No.70 AUTUMN 2014

Contents
004

Editorial

005

Marking a Turn: Thoughts on a Generation ofPhilippine Scholarship
Professor Resil B. Mojares

009

Religion, Sacrifice and Transnational Laborin the Philippines
Julius Bautista

012

Bushido, Genro and Murayama: Japanese
Influences on a Philippine Strategic Thinker
Marites D. Vitug

015

A Non-nationalist National History?
Lisandro E. Claudio

016

Interview with Fujita Koichi
Chief Editor of Southeast Asian Studies (SEAS)

018

Fellows

019

Publications

020

Library022

Visual Documentary Project 2014

Editorial
In this issue we bring together a group of scholars who are dedicated to Philippine Studies. In March
2014, CSEAS hosted the Philippines Studies Conference in Japan (PSCJ) and over 140 scholars
traveled to the Center to participate in an unprecedented gathering here in Kyoto. Under the theme“Emerging Philippines: New Frontiers, Directions, Contributions” the conference brought together
scholars from across the disciplines to discuss and rethink Philippine politics, economy, society andculture in historical, contemporary, comparative, regional and transnational terms. It offered an
unparalleled chance to introduce to Filipino scholars the Japanese scholarship in the Philippines andcreated an important networking platform for young Filipino scholars many of whom traveled toJapan for the first time.
Also, in April, Professor Kono Yasuyuki succeeded Professor Shimizu Hiromu as the new Director
for CSEAS. Under his leadership CSEAS will continue to address issues affecting the region by
drawing upon the Center’s knowledge and evidence-oriented approach to research and fieldwork.
Ultimately over the coming years, CSEAS will engage in theory-building and promote perspectives
that are attuned to the exigencies arising from Southeast Asia and that are capable of being refinedand shared across regions.
In this newsletter, Emeritus Professor Resil Mojares presents us with a nuanced overview of the stateof Philippine Studies and asks us to consider a deeper appreciation of the Philippines in the worldthat makes greater use of the scholarship now being done in Japan, Spain and other nations (as wellas that done in the U.S.). Julius Bautista (soon to join CSEAS faculty) shares with us his research
conducted on Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) and provides us with a detailed reading of an“economy of sacrifice.” Marites Vitug offers us an introduction to ongoing research she isconducting on the Japanese influences on Jose Almonte, a retired general and national security
advisor to the former Philippine President Fidel Ramos. Finally, Lisandro E. Claudio, a researcher
based at CSEAS offers an overview of research for a book that will attempt to deal with theparadoxes of writing a history of the Philippines from a non-national perspective.
CSEAS has been making progress for the inaugural international conference that will held in Kyoto
in December 2015. The secretariat received nearly 800 applications from over 260 institutions from28 countries. This level of interest is indicative of the need for a Consortium based in Southeast Asiaand a testament to the desire for people to share research knowledge within the framework of a
rapidly evolving region. CSEAS is also making preparations for its 50th anniversary which it willcelebrate back to back with our conference in 2015. CSEAS is the oldest and most well provisioned
Center dedicated to Southeast Asian Studies in Japan and has continuously pioneered
interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary issues of academic concern that the region faces. We
NEWSLETTER

very much look forward to the events that will be held at the Center to commemorate this historical
milestone.

No. 70The Editors

004

Marking a Turn:Thoughts on a Generationof Philippine Scholarship
Professor Resil B. Mojares

I

Conjunctures in Recent Philippine History005

In 1970s Philippines, widespread disillusion with thestate in the context of a deepening economic andpolitical crisis was marked, for instance, by the violent elections of 1969, regarded at the time as themost degraded and corrupt in Philippine history.
Vicente Rafael calls this period “the long 1970s,” bywhich he means the Marcos years, from 1965 to1986.2 The paradox of this period is that, beyond its
political stereotyping as “the dark years of the dictatorship,” it is in fact one of the most intellectually
dynamic periods in Philippine history. One can cite
several reasons for this: that the largely unprecedented experience of martial rule (“the years of living
dangerously,” both in fantasy and reality) was notjust stultifying but mentally fertilizing as well; that
Marcos was our most intellectually-minded president
and that could not but invite an intellectual response;that Marcos authoritarianism was not, after all, thehegemonic kind that existed, for instance, in Central
European states; or that Filipinos are equipped witha large reserve of survival skills, adept at creating
spaces of autonomy under conditions of restriction
and repression.3 However one will explain it, the fact
is that the long 1970s was, in creative terms, truly an“interesting” time.
A great deal has been written on how the Marcoses
sought to exploit the mystifying power of culture andthe arts through patronage, state institutions, andother instrumentalities. But the most important initiatives were undertaken outside state circuits. As
Rafael narrates of his own intellectual formation in
Manila in the late martial-law period, disaffection andrisk-taking fueled a great deal of excitement and creativity in popular music, theater, and cinema, as wellas the informal sites and networks of artistic andintellectual exchange.4 Many of these initiatives werelinked to the anti-Marcos opposition but many

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

f there is the sense that Philippine studies is taking
a “turn,” we have to ask where it has been before
asking where it is going. The question of where Filipino scholars have been came to me a few months
ago when I was asked to write the introduction to a
festschrift for the country’s leading theater scholar,
Nicanor Tiongson (Chua et al. forthcoming). This reminded me that we are indeed in a time of commemorations. This started sometime back, with thefestschrifts for William Henry Scott, Doreen Fernandez,
and Fr. John Schumacher, and it has ominously
heightened, with similar tributes to the contributionsof scholars like Soledad Reyes and Isagani Cruz.
And last year, Ateneo de Manila had commemorative
events on the works of Reynaldo Ileto and Vicente
Rafael.1
Thinking about Nic Tiongson reminded me that
Nic and I belong to the same generation (the men
and women who set out to be writers and scholars at
the end of the 1960s), and that it is a generation
coming to a close. And that while we can rightly (ifimmodestly) claim that it has been one of the mostvibrant and productive generations in the country’s
intellectual history, it is not quite clear what its work
has amounted to (I am thinking here of the social
sciences and the humanities although I imagine thisclaim can be extended). What has been gained,
missed, left unclarified or unfulfilled? And what dothese suggest of directions, new or renewed, that
Philippine scholarship can or should take?

NEWSLETTER
No. 70006(Rafael says) were simply “conjunctural and contingent,” as well as “counter-cultural,” ambivalent intheir relation to authority whether that of the Marcos
government or the Communist Party. In any case,they nurtured and preserved that space of creativity
and autonomy that is largely unacknowledged(because of the focus on the “event” of the Benigno
Aquino assassination) as the cultural groundwork forthe 1986 “People Power” uprising.
By the late 1980s, after “People Power,” the moodbecame less polarized and more pluralist. There wasa great deal of intellectual excitement with the socalled “opening up of democratic space,” and muchinterest in providing the new government of Corazon
Aquino and a newly-self-conscious “civil society”
with the academic and intellectual support for the
post-authoritarian transition to democracy. But thesituation also became more diffuse and fragmented,
with the flourishing of new Western theories and thediversification of scholarship, with the interest (often
sector-bound) in such fields as gender, migration,and in particular foreign aid-driven development
studies.
In the above context, as the sociologists Virginia
Miralao and Cynthia Bautista see it, Philippine studies moved “from polarization to pluralism and convergence.” Greater tolerance and dialogue among
different perspectives tempered the rabid ideologicaland factional partisanships of the 1970s, and there
has been a convergence of methodologies as scholars attempt integrative discourses that cut acrossdisciplines. This assessment is rather generous
since one can point to countervailing facts as well:much scholarship remains discipline- or subjectbound, with little conversation across disciplines;
much empirical research, unenergized by fresh theoretical perspectives, remains dreary and unimaginative; and theoretically-smart studies are frequently
empirically thin (subsisting, like orchids, on air rather
than grown out of the rich loam of local data andknowledge).
Still, it can be said that Filipino scholarship has
truly come into its own. The past half-century in thePhilippines has witnessed the expansion and diversification of academic disciplines, advances in the volume, range, and quality of research and publishing;
the emergence of academic professional societies
and research institutions, and by implication a larger,
more diverse community of scholars and academics.5
One can, for instance, compare two state-of-thefield assessments of Philippine studies, one done in
the 1970s by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies
of Northern Illinois University (NIU) in the US and theother in the 1990s by the Philippine Social Science
Council (PSSC).6 Separated by some 20 years, theNIU and PSSC reports are not quite comparable

