The Ilustrado "Wooga Squad"

In this episode, Carmina and Patch discuss why they bestowed the “Wooga” title on the ilustrados, an esteemed squad of Spanish-colonial-era Filipinos whose aspirations for their country transcended physical, intellectual, and societal borders. Learn how each of their important contributions, alongside fellow ilustrado Jose Rizal’s, became the foundation of Filipino national consciousness.

Learn more: Orientalists, Propagandists, and Ilustrados: Filipino Scholarship and the End of Spanish Colonialism, Philippines' Resistance: The Last Allied Stronghold in the Pacific, Ilustrado, Revolutionaries or Accomplices of the Spanish Empire: The Contested Influence of Filipino Ilustrados on Philippine National Independence (1872-1898), Rizal and the Ilustrados in Spain, El Pacto de Sangre, and A Glimpse Into the Illustrious Life of Pedro Paterno | Tatler Asia.

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Transcript

Carmina: 0:06

Welcome to Field Trip , a podcast where we explore everything fun, weird, and in between about the Philippines. Today's trip is about the Illustra patch. Maybe we should explain to our listeners why the title of our <laugh> episode <laugh> is what? It's

Patch: 0:27

<laugh> . Okay . Are we going to be honest or are we going to pretend? Pretend like pretend something else. <laugh> .

Carmina: 0:33

No,

Patch: 0:34

Let's just be honest.

Carmina: 0:36

We're not pretending here. <laugh> . So we have Wooga <laugh> in our title <laugh> . And the background about WGA is of course, as our fellow BTS armies, <laugh> are going to understand is because we , one of the members of BTS has a group of friends outside of BTS basically, and he calls them the Wooga Squad.

Patch: 1:05

Yes.

Carmina: 1:05

<laugh> . And they're composed of V, the Actors Park Seo Joon, Park Hyung Sik, Choi Woo Shik and Peakboy <laugh> .

Patch: 1:17

Getting googsebumps.

Carmina: 1:18

I love the Wooga Squad. <laugh>

Patch: 1:21

For me, why I am so intrigued by that group of friends is because each of them very talented and they have significant contributions in the entertainment industry. And that's of course the industry that they chose to have their career in.

Carmina: 1:37

Do you know what Wooga is actually?

Patch: 1:39

I don't remember what it is. Okay . Okay . Why don't you enlighten us <laugh> enlighten, quote and unquote , and we will go from there.

Carmina: 1:48

I mean, hello. This is very important information. <laugh> . Of course . Before we clarified what it meant, there was a lot of speculation about what it really meant. Wooga is short for Woori-ga Gajok-inka, which means are we family? Because they're all great friends. They do consider themselves brothers.

Patch: 2:13

Oh, okay. That makes sense.

Carmina: 2:16

Now the bigger question is why <laugh> did we choose this title? So when Patch and I were thinking about an Independence Day episode, because this episode will be released on Philippine Independence Day, we were trying to think of a different take on the topic. And I'm not even sure if we were or weren't talking about BTS <laugh> .

Patch: 2:42

I'm sure we were. Hello.

Carmina: 2:44

Laugh

Patch: 2:44

We're always talking about BTS.

Carmina: 2:46

So, so we thought, well, who were the influential people of that time? And we thought of the illustrators and somehow in a very roundabout <laugh> and really not really directly connected way, we thought about putting the Wooga title.

Patch: 3:03

Right, because essentially as you explained, there's this brotherhood that formed, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So that's why we thought about that connection <laugh> ,

Carmina: 3:14

No matter how tenuous was <laugh> . Okay. So to the real topic of today, the Ilustrados.

Patch: 3:23

So it derives from the Spanish word illustrado, meaning enlightened or learned. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . This reflects the Illustrado's exposure to liberal and nationalist ideas during that time due to their education and many , uh, having studied abroad in Europe, in particular, Spain,

Carmina: 3:46

You mentioned education. Even if the individual people who compose this group are from different provinces, their education in Manila was what formed that thread that connected them in their education in Manila's institutions. They all learned the scholarly languages, Latin, Greek, often French. And they were all also exposed to classical writing. In Manila, they were able to go to higher institutions of learning like Ateneo and the University of Santo Thomas and other schools of similar caliber. It's this education that set them apart from the rest of the Filipino masses.

