation niya.

I'm so impressed. I mean, obviously, I didn't read the whole thing, but

from what I gathered, it was like, wow,

I had no idea.

Like, the Americans didn't start

with, you know, blank slate. They had to deal with the

Catholic majority country.

Oh, and actually,

sanang at one point,

mapunta ni Jethro

yung issue ng Lasal.

Kasi Lasal, di ba, lahat tayo,

pareho tayo may Lasal.

Lasal, in many

ways, was supposed to be the American

face of Catholicism sa Pilipinas

kasi yung American colonial government yung

nagsabi na pumasok yung Lasal brothers dito

because they wanted

the American Catholics to be able to compete

with these more deeply ingrained

Hispanicized Catholic schools like

Ateneo and USD. Very good

point. Very, very good point. I mean, I didn't, I had

no idea about it. I've spent quite some time in Lasal.

Ah, okay. So this was the American...

American Catholicism.

So, wow. So you have USD and then Ateneo

and then like, oh, wow, that's incredible.

I had no idea about it. Now, going

back to this, I mean,

where I disagree with both of you gentlemen,

or at least with the other gentlemen

is, in fairness, one of the reasons

why I got to appreciate Schumacher,

and in fact, the reason why I fervently

disagree with my fellow European on the question

of Lasal as a counter-revolutionary

is because Benedict

Anderson, dun sa isang New Left Review argument,

yung trilogy na ginawa niya about Lasal,

he mentioned that it was

the Schumacher letter to Rizal

that was decisive. Particularly in this letter

where he argued about, quote-unquote,

I mean, more or less, preconditions for

a successful revolution. Kasi kung

bara-bara ka mag-revolution, which is more or less

what happened under a certain agenda man,

you're just gonna get people killed in vain.

So if you want a successful revolution,

you wanna make sure there are at least four or five

conditions met, including, of course,

making sure my imperial overstretch, which

was coming about as the Cuban

independence war became crazy,

which Bonifacio knew more about.

So, essentially, parang

A, Rizal was not against revolution,

he was against

bara-bara mindless

violence revolt. And second,

and I think this is where Benedict Anderson's

intervention was helpful to me, I don't know if you agree with that,

his idea was that dahil nasa dapitan

si Rizal, at medyo

nasa labas siya ng, you know what I'm saying,

circulation of proper information,

siguro hindi siya sobrang updated

dun sa gaano ka

talagang vulnerable itong Spanish

and in a sense, mas well

informed si Bonifacio,

based here sa Tondo, Manila,

ang katalagayan ng Madre España and how vulnerable

they were at that moment. Except, he was not successful,

it was Aguinaldo who was successful

in pushing it to its logical limit.

I mean, what do you say about that?

Alam mo, lahat ng

revolusyonaryo, disimulado.

So, hindi naman

naamin lagi ang revolusyonaryo

ng full intent nila.

This is what we forget. Is it

possible, for example, that Burgos was

a separatist? Unlikely, but

possible. Kasi hindi mo naman

alam, kasi hindi ka naman naamin,

papatayin ka kung umamin ka eh.

Is it possible that

when Rizal said that he was

going to build a colony in Borneo, is it

possible that he was doing that in order to

build a revolutionary army?

Possible. Hindi ka naman naamin eh.

And if you look at, for example,

ang magandang example dito, yung 1972,

again, yung comparison.

Marami sa mga gusto mag-revolusyon naman yun.

Hindi naman papahuling buhay in public. Si Aquino,

nakikipag-meeting sa mga komunista,

ready mag-arm revolt.

Nagbibigay ng pera sa mga,

nagbibigay ng pera at ng baril sa CPP.

Publicly, amin ni ba

niya yun? Hindi.

Aba, nung nahuli siya, in-accused siya na ginagawa

niya yun? Aba, deny ng deny.

Di ba? Kasi hindi ka naman papahuling

buhay. Lahat ng revolusyonaryo, hindi

magpapahuling buhay yan under

repressive circumstances.

So, when we ask the question,

was Rizal, was Burgos revolutionary,

we need to take into consideration,

the fact that a lot of it is shrouded

by mystery. And a lot

of it, we just can't,

we just can't answer.

I mean, it's a game of cloak and dagger also.

You're a revolutionary.

I mean, it's essentially Simon, right?

That's what,

the other side of Rizal. I mean, if you read

El Filipo's Turismo, I think, pretty much, it's clear

that Rizal is for revolution, but for the

right conditions. Ayunin, you know,

ni Simon na just out of hatred,

just, you know, anarchist

style of, you know, revolt.

So, I, I, that's the, that's the reason.

Ito, going back, going back to Schumacher,

Schumacher says that he can kind of date it.

Eh, by the 1880s, Rizal was a convinced separatist.

In other words, he did not believe that the

Philippines had a future with Spain. Separatist