Thus feudalism becomes wedded to colonialism in a marriage of convenience that is politically and economically empowering to both the local power elites and neo-colonial dominators: an unholy conspiracy that smashes to smithereens the sovereign foundation of a purportedly independent country. In the Philippines, thousands of Filipinos are brought to the cities, suburbs, and wealthy households in the countryside as domestic help. I am still coming to terms with how my childhood affected and continues to affect my brother and I. It’s easy to be quick to judge others, but takes much contemplation to be able to walk in their shoes. Feudalism is primarily an agriculture-based economic system where most farmers or peasants don’t own land and are forced to work for a landlord who profits off excessive land rent rates, exorbitant loan interest rates, and very low crop prices, among others. var TB_labels = {"no_config":"No configuration settings found","twitter_logo":"Twitter Logo","kino":"Development by Kirill Novitchenko","refresh":"Refresh","no_sources":"Twitter sources to blend are not defined","no_global_config":"Cannot retrieve Tweet Blender configuration options","version_msg":"Powered by Tweet Blender plugin v{0} blending {1}","limit_msg":"You reached Twitter API connection limit","no_tweets_msg":"No tweets found for {0}","loading_msg":"Loading tweets...","time_past":"{0} {1} ago","time_future":"in {0} {1}","second":"second","seconds":"seconds","minute":"minute","minutes":"minutes","hour":"hour","hours":"hours","day":"day","days":"days","week":"week","weeks":"weeks","month":"month","months":"months","year":"year","years":"years","check_fail":"Check failed","limit_num":"Max is {0}\/hour","limit_left":"You have {0} left","from":"from","reply":"reply","follow":"follow","limit_reset":"Next reset","view_more":"view more"}; Yet economists, policy makers, and investors are worried that American markets have become inert—the product of a decades-long trend, not a months-long one. And next year he might be running New York. I’m incredibly thankful that I got to grow out of it, but trauma hurts the most in its resonance. The use of underpaid and overworked katulong, utusan, and kasambahay—the kind of servitude Eudocia was forced to perform—is common practice among many Filipino families. This is not your grandmother’s murder mystery, or even a contemporary riff on the rock-and-roll machismo of Peaky Blinders. We were also prevented from eating anything from the fridge. I travel the world, meet all kinds of people, and coordinate donations and volunteer activities with several charitable organizations that my steering committee and I select every quarter. From Magdalena Chudzinska: I’ve just read the article “My Family’s Slave” by Alex Tizon. Mara writes: I am a white, American-born woman many years younger than Alex and thus my experiences are very different from his, yet I relate to his story in a way that I have not seen addressed: I grew up in an abusive household and live every day with the guilt of not doing more to rectify my parents’ transgressions. This I did secretly. With sadness, I know that the noise for eradicating modern slavery will die down, and people will forget as they always do. . Katrina Langford calls it a masterpiece: “I can only imagine how difficult this journey was to make as a writer.” Frank Daniels calls it “an amazing article, by an amazing and compassionate man.” Ruby Moon calls it a love letter: “It touched me to the point that it made me cry.” Many describe intense emotional reactions: tears, shaking hands, sweaty palms, and an inability to stop reading. Photographs one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve and thirteen from John Tewell‘s historical archive collection. I was responsible for pleasing her by keeping a clean house, massaging her back and shoulders for hours after she finished work, and taking care of the dog she loved so dearly, all the while making sure to bring home straight As from school. Even though they claimed that they paid for lawyers to get us green cards, there wasn’t such a thing. In operational terms, this radical transformation is systemic and structural, aimed at dismantling US hegemonic control over the Philippines as it becomes clearer that the most crucial issue at hand is the final and total achievement of the nation’s authentic sovereignty. var metaslider_62844 = function($) {$('#metaslider_62844').addClass('flexslider'); In a feudal society, bahala na (come what may) becomes a guiding principle, just as Eudocia was forced to internalize. I prayed to God to take my life away in my sleep or wake me up from this horrible dream. Amid progress toward transgender acceptance, the social-media war over “super-straight” shows how not to resolve delicate questions about dating norms. On February 19, 2021, Philippine forces raided several houses belonging to suspected militants in Jolo and detained nine women believed to be potential suicide bombers. And it’s common. Several other readers also wrote in to say that Eudocia’s experiences reminded them of their own—including Juliet, whose mother came from Tarlac, the same province in the Philippines where Eudocia was born: I may have accidentally found this article for a reason. Avoid processed foods? A lot of people have made bad moral decisions throughout their lifetime, and while I’m definitely not excusing Mr. Tizon’s, I read the regret into it. Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:51 AM July 20, 2011 The Dutertes of Davao City, father and daughter, are certainly among the more astute politicians these days. He attempts to learn these things, but doesn’t get very far, and we never learn whether the failure is due simply to Pulido’s reticence or to the fact that years of servitude had minimized her story even in her own mind. One reader wrote: “The author aided and abetted in slavery. Rarely are the narrators of the world’s most necessary or impactful stories blameless. In this condition they are the framers and definers, the interpreters and dispensers, of morality who, of course, naturally benefit from social and economic circumstances expressed according to their whims and wishes. reverse:false, Within weeks, I got a promotion and within a year, I was a manager making excellent money. The feudalism of … Plenty of bored people are reading market rumors on the internet, pumping and dumping penny stocks, riding GameStop to the moon, and bidding up the price of esoteric currencies and digital artworks. nextText:">", Alex sat at a desk right beside mine for six months when we were both reporters at The Seattle Times. prevText:"<", Those in the disability rights movement say, “Nothing about us, without us.” I think this mindset applies to those of us who have gone through forced servitude. plague yo SPANISH POLITICAL = STRUCTURE. My second “Lola” story began there. The result? I doubt that many people would be brave enough to cut ties with their family (or at the very least, to seriously shake the foundations of their family relationships), even for such a good reason as the liberation of a slave. How Libraries Are Leading the Way to Digital Equity, When a Company Invests in an ‘Underdog City’, Learning From the New Deal—For the Next Recovery, How Michael Jones Changed Our Daily Lives, What Post-pandemic Repair Could Look Like, The Social Conditions That Shaped Lola’s Story, because of—not in spite of—its flaws and his guilt, the memo detailing the backlash to the story. When the orangutan begins to move—often just to “walk around the neighborhood,” as Ramadani says—he follows it over the rocky, muddy, wet terrain. Economists and policy makers are worried that the Vanguard model of passive investment is hurting markets. All Rights He’s never even worked in government. A collection of some of the sights and events taking place in and around Boston from 1970 to 1979. This further cultivates the viciousness of utang na loob, as the “elected” official becomes constrained by circumstance to return the favors that sustained a nomination, campaign, and ultimate “victory.” In many instances, a coalition of businessmen with vast economic power exerts massive influence in the political field as king makers. Along with imperialist interests from countries like the U.S., feudalism helps to maintain an economic structure in the Philippines that is export-oriented and import-dependent. Was it to exorcise family guilt? pauseOnHover:true, Writing about Titus Andronicus in 1948, the scholar John Dover Wilson bemoaned how Shakespeare’s bloodiest play “seems to jolt and bump along like some broken-down cart, laden with bleeding corpses from an Elizabethan scaffold, and driven by an executioner from Bedlam.” You couldn’t say the same for Gangs of London. But what should you do? Conservatism is the glue that allows dead feudalism to hang on alongside bourgeois tradition. This condition is controlled by a cabal that manipulates a locale’s economic ambiance. Feudalism or the feudal system was originally applied in early and central Middle Ages. The mystery is hardly unique to COVID-19. I was luckier than Lola because I was able to leave while in my 20s. I yelled out at my dad, asking him what was going on. Here's how the Philippines will look like as laid out in Pimentel's 2008 Joint Resolution Number 10. My grandparents and my mother’s brothers and sisters would ask us to do errands, household chores, and wash their laundry while our cousins just sat down in the living room playing or chatting. Encomienda System EUROPEAN FEUDALISM Land as an Asset for Rural and Urban Poor Land is a means of generating a … Back in February, Kyle Royce, a 20-year-old in