because of the particular circumstances of their production, yet the differences are nevertheless telling.
The NIU assessments, produced primarily as guidefor American researchers in the field, are almost
entirely written by Americans and mostly cover
English-language works. On the other hand, the
PSSC volumes, addressed primarily to Filipinos inthe self-conscious context of celebrating national
scholarship, are done by Filipinos. The NIU reportsof the 1970s leave the impression of an Americandominated field. In a list, for instance, of 47 “major”
works in Philippine historiography between 1955
and 1976, 23 were authored by Americans, 20 by
Filipinos, 3 Spaniards, and 1 Australian. Of the 20
Filipino works cited, eight were US dissertations. And
31 of the 47 works were published in the US.7 On theother hand, the PSSC reports of the 1990s, simply
by the sheer density of their content, clearly indicatethat the field’s center of gravity has shifted from the
US to the Philippines (assuming that it was ever in
the US in the first place).
Impact on Scholarship
Unlike popular forms like cinema and theater, orsuch types of intellectual work as policy studies,action-oriented research, journalism, or polemical
writings, the impact of much scholarship is rarely
direct and dramatic, and much more difficult to trace
and assess.
In their overview of Philippine studies, Miralao andBautista cite Marxism and the “indigenous movement” as the two major themes of social sciencescholarship in the 1970s and 1980s (and this canwell be said of the humanities as well). 8 These
themes can be viewed as expressions of the muchbroader current of “nationalism”––a word that I use
here as shorthand for what is in fact a variously conceived and contested idea, as well as the heated
context in which it played out in the Philippines. The
paradox is that while nationalism is the engine ofscholarship of “the long ‘70s,” it is also one thatbiased and constrained the scholarship of theperiod.
This was the case with studies in local history
and regional literatures. Stimulated by the populardemocratic sentiments of the 1970s and subsequentefforts at decentralization after 1986, these studies
were driven by the hope of redefining the nation as
one more inclusive, people-centered, and broadly
based.9 These studies, it can be said, helped createa more inclusive awareness of the country’s regionalor subnational units, and an understanding of thenational literature and history geographically wider
and empirically thicker.
But whether “significantly new,” I am not too sure.

While there are exemplary exceptions, much of thework in historical and literary studies has remained
distinctly “local.” There are very few cross-regional,
cross-national, and integrative studies, little direct,
critical engagement with established conceptions of
the “nation” or its constituent units, and a low level oftheorization, such that much work in this area (assome have complained) does not significantly reconfigure the familiar, dominant national narratives.10
Nationalism and Certain Tendencies“Toward a More Expansive Approach”
We have been asked “to think ourselves beyond thenation.” 11 Such thinking need not mean we now
begin to do transnational or post-national studies.
My own proposal is quite modest and proceeds fromwhat has already been accomplished. We can begin
by deepening our appreciation for the “world” withinthe “nation,” by investigating the linkages, connections, and correspondences that extend beyond theterritorial borders of the nation and its localities, byundertaking more comparative and multi-site studies, or by simply making greater use of “world”
scholarship in better understanding the nation andits localities. This crucially includes cultivating greaterinterest in studies on the Philippines done in Japan,
Spain, the United States (unavoidably), and otherplaces, not only for how these studies augment oraffirm what we know about ourselves but, more
importantly, because these studies––with the particular advantages of their location––can do things wecannot do and see what we do not quite see.
As a “home scholar,” I fully appreciate the tremendous constraints in a more expansive approach toPhilippine studies (constraints that include opportunities to do research outside one’s locality, or evensimple access to information resources). That is why
when we speak of accumulating and building intellectual resources, we mean not just the mental but
the material as well––in terms of the infrastructure foreducation and scholarship, like research support
institutions, publishing houses, and a large andactive community of readers, scholars, and writers.
There is a measure of bad faith in urging a country
that has been colonized by foreign powers to “globalize,” since by definition a nation colonized is globalized. Ultimately, the imperative lies in whether it isbeing globalized in ways that people are criticallyaware of, and in terms that they can effectively negotiate with or command.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University
007

One of the tendencies of nationalism is the readinessto take the nation as a given and thus address oneself to simply inscribing into the received narrative
the marginalized and the excluded without criticallyinterrogating or revising the form and logic of thisnarrative (as Reynaldo Ileto has argued). Another isthe tendency to essentialize the nation––whether
strategically or not––in the struggle to define it assomething other than what dominant discourses(whether that of the elite, the authoritarian state, orthe “West”) have claimed it to be. Thus, there is thepredisposition to short-circuit or gloss over internalsocial divisions and disjunctures to claim the authority of what is unitary, organic, and encompassing.
Related to the privileging of the “nation” is theprivileging of the “popular.” While the bias in favor of
the marginal and the excluded was a necessary one,it also occasioned gaps in research, a bias for certain research problems (particularly in history andanthropology) that left subjects of privilege andpower relatively unexamined.
In today’s more open, pluralist environment, howcompelling is the idea of “nation”? To what extent
has this obsession been overtaken by the realities of
the country’s prospects for an economic breakthrough, the pressure of globalizing forces that are
redefining ideas of identity, territoriality, and structures of economic and political power?
Indeed, there is quite nothing like “progress”––withthe confidence and cosmopolitanism it brings––
more conducive to an “internationalizing” scholarship. Yet, the country still finds itself mired in the old,
tenacious realities of poverty and inequality, the ruleof predatory elites, large-scale corruption, andchronic natural and man-made disasters. And if
progress internationalizes, there is quite nothing likepoverty and inequality––with the feelings of oppression, dependence, danger, and vulnerability they foster––more conducive for the appeals of nationalism.
The dilemma is not a case of one or the other. My
own sense is that “nationalizing” and “internationalizing” forces in the intellectual field need not be viewed
as antithetical or a case of pre and post, but as partof a simultaneous process. Instead of dichotomies

of global/local, center/periphery, or inside/outside,
we need to hold both in view at the same time without blurring their distinctness or subordinating one tothe other. If studies of local histories, local literatures,and native mentalities have reached a theoreticalimpasse, it is because such studies––in an intellectual form of “protectionism”––have tended to draw
circles around themselves instead of building outwards. While this can be understood as a necessarymode of concentrating and building up local intellectual resources, it has to be done as well in vital conversation with the rest of the world.

NotesSoutheast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University, 1978);
Philippine Studies: Political Science, Economics, and Linguistics (DeKalb: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University, 1981). These volumes collect papers
presented at the 1973 Association for Asian Studies Conference, the 1977 Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, andthe 1980 First International Conference on the Philippines at
Western Michigan University. See The Philippine Social Sciences in the Life of the Nation, ed. V. A. Miralao (Quezon
City: Philippine Social Science Council, 1999). Conceived in
the Fourth National Social Science Congress in Quezon Cityin 1998, as part of the celebration of the Centennial of Philippine Independence. This is a condensed view of the disciplines surveyed in Philippine Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (Quezon City: Philippine Social Science Council,
1993), 5 vols.

This article is adapted from a keynote paper that waspresented at the Philippine Studies Conference inJapan (PSCJ), Center for Southeast Asian Studies,
Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, February 28 – March 1
2014.
1

See Jonathan Chua, ed., Feasts and Feats: Festschrift for
Doreen G. Fernandez (Quezon City: Office of Research andPublications, Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila University,
2000); Jesus T. Peralta, ed., Reflections on Philippine Cultureand History: Festschrift in Honor of William Henry Scott (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2001); Eduardo
Jose Calasanz et al., eds., Thought the Harder, Heart the
Keener: A Festschrift for Soledad S. Reyes (Quezon City:
Office of Research and Publications, Loyola Schools, Ateneode Manila University, 2008); David Jonathan Bayot, ed.,Inter/Sections: Isagani R. Cruz and Friends (Metro Manila:
Anvil Publishing, 2010); “Festschrift in Honor of Fr. John N.
Schumacher, S. J.,” Philippine Studies, 58: 1–2 (2010);[Symposium on Vicente L. Rafael’s Contracting Colonialism
in celebration of the twenty-fifth year of its publication], Philippine Studies, 61: 4 (2013), 477–520. On February 4, 2013,“Historiography and Nation since Pasyon and Revolution:
Conference in Honor of Prof. Reynaldo Ileto” was held at
Ateneo de Manila University, under the sponsorship ofAteneo’s Philippine Studies and Department of History and
Kyoto University’s Southeast Asian Studies.