Patch: 4:30

Well, it was interesting to me that a number of them were Chinese mestizos .

Carmina: 4:36

These families were able to climb the economic ladder in the Philippines in agriculture and commerce, especially during the time when Spain opened up trade to the world. The other significant thing that was happening in the world at that time is the 1868 liberal revolution in Spain. And during the time when these men were coming up, that was the spark that apparently served as the beginning of Filipino nationalism. And if our listeners recall, we talked about this during our Gomburza episode, and the really important role that this liberal Governor, General Carlos Maria Delatorre played, the Filipinos had a taste of liberalism under him. But unfortunately, he was only there from 1869 to 1871. And then the political tides turned over again in Spain, and he was replaced by Governor General Rafael De Izquierdo. And of course, this guy swung all the way back to the other end of the spectrum again. And he was responsible for the deaths of Gomburza. After the Cavite mutiny,

Patch: 5:53

The ideas of liberalism evolved into more contributions to the struggle or the Philippine independence movement.

Carmina: 6:02

So the Illustra , uh, logically would go to Spain. However, it's really important to also note that they were probably more influenced by other European countries like Germany, France, Italy, who experienced liberalism and progression of ideas way, way before Spain did. Apparently Spain was so much more behind the other European countries when it came to scholarship. And in fact, there was more knowledge about the Philippines everywhere else. But Spain and Spain kind of became a joke in its lack of knowledge about a colony that it had for centuries. The other thing that I also want to do is quote from a book that I found about this. The title of the book is Orientalists, Propagandists and Illustrados. "Every single German knows more about the Philippines than many Spaniards." And another one, "not even a single insignificant fact could be presented regarding the island's anthropology. While Spain's Museum of Natural History had only a few dozen cranial and some photographs, those of Paris and Dresden had thousands of specimens of Philippine anthropology." The Illustrados actually formed the propaganda movement. They had five goals. One, incorporating the Philippines as a Spanish province, two provision of basic human rights, three representation at the Spanish Cortez. Number four, education that was independent from the Spanish friars. And number five, secularization of the Spanish priesthood. So much of their activities were in support of these goals. They had a lot of political writings that they contributed to newspapers in both Spain and the Philippines. They were all politically active during the Philippine Revolution in 1896. And their writings most importantly, are associated with the birth of Philippine nationalism. But that's really just part of their work. They were also very scholarly, like we mentioned earlier. So they delved into other topics and fields of study that were not so much political, but we're also in support of this idea of Filipinos as a unique entity before the Spaniards colonized us. And one interesting fact , it also Patch at that time, the concept of being a Filipino was not yet solidified in earlier times. It was a term used to describe people with Spanish parents who were born in the Philippines. And I learned that in other Spanish colonies, the term Creole or Creole was used to describe what the early definition of being a Filipino was. And the Filipino was used as a way to distinguish these people who had Spanish parents who were born in the Philippines from the peninsula, who were the Spanish born in the Peninsula. And of course, there are other terms like mestizo that you mentioned earlier. So it's mixed parentage of Spanish and Native or Native and Chinese. So by the time our illustra came into being the term Filipino changed to anyone who came from the Philippines regardless of parentage. And that is how the Filipinos referred to themselves while in Spain. And if our listeners recall, we titled our episode about Rizal the first Filipino for this very reason. 'cause really the concept of Filipino was different.

Patch: 9:47

To your point, has Jose Rizal along with this fellow student studying in Europe during the 1890s dubbed themselves Los Indios Bravos meaning to reclaim the dignity of Filipinos from the derogatory label Indio. So the term Indio typified the image of an uneducated peasant laboring under Spanish dominion. But by the 19th century, the Filipino society had evolved, and the emergence of these wealthy, educated mestizo class engaged in, as you mentioned earlier, economic enterprises and land ownership, didn't really represent that derogatory description anymore.

Carmina: 10:37

Of course, Rizal the best known. Right? So we want to devote some time to this episode mentioning his other Wooga squad.

