Bernardo Carpio: Awit and Revolution

One issue in the historiography of the Philippine

revolutions of 1896 and 1898 is demonstrating the
relationship between the informed, verbalize world class
illustrados who have deserted the greater part of the
reports, and the inarticulate "masses" who battled and
died in the different wars. Patron-client ties surely help
clarify how the nearby principalia, or upper class could
assemble expansive quantities of individuals. However,
the occasions of the upset show that the basic people were
battling under the "blinding" impact not of individual
identities but rather of their conceptions of "times" and
ground-breaking pioneers were the individuals who
effectively explained such originations. John Schumacher,
S.J., has demonstrated how the illustrados made the
reason for a Filipino history that would undermine and
displace a Spanish historiography which ordered Filipino
devotion to Spain under good endorses." Such history
absolutely gave a “rational and moral legitimation for the
new nation,” yet it isn't clear how it given the drive to the
breaking of ties of utang na loob (obligation of
appreciation) to Spain that era of provincial standard had
urged the indios. For the general population to have
touched base at a perspective in which such a break or
partition was conceivable, if not inescapable, their
originations of the past-after all utang na loob depends on
remebrance of the past-must have changed. How this
could have occured is the subject of this discussion.
On account of the limitations forced by control and
different types of scholarly suppression amid Spanish
standard, well known perusing passage, up to the 1880s,
appeared as religious tracts and metrical sentiments called
awit. Of the previous, the different pasyon idyllic forms
of the life, passing, and restoration of Jesus Crist ended up
virtual social legends. I have talked about else where the
job of the pasyon frame in the transformation. Utilizing a
method of literary investigation that will be endeavored
again in this paper, I indicated how the general
population's nature with the story of Christ offered
importance to a real existence and-passing battle for
autonomy—a battle imaged as a solitary redemptive
occasion that unfurled itself with man's cooperation. In
any case, while it has turned out to be evident that the
dialect of people Christianity streamed into the dialect of
patriotism and unrest when the new century rolled over,
there is a risk of overemphasizing the effect of
Christianity in this. The tale of Christ was significant
seeing that it was appropriated by the sociaty itself and
mirored its beliefs. Different parts of Spanish frontier
impact can be inspected in this light. In paticular, we will
investigate a Tagalog awit, the Historia Famosa ni
Bernardo Carpio, in light of legends of the Spanish saint
Bernardo Carpio, that the uncovers a well known view of
the past whereupon Filipino nationalistsn pivoted their
separtist desires.
But then, given the way that well known awareness
of the past was intervened by awit verse, the insurgency
occurred. In spite of the request of some ilustrados that
the majority's absolute numbness, exemplified by their
faith in fantasies, was a hindrance to the unrest, it was the
supposed pobres y ignorantes who framed the main part
of the progressive armed forces that battled against Spain
and the United States. So as to land at some
comprehension of this unforeseen development, let us
look at, first, a few highlights of the Historia Famosa ni
Bernardo Carpio and, second, the awit's association with
patriot works on the eve of the insurgency.
The Historia Famosa has not been viewed as an abstract
achievement of the Tagalogs. Its initiation stays obscure,
and it has been dominated by the more cleaned and
"urbane" awit, Florante at Laura. Like most awit in now is
the right time, the Historia Famosa's story line is gotten
from legends sorrounding the Spanish eminence and their
Moorish enemies. Senior member Fansler remarks that
sentimental accounts of this sort had been "derided to
death by cervantes" some time before they showed up in
Tagalog awit variants. Having sifted into the Philippines
by means of Mexico, such stories drew nno complaints
from monks as topic for indigenous writing. All things
considered, devotion to an European ruler and
Christendom's triumph over the Moors were steady topics
in these accounts; they were valuable in fortifying the
indios' reliability and utang na loob to Spain and
Catholicism. As it were, the awit was a successful frontier
weapon. Awit and other related structures supplanted the
indigenous writing that the Spanish minister obliterated
not long after the success. Local minister and laymen
rushed to change in accordance with the cutoff points
inside which they could form Tagalog verse; by the
eighteenth century shabby of awit were "imprinted in the
urban areas and towns and afterward sold, sold in
walkway slows down, and conveyed to the most remote
barriors by vagrant sellers." Awit stories were regularly
performed, or if nothing else sung in broad daylight. So
ground-breaking was the effect of awit on the well known
creative energy that normal indio in the nineteenth
century can be said to have longed for copying gallant
knights riding off to the Crusades or sparing wonderful
ladies from pain. He find out about Emperor
Charlemagne, the Seven Peers of France, and the
pulverization of Troy than of pre-Spanish Philippine
rajahs and the devastation of Manila inlet the
conquistadors.

Before we swing to Bonifacio's works, there are sure

things we should remember with respect to the state of the
Historia Famosa ni Bernardo Carpio. To begin with, the
pretty much continnual nearness of King Alfonso as the
preeminent specialist figure and benefactor empowers the
creator of the Historia Famosa to test the points of
confinement of utang na loob when this is tested by the
intensity of affection. Not that utang and love are
conflicting powers; in a perfect world they coincide and
convey lastingness to a relationship. On account of
Sancho, in any case, Jimena's excellence overwhelms him
like an astonishing light and his loob is changed. The
couple don't consider the outcomes of their goes about as
they meet in the pinnacle and seal their relationship.
Despite the fact that they are submitting foul play toward
the lord, who has gave such a significant number of
favors on them (and he over and over lists these favors),
their being in a condition of common damayan makes
conceivable the demonstration of breaking binds of utang
to yhe ruler. Taking up a little segment of the awit, the
shocking romantic tale in any case suffuses the entire with
importance, remaining as a "lost Eden" to the scenes that
pursue.
The creator of the Historia Famosa states toward the
starting that he has chosen subtleties from the Spanish
story of Bernardo Carpio. This is the manner by which the
account procceds. The lord and ruler of Spain have kicked
the bucket, abandoning two little youngsters named
Alfonso and Jimena. Wear Sancho, tally of Cerdeňa,
administers over Spain until Alfonso becomes an adult
and accept the honored position. The writer comments
that King Alfonso stays unmarried and has no affection
for ladies. In the interim Don Sancho has been selected
illustrious advocate and ordering general of the military.
Another real character, Don Rubio, is presented as Don
Sancho's companion and skipper of the military.