2

Vicente L. Rafael, “Contracting Colonialism and the Long
1970s,” Philippine Studies, 61: 4 (2013), 477–94.

3

In 2000–01, the US Social Science Research Council’s Southeast Asia Regional Advisory Panel (of which I was a member) organized roundtables in Bandung and Kuala Lumpur,
in which selected scholars from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines narrated how their involvement in a
revolutionary movement influenced their intellectual careers.
What was striking was the difference between the serious,
tense, and inhibited presentations of the Thai, Malaysian,and (to a lesser extent) Indonesian participants, and thecandid but funny and self-deprecatory narrations of the Filipinos. Not that the Filipinos’ “confessions” were devoid of“deep” emotion or less honest, they were (apart from thecontextual differences in the experiences narrated) simply
more skilled in the arts of distancing and detachment.

4

Rafael (Contracting Colonialism and the Long 1970s) cites fivecharacteristics of the developments in what he calls “thelong 1970s” (1965–1986): they were conjunctural and contingent; “counter-cultural”; “modernizing” (in the sense of
consciously seeking to reinvent traditions); “obsessed withthe collection and archiving of artifacts of all sorts”; andcharacterized by a kind of “cosmopolitan nationalism” aswell as “nationalist cosmopolitanism.”
This is illustrated in the founding of the Philippine Political Science Association (1962), Philippine Economic Society(1962), Psychological Association of the Philippines (1963),
Philippine Sociological Society (1963), Linguistics Society of
the Philippines (1969), and Ugnayang Pang-Agham Tao(Anthropological Association of the Philippines) (1977). In
1968, the Philippine Social Science Council was established
as a coordinating body of the country’s social science
associations.

6

Donn V. Hart, ed., Philippine Studies: Geography, Archaeology,
Psychology and Literature: Present Knowledge and Research
Trends (DeKalb: Center for Southeast Asian Studies,
Norhern Illinois University, 1974); Philippine Studies: History,
Sociology, Mass Media and Bibliography (DeKalb: Center for

NEWSLETTER

5

7

Bruce Cruikshank, “Philippine Historiography: Accomplishment and Promise, 1955–1976,” Philippine Studies: History,
Sociology, Mass Media and Bibliography, 1–97.

8

Virginia A. Miralao, “The Philippine Social Sciences in the Balance: Reflections at the Close of the Century,” and Cynthia
Rose B. Bautista, “The Social Sciences in the Philippines:
Reflections on Developments and Prospects,” Philippine
Social Sciences in the Life of the Nation, 344–80, 381–409.

9For early statements for what local historical and literarystudies aimed to accomplish, see John A. Larkin, “The
Place of Local History in Philippine Historiography,” Journalof Southeast Asian History, 8: 2 (September 1967), 317, andBienvenido Lumbera, “The Rugged Terrain of Vernacular
Literature,” Revaluation: Essays on Philippine Literature,
Cinema & Popular Culture (Quezon City: Index, 1984), 103–
115. Lumbera’s essay, an agenda-setting statement onvernacular literary studies, was delivered as a lecture at the
University of San Carlos, Cebu City, in 1976 and first published in 1977. In the case of regional literary studies, see
Resil B. Mojares, “The Rugged Terrain: The State of Literary
Research in the Philippines,” Illumined Terrain: The Sites andDimensions of Philippine Literature, ed. V. N. Sugbo (Manila:
National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 1998), 6–14.

10

Alfred W. McCoy, “Introduction: The Social History of anArchipelago,” Philippine Social History: Global Trade andLocal Transformations, ed. A. W. McCoy and E. C. de Jesus(Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1982),
1–18. Looking beyond local history, McCoy calls for comparative work within and beyond Southeast Asia as well as
studies that are nor necessarily tied to the local/national
axis. This has not quite happened.

11

Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of
Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1996), 158; Umut Ozkarimli, Contemporary Debates on
Nationalism: A Critical Engagement (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005), 195–205.

No. 70008

Religion, Sacrifice and Transnational Laborin the Philippines
Julius Bautista | Former Visiting Researcher CSEAS |Good Friday observance in
Barangay (barrio) San Pedro
Cutud, in San Fernando,
Pampanga, Philippines

I009

references to the “suffering” and “sacrifice” of OFWs.
For these are terms that resonate with a widely
shared cultural and religious idiom in which a Filipino
brand of heroism and idealized constructions ofChrist-like sacrifice are two sides of the same coin.
Aquino’s conflation of economic and soteriologicalreturns of overseas labor is a rhetorical expression ofwhat I would call an “economy of sacrifice.” This is
an ethos that, to be sure, seeks to perpetuate theinward flow of foreign capital through the systematicand sustained deployment of productive transnational agents. Just as significantly, it is a religious
ethic in which the pursuit of capital is seen as a formof both ethical and pious virtue––an association thatis rationalized through rhetorical endorsements ofsacrifice as a positive value. However, as opposed
what Weber (1905) described as a Protestant ethicthat extolls the virtue of frugality and financial reticence, the OFWs are lauded as heroic sufferers ingenerating capital, and are encouraged to partake inmodes of virtuous hyper-consumption. As Aguilar
puts it, this is a form of transnational religious agency
that is sustained by the “balm of commodities andthe consumption of modernity” (1999, 98).
There have been several scholarly works that havediscussed the OFW experience in neoliberal contexts. There has been a strong emphasis on thesocial outcomes and costs of overseas labor, particularly where OFW experiences are conditioned by
specific ideological notions of Filipino race and gender (Aguilar et al., 2009; Choy 2003; Constable 1997;
2007; Guevarra 2010; McKay 2013; Ong 2006;
Parreñas 2008; 2001; Pertierra 1992; Tyner 2000).
Other works have highlighted the process in which

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto Universityn April, 1988, the then Philippine President Corazon
Aquino stood before Overseas Filipino Workers(OFW) in Hong Kong’s Saint Margaret’s Church toassure them of her government’s assurance of absolute support for their welfare. “It is not only your relatives who are grateful for your sacrifices,” she said,“but also the entire nation.” For indeed OFWs were
not merely overseas workers. She called them“bagong bayani,”—the “modern-day heroes” of thenation who, through the economic benefits generated
by their “sacrifices” are ensuring the very survival of
the Philippine nation itself (PMS 1992). In December
1990, the President herself officiated the ceremonies
for the Bagong Bayani awards, delivering a speechthat again commemorated the sacrifice (pagsasakripisyo) and suffering (pagmamalasakit) of the
OFW. In that speech, bagong bayani were explicitly
lauded for the economic returns of their efforts, giving the distinct impression that the beneficiary of the
OFWs sacrifice was “above all, the economy” (Tigno
2012, 25–26).
Historians Vicente Rafael (2000) and Reynaldo
Ileto (1998) have argued that the discourse of heroism in the Philippines is not simply premised on a
notion of organic patriotism per se, but built upon theexample of a pantheon of nationalist-martyrs like
Jose Rizal and, significantly, Aquino’s own late husband, Ninoy. These were individuals whose lives, asRafael put it, “merge into a single narrative framethat harked back to the themes of the [Passion of
Christ] ... of innocent lives forced to undergo humiliation at the hands of alien forces” (2000, 211). It
makes sense, then, that many Heads of State sinceCorazon Aquino have made constant and frequentNEWSLETTER
No. 70010