British Columbia, Canada, created a video that proved far more controversial and influential than he had imagined it would be when he uploaded it to TikTok. My brother and I were never given lunch money, so we would have to bring something from home while our cousins of similar ages were paid for. I am so sad that Lola never got to live her life, get married or have kids. That normalization of and forced complicity with violence creates a sense of self-doubt and helplessness which does not magically vanish in adulthood. may have ‘granted independence’ to its Philippine colony in 1946, its legacy of feudalism remains a factor in the country’s industrial relations system, resulting in widespread poverty for the Filipino people up to the present. She and her husband were and are a well-respected deacon family running a dry cleaners. Observations of the mode of political leadership in local government units further reveal how the chair of a barangay (originally a barrio within the jurisdiction of a pueblo or municipality or town), mayor of a municipality or city, or governor of a province acts and dispenses authority like a landlord — worse still, like a taskmaster who treats constituents as if they are tenants, vassals or slaves. Aspects of Feudalism in the middle ages. This state of affairs has actually demolished the preconditions of what should have been called party politics but has instead made personality politics rampant and hence institutionalized as the name of the political game in the present dispensation: a primitive type of politics in the post-modern Western world. I cannot help but agree that Tizon’s complacence over the years—especially as he grew older—amounts to an offense. The feudal dynamics accommodate the legitimization of colonial — i.e., neo-colonial, to be more exact —  presence through transnational investments monitored and safeguarded by well-placed “elected” local officials in executive and legislative branches of the government that serve the imperialist interest of foreign powers. He said it was just for a year, but it wound up being much, much longer than that. In fact, more complications crept in as the two-party system became overshadowed by a multiple-party system bereft of solid and genuinely practicable pro-people development platforms. Plenty of cash is sloshing around, the pandemic recession notwithstanding, thanks to loose monetary policy, rampant inequality, crypto-speculation, and helicopter drops of cash. Feudalism in Middle Ages was a social, political, and religious structure which was based on the exchange of land for military services and or cash rent. At the same time, climate change is threatening the world’s food supply, with land and water being exploited at an “unprecedented” pace. timer_metaslider_62844(); How US Neocolonial Development Failed the Philippines – Part I, How US Neocolonial Development Failed the Philippines – Part II, Small is Beautiful: A Model of Economic Development for the Philippines and Beyond, The True State of the Philippines: Crime in a Culture of Corruption. We don’t want what you think is best for ourselves. And when I was 16, he sent me away to her for good. hunting Feudalism! Outside the station, Ramadani uses his flashlight to locate a thin, white piece of string and follows it, some days as far as 900 feet, to an orangutan’s nest, perched in the forest canopy about 60 feet above the ground. Feudalism or the feudal system was originally applied in early and central Middle Ages. One of the most perplexing and enduring mysteries of the pandemic is also one of the most fundamental questions about viruses. Thank you for taking care of her and making sure that her last few years, she was free. Hiding things, including my volatile home life, was normal to me. Social services was called and my stepmom was hauled away to jail, but not before I came home and she beat everything out of me while my father stood by idly as he always did. Just an additional thought. I’ve also come to understand my father not just as the monster that I knew, but as someone who came from abuse and homelessness. I cleaned my aunt’s closets full of clothes and name-brand bags. The latter become beholden to those in power as this political relation is intensified socio-culturally by the value of utang na loob (or debt of gratitude) which is inherently and automatically spawned by this vicious, and hence corrupt, mode of power dispensation. The more enlightened sector of the population, which consists of the proletariat, the petit bourgeois professionals, academics and businessmen, the progressive segment of the clergy, as well as the small entrepreneurs advocating national industrialization, are the cutting edge to initiate and eventually realize a radical transformation of the socio-cultural and economic dynamics that animate the present