ANTONIO Luna y Novicio was undoubtedly a man of many talents. He is especially remembered for his military skill and for the sinister way he was assassinated — a murder that some have attributed to Aguinaldo. He spent, as did many Filipino ilustrados of that time, the best years of his youth in Spain, where he actively took part in political activism and contributed periodically to La Solidaridad (1889-1895), directed by a livid anti-friar intellectual from Bulacan — Marcelo del Pilar.
An outstanding revolutionary, several achievements carried out during his short life are well known. However, what has remained largely forgotten is a literary jewel he published in Madrid in 1891 under the pseudonym Taga-Ilog: Impresiones. This book, a treasure of Filipino literature in Spanish, can be aptly described as a pearl necklace, of which each piece contributes harmoniously to build a vivid and picturesque portrait of Spain, in a very colorful, rich style. The Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino published a good Tagalog translation a few years ago which is unfortunately sold out already.
Impresiones por Taga-Ilog (Antonio Luna Y. Novicio). PHOTO FROM WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Impresiones is a collection of articles depicting Spain, the Spaniards and their manners in the most critical, corrosive and sarcastic way. His fine irony is merciless and his malicious sarcasm is bright, astonishing, full of intelligence, looking to shock the expectations of the reader. For Luna, it does not matter where you point at: there is nothing to rescue from the then decadent culture of the motherland. He excuses himself in the prologue, arguing that there is no reason to talk of the beauties of the country because those are already well known to everyone. He adds, gracefully, looking to the complacency of the reader, that his intention is to criticize the bad habits of Spain as any other Spaniard would do.
Luna feels, like many romantic travelers, the delusion of the motherland, “the nation of the bravery and nobility.” The large spaces without trees are compared to the fragrant exuberance of the Philippine flora. The vibrant and high-class nation he has imagined so many times is no more than a tiny shadow. The landscape for him seems moonlike, a clear indication of the poverty of the land, and that fits to the extreme ignorance of the people. Talking to a Spanish priest who asked him if Mindanao was far from Luzon, he answers, “Yes, of course, just six hours from Luzon by boat along the Pasig River.”
He hates to be called Chinese in the streets, and although he harshly criticizes the Madrileño obsession to display social status, he gets angry when people compare him to an Igorot, making clear that there were different classes of Filipinos. Interestingly, Luna claims — as did many other Filipino writers at that time — that the Philippines is part of Oceania, not Asia.
Madrid is no more than a grotesque show: the streets are too old and narrow to walk. People seem to be having fun all the time, socializing continuously in theaters, casinos and cafes. In the famous Puerta del Sol, which Madrileños tend to see as the best place on Earth, he does not see anything but the end of 10 streets where thousands of transients and unoccupied people waste their time doing nothing. He comes to say: “Please, Filipinos, do not allow yourselves to be lied to by the fantasies of a glorious metropolis, because the disenchantment will be painful.” He apologizes for giving so much negative news about Spain, but he excuses himself: “Realism in art is now in fashion, isn’t it?”
Spaniards are people without proper manners, who lack courtesy. They are noisy, they do not keep proper distance, they continuously say bad words and, according to him, when they have a long party with girls and alcohol, there are only two places to end it: in the hospital or in the police station, since they tend to fight so easily.
His Catholic puritanism appears several times to report the lack of decency during the dances: Spaniards defy morality by touching their bodies more than what should be acceptable. He even goes to the police to inform them about that, but he is simply told: “That is nothing, gentleman; they are just having fun.” He admires the beauty of Spanish women, but prefers the shyness and decency of the Filipino dalagas. Spanish women are passionate, talk too much and they even like the bloody and primitive bullfighting! He describes how shameless Spanish women can be compared to the Filipino women: “I left my girlfriend in Manila, and she is so pure and chaste that she never allowed me to kiss her, not even her hand!”
He also has words for Filipinos who, after establishing themselves in Madrid, reject their own origins in order to be better accepted and climb socially, like the ridiculous Filipino migrant woman who is eager to find a rich Spaniard to marry, only to fall into a nervous faint when she discovered that her admirer was just a humble public servant.
He includes an imaginary dialogue between him and a passenger in a train from Paris to Madrid to expose the arrogance, the bad attitude, the racial discrimination and the stupidity of the Spanish officials in the Philippines. He adds, ironically, that “alcaldes like these maybe do not exist anymore in the Philippines.” If there is something that I personally like from Impresiones, it is his integral and coherent attitude, his mental strength, never willing to deny his Filipinoness despite the odd exoticism with which he was seen in Europe: a sense of superiority that came from his intelligence and his intellectual capacity.
The book is full of comic situations, but behind that candid appearance there was a clear goal: to report the abundant cultural differences between Spain and the Philippines, to remark the Filipino otherness. With simple but realistic stories, Luna exemplifies how Filipinos had difficulty in adapting to the lifestyle in the metropolis, and how Spaniards suffered when moving to the archipelago. Although he protests continuously for not being seen as Spanish as the peninsulars, this is just a rhetorical strategy to display what is obvious: a different identity that is deeper than the color of the skin, despite the many years of history that Spain and the Philippines have in common.
Antonio Luna’s book is more interesting and valuable than it may seem, even for the Spanish reader of today — not only because of its literary merit — since he is keen to point out the social illnesses of the nation in the last years of empire: a country severely affected by poverty, an ignorant population only willing to rejoice in fiestas and displays of social status, a bureaucratized state incapable of creating prosperity, and a defeatist attitude toward life that came to be the main preoccupation of the so-called “Generación del 98,” a group of writers led by Unamuno that emerged in the first years of the 20th century to reflect about the historical failures of Spain. In this sense, Luna’s book, depicting the decadence of the metropolis, was actually predicting its own decline.
