Political Arid

Historical Writings
by

JOSE RIZAL

POPULAR EDITION

National Historical Institute

Manila
1976
 First Printing 10,000 copies
National Heroes Commission
Manila, 1968

Second Printing 2,000 copies

National Historical Commission
Manila, 1972

Third Printing, 5,000 copies

National Historical Institute
Manila, 1976
 FOREWORD
The Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission is charged by
by law with the preparation for a fitting and dignified celebration
of the First Centenary of the birth of the National Hero of the
Philippines, Jose Rizal. The objectives set for the Commission to
meet, include, among others, the publication of all the works of the
Hero in the original languages in which they were written as well
as their translations into English and the principal languages of
the Philippines.
Appearing in several volumes, the greater part of the Centen·
nial Edition consists of Centennial issues for the general diffusion ·
of Rizal's ideas. The whole set covers the whole field of the 1Iero's
writings, namely, reminiscences and travels, all his extant letters
known to the Commission; poems and prose works, the novels NoU
Me Tangef'e and El Filibusterismo, his edition of Morga's Sucesos de
ltU lsla.s Filipinas, political and historical writings, facsimiles of
some of his other works and selected excerpts from his philosophical
thoughts. Besides the above we have additional volumes containing
the excerpts of the writings about our hero by his contemporaries
and others-Filipinos and foreigners as well as poems dedicated to
him; a bibliography of his writings and published works of others
about him; a Rizaliana album containing pictures, sketches, maps
and other items associated with the life of the Hero.
This is the entire range of the Centennial Edition whic.h the
Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission takes pleasure to present
to the reading public-to know from his own works who Jose Rizal
really was, and to evaluate and appreciate his contributions to the
welfare of his cou·n try and of mankind. There is no better way of
paying homage to the memory ·of Rizal, aside from the cultural
buildings to be constructed in his honor, than to collect all his works
and those about him by others, and prepare them for easy under·
standing of the people for whose cause be chose to die.

JOSE E. ROMERO
(Secretafll of EducBtion)
As Chairma''

-iii-
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
FOREWORD •..... . ...... . .. . , ............... .. ; . . . . . . . . . . . . m
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE .............. , ; .................. .'. . . VI
REFLECTIONS OF A Fll..IPINO . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. .. . l
IN HONOR OF TWO FILIPINO PAINTERS .. .. .. . .. .. . . . .. .. 6
ORDER OF THE MARQUIS OF MALINTA • .. .. . .. .. .. . . . . .. .. 10
MESSAGE TO THE YOUNG WOMEN OF MALOLOS . . . . . . . . . . 12
FILIPINO FARMERS • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
TO "LA DEFENSA" • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . 23
HOW TO DECEIVE THE NATIVE LAND ..................... 2'7
·. THE TRUTH FOR ALL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • 31
VICENTE BARRANTES' TEATRO 'l'AGALO •..•............ . . 89
A PROFANATION ....... . . . .................••.. ; . . . . . . . . . 60
NEW TRUTHS •. .... ... .... ..... .. ................... .• . : . • 54
DIFFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
INCONSEQUENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
TEARS AND LAUGHTER ..... , ...... : ..... .. .............. 6'7 .
INGRATITUDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
RIZAL'S REPLY TO BARRANTES' CRITICISM OF
"NOLI ME TANGERE" • . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . '115
NAMELESS . , • , •....• •. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . 84
THE PHILIPPINES AT THE SPANISH CONGRESS . . . . . . . . . . • 87
LET US BE JUST • , ........ .. ·. . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
PHILIPPINES AFFAIRS • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . • . . . . • 96
MORE OF THE NEGROS AFFAIR .......................... 102
A HOPE ••......•.. . ....... ..... ·. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . 108
THE INDOLENCE OF THE . FILIPINO .. . . . .. . .. .. .. .. . • .. . .. • 111
COWARDLY REVENGE .. . .. . . ... . ....... ......•............• . 140
IlUUTATION . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lfl
THE PHITJPPINES A CENTURY HENCE ... .. ... ..... .... _ 145
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
Assembled in this volume, the seventh in the Rizal Centennial
Edition, are Rizal's articles, essays, and documents of an historical
and political nature, in English translation, arranged in chronolo-
gical order, as far as the dates of their production or publication can
be ascertained, together with the facsimile of the extant manu~
scripts have been found.
These writings deal with a variety of subjects concerning the
Filipinos and their multitudinous problems-political; economic, so-
cial, and religious. · Shinng through them all is Rizal's pasisonate
Jove of his native land. ·
Soon after his · arrival in Spain in June 1882, when he was bare·
ly twenty-one years old, he wrote the essay, "El Amor Patrio" (Love
of Country) in lyrical prose and steeped with love of country, "the
greatest, the most heroic, the most disinterested" of all loves, he
wrote, and be ·exhorted everyone to love his country. First published.
in the Diarion{l Ta.grdog (20. Aug. 1882) of Manila, it earned him the
warm praises of his countrymen. In "Tears and Laughter'' Rizal
muses in sarcastic tone over the education he received in the Phil·
ippincs and the injustice of the Sp~h colonial regime.
Some of the pieces in this volume are journalistic articles mosU~
published for the first time in La. Solida.ridad, the Filipino fort·
nightly first published at Barcelona and afterwards at Madrid from
1889 to 1896. Such are "Los agricultores filipinos" (Filipino Farm·
ers), "Como se. gobiernan las Filipinas" (How the Philippines
is Governod), "A La. Defema. (To La Defema), "A La. Pa.tria"
(To La Patria), "Seamos Justos" (Let Us Be Jtlst), "Ebsa·
namiento" (Cruelty), "Una esperanza" (A Hope), "Filipinas en el
Congreso" (The Philippines at ·the Congress), to mention some. Al-
though they deal with problemS that have lost their immediacy, they
nevertheless can serve to illumine the gradually dimming Spanish
colon1al period in Philippine history. Moreover, they give us the
Filipino. point of view on the vital questions that stirred the country
at that time. Their historical value may be better appreciated if
we bear in ~ind that few Filipino voices could then be beard, owing
to the total absence of a free press. Among the few voices--and an
excptionally courageous one-was ~t of Rizal, who . was able to
publish his writings and thus leave behind him a literary legacy,