After fourteen stanzas of the awit, amajor change

happens. The occasion is "activated" by the brilliant
magnificence of the ruler's sister, Jimena. Her brilliance,
portrayed in such a large number of symbolism filled
stanzas, causes disarray in the loob(inner being) of
notables, the lord notwithstanding, in Spain and abroad.
Of graver import is the contention that it causes between
the companions Don Sancho and Don Rubio. While both
are pulled in to Jimena's magnificence, their reactions are
immeasurably unique. Rubio, having been reproached by
Jimena, responds with outrage and disgrace (hiya). His
loob, at first uprooted by Jimena's brilliance hints at
"solidifying" into narrow-mindedness and injustice. Then
again, Sancho's loob is depicted by the writer as equipped
for adoration. Jimena's magnificence has the impact of
making Sancho's confounded loob accomplish a
completion meant by his readiness to languish and bite
the dust over his darling. Sancho's long piece of his
affection takes after a run of the mill Tagalog kundiman
(love tune), which is heard at a few key purposes of the
awit.

In a scene normal of most nineteenth-century awit, a

Moro emissary shows up with an impolite test to the
Spanish lord, who immediately arranges his confided in
General Sancho to lead his military against the lowlifess.
As the military amasses in the field, Don Sancho, in
rebellion of the ruler's requests, sneaks into Jimena's room
in the pinnacle. His goodbye discourse again offers the
writer a chance to soak the peruser in the symbolism of
adoration and detachment normal for society verse.
Overwhelmed by such dialect Jimena winds up befuddled,
at that point begins sobbing uncontrollably, and
surrenders herself to her sweetheart.
Don Sancho’s victory over the Moros is likened to the
ravaging of a garden by a cyclone. The general, however,
is not fated to profit by it. His rival Don Rubio, aware of
the lover’s meeting, vent his ill feeling upon Sancho by
recommending to the king that the latter accept the count
of Barcelona’s proposal to cement a political alliance by
marrying Jimena. Hearing this draws an outburst of anger
from Sancho. Rubio, whose loob is filled with shame and
“confliciting elements,” backs down in fear. Another
opportunity for revenge presents itself, however, when
Rubio hears the birth scream of Jimena’s child, who is
named Bernardo. Pretending to see justice done, Rubio
rushes to inform the king, who is completely torn apart by
the news of Sancho and Jimena’s “crime.” The king is
thrown form his seat; suddenly he forgets his past
relationship with Don Sancho and can think of nothing
but schemes to destroy him.

As Sancho is about to take the infant Bernardo to

Cerdeňa, the poet is given another opportunity to evoke in
the reader the experience of anguish and loss, for the
separation of the infant from his parents is perhaps the
most significant event in the awit. As the poet himself
remarks, after a description of Jimena’s sadness:
What loob however hard what heart would not be
overcome by this and be saddened and struck with pain
for the two lovers with a pure loob? Alin cayang loob na
sacdal nang tigas/ alin namang puso ang hindi mabagbag,/
na di na malunusan at magdalang sindac/ sa dalawang
sintang ang loob ay tapat?
As Sancho leaves the pinnacle with the tyke, he is trapped
by the lord's troopers. Battling with just a single hand he
can butcher every one of them, however the tyke shouts
and is heard by the lord who jumps from the sidelines,
blaming Sancho for foul play. Sancho stoops and asks for
leniency. All he asks is to be marry to Jimena before he is
executed. The lord quickly consents to the marriage yet
deceptively sends Sancho to the palace of Luna with a
fixed letter sketching out specific disciplines to be
distributed to the carrier. Sancho, to his mortification, is
bound in chains; his eyes are gouged out and he is tossed
inside a dim cell.
Has the lord overlooked the past? Mourns Sancho. Is the
agony of visual impairment his reward for the hardships
he has borne in safeguarding the kingdom? Again the
writer gives free rein to pictures of agony and divisions:
Sancho from Jimena, the guardians from their tyke
Bernardo. Sancho's regret closes with an intrigue to God
to have feel sorry for his child:
And may he eventually recognize his true mother and true
father and when, Lord, he comes of age. may he, Lord
God, recognize me. At maquilala rin ang tunay na ina/ at
aco,i, gayon din na caniyang ama,/ na cun siya Poon
nama,i, limaqui na/ aco po, Dios co, nama,i, maquilala.
Meanwhile Don Rubio becomes the closest confidante of
the king. He is entrusted wiith bringing up the child
Bernardo, whose true parents are ordered never to be
revealed to him. Jimena, whose treachery brought great
shame to her brother King Alfonso, is sent to a cloister.
Alfonso scolds her for forgetting all the love and caring
he had showered upon her and for failing to show utang
na loob for things past. For her, as for Sancho, there is
resignation to “fate,” to God’s will. As the child Bernardo
grows up, it becomes obvious to all that he has
extraordinary strength and energy. He is in constant
movement, running back and forth, up and doown stairs:

He walks and walks, but goes nowhere his loob and heart
always perturbed . . . Na lalacad-lacad ualang pinupunta/
ang loob at puso,i, parating balisa . . .
His vitality is discharged in an inefficient and standoffish
way: hitting, mangling, and slaughtering steeds, carabaos,
and other creature he meets out and about. Angry
townsfolk grumble to Don Rubio. Bernardo clarifies that
he can't control his very own body and quality. One day
Bernardo asks his "father" Don Rubio to convince the lord
to knight him with the goal that he may go far and wide
fighting worshipful admiration and quelling wild
monsters. Rubio, be that as it may, reprimands him: how
might he be knighted if his own roots are obscure?
Bernardo then understands that Rubio isn't his actual dad.
He breaks into tears: "this was the beginning of his
bewilderment/in conduct, thought and even his heart."
Fortunately, the ruler happens to go along. Indicating pity
he makes Benardo a knight and received child, a lot to the
dishearten of Don Rubio. Afterward, having killed the
presumptuous Rubio in a fencing match, Bernardo is
made general of the military. The child vindicates the dad.

