Wag mong sabihin nag-iisa ka

Laging isipin may makakasama

Narito ako oh, Narito ako
Sa mundo ng kawalan
HAWAK KAMAY YENG CONSTANTINO

RENATO CONSTANTINO
INFLUENCIAL FILIPINO HISTORIAN, WRITER, PROFESSOR, & NATIONALIST

BIOGRAPHY

SELF & FAMILY BACKGROUND

March 10, 1919 - September 15, 1999 (died at age of 81)
Parents: Atty. Amador Constantino and Francisca Reyes
His maternal grandmother told him stories about the abuses of Spanish friars
and about how her family suffered during the early American occupation.
Wife: Letizia Roxas
Children: Renato Constantino Jr., Karina Constantino
Had eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND
Arellano High School - emerged as a student leader during his third and
fourth years
when he was elected class president
- won medals as an orator and debater
University of the Philippines - youngest editor of the Philippine Collegian and
a star
debater
- won national attention with an editorial critical of President
Quezon

EMPLOYMENT/FIELD BACKGROUND
Member of an intelligence team monitoring Japanese military movements
Joined the Philippine Mission to the United Nations as Executive Secretary
(1946-1949) and served as Counsellor of the Department of Foreign Affairs
(1949-1951)
Published a book on the United Nations in 1950
Spent three decades in academe:Far Eastern University, Adamson
University, Arellano University and University of the Philippines, Manila and
Diliman
Visiting Lecturer: London, Sweden, Japan, Germany, Malaysia and Thailand
Visiting Scholar

EMPLOYMENT/FIELD BACKGROUND
Columnist(1945-1998): Evening Herald, Manila Chronicle, Malaya, Daily
Globe,
Manila Bulletin, and Balita, Manila Chronicle, Manila Times,
Graphic,
often called as Ka Tato
Director of the Lopez Memorial Museum(1960-1972)
Member: Editorial Board of the Journal of Contemporary Asia

and

Trustee of Focus on the Global South in Bangkok

Wrote around 30 books and numerous pamphlets and monographs

CONSTANTINO AS WRITER
A Past Revisited and The Continuing Past (two-volume history of the
Philippines)
The Making of a Filipino (biography of fellow nationalist Claro M. Recto)
Neo-Colonial Identity and Counter- Consciousness
The Nationalist Alternative (translated to Malaysian)
The Mis-education of the Filipino(his most widely-read essay)
The Marcos Watch (a collection of his newspaper columns that were often
critical of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos)

AWARDS
Nationalism awards from Quezon City(1987), Manila(1988), The Civil Liberties
Union(1988), U.P. Manila(1989)
Manila's Diwa ng Lahi Award(1989)
Doctor of Arts and Letters (honoris causa) from the Polytechnic University of
the
Philippines in 1989
Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) from the University of the Philippines in
1990

PHILOSOPHY

NATIONALISM

INTELLECTUAL VS INTELLIGENT
Whereas intelligence seeks to grasp,
manipulate, reorder, adjust [data and facts],
intellect examines, ponders, wonders,
theorizes, criticizes, imagines. Intelligence
will seize the immediate meaning of
a
situation and evaluate it. Intellect evaluates
evaluations, and looks for the meanings of
situations as a whole.
Constantino - Hofstadter

NATIONALISM
Genuine nationalism as an ideology of
liberation must have two basic
characteristics:
(1) it must be mass nationalism and
(2) it must be anti-imperialist
Constantino(1979)

NATIONALISM
The dismantling of the American bases
The struggle for the national surplus
The unification of various nationalist social strata for sommon cause

COLONIAL CONCIOUSNESS
Psychological control was as easily established. The fact that
the people became Catholics made God the powerful ally of
their rulers. The friars enlisted God on the side of colonial
ism. To the fear of physical punishment was added the
infinitely more potent fear of supernatural retribution. Thus
one priest was usually enough to control a village, for rebel l
ion against the priest was equated with rebel l ion against
God and therefore with eternal damnation. The priest was
their accepted ruler , the representative of their God on earth
and the intermediary for their souls after death. The friars
became the dominant factors in the colonial.
Constantino(1978)

COLONIAL CONCIOUSNESS
COLONIAL

MENTALITY

is
a
distorted
consciousness which encompasses [Filipino] subservient
attitudes towards the colonial ruler as well as [their]
predisposition towards aping Western ways.

Constantino(1978)

NATIONALIST CONCIOUSNESS
Instead of a trickle-down effect , nationalists propose a bot tom-up
approach which will organically connect the peoples growing productivity
and freedom from economic deprivation to the utilization of accumulated
surpluses for investment in industrial growth that will serve the growing
needs of the population. In other words, it must be recognized that basic
to any decision to complete national liberation is the adopt ion of policies
that will ensure a socially just distribution of the national product and the
mobilization of the national surplus to increase productive capacity
primarily for the satisfaction of the basic needs of the population. Exports
should play a subordinate role to product ion for local basic needs. Income
from exports must be devoted to capital build-up. Increased exportation
should not be a goal in itself but only a consequence of accumulated
surplus which will be judiciously al located to serve the producers of
wealth.
Constantino(1979)

NATIONALIST CONCIOUSNESS
Antidote to Colonial Conciousness
Four types of Nationalist
Faddists or poseurs or fair-weather
nationalists
Emotional nationalists
Purely intellectual nationalists
Genuine nationalists

SIMPLE QUIZ

THANK YOU!!!
REFERENCES:
http://www.tinig.com/v8/v8rc.html
http://www.bantayog.org/node/79
Renato Constantinos Philosophy of Nationalism: A Critique Rolando M.
Gripaldo
Filipino Philosophy: A Western Tradition in an Eastern Setting R. M. Gripaldo