state of affairs of Philippine politics. Anakbayan USA, a national organization of Filipino youth and students dedicated to advancing democratic rights, sends this response: In the viral Atlantic article, “My Family’s Slave,” author Alex Tizon tells his account of Eudocia Tomas Pulido, who was to Tizon’s family both “Lola” and slave. The first, by Ai-jen Poo, discusses the persistence of modern-day slavery in the U.S. We’ll also be publishing the personal stories of readers like Claudia, who experienced conditions similar to those Lola did. People have yearned for indulgences corporeal and non-, the types of things that America’s puritanical streak warns against even in better times. In Alex Tizon’s home, I bet it was difficult for Lola to even sit on that couch. The Chinese Embassy shot back at what it called a “perplexing statement” by Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and insisted that … Each relationship is different, with some looking like Lola’s and the Tizons’ and others a proper employer-employee relationship with employee benefits. power is divided or shared between the central government and local state governments But the whole situation was merely a semblance of true party politics, because what was actually highlighted was not the parties themselves and their respective platforms but the famous, even controversial, personalities within them as candidates who had achieved popularity of showbiz proportion. This situation of brazen meddling is only one aspect of a larger political intervention of imperialistic magnitude, as the Balikatan military exercises (involving US military forces and the Armed Forces of the Philippines) continue on a regular basis through the blessings of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) forged between the governments of the Republic of the Philippines and the US. The entire scenario cordially accommodates a colonial condition wherein a foreign politico-economic power can legitimately gain a foothold in the domestic arena through a mutually beneficial partnership with local businessmen and business alliances that wield political power. And why did he want The Seattle Times to publish an obituary after Lola’s death that failed to recognize the most significant fact of her life? For example, there’s the concept of utang na loob, this sense of gratitude people expect their helpers to have, for even taking them in and giving them a job when so many others don’t have that. Nobody exists in a vacuum. field of Philippine church history would be incomprehensible with-out understanding the formation of the political, sacramental, and devotional traditions of Roman Catholicism during the Middle Ages. Ramadani, 23, spends 20 days a month here at Cabang Panti, the research station for the Gunung Palung Orangutan Project in the southwestern part of Indonesian Borneo. The post-pandemic beauty boom has arrived. I was broke, trapped and broken. We had to walk to and from school under hot Texas sun, while our cousins were picked up. Readers are left with too many questions: Was the point to raise awareness about the plight of unpaid or underpaid domestic workers in the U.S.? [T]he VFA grants the ex-colonizer extra-territorial rights and privileges exceeding the privileges that the United States once enjoyed in the day of the Laurel-Langley Agreement and parity rights.”, This is imperialism of the first order. This sort of home life was almost another natural secret I had to observe to fit in. It was the first time I physically and verbally confronted him. The Olympic Opening Ceremony last Friday night was a spectacular extraordinaire under the direction of Danny Boyle of “Slumdog Millionaire” fame. We’ll also be publishing your own personal stories in Notes. Activists believe feudalism and imperialism keep many Filipinos poor. The reality of the situation is that politicians are hardly ever in it for the good of the people, not matter what they say. Indeed, Eudocia is one of hundreds of Filipinos who are trafficked into the U.S. every year as teachers, bakery workers, shipyard workers, and more. From 16 to 17 when I graduated high school, I worked every day after school and weekend, sometimes into the wee hours of the night and morning because it was a 24-hour joint. He was repeatedly told, upon responding no, that his answer was transphobic. Today, I run two departments in a tech company. After reading Alex’s essay and some of the criticism on social media, this reader wrote to us with the subject line, “On Eudocia, from someone who went through it”: For half my childhood, I was indentured. “I felt like I was getting unfairly labeled,” he told me recently. They demanded green card fees and money from my family for the trouble of taking care of us. Rather, Gangs of London exists on a fully realized plane of its own, where