Prejudice against native beliefs

I once opened the T.V looking for something interesting and inspiring in this medium.
Well, I stumbled on a filler feature called Japan Video Topics. This filler feature is quite inspiring as you could see how the Japanese people loved and adored their culture. You could just stop and think that someday, Filipinos can be the same. I remembered also seeing a National Geographic article about Hawaiians preserving their culture even though they were under the wings of Uncle Sam.
As my search for something inspiring continues, I stumbled onto two local Filipino fantasy series shows titled “Eteria” and “Sugo”.

There’s nothing “Filipino” in these shows. “Eteria” looks like a Lord of the Rings, Ragnarok, and Clash of the Titans wannabe. The names of the characters, the costumes, even the title is NOT Filipino. On the other hand, “Sugo” had some-Filipino stylized characters. But most often, these characters are portrayed as scheming evil doers. And the main hero characters are inclined to be Chinese-like, evident on the T.V. Show’s logo. (The Yin and Yang)
Aside from these, I remembered seeing the movie “Lapu-Lapu”. (Starring Lito Lapid)

I don’t care much about the shows inaccuracy, although the Chinese marauders do not looked anything like Chinese. (Perhaps if the show depicted them accurately, it will send uproar from the Chinese community and business people.)

What bothers me is that Lapu-Lapu was killed in the end by Humabon’s people ala “Braveheart.”
There are no accounts that said Lapu-Lapu was killed right after the battle of Mactan.
(Although some may say, there are no accounts that Lapu-Lapu wasn’t killed after the Mactan battle either.)

His death in that movie seems to imply that Christianity carried by the invaders, slowly make its way through the heart of the natives. Then here comes this heathen ruler, Lapu-Lapu with his sword and cut Christianity off its tracks.
For punishment, God uses His divine powers and killed this pagan king by making his rivals kill him!
Lapu-Lapu is a noble warrior, a chief to all his people. He is also the first Filipino to spit God in the face by vanquishing the barbarian Spaniards, and kicking their butts off our sacred shores!

But finally, Christians and all their wide influences and their guns, goons and gold prevailed…This lead to the burning of most of the Philippines’ indigenous beliefs and cultural religion.

Now, the old gods and mythological icons like the Bulul and Likha, were replaced by the images of foreign saints’ or of a so-called foreign bible that was not even written by Filipinos. These foreign faith icons do not even have a trickle of native blood to begin with.

Now, Filipinos believe in this wonder maker named Jesus H. Christ who wallowed in the death of persecuted heretics who were killed by Christians because they never believed in him and his so-called Father God!

This Jesus Christ is nothing more but a fable, an instrument handed down by the “Prayles” to instill terror and fear among the earlier natives so the conquered people will be kept in line.

In his book, Exploring the Powers of your Inner Mind, local psychic Jaime T. Licauco
Had this to say about the Prejudice against Native beliefs:


“I have often wondered how the strong prejudice of many modern-day Filipinos against native or indigenous beliefs and practices originated. Only recently, I found the answer from an old manuscript of a famous American anthropologist, the late H. Otley Bayer, who married a native Ifugao maiden. His grand daughter, Julie Bayer Bagatsing, showed me Mr. Bayer’s unpublished manuscript written in 1921, entitled The Philippines Before Magellan. Julie told me that Celso El. Carunungan was editing the book before he too, passed away.
The following passage in that manuscript provides an insight into the origins of this religious prejudice.

“Spanish Colonization both in the Americas and the Philippines was characterized by one feature very painful for the historian. The seal for the Christian faith and corresponding hatred for all other forms of beliefs, led them to regard the native writings and art as the works of the devil, and their destruction as a pious act. In Mexico and Peru, many old records were preserved in more or less modified form in the writings of native Christians and Spanish half-castes. In the Philippines, the destruction was more thorough, and only a few, isolated documents and fragments of others have survived.
It cannot be said that such writings did not exist, since the Spaniards themselves tell us that the early Filipinos were even more literate than the Mexicans. They used syllabaries of Indian origin, and one Spanish Priest in Central Luzon boasted of having destroyed large numbers of scrolls written in the native character.”

Obviously, this prejudice of native beliefs and practices have survived throughout the ages and now extends beyond religion. What is propagated by our modern purveyors of culture often the borrowed culture from the west masquerading as Filipino culture. Has anyone ever heard of the Cultural Center of the Philippines sponsor a formal symposium on the native beliefs in anting-anting, oracion or duwendes?
Has there been a program on the native gods of the Filipinos or such native practices as bare handed psychic surgery and other natural healing practices? No, for these are not considered as culture. But there are many shows featuring western music, plays, ballet and other similar foreign cultural forms in that venue.
Filipino writings on native beliefs and practices such as beliefs in the supernatural, in the preter-natural creatures, and in the paranormal which are essential ingredients of Philippine culture, are often not considered parts of Philippine literature. They are not regarded as cultural writings but as curiosities. But when one writes in a manner and style of western writers, his works were at once labeled as “literature”.
The prejudice against esoteric, orthodox culture parallels the prejudice against native beliefs. And while hundreds of western-inspired literary and cultural works are being published every year in the Philippines, the very valuable works of anthropologist H. Otley Beyer on native lore and beliefs are gathering dust and are slowly being destroyed by time in the attic of the Bayer family’s home, waiting for some enlightened philanthropist or government agency to fund their publication. Sadly, with the strong prejudice of the ruling class against our indigenous culture, these writings may never see the light of day.”

Now I understand why secluded ancient societies from the past called foreign outsiders “Barbarians.” Now I understand that these foreign invaders are here to conquer not only physically, but also the ever lasting identity of a people and their culture.
Perhaps, If the Filipinos were not so hospitable, perhaps we’ve grown and nurtured our identity as a people just like Japan and the Hawaiians.
Perhaps, were not trapped watching “foreignized” Filipino shows like “Eteria” and “Sugo”…