Results of Propaganda Movement

The Propaganda Movement was a literary and cultural organization formed in 1872 byFilipino émigrés who had settled in Europe. Composed of Filipino liberals exiled in 1872 and students attending Europe's universities, the organization aimed to increase Spanish awareness of the needs of its colony, the Philippines and to propagate a closer relationship between the colony and Spain.

Its prominent members included José Rizal, author of Noli Me Tangere (novel) and El Filibusterismo, Graciano López Jaena, publisher of La Solidaridad, the movement's principal organ, Mariano Ponce, the organization's secretary and Marcelo H. del Pilar.

Specifically, the Propagandists aims were:

1.              Representation of the Philippines in the Cortes Generales, the Spanish parliament;

2.              Secularization of the clergy;

3.              Legalization of Spanish and Filipino equality;

4.              Creation of a public school system independent of the friars;

5.              Abolition of the polo (labor service) and vandala (forced sale of local products to the government);

6.              Guarantee of basic freedoms of speech and association;

7.              Equal opportunity for Filipinos and Spanish to enter government service.

8.              Recognition of the Philippines as a province of Spain

9.              Secularization of Philippine parishes.

10.          Recognition of human rights

Philippine nationalism is an upsurge of patriotic sentiments and nationalistic ideals in the Philippines of the late 1800s that came as a result of the Filipino Propaganda Movement from 1872 to 1892. It became the main ideology of the first Asian nationalist revolution, the Philippine Revolution of 1896.

The development of native patriotism that resulted from the execution of Fathers Gomez, Burgos and Zamora also began the unconsicous formation of the ideological side of patriotism--nationalism. The Propaganda Movement (1872-1892) called for the assimilation of the Philippines as a province of Spain so that the same laws will be applied in the Philippines and that the inhabitants of the Philippines will experience the same civil liberties and rights as that of a Spanish citizen. Men like Marcelo H. del Pilar, Graciano Lopez Jaena, and Jose Rizal bombarded both the Spanish and Filipino public with nationalist literature. Rizal's novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo became the bibles of Philippine nationalism. This time, the term Pilipino was not only for Spaniards born in the Philippines but was generically applied to every inhabitants born in the Philippine Islands. The movement ended in a failure, but the literature that resulted from it became the source of what came to be Philippine nationalism.