Patch: 10:46

<laugh> . Yes. Okay. So who is this squad that we keep mentioning?

Carmina: 10:52

So one of them that I didn't really know a lot about is Pardo De Tavera. So his full name is Trinidad Herman Hermenegildo Pardo De Tavera. And his nickname was Trini . So cute.

Patch: 11:06

Oh, <laugh>.

Carmina: 11:08

And his contributions were mainly in linguistic writings. He had two important pieces of work. One is the contribution to the study of ancient Filipino alphabets. And the second is the Sanskrit in the Tagalog language. His scholarly interest included the theory that an ancient era of Hindu conquest included the Philippines. And he found a connection between ancient Tagalog and Sanskrit and learned something new Patch. I mean, we know about prefixes and suffixes, right? Yeah. The Western languages uses suffixes in their conjugation by changing the ending. According to Trini , the ancient Tagalog language used prefixes and infixes. It was the first time I've ever heard of infixes. Have you heard about this?

Patch: 12:00

No. This is the first time.

Carmina: 12:01

So we're gonna use a Tagalog word to illustrate. Okay. Kain means to eat. And the way we conjugate it to the past tense is kinain. So the infix is that addition of the IN in the middle of the word.

Patch: 12:18

His background is in medicine. Really? Yes . Not even linguistics. Right? Right. Anyway, that's very impressive.

Carmina: 12:28

And the other contribution he had was to basically revolutionize and change the way we spelled Tagalog words. Because when we were colonized by the Spaniards, the way we were being taught the alphabet was based on the hispanized spelling, which made it so hard for Filipinos to learn. The common Filipino people were not allowed to learn Spanish, but they were being forced to spell words in Spanish. So for example, if we were to spell kain in the old hispanized way, it would not be spelled with the way we spell it now, which is KAIN. It would've been spelled Q-U-A-I-N. So I mean, the mental gymnastics that somebody who wouldn't have the context of the Spanish language, it's re I can't even imagine <laugh> , right? So to spell kinain would be

Patch: 13:27

QUIA.

Carmina: 13:31

Sorry, see, I'm not even <laugh> able to do it mentally. I have to look at it. QUI and a IN so hard. The interesting part about this too was that was working on something separate, but really was so much more ahead of him that he just adapted that work instead. And this work was so important to both of them because they wanted education to be accessible to the Filipino youth because the learning would be just so much more simplified in schools. So one last thing about Trini and this letter, K, I picked that Kain example. <laugh> for a reason, actually two years after his system of spelling was broadly introduced, letter K or in Tagalog, we pronounce itn Ka became the symbol of the secret revolutionary organization. Katipunan, you know the KKK.

Patch: 14:29

Oh, right. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative>

Carmina: 14:30

That we talk about a lot in all of our Independence Day episodes. This was especially significant because the KKK were already printing their documents , including this letter, even when the type sets or printers during that time did not commonly have it. So they had to go through great lengths to be able to print their materials with this letter.

Patch: 14:55

That in itself is a , a revolutionary idea. <laugh> , so to speak,

Carmina: 15:00

<laugh> . Right? And so I have a new appreciation for the KKK now knowing about this history. And do you know how the Katipunan was often said to be a movement of the masses right? And right . Separating them from the efforts of this elite class, the Illustrados, and this , uh, lingering question about whether or not Rizal was really involved in it. This suggests that there was an even closer connection than we might think. And lastly, before we leave this topic of this , uh, revolutionized way of spelling Tagalog words, I also just wanted to mention Pedro Serrano Laktaw, another member of the Illustrado squad who developed the dictionary according to this new spelling system, he was an elementary school teacher when he was in the Philippines. His motivation, like Rizal and Trini was to make learning easier. And he saw it firsthand, right? Because he was doing the teaching firsthand.

Patch: 16:02

He understood the struggles of the students trying to learn in the Spanish way of learning, where in fact it's not translating.

