The Philippine Culture

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When a typical Filipino thinks about the influences of the Spaniards, Religion and Christianity would immediately come to mine. Since without a doubt, the spreading of Christianity was their main priority of coming in the Philippines. However, often shadowed are the contributions of the Spaniards in other aspects in Philippine culture. Specifically, the idea that the Spaniards; particularly, the friars brought the natives the whole new world of “culture”. Hence their name culture heroes of the Filipinos.

There are thousands of artifacts in the museum that show a lot of the influences that contributed with Philippine culture. Mostly, these artifacts consist of many santos that help the natives to adapt easily in Christianity more.1 However, the artifacts that I have chosen are these various array of kubyertos (Spoon and fork) that are shown in Casa Manila.

The name itself involuntarily shows the impact of the Spaniards. The term kubyertos, that is still use today, comes from the Spanish word cubiertos that has the same meaning. Thomas Pinpin, the commissioned typographer of the Friar-Doctrinas, adopted all the native languages, the Spanish-European Alphabet and system of writing. He is the reason Filipinos no longer write using the ancient and pre-Hispanic Alibata systems. With this in mind, the impression they left are visible until today since most Filipino words are derived from Spaniards terms.

When I think about this simple artifact it goes beyond its run of the mill use of eating. It takes me back to fiestas in the Philippines. Fiestas are one of the ways the Spaniards employ to get the attention of these gullible Filipinos for them to consider Christianity. Since Filipinos are naturally happy and thankful people , they wanted to have an excuse to celebrate and have feasts for whatever reason. The Natives did not care at all what were the reasons for their celebration. They just wanted an excuse to have a feast. With feast, there is always food. Food is a major part of Fiestas. Friends and relatives from other barangays are welcomed to go from house to house to enjoy the food.

Furthermore, This might be going out on the limb here but personally, a spoon and a fork could symbolize sophistication and refinement. Instead of using our bare hands for eating, unlike the primitive way of eating, we were civilized enough now to use utensils. Moreover using once own hand today is considered gauche when eating in a public place.

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