-vi-
because hP. was abroad, in Europe, beyond the reach of the clutches
of the -colonial authorities in the Philippines.
Two other works in this collection are very well known, the
lengthy historical essays, "La indolencia de los filipinos" (The Indo·
lence of the Filipinos) and "Filipinas rlentro de cien ail.os" (The
Philippines a Century Hence), both of which first appeared in se·
ries in La Solidaridad. tn "The Indolence of the Filipinos", Rizal
manifests a sensitive appreciation of the interplay of natural an~
human factors, of the workings ef climate on man, of the political
order upon the individual. This essay is a deep and perceptive
analysis of political and social conditions obtaining during the Spa·
nish colonial era. Rizal's brilliant historical irnagination can be ap·
preciated in "The Philppines a Century Hence", notable for his per·
suasive interpretation of the past experience of the Filipinos and his
vision of their future.
Also included in this collection is his celebrated message to the
young women of Malolos, "Sa mga kababayang dalaga sa Malolos,"
Written in Tagalog and at the request of Marcelo H. del Pilar, a
native of Bulakan, who asked Rizal to send a message to the Ma·
lolos young women who won the plaudits of the Filipino refo)"mists
in Spain because they had the courage to appeal to the governor
general after the powerful parish priest had disapproved their peti·
*ion for permission to study Spanish under Filipino teachers to be
paid by them. Rizal at that time (·1889) was already famous and
prestigious, principally because of his Noli me tangere (1887), a
novel with factual background, and his name was on the Ups of
every Filipino and every Spaniard concerned with the Philippines.
This piece, which has become a classic, is a critical appraisal
of the reigning obscurantism in the Philippines, the evidence of the
predominance of the friars. U is an appeal addressed to the Fili·
pino women to resist, to combat, so pernicious an influence, and it
concludes with &Ome advice whose enduring value and timeUnestJ
cannot be easily contradicted.
A wittily ironical piece is "Reflections of a Filipino" on wha.t
1hould be the relation between the Filipino liberals and the friars.
In contrast is the serious essay on the religio,Jsity of the Filipinos,
"La rellgiosidad de los filipinos", which is an honest interpretation
of the religious beliefs and practices of the Filipinos In his time, but
which have survived to this day to a large extent. "lnstruccion"
(Public Education in the Philippines) is a first·hand account, based

-vii-
 on his personal experience and observation, of the lamentable state
Gf the publi<' schools during his time, with practical suggestions of
improving them.
rn "Petition of the Town of Calamba" and "Justice in the Phil·
ippines", the latter in Rizal's English, are found Rizal's views ()n the
agrarian troubles of the Calamba Estate owned and administered by
the Dominican friars. Morally and materially the family and follow·
ers of Rizal suffered tremendoasly in the bitter conflict between the
tenants of the estate and the friars.
"Dapitan" relates with glints of playfulness the origin of the
name of that town, where he lived for four years as an exile (1892·
1896). It seems to be an introduction to a novel he planned to write.
There are three important political documents in this volume-
"Notes lor My Defense", "Additions to My Defense", and "Mani·
festo to Some Fi!ipinos"-which throw a bright light on hia lnfa·
mous trial and expose the duplicity of his enemies. The Conatitu·
tion of the Liga Filipina, reprinted here, was cited in hiS trial and
utilized by his enemies to bolster their charge that he engaged in
revolutionary activities. Another political document is the defence
of his attorney, the Spanish lieutenant of artillery, Luis Taviel de
Andrade, which may be found in the appendix. The original of
this document was delivered by its author to the Filipino statesman,
Mr. Sergio Osmefia, on 17 June 1929 at Sevilla, Spain, when he was .
visiting that city, and is now the property of the Republic of the
Philippines and kept in the Bureau of Public Libraries, Manlla.
Among his papers we have found a chronicle of his natal town
titled, "Executives of the Town of Calamba", which is a llat of lm·
portant events that occurred in that town during the lneumbeney of
its mayors since it became a municipality In 1742 until 1891: Rlza1
was not only a devoted student of the general history of th~ Phil·
ippines, but with this piece he showed also his Interest iD local his·
tory, a subject which has not yet received due consideration from
Filipino historians.
This collection of Rlzal's writings is one more evidence of the
wide range of his intellectual interests and of his .extraordinary in·
dusti'y in writing down his thoughts, thus enabling posterity to know
him better to understand the times during which he lived~ His
writings truly eonatitute a monumentum aere peTennius,

- vm-
 REFLECTIONS OF A FILIPINO
When I contemplate the present struggle between the religious
corporations and the advanced groups of my country, when I read
the numerous writings published by this and that group in defense of
their ideas and principles, I'm prompted to ask myself at times if
1, as a son of the country, ought not to take part in the struggle
and declare myself in favor of one of the two groups, for I should
not be indifferent to anything concerning my native land. Or, if
l'm more prudent and have learned my lesson better, my role should
be to remain neutral, to witness and watch the struggle, to see which
party wins and immediately take its side in order to gather more
easily the fruit of victory.
-MY life has been one of continuous doubting and continuous va-
cillation. Which party should I side? ·
Let's exa-mine closely the matter and afterwards we shall see.
What are the advantages of being anti-friar?
Nothing really. The more I analyze th~ thing the more I find
it silly and imprudent. This thing of struggling so that th.e countcy
may progress ... ihe country will progress if it can and if it cannot,
no. Moreover, what do I care if the coming generation would enjoy
more or less freedom than I, have better or worse education, if there
be justice for all or there be none. . . The question is that I, my
number one, don't have a bad time; the question is the present. A
bird in hand is worth more than one hundred flying, says the pro-
verb.l Charity begins at home, says another. Here I have two pro-
verbs in my favor and there's not even half a proverb against me.
F'or the present, in fighting the religious orders, one risks being
imprisoned or exiled to- some island... Well, not so bad. I like
traveling to know tbe islands, a thing that cannot be done better
than by going ns an exile. Passports are unnecessary and one tra-
vels more safely. Go to jail? Bah, everybody goes to jail. In that
way, one gets free house, for as it is, there I don't pay. Deporta-
tion and jail are nothing, but if... if number one is finished, if
they take advantage of a mutiny and they charge me as its leader,

A satirical essay by Rlzal entitled Pensamientoa de '"' Filipino. It Is unsigned

and without date. In the opinl(!n of the hero's nephew, Dr. Leonclo L6pez Rlzal, It
was written In Madrid between 1883 and 1866. The original i~ in the Bureau of
Public Libraries.
1 Literal translation. In English: A bird In the hand lo worth two In the bllt!h.