Carmina: 16:12

And the way this all ties into the propaganda movement is they really saw this as the start of creating a space for Filipinos to express their political opinions and writing. They created a way for their ideas to be propagated to the masses. And of course, this is with a lot of controversy, apparently to discredit this effort. There was an accusation that the letter K was German and not Tagalog . And it was being used by the Germans to further weaken Spain in the global stage. There was already a struggle between Germany and Spain because Germany was challenging Spain's claim over the Carolinas. And so the fake news machinery was <laugh> alive back then. And because most of these illustra had German associations, they were also very easy targets for this conspiracy theory.

Patch: 17:14

Okay, so Carimina, you were talking about , uh, trainee , I was trying to remember why that name was so familiar. <laugh> , aside from all those wonderful contributions to Philippine history, <laugh> , but I remember the more salacious part of that name. So his sister Paz Pardo De Tavera was married to Juan Luna <laugh> . And that's not even the most intriguing part of it. So,

Carmina: 17:43

But first of all, who is Juan Luna? For those of our listeners who don't know him,

Patch: 17:48

Hu Juan Luna is one of our prominent artists or our national artists , uh, most notably known for his painting. The Spoliarium.

Carmina: 17:57

So Juan Luna was also in Spain,

Patch: 18:01

But he's also part of that squad.

Carmina: 18:03

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah.

Patch: 18:04

Their marriage was not without controversy. Carmina, apparently. Juan Luna had a very bad temper.

Carmina: 18:12

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> .

Patch: 18:13

Actually, their marriage ended quite tragically because in September, 1892, Luna fatally shot his wife and his mother-in-law during a heated argument in Paris. And the exact circumstances were kind of shady. It was because he was accusing her of cheating on him, basically. Hmm . And , um, unfortunately it's tragic, but the thing also is basically got away with murder.

Carmina: 18:46

Oh, wow.

Patch: 18:47

Which was also not surprising during that time because they , uh, always gave the men the benefit of the doubt. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And so , uh, he is a great artist, but I have a different view of him now as it relates to that tragedy in his life.

Carmina: 19:06

That is very interesting. I mean, but since you mentioned him, I also did find something about Juan Luna in terms of his contributions to the propaganda movement. In 1885, the Spanish government commissioned a painting from him. By that time, he had already won so many prizes in major competitions. So Luna for this commission created the Pacto de Sangre or the Blood Compact, which depicted the indigenous ruler Sikatuna and the Spaniard L egaspi and sealing their pledge by drinking each other's blood. Sikatuna isn't facing the viewer, so we can't really see his expression. During this blood p act, the Spaniards always interpreted the blood compact as a legal and moral proof of their rule over the Philippines. On the other hand, the illustrators argued that Sikatuna granted l egaspi privileges and therefore Sikatuna could also take them away at any point. So what they were trying to emphasize is it was a compact of equals, not of a colonizer on the colonized. I just thought that was interesting. It's so hard to follow, uh, < laugh> cheating rumors with something like that < laugh>.

Patch: 20:37

Oh, okay. It says here, Carimina in one of the sites that Jose Rizal, who was a friend of Juan Luna , as we established post as Sikatuna.

Carmina: 20:49

Wow <laugh>,

Patch: 20:50

While Trinidad Pardo De Tavera, Trini, his future brother-in-law, sat and posed as L egaspi.

Carmina: 20:58

That is so cool. Not as interesting as the cheating rumor . Still , still cool.

Patch: 21:07

Well, speaking of Luna, there's also his brother, the famous Antonio Luna, right? Mm-Hmm.

Carmina: 21:14

<affirmative> apparently also had a temper. Yes.

Patch: 21:18

Oh, really? Mm-Hmm.

Carmina: 21:19

<affirmative> . It runs in the family. I mean, he was a general during the revolution, wasn't he?

Patch: 21:26

Antonio Luna obtained a degree in pharmacy, and also he pursued bacteriology and histology. It's very interesting that a lot of our revolutionary figures have this background in the sciences. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So initially he was advocating reform rather than outright rebellion. However, after witnessing the injustices that had happened to his friends, for example, the execution of his friend Jose Rizal , that's when his stance started to change and led him to embrace the resistance movement against the Spanish colonial rule. Oh, I think you were talking about his temper. I think we talked about this in the past episode when he had the fight with Rizal over

Carmina: 22:13

A girl <laugh>

Patch: 22:14

Over a girl. Okay. I remember now. Okay.