As the received child of King Alfonso, Bernardo's

energies turn into more "framed" and coordinated toward
battling the Moors. The most considerable adversary is
the Emperor Carpio, whose immense regions can't be
infiltrated even by arnies of the Twelve Peers of France.
At some point, Carpio's agent, Verommilla, touches base
at the Spaninsh court requesting vassalage from the ruler
or else confront attack. Bernardo, in his standard
vivacious, rather uncontrolled manner,reacts brutally
toward the emissary:

He struck the chair upon which the envoy sat causing him
to fall over everything was crushed, broken to pieces the
king tried to calm Bernardo: My son, he said, just take it
easy to attack an envoy as you did is against all the rules
so straighten out your loob. At tuloy tinampal ang upuang
sila/ ay agad natapon Sampong embajada,/ nagcadurog-
durog nabaling lahat na/ nagusap ang hari Bernardo,i,
sucat na,// Anac co aniya icao ay maglibang/ at iya,i, di
utos sa leing alin man,/ na ang embajada ay malalabanan/
caya ang loob mo ay magpakahusay.

As Veromilla comes back to his camp, Bernardo tells the

ruler that, with his protective gift, he will battle the
adversary aingle-gave. Indedd, he approaches the Moro
lines alone and is scorned by Veromilla. Be that as it may,
this adolescent who "has quite recently been weaned by
his mom" totally dervastate the adversary. Veromilla
escapes in incredible frenzy. At the point when Bernardo
comes back to the court he submissively devotes his
triumph to the ruler. He ascribes his triumph to God's
kindness (awa) and to destiny. Also, he requests to be
allowed just a single demand: that he be told the
characters of his actual guardians. He is growing up yet
has no roots, no relatives to pay regard to. The ruler at
that point attempts to delude Bernardo by consenting to
his demand give that, for the last time, he overcomes
Emperor Carpio. Knowing Carpio's notoriety, the ruler
anticipates that his young general should be killed in
fight. Bernardo's capacity, be that as it may, has no
equivalent on the planet. Battling like a "lion, tiger, and
snake" he efficiently overcomes Carpio's nineteen
mansion until the point that the sovereign surrenders,
hands over the entirety of his domain to Bernardo and
consents to pay tribute to Spain.

Upon his arrival yet again to Spain, Bernardo Carpio, as

he is currently called, is stunned to locate a french
sovereign, likewise named Bernardo, administering the
kingdom. Ruler Alfonso, who had incidentally
surrendered the position of royalty while on chasing trip,
legitimizes his choice as far as "tradional ties" between
the Spanish and French decision families. Bernardo
contemptuously rejects this agument. Moreoever, he is
nauseated by the lord's refusal to uncover the personalities
of his folks. In an irate confrontatation Bernardo
announces that he will discover his folks by power. Now
Bernardo Carpio's energies appear to wind up more
engaged than any other time in recent memory. Having
rejected another stepfather, his first demonstration is to
obliterate all the lord's steeds to anticipate interest. This
explicity appears differently in relation to his prior
aimless pulverization of neigbors' domesticated animals
and work creatures. While he stops by the wayside to
implore God and the Virgin Mother, a letter drifts down
from paradise with reality about his folks. Before he can
go looking for them, notwithstanding, he is told to
initially end Spain's binds of vassalage to France. So he
continues to the French court, where Emperor Ludovico
discloses to him that his relations with Spain are
altogether founded on age-old agreements passed on from
age to age. Bernardo, be that as it may, has only hatred for
conventional ties. Neither has he regard for Ludovico,
whom he seizes by the neckline and physically scares.
The French court, in dread of Bernardo's capacity, yields.
The ties are broken. Bernardo then continues to the manor
of Luna to search out his dad.
The scene movements to Sancho lamething in jail: the
lord has demonstrated no pity, keeping him for a
considerable length of time in the dimness of a cell:

And you my beloved son who, I heard, is now called Don

Bernardo Carpio have passed through a multitude of
towns and kingdoms and yet have not found your father ,
Sancho Why my beloved child have you not searched for
your lord, your father? Haven’t your heart and loob been
moved by my sufferings and laments? Icao namn caya na
sintang anac co/ na nababalitang D. Bernardo Carpio,/
tanang villa,t, reino ay nasasapit mo/ di mo na narating
ama mong si Sancho.// Ano baga bunso na guilio co,t,
sinta/ di na siniyasat and poon mo,t, ama,/ ang puso,t,
loob mo,i, di na nabalisa/ sa nagdaralita,t, dito,i,
nagdurusa.
"As though he heard this mourn," Bernardo arrives,
murders the watchmen and liberates his dad. Lamentably,
Sancho bites the dust not long after the get-together. This,
be that as it may, does not keep Bernardo from
legitimizing his attach to his folks. He brings his dad,
secured with a fabric on the affection that he should not
be presented to cold air, to the ruler's royal residence,
where the wedding with Jimena happens. Simply after
dad, mother, and child are formally rejoined does
Bernardo claim to find that his dad is dead.
The awit does not finish here, as it does in the Spanish
firsts. Bernardo, having declined the Spanish position of
authority, proceeds with his movements looking for
misguided worshipers to obliterate. He touches base
before a churchlike structure with two lion statues by the
passageway. Beacause the entryways are closed, he bows
outside and asks. An electrical discharge strikes and
demolishes one of the lions. Maddened by the lighting's
test, Bernardo flings the other lion away and promises to
scan for the lighting and devastate it. Not faraway, he sees
two mountains hitting each other at ordinary interims. At
that point a great looking youthan a blessed messenger—
shows up in amazing splendor and reveals to Bernardo
that the lighting has entered the mountain. God directions
that Bernardo will not see, considerably less caught it. At
the point when the heavenly attendant himself takes the
way of the lighting, Bernardo tenaciously pursues, the
twin pinnacles surrounding him. The awit closes with the
comment that since Bernardo was such incredible and
ground-breaking saint, God do magic on him and
subsequently kept him alive however covered up.
The awit just abridged is imperative for the investigation
of the insurgency in two regards. To begin with, the
appointment by the Tagalogs of a Spanish legend
empowered a people without a background marked by
themselves as a people to envision a lost past just as their
expectations of freedom from Spanish guideline. Second,
the awit uncovers a type of definitively organizing
occasions, wich would later be utilized by patriot to
convey their political plans to the general population. The
primary call attention to borne out by proof from nearby
accounts of focal and southern Tagalogs towns. The
Historia Famosa's record of Bernardo's last voyage is
gotten from pre-Spanish convictions in journeys to the
black market to grapple with spirits as a trial of one's
internal quality. The writer simply insists that the universe
of Bernardo Carpio is the philippines. Continuously 50%
of the nineteenth century, Tagalog laborers, in any event
those inside the region of the mountains that command
the scene of the Tagalog area, trusted that Bernardo
Carpio was their indigenous lord caught inside a
mountain, attempting to free himself. Calamitous
occasions were deciphered as indications of his action.

