VOL. VI, No. 3
By CELIA BoeoEo·OLIVAR
(Winner of the First Prize Awu?"d ofP1,500.00 J~nthe Fac uUy-Alull11ti Division 0/ the Essay Contest Held in Con- nection with the Commemom,tion in1974
ot
the Birth Ccntena,ry of Dr. Rafael Palma, Fourth President of theUniversity of the Philippinee}
The CU1"et-'1' of Rafael Palm.a is interesting not so much because of the events that shaped it ...us it is because of the principles 'Which constitute the substance a,nd the meaning of it .. ,.Of other oreat men you can say that they a're the idols of tlie populace, that they ere peerless spell-bindere, that their personalities ere -ma,gneUc, that they have a personal cha?'m thnt is irresietibte. OJ Rafael Palma., you, cun sa,y, not tJwt he enti'rely lacks the qua1ities
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a popular idol, but that he is a. man of -principlee, His career ie notable for its faithful adherence to the logic of conviction and principle. It grew and~uas 'reared under circumstances whereln fidelity to conviction was paramount; it declined because of this same unshakeable inmstence on the dignity
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one's beliefs; it will move on, perhaps maimed and dimi- nished in importance, but still under the inspirat~·onof ideal.stliat: ~vouldnot be denied.
-Salvador P. Lopez (1934) In 1934, the year these observations on Palma were noted down by one of the country's rising young litera- teure, most people had come to believe that the stubborn- ness remarked upon by Lopez had finally caught up with this Grand Old Man of Philippine politics and education.
Only the year before, Palma had chosen to resign a university presidency distinguished by his Fflipinist and liberal policies rather than drag the university down with his ill-starred support of the Hare-Hawes.Cutting Law into the perdition of Quczonian ire. The following June, the same unrelenting fury dealt him his first po- litical defeat ever, when Quezon's formidable machine de- livered the Manila senatorial elections to his opponent.
Persistent ill-health had degenerated into bronchial asthma and a head tumor; unknown, death awaited him a short five years later.
Yet personal circumstances, and the longer vision of history, were to prove that Lopez's prophecy went beyond empty flattery. For Palma was simply too vital, too much like the 1Jtolave, to be undone by the consequences of his celebrated inflexibility of will, even at this nadir of his career.
In the br-iefness of his remaining lifetime, he squeezed in a delegate's seat at the 1935 Constitutional Convention;
the chairmanship of the National Educational Council, from which he preached surprisingly contemporary views on the need for a more practical educational system;
the 1938 Commonwealth Award for his Rizal biography, which, translated a decade later into Pride 0/ thc Mala?!
Race, posthumously stirred up quite a tempest in the Dominican teapot; and a monumental four-volume treatise in Spanish on his country's history, unpublished till recently only because Palma had characteristically snub- bed Quezon's overtures to purchase it and thus pre- empt its expected intimate insights on the leaders of colonial Philippine politics.
This year, we celebrate the centennial anniversary of this remarkable man, whose prodigious career and in- tellectual output spanned three major periods of Philip- pine history, whose life and teachings reach out even to our day with continuing relevance. The simpler world that conceived and shaped him may well seem a far, far cry from the tortuous complications of the present.
Yet the essential problems still remain with our people- problems of economic sufficiency, political identity, and social amelioration-and the same basic dilemma he raised still confronts all people-the basic question of naked pragmatism versus moral obligation, the familiar choice between the real and the ideal, between what is and what should be. Only the terms have changed, the situa- tions multiplied by a more complex modern world.
That is why Palma remains as original and instruc- tive a teacher to his people as he was in his lifetime. In his last years, he once expressed a wistful desire to serve again in public life, this time in the reconstruction that would have to follow the granting of independence. This centenary celebration is our opportunity to regain for him what death sought to deny. For this uncommon man, who chose to bend his life to conviction and not the other way around, what more fitting commemoration is there than to rekindle the light shed by his ideals, from them to illuminate our spirit and renew our vision for the great adventure ahead?
