George Emmanuel Borrinaga | University of San Carlos (original) (raw)

Papers by George Emmanuel Borrinaga

Tugkad, 2023

This paper explores the continuities and changes in the conceptualization and practice of the cul... more This paper explores the continuities and changes in the conceptualization and practice of the cultural value of isog (ferocity/courage/bravery) across different historical periods and in relation to changing and accumulating group identities in the Visayas. Analyzing identity based expressions and actions through a "history of sensibilities", it examines how isog and related concepts were defined and acted upon in the colonial and post-colonial periods as documented in sources such as ethnohistorical accounts and oral traditions. It traces the enduring significance of the isog value in the face of colonization/Christianization starting in the 16th century, the turn-of-the-20th-century rise of anti-colonial nationalism, and post-World War II globalization/outmigration. Each of these periods generated new, outsider-imposed identities and transformed local practices and beliefs. However, these identities were often paralleled by local identifications expressed through isog-denoting cultural identity labels that had originally been pejorative labels but were subsequently appropriated and repurposed to suit group survival needs (e.g., Bisaya-Cristianos as Pintados; Pilipinhon/Filipinos as Pulahan; Samar-Leyte Bisayans as Waray-Waray). It argues that, despite major changes in the core beliefs and values of the Visayans across time, isog has remained a central virtue in contemporary Bisayan society and its plural identities owing to the multiplicity and frequency of overlapping social and environmental adversities in one of the most hazard-prone and repeatedly-colonized countries in the world.

The Journal of History, 2022

This paper examines local perceptions of and responses to the early period of Christian evangeliz... more This paper examines local perceptions of and responses to the early period of Christian evangelization by the Jesuits in Leyte, Samar, and Bohol beginning in 1595. Using general chronicles of the period and specific accounts of adverse events such as the smallpox epidemic of the late-16th century and early-17th century natural calamities and slave raids, it examines the impact of the Jesuit introduction of new spiritual figures on the people's continuing pursuit of health and well-being through harmonious relations with a changing spirit world.

The study argues that different and/or changing perceptions of turn-of-the-17th century social, environmental and health crises (e.g., smallpox, typhoons, earthquakes, etc.), as well as human-induced threats to clan/community security and unity (e.g., early Moro raids, etc.), account for both Christian conversion and apostasy/rebellion during that pivotal period. Early Spanish period Bisayans in Samar, Leyte, and Bohol would come to see their acceptance of Christian doctrine and integration into the nascent colonial church-state as either beneficial or harmful through the impact of adverse events on their communities. They would subsequently act either for or against the new spiritual/colonial order in accordance with how they assessed their new colonized condition based on these events' outcomes. Moreover, both accommodation to and rebellions against Christianization/Hispanization allowed for the syncretization of pre-colonial/indigenous and Christian/European cultural elements in terms of spirit-world beliefs, politico-religious leadership, and ritual practices.

The Journal of History, 2021

This paper examines the links between the social impact of the 1882-1883 cholera epidemic on the ... more This paper examines the links between the social impact of the 1882-1883 cholera epidemic on the Spanish Philippines and the emergence of the Dios-Dios Movement in the province of Leyte. Utilizing as primary sources official reports, captured Dios-Dios documents, and documented folklore, the paper will describe the backgrounds, syncretic beliefs, and social interactions of some key individuals and groups that comprised this movement to gain new insights on the interface between epidemic disease and the rise of anticolonial movements in the Philippines in the late 19th century. Moreover, the paper will show how, in the aftermath of the cholera epidemic of 1882-1883, Leyte became a transit zone for the spread of a millenarian movement with origins in its sister island of Samar and which would gain footholds in neighboring islands such as Cebu. The paper will argue that central to the diffusion of Dios-Dios doctrines and prophecies were lingering fears of mass death from an epidemic seen as part of a series of supernatural events that would renew the world (e.g., through pestilence, war, and a universal flood), and hopes of deliverance from the increasing demands of the colonial state during an extended period of crisis. These fears and hopes were channeled through an indigenized Christian identity that unified communities in the late Spanish period and would later be mobilized in the anti-American resistance of the early 20th century.