1
I'm tried by a council of war and they send me to the other life?2
Hm! It's a serious matter to be an anti-friar. What do I care if
the friars don't want the education of the country? They must
have a reason. I agre~ with them. Since I was a child, I have had
a hard time going to school and a harder time getting out of it ...
because the teacher at times kept me a prisoner. Let there be a vote
on the matter and see how all the child~en will vote for the friars,
asking for the suppression of every kind of teaching. . • That the
friars oppose tl)e teaching of Spanish. . . and what's the matter with
that? For wl:at do we need Spanish? To know the beautiful sto-
ries and theories of liberty, progress, and justice and afterwards get
to like them? To understand the laws, know our rights and then
find in practice other laws and other things different from them.
Of what use is the knowledge of Spanish? We can speak to God in
all languages ..-. i£ it were Latin I say, well. The curate says that
God listens first to the prayers in Latin before those in Tagalog.
That's why Masses are in Latin and the curates live in abundance
and we the Tagalogs are badly llff. But, Spanish? To understand
the insults and swearing of the civil guards? For this purpose there's
no need to know Spanish. It's· enough to understand the language
of the butt of guns and have the body a little sensitive. And of
what use is it to us since we are forbidden to reply, because one can
be accused of" resisting authority and because the very same civil
guard tries . the accused, a prison sentence is certain. The tntth is
that I like to travel and see the islands, though tied elbow to elbow.:)
Jn this matter of not teaching Spanish, I agree with the friars. Now,
they may say this and that about the friars, that they have many
women, paramours, that they don't respect married women, widows,
or maidens and the like. On this matter I have my private opinion.
I say if one can have two, three, and four women, why should he
not have them? Women are to blame. Besides there's something
good about the curate. He does not let his paramours die of hunger,
as many men do, but he supports thern, dresses them well, protects
their families, and leaves a good bequest to his daughters or nieces.
And if there's any sin in it, he'll absolve them at once and without
great penance. Frankly speaking, if I were a woman, and. I had to
prostitute myself, I would do it to a curate. . . for the time bein~,
I'll be the paramour of a semi-Jesus Christ, or of a successor of
God on earth. In this regard, I believe that the enemies of the friars
are merely envious. They say that they mono\>olize. all the estates,
get all the people's moriey.. The Chinese do the.same. In this world,

Z This wlls what luippene<i to tho: .l luthor, Rizal. Read hi• hiognpby.
3 The common praotice in tran•porting prisoners under the Boanish regime

2
he who can enrich himself, enriches himself, and I suppose that a
friar for the . mere fact of being a friar is not less of a · man. Why
then should not the Chinese and the merchants be persecutcd?-
Moreover, who knows? Perhaps tney take away our money to make
us poor so that we may quickly get to heaven. Still we have to
thank them for their solicitude. They are also accused of selling
dear their scapulars, belts, candles, rosaries, and other things. Thi3
is to complaint just for thl.l sake of complaining. Let him buy who
wants to buy, he who doesn't don't. ~very trader .sells his mer·
chandise at the price he likes. The Chinese sells his tinapa4 some·
times two for a centavo, and at other times, three for two centavos.
If we tolerate this practice of the Chinese dealer, why should we
not tolerate that of the curate-trader of scapulars? Is the curate
perchance less Of a man than the Chinese? I say it is purely ill
will. Let them shout and say that with his money and power the
friar imposes on the government; what does it matter to me? What
do I care if this or that one should give the order if after all I'll
have to obey? Because, if the curate doesn't give the odrers, any
corporal of the carabineers will do so, and everything would be the
same. In the final analysis, I see no reason whatsoever to go
against the friar cur•tes . .
Let''s see now if there ere advantages in siding with them against
the liberal Filipinos.
The friars say that these are all atheists ... that I don't know
I know only one called Mateo, but it doesn't matter. They say that
they will all go to hell. . . Frankly, though we ought not to judge
harshly anyone, the successor of Christ on earth is exempt from this
injunction. He should knc.w better than anybody else where we
are going after death, and if he doesn't know, I say that nobody will
know it better. The friars exile many of their enemies; of this l
can't or I shouldn't complain. I had a lawsuit and I won it because
it happened that my adversary was an anti-friar and he was exiled
when I was almost in despair of winning the case, for I had no more_
money to bribe the desk oficials and to present horses -to the judge
and the governor. God is most merciful! They charged adminis·
tratively Captain Juan, who had a very pretty daughter whom he
forbade to go to the convent to kiss the curate's hand. Well done!
That's doubting the holiness of the curate and he truly deserved
deportation, Moreover, what's he going to do with. his daughter?
Why guard her so carefully if, after all, she's not going to be a
n"un? And even if she had to be a nun, don't certain rumors some·

4 A small dried flsh, a p•pular food of the Flllplnoa.

3
where around say the nuns of St.· Claiteli and the Franciscan friars
understand each other very well? What's bad about that? Aren't
the nuns the wives of Jesus Christ? Aren't the friars his successors?
Why so many women for him alone? Nothing, nothing, ·the friars
are right in everything and I'm . going to side with them against my
countrymen. The Filipino liberals are anti·Spaniards, so the friars
say, and I don't wish to be anti-Spaniard. The proof that they are
is ..• that the friars say so. But, if the liberals win? If, tired,
persecuted, and desperate for so much jailing and exiling, they
throw all caution to the wind, they arm themselves as in Spain,
behead their enemies, killing them in revenge for acts that they
call violent and brutal, for so many imprisonments, exiles, and exe·
cutions committed upon their orders? And if all this happen and
they \llin? Then their revenge may also reach me. Here! Here'
Let's consider well if this is possible. '
Is a massacre of the friars possible in the Philippines? Is it
possible here a slaughter to that which occurred in Spain thirty
years ago as they say? No, a Filipino never attacks one who is
unharmed, one who is defenseless. We see it among boys who ant
fighting. The biggest one does not use all his superior strength but
fights the smallest with only one arm; he doesn't start the attack
befor.e the other one is ready. No, the Indios may be stupid, simple,
fanatical, and whatever one may say, but he always retains a certain
gentlemanly instinct. He has to be very, very much offended, he
has to be in the last stage of despai.I: to engage in assassinations and
massacres of a similar kind. But, if they should do the friars what
the friars did to the heretics on St. Bartholomew's Day in France?
History says that the Catholics took advantage of the night when
the heretics were gathered in Paris and beheaded and assassinated
them... If the anti-friar Filipinos, fearing that the friars may do
to them what they did in France, take advantage of the lesson and
go ahead. Holy God! If in this supreme struggle for survival, see·
ing that their lives, property, and liberty are in danger, they should
stake everything and allow themselves to be carried away by exces·
ses, by the terror that present circumstances inspire? Misfortune of
misfortunes! What would then become of me if I side now with the
friars? The best course is not to decide. So long as the govern·
ment does not appease the minds of the people, it's bad to take part
in these affairs. tt might be desirable to deport, to send to the

G At Manila there wa• a. monRstery called Mon&lllerio de Santa Clara, where a

limited number of nuns lived , dedicated to a contemplative life. Rhal .alludes to
c urrent otorle~~ about nuns and frlan. See Rizal'a El Filibuetemm<>.
6 The name ~~:lven by the Spaniards to the native Gf the Phlllpp!nes. It baa •1
humlllatlnc connotation.