state policies on labor migration craft, and in someways compel, specific commitments to the nation inspite of OFW dislocation (Franco 2011; Hau 2004;
Rodriguez 2006; 2010; Tadiar 2009; Weekly 2004).
Relatively fewer works have gone into great detailabout how the Filipino remittance economy is an
inflection of religious agency, particularly among men.
In spite of the rich scholarlship, more work needs tobe conducted on this theme in the same vein as thecontributions of McKay (2011) and Pinggol (2001),
who have analyzed the “re-masculinization” of OFW
heroism, and that of Aguilar (1999), Johnson andWerbner (2010) and Lopez (2012), who consider the
OFW experience with respect to the affective andreligious aspects that condition socio-economic
motivations.
A positive step in this direction is to unpack thediscursive conditions that undergird the idiom of
OFW hero-martyrdom. Firstly, one could argue thatthe extent to which an economy of sacrifice can resonate with a religious idiom of Christ-like martyrdom
relies upon the state’s ability to obfuscate its ownrole in contributing to the volatility of transnational
work, as well its failure to mitigate the need for labor
export in the first place (Franco 2011; Tadiar 2009;
Tyner 2000). This, in turn, is premised upon the
promulgation of a discourse in which the casualties
of overseas deployment are valorized as the paragon of the highest civic and pious virtues. Roman
Catholic institutions in the Philippines play a crucialrole in legitimizing the state’s neoliberal discourse byfurther infusing the ideal of modern-day heroism with
notions of Christ-like martyrdom. This infusion, typically through official pastoral letters and publishedbishop statements, forms the ideological basis for a
discourse that valorizes the bodies of victimized
transnational agents as “fallen martyrs.” In the discursive linkage of remittance capital to both immediate and transcendent reward, the economy of sacrifice is packaged as new space on which OFWs canchannel all sorts of nationalistic and pious agencies.
In this way, the Church institution and the state in thePhilippines depict the necessary demands and contingencies of global capital as coterminous with thesoteriological ideal of Christian salvation.
It can also be argued, secondly, that the economy
of sacrifice is sustained not just through a conflationof patriotism and martyrdom but through actual corporeal regimes as well. This occurs as part of a process of “labor brokerage” which, following Guevarra(2010) and Rodriguez (2010), refers to the activities
of non-governmental institutions working in concert
with the state in molding OFW bodies into productive
economic units. This involves, among other things,
the regimented implementation of body techniquesin the process of pre-departure training, throughwhich OFWs have been trained to deploy certain
ethical and moral values about Christian selfeffacement and humility onto translational domains.
Such programs are designed to enhance the exportcompetitiveness of Filipino OFWs, fashioning theminto transnational agents who have been trained toexternalize moral values and comportments of docility and subservience in the pursuit of overseas work.
It is, as Foucault has put it, an “investment of thebody, its valorization, and the distributive management of its forces” (1977, 138) towards the cultivationof what I would term “export-quality martyrs”––agentsof transnational capital whose tradable labor power
is premised upon their embodiment of Christian virtues of willing, servile obedience.
Thirdly, the effectiveness of these investments ofthe body is, to an extent, contingent upon the process in which OFWs have looked to their ritual acts
as a distinct arena of corporeal and sentimental selffashioning, both before and during the pursuit ofoverseas employment. Ritual is a way of crafting
modern selfhoods and a source of courage,
strength, perseverance and fortitude for OFWs. Thisis the case among OFW men who have engaged inHoly Week Passion rituals of self-mortification in theprovince of Pampanga. These rituals, which include
the performance of self-flagellation and nailing by awide range of Roman Catholic devotees (both men
and women), are ways in which Kapampangan
OFWs channel modes of empathy (darame), not onlywith Christ, but with relatives, friends and others. It isin having actually embodied Christ’s own Passionthat ritual flagellants confront an export economy thatis rationalized by rhetorical pronouncements aboutsacrifice and suffering. To the extent that the rituals
channel those virtues of humility and self-effacementthat are resonant in the disciplinary regimes of labor
brokerage, self-mortifiers embody have shown thatrituals of pain infliction in the Philippines are not justanachronistic imitations of medieval piety, but acts
constitutive of modern selfhoods. Through their ritual
agencies, OFWs craft a sense of reiliance and perseverance in transnational domains, even while they
are encouraged, by the state, the Church and its
brokers, to accept the potentially fatal consequencesof their economic roles.
Concluding Notes
I do not argue that all OFWs are effectively selfmortifiers, or that participating in the economy ofsacrifice is physically tantamount to ritual pain infliction. However, I do argue that the mechanisms of thestate, the Church and Roman Catholic passion rituals are similar in that they are arenas in which transnational labor power is cultivated as modes of reli-gious agency. Both the process of labor brokeringand the rituals of self-mortification are disciplinary
regimes that construe the body as both the object
and vehicle for the cultivation of ethical and pious
dispositions. In this sense, we can place Corazon
Aquino’s statements about bagong bayani into a more
ethnographically nuanced perspective. In the pursuitof overseas labor, OFWs craft their own modern religious subjectivities. In this sense, their responsiveness to a political economy that monetizes theirlabor power cannot simply be reduced to a mere
susceptibility to the state’s rhetorical claims, nor canit be explained exclusively as a pursuit of economic
rationalism.

McKay, Steven. 2011. Re-masculinizing the Hero: Filipino
Migrant Men and Gender Privilege. Asia Research InstituteWorking Paper Series No. 172.
Ong, Aihwa. 2006 Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty. Durham: Duke University Press.
Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar. 2001. Servants of Globalization:
Women, Migration and Domestic Work. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
————. 2008. The Force of Domesticity: Filipina Migrants andGlobalization. New York: New York University Press.
Pertierra, Raul, ed. 1992. Remittances and Returnees: The Cultural Economy of Migration in Ilocos. Quezon City: New Day
Publishers.
Pinggol, Alicia. 2001. Remaking Masculinities: Identity, Power,
and Gender Dynamics in Families with Migrant Wives andHousehusbands. Quezon City: UP Center for Women’sStudies.

References

Rafael, Vicente L. 2000. White Love: And Other Events in Filipino
History. Durham: Duke University Press.

Aguilar, Filomeno. 1999. Ritual Passage and the Reconstructionof Selfhood in International Labour Migration. Sojourn 14(1):98–139.

Republic of the Philippines Presidential Management Staff(PMS). 2002. The Aquino Management of the Presidency:
Her People’s Emissary. Manila: Office of the President of thePhilippines.

Aguilar, Filomeno; Peñalosa, John; Liwanag, Tania; Cruz, Resto;and Melendrez, Jimmy. 2009. Maalwang Buhay: Family,
Overseas Migration, and Cultures of Relatedness in Barangay Paraiso. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University
Press.
Bagong Bayani Foundation Official Website (BBF). Bagong
Bayani Foundation Inc.: Paying Tribute to OFWs. http://www.
bbfi.com.ph/about-us/ (Accessed 15 April, 2014).
Choy, Ceniza. 2003. The Empire of Care. Quezon City: Ateneode Manila University Press.
Constable, Nicole. 1997. Sexuality and Discipline among Filipina Domestic Workers in Hong Kong. American Ethnologist
24(3): 539–558.
————. 2007. Maid to Order in Hong Kong. Stories of MigrantWorkers, 2nd edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Franco, Jean. 2011. The Politics of Language in Labor Export:
A Discourse Historical Analysis of Bagong Bayani and Overseas Employment Policies. Ph.D. dissertation, Departmentof Political Science, University of the Philippines.
Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the
Prison. New York: Pantheon Press.
Guevarra, Anna Romina. 2010. Marketing Dreams, Manufacturing Heroes the Transnational Labor Brokering of Filipino
Workers. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Ileto, Reynaldo Clemeña. 1998. Filipinos and Their Revolution:
Event, Discourse, and Historiography. Quezon City: Ateneode Manila University Press.
Johnson, Mark; and Werbner, Pnina. 2010. Introduction. Diasporic Encounters, Sacred Journeys: Ritual, Normativity andthe Religious Imagination among International Asian Migrant
Women. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 11 (3-4):
205–218.
Lopez, Mario. 2012. Progressive Entanglements: Religious Intimacy in Japanese-Filipino Marriages. Philippine Studies:
Ethnographic and Historical Viewpoints 60(2): 261–90.

Tadiar, Neferti X. M. 2009. Things Fall Away: Philippine Historical
Experience and the Makings of Globalization. Durham: Duke
University Press.
Tigno, Jorge. 2012. Agency by Proxy: Women and the Human
Trafficking Discourse in the Philippines. In Labour Migrationand Human Trafficking in Southeast Asia, edited by Michelle
Ford, Lyons Lenore, and Willem van Schendel. Oxford and
New York: Routledge.
Tyner, James. 2000. Migrant Labour and the Politics of Scale:
Gendering the Philippine State. Asia Pacific Viewpoint 41:
131–154.
Weber, Max. 2002 [1905]. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit ofCapitalism. Los Angeles: Roxbury.
Weekley, Kathleen. 2004. Saving Pennies for the State? A New
Role for Filipino Migrant Workers. Journal of Contemporary
Asia 34(3): 349–364.