A political upheaval struck like a thunderbolt!
The overthrow of Spanish sovereignty produced a f.remendous change ~'n my ~·deas and habits ....Monar.
chy seemed to me an anachronism; the republic, a model 101' all society. Liberty, equality, and the brotherhood of men, that trilogy idoUzed by the French Revolution, captured my imagination ....I wa.s con-
veried into a genuine revolutionary.
The drama of that moment, when time stood still at a crossroads for him and for his country, would never leave the political imagination of Rafael Palma. From then on, this was to be a lifelong passion: his vision of an indepen- dent state, strong in its republican institutions, founded by an articulate and Freedom-loving citizenry, nurtured to prosperity by their productive ambition. Itwas a dream germinated from the works of the European Enlighten- ment, tempered in the heat of Revolutionary propaganda work, and projected as a path to the future, far beyond the pitiful realities of this small, unknown Asian colony, by the breadth of his love of country.
But this republican state would not just sprout up, fully-formed, one fine day. As a product himself of colo- nial education, Palma was acutely aware how little the centuries of colonization had prepared his people for the responsibilities of democracy. Thus, he unde~took the ar- duous task of setting forth, by instruction and example, the requirements of the democratic way of life.
MARCH-ApRIL
1975 V.P.
GAZETTE63
The conception of lib~l·t:r
Though liberty might be won someday, it could never be adequately expressed or protected simply by institution- al definitions. Its essence went far deeper:
Liberty rests not on the mere absence of external reetrainse, but on the conscience of the individual.
The ·individua.l is not [ree so long as he does not ...
understand that liberty is essential to his life and does not even know 'W1V to defend it and avo1'd be1'ng despoiled of it.
To this e~d of facilitating the development, expression, and protection of free consciences, democracy had set up its institutions. As such, these approached the sacred- ness of conscience; of them, Palma once remarked that
"God no longer abides only in the tiara or in royal robes but also in public opinion and in popular assemblies." '
The press, for example, invoked in him "an almost superstitious faith ... as a powerful instrument by which
~he democra~ies have corrected errors and guided better Ideals to triumph." Through his leadership of La In.
dependencia and El Renacimienw, the first nationalist mouthpieces before and after the Philippine-American CIvIl war, respectively, Palma demonstrated this faith in the press, not just as a social critic, but, in its noblest role, as the articulator of revolutionary sentiment.
~ike~i~e, public service was the sacrosanct repository of public trust. What would have been empty words fro~l others was a perfectly natural admission from Palma:
1 detest [raud. and h1/pocrisy, und prefer to speak the truth ....1 admi're civic spirit, sacrifice, and ab.
negation in public service, and
/M'
this recson, 1 suffer morally when I see people seeking public office 101" the sole purpose of profit /01" themselves and their [riends.Only a severely honest man would care to say this-;
one of an exceptional few who threw their talents into the political arena, never shirking from its temptations,
y~t never once yielding to them. To the historian Agon- Cillo, Palma was actually unFilipino, "one of the few (in public service) whose integrity and courage never col- lapsed even at a critical time .. ,. Nothing, not money, not honors bestowed, could make him surrender his con- victions, sense of justice, and integrity."
How many giants have since joined Our pantheon who turned out to have feet of clayr Palma set a forbiddin ...
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example indeed-c-one made more meaningful today, when a command society, in the interests of national develop- ment, has entrusted very great powers to a few men in high office.
Economic reform
While the obscurantists of his time loudly bewailed scandalous morals and blamed these on the godless ways of the modern world, Palma knew that it was precisely the backwardness of economic life in such an undeveloped colon)' that lay at the roots of whatever decline morality might have suffered" Thus, he repeatedly advocated L\
scheme of economic rehabilitation that Included such sound measures as taking an inventory of available resources, reorganizing these for greater intercoordinu- tion, gearing education to the labor requirements of in:
dustryl clearing productive land for government financed cultivation and eventual resale to private persons, 311(1
working to raise overall income to help payoff the public debt and ease the tax burden.
