"Consequently, Aguinaldo in Malolos, not to mention Kawit, could assume the existence of a nation, could take for granted its total consent to becoming an independent republic, because history as culture had made that imperative. He felt no need to ask if the pagan highlanders of the north or the Muslim tribes of the south were willing to come into this republic, because, by then, he could feel as “fact” the existence of a national community, which, though its components be Christian or Muslim or pagan, already formed a country and people, one and divisible, now and forever: a sovereign union."
— Nick Joaquin, Culture and History.