011

McKay, Dierdre. 2013. The Virtual Village: Coping with a Global
World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Rodriguez, Robyn Magalit. 2010. Migrants for Export: How thePhilippine State Brokers Labor to the World. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Hau, Caroline S. 2004. On the Subject of the Nation: Filipino
Writings from the Margins, 1981-2004. Quezon City: Ateneode Manila University Press.

Rodriguez, Robyn. 2006. Migrant Heroes: Nationalism, Citizenship and the Politics of Filipino Migrant Labor. CitizenshipStudies 6 (3): 341–356.

Bushido, Genro and Murayama:
Japanese Influences on a Philippine
Strategic Thinker
Marites D. Vitug
Former Visiting Researcher CSEAS
and Editor-at-Large of Rappler

Photo taken during interviews for the book, 2013 and early 2014 (Photo by Riziel Cabreros)W

NEWSLETTER
No. 70012

hen Jose Almonte, a retired general, was national security adviser to President Fidel
Ramos, among the gifts he received was a Japaneseknife used for ritual suicide. Some Japanese friends
gave it to him as a souvenir. Almonte took a liking toit; he displayed it in his office, behind his large desk,
greeting guests as they met with him. John McBeth,a reporter from the Far Eastern Economic Review
who interviewed him at the time, saw it “sitting incongruously among three painted portraits of Jesus
Christ.” McBeth apparently asked him about the­distinct gift and Almonte laughed and said he could“not imagine the circumstances that might tempt him
to turn the exquisitely crafted knife on himself.”­Almonte, after all, is a Catholic, far from being anominal one, and a deeply spiritual person.
The Japanese knife is only the glistening tip of theiceberg. Almonte’s life philosophy and thinking havebeen shaped, to a certain degree, by the ideas of
Inazo Nitobe, in his book, Bushido, The Soul of Japanand the vision of Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama
for a “human-centered society.” He was also inspiredby the Meiji Restoration and how sweeping changes
washed over Japan during that epic period andstarted the Asian country’s path to modernization.
During the six years that he was in office, from1992 to 1998, Almonte was the architect of strategic
reforms that targeted the Philippine oligarchy, the few
families and members of the business elite that controlled the economy and invested in national poli-

tics—by bankrolling election campaigns of presidents and lawmakers—to keep the status quo. The
Ramos government pried open business monopolies, from telecommunications to inter-island shipping and liberalized trade, among others.
Since Almonte was the leader of Ramos’s brain
trust, the President’s closest adviser, and since hespoke openly against the “irresponsible elite” andthe oligarchs, he was a favorite target of criticism. He
was the most controversial public official of theRamos administration and the most demonized by
the media, many of which were owned by big business, threatened by the changes.
My research project at the Center for Southeast
Asian Studies, from April to September 2014 focusedon the life of Almonte. I have completed the manuscript on his memoirs as told to me, a journalist. The
book is scheduled to be published in the Philippines
early next year. In this project, I sought to answer
questions on what led Almonte, a solider, an unlikely
policy-maker and reformer, to become a strategic
thinker committed to building a nation of Filipinos
who pride themselves in having dignity and, among
others, strong institutions.
In this essay, I will share a fragment of the influences on Almonte’s mind, centered on Japan,
mostly in his own words, from his own perspective.
My stay here in Kyoto has made me take notice of
this. Perhaps if I were writing this book in Manila,
Almonte’s connection to Japan would not have pre-sented itself as sharply as it did in Kyoto.
A Few Words on Methodology for the Book
Together with my researcher, I interviewed Almonte17 times. These are all recorded on video, each lasting about three hours and all have been transcribed.
Fortunately, Almonte’s memory is still sharp. Ninety
percent of what he has told us checked out. Whenever he said something which I thought was significant, we looked for news clippings and researches
to corroborate his statements, gather more details,
and provide context. We looked for reports quoting
him to check for consistency. We also interviewed
people he had worked with closely to add more substance and color.
Almonte has a long history in government. Before
he became national security adviser, he was in the
Army. He was first assigned to the Sierra Madre,fighting the Huk communist guerillas in the late
1950s. In the 1960s, he was sent to Vietnam as
member of the Philippine Civic Action Group. In
between these, he worked out of Fort Bonifacio as
an Army instructor and in Malacañang as aide to
President Diosdado Magapagal and later, in the
Marcos years, as assistant to Executive Secretary
Alejandro Melchor. After Vietnam, he went on to the
University of the Philippines where he headed a thinktank that worked for President Ferdinand Marcos,
got disillusioned and actively planned and mobilizedgroups to oust him in what became an unexpected
people power revolt in 1986 that caught the world’s
attention. Almonte joined the government of President Corazon Aquino as head of an anti-smuggling
office, and then returned to the Palace where he wasnational security adviser of President Ramos. In all,he has worked with four presidents.
Spiritual Guide

Talking fondly about Bushido, he said:
The search for solutions, both in thought anddeed, has defined my life, guided by my Christianfaith and the Bushido code—knowing what is rightand standing by it, knowing how to live and die,with honor. I did things by instinct, what I believed
was right and I was always ready to accept theconsequences.

It is not difficult to have a strong sense of what iswrong and what is right. Others say that what isright is relative. But I have always believed thatwhen one makes a decision in favor of the people,
the nation, that that is what’s right. Anything that
goes against the people is not right. One of myfavorite passages from the Bushido is how it
defined true courage: “to live when it is right to live
and to die only when it is right to die.”Peoples 2000
The vision and reform program of the Ramos government, which Almonte and his team drafted, wascalled Philippines 2000. Put in the simplest terms
possible, it had two main components: global competitiveness and people empowerment. He involved
government officials as well as civil-society groups
and those from the business community in shaping
this platform.
The core group behind Philippines 2000 continued
to meet even after it was launched. They promoted it
through seminars in various government offices andin the private sector. They became its invisible champions, an informal network of leaders which spreadthe gospel of Philippines 2000 without calling attention to themselves or taking any credit. They werecalled Peoples 2000.
Almonte explained:
This idea of having champions of reform withingovernment was inspired by the Meiji Restoration.
Serafin Talisayon, my deputy, and I had studied
this landmark period in the history of Japan when
feudalism collapsed, leading the way to thecountry’s modernization. The genro, a group ofelder statesmen during the Meiji Restoration,
played a leading role. They occupied important
positions in the bureaucracy and worked with awide network of alliances in various sectors tomake their institutions work. Peoples 2000 was
patterned after the genro.
Nations before us, like Japan, had demonstrated
a way of developing themselves. For every
generation, the challenges are different but each isguided by earlier models such as the Meiji
Restoration. There really is no secret innation-building.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Bushido is one of three books that have served as
Almonte’s spiritual guideposts in his years in public
service. The two others are Mere Christianity by C.S.
Lewis, a former atheist, and Confessions of St.
Augustine by St. Augustine. Now in his 80s, he stillrefers to these books.

The book, Bushido: The Soul of Japan, has
inspired me with a perspective that everything isdefined by only one value: what is right. Courage,
for instance, is giving one’s life if necessary to acause that is right. Loyalty is attachment tosomething, to a vision that is right.

013

the critics saying that I was going to take over eventhe spiritual well-being of the country, that I was
playing God. So when a Japanese leader said it, I
seized the opportunity and added it to our program.
The fundamental assumption of human security ishuman dignity. We can never take this for granted.
When human dignity is threatened, national
security is threatened. When human dignity istransgressed by poverty, heinous crimes, disease,and human rights violations, national security
becomes a common concern.

With President Ramos, 1992–98 (Courtesy of Jose Almonte)

Human Security
Almonte presided over the most extensive remake ofthe office of the national security adviser. The concept of national security was expanded to include
economic and social issues, away from the conventional and narrow thinking that it was only limited todefense and the military. Later, Almonte included
human security in his framework but he did this quietly because of the opposition to what was perceived
as his penchant to extend his military tentacles to thecivilian government.
He was was inspired by Japan Prime Minister
Tomiichi Murayama, who in 1995, addressed theWorld Summit for Social Development and spoke on
his vision of Japan as a “human-centered society.”…in which each individual citizen is treatedequally, endowed with opportunity to fully develop
his or her potential, and enabled to utilize fully hisor her capacity through employment and participation in society….
Murayama stressed this again in a statement during
the 50th anniversary of the United Nations on thesame year.