That their uneducated countymen's originations of

freedom were overwhelmed by this legend did not get
away from the notice of some ilustrados. In his novel El
Filibusterismo, in which Jose Rizal engages the likelihood
of outfitted rebel against Spain, there is this reflection
upon an a truck driver's firm confidence in Benardo
Carpio:

The pleasants of that day kept alive a legend that their

king, imprisoner in chains in the cave of San Mateo,
would one day return to free them from oppression. Every
hundred years he had broken one of his chains, and now
he already had freed his arms and his leg. Only his right
leg was still held fast. It was he who caused earthquake as
he flailed about and struggled against his chains: he was
so strong that one could one could shake hands with him
only by stretching out a bone, which crumbled in his
grasp. For no apparent reason the natives called him King
Bernardo, confusing him perhaps with Bernardo del
Carpio, the semimythical Spanish hero of the ninth
century who was said to have defeated the French Ronald
at Roncesvalles.

Then Rizal has the cart driver mutter: “When he gets his
rigth foot free, I shall give him my horse, put my self
under his orders, and die for him. He will free us from the
constabulary.” Yet, unlike other patriots, as we shall see,
Rizal was careful to separate the “mythical” and what he
considered the “national” in his writings. He probably
would not have appreciated the widespread rumor, at the
outbreak of the revolution in 1896, that Rizal had gone to
the depths of Mount Makiling, proven his intelligence and
sincerity to Bernardo Carpio, and been told that it was
time for the people to rise against Spain. Mirinda even
states that “the masses were awaiting the liberation of
Bernardo Carpio, a caharacter in aTagalog legend, from
the two enormous cliffs of Biak-na-Bato so that he might
exterminate the Spanish soldiers who defended their
outposts.”

The second point which concerns the state of the Historia

Famosa ni Bernardo Carpio and its association with
patriot thoughts of the past, is best manage by comparing
different parts of awit and patriot works. In 1888, while
Rizal was in London doing research for his explanations
to Morga's history of the Philippines, a to some degree
distinctive chronicled ppiece—a sonnet od sixty-six
stanzas titled Hibik ng Filipino sa Ynang Espaňa
(Filipinas' Lament to mother Spain)— was being
appropriated in the nation. Its writer, Hemenegildo Flores,
was an educator, artist and "disseminator" qho united with
understood patriot author Marcelo del Pilar to convey the
antifriar issue to the Tagalog perusing open. The way to
the Hibik's importance lies in the edge built up by the
opening stanza:

Oh, beautiful and generous Mother Spain where is your

loving concern for your child? It is I, your youngest born,
unfortunate Filipinas. Glance at me, you cannot ignore my
suffering. Ynang mapag-ampon Espaňang marilag./
nasaan ang iyong pagtingin sa anac?/ acong iyong
bunsong abang Filipinas/ tingni,t sa dalita,i, di na maca-
iuas!

What pursues is essentially a past filled with the

Philippines under the mastery of the monks. Drawing
from the exploration of proselytizers in Europe, Flores
lists the techniques by which the monks' riches was
amassed, the different kinds of expenses and "intentional"
commitments constrained on the general population, and
the attitude of account holders and other mistreated to
escape to the slopes. The monks guaranteed quick access
to paradise to all who agreed to their requests, yet this was
a type of daya (deceit), for the ministers were the first to
negate their very own lessons. Amidst the ballad there is a
genuinely point by point account of the monk incited
murder of the liberal Governor-General Bustamante in
1719. Throughout the lyric, sprinkled among the
subtleties of the harsh conduct of the monks, runs the
parent-kid theme presented by the main stanza. This
would later turn into a changeless component of patriot
verse coordinated to a mass gathering of people. It has
been aargued that this edge was imagined by Flores and
Del Pilar to empower them to give "free play to [their]
unexpected pen[s]. Howver , I don't believe that
negligible creativity offered ascend to this type of patriot
composing. That Flores and Del Pilar composed Tagalog
verse implies that the certainties they needed to make
known to the prominent group of onlookers were
conveyed by a recognizable style of talk. Flores and Del
Pilar were tapping well known view of a significant past.