4
 gallows ·all the liberal Filipinos to extirpate the seed. . . but, their
sons, their relatives, their friends. . . the conscience of the whole
country? Are there today more anti-friars than before 1872?7. Eve-
ry Filipino prisoners or exile opens the eyes of one hundred Filipi-
I!OS and wins as many for his party. If they could hang all the
Filipinos and leave only the friars and me to enjoy the country, that
would be the best but ... then I'll be the slave of all of them. I'll have
to work for them, which would be worse. What is to be done?
What is the government doing? Liberalism is a plant that never
dies, said that damned Rizal. . . Decidedly I'll remain neutral: Vir-
tue lies in the middle ground.
Yes, I'll be neutral. What does it matter to me if vice or virtue
should triumph if I shall be among the vanquished? The question
is to win, and a sure victory is a victory already won. Wait fox:
the figs to ripen and gather them. See which party is going to win,
and wheu they are already intoning the hymn, I joip them and I
sing louder than the rest, insult the vanquished, make gestures, rant
so that the others may believe in my ardor and the sincerity of . my
convictioos. Here's true wisdom! That the fools and the Quijotes
allow themselves to be killed so that their ide~ls may triumph; I
wish them to kill themselves so that mine may triumph. Their ideal
is justice, ~quality, liberty! My ideal is to live in peace and plenty!
Which is more beautiful and more useful, freedom of the press, for
example, or. a stuffed capon? Which are greater, equal rights or some
cartridges equally full of gold coins? Equality fer equality, I pre-
fer the equality of money which can be piled up·aud hidden. Let the
friars win, let the liberals win, the question is to come to an under·
standing afterwards with the victors. What do I care about the na-
tive land, human dignity, progress, patriotism? AH that is worthless
if one bas no money!

7 'I'Jw ·year when the three ma>'tyTed prie~~ta, BureO'J, G6mes, and ZAI"OOr.;, W<!r<!'
garrotted for oupposed C<!mpUei~y !n the Cavite Mutiny ot 1872.
 IN HONOR OF TWO FILIPINO PAINTERS
DR. JOSE RIZAL

(At a banquet in honor of Luna and Hidalgo, Madrid, June 25, 1884)
In rising to speak I have no fear that you will listen to me with
superciliousness, for you have come here to add to ours your en·
thusiasm, the stimulus of youth, and you cannot but be indulgent.
Sympathetic currents pervade the air, bonds of fellowship radiate
in directions, generous souls listen, and so I do not fear for my
humble personality, nor do I doubt your kindness. Sincere men
yourselves; you seek only sincerity, and from that height, where
noble sentiments prevail, you give no heed to sordid trifles. You
survey the whole field, you weigh the cause and extend your hand
lo whomsoever like myself, desires to unite with you in a single
thought, in a sole aspiration: the glorification of genius, the gran·
deur of fatherland!
Such is, indeed, the reason for this gathering. In tqe history
of mankind there are names which in themselves signify an achieve·
ment-which call up reverence and greatness; names which, like
magic formulas , invoke agreeable and pleasant ideas;. names which
come to form a compact, a token of peace, a bond of love among the
nations. To such belong the names of Luna and Hidalgo: Their
splendor illuminates two extremes of the globe-The Orient and the
Occidental, Spain and the Philippines. As I utter them, I seem to
see two luminous arches that rise from either region to blend there
on high, impelled by the sympathy of a common origin, and from
that height, to unite two people with eternal bonds; two people whom
the seas and space vainly separate; two people among whom do not
germinate the seeds of disunion blindly sown by men and their des·
potism. Luna and Hidalgo are the pride of Spain as of the Philip-
pines-though born in the Philippines, they might hnve been born
in Spain, for genius has no country; genius bursts forth everywhere;
genius is like .light and air, the patrimony of all: cosmopolitan as
space, as life and God.
The Philippines' patriarchal era is passing, the illustrious deeds
of its sons are not circumscnbed by the home: the oriental chrysalis
is quitting its cocoon; the dawn of a boarder day is heralded for
those regions in brilliant tints and rosy dawn·hues; and that race,

6
lethargic during the night of history while the sun was illuminat·
ing other continents, begins to wake, urge by them electric shock
produced by contact with the occidental people, and begs for light,
life, and the civilization that once might have been its heritage,
thus conforming to the eternal laws of constant evolution, of trans·
formation, of recurring phenomena, of progress.
This you know well and you glory in it. To you is due the
beauty of the gems that circle the Philippines' cNwn; she supplied
the stones, Europe the polish. We all contemplate proudly: you,
yo\lr work; we the inspiration, the encouragement, the materials
furnished.
They imbibed there the poetry of nature-nature grand and
terrible in her cataclysms, in her transformations, in her conflict·
ing forces; nature sweet, peaceful and melancholy in her constant
manifestation-unchanging; nature that stamps her seal upon what-
soever she creates or produces. Her sons carry it wherever they go.
Analyze, if not her characteristics~ then her works; and little as you
may know that people, you will see her in everything moulding its
knowledge, as the soul that everywhere presides, as the spring of the
mechanism, as the substantial form, as the raw mat~rial. It is im
possible not to show what one feels; it is impossible to be one thing
and to do another. Contradictions are apparent only; they are
merely paradoxes. In El Spoliarium-on that canvas which is not
mute-is heard the o:Imult of the thtong, the cry of slaves, the me-
tallic rattle of the armor on the corpses, the sobs of orphans, the
hum of prayers, with as much force and realism as is heard the
crash of the thunder amid the roar of the cataracts, or the fearful
and frightful rumble of the earthquake. The same nature that con~
ceives such phenomena has also a share in those lines.
On the other hand, in Hidalgo's work there are revealed feel-
ings of the purest kind; ideal expression of melancholy, beauty and
weakness-victims of brute force. And this is because Hidalgo wa5
born beneath the dazzling azure of that sky, to the murmur of the
breezes of her seas, in the placidity of her lakes, the poetry of her
valleys and the majestic harmony of her hills and mountains.
So in Luna we find the shades, the contrasts, the fading lights,
the mysteriOl,lS and the terrible, like an echo of the dark storms of
the tropics, its thunderbolts, and the destructive eruptions of its
volcanoes. So in Hidalgo we find all is light, color, harmony, feel-
ing, clearness; like the Philippines on the moonlight nights, with
her horizons that invite to meditation and suggest infinity. Yet
both of them-although . so different-in appearance, at least, are