Carmina: 22:18

Okay. Patch. I wanted to shift gears to one of the apparently more quirky personalities in the squad. It's Pedro Paterno.

Patch: 22:28

I'm curious as to why you're saying he's quirky <laugh> .

Carmina: 22:32

Before that I should just mention that his scholarly work centered on ancient Tagalog civilization. And he also had produced a , a book about the Itas in his book, "Ancient Tagalog Civilization." He argued that Bathalism, so Bathala is referring to the God that the ancient Tagalog revered. His argument was, Bathala was on par with Catholicism.

Patch: 23:01

Oh , that's a no no . <laugh>

Carmina: 23:04

Very controversial. And not just that, he also presented proof of how the ancient Tagalog civilization is a missing link between the great civilizations of the West and the ancient ones of the East. And then in his book about the Itas, he theorized that they were the first settlers of the Philippines. And their line basically kept being diluted with all of the waves of immigration that happened. And how only a small number of them survived as they kept moving inward by the successive waves of migration. This is the interesting part to me. He described that the I Itas were able to survive for a long time because their women were tenacious in keeping their ancient ways of life alive. So the quirky part of his story, Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> for a period of time he acted like royalty and he wanted to be addressed as Maginoo.

Patch: 24:05

Yeah. I think, I think I read something about this <laugh> . While he was in Europe, he traveled around dressed as royalty. He even had the crest.

Carmina: 24:16

Yes. He even had his coat of arms. Maginoo is an ancient Tagalog title of nobility. And by that time it was no longer recognized, but he was trying to revive it. And I'm gonna quote from the book about a description of this code of arms that he put on all of his possessions, like his coat, his , uh, coach his business card <laugh> , and even included it in his books. So here's a quote from the book, "A son as if half French and half Japanese had above it, a salakot you know, this salakot, the traditional Tagalog hat, right. Crowned with a ducal or royal crown that has a bird and beneath tied by the chin strap , instead of this chin strap are two machetes or bolos instead of swords."

Patch: 25:14

Mm . Okay .

Carmina: 25:15

And by the way, around the same time that he published this book was also the 1887 Madrid Philippine Exposition, which reminded me so much of our last episode about the St . Louis World's Fair. Because there was also a display of living Filipinos on a compound.

Patch: 25:33

Right.

Carmina: 25:34

And one of his objectives was to counter basically that denigrating image that was being shown all around Europe.

Patch: 25:42

Okay. I'm not gonna lie, I am looking at the portrait. Felix Resurrection Hidalgo , one of our other famous national artists . Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . He did a portrait of Pedro Paterno, I'm not gonna lie, he's cute <laugh>.

Carmina: 25:58

Really?

Patch: 25:59

Yes ,

Carmina: 26:00

You should, we should include that link in our show notes so that people can see it.

Patch: 26:05

Okay. Wait. 'cause I'm reading this article and it says that Paterno was a third generation billionaire. His grandfather was the son of a Chinese immigrant who would marry a young son , which is as close to the Tagalog nobility of old as they come.

Carmina: 26:22

Oh. So he had receipts.

Patch: 26:25

<laugh> , a descendant of Raja Suliman. Ah-Huh .

Carmina: 26:31

Wow.

Patch: 26:32

Why ? Well , at least we know where the delusion is coming from.