NEWSLETTER

What is required of us if the United Nations is toplay such a role is that we not limit our concern tothe nation-state level, but that we also focus ourefforts on the well-being of each and every one of“Earth’s citizens.”…Hence a new concept of“human security,” in addition to that of national
security, has emerged as a major challenge for theUnited Nations. This concept, which embraces
respect for the human rights of every citizen on
this earth and protection of each of us frompoverty, disease, ignorance, oppression andviolence, is consonant with my own politicalprinciples….

No. 70Reflecting on this, Almonte said:014

I salute Prime Minister Murayama for pushing this.
I was not brave enough to put it in writing because
I knew I would get so much flak. I could already hear

Valor is Universal
Almonte believes in the value of valor and respects
an enemy who manifests this. He saw this up closein the case of Lt. Hiroo Onoda, the last hold-out of
the former Japanese Imperial Army who surrenderedin 1974 after 29 years of living in the jungle of Mindoro.
Onodo kept faith with the final order given him in
1945 to fight the US forces however long it would
take. Throughout this unimaginably long period,
Onoda survived, kept his rifle intact and evaded thepolice and other search parties.
It was a big story and a planeload of Japanese
reporters came to Manila. By accident, Almonte was
the one designated to escort him to President Marcos
in Malacañang. Onoda was wearing his tattereduniform and an old military cap. He was small andwiry and sported a wispy moustache and a roughbeard. He handed his sword to Marcos who returned
it and told him to keep it—to remind him of his loyalty
and bravery. To finish with some closing words,
Almonte narrated what he saw, which left a lasting
impression:
President Marcos expounded on the theme thatvalor is universal. He cited Onoda as the “highest
symbol of a Japanese soldier fighting for hisemperor and the homeland.” Marcos also
expressed admiration for the Japanese soldiers
whom he had fought for four years.
In his eloquent manner, Marcos said he extended“full and complete pardon to Lt. Onoda for any
violations he may have committed during and after
the war, not only in recognition of his courage but
also in the hope that the world will be able to banwars completely and establish brotherhood
among nations, especially those in Asia.” Hecongratulated the Japanese people and government for having such a gallant soldier.
This idea has stayed with me for many years asmuch as Onoda.
In building a nation, leaders and thinkers are shapedby other countries’ experiences. For Almonte, Japanloomed large as a source of ideas, a fountain of
inspiration.

A Non-nationalist National History?
Lisandro E. Claudio
Researcher CSEAS

C015

the Philippines and its various legal fronts. Unlike
their Western counterparts, Philippine Communists
have been profoundly uncritical of nationalism, manytimes conflating “the nation” with the poor, the downtrodden, and the proletariat. This thinking was largely
a product of the historical work that informed theiractivism. Leftwing historians performed a magic trickin their histories by assuming that the downtrodden
and the marginalized—the victims of colonialism—
were the bearers of a “true” national spirit.
And since the Left—which in other countries challenges nationalism from an internationalist perspective—has a love affair with the nation, who is left tocriticize it? To expose its lapses?
Contrary to the assumptions of the radical nationalists, the nation and the marginalized cannot be
conflated. Take for example the Moros of Mindanao,
who are by any measure one of the most downtrodden people in the Philippines. The Moros—systematic victims of the Philippine state—do not share theanti-Americanism of Manila-based leftists, for America too many of them represents a colonizer more
beneficent and wealthier than Filipinos.
The case of the Muslim Moros is illustrative of abroader phenomenon within the historical profession, one that wishes to deny narratives inconvenientto the development of a unified nationalism. For
while Communists and nationalist historians continue
to complain about the deleterious effects of US
Empire on Philippine sovereignty, the broad masses
wish to seek a better life in America. A recent global
poll revealed that the country that loves the US themost is the Philippines. It took the number one spot,
beating out the US itself, which took second place.
Amid this, the people most wedded to the nationalist project have been elites, from corrupt politicians
seeking political independence to strengthen theirown domestic power to Manila-based academics
who wish to impose a homogenous Tagalog culture
on a diverse country.
What would happen if a national history took nonnational phenomena seriously? Would introducing
these stories to a national history explain contemporary problems better? Perhaps it is the myopia ofprevious histories to have ignored the fragmentary
experiences and thoughts lying within the Philippine
geobody, but outside its discursive terrain.
As yet, I have no answers to these questions. But I
hope to have two productive years to figure things
out.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

an one write a non-nationalist, even anti-­
nationalist, history of the nation? In my two
years as a post-doctoral fellow here at the Center forSoutheast Asian Studies, I will grapple with this paradox by attempting to write that history. In a book coauthored with Patricio N. Abinales, we will explore thesubstrates of Philippine history that have evaded theattention of historians who take the nation for granted. What would Philippine history look like if seen, forinstance, from the perspective of a Sabahan smuggler with a Philippine passport? Or from the perspective of a modernist visual artist whose visions prove
too abstract to represent a specific national identity?
In a way, there is a contradiction in our project, as
writing about the nation affirms it and calls it into
being. Merely writing about a nation is already a formof methodological nationalism.
Traditional national histories have been written for
the nation, and, in telling the story of a country, historians reify its existence. Some even project thenation’s history to times before it emerged, thus turning ancient histories into essential threads of anational narrative. For these historians, the Egypt ofCleopatra is the same as that of Nasser’s and thepeople who built the Parthenon belong to the same
imagined community as those who currently sufferfrom the European financial crisis.
Despite their contributions to national narratives,
however, many historians are distinctly aware of theprovenance of contemporary nations, for it takes
writers aware of the past to grasp what the past constructs. This has, however, not been the case withgeneral introductions to Philippine history.
Early textbooks, written in the wake of Americancolonization, may have been pro-colonial, but they
affirmed the unity of the Philippines and the Filipino
people. In fact, many of these accepted the racialist
assumptions—which can be traced to the historical
work of national hero Jose Rizal—of the Philippines
as being the nation of a “brown” or “Malayan” race.
In the 1960s and 1970s, historians like Teodoro
Agoncillo and Renato Agoncillo began writing radical, anti-colonial histories. This new cohort of nationalist historians foregrounded the corrupting effects ofcolonialism of “Filipino” identity, which turned theminto slaves of American “neocolonialism.”
The radical nationalism of the era was instrumental
in shaping the perspectives of leftwing movements
organizing against the dictatorship of Ferdinand
Marcos, in particular the Maoist Communist Party ofInterview with Fujita Koichi

Chief
Chief Editor
Editor ofof Southeast
Southeast Asian
Asian Studies
Studies (SEAS)(SEAS)CSEAS launched an all-English academic journal,
Southeast Asian Studies as a sister journal of Tonan
Ajia Kenkyu which had been published as a bilingual
quarterly journal since 1963. Southeast Asian Studies
aims to promote excellent, agenda-setting scholarship and provide a forum for dialogue and collaboration both within and beyond the region. Since 2012,43 articles, 2 research reports, and 71 book reviews
have been included. The journal has also publishedthree special issues and one special focus: De-institutionalizing Religion in Southeast Asia, edited by
Kataoka Tatsuki (Vol. 1, No. 3); Upland Peoples in
the Making of History in Northern Continental Southeast Asia, edited by Christian Daniels (Vol. 2, No. 1);
Reconstructing Intra-Southeast Asian Trade, c.1780–
1870: Evidence of Regional Integration under the
Regime of Colonial Free Trade, edited by Sugihara
Kaoru (special focus) (Vol. 2, No. 3); and The Politics
of Technocracy in Southeast Asia, edited by Teresa S.
Encarnacion Tadem, Khoo Boo Teik, and Shiraishi
Takashi (Vol. 3, No. 2).
This spring, Professor Fujita Koichi took over the
position of Chief Editor from Professor Caroline Sy.
Hau who oversaw the transition period and its
launch. Shitara Narumi, managing editor, interviews
Professor Fujita to introduce the journal.
——. As part of the Center for Southeast AsianStudies’ (CSEAS) aim to internationalize and reachout to a larger international audience of scholars andacademics engaged in Southeast Asian Studies, theCenter launched a new English journal in 2012. What
was the major impetus in creating this new international journal?