In the Historia Famosa the past, as narrated by the awit’s

caharacters, is always shaped by the idiom of personal
relationship. Don Sancho’s laments to Jimena, King
Alfonso, and his son Bernardo project vivid images of the
past, which appear periodically in the text, serving as
markers to which the complicated elements of the story
adhere. Sancho’s expressions of love to Jimena are
constant reminder to his beloved as well as to the
audeince of the haedships which he has experienced in
order to prove that his love is genuine, or “in the loob.” In
Jimena, this lament has the effect of transforming an
initial confusion into a commitment to her suitor in the
face of retribution by the king. To the audience or reader,
the laments serve as as a reminder that Bernardo has not
experienced a parent’s love. The significance of this fact
will be disccused later. We recall that as Sancho lay on
the verge of death in his prison cell, he enumarates his
past services to the throne. The king has forgatten all this.
As long as both Sancho and the king remember the
cumulative events that cemented their relationship, all
goes well; they act honorably. But forgetfulness, usally
occasioned by the influence of deceitful language from
envious persons like Don Rubio, results in misguided,
dishonorable acts. King Alfonso, it will be remembered,
is knocked of his seat by Rubio’s news of the illicit love
affair. From this point on, he behaves like a victim of
amnesia; his plotting against Sancho and, alter, Bernardo
are the effect of his loss of memory, a conditonal that
Sancho deplores in his laments. Conversly, in the awit a
hero’s valiant deeds against the enemy are often the effect
of being conscious of the king’s past favors to him, or of a
loved one’s pledge.
To a person reading or listening to the awit, Sancho’s
laments, set in measured verse form, would have evoked a
response conditioned by his or her own experience of
personal relationships. He would have experienced, not
only Sancho and Jimena’s suffering, but also the loss of
parental love that haunts Bernardo and frames his
activities. This audience response, the stimulation of
which rather than the mere telling of events is the awiit’s
function, is called damay (empathy, participation). Flores
and Del Pilar used the hibik (lament) form in order to
evoke from their audience a similar state of receptivity for
nationalist message. The novelty of Flores’s hibik
diminishes when the poem is seen in the context of its
time. Scholars seem have ignored Apolinario Mabini’s
observation that the first sign of a genuine nationalist
stirring among the inhabitants of Manila and Cavite was a
pervasive feeling of damay in a patriotic context.
According to Mabini, the friar-instigated public execution
in 1872 of three priest under the false charge of plotting a
mutiny in the Cavite arsenal had a deep impact on the
masses. As rumors of the event spread through the
provinces, ordinary Filipinos developed a hatred of the
friars and “deep pity and pain for the victims. This pain
wrought up a miracle, . . . feeling pain, [Filipinos] felt
themselves living; so they asked themselves how they
lived.” These enigmatic statements simply mean that there
was damay with the victims; not just a private feeling of
pity, but a consciousness of some common fate. The first
recorded patriotic song, Sa Iyong an Dahil (Because of
You), makes sense in this connection. Allegedly sung
after 1872, it is simply a suitor’s lament to his loved one,
describing the pain in his heart caused by his love. It ends:

You should remember that my sufferings are caused by

you; always remember until death that you are my only
love no one but you and only you. Sukat mong
pakaalalahanin/ na ang hirap kong ito’y sa iyp at dahil;/
pakatantuin mo magpahanggang libing/ wal akong ibang
sinisinta/ kundi ikaw at ikaw rin.

The informant states that “the song’s meaning, to put it

simply, is the desire for liberty; but since the lives of
Fathers Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora were in a quite
precarious state, the people expressed their aspirations in
this way.”

We can translate this announcement to imply that the

adoration tune, which is only a common kundiman, was
just an appearance, a similitude for the genuine article,
and that without Spanish represion an immediate
articulation of the occasions would have been made. The
advancement of Tagalog "devoted" music, in any case,
demonstrates that the damay evoked by kundiman is
characteristic for recalling the past. The occasion of 1872
was converted into symbolism, therefore ending up some
portion of the vocalist's or audience's attention to the past.
Flores without a doubt knew the adequacy of the regret
shape , which is the reason he ussed it as an edge in any
case. Be that as it may, the Hibik isn't unadulterated
symbolism. Tagalog verse additionally has a pedantic
capacity. The mourn would have had the impact of
putting Flores' group of onlookers in a condition of being
in which the political circumstance and the likelihood of
breaking ties with Spain could be secured. The last ten
stanzas pf the Hibik summarixe the Philippine past
regarding a relationship whose genuineness is in
uncertainty: Spain had sent the monks here, and on the
grounds that we had utang na loob to Spain for her
defensive consideration, we gave the ministers all that
they needed. The monks responded with demonstrations
of pitilessness, notwithstanding executing the individuals
who had damay for Filipinas' tears. How is it conceivable,
Filipinas asks, for a mother to mistreat her ownchild? Has
Spain, herself tempted by the Friars (sd King Alfonso had
been my Don Rubio), overlooked the past? In 1889, ayear
after the presence of Flores' Hibik, Marcelo del Pilar's
continuation Sagot ng Espaňa sa Hibik nang Pilipinas
(Spain's answer to Filipinas' regret) was distributed in
Barcelona and illegaally criculated in the Philippines.
Once more, it is as a regret: an old and vulnerable mother
requests her little girl's compassion and offers counsel.
The casing is built up in the initial couple of stanzas:

My heart was appalled when I heard

your cry and dolorous plaint, my child;
you have no sorrow, child, that’s yours alone,
for your mother always shares [damay] it with you.

You have no suffering, no affliction

that I don’t undergo with you:
since you’re the creation of my love,
your humuliation is also mine.

When you were born, dear child, into this world, then
when I had not yet become impoverished, as your mother
I had no other wish than to give you every comfort and
pleasure.
(Lumbera translation)

Puso ko’y nahambal nang aking marinig/ bunso, ang

taghoy mo’t mapighating hibik;/ wala ka, anak kong,
sariling hinagpis/ na hindi karamay ang ina imong ibig.//
Wala kang dalita, walng kahirapan,/ na tinitiis kang di ko
dinaramdam:/ ang buhay mo’y bunga niring
pagmamahal,/ ang kadustaan mo’y aking kadustaan.//
Pagsilang mo, bunso, sa sangmaliwanag/ nang panahong
ako’y di pa nagsasalat/ walang inadhika ang ina mong
liyag/ kundi pupusin ka ng ginhawa’t galak.

Tagalog films and mainstream magazine storiess are shot

through with scenes like this. A lot to the daunt of present
day scholars and film faultfinders, stories made for mass
utilization perpetually contain one or a few scenes in
which an old mother, seeing her little girl's (or son's) want
to cut parental ties, sets out upon a long, sorrowful mourn
which endeavors to influence the little girl to recollect her
youth and the hardships experienced by her folks
(especially the mother) to guarantee that the tyke
experiences childhood in state of layaw. 'Layaw,' which
isn't anything but difficult to decipher, implies an
agreeable, lighthearted childhood, educated by adoration
among parent and tyke. In Sagot ng Espaň, Del Pilar
utilizations the idea of layaw to outline the portrayal of
the Philippines past started by Flores. Mother Spain
discusses the riches Filipinas was naturally introduced to
—her gold, minerals, and abudant nourishment that pulled
in shippers from neighboring grounds. Spain's job as
mother was to sustain Filipinas in the best possible way—
to figure out how to adore others just as to build up her
reason with the goal that she could safeguard and
appropriately utilize her riches. The ministers, having
sworn before God "to get some distance from this world
and turn down all way of riches," were sent in accordance
with some basic honesty as educators. However at this
point Mother Spain concedes her oversight in entrusting
her girl to the ministers. The subject of a youngster's
broken childhood by a surrogate parent shows up likewise
in the Historia Famosa, in Don Rubio's inability to treat
Bernardo as his very own child. Firmly reminiscent of
Don Sancho's regret about his missing child is Mother
Spain's very own mourn about the minister's unfeeling
treatment of her little girl Filipinas:

