In addition to their geographical proximity, Indonesia and the Philippines share many similarities. Both countries' histories of resisting colonialism that spanned half a century were part of the wave of nationalism and decolonization that marked the 20th century. How far are the nationalism and independence movements in the two countries intertwined?
On December 30, 1896, Spanish authorities executed Jose Rizal, a Filipino intellectual deemed to be inciting rebellion. In the same year, a number of radical youths first took armed action demanding Philippine independence. At the end of the 19th century, the independent Republic of the Philippines was established on January 23, 1899.
It took a long time before what happened in the Philippines could be experienced, let alone appreciated, in Indonesia. One of the reasons was communication. According to historian Adrian Lapian, news of Philippine independence was briefly published in the colonial newspaper De Java Bode, which received news from a news agency in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the missionary-owned daily in Minahasa, Tjahaha Siang, got the news from their correspondent who read the news in a daily in Amsterdam, which was probably based on another source in New York.
A Spreading Story
The literature on the Philippine nationalism and independence movement generally focuses on a central figure: Jose Rizal Mercado (1861-1896). He was known as an intellectual: a medical school graduate, master of several languages, writer, poet, novelist, as well as a painter and sculptor. Two of his monumental works are the Spanish novel Noli mi Tangere (1887) and its sequel El Flibusterimo (1891). In both novels, Rizal depicted the plight of the Filipinos under Spanish colonialism and the Catholic Church.
Twenty years before Noli mi Tangere was written, Rizal read Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company by Eduard Douwes Dekker, also known as Multatuli, in Europe. It is likely that Rizal read the English translation of Max Havelaar. Rizal praised the novel, describing it as very anti-colonial. Max Havelaar seems to have inspired Rizal to write novels with similar themes.
The two novels he wrote made Rizal a threat to the colonial government, even though they didn't have enough reason to take action towards him. When a more radical pro-independence group carried out an armed attack in August 1896, the colonial government blamed Rizal. He was not actually involved in the action, but it didn't really matter because Rizal was already targeted by the government. He was executed a day before the end of 1896.
In the second decade of the 20th century, the wave of nationalism reached Indonesia, which was then called the Dutch East Indies. An article entitled “Als ik een Nederlander was” (If I Were a Dutchman) written by a native named R.M. Soewardi Soerjaningrat inflamed the colonial government. The article was written in 1913 when the Dutch East Indies government was preparing to celebrate 100 years of independence of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from France.
It was published in De Express newspaper which was owned by an Indo named Ernest François Eugène Douwes Dekker, who was Eduard Douwes Dekker's nephew. Soewardi Soerjaningrat, Ernest Douwes Dekker, and their friend Dr. Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo were three figures in the early Indonesian nationalism movement. They founded the Indische Partij, the first organization that made Indonesian independence its goal.
In the same year, Ernest Douwes Dekker wrote an essay entitled “Rizal” in the biweekly magazine Het Tijdschrift of which he was a founder. The essay was the first recorded article in the Indies to discuss Jose Rizal in detail. Still in the same year, Douwes Dekker also published his piece on the Philippine revolution in the daily De Express.
Douwes Dekker admired Rizal because he felt he had a similar background as a half-European; which is called mestizo in the Philippines or Indo in Indonesia. He envisioned that mixed-race people born and raised in the colonies like himself and Rizal–like Simon Bolivar in Latin America–would play an important role in Indonesia's independence. In the end, though, the position of Indo's in the Indonesian independence movement, as well as post-independence, was not what he expected, and different from the role of mestizos in the Philippines. (Douwes Dekker can be seen as the antithesis of Robert Suurhof in Pramoedya Ananta Toer's novel Bumi Manusia (This Earth of Mankind); an Indo who identifies more as a European).
The existence of these two articles hints that the story of Jose Rizal and the Philippine independence movement spread to Indonesia. But how much did the Philippines inspire the founding fathers?
It's hard to imagine that Indonesian national movement activists at the time didn't draw inspiration from the Philippine revolution. But indeed, apart from two articles by Douwes Dekker in 1913, there are not many other references to base our assumption of how influential Jose Rizal and the Philippine revolution were. References to the Philippines were also relatively absent in discussions of the 1928 Youth Pledge, another important moment in the nationalist movement. Sukarno only referred to Jose Rizal in a speech in 1942, almost half a century after Rizal was executed.
One possible reason is that the Philippine revolution was anticlimactic. The Philippine Republic was only independent from Spain for two years. In 1901, the young republic fell back to colonial rule, this time under the United States.
The Road to Independence
In 1925, seven years after the Bolshevik Revolution, Tan Malaka traveled to the Philippines and planned to stay there for the next few years. Besides establishing contact with other Communist International members in Southeast Asia, he studied the Philippine revolution in depth from first-hand sources.
As historian Harry A. Poeze described, Tan Malaka had admiration for Jose Rizal. However, he considered Jose Rizal to ultimately be part of educated elites that were distant from the common people. Tan Malaka saw figures like Andres Bonifacio or Emilio Aguinaldo, who openly revolted against the colonial government, as more important actors.
Rizal did keep his distance from the radical groups in the Katipunan organization from the beginning. However, he had intensive contact with Bonifacio and his friends, even making Bonifacio an honorary member of the group he founded. But Rizal did not agree with the armed action carried out by Katipunan. He argued that the Filipino people at that time weren't settled enough for an open rebellion.
Interestingly, when the Indonesian Communist Party rebelled in Java (1926) and Sumatra (1927), Tan Malaka also disagreed with the move from the start. His reasoning was similar to Rizal's three decades earlier, that the people were not ready yet.
The Philippines practically passed the early 20th century as, again, a colony, albeit their status as a republic. In 1935, the United States granted commonwealth status to the Philippines. This commonwealth status became a preparatory phase for the Philippines to become a fully sovereign state.
In 1936, a number of political figures in Indonesia petitioned the Dutch East Indies government. The petition was known as the “Soetardjo Petition” which demanded talks on Indonesian independence through a gradual process. The talks should be held between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Indonesia in an equal position. Discussions among the initiators of the petition more or less referred to the Philippine model. The petition was flatly rejected by the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but the Japanese occupation in 1942 later changed the political map. Indonesia finally declared independence in 1945, less than 10 years after Soetardjo's petition. A year later, the Republic of the Philippines gained its full independence.
People Power
Eight decades after Rizal was executed, the Philippines again witnessed the execution of a figure by the authorities. Benigno Aquino Jr. was shot by President Ferdinand Marcos' men when he landed from exile in 1983. This event led to the 1986 people power that ended the Marcos regime.
In Indonesia, the Dutch colonial rulers were wary of the Philippine revolution. In the 1980s, President Soeharto responded to the people power revolution with alarm. If the colonial government responded with ethical politics, Soeharto responded with high economic growth plus some openness in the 1990s.
If ethical politics only delayed Indonesia's independence for two decades, Soeharto lasted only twelve years since the people power movement. Like Marcos, he fell after being forced by a mass movement. The histories of Indonesia and the Philippines may have more in common than we understand.
The author is an economist and a history buff who is living in Manila, Philippines.
