BERNARDIO CARPIO: AWIT AND REVOLUTION

Constraints imposed by censorship and other forms of intellectual repression during Spanish rule results
to popular readings in the form of metrical romances called awit.

Awit is a type of Filipino poem consisting of 12-syllable stanzas. Awit summarizes the importance for the
study of the revolution in two respects.

- First, the appropriation by the Tagalogs of a Spanish hero enabled a people without a history of
themselves as people to imagine a lost past as well as their hopes of liberation from Spanish rule.

- Second, the awit reveals a form of meaningfully structuring events, which would later be used by
nationalists to communicate their political ideas to the people. These nationalists are Jose Rizal, Flores
and Del Pilar, and Andres Bonifacio.

JOSE RIZAL’S INTERPRETATION:

Bernardo’s last journey is derived from pre-Spanish beliefs in pilgrimages to the underworld to wrestle
with spirits as a test of one’s inner strength.

 In his novel, El Filibusterismo, there is this reflection upon a cart driver’s firm belief in Bernardo
Carpio in which Jose Rizal entertains the possibility of armed revolt against Spain. The
uneducated countrymen’s conceptions of liberation were dominated by this myth. Tagalog
peasants before, at least those within the vicinity of the mountains that dominate the landscape
of the Tagalog region, believed that Bernardo Carpio was their indigenous king trapped inside a
mountain, struggling to free himself. Then the cart driver believes that when Bernardo Carpio
gets his right foot free, the cart driver shall give him his horse, put hisself under his orders, and
die for him. The cart driver believes that Bernardo Carpio will free them from the constabulary.
Yet, unlike other patriots, Rizal was careful to separate the “mythical” and what considered as
the “national” in his writings.

FLORES AND DEL PILAR:

What follows is the history of the Philippines under the domination of the friars. Flores enumerates the
methods by which the friars’ wealth was accumulated through the various types of taxes, “voluntary”
contributions forced on the people, the disposition of debtors and other oppressed to flee to the hills.
The poems of Flores and Del Pilar were all about the oppressive behavior of the friars.

 In the Historia Famosa, as narrated by the awit’s characters, it is always shaped by the idiom of
personal relationship. Don Snacho’s laments to Jimena, King Alfonso, and his son Bernardo
project vivid images of the past. To the audience/readers, the laments (mourns) serve as a
reminder that Bernardo has not experienced a parent’s love. Flores and Del Pilar used these
laments in order to evoke from their audience a sense of empathy, participation and a similar
state of receptivity for the nationalist message.
  Flores surely knew the effectiveness of the lament form, which is why he used it as a frame in
the first place. In his poem titled “Hibik”, the country Spain is portrayed as the Mother and our
country Philippines is its daughter. The last ten stanzas of the Hibik summarized the Philippine’s
past relationship with Spain; “Spain had sent the friars here, and because we had “utang na
loob” to Spain for her protective care, we gave friars all they wanted. The friars reciprocated
with the acts of cruelty. How is it possible for a mother to oppress her own child? Has Spain,
herself seduced by the friars (as King Alfonso had been by Don Rubio), forgotten the past?”
 In Del Pilar’s poem, “Sagot ng Espana”, uses the notion of layaw to frame the narration of the
Philippine’s past begun by Flores. Mother Spain talks about the wealth Filipinas was born into -
her gold, minerals, and abundant food that attracted the merchants from neighboring lands.
Spain’s role as a mother was to nurture Filipinas in a proper way. The friars, having sworn before
God, were sent in good faith as teachers. But now, Mother Spain admits her mistake in
entertaining her daughter to the friars. The theme of a child’s faulty upbringing by a surrogate
parent appears also in the Historia Famosa, in Don Rubio’s failure to treat Bernardo as his own
son. Strongly reminiscent of Don Sancho’s lament about his long lost son is Mother Spain’s own
lament about the friar’s cruel treatment of her daughter Filipinas.

ANDRES BONIFACIO

Bonifacio grew up in the world of awit poetry. As a young man, he was an actor in Tagalog dramas. He
was familiar with most of the awit-type literature and, as an actor, would have memorized large
segments of them. His favorite work was the Historia Famosa in Bernardo Carpio.

 Bonifacio changed the names of places, scenes, and mountains in his copy of the Historia to
Tagalog names. King Alfonso was Spain, Don Sancho and Jimena were Mother and Father
Katagalugan (Filipinas), the treacherous Don Rubio as the friars, and Bernardo Carpio was the
youth of the land. The mountain in which Bernardo was imprisoned was Montalban, the refuge
of the Katipunan.
 Bonifacio’s poem illustrates the point of intersection of personal experience and nationalism.
 The effectiveness of Bonifacio’s writings can be attributed to their ability to evoke damay
(empathy) for the country.
 To Bonifacio, Del Pilar’s works lived in a dreamworld and could only be mobilized to rise against
Spain when their conceptions of untangle an lob to Mother Spain were undermined.
 Ang Dapat Mabatid ng mag Tagalog, published in 1896, Bonifacio reveals his debt to the
propagandists’ views of a flourishing pre-Spanish past. Spain, attracted by such beauty and
wealth, came and allied herself to Filipinas. Their bond solemnized in the “blood compact”
between King Sikatuna and the representative of Spain, Legazpi, is similar with the relationship
of Don Sancho and King Alfonso.
 Bonifacio portrays the early Filipinos fighting Chinese and Dutch invaders out of loyalty to Spain,
only to be rewarded with treachery instigated by the friars.
  To paraphrase Bonifacio in terms of the young Bernardo’s experience, it’s time for the people to
become one in “loob” by knowing the truth about themselves and their past.

- Not only was Bernardo Carpio the man in the mountain who would come down to free his people from
oppressors, but as Bonifacio and his compatriots in the Katipunan saw it, each lowly Indio could be
Bernardo Carpio.
History 3 – Life and Works of Rizal

Report Summary: Bernardo Carpio: Awit and Revolution

Submitted to:

Ma’am Precious Tolibas

Submitted by:

Closas, Nina Marie

Dael, Wendy

Dandasan, Krisha

Neri, Emman

Sabuero, Dean Vincent

ACC

Date:

March 2, 2020