The Journal of History, 2020

This paper traces Rizal's impact on the Filipino nationalist movement as it emerged in Samar and ... more This paper traces Rizal's impact on the Filipino nationalist movement as it emerged in Samar and Leyte at the turn of the 20th century. Using documented oral literature and history as primary sources, it locates that influence from the perspective of small communities which assimilated the story of Rizal's life and death in linguistic and cultural regions outside Manila and the Tagalog-speaking provinces of which he was native. Approaching these sources through a history of emotions, it suggests that indignation over Rizal's martyrdom at the hands of the Spaniards in 1896 was collectively felt in islands where distinct anti-Spanish revolutionary discourses had developed independently in the years prior to the outbreak of the 1896 Revolution, the event for which Rizal was tried and executed as its alleged prime mover. The paper thus examines how Rizal's death might have inspired the "village nationalism" that was mobilized in Samar and Leyte's anti-colonial movements in the early 20 th century. A closer scrutiny of the turn of events in the region after Rizal's death would suggest that the example of self-sacrifice set by Rizal (as conveyed through oral forms of literature and history), and the notion of a collective revolutionary struggle as "Filipinos" introduced to the region by the generals appointed by the Philippine Republic's President Emilio Aguinaldo, came into contact with older notions of unity and struggle. The paper argues that this convergence resulted in a form of nationalism that was small-scale in its scope, mutualistic and/ or collectivist in its practices, and autonomist in its aspirations. While a "Filipino" label was embraced as a unifying identifier in Samar and Leyte, the extent of its affective boundaries was constrained by local identifications (e.g., family, village, town, island, etc.) based on pre-existing solidarities shaped by cooperative networks for everyday needs, past crisis responses, and earlier socio-religious movements. Rizal's memory thus helped empower small communities in navigating the last decades of colonial rule in Samar and Leyte through his becoming an exemplar of village-and clan-centered notions of loyalty, solidarity, bravery, tenacity, and perseverance.

Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, 2015

This study revisits the Pulahan Movement in Leyte, one of numerous peasant religious movements wh... more This study revisits the Pulahan Movement in Leyte, one of numerous peasant religious movements which continued to resist American rule after the official end of the Philippine-American War on July 4, 1902. With roots going back to the Spanish period and the ilustrado-led Philippine Revolution (1896-1902), it gained wider participation after the surrender of the ilustrado elites to the Americans by 1902. The paper aims to critique previous interpretations of the movement as a post-war response of the “mountain people” to the abuses of the “town people” in their economic transactions or as a consequence of the supposedly different and competing “cultures” of the uplands and lowlands, which are said to have made the culturally “backward” rural population susceptible to the agitation of the peasant leaders of misguided social movements. It provides alternative perspectives on the Revolution not yet accounted for in the national historiography, with the use of traditional historical sources such as official reports, court records, and newspaper articles; and local sources such as oral history accounts and folk songs. It argues that part of what drew in followers to the movement was a localized independence ideal (kaugalingnan) forged by mass participation in the Revolution, and a dissident politico-religious tradition shaped by earlier religious movements which had aggregated small communities under loosely structured local churches.

The Journal of History, 2010

This paper presents the experiences of ordinary Leyteños during the Japanese Occupation. The main... more This paper presents the experiences of ordinary Leyteños during the Japanese Occupation. The main source-materials for this study were oral testimonies from key informants born before 1940, which were placed in their proper context through the use of documentary sources. The study aims to show that the Japanese Occupation disrupted Leyteño social interactions between occupied town centers and their peripheries by creating an atmosphere of suspicion in which ostensibly siding with either the Japanese troops or the guerrillas often had deadly consequences, a condition described by some informants as “baga hin bibingka (like bibingka),” referring to the method of cooking the popular Filipino rice cake delicacy inside a clay or can oven with fire from above and below. The study also argues that this center-periphery conflict was rooted in Leyte’s precolonial past as well during over three centuries of Spanish rule and the almost half-century of American rule which preceded the brief Japanese Occupation.

