The great US experiment — the Philippines

The United States left the Philippines with a great many cultural, social and political artifacts; including an initially identical independence day. Not many people will remember, but the Philippines also celebrated independence day on July 4; as this was the day when it was given by the United States. During President Diosdado Macapagal’s tenure, it was decided that the Philippines should move Independence Day from July 4 to June 12. This columnist recommended this change to then President Macapagal because I believe that we should celebrate our independence, not when our colonizers granted it, but when we declared it.

The most visible reminder of our colonial past is English; the Philippines has one of the largest English speaking populations in the world. For hundreds of years the Philippines emphatically did not have a lingua franca, it took the American period and the setting up of our education system to give us one. Today, our major newspapers and historical research is published in English, the great Philippine literature of the 20th century is predominantly in English; coming from the pens of writers such as Nick Joaquin and F. Sionil Jose.

Above and beyond the language, the United States gave the Philippines all the tools necessary to become a modern state. It is because of US innovations that, for the first time, we had a truly public school system, modern infrastructure, a democratic system of government and even sanitation systems. We forget, but Manila, Cebu City and Baguio were laid out and planned by the same architect who designed Washington D.C., Chicago, San Francisco and Cleveland: David Burnham. Unfortunately, only portions of his plan were followed, including Roxas (once Dewey) Boulevard. The best and the brightest of American politicians were sent to the Philippines to be governor-general; including a future president in William Howard Taft. As in the Spanish colonial era, the Philippines was the shining light of Asia during the American period. The growth of the United States during the 19th century was driven by the concept of manifest destiny; or the idea that the US was destined to expand from the Atlantic to the Pacific. First espoused during the 1840s, it was used as the fundamental reason for the acquisition of new territory. Once this had been accomplished (with the creation of California as a state), the concept fell out of use. However, it was revived in the 1890s and used as justification for acquiring the Philippines from Spain. Their goal was to shape us in their own image; into the beacon of modernity and democracy in Asia.

The Philippines and the United States remain still close today; even more so than with Spain. We love American movies and music; we revel in American literature and pop culture. The American era was short and violent in its change; it started with  a war and ended with World War II. But, for good or bad, in those 50 years the United States changed the shape of the country. They gave us the tools to become a modern nation; for a period leading up to the 1970s we were. The tools they gave us are conceptually still there; equality amongst the people, modernity in the form of public education, governance and economics. Maybe it is time for us to remember what we have, to appreciate and nurture these tools, and then finally put them to good use and reclaim our status as a modern country and the shining light of Asia.