We know from Philippine history that the few people sent by Spain to colonize our land and its inhabitants made skillful use of the divide and conquer rule.
A house divided cannot stand, and they knew it. So they brainwashed the Filipinos’ hearts and minds so that, for instance, Ilocanos would scoff at Pampangueños and Bulaqueños, Manileños would have bad blood for Caviteños, Tagalogs would have contempt for Bicolanos and Visayans, Ilonggos would feel superior to Boholanos and Cebuanos, the mestizos would treat brown natives like trash, the privileged high society would have nothing to do with the masses, and the masses themselves would pull down their own kind if any one ever attempted to move up the social ladder.
What for?
Control, brothers and sisters. Control. The erstwhile masters knew that sooner or later, people would complain of the way they were treated and attempt to rebel. They knew that when people are divided, they could not set up a solid opposition group and any plan to rebel would just die a natural death because whoever would lead them had to fight among themselves first. No cause for worry, everything under control.
As the divisive mentality was passed from generation to generation over hundreds of years, time came when there was no need for brainwashing anymore. Divisiveness had become a culture. It ran in the blood of every Filipino.
The wave of foreign invaders who came in after the Spanish instruders had little trouble putting the Philippines under their control. All they had to do was to use the natural divisiveness of the Filipinos to work against Filipinos. Remember the rift between the forces of Andres Bonifacio and Emilio Aguinaldo? Remember the traitors who squealed on the identities of Filipino guerillas during the Japanese occupation in World War II?
We are not under foreign domination anymore. At least not directly.
Today we look like a democracy, and we have (shiver) what Manuel L. Quezon calls “a country run like hell by Filipinos”. Uh-oh, that’s too strong; let me soften it. We have a government that’s poorly managed.
Why is this so?
The one big reason is: we unintentionally elected the wrong public officials by our own lack of agreement over basic things.
For example, some of us care about the quality of candidates for public office, but a great many don’t. Some go into intelligent discussion of the issues that need to be addressed by political candidates, but a great many don’t care at all. Some exercise their right of suffrage, but a great many sell it. Some are not impressed by road construction or repair projects undertaken by incumbent elected officials a few months before election period to make up for years of neglect during their term of office, but a great many fall for it.
Election time or not, majority of our present-day politicians use the tried and tested divide and conquer rule of long ago in order to maintain control and to preserve their power and influence. As we can see, they do get away with it most of the time.
Therefore, divide and conquer is evil. Right?
Not necessarily.