NEWSLETTER
No. 70016

Fujita: Since 1963 CSEAS had been publishing ourquarterly journal Tonan Ajia Kenkyu (Southeast AsianStudies) until 2011 (Vol. 49) with a total number of
199 issues. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Tonan
Ajia Kenkyu had been a leading journal for Southeast
Asian area studies in Japan as shown by the factthat it has been indexed in Scopus by Elsevier. However, although it was bilingual, accepting English
articles along with Japanese ones, it never achieved
a high level of popularity among foreign scholars
including Southeast Asians, due to its format. As partof our Center’s drive to internationalize we decided

Professor Fujita Koichi Chief Editor of Southeast Asian Studies

to separate the previous journal and launch an allEnglish journal in 2012.
——. What are the journal’s main aims andperspectives?
Fujita: CSEAS has a distinctive characteristic that
separates it from other similar research institutes in
the world. Since its inception, it has been promoting
multidisciplinary area studies for and within Southeast Asia, not only within the humanities and social
sciences, but also the natural sciences. Such a characteristic is becoming more essential in today’s globalizing world where environmental issues jeopardize
human life and survival. Of course, we recognize that
achieving real multidisciplinary studies is no easytask, but we continue to constantly challenge ourselves to do it. In the medium and long term, we are
eager to create a real multidisciplinary and highly
qualified, innovative, and stimulating journal forSoutheast Asian area studies.
——. The journal also welcomes Research Reports.
Can you explain what is the distinction between articles and Research Reports and what kind of manuscripts does the committee expect authors to submit?
Fujita: Research Reports are shorter but fully peerreviewed articles that present original findings from
specific research projects or collaborative researchoutcomes. However, I must emphasize that Research
Reports are not less-quality papers, inferior to articles. We expect Research Reports to present totally
new and innovative ideas or hypotheses. CSEAS has
a long tradition in field science. We believe that realities are much more complex and interesting thanVol. 3 No. 3 December 2014 (Forthcoming)

Open Access Online Journal
All the articles are available on line. You can readarticles in all three major e-book formats: EPUB,
MOBI, PDF. Please visit our site from your smart
phone and/or tablet device, too.

ArticlesThak Chaloemtiarana“Are We Them? Textual and Literary Representations of
the Chinese in Twentieth-Century Thailand”
Piyada Chonlaworn“Contesting Law and Order: Legal and Judicial Reformin Southern Thailand in the Late Nineteenth to Early
Twentieth Century”
Simon Benedikter“Extending the Hydraulic Paradigm: Reunification, State
Consolidation, and Water Control in the Vietnamese
Mekong Delta after 1975”
Trinh Ly Khanh“Trade Union Organizing Free from Employers’
Interference: Evidence from Vietnam”

Research Reports
Mujiburrahman“Islamic Theological Texts and Contexts in Banjarese
Society: An Overview of the Existing Studies”
Ian G. Baird“Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation (REDD) and Access and Exclusion:
Obstacles and Opportunities in Cambodia and Laos”

Book Reviews——. Looking back to the inaugural issue publishedin 1963, the very first article in Tonan Ajia Kenkyu
offered a stimulating discussion on the definition of“area studies” within a Japanese context. Fifty years
have passed since then and the field has evolved.
How do you perceive present day area studies?

Fujita: So far I have emphasized the importance of
academic innovativeness. We accept all kinds ofmanuscripts from all over the world, if they are
related to Southeast Asian area studies. Please do
not hesitate to submit your manuscripts to our newjournal. By submitting your manuscripts to us you will
receive high-quality feedback through our rigorous
referee system. We look forward to all futuresub­missions.

017

Fujita: Contrary to my expectations, the percentage
of stimulating and innovative papers seems to be
decreasing. There are many factors contributing tothis which are beyond our control. But I believe thatthe raison d’être of CSEAS lies in providing new
ideas and perspectives by breaking the barriers of——. Could you offer some advice to scholars whoplan to submit their articles to Southeast AsianStudies?

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

existing theories. Thus the aim is to create new theories from the ground through a birds’ eye view. We
place more weight on unsophisticated but stimulating papers rather than sophisticated but conventional ones.

existing disciplines. Area studies offer a good potential to such a necessary task in the present world andJapan.

Fellows
Visiting Research Fellows, Visiting Researchers, andVisiting Project Researchers at CSEAS
Each year CSEAS accepts applicants about 14
positions for scholars and researchers who work on
Southeast Asia, or any one of the countries in that
region, to spend 3 to 12 months in Kyoto to conduct
research, write, or pursue other scholarly activities inconnection with their field of study. Since 1975, morethan 330 distinguished scholars have availed themselves of the Center’s considerable scholarly
resources and enjoyed the invigorating atmosphereof scenic Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan and themain repository of the country’s cultural treasures, topursue their interests in Southeast Asian Area Studies. The Center’s multi-disciplinary character and thediverse research interests of its faculty offer visiting
scholars an ideal opportunity for the exchange ofideas and the cultivation of comparative perspectives. The highly competitive selection process hasbrought to the Center in recent years researchers
from Southeast Asian countries, Bangladesh, China,
Korea, and western countries including the UnitedStates and France. The visiting fellows represent various basic disciplines in their study of Southeast Asia,and their official posts in their home institutions
Name

Periodinclude teacher, researcher, librarian, journalist, andNGO worker. Information and Technology (IT) experts
who conduct research on Southeast Asia are also
joining the Center, not only to manage various database systems but also to construct academic networks for area study throughout the world. Successful applicants receive an appropriate stipend to coverinternational travel, housing, and living expenses in
Kyoto. Research funds will also be provided to facilitate his/her work. Funds will also be allocated fordomestic travel, subject to government regulations,and a number of other facilities are available to visiting scholars. Fellows will be expected to reside in
Kyoto for the duration of their fellowship period. Fellows are normally invited to deliver a public lectureduring their term at the Center and encouraged tosubmit an article for possible publication in the Center’s journal, Southeast Asian Studies and to contribute to the online journal Kyoto Review of Southeast
Asia. CSEAS also received researchers, both Japanese and foreign, who visit on their own funds or on
external fellowships.

Affiliation/Position

Research Title

Kimura Ehito

2014/3/1-2014/7/30

Associate Professor, Department of Political
Science, College of Social Science,
Transnational Justice in Southeast Asia
University of Hawai‘i at Manoa

Bondan Widyatmoko

2014/4/1-2015/3/31

Research Centre for Regional Resources,
Indonesian Institute of Sciences

Porphant Ouyyanot

2014/4/5-2014/4/14

Associate Professor, School of Economics, Contemporary Thai Problems in the
Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University
Perspective of Economic History

Between Environmental Sustainability andCommunal Conflict: The Role of Islam in
Coastal Community

NEWSLETTER

President, Journalism for Nation Building
Foundation

Agus Suwigno

2014/5/1-2014/5/20

Lecturer at the History Department, Faculty Collective Memories of the Survivalof Arts and Humanities, Gadjah Mada
Strategies of Tsunami Victims: Banda Aceh
University
and Sendai Compared

Agus Hendrawan Medita

2014/7/14-2014/7/23

Editor-in-Chief of Journal “GEO ENERGI,”
Vice-Editor-in-Chief of Journal “Maritim”

Charnvit Kasetsiri

Professor Emeritus, Southeast Asian
Thailand: A New Monarchy under King
2014/6/1-2014/11/30 Studies, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat
Bhumibol: Rama IX
University

Justin Thomas McDaniels

2014/6/1-2014/8/31

Professor, Department of Religious Studies, The Thai Digital Manuscript and Monastery
University of Pennsylvania
Project

Missita Sompong

2014/8/1-2015/1/31

The Model of Collaboration between
Librarian Head, Acquisition and Cataloging Lecturers and Librarians for Information
Department, Sanamchandra Palace Library, Literacy of Undergraduate Students
Central Library, Silpakorn University
Majoring in Japanese: A Case Study of
Silpakorn University

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No. 70Marie Teresa Danguilan Vitug 2014/4/7-2014/9/30

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Publications

Kyoto Area Studies on Asia (in Japanese) No. 27

Migration Revolution: Philippine Nationhood &Class Relations in a Globalized Age

The Making of Large Landholding in the Mekong
Delta during the French Colonial Period

Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr. 2014. NUS Press and Kyoto University Press.

