IAM not sure if the campaign of then presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was aware of the deep historical and psychological imprint of the slogan “Bayan Babangon Muli” on the Filipino people from the beginning.

Or if some smart public relations guy just thought it would be catchy as it coincided with Marcos’ political nickname of BBM.

Whatever the case, I shall elucidate on the explosive historical and psychological roots behind the idea of “Bayan Babangon Muli.” Nowhere is this clearer than in the political, historical and cultural thought of national heroes Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio.

Rizal’s nationalism is a complex and nuanced subject matter, one that does not follow a very neat narrative. In a 1996 journal article on Rizal’s 1882 essay, “El amor patria” (Love of country), Fr. Raul J. Bonoan S.J. problematized the national hero’s use of the term “patria” (nation). During Rizal’s trial (for rebellion, sedition and illegal association) in 1896, the prosecutor Enrique de Alcocer’s charge was influenced by Spanish journalist Wenceslao Retana’s attacks against the national hero. Alcocer stated that from the time a youthful Rizal wrote his prize-winning ode, “A la juventud Filipina” (To the Filipino youth) in 1879, “he has not ceased to labor for the destruction of Spanish sovereignty in the Philippines.”

This interpretation is quite a leap because in 1884, when nationalist painters Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo brought honor to the country by winning first and second class awards in painting during the Spanish National Exposition of Fine Arts, Rizal said:

“. . . Their (i.e., Luna and Hidalgo) glories illuminate two ends of the globe: the East and the West, España and Filipinas. Upon pronouncing them . . . I envision two brilliant arches, each rising from the two regions, that entwine above in the heights, impelled by the sympathy of common origin, and from that height they bind two peoples with eternal ties, two peoples separated in vain by the seas and space, two peoples in which the seeds of disunion do not germinate, blindly sown by men and their tyranny. Luna and Hidalgo are as much Spanish glories as they are Filipino. Just as they were born in the Philippines, they could have been born in Spain, because genius has no country, genius blossoms everywhere, genius is like the light, the air, it is the heritage of all — cosmopolitan like space, like life and like God.”

Clearly, in 1884 Rizal did not harbor ill feelings or ill will toward Spain. In the same speech, Rizal referred to Spain as the mother of the Philippines who “teaches her child her language in order to understand his joys, his needs or pains . . .” Rizal further presents Spain as “solicitous and attentive to the well-being of her provinces,” which is why he expected her “to put into practice the reforms that she has long considered [for the Philippines].”

In another essay, “Filipinas dentro de cien años” (The Philippines within 100 years) written in 1889 after doing painstaking historical research at the British Museum, Rizal explained that Spain was able to conquer the archipelago by promising the Filipinos the gift of Spanish civilization. This was echoed by Andres Bonifacio — undoubtedly influenced by Rizal’s writings — in the polemical “Ang dapat mabatid ng mga Tagalog” (What the Tagalogs need to know), published in 1896. According to Bonifacio, “sa mabuti nilang hikayat na diumano, tayo’y aakayin sa lalong kagalingan, at lalong imumulat ang ating kaisipan, ang nasabing nagsipamahala ay nangyaring nalamuyot sa tamis ng kanilang dila sa paghibo.” In short, the ancient Filipinos were seduced by the Spanish promise of “upliftment.”

Rizal then argues in “Filipinas dentro de cien años” and

“Sobre la indolencia de los Filipinos” (On the indolence of the Filipinos, 1890) that the Spaniards failed to live up to their promise of civilizing and lifting up the Filipinos. Instead, they actually corrupted the Filipinos with their own Spanish vices and counterproductive policies. Thus, Rizal predicted (accurately) in “Filipinas dentro de cien años” the future eruption of the Philippine revolution against Spain.

This message was echoed by Bonifacio anew in “Ang dapat mabatid ng mga Tagalog,” which contained a laundry list of Filipino grievances against Spain inasmuch as the American Declaration of Independence was a similar expression of grievances against the king of England. However, while Rizal merely predicted a coming revolution, Bonifacio was already agitating for the commencement of an uprising to overthrow the Spaniards.

The lesson to be learned here is that the promise to lift up the Philippines — similarly expressed in the idea of “Bayan Babangon Muli” — is not one that Filipinos take lightly. Historically, the failure to live up to this pledge is followed by revolution. To be continued

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Happy 76th birthday to our beloved mother, Ma. Celia Sanchez Ybiernas, today, August 12th!