What is NATIONALISM?

Nationalism involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. Often, it is the belief that an ethnic group has a right to statehood, or that citizenship in a state should be limited to one ethnic group, or that multinationality in a single state should necessarily comprise the right to express and exercise national identity even by minorities.

It can also include the belief that the state is of primary importance, or the belief that one state is naturally superior to all other states. It is also used to describe a movement to establish or protect a homeland (usually an autonomous state) for an ethnic group. In some cases the identification of a national culture is combined with a negative view of other races or cultures.

Conversely, nationalism might also be portrayed as collective identities towards imagined communities which are not naturally expressed in language, race or religion but rather socially constructed by the very individuals that belong to a given nation. Nationalism is sometimes reactionary, calling for a return to a national past, and sometimes for the expulsion of foreigners. Other forms of nationalism are revolutionary, calling for the establishment of an independent state as a homeland for an ethnic underclass.

Nationalism emphasizes collective identity - a 'people' must be autonomous, united, and express a single national culture. However, some nationalists stress individualism as an important part of their own national identity.

National flags, national anthems, and other symbols of national identity are often considered sacred, as if they were religious 

 rather than political symbols. Deep emotions are aroused. Gellner and Breuilly, in Nations and Nationalism, contrast nationalism and patriotism. "If the nobler word 'patriotism' then replaced 'civic/Western nationalism', nationalism as a phenomenon had ceased to exist."

Nationalism and the Establishment of the Republic of the Philippines

The first evidence of Philippine nationalism during the early days is the creation of the Creole Age. The earliest signs of Filipino Nationalism could be seen in the writings of Luís Rodríguez Varela, a Creole (people who run the Philippine island colony). He fought for the rights of the so called Filipinos(though these are only referred to as the Spaniards that were born here in the Philippine Islands.

 

Though for natives(Indios) this only seemed like a fight for the rights of the Spanish people, this ideas served as the basis of the propaganda movement by the Ilustrados.

 

People like Marcelo H. Del Pilar, Jose Rizal and other wrote propagandas and novels for the  purpose of spreading the sense of nationalism among the masses in the Colony of the Philippines. This later led to the unity of the Indios who became the Peninsulares(Anti-Spanish movement). These eventually led to the revolutions led by the Andres Bonifacio which are of course based on the principles of Philippine nationalism.
 

All of these later contributed to the fouding of the country's first constitution and then later came the Republic of the Philippines.