7
 fundBmentally one: just as our hearts beat in unison in spite of
striking differences. Both, by depicting from their palettes the
dazzling rays of the tropical sun, transform them into rays of unfad
ing glbry with which they invest th~ fatherland. Both express the
.spirit of our social, moral and political life: humanity subjected to
hard trials, humanity unredeemed; reason aspiration in open fight
with prejudice, fanaticiSm .and injustice; because fe~ling and opinion
mate their way through the thickest wsl1s, because for th~m all bo-
dies are porous, all are transparent; and if the pen fails ·them and
the printed word does not come to their aid, then the palette and
and the brush not only delight the view but are also eloquent ad-
vocates.
If the mother teaches her child her language in order t.:> under-
stand its joys, its needs, and its woes; so Spain, like that mother,
nlso teaches her language to Filipinos, in .spite of the opposition of .
those purblind pygmies who, sure o.f the present, IU'e unable to
extend their \ision into tJae future, who do not weigh the conse-
quences.
Like sickly nurses, cc.rrupted and corrupting these oppo:aents
of progress pervert the heart of the people. They sow among them
seeds of discord, to reap later the harvest, ll deadly nightshade of
future generations.
But, away with these woes! Peace to the dead, because they are
dead-breath and soul are lacking them; the worms are eating
them! Let us not invoke their llf.d remembrance; let us not drag
their ghastliness into the midst of our rejoicing! Happily, brothers
nre more-generosity and nobility are innate under the sky of
Spain-of this you are all patent pr>Jof. You hllve unanimously
responded, you have cooperated, and you would have done more
bad more been asked. Seated at oor festai board and honoring the
illustrious sons of the Philippines, you also honor Spain, because,
as you are well aware, Spain's bOUl!da:ries are not the Atlantic or
the Bay of Biscay or t-he Mediterranean-a shame would it be for
water to place a barrier of her grertness, her thought. Spain is
there-there where her beneficent influence is exerted; and
even though her flag should disappear, there would remain her
memory-eternal, imperishable. What matter tha eons and cannon:
there where a feeling of ·love, of affection, does not flourish-there
where there is no fusion of ideas, harmony of opinion?
Luna and . Hidalgo belong to you as much as to us. You love
them, you see in them noble hopes, valuable examples. The F!·
lipino youth .of Europe-always enthusiastic--and some other per·

8
sons whose hearts remain ever young through the disinterested·
ness· and enthusiasm that characterize their actions, tender Luna n
crown, a humble tribute-small indeed compared to our enthusl·
asm-but the most s~X)ntaneous and freest of all the tributes yet
paid to· him.
But the Phl!ippines' gratitude toward her illustrious sons was
yet unsatisfied; and desiring to give free run to the thoughts that
settle her mind, to the feelings that overflow her heart, and to the
words that escape from her lips, we have all come together here
at this banquet to mingle our vows, to give . shape to that mutual
understanding between races which love and care for each other,
united morally, socialy and politically for the spaee of four cen·
turies, so that they may form in the future a single nation in spl·
rlt, in the duties, in aims, in rights.
I drink, then, to our artist Luna and Hidalgo, genuine and
pure glories of two people. I drink to the persons· who have gi·
ven them aid on the painful road of art! I drink that the ·Filipino
youth-sacred hope of my fatherland- may imitate such valu·
able examples; and that the mother Spain. solicitous and heedful
of the welfare of her provinces, may quickly put into practice
the reforms she has so long planned. The furrows is laid out and
the land is not sterile! And finally, I drink to the Happiness of
those parents who, deprived of their sons' affection , from those
distant regions follow them with moist gaze and throbbing hearts
across the seas and distance; sacrificing on the altar of the com·
mon good, the sweet consolations that are so scarce in the decline
of life-precious and solitary flowers that spring up on tile bor-
ders of the tomb.

9
 ORDER OF THE MARQUIS OF MALINTA
The Marquis of Malinta, by the grace of God and of his wife,
the Marquise of Lotteries, Sultan of the Philippines, etc., etc.
To Whom it may concern :
Whereas. since the 4th of June last, when I took charge of this
Philippine Archipelago, I have become convinced of its decadent
state ,that it is imperative to use an efficacious remedy;
Therefore, taking into account the financial necessities that
have compelled me to cross the seas in order to improve the exploita·
tion of this Archipelago, I ordain and command:
1. That there be established houses of chapdikit with the mo·
derate tax P150 daily for each house.
2. It remains absolutely prohibited to speak of morlllity with
respect to this wise and paternal order.
3: That the convents, being mines for the impudent who know
how to exploit them,it is prohibited for the present and while the
friars come one by one, to attack in any sense this divine institution.
It is permitted to speak of the friars only in terms of praise and
eulogy; and he who would infringe or attempt to infringe this
order by act, word or thought will be liable to the penalties imposed
upon a traitor to the mother country.
4. The tickets of the Philippine Lottery cannot be sold at the
price list, my Most Excellent Marquise of Lotteries being in charge
of the management and exploitation of this business for her bene·
fit.
5. In charge of the strict fulfillment of these orders are all
the sabermen under my command and it is recommended that they
sharpen carefully their respective sabers; and that the censor of the
press do not let out of his hand the red pencil, the savior of reli·
gion and the highest interels of this command.

1 Garne oc· rhanre. Th" ll'ambllnll ~louses were a source of Income of the oftf.
daldom

10
 Given at my Palace o£ Malinta and countersigned by my Reve·
rend Secretary on the 30th of November 1888.

The Marquis of Malinta

By order of His Execellency,

Father Salvadorcito Filont2
Secretary
2 In a l!lltlrlcal writing entitled "By Telephone" Rizal called blm Tont which
lacks only one letter, "o" tu make it tonto, the Spanish for "stupid". He was Fathe1•
Salvador Font of the Order of St. Auguotine who, as parish-priest of Tondo, MR·
nila, was notorious for his defiance of the rules of his Order. In 1887 he was asked
by the University . of Santo Tomas to censure Rizal'a Noli me t.fngere and be ren-
dered an adverse report branding Rizal as a heretic and blasphemer. But it was
known that he picked from the novel the ·most stinging passages and published them
first privately and later he printed a large number which ch·culated freely In SpAin.
He hid his identity under the nom de plume of "A Spaniard of long residence in the
Philippines."
In 1889 Father Font was appointed by the Augustlnlans their representative
in Spain. (E. Alzona)
A printed handbill attributed to Rizal.