brutality is power, death is inevitable, and even the pigeons are on cocaine. The US not only imposes its economic hegemony over the Philippines but also an intrinsically simultaneous political supremacy. They also accept that a change in the present system is necessary. Hence, the Philippine economy’s path toward capitalism is out of the question. She had lost her husband suddenly to a brain aneurysm three years prior and she was alone with a son in his teenage years and trying to manage a donut store that was failing against its fierce big-brand competitors. By analyzing these particles from afar, researchers have managed to learn about the comet’s composition, its origins, and its long journey here. By and large, they call the economic shots, being in charge of the general run of businesses and practically all income-generating ventures, whether or not these enterprises are legitimate. He certainly did a good job writing this story. share article: 27 February 2012. All rights reserved. The US Department of Defense housed at Pentagon as well as the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) constantly watch the Philippine political scenario to ensure that those positioned in the national government toe the US foreign policy line. TheAtlantic.com Copyright (c) 2021 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. From Claudia: I wept so much while reading Lola’s story because in a way it reminds me of my life. Last summer, France’s pandemic response seemed far more competent than America’s. In other words, it is actually US imperialism (“the highest stage of capitalism”, according to Lenin) that has forced the Philippine economy to be colonial and remain socio-culturally feudal. The Philippines has all the trappings of modern democratic mechanics — a superficial exterior institutionalized as official components of its politics — but the landscape of its realpolitik has been dominated for generations by socio-culturally feudal and economically colonial dynamics. It also foolishly ignores how complicated family relationships are. She taught me things about homemaking, took me on trips, gave me attention, and was a mother figure to me. the causes of Philippine development problems: the feudal socio-economic structure; and the colonial economic framework that bounds its economic relationships with the rest of the world. We’ll be publishing several articles to follow Alex’s essay, situating his story in a broader cultural and economic context. We’ll be publishing a number of responses to “My Family’s Slave” in the next few weeks, outlining the economic, cultural, and historical context for Alex and Lola’s personal story. My parents were left in the province, as they had their jobs there. This arrangement had far-reaching effects. We all moved to another part of Toronto and we opened up a bagel store. This political morality directly affects the society’s economic facet. The Philippines is administered through a nerve-wracking bipolar order, one that becomes more pronounced when ballots are involved. It’s not just mani-pedis, of course. I was born in Canada, went to school in this country, and it still happened to me. They also accept that a change in the present system is necessary. As an immigrant and a minority in Australia, I was accustomed to hiding things from my white peers about my family. Listening to those claiming to seek justice for Eudocia has felt like a scab opening over and over again. This one wasn’t orbiting the sun. Tragic events don’t have to remain that way. I had to wake up in a hard cold cement area under the stairway. The counselor called my uncle to try to setup a time to discuss with them what I told them. The list includes a slew of beauty services that are just not the same at home, if they can even be reproduced there: eyebrow threading, balayage, hair braiding, maybe even a syringe of facial filler. In essence, Filipino peasant farmers who work long days to produce goods that feed and supply the rest of the world face the harsh contradiction of being unable to provide for their own families. I took Civil Engineering and was offered paid internships—which she made me turn down, because who would run the store for her? Let's face it. Several other readers also pointed out that obituary, in which Alex had described Lola to a reporter as a devoted grandmother figure who devoted her life to “cooking, cleaning and caring for three generations [and] asked for nothing in return.” The newspaper’s response to The Atlantic’s story is here. It was up to her to keep the peace in the family, her responsibility and burden to keep things going. In addition to the readers who related to the abuses that Eudocia “Lola” Pulido experienced, some readers saw parallels between Alex Tizon’s story and domestic violence they’d witnessed within their own families.