Inang Diyos, Inang Bayan: The Virgin Mary and Filipino Identity

This chapter explores Marianism as a conduit for inculturated colonial religiosity, and, ultimately, of nation-building. I argue that Marian tropes were used to make Christianity more palatable to local populations, while both preserving and taming the matriarchal traditions it absorbed. I also argue that Marianism laid the foundations for a sacrificial, ambiguously domestic notion of motherhood that Filipinos, especially girls and women, must grapple with to this day. And yet, Marian narratives turned out to have subversive, liberatory, and even outright revolutionary potential. A more Filipinized or pro-Filipino Virgin Mary came to be fused with the Inang Bayan, legitimizing Filipinos’ separation from the Mother Country of Spain. Until the present, the Virgin Mary is upheld by Filipinos as a bastion of a specifically Filipino form of Catholicism. In everyday human relationships, she is a figure of both liberation and internalized oppression. The Virgin Mary has also become a nigh-inescapable model for Filipinas taking on the mantle of political leadership. They are expected to model Marian traits of sacrifice, care, gentleness, and sexual purity. However, the triumph of the Marcos and Duterte dynasties in the most recent election suggests that Aquino-era political Marianism, with its ties to the socio-economic status quo and the ultraconservative Catholic Church hierarchy, has been discredited. This chapter argues that Filipino Marianism has demonstrated considerable flexibility over the centuries, but could prove an instrument of deeper liberation if Filipinos explored more joyful Marian narratives.