Dishonoring Don Perico
ON FRIDAY’S (Jan. 30) commemoration of the 133rd birth anniversary of Don Pedro “Perico” Abad Santos, founder of the Socialist Party of the Philippines (1932), testimonials were naturally the order of the day in the City of San Fernando.
Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez, rooted and nurtured in the same ideological ground as Don Perico, extolled the man as “the champion of the Central Luzon peasantry... truly a titan in an era of irreducibles.”
"A lot of people think of me as a socialist, hence, my honoring socialist Fernandinos. True, I am a socialist, pure and simple. But in honoring our hero Don Pedro Abad Santos, his being a socialist was not our only measure for the recognition...We do not look at him as a socialist or a communist as many people think, but rather we look at his deeds, his principles, his lifelong dedication in the struggle to liberate the peasants from the bondage of the soil, to free the poor from the chains of poverty."
So the plebeian son Oca honored the socialist father Don Perico.
For his part – as reported by Sun-Star Pampanga – “Governor Eddie Panlilio said people must not judge Abad Santos for his means in achieving his cause but rather pay tribute on how he used ‘right for right’ and his righteousness, including how he turned his back on a ‘good and privileged life’ to uphold the dignity of the peasants and the poor.”
So panegyrized the governor of the socialist leader who, in 1926, lost the election for the governorship of Pampanga.
Furthered the Reverend Governor, again as reported in Sun-Star Pampanga: "Allow me this time to talk like a priest, because Pedro Abad Santos led the crusade of the Virgen Delos Remedios while advocating good governance during his time."
Thus, Panlilio deconstructed history. Thus, Panlilio dishonored the long interred Don Perico.
Don Perico died on January 15, 1945, succumbing to complications of stomach ailment at a guerrilla base of the Hukbalahap in Minalin town, 16 days short of turning 69. His ailment compounded by the hardship of his two-year incarceration at Fort Santiago by the Japanese Imperial Army.
The “crusade of the Virgen de los Remedios” Panlilio talked about was the cruzada de caridad founded in 1952 by San Fernando Bishop Cesar Ma. Guerrero.
For Don Perico to have led that crusade – seven years after his death – is an absolute impossibility. So what could have gone into Panlilio’s head there?
Already impossible in the aspect of time, insulting – supremely insulting yet – in matters of ideology is Panlilio saying Don Perico “led the crusade of the Virgen de los Remedios.”
A Marxist to the core when Marxism was at its unadulterated purest, Don Perico would have most certainly adhered to the precept of religion as the opiate of the people, that which, with promises of a heavenly hereafter, lulls the masses into full submission to the will of the ruling, oppressing classes.
Indeed, the cruzada with the images of the Virgen de los Remedios and the Santo Cristo del Perdon moving from barrio to barrio in “processions of penance” was made as the very counter-offensive of the government to the influence of socialism in the Pampanga countrysides in the turbulent ‘50s through the revolutionary ‘60s and ‘70s and until the present time.
Listen to the songs of the cruzada and discern political meanings: “O indu ming virgen quequeng patulunan / icang minye tula ampon capayapan / quing indu ning balen quequeng lalawigan / uling calimbun mu caring sablang dalan / ding barrio at puruc caring cabalenan / agad menatili ing catahimican...(O virgin mother, our patron / you give us joy and peace / through you our mother of the province / when you are taken in procession through our streets/ the barrios in our towns all become peaceful).”
Subliminal is the impact of the images to the barriofolk. The Virgen de los Remedios – the remedy, the cure-all to the ills besetting them. The Santo Cristo del Perdon – the forgiving, pardoning lord. Liberation from the hardships of this world is in the next world. Thus, to secure a passage to the rewards of heaven, the need to bear all worldly sufferings, all oppressions in Christ-like passion, er, fashion.
One inhered in Marx and Engels, one habituated to historical and dialectical materialism, as Don Perico most certainly was, having the distinct privilege to have studied at the Lenin Institute in Moscow – the very cradle of Marxist thought-in-praxis at the time – would have readily dismissed the cruzada as counter-revolutionary stirrings of the reactionary classes meant to perpetuate the subjugation of the masses.
A diametrical opposition, nay, a dialectical contradiction clearly obtaining here: the religious cruzada made the antithesis to Don Perico’s socialist thesis.
What worse dishonor can one heap on a man than to attribute to him in death that which he abhorred most in life?
Panlilio did a most grievous spite to Don Perico at the very foot of his monument, on the very day meant to honor him. A blasphemy, were we in a religious mindset.
To invoke Marx now, lumpen is not a monopoly of the proletariat. It exists among governors. And clerico-fascists too.
Shame.
Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez, rooted and nurtured in the same ideological ground as Don Perico, extolled the man as “the champion of the Central Luzon peasantry... truly a titan in an era of irreducibles.”
"A lot of people think of me as a socialist, hence, my honoring socialist Fernandinos. True, I am a socialist, pure and simple. But in honoring our hero Don Pedro Abad Santos, his being a socialist was not our only measure for the recognition...We do not look at him as a socialist or a communist as many people think, but rather we look at his deeds, his principles, his lifelong dedication in the struggle to liberate the peasants from the bondage of the soil, to free the poor from the chains of poverty."
So the plebeian son Oca honored the socialist father Don Perico.
For his part – as reported by Sun-Star Pampanga – “Governor Eddie Panlilio said people must not judge Abad Santos for his means in achieving his cause but rather pay tribute on how he used ‘right for right’ and his righteousness, including how he turned his back on a ‘good and privileged life’ to uphold the dignity of the peasants and the poor.”
So panegyrized the governor of the socialist leader who, in 1926, lost the election for the governorship of Pampanga.
Furthered the Reverend Governor, again as reported in Sun-Star Pampanga: "Allow me this time to talk like a priest, because Pedro Abad Santos led the crusade of the Virgen Delos Remedios while advocating good governance during his time."
Thus, Panlilio deconstructed history. Thus, Panlilio dishonored the long interred Don Perico.
Don Perico died on January 15, 1945, succumbing to complications of stomach ailment at a guerrilla base of the Hukbalahap in Minalin town, 16 days short of turning 69. His ailment compounded by the hardship of his two-year incarceration at Fort Santiago by the Japanese Imperial Army.
The “crusade of the Virgen de los Remedios” Panlilio talked about was the cruzada de caridad founded in 1952 by San Fernando Bishop Cesar Ma. Guerrero.
For Don Perico to have led that crusade – seven years after his death – is an absolute impossibility. So what could have gone into Panlilio’s head there?
Already impossible in the aspect of time, insulting – supremely insulting yet – in matters of ideology is Panlilio saying Don Perico “led the crusade of the Virgen de los Remedios.”
A Marxist to the core when Marxism was at its unadulterated purest, Don Perico would have most certainly adhered to the precept of religion as the opiate of the people, that which, with promises of a heavenly hereafter, lulls the masses into full submission to the will of the ruling, oppressing classes.
Indeed, the cruzada with the images of the Virgen de los Remedios and the Santo Cristo del Perdon moving from barrio to barrio in “processions of penance” was made as the very counter-offensive of the government to the influence of socialism in the Pampanga countrysides in the turbulent ‘50s through the revolutionary ‘60s and ‘70s and until the present time.
Listen to the songs of the cruzada and discern political meanings: “O indu ming virgen quequeng patulunan / icang minye tula ampon capayapan / quing indu ning balen quequeng lalawigan / uling calimbun mu caring sablang dalan / ding barrio at puruc caring cabalenan / agad menatili ing catahimican...(O virgin mother, our patron / you give us joy and peace / through you our mother of the province / when you are taken in procession through our streets/ the barrios in our towns all become peaceful).”
Subliminal is the impact of the images to the barriofolk. The Virgen de los Remedios – the remedy, the cure-all to the ills besetting them. The Santo Cristo del Perdon – the forgiving, pardoning lord. Liberation from the hardships of this world is in the next world. Thus, to secure a passage to the rewards of heaven, the need to bear all worldly sufferings, all oppressions in Christ-like passion, er, fashion.
One inhered in Marx and Engels, one habituated to historical and dialectical materialism, as Don Perico most certainly was, having the distinct privilege to have studied at the Lenin Institute in Moscow – the very cradle of Marxist thought-in-praxis at the time – would have readily dismissed the cruzada as counter-revolutionary stirrings of the reactionary classes meant to perpetuate the subjugation of the masses.
A diametrical opposition, nay, a dialectical contradiction clearly obtaining here: the religious cruzada made the antithesis to Don Perico’s socialist thesis.
What worse dishonor can one heap on a man than to attribute to him in death that which he abhorred most in life?
Panlilio did a most grievous spite to Don Perico at the very foot of his monument, on the very day meant to honor him. A blasphemy, were we in a religious mindset.
To invoke Marx now, lumpen is not a monopoly of the proletariat. It exists among governors. And clerico-fascists too.
Shame.
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 11:42 AM
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