Philippine Culture

The Evolution of Philippine
Society and Culture

Pre-Colonial Culture, was it
Indigenious Culture or
Civilization?

Webster
• Defines civilization as the advanced
state of human society in which a
high level of

Jocano
• ‘’The Vision of our Future must be rooted in
our Image of the Past,’’ however, strongly
contends that: ‘’Filipinos possessed an
elaborate civilization in the past. This
achievement did not become part of Filipino
consciousness, even today, because of the
advent of colonization during which a
systematic distortion of our perspectives
about ourselves was carried out.’’

Earlier accepted theories about the
origin of the Philippines

H. Otley Beyer (eminent anthropologist
of the American period
• The racial mixture of the Filipinos is as follows:
– Malay (40%)
– Indonesian (30%)
– Negrito (10%)
– Chinese (10%)
– Indian (8%)
– American (3%)
– Arab (2%)

• Dr. H.O. Beyer’s migration
theory arranged the peopling
of the Philippines with the
coming of the Dawn Man, the
prehistoric cousin of the Java
man and Peking man of
250,000 years ago.

• According to Prof. Beyer,
three Asian peoples are:
–Negritos
–Indonesians
–Malays

The Malays
Came in three waves;
First: brought their mining and smelting
technology, and their agricultural system.
They were headhunters who chiefly
depended on hunting, fishing, and fruit
gathering. They developed terrace
agriculture with elaborate irrigation
systems.

• Second wave: brought their syllable system of
writing. They were known as the alphabetusing Malays.
• Third wave: the Muslim Malays introduced
Islam in the Philippines.
– More advanced culturally and economically than
the Indonesians.
– Their culture belonged to the Iron and Porcelain
periods.
– Lived in organized communities and had domestic
and foreign barter trade, wet agriculture, and
industries.

The First Filipino
• Tabon Man (22,000-30,000 years ago) – who
lived in Palawan.
– The skull cap of this Stone Age human was
discovered by Dr. Robert Fox inside Tabon Cave in
1962.
– Medium height, and had a high eyebrow and
sloping forehead,.
– Depend on forest fruits, roots and edible plant,
and by hunting wild animals.

First Filipino Communities
• Barangays
– Units of social organization with broader political,
economic, and religious features than the family
(Jocano 1975).
– 30-100 families had distinct culture of their own.
– As political organization, it was a consultative
monarchy and was considered the barangays carried
on trade and commerce not only among themselves,
but also with other foreign entities.
– They concluded treaty of friendship and alliance with
each other through ritual sanduguan (blood
compact).

Social Classes
• Traditional history divided pre-Spanish cosiety
into three classes:
– The nobles or upper class
• The chiefs (Datu or Rajah), their families and relatives

– The freemen or middle class
• Free-born or freed slaves constituted the majority of the
social classes

– The dependents or alipins
• Aliping namamahay – owned house and properties
• Aliping sagigilid – had no right, could be sold anytime by his
master, generally they were captives of war

Spanish Colonial Society
• Ferdinand Magellan
– The first European to reach the Philippines
– A Portuguese explorer commissioned by the Spanish
ruler to search for the Spice Islands.

• Villalobos
– Named the islands “La Felipinas” in honor of Prince
Philip, who later became the King of Spain.

• Legazpi (1565)
– Successfully established the first Spanish settlement in
Cebu.

Encomienda System
• Established a feudalistic society which was
characterized by a master-slave relationship
between the conquistadores and the Indios
(natives).

Doctrine of Limpieza de Sangre (purity
of blood)
• Creating a social ranking among various
groups.

Frailocracy (Quasi-Theocratic
Society)
• “Frailocracia” – “rule of the
friars”

American Colonial Society
• Education
– The main vehicle of peaceful pacification through
education was the establishment of the Public
School System by the American-controlled Second
Philippine Commission under Taft.
– The Commission’s Act No. 74 provided initially for
free primary education with English as the
medium of instructions.

• Pensionado system or the scholarship grant to
the United States
– Another subtle device created by the Americans
to project better their benevolence.
– It was recorded that by 1912 more than 200 of
this pensionados or “Americanization trainees”
had obtained their university degrees in the
United States.

Politics
• Introduction of democracy
– Cooper Act
– Jones Law
– Tydings-McDuffie Law
– Bill of Rights

Economic Relations
• Free trade relations with the United States
made the Philippines economically dependent
on the United States.

Miseducation and Colonial
Consciousness
• Colonial or “Stateside mentality

Literature-Agent of Deculturization
Literature during this period was divided into two
schools of thought:
• reactionary school – whose clientele were the
collaborators or “Americanistas”
•progressive school – whose proponents were
from the “irreconcilables”

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