This scheme assigned a decisive role to capital, not just because Palma regarded capital with the liberal's tole- rance, but for the expedient reason that men of less foresight were making foreign capital the scapegoat for their reluctance to proceed with industrialization. Palma's answer was that any exploitative implications were inva- riably outweighed by the productive and stabilizinc in-
tentions of capital: b
The entrance of capital, be it Americun 01' other . . . 'Will not be left idle in the cofJers . . . but 'Will be in- vested 1"n SOnte [orm. of production. Capital seeks profits. It cloes not h'y to eusicvc anyone because it 'doe« not [itul a,ny benefits thereby. It '"nust see stability and order".". Ame1'ican capital has been here long, but we do not witness those disastrous consequences 'ulh£ch many augured at its arrival.
However, conditions had to be set in any case in adopt.
ing such an open-door policy to alien investments:
Outside capital and labor 'We need ... (but) it is highly necessary tha,t 'We deNne in no unce1"tain terms our 1'elationship with outside capital and labor to make them distinctly understand that provided'our political independence is respected a,rld assu1'ed we ere nady and willing to insure for all newcosnera the benefits and guara.ntees they are entitled to de-
"nand in return ior their help und cooperation. tn.
the material deve[olJment of the country.
Faced with the alternative of economic stagnation
P~lma
the pragmatist preferred to take the risks,alon~
WIth the rewards, as part of the challenge of industrial progress: an essentially moral perspective that, in the broader context, saw every human situation as combin- ing both evil and good, with men being left the duty of vigilance against the former.
Years later, Palma was to describe the refusal of the United States to grant free trade to the Philippines as proof of "the inescapable antagonism, the irremediable incompatibility of interests which naturally exists be- tween a ruling country and a dependent people of a different race." This germinal percipience of diplomatic exigency and economic nationalism, when contrasted with his earlier statements endorsing harmony of different national interests, only underscores the flexibility with which Palma sought to steer a policy of calculated com- promise, as the most feasible means to serve long-term national interests within a prevailing colonial arrange- ment.
People: the decisi ....c factor
In the final analysis, as with the question of political independence and democracy, it was the people in whom Palma rested the resolution of the question of econo- mic advancement:
n~e cannot st,rcl1gt.hen ow' economic life unW rue iree the great »tnss of cit1~,;.:ens trom the at.ti,t.ude of hulifferencc tcll:ieh keeps them sati.c;ficd with the hand-to.mouUt existence oj a -mieerob!e l.iie.... Un- less -oc interest the masses in 'i-mp1'oving their status the structure of any economic development 'will be 'lceak at its foundation, because the masses eueru- Khere constitute tlve st?'ength upon tddch the 1n"0 -
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u.P. GAZE1TEVOL. VI, No. 3
perty a.nd grea[ncss of any nahan 1"cst... •lYe will not cea-se to be a pOOl' a,nd u:eah nation unless 1VB
wish to be a.ncl are detennincd to be rich. a,nd strong.
Long before the concept of "people ends" was restored to development economics, Palma already recognized that the motivation and mobilization of the people was the decisive factor in improving the economic conditions of the country. This did not just mean the strict economic sense of self-sustained growth continually fed by the in- tersupportive increases of supply and demand. More pro- foundly, Palma's democratic instinct understood that, as a latter-day Asian philosopher once said, "the masses are the real makers of history", including economic his- tory.
His people and his country were indeed the touch- stones of Palma's political vision. In "The Revolt of the Youth", he drew together all the strands of this vision into one high statement of economic, political, historical, and moral purpose:
This is our country, not because we have conquered her 01' bought her, nor yet beca·use we exercise scv- ereignty over her-for we are subject to another sovereign-but because Nature has placed us in this land of ours; we have received her as a legacy from our forebears; we have built her and fashioned her;
toe have fought for her and only by superior force has she been seized from ow' hands. She is ours not to aHenate, not to sell, not to destroy, but to conserve, to advance, to transmit intact a.nd under
better conditions of lJ?'osperity to ow· desccndants.