11
 MESSAGE TO THE YOUNG WOMEN
OF MALOLOS
E~ope, February 1889

To My Countrywomen:
When I wrote the Noli me tangere I pondered long on whether
or not courage was a common virtue of the young women of our
country. Though I se~~.rched my memory diligently, though I re-
called one by one all the young women I have known since child·
hood, only a few conformed to the ideal I longed for. It is true
there were many endowed with sweet disposition, beautiful habits,
gentle manners, modesty but withal were mh1gled complete defe-
rence and obedience to every word and request of the so-called
fathers of the soul--as if the soul had any other father but God-
due to their excessive goodness, humility, or perhaps ignorance.
They are like wit.hered plants, sowed and grown ln the darkness.
Though they may bloom, their flower& are without fragrance; though
they may bear fruit, their fruit has no juice.
However, now that news · arrived here of what occurred in your
town of Malolos, I realized that I . wns wrong, aud my joy w~s
beyond bounds. I should not be blamed, for I did not know thl'
town of Malolos nor its young women, except one Emma and this
one only by name.
Now that you have responded to our vehement Clamor for
public welfare; now that you bavc shown a good example to your
fellow young women who, !ike you, desire to have their eyea opened
and to be lifted from their prostration, our hope is roused, now we are
confident of victory. The Fillpino woman no longer bows her head
and bends her knees; her hope in the future is revived; gone is
the mother who helps to keep her daughter in the dark, who educates
·her in self·conternpt and moral annihilation. It is no longer the
hlghest wisdom to bow the head to ~very unjust order, the highest
goodness to smile at an insult, to seek solace in humble tears. You
have found out that God's command is different from that of the
priest, that piety docs not consist in prolonged kneeling, long pray·
ers, la:rge r~' > aries, solled scapulars., but in good conduct, clean cons·
cience, anu upright thinking. You have also discovered that it is

12
not goodness tp be too obedient to every desire and request of those
who pose as little gods, but to obey what is reasonable and just, be·
cause blind obedience Is the origin of crooked orders and in this
case both parties sin. The head or the-' priest cannot say that he
alone will be responsible for the wrong order because God gave each
one his own mind and his own conscience so that he can distinguish
between right and wrong. All are born without chains, free, and no
one can subject the will and spirit of another. Why would you sub·
mit to another your nable and free thought? It is cowardice and
an error to believe that blind obedience is piety and it is arro·
gance to think and to reflect. Ignorance is ignorance and, not
goodness and honor. God, fountain of wisdom, does not except
man, created in his image, to allow himself to be fooled and blind·
e!d The gift of reason with which we are endowed must be bright·
ened and utilized. An example is the father who gave each of his
sons a lamp to light his way in the darkness. Let them intensify
its flame, take r.are of it, not extinguish it to depend on the light
of others, but to help one another, seek each other's counsel
in the search for the way. He is exceedingly stupid and he can
be blamed if he stumbles in following somebody else's light, and
and the father could say to him: "What for did I give you a
lamp of your own?" But one who stumbles by following his own
light cannot be greatly blamed because perhaps his light is dim
or else the road is very bad.
The usual reply of those who want to fool others is this: He
who depends on his own reason is arrogant. I believe that mOTe
arrogant is he who wishes to subject another's will and dominate
all men. More arrogant is he who poses as God, who pre·
tends to understand every manifestation of God's will. And ex·
ceedingly arrogant or blasphemous is he who attributes to God
everything he says and desires and makes his personal enemies
the enemies of God. We ought not to depend on ourselves so·
lely. We should seek advice, listen to others, and then do what we
believe to be the most reasonable. The habit or the cassock does
not add anything to a man's learning. Even if the wild mount·
aineer is clothed in layers of habits, he remains wild and he cannot
fool any one except the ignorant and weak-willed. So that this can
be proven, buy a habit of St. Francis and put it on a carabao.
It would be lucky that with the habit on, he does not become laz~·.
Let me leave this subject and talk about another.
Young womanhood, the nursery of fruitful flowers, ought to ac·
cumulate riches to bequeath to its descendants. What could the

13
offspring be of a woman whose only virtue is to murmur prayers,
whose only knowledge is derived from awit, 1 novena, prayer·books,
and miraculous tales intended to fool men, with no other recreation
but panguingue 2 or frequent confession of the same sins? What
sons would she have but sacristans, servants of the curate, or de·
votees of cockfighting? The present enslavement of our compa·
triots is the work of our mothers because of the absolute confidence
of their loving hearts and of their great desire to improve the lot
of their children. Maturity is the fruit of childhood and childhood
is in the lap of the mother. The mother who can teach nothing
else -but how to kneel and kiss the hand should not expect any other
kind of children but stupid ones or oppressed slaves. A tree that
grows in the mire is either light or only fit for firewood. If by
chance there should be a bold one, his boldness is concealed and he
will use it for evil, like the dazed bat which cannot come forth un·
till it is twilight. The common reply is that foremost are piety and
love of God. But, what is the piety that they have taught us? To
pray and kneel a long time, kiss the hand of the priest, spend all th!!
money on the church, and believe whatever occurs to them to tell
us. Chatter, callous knees, rubbing of the nose. . . With regard to
church alms, using God as pretext, is there anything in the world
which does not belong to and is the creation of God? What would
you say to a servant who gives to his ma.s ter alms consisting of a
piece of rag borrowed from the 'Same rich master? Who is the vaiu
and foolish man who will give alms to God and believe that his
miserable gift will clothe the Creator of all things? Blessed is he
who gives to the needy, helps the poor, and feeds the hungry, but
cursed and censurable is he who is deaf to the entreaties of the
poor, who stuffs those .who are satiated, and lavishes his mQney on
silver hangings for the :tltar, on alms to the church or the friar who
is swimming in riches, on Masses with music and rockets, while he
squeezes this money from the bones of the poor .and offers it to the
master with which to buy the chains to bind him and to pay his ex·
ecutioners. Oh, blindness and shortsightedness!
True piety is obedience to what is right, happen what may.
"Deeds and not words are what I ask of you", said Christ. "He is
not the son of my father who. repeatedly says, my father, my father,
but he who lives according to the will of my father." Piety does
not consist in a worn·out nose nor in Christ's successor known for
giving his hand to be kissed. Christ did not kiss the Pharisees, he
1 Fanciful tall!l In verse In tbe vemaeular.
2 A popular card-~ramet.