As your mother, I would like to remedy all these ills but

what can I do—I have grown old and poor and helpless
The famous Legaspi and Salcedo all the others in whom I
put my faith as the ones who would take good care of you
have departed and made us feel our loss. It is thus
necessary, my child to learn to suffer and accept every
affliction if from their slumber your children refuse to stir.
Ang lahat ng ito’y ninais sana/ na malagyang lunas ng
sinta mong ina;/ nguni paanhin mo, ngayo’y matanda na,/
hapo na sa hirap ako’t walng kaya.// Ang mga balitang
Legaspi’t Salcedo/ at iba’t iba pang inaasahan ko/ sa
pagkakalinga ng tapat sa iyo,/ ngayon ay wal na’t inulila
tayo.// . . . Kaya kailangan, bunsong iniirog,/ matutong
magtiis iayon ang loob,/ sa madaling salita, kung ayaw
kumilos ang mga anak mo sa pagkakatulog.

Mother Spain proceeds with accounts of her own past,

especially the European experience under the monks. Del
Pilar's perusers would not have discovered this trip into
European history outsider to their experience. The awit
that had uninhibitedly drawn from European occasions,
genuine or unbelievable, for their crude material. Del
Pilar utilizations this reality to extend his peruser's
cognizance of contemporary political substances and
potential outcomes. "Spaniards, Frenchmen, Germans,
and individuals of other European countries" are
envisioned as having acknowledged the ministers in
accordance with some basic honesty, and having been
sucked dry beacause of their own naivete. The twenty-
four-stanza portrayal of the monks' mistreatment of the
European individuals parallels prior aaccounts of the
circumstance in the Philippines. The accentuation is one
the symbolism that summons feel sorry for the people in
question—a basic fixing in awit that keeps up the
gathering of people in a condition of damay. The move to
the European story empowers Del Pilar to recommend an
answer for the Philippine issue. The time came when
Europeans, amidst wretchedness, craving, dread, and
passing, had "paradise place it in their psyches to give and
consent to come to each other's guide [damay].' Plagued
by the possibility that their kids would acquire their
hopelessness, they chose to clear the "prickly way" they
were stepping. The following six stanzas depict the
"terrifying" outcome of a people's indignation released.
Once more, the awit outline is essential to Del Pilar. His
perusers understoodimages of "individuals control"
beacause of their recognition with strikingly similiar
depictions, in awit, of Christians battling Moros. In the
accompanying stanzas, for instance we are helped to
remember the wanton demolition that Bernardo delivered
upon the powers of Emperor Carpio.
The people’s vengeance was terrifying for nothing could
hold back their anger the monasteries were burned as
though they were the dens of vicious beasts The friars
fought back, but what could shelter them from the
people’s wrath! When the quiet sea raises a threat no
heroic men can hold back the onrush of waves. Higanti ng
baya’y kakila-kilabot/ walang pagsiyahan ang kanilang
poot,/ ang mga kombento’s kanilang sinunog/ inaring
pugad ng masamang hayop.// Prayle’y nanglalaban,
nguni, alin kaya/ sa galit ng bayan ang magiging kuta!/
ang payapang dagat, pag siyang nagbala/ ay walng
bayaning makaksasansala. Yet, this is the way other
peoples took, cautions Mother Spain. All she can do for
daughter Filipinas is to relate her story so that it can be
passed on to the next generation—Filipinas and her
children. Emancipation will have to come from Filipino
youth who must first be awakened from the dream-state (a
state of forgetfulness) in which the “secret enemy’s
deceptive flaterry” has cast them, causing them to ignore
their mother’s tearful lament. The worst that can happen
is that they will not show utang na loob for the layaw she
gave them: Heaven forbid that such a curse should fsll
upon your children, my percious child: may they learn to
look after you and learn to dry your tears. This is all that
can be said in reply to your plaint by your crippled
mother, dear; your vessel is fragile: let not your children
sleep for a tempest tosses in midsea. Ilayo ng langit sa
ganitong sumpa/ ang mga anak mo, bunsong minumutya:/
sa iyo’y matuto ng pagkakalina/ matutong umampat ng
inyong pagluha.// Ito na nga lamang ang maisasagot/ ng
salantang ina sa hibik mo, irog;/ sasakyan mo’y gipo,
huwag matutulog/ ang mga anak mo’t masigwa sa laot.