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As profoundly as 1896 transformed Palma from a model of pro-Spanish, Catholic submissiveness into the life- long republican, his moral values and perspective on social institutions acquired a secular character that provided the partner and foundation to his political activism. His recruitment into the Renaissance was completed and thus made whole.
Social progress became an obsessive ambition for his countrymen. The modern world represented in all ways an order superior to the old, particularly since the declaration of the Rights of Man, to Palma "the most epochal achievement of the age." 'Thus, the forms that such social institutions as religion, the family, educa- tion, and morality took were bound to change, to re- main relevant to the changing temper of the times:
Religion, morality, family, and government win always remain. as eeeentiai and neCCSS01"Y institutions in the 'world, and there is no human force t.hat can destroy them, os they arc founded on the nature of things. But their form icili not rcmain the same ...
they will change., .as fa-st as humanity discovers new truths and umderetcnde better the worki1lgs of mat- ter and
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sp-trit.This continuing discovery of new and higher knowl- edge was the driving force of secular progress, the mode through which man sought to realize his ultimate perfectibility. This was the essence of Palma's social thought, the framework both for his political concerns and for the univcranlity of his speculation. So long H3 the human conscience served us a reliable rudder, then humanity's ship would unfailingly steer past all obsta- cles towards the destined triumph of good in men's hearts:
The t1·c1ul of humanity has always been for the better, and this slow and imperceptible upwaTd march tOH:a-rds new conditions is gcnerally acco'mpanied by new evils U,1ld sufferings wMch incite 1nen to struggle and to find new avenues for a better life and wiser courses of cction .... If man were always inspired by tv}wt his conscience reveals to him ... then he would rise to a 1Josition where he 1vould be used to per- forming good unconsciously and mechanically. This is the state of culture towards which our a,ge is bound.
Today, such optimism has been pushed to the farthest corner of the contemporary scene by perennial crises and the politics of brinkmanship. Yet the colonial period to which Palma addressed himself was also no fit place for glad tidings, burdened as it was by economic stagnation, political subjection, and the philosophical heritage of obs- curantism from the colonial theocracy. In a sense, the cycle has come full circle, and the prophecy of Palma has renewed itself in our time.
The gift of reason
Yet Palma was no wishful thinker. Juan Cabildo, a newspaperman who was less than friendly regarding Palma, had to admit that "if Palma is to be revered, that reverence will originate from the spring of pure rea- son. , ..H A dialectician of the first water, the question up- permost in his mind is not so much what is to be done, as how, and in the name of which principles, it ought to be done." Even prophecy had to be measured against these two standards of rigid logic and moral justifiability.
To Palma, reason was a dependable lighthouse amid the storm of human emotions and unfamiliar challenges, a multi-faceted tool of human endeavor. In the first instance, it served to illuminate the judgments of conscience, which enlightenment was the source of individual liberty and the last protection against intellectual and moral op- pression:
Thanks to the principle of individual liberty, it is now well-settled that even with 01'iginal sin, a person 1'8 guided by the light of his own conscience; and
thus it would be possible to create by means of edu- cation suflicient internal restraints to serve as his safeguard and the safeguard of others. Under the influence of such an enlightened conscience, a person may be left alone without the necessity of subjecting kim to a reign of terror,
Reason was also the key to indefinitely extend hu- man knowledge to its infinite possibilities. This fact was at the same time a practical motivation tothe youth to set their horizons higher than the frame imposed by the Old Education:
It is high time that ow' youth think f01· them- selves u-ml not accept as final and perfect tlte body of fossilized thoughts and ideas which -ure hove cc- ccntca without due cxrnninatuni and crifJcal ana1ysi8.
NoUdng is periect and final in this life bccause tliore Lsal'lL'olls sOlnet./l~ng beyond which on account of om' natural limiiutione usc cannot Teach.
In its broadest sense, therefore, reason was a profound gift conferred by God for man to use in exalting his Maker, through the revelation of His Presence in the real wor-ld: