| World Time |
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| PHILIPPINES, MLA.
SPAIN, MAD.
CALIFORNIA, L.A.
CANADA, ED.
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Publisher
ROSES & THORNS
The Spanish troops had no access to the news and they could not believe
that Spain has already lost the war. When a news item in the newspaper
convinced them that Spain had already lost the war, they nobly
surrendered. But by then they had already lost 19 men. The noble thing
about the siege of Baler was the way both sides — the Spanish and
Filipino troops — conducted themselves in warfare. Not a single
atrocity was committed. Both sides conducted themselves like noble
soldiers. Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo honored them with a decree saying that,
“they realized an epic as glorious as the legendary valor of the son of
El Cid and Pelayo.”
In the sixties, Lamberto Avellana directed a documentary on the 50
Spanish soldiers who stood their ground for almost a year bravely
resisting starvation, sickness and enemy bullets in defense of a battle
that had already been lost. Avellana’s documentary not only won the
Conde de Foxa Award in Spain, it inspired a full-length Spanish movie
called Los Ultimos en Filipinas. Avellana’s La Campana de Baler and Los
Ultimos en Filipinas should be a part of every Philippine-Spanish Day
celebration.
The movie La Campana de Baler, which I was honored to produce, had a
simple plot centered around the classic theme of forbidden love. During
the siege of Baler, there was a Spanish soldier, who would scale the
walls of the church where all the other soldiers were barricaded every
night. He was sneaking out each night to visit his girlfriend in the
village. One night a fellow soldier sighted him and, thinking he was a
deserter, shot him. Our ill-fated lover’s dying words were, “I just
want you to know that I am not a deserter. I went out every night to
visit my Filipina girlfriend, that is all.” The movie ended depicting
how close the Spaniards and Filipinos had become. After they
surrendered, some of the soldiers even remained to marry Filipinas from
the town. It gives proof to the idea that love conquers all.
June 30 is an appropriate day for Philippine-Spanish Friendship Day and
we should do more to celebrate our past. We should also remember that
there were many different ethnic minorities who came to the
Philippines; Asturians, Castillians, Basques and so on. They were
separate people who swore fealty to the King of Kastile. This is also
why we referred to anyone who came from Europe (even mistakenly the
French and British) as kastila. It would be interesting to study the
influence of these different minority groups on the Philippines. As we
have written before, the Basques were very influential in the history
of our country. What of the Asturians? The Andalusians? We should
recognize all of their contributions.
To remember Phil-Spanish Friendship Day we would like to quote the book
A Visit to the Philippine Islands by then Governor of Hongkong Sir John
Bowring (written and published in the 19th century): “I found a kind
and generous urbanity prevailing — friendly intercourse where that
intercourse had been sought — the lines of demarcation and separation
between ranks and classes less marked and impassable than in most
Oriental countries. I have seen at the same table Spaniard, mestizo and
Indian — priest, civilian and soldier. No doubt a common religion forms
a common bond; but to him who has observed the alienations and
repulsions of caste in many parts of the Eastern world — caste, the
great social curse — the blending and free intercourse of man with man
in the Philippines is a contrast well worth admiring.”
By Alejandro R. Roces
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| Category: Articles and News | Added by: janus (2009-07-04)
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