Carmina: 26:36

<laugh> . Well, maybe it's not even a delusion to him. Right. Very interesting. Okay. I wanted to talk about one person who kind of doesn't fit exactly the mold. His name is Isabello de Los Reyes . He was born in Vigan and he was there basically until he was 16 before he moved to Manila and studied in San Juan De Letran. He became a journalist . You remember earlier when I would say that Spain was so far behind the other European countries when it came to scholarly work. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Where they did not lag behind is in folklore. So Isabello, his work was very much centered on the folklore and unlike the others, he didn't go to Europe until he was deported. After being arrested during the revolution. He also had a lot of notable work. So some of them, The Tinguian, The Islands and the Age of Conquest, The History of the Philippines, there's a part one in part two to it where he focused on pre-Hispanic Filipinos, most specifically focusing on the fact that we were of Malayan origin. But one of his big passions was writing about superstitious practices. He wrote a book called El Folklore Filipino. Fun fact, the compilation of Filipino folklore got started in the Philippines because a manila paper called La Oceana Espanola called for contributors to a competition called Folklore of the Philippines. And this was an attempt by a Spanish friar to promote Catholic truth versus local beliefs. An d D e L o s R e yes w as one of the contributors. He was raised by superstitious servants. And so this area really fascinated him. He won the competition because he had the longest list of superstitions compared to all of the other contestants combined. So accidentally this Friar <l augh>, hi s p l an b ackfired because this effort basically began one of the most remarkable folklore collections of the era. And his articles about this attracted fans from abroad. And so articles that he published in the Philippines were translated to German, to French, Italian, et c e tera. And it propagated in Europe

Patch: 29:08

The exact opposite of what that friar was meaning to do, which was to suppress his work. Right?

Carmina: 29:15

Yeah. And some of the other foreign folklore sent him all the published works from Europe. And some of them were even about Filipino folklore. One of the other things that I found so funny, he was able to show that some Ilocano beliefs that the Spanish friars were ridiculing and calling backward, he was able to show that they actually originated from Spain. Because when Spain first colonized the Philippines, the Spanish friars who went there were themselves very superstitious and passed them on to the Filipinos <laugh> .

Patch: 29:54

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> back at you. <laugh>

Carmina: 29:57

De Los Reyes used this folklore, as commentary about corruption and poor governance by weaving them into the framework of folklore. An example of this was a piece called Meteorological Tales about the belief among Ilocanos that fire produced by thunderbolts and strokes of lightning cannot be put out with water, but only with vinegar. And he explained why when the government House of Abra burned down all of the houses of Banguet suffered a complete lack of vinegar.

Patch: 30:34

<laugh> .

Carmina: 30:35

So I mean, it begged the question, did the people of Banguet give up their vinegar trying to extinguish the fire? Or did they claim to be without this vinegar, which is a common staple in a household when hearing that it was the government house that was burning. Right. It was such a smart way to weave propaganda into his work.

Patch: 30:57

But he's so smart in his writings that he basically made it even more popular to hate the clerics.

Carmina: 31:04

<laugh>. Yes. That's actually one thing that all of these illustrados shared, as well as some kind of humiliation at the hands of , um, of the Spanish friars. And speaking of them as a group, there's so many more illusdrados that we couldn't even get to in this episode. We didn't even talk about Graciano López Jaena , Marcelo H. Del Pilar. I mean, there's so much more.

Patch: 31:29

Maximo Sison is another one.

Carmina: 31:31

I think just to also underline the point that I made earlier, I mean, they are people with their own biases and shortcomings. One of the major criticisms of the Ilustrados was that they left out the Muslim part of our history.

Patch: 31:47

Oh that's right. So,

Carmina: 31:49

You know, it's very notable that they didn't even mention in any of their scholarly works. There were Muslim rulers who were the early rulers of Luzon and resisted many Spanish invasions. But you know, perhaps that was a step too far for them for some reason. Yeah.

Patch: 32:06

Or as a result of their background in their education, they were educated in these Catholic universities.

Carmina: 32:13

But it still can't be denied that their contribution to the awakening of the Filipino national movement was very important

Patch: 32:24

To end Carmina. We're talking about a group of people and how they engaged international audiences, not only Filipinos. And I'm so happy and privileged that we're able to, to learn and share what we learned .

Carmina: 32:41

Go illustrate Wooga <laugh>. And with that, that's our episode. We hope you join us on our next trip, O siya, siya.

Patch: 32:50

Ingat. Thanks for listening to FilTrip with Carmina and Patch. Support FilTrip through Patreon or PayPal. And follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever all podcasts are downloaded.

Carmina: 33:10

Thanks to FIltrip sponsor Soul Pack . A functional shoe accessory bag. Visit the Soulpack.com for more details.

Patch: 33:20

Email us at the thefiltrip @gmail.com .