While the facts may demonstrate that the lyrics of flores

and Del Pilar mirror the authors' " irresolute sentiments
toward the motherland," an alternate picture develops
when one envisions what their nonilustrado gathering of
people resembled. Raised to regard Spanish specialist and
worship the ministers as God's picked reprentatives on
earth, how might they turn their backs easily on the
provincial, religiopolitical network that had sustained
them? The disseminator who communicated themselve in
Tagalog could just go so far in testing the cutoff points of
people in general's view of their connections to Spain,
sttempting to stretch such connections to a limit by
ceaselessly comparing Philippine occasions and awit
frame. The last line of Del Pilar's ballad comprise of the
commonplace picture, in Tagalog religious verse, of a
watercraft hurled by a tempest in midsea. In contrast to
prior artists, be that as it may, Del Pilar does not praise
the light or reference point that manages the pontoon to
shore. It is neither the lessons of the ministers nor the
Virging Mary, Star of the Sea. The ballad is left open-
finished. A large portion of 10 years after the fact, a
progressive mystery society called Kataastaasan
Kagalanggalang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (The
Highest and Most Honorable Society of the Sons of the
Country), or Katipunan for short, would broadcast itself
as the light. In the compositions of its author, Andres
Bonifacio, the Philippine past would again be talked
about in the expression of individual relationship and
correspondence, yet in a rationale that requested upset.
There is maybe no identity in Philippine history as
dubious as that of Andres Bonifacio. Some demand that
he was a genuine man of the general population,
consolidating as a part of his identity knowledge and
energetic boldness. Others play him down as a fretful hot-
head, a riffraff rouser who came up short on the military
abilities expected to win vectories against Spain and the
instructive capability for national administration. I will
not add to the discussion over his identity. What is
progressively essential is to understant why his
compositions, his expression, drove a large number of
Filiponos to join the insurgency and why, long after the
discontinuance of hostiluties, the pictures and images
related with his development kept the soul of autonomy
alive among the basic society.
Bonifacio experienced childhood in the worl of awit
verse. As a young fellow, while not at work as a trivial
representative in a transportation organization, he was a
performing artist in Tagalog shows. He knew about the
greater part of the awit type writing and, as a performing
artist, would have retains vast sections of them. His most
loved work was the Historia famosa ni Bernardo Carpio.
As per the declaration of one of his friends, Bonifscio
changrd thr names of spots, scenes, and mountains in his
duplicate of the Historia to Tagalog names. In spite of the
fact that this content has no t endure, we can pretty much
reproduce the progressions Bonifacio made. Ruler
Alfondo was Spain. The tragic Don Sancho and Jimena
were mother and father Katagalugan (later to be called
Filipinas). The jealous and deceptive Don Rubio more
likely than not represented the ministers. Bernardo Carpio
was the young of the land. Every one of these characters
remained in different terms of relationship to one another,
while the Moros implied the outside, unfriendly universe.
The mountain in wich Bernardo was detained was
Montalban, later to end up an asylum of the Katipunan.
There sre obvioud impediments to deciphering a Spanish-
based content written in the primary portion of the
nineteenth century as far as Philippine conditions during
the 1890s. However, Bonifacio would have been quite
mindful of the way that his uneducated compatriots'
attention to thhe past was interceded by the awit and
corrido frame. Moreover, he probably gained from Rizal's
El Filibusterismo, if not from his own involvement, that
the Historia Famosa was exceptionally mainstream among
the "people" and that Bernardo Carpio had just been
appropriated as a Tagalog legend. It seema to me that the
Historia famosa furnished Bonifacio with a knowledge
regarding how communicatte the possibility of division
from Spain to a mass gathering of people involved
principally of supposed pobres u ignorantes. The formal
spondences among awit and Philippine occasion were not
as vital to him as the procedure, in the awit, through
which an equivocal arrangement of individual
connections, of the sort that Flores and Del Pilar had
depicted as existing among Spain, Filipinas and the
monks, was settled.

The above story comprises the past which Bernardo,

isolated from his folks, is ignorant of as he grows up. The
different appearances of his colossal quality and his
adventures against the Moros happen inside a structure of
associations with a false dad, Rubio, and a stepfather, the
lord. His absence of restraint is an indication of
brokenness as far as he can tell. Nothing for instance,
muddles him more than the disclosure that Rubio isn't his
actual dad. When he later battles the Moros for the benefit
of his progression father the lord, his triumphs are good
for nothing to him. Also, he keeps on being tormented by
the failure to control his limitless vitality. Pushed by a
fomented loob, all he asks as a reward from the lord is
reality about his folks' personality. His ask for cannot, he
indignantly renounces his ties of devotion and utang to
the lord and heads out to find reality "by power"
(hanaping pilit).
Quite a bit of Bernardo's conduct is clarified by the
disjunction betwwen him and the past. The deplorable
Sancho-Jimena romantic tale remains the main domain of
significance in the awit until, around the end Bernardo is
brought together with his folks. Amid th interim Sancho's
mourns from his dim jail cell comprise the voice of the
past; when Bernardo discovers his dad, it is "as though he
heard this regret." What pushes occasions to this end? As
Sancho himself says in a regret, his child Bernardo never
experienced layaw. Without this experience of being
established in a familial relationship, without the
experience of a mother's affection and the preparation
responsible for loob given by a dad, his intrinsic quality
couldn't be propberly coordinated. He was tyke without
roots. Bernardo's story is less the working out of a plot or
an interpretation of intentions without hesitation, than the
imaging of a questionable express—a child's absence of
the experience of layaw—and its goals. Bernardo's nearly
"nonsensical" assurance to know his folks, his actual
causes, isn't found in the Spamish sources, where the
revelation is simply coincidentally. Truth be told, the
awit's creator overlooks the vast majority of the extensive
Spanish records of fights and focuses on Bernardo's hunt.
The last discourse among dad and child, and the marriage
of Sancho and Jimena that pursues, connect over a wide
span of time and make Bernardo entirety.
To Bonifacio and his kindred revolutionists, the Filipinos
of his age—i.e., the young who, said Del Pilae, lived in a
dreamworld—must be prepared to ascend against Spain
when their originations of utang na loob to Mother Spain
were undermined. For a general public held together
exactly by such ties, notwithstanding, the disintegration of
a relationship must be occasioned by the formation of
another one. The way Bernardo Carpio took appeared to
be the ideal model of an answer.

In an authentic broadshet, Ang Dapat Mabatid ng mga

Tagalog (What the Tagalogs should Know), distributed in
1896, Bonifacio uncovers his obligation to the
proselytizers' viewa of a flouring pre-Spanish past. Spain,
pulled in by such excellence and riches, came and aligned
herself to Filipinas. Their bond, solemnized in the "blood
minimized" between King Sikatuna and the agent of
Spain, Legazpi, isn't not normal for the connection
between Don Sancho and King Alfonso. Utilizing pictures
which could have been enlivened by the Historia Famosa,
Bonifacio depicts the early Filipinos battling Chinese and
Dutch trespassers out of faithfulness to Spain, just to be
remunerated with bad form incited by the ministers.
Filipinos were "made visually impaired," their character
degraded, and when they "set out to ask even the scarcest
sympathy, the constant answer was banish, partition from
the organization of [their] dearest youngsters, life partners
and old guardians." The parallel here with the substance
of Sancho's regret in jail is unquestionable. However,
Bonifacio require not have been utilizing the Historia
Famosa as a model. The symbolism of misery and
division, and the damay evoked by such, are components
of Tagalog attention to past occasions. The idea of
Spanish guideline is, in Bonifacio's piece, brought out not
as incongruity or direct maltreatment however in the
accompanying portrayal of misery:
Our tranquility is presently bothered by the groans and
languishments, the moans and distress of endless
vagrants, widows and guardians of countrymen wronged
(anyaya) by the Spanish usurpers; presently we are
deluged by the spilling tears of a mother whose child was
killed, by the cries of delicate kids stranded by
mercilessness and whose each tear that falls resembles
liquid lead that burns the agonizing injury of our enduring
hearts.

