Last June 30, 2015 we at the Major House of Formation in the Philippines had the opportunity to be with us a prominent author, historian and promoter of Hispanidad in the Philippines, Mr. Guillermo Gomez Rivera to talk about The Real History of the Philippines as the Best Defense of the Catholic Church.
Prof. Rivera is the Most Senior Academic Director of the Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española, which is under the Royal Academia Espanola. He was a Premio Zobel Awardee (the highest Philippine award for Spanish Literature), 1975 “for his efforts to preserve the Spanish language in the Philippines”. As an author, he has written numerous novels, plays and scripts in Spanish and Tagalog and as a historian he has been promoting the real history of the Philippines whose real identity must be preserved.
The conference began with his gifts, his three music albums: Nostagia Filipina, El Collar de Sampaguita and a CD consisting of mostly patriotic and religious songs, and his newest book “Quis ut Deus”, a novel written in Spanish reflecting the Philippines History, the American interventionism and the destruction of the First Asian Republic, La Republica de Filipinas.
The conference was very interesting, all ears were turned to this man who even in his 80’s can still speak clearly and sharply, bluntly and straightforwardly debunking all the historical distortions and calumnies against the Spanish conquistadores: from the myth of Calipulaco (the so-called Lapu-Lapu, from ‘Lapuk-lapuk’ which means mud), to the foundation of the Philippine State (El Estado Filipino) which began in 1571, the prosperity of the Filipinas during the times under the Spaniards and how the American WASP looted Philippines of the gold and silver reserves worth a hundred billion dollars in Malolos, killing more than 3 million Filipinos. He noted that such facts were concealed from us, only teaching us how the cruel Spanish conquistadores were having a long tyrannical rule over the Philippines. The Spanish friars are bad, cruel and hateful and the American are the saviors. Do our history books tell of voluntarios Filipinos, who organized themselves to defend the Spanish crown and face the army of Aguinaldo and Katipunan of Bonifacio? Have we’ve been told the most of the vegetables in Bahay Kubo were first cultivated by Spanish missionaries in the Philippines?
“President McKinley said that America took over the Philippines in order to Christianize the Filipinos, to civilize and uplift the Filipinos. Now that declaration was answered by many intelligent Filipinos. Christianize? But we are a Christian country, we are a Catholic Country, why will you then Christianize us? Why will you civilize us? Before you came here, we were using silk because of the Chinese and the Galleon, our university even it is only two, the University of San Carlos and the University of Sto. Tomas are much older than the US’ universities, why would you tell us that you come here to civilize us? As a matter of fact, we even have better manner that you do”, Prof. Guillermo mentioned.
Later on, the topics grew more varied and more interesting. We invite you to listen to the audio recording (see bottom of the page) of this conference and find out more how Spain made the Philippines civilized, and some more important and interesting trivias about the Philippines History. Learn how the Chinos Cristianos (Chinese Christians) had a unique role in the civilization and Christianity of the Philippines-as there was no enough Spanish immigration, the Hispanized and Catholic Chinese took their place. Did the conquistadores and missionaries teach the Spanish language?
Professor Rivera keeps a blog site FilHispanico and is regularly updated. We hope to invite him again and speak to a wider audience.
We thank Prof. Rivera for renewing in us the interest of learning the history of the Philippines and have a real appreciation of the real Filipino identity, symbolized by the ‘Three Virgins”: the Virgen de la Guadalupe for Indios, Virgen del Rosario de la Naval de Manila for the Chinos Cristianos and Virgen del Pilar for the Creoles.
We commend this work to the Señor Sto. Niño, the Child Jesus who is the symbol of the Filipino nation, identity and history. May through the work of the evangelization of the culture of the Philippines with the rediscovery of its roots, once more reestablish in our society the reign of Christ.
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