14
never let his band to l.le kissed. He did not fatten the rich and
proud scribes. He dtd not mention scapulars, he did not require the
wearing of rosaries, he did not nsk money for Masses, and he did
not charge for saying prayers. St. John did not ask to be paid for
baptizing on the Jordan River nor Christ for his preaching. Why
is it that now priests ask to be paid for every move they make? And
still hungry, they sell scapulars, rosaries, belts, and other things to
entice money and to hurt the soul; because even if you ·wear as scapu·
lar all the rags on earth, wear as rosaries all the wood in the forests,
gird around your waist all the skins of animals and over all of them
all t~e priests in the world take pains to make the sign of the ·cross
and to murmur prayers, and sprinkle them with all the water of the .
sea, they cannot cleanse the dirty heart, they cannot absolve the
unrepentant of their sins. Likewise, for their covetousness they for·
bid many things, such as eating meat, marrying one's cousin, com·
padre, and the like, which however are permitted if one pays. Why,
can' God be bought and is He dazzled by money like the priests? The
thief who pays for a bull for composition can rest assured that he
has been forgiven. Therefore, God wants to partake of stolen goods?
Is it true that God is so needy that He imitates the carabineer or the
civil guard? If this is the God that the friars worship, I tum my
back to such a God.
Let us be reasonable and open our eyes, especially you women,
because you are the ones who open the minds of men. Consider
that a good mother is different from the one created by the friars.
Raise your children close to the image of the true God-the God who
cannot be bribed, the God who is not nvaricious, the God who is
the father of all, who is not partial, the God who does not
fatten on the blood of the poor, who does not rejoice at the plaint of
the 'lffllcted, and does·not obfuscate the intelligent mind. Awaken
and prepare the mind of the child for every good and desirable idea
-.:.love for honor, sincere and firm character, clear mind, clean con·
duct, ,noble action, love for one's fellow men, respect for God,-
teach this to your children. And because life is full of sorrows and
perils, fortify their characters against any difficulty, strengthen
their hearts against any danger. The country s\lould not expect
honor and prosperity so long as the educatlon of the child is
defective, so long as the women who raist. the children are enslaved
and ignorant. Nothing can be drunk in a turbid and bitter spring.
No sweet fruit can be picked from a sour seed.
When a mother handed the shield to her son who was going to
war, this was all she said to him: "Bring this back or they bring

15
you back", meaning, ''You come back a victor or you die", beeause
it was the custom to throw away the shield of the fleeing vanquished
warrior or bring back his corpse on top of the shield. A mother
heard that her son was killed in the war and the army was defeated.
She said nothing but gave thanks that her son had been saved from
ignominy; but when her son came back alive, upon seeing him, she
put on mourning. A warrior told a mother who had gone out to
meet the returning heroes that her three sons had been killed in the
war. "That is not what I am asking", the mother replied, "but, did
we win or did we lose? The hero replied, ·•we won." "If that is
~o. let us give thanks to God!" she said, and she went to the temple.
Once a defeated king of theirs hid in the temple for fear of
popular indignation. The Spartans agreed to close him up there and
£tarve him. When they staled the door, tb~ mother was the first
to bring stones. These customs were common among them and there·
fore all Greece respected the Spartan women. "Of all women" re·
marked one, "only you Spartan women wield power over men." "Ol
course", replied the Spartan women, "of all women we alone give
birth to men.. Men, said the Spartans, are not born to live for
themselves but for their country. So long as this manner of think·
ing and this type of women prevailed in Sparta, no enemy was able
to set foot on her soil and no Spartan woman ever saw an enemy
army.
I do not expect to be believed because only I say it. Many peo·
ple do not respect reason and truth, but the priest's habit, gray hair,
or lack of teeth. But if old age is venerable because of hard ex·
perience, my past life though a short one, dedicated to the welfare
of my country, also has given me some experience. Far be it from
me to compel others to believe me, to pretend to be a little god, a
successor of God, to expe~t people to take my"word with closed eyes,
bowed head, and folded arms. What I ask is for all to think, to
reflect and meditate, investigate and shift in the name of reason the
following that I am going to state:
First and foremost. Some become treacherous because of the
cowardice and negligence of others.
Second. Lack of self-respect and excessive timidity invite scorn.
Third. Ignorance is bondage, because like mind, like man. A
man without a will of his own is a man without personality. The
blind who follows other's opinion is like a beast led by a halter.
Fourth. One who wants to help himself should help others, be·
cause if he neglects others, he too will be neglected by them. One

16
 mid·rib is easy to break, put not a bundle o£ many midribs, tie4
together. .
Fifth. If the Filipino woman will not change, she should not be
entrusted with the education of her children. She should only bear
them. She should be depri~ed of her authority in the home; other· ·
wise she may unwittingly betray her husband, children, country, and
all.
Sixth. Men are born equal, naked, and without chains. They
were not created by God to be enslaved, neither were they endowed
with intelligence in order to be misled, nor adorned with reason to
. be fooled by others. It is not pride to refuse to worship a fellow
man, to enlighten the mind, and to reasen out everything. The ar·
rogant one is he who wants to be worshipped, who misleads others,
and wants his will to prevail over reason and justice.
· Seventh. Analyze carefully the kind of religion taught you.
Find out if that is the command of God or the teaching of Christ
for alleviating the suffering of the poor, for comforting those in pain.
Consider every thing taught you, the aim of every sermon, the un·
derlying reason for every Mass, novena, rosary, scapular, im·
age, miracle, candle belt, and other things that are forced upon you,
dinned daily into your ears and dangled before your eyes, and dis·
cover their beginning and ·their end, and then compare that Teligion
with the pure religion of Christ, and see if your Christianity is not
like the milking animals or like the pig that is being fattemid, not
for its own sake, but in order to sell it at a high })rice and make more
money out of it.
Let us reflect then, study our situation, and ponder. May these
few loose lines serve as an aid to your natural intelligence and en·
able you to proceed along the path on which you have already
started.
Tubo ko'y dakila sa puhunang pagod, 3 and I shall welcome what·
ever ·may happen, the usual reward for any one who dares to tell
the truth in our country. May you realize your desire to learn and
8 "M:v paine ahall have their a:reat reward," a line from Ka11 Sel11a, dedication
In Franeloeo Baltazar'• celebrated metrleo.l romance entitled Florantc at Laura. The
whole atanza rcad8:
kung ~adl4kdn man ft/1 :r;>ula't pao-af/Op,
tubo ko'v d41tila aa :r;>uhunano pagod,
kung bindbcaaa 1110'11 iaa mang Aimut6Ao
"II clalaltawi" 11aring nagltdltand4g.
Taa:aiQIJ tranalatlon.
Thoueh this ma)' meet with crltlelom and mockery,
M:v palna shall have their rrr~at reward;
I( reading: thia you would heave even a ela:h
In remembrance of this humble card.

