Spain

chose Spain as the arena of their struggle insteadof working among their own people, educatingthem and learning from them, helping them torealize their own condition and articulating theiraspirations. This reflects the bifurcation betweenthe educated and the masses.The elite had a sub-conscious disrespectfor the ability of the people to articulate theirown demands and to move on their own. Theyfelt that education gave them the right to speakfor the people. They proposed an elitist form of leadership, all the while believing that what theelite leadership decided was what the peoplewould and should follow. They failed to realizethat at critical moments of history the peopledecide on their own, what they want and whatthey want to do. Today, the

ilustrados

areshocked by the spate of rallies anddemonstrations. They cannot seem to accept thefact that peasants and workers and the youthhave moved without waiting for their word. Theyare not accustomed to the people moving ontheir own.[p. 141]The

ilustrados

were the Hispanized sectorof our population, hence they tried to prove thatthey were as Spanish as the

 peninsulares

. Theywanted to be called Filipinos in the

creole

sense:Filipino-Spaniards as Rizal called Ibarra. They areno different from the modern-day mendicantswho try to prove that they are Americanized,meaning that they are Filipino-Americans. As amatter of fact, the

ilustrados

of the firstpropaganda movement utilized the sametechniques and adopted the same generalattitude as the modern-day mendicants andpseudo-nationalists, in so far as the colonizingpower was concerned.

Ilustrados And Indios

The contrast to the

ilustrado

approachwas the Katipunan of Bonifacio. Bonifacio, not asHispanized as the

ilustrados

, saw in people'saction the only road to liberation. The Katipunan,though of masonic and of European inspiration,was people's movement based on confidence inthe people's capacity to act in its own behalf. Theearly rebellions, spontaneous and...