The Journal of History, 2009

This paper revisits the previously studied Pulahan Movement in Samar by tracing its origins in pr... more This paper revisits the previously studied Pulahan Movement in Samar by tracing its origins in previous movements in the island and examining the different factors that contributed to its outbreak. For primary sources, it will mainly use the standard Annual Reports of the Philippine Commission, supplemented with more recent scholarship on the history of Samar. In using American sources, the "cracks in the parchment curtain" approach developed by William Henry Scott (1982) will be used to ferret out the general features of the movement which could help explain some of the motivations stated by captured Pulahanes. It will argue that the devastation left by the Philippine-American War in Samar, where the Balangiga Attack of 1901 provoked a retaliatory campaign by the U.S. military which broke the economic backbone of the island, played a key role in agitating the island's interior-dwellers, the people who suffered the most from the war and its aftermath, into a crusade to eliminate their perceived oppressors and to establish a new social order.

The Journal of History, Apr 27, 2008

The Pulahan Movement was a wide-ranging armed religious movement that surfaced in the major islan... more The Pulahan Movement was a wide-ranging armed religious movement that surfaced in the major islands of the Visayas after U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt declared the end of the Philippine-American war (known then as the Philippine Insurrection) on July 4, 1902. Its core leaders were mainly Dios-Dios millenarians who had been soldiers during this war but who refused to surrender along with their officers and comrades-in-arms. Joined by new followers – either willingly or through coercion – they waged war against the Americans and their native collaborators for a period far longer than the duration of the Philippine-American war that officially lasted from February 1899 to July 1902. This paper provides a descriptive account of the Pulahan Movement in the Province of Leyte. It begins by determining the possible roots of the Leyte Pulahanes in the older religious movements of the Eastern Visayas Region. It then reconstructs the conditions in Leyte prior to the Pulahan outbreak and looks into the character and motivations of the Leyte Pulahanes by examining the developments in the province between 1902 and 1907.

in Gregory Button and Mark Schuller (eds.) Contextualizing Disasters,, 2016

Thesis Chapters by George Emmanuel Borrinaga

Ph.D. Dissertation (University of Hull), 2019

The study sheds light on local responses to 2013’s Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, then the stronge... more The study sheds light on local responses to 2013’s Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, then the strongest storm to make landfall, by examining the local history and culture of the people of Samar and Leyte, Philippines, the area worst affected by the storm’s strong winds and storm surges. It linked contemporary responses to the typhoon with the ways people in the region had historically coped with frequent adversity in one of the most environmentally-hazardous countries in the world and one that had also experienced centuries of foreign occupations and internal social conflict.

Through a historical and cultural analysis of various written and oral sources, the study identifies local concepts and practices that helped to generate what has been called “community resilience” against various forms of crises across several generations. Previous studies in Philippine history have mainly focused on the emergence of Filipino nationalism from centuries of colonial rule while ethnographic studies on the Philippines have mainly concentrated on local practices and beliefs without establishing their historicity. As a result, little headway has been gained in understanding the cultural tenacity of various Philippine ethnolinguistic groups in the face of frequent crises. This study sought to bridge this gap by linking the two fields to explore people’s responses to social and environmental adversity.

The study argues that people in Samar and Leyte coped with frequent hardship in part by appropriating the colonial (Bisaya-Christiano), national (Filipino) and migrant (Waray) identities imposed on them by outsiders. These labels evoked local solidarities that, although transformed by factors such as colonialism and out-migration, gave them several rallying points for collective action. The study ultimately suggests that understanding resilience cannot be achieved through quantitative methods alone but should be complemented with qualitative approaches that take into account the local history, culture, and environment of the study area/s under consideration.

Teaching Documents by George Emmanuel Borrinaga

Tinig UK, 2020

In this article, I examine folk songs from the islands of Samar and Leyte that provide glimpses i... more In this article, I examine folk songs from the islands of Samar and Leyte that provide glimpses into the Cebuano- and Waray-speaking peoples’ sentiments about Rizal and what he stood for at the turn of the 20th century.