The English interpretation does not satisfactorily catch the

conditioning and "softening" of the loob that such a surge
of pictures and sounds produces, impacts which are
significantly increasingly articulated when tuning in to
Bonifacio's ballads. A specific readiness of the loob is
affected before Bonifacio then approaches the general
population to pursue the way (landas) uncovered by the
light of truth. "the time has come" for the general
population to demonstrate that they have emotions,
honor,sense of disgrace (hiya) and damay. "The time has
wanted the Tagalogs to know the beginnings of their
hardships." To reword Bonifacio regarding the youthful
Bernardo's involvement, it is the ideal opportunity for the
general population to end up one in loob by knnowing
reality about themselves and their past. To achieve this
information and to follow up on it involves denying the
traditonal tie with "stepmother" Spain.
 The status of the “people” as youngest child (bunso) in
Bonifacio’s discourse shows a striking similarity to that of
Bernardo Carpio. Owing to the friars’ influence, the
youngest child has grown up under a false parent, Spain.
S/ he has no awareness of relationship with his true
mother, Filipinas, in a time of ginhawa, a paradise-like
state of comfort and security and a condition akin to
layaw. Seeing the “people” in this light Bonifacio, in his
best known poem, Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Bayan (lit., “
Love for the Country of One’s Roots”), seeks precisely to
evoke in his audience an awareness of a common past by
transposing personal memories of layaw to a “national”
key. A few stanzas from the poem illustrate this:

Ah, this is the mother country of our birth

she is the very mother who first opened our eyes
to the delightful brightness of the sun
which brings warmth to the weak body.

To her we owe [utang] the first kiss

of the wind that brings relief
to the ailing heart that is drowning
in the deep weel of misfortune and suffering.

Entwined with this is love of country

everthing dear to the memory
from a happy and carefree childhood
to when the body is brought to the gave

the bygone days of joy

the future that is hopd
when the slaves will be freemen
where can this be found but in one’s native land?

Each tree and each branch

of her fields and forest joyful to behold
it is enough to see them to remember
the mother and the loved one, happenes now gone.
Ay! Ito’s ang Ynang bayang tinubuan/ siya’y ina’t tangi
na kinamulatan/ ng kawiliwilinng liwanag ng araw/ ng
nagbigay init sa lunong katawan.//
Sa kania’y utang ang unang pagtanggap/ ng simoy ng
hangin nagbibigay lunas/ sa inis na puso na
sisingasingap/ sa balong malalim ng siphayo’t hirap.//
It has been referenced regarding the Historia Famosa that
honorable, caring deeds are the results of a legend's steady
awaareness of past relationship. The iamage of past
snapshots of wholeness drives him to make the future in
these terms. Having aroused in his group of onlookers an
inclination for country as mother and cherished one,
Bonifacio then harps on the subject of division and how
the hole betwwen over a wide span of time can be shut by
a brave demonstration. To have sympathy and utang na
loob for homeland implies taking an interest in the
demonstration of liberating her, and my this one move
toward becoming "Filipino."

The viability of Bonifacio's works can be ascribed to their

capacity to summon damay for the nation, which is
represented and given a past. The fantasy of bernardo
Carpio is converted into the historical backdrop of the
Tagalog individuals, which sustains into the development
of a Filipino people. Not exclusively was Bernardo
Carpio the man in the mountain who might boil down to
free his kin from oppressors, yet as Bonifacio and his
comrades in the Katipunan saw it, each modest indio
could be Bernardo Carpio. The last's story, understood
and cherished by all, was being happened on the
"national" level. Bonifacio's compositions were close to
signs driving people who, it should again be focused,
lived in the realm of awit, to arrive at their own decisions
about the manner in which the story should end.

In the lyric Katapusang Hibik ng Pilipinas (Filipinas'

Final Lament) Bonifacio, out of the blue, has Filipinas'
kids talk and attract a near the mother-girl discourse set
up by Flores and Del Pilar

At the horizon, Mother, has risen

the sun of Tagalog fury;
for three centuries we kept it
in the sea of woes wrought by poverty.

Your children’s hut had nothing to hold it up

during the terrible storm of pains and troubles;
all in Filipinas are of one heart
and you are no longer a mother to us all.

Sumikat na Ina sa sinisilangan/ ang araw ng poot ng

katagalugan,/ tatlong daang taong aming iningatan/ sa
dagat ng dusa ng karalitaan.// Walang isinuhay kaming
iyong anak/ sa bagyong masasal ng dalita’t hirap,/ iisa
ang puso nitong Pilipinas/ at ikaw ay di na Ina naming
lahat.

The rejection of false mother—Spain—parallels Bernardo

Carpio’s denunciation of his stepfather, the king, annd the
beginning of the journey to restore his wholeness lost
soon after birth. The absence of layaw that sets him on
this course of action appears, too, on a “national”scale:
Filipinas has received nothing by the way of comfort
[layaw] from her mother, only pain our sufferings grew:
revenues for this and that charges made and taxes levied
left and right.
Wala nang namana itong Pilipinas/ na layaw sa Ina
kundi pawang hirap;/ tiis ay pasulong patente’y
nagkalat,/ rekargo’t impuwesto’y nagsalasalabat.
To Bonifacio, the process of dissolving an old bond
creating a new one demands a release of the people’s
energies in the right direction. As he describes it:

In the world will now explode the sound of guns and

cannons loud like thunder, the furious storm when blood
will flow while bullets and shells contend among
themselves.

Sa sangmaliwang ngayon ay sasabog/ ang barila’t

kanyong katulad ay kulog/, ang sigwang masasal sa
dugong aagos ng kanilang bala na magpapamook.

Such an event was not unfamiliar to Bonifacio’s audience.

When Bernardo Carpio finally discovered the names of
his true parents, his first act was to unleash his
tremendous power to frighten France into submission to
her former vassal, Spain.