Pasyon and Revolution

Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910

by Reynaldo Clemena Ileto

Ileto's book is a wonder and the first to ever draw parallels between Western and Southeast Asian traditions especially the practice of the Pasyon. Outwardly, the pasyon looks every bit a practice that can be deemed bizarre. Participants reenact Jesus Christ's punishment and crucifixion. Ileto enables the reader to draw insight between the practice and draw its origins from from both Western and Eastern trraditions. A must for any student of Southeast Asian studies.

Pasyon and Revolution, unlike earlier Philippine historical writings that use largely the Filipino educated elite's categories of meaning, seeks to interpret Philippine popular movements in terms of perceptions of the masses themselves. Ileto submits to varied kinds of analyses standard documents as well as such previously ignored sources as folk songs, poems, and religious traditions, in order to articulate hidden or suppressed features of the thinking of the masses. Paramount among the conclusions of the book is that the pasyon, or native account of Christ's life, death and resurrection, provided the cultural framework of movements for change. The book places the Philippine revolution in the context of native traditions, and explains the persistence of radial peasant brotherhoods in this century. Seen as continuous attempts by the masses to transform the world in their terms are the various movements that the book analyzes - Apolinario de la Cruz's Cofradia de San Jose, Andres Bonifacio's Katipunan, Macario Sakay's Katipunan, Felipe Salvador's Santa Iglesia, the Colorum Society, and other popular movements during the Spanish, revolutionary, and American colonial periods.

A further interesting dimension of this literature on peasant social movements is the scope it provides for writing "history from below" in my view. Iletos excellent examination of the Philippine peasantrys experience of Holy Week and the meaning of the "pasyon" gives us local perspectives and details on peasant protest.