CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Texas A&M Repository BUILDING FROM WITHIN: INDIGENOUS NATION-BUILDING AND STATE-MAKING DURING THE FILIPINO THIRD REPUBLIC, 1946-1957 A Dissertation by TRISTAN MIGUEL SANTOS OSTERIA Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, Jason C. Parker Committee Members, Terry H. Anderson Carlos K. Blanton Brian J. Rouleau Xinsheng Liu Head of Department, David Vaught December 2016 Major Subject: History Copyright 2016 Tristan Miguel Santos Osteria ABSTRACT This study looks at multiple expressions of indigenous agency in Filipino nation- state building from the attainment of Filipino independence in 1946 under the Third Republic. The study begins with postwar reconstruction under the Roxas administration, through the crisis and challenge years of the Quirino years, and the emergence of the strongman of the people, Ramon Magsaysay. Under whom, Filipino nation-making reached its peak years. The study concludes in 1957 with the untimely end of the Magsaysay administration, but with the emergence of a united Filipino people where citizens from all sectors came to be involved. This study argues that Filipinos possessed a natural aversion to communism, which the Third Republic used to consolidate Filipino support, and which prevented the Huks from taking over. Sources of Filipino unity included consolidating all ethnicities. Other sources were overcoming challenges, such as the Huk rebellion and integrating Chinese-Filipinos, Tagalog, and revisions in the educational curriculum. There were many debates surrounding Filipino sovereignty over US bases in the islands. Filipinos participated in regional organizations, such as SEATO and the Bandung Afro-Asian Conference. Major issues involved corruption, security, bridging the urban and the rural, and economic development. Also, many scholars have often overlooked the multiple, diverse Filipino perspectives that lay underneath traditional Cold War superpower-centric narratives. This study disproves the notion that Filipino nationalism can only be studied through the artificial lens of class, which is an oversimplification. The purpose of this study is to show that Filipinos worked together ii and built a unified Filipino nation-state that is multicultural, multiracial, and hostile to collectivists. This study uses official government documents, personal papers, memoirs, diaries and newspapers from the Filipino and American archives. These sources contain the involvement of state and non-state actors who contribute to the complex mosaic of Filipino nation-state making. These sources reflect the presence and diversity of Filipino perspectives that point to sources of Filipino unity. The study concludes with the Third Republic, as the ultimate expression of Filipino indigenous agency, having consolidated the ethnic and linguistic groups in the islands, appealing to shared Filipino visions, values and interests. iii DEDICATION I dedicate this work to my mother and to my father, to Filipinos, to the academic community, and to future generations, that people will always look out for another, as mankind breaks new frontiers. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to my committee chair, Dr. Jason Parker for having served as a greatly valued mentor and as a colleague through the entire academic process. Without his involvement in “sharpening my rough edges” and without him urging me on while “wearing many hats,” while never losing the “forest for the trees,” this project wouldn’t have reached the finish line. I would always be grateful for the patience he had exhibited with me, as I embarked in this rewarding voyage. The journey began with me corresponding with him through email and must fittingly end with him during this dissertation process. I would also like to give credit to my other committee members from the Department of History at Texas A&M University, Dr. Terry Anderson, Dr. Carlos Blanton, Dr. Brian Rouleau and Dr. Xinsheng Liu (of the Bush School of Government and Public Service, also at Texas A&M) for having provided their inputs that greatly enriched and expanded the scope of this product. This process may have been time-consuming and challenging at times. I never regretted for a moment having embarked on this wonderful journey, with all the messes that come along with it. I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to the Department of History, particularly Dr. Hudson, Dr. Seipp, Dr. Bradford, Dr. Vaught and Dr. Foote, and many other faculty members for having guided me through the graduate school process. Without their advices and the information they were always willing to give out to me and to others, I wouldn’t have completed this journey. I would like to express my appreciation to them for having given me the opportunity to teach Texan college v students here at Texas A&M. I would also like to give credit to the other professors with whom I took highly stimulating and vibrant graduate classes, which challenged me to think more critically, sharpen my analytical and perceptual skills, and helped me learn to write well. I would also be remiss not to give credit to the department’s main office staff, for their patience with me, as I kept on dropping by the office despite their very hectic schedules. I would also like to thank my graduate student cohorts for welcoming and treating me as a colleague. I would also like to express my appreciation to the archival and library staff of the Harry S. Truman Library and Institute, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Library of Congress and the John F. Kennedy Library, for providing this work with the primary sources from the American perspective. The collections in their holdings greatly enriched the historical narratives in this project. The same would be the case for library and archival holdings in the Philippine Islands, which included the Ortigas Foundation Library, the Lopez Library and Museum, and the Ayala Museum. Without the help given to me in helping me construct my narratives and test my theories, this project would not have been made complete. The other members of the Texas A&M community also contributed to this project. I am grateful to my friends and acquaintances outside the Department of History and the wider Texas A&M community and the many everyday persons whom I encountered in College Station, who helped greatly broaden and expand my worldview in my interactions with them. The Evans Library, International Student Services, the Office of Graduate and Professional Services, Thesis and Dissertation Services, the vi College of Liberal Arts, the university workers, the Aggies and their many, interesting traditions, the Filipino community in College Station have made my stay here at Texas A&M more exciting in the midst of the pressures of finishing my degree. To my American friends and acquaintances, Arthur, Albert, Phil, Jack, Tito Henry’s family and others, who belonged outside the graduate school experience, I thank them for introducing me to the diversities of American culture and helping me experience a slice of the American possibilities. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, this journey would have been stillborn were it not for the support of my parents, the professors back home in the Philippine Islands who also helped enable me to begin this journey, and friends, who occasionally sent me emails and who wished me well. Their presence, however remote, was very much welcome. vii CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES Contributors I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Jason Parker for his very valuable guidance throughout the dissertation process. Without his patient involvement and the countless hours we spent going over my drafts, this work would not have been made whole. I would also like to express my appreciation to my committee members, Dr. Anderson, Dr. Blanton, Dr. Rouleau and Dr. Liu for coming up with very helpful recommendations and revisions to enable this study to eventually be turned into a peer- reviewed, academically published book. I am also grateful to my graduate student colleagues, especially Jeff Crean, for having engaged in numerous enriching academic conversations with me in our office on the Basement Floor at the Glasscock Building on campus, which greatly helped me in my dissertation research. Jeff also agreed to look over my dissertation draft for English language style. Similarly, I would also like to express my warm thanks to many other graduate students, who provided me with valuable advice along my path across years of graduate school, in the course of my applications for funding and travel grants for research, and as I worked on my dissertation research and writing. I would also like to give credit to Thesis and Dissertation Services for their invaluable help with the technicalities of dissertation formatting. viii Funding Sources I express my heartfelt gratitude for the institutions and the organizations that helped fund my dissertation project. Without their money, conducting and completing this work would have been far more difficult than otherwise. First of all, I am grateful to the Harry S. Truman Library and Institute, for having provided me with a generous and prestigious grant to travel to Independence, Missouri, to take a look at their presidential library’s archival holdings. Likewise, credit should also be given to the College of Liberal Arts by providing my dissertation with the equally prestigious Vision 2020 Dissertation Enhancement Award, which enabled me to conduct archival and library research at the National Archives and Records Administration at College Park in Maryland, and the Library of Congress in Washington DC. I was also able to conduct archival research at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. I would also like to express my appreciation to the Department of History and the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies at Texas A&M University for providing me with presentation grants that greatly enriched some topics that eventually formed part of my dissertation.