Reflections on the Ideological State Apparatuses

Today’s lecture summed up and integrated all the ideological state apparatuses (ISA) previously discussed. The family, Church, education, arts & literature, and government were all used by the Spanish colonizers to hinder the proper education of scientific and secular ideas and promulgated false consciousness among the Filipino natives. By doing so, Spain hoped to supress the advancement of the factors of production thereby, retarding the Philippine society from developing further its decrepit feudal state. Indeed, the effects of these ISA have not only shaped the Philippines during its Spanish occupation, but it also had lasting effects on the modern Filipino mentality. Among the ISA’s, the Church was clearly the most influential and was in the best position to use its political clout to manipulate and distort all facets of living during the three hundred thirty years of occupation.

The Church was so effective as an ISA that this institution disabled all individuals from fully knowing the world he lives in. An uneducated and oppressed people were created because of this ISA. The Church’s distorted values and teachings also had profound consequences on the reverence and respect given by the natives to the frailocracy. Filipinos, as Professor Fernandez clearly points out, have never been anti-cleric. In fact, because of the Filipino’s misplaced reverence and fear of these hooded religious figures, they never questioned the integration of the Church’s ecclesiastical power with its political clout. There was no such thing as the separation of Church and Staten during that period. The supremacy of the Church among all the existing social institutions reigned unchecked and unbalanced. Possessing knowledge during that time was considered dangerous, and, not to mention, merited for heresy. Such was the discrimination for an educated man that disdain and being branded as a fool was the penalty for anyone expressing any secular thought in public. This was the fate met by Pilosopo Tasyo. His brilliance was seen as madness, his unmatched intellect with insanity. In fact, being called a Pilosopo is considered as an insult rather than a complement. During the reign of the Church as the prevailing ISA in the Spanish colonization of the Philippines, knowledge is shunned and is considered as the work of the devil.

Looking at these ISAs, one would expect that the Filipino would evolve and learn to overcome these hindrances after centuries of deception and oppression. It is truly disturbing to see that after the Philippines’ liberation from the grip of the Spanish and American colonizers that the country is far from being liberated from these ISAs. Their façade may have changed over time, but their effects remained at work in the background. Media, for instance, is now the strongest ISA operating in today’s society. It is now the main purveyor of false consciousness to the unknowing public who, it seems, have lost any sense of critical thinking and filtering. Because of this ineptitude, Filipinos always fall victim to the grip of consumerism. Despite the growing issues and problems in society and in the government, the media veers away from reporting the most pressing and crucial news segments and, instead, focuses on the peripherals and the non-essentials. As a result, non-trivial news such as the latest showbiz gossips as well as the ever-changing acquaintances of the president is reported over the television. The colonizers may have been long gone from the archipelago, but their ideological state apparatuses still remains. When will the Filipino people be free? (01/11/2011)