Yoko Takada. 2014. Kyoto University Press.

Kyoto CSEAS Series on Asian Studies No. 12

The Chinese Question: Ethnicity, Nation, andRegion in and beyond the Philippines

Aging, Disease and Health in the Himalayas andTibet: Medical, Ecological and Cultural Viewpoints:
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Caroline S. Hau. 2014. NUS Press and Kyoto University Press.

Kiyohito Okumiya, ed. 2014. Rubi Enterprise.

Kyoto CSEAS Series on Asian Studies No. 13“Good Coup” Gone Bad: Thailand’s Political Developments since Thaksin’s Downfall

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Ariel Heryanto. 2014. NUS Press and Kyoto University Press.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Kyoto CSEAS Series on Asian Studies No. 11

Library
Appraising the Research Value of the Cambodian Official Gazettes
Sasagawa Hideo
Associate Professor, College of Asia Pacific Studies, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University

Introduction
Since the early 1990s, Cambodia has dramatically
improved its research environment. Although thecountry experienced a prolonged civil war that­continued for over 20 years and suffered under thetyranny of the Pol Pot regime, a peace agreement
was signed in 1991 and a new kingdom established
2 years later. Due to changes, since the late 1990s,
it has been possible to carry out fieldwork in various
places, and written documents have been madeavailable to scholars for research purposes.
Along with archives in France, especially theCentre des Archives d’Outre-Mer in Aix-en-Provence,researchers have been able to access documents
preserved at the National Archives of Cambodia(hereafter, NAC), the National Library of Cambodia,
the Buddhist Institute, and the National Museum
Library. Among them, NAC stores important documents for those who want to scrutinize modern
Cambodian history. Firstly, NAC possesses dossiersthat were issued and received by the Résident
Supérieur au Cambodge (henceforth, RSC) who was
the head of the colonial authorities in Cambodia. The
RSC documents contain not only those issued by
French authorities, but also those of the royal government and local administrative units, and even stores
petitions from ordinary people. These local documents are extremely important and help to shed lighton detailed histories which cannot be exploredthrough the records kept in France.
However, from the late 1940s when France recognized partial autonomy in Cambodia, the post of the
RSC was superseded by the Haut Commissariat, andthe number of documents issued by the latterdecreased drastically. After independence in 1953,
ministries and government offices began to preserve
official papers, and these are not accessible toresearchers partly because many of them were
unfortunately lost during the civil war. Under thesecircumstances, the utilization of the official gazettes
is of vital importance in order to follow the historicalstream of particular themes in modern Cambodia.
Publication of the Official Gazettes in Cambodia
Before publishing the domestic version of the official
gazettes in Cambodia, in 1889 the Gouverneur
Général de l’Indochine (hereafter, GGI) started the
Journal Officiel de l’Indo-Chine which would later be
renamed as the Journal Officiel de l’Indochine. The
NAC owns the issues between the years 1895 to1951, and these carry the GGI decrees and recordsof personnel affairs.
In 1902, the RSC inaugurated the Cambodianversion of the official gazette in French under the titleof the Bulletin Administratif du Cambodge. Not until
1911 was the Khmer version Reach Kech launchedby the royal government, though early issues wereabridged forms of the French version, because only
a part of the royal ordinances were regarded to besignificant.
Political upheaval during the Second World War
altered the bilingual system of publication. On March
9, 1945, the Japanese army disarmed the French, andthree days later, the then king Norodom Sihanouk
declared nominal independence even though there
was sustained Japanese influence. Due to independence, the French version changed its title into the
Journal Officiel du Cambodge whose publishing bodywas transferred to the royal government. Although
the Japanese defeat annulled independence on
December 14 of the same year, France concluded a
modus vivendi with Cambodia on January 7, 1946,
and approved domestic autonomy. Thus, the Cambodian government was able to continue the Journal
Officiel du Cambodge, while the colonial authoritychanged its name into the Haut Commissariat which
commenced a new French version entitled the Bulletin
Administratif Français du Cambodge.

NEWSLETTER
No. 70020

Even after the second independence of 1953, French
was used as an official language in the realms ofadministration and judiciary. As a result, the royalgovernment kept on issuing the bilingual gazettes.
Founded on March 18, 1970, the Lon Nol regime
renamed the country into the Khmer Republic, andthe words concerning the kingship were rejected.
The Khmer version, therefore, changed its title toRoat Kech in order to avoid the word “reach” whose
original meaning was “king.”
Overthrowing the Lon Nol regime on April 17,
1975, the Pol Pot regime (Democratic Kampuchea)ceased to publish the official gazette. The People’s
revolutionary party, which had overthrown the Pol Pot
regime on January 7, 1979, resumed issuing only in
the Khmer language in 1985 with the same title as
the Lon Nol regime, since the party fought against
the anti-government alliance including the royalist
Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendant,
Neutre, Pacifique, et Coopératif (FUNCINPEC). Aftera prolonged civil war, 1993 saw the establishment of
the new kingdom, and the official gazette in Khmer
returned to its original name Reach Kech.
The frequency of publishing the gazettes gradually
increased. In the beginning, both the French andKhmer versions appeared in monthly print. Both ofthem became biweekly from 1935, weekly from June
1942, and came out more frequently from 1961.
Possession of the Official Gazettes and Their
Utility for ResearchCenter for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Although NAC are missing a few issues during thecolonial era and under the Lon Nol regime, almost all
the volumes are stored in paper form. Besides, NAC
have already prepared a microfilm master copy ofa part of the French version in the colonial period(1904–15); that of the Haut Commissariat and all the
French volumes issued by the Cambodian government. From 2010 to 2011, I organized a research
project named “State Formation and Local Communities: A Comprehensive Study Based on the Cambodian Official Gazette” under the auspices of theInternational Program of Collaborative Research(IPCR) at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies(CSEAS), Kyoto University. In the first year of the

project, we purchased all the copy rolls of the aforementioned microfilm, and delivered them to the
CSEAS library. Currently, these microfilms aresearchable through the nationwide OPAC of the
National Institute of Informatics called CiNii Books,
and other researchers outside of the original researchteam are also able to utilize them.
Lastly, I want to turn to the research value of theofficial gazettes. The RSC documents preserved at
NAC mainly contain the dossiers of particular incidents, so the process of discussion among thoseconcerned can be seen in the files. On the other
hand, the official gazettes tell us merely the final
results of when and what kind of decrees wereproclaimed. Despite this disadvantage, the gazettes
are useful for following the transition of personnel
matters, and investigating the processes in which
specific policies diffused to local areas. In otherwords, qualitative data can be collected from RSC
documents, and quantitative data from the official
gazettes.
To date, I have conducted data collection on
certain topics found in them. Firstly, I have founddescriptions of the membership of the Cultural Committee which took part in the coinage of modern
vocabulary from the late 1940s, and connected themwith the word list the Committee had announced ina Khmer language magazine Kambuja Suriya. Secondly, participating in a research project at theCenter for Integrated Area Studies (CIAS), Kyoto
University, I gathered all the data concerning religious affairs in the gazettes, and analyzed the policies toward Buddhism in the colonial period andafter independence. At this moment, these works are
published only in Japanese, but I plan to translatethem into English to make the results available toother scholars.
Apart from these works, several young Japanesescholars specializing in Cambodian Studies arereading the gazettes at NAC and Kyoto University,and continue to conduct research on the personnel
affairs at the law courts as well as the vicissitudes of
the clauses relating to nationality. It is my sincere
hope that more researchers will make use of thesevaluable documents to develop Cambodian studies.

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NEWSLETTER

No. 70022

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

023

Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, 46 Shimoadachi-cho, Yoshida, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
Tel: +81-75-753-7302 Fax: +81-75-753-7350
京都大学東南アジア研究所 〒606-8501 京都市左京区吉田下阿達町46 Tel: 075-753-7302 Fax: 075-753-7350
Editors: Mario Lopez, Shitara Narumi
Date of Issue: 30.11.2014〈編集〉マリオ・ロペズ

設楽 成実

ISSN 2185-663X