17
may you not galher in the garden of knowledge lhe unripe fruit but
select what you pick, think about it, taste it before swallowing it,
for on the face of th~ earth all are mixed and it is not unusual for
the enemy to sow weeds together with the .good seeds in the middle
of the field.
This is the sincere wish of your compatriot,

JO&E :ltiZAL

18
 FILIPINO FARMERS
We applaud the efforts of the . minister of colonies to foster
agriculture in the Philippines. Proofs of these are the boards, com·
missions, and committees and numerous projects. We suggest, how·
ever, that the farmer be consulted also, the one in direct contact
with· the land; who makes the land productive with his capital and
labor and puts into practice the measures that science and experience
suggest.
And not only must he not be forgotten but neither must his
hands be tied, disabling therri for work, as it happens, unfortunately
It is not enough to issue royal decrees and timely measures; they
must be enforced and enforced expediently.
The Filipino farmer has to struggle not only with plagues and
public calamitic~ but also wUh petty tyrants and robbers. Against
the first, defense indeed is permitted; against the latter, not always .
We shall explain.
After the floods, locusts, fires, bad harvests, and the
like, the farmer capitalist has to deal with the constable who takes
away from him his laborers for personal service, some public works,
repair of roads, bridges, and others; with the civil guard 1 who ar-
rests them for various reasons, sometimes for not carrying with them
their personal cedulas (certificates), for not saluting properly, for
being suspicious persons or for no reason whatsoever, and they
manacle them to clean the barracks and thus compel the capitalist
to live on better terms with the chief, and if not, they take away
his carabaos, oxen, in spite of many protests, returning them later
however, as these acts of violence are almost always unjustified and
not within the competence of the civil guard. The work is usually
d.elayed three or four days only but at times it is delayed weeks, the
Mimal is lost or dies; and this happens when the civil guard, going
beyond its jurisdiction or province, commits these plundets in an-
other province and then returns to its own; hence the question of
competency, the coming and going, etc., etc,. etc.
At times it is not the constable or the civil' guard wlio opposes
so indirectly the minister of colonies. An official of the court or
of the provincial government, dissatisfied with the farmer, urj;\ently
I In Spftnish. G!tnrdia Civil. the pollee in charve or malntAinln~: law and order.

19
 summons this or that laborer, if not iwo oi three. The unfortunate
man undertakes a trip of two or three days, uneasy and distrustful,
spends his savings, arrives, presents himself, waits, returns, re·
turns the next day and waits, finally to be asked with a frown and
the look of a judge, abstruse and unknown things. He is lucky if
he comes out free from this questioning, for not infrequently after
it, he is sent to jail from which he comes out later as stupid as be-
fore and all are as Christian -as ever.
Sometimes, rare fortunately, a compaiiia volante (flying squad)
sweeps the province. Woe to those who have enemies! It is enough
to be in · the list of suspects for the head of the squad to pick him
up and take him to another place without trial or filing of a com-
plaint. Goodbye farm and goodbye everything! See if after this he
will be encouraged to plant in other islands.
But if the capitalist knows how to grease and through offerings
to appease the gods and render them favorable, he has already ac·
eompllshed much. But still there remain other deities, the tuliron.e.~
or bandits.
The tulisan is a terrible enemy of those whose farms are far
. from the towns. One cannot win his favor by giving him gifts o;
bribing him, as some do secretly, because he would fall into the op·
posite abyss and would be accused of being an accomplice of male·
factors, which is equivalent to being tortured and later exiled. The
best remedy against this plague that the government cannot destroy
is to arm ·oneself and expose oneself to a daily and dangerous com-
bat.
Well now; for the peaceful tax-payer to use firearms and to be
able to defend himself, he needs the good report of the people, the
civil guard, and the parish priest, to petition · the government in
Manila, to have patience, to' wait because the petition is not always
acted upon except after the end of several months if someone fol·
lows it up ot if he has a friend of the employee in charge of issuing
licenses. ·,
All this is very good. What is not so good is that despite the
good reports, despite the peace in the province, the abundance of
bandits, the good conduct of the farmer tax-payer, and the danger
to which he and his farms are exposed, they deny him ·not only the
use of the firearm, or the renewal of the license but also they con·
fiscate the firearm, which he · bought at a fabulous price sometimes,
only to be left to rot, to become oxidized, in a comer of the bar·
racks or the townhall, useless to a11, except to the bandits, who in
this way are the most favored.

20
 This is the case of a citizen of the Provmce of La Laguna, owner
of extensive lands planted to sugar cane, coffee, and abaca, located
far from the town. That province has been for almost three ce·n·
turies not only loyal to Spain but "superloyal'', one Indio in that
province, Captain Francisco .de San Juan, having declared war in
the name of Spain against the English in 1762 when even the gov·
ernment was submitting to the invader, succeeding with his energy
to save the money that the authorities wanted to deliver to the ene·
my and with which later and with troops o.f Indios, kept the enPmy
within bounds. This made me say to a Spanish writer that that In·
dio was half a century ahead of the Mayor of Mostoles. Though
La Laguna is one of the most agricultural' provinces and most liable
to natural and human calamities, this citizen is denied the renewal
of his license, and in spite of all the good reports, they confiscated
his f1rear.in. For this recrson he had to abandon his farms, losing
his abaca crops, for he could not venture out unarmed and he was
sure that the authorities who left him thus could neither defend
him nor ransom him from the bandits.
We are convinced that the minister of colonies and the good
Spaniards who love the prestige of Spain and have an affection for
those Islands do not know these details. We, who can cite names,
towns, dates, witnesses, and attest other incidents through our own
experience or as· eye·witness~s, are content to cite this case and we
say: Je passe et des meilleurs. 2
It would be desirable to correct this, Mr. Minister of Colonies,
lest some mischievous man say that the government there 3 being
impotent might come to an understanding with the bandits and
deliver to them the unarmed inhabitants, that it wants the lands to
be cultivated with speeches, projects, and boards and for this rea·
son it binds the hands of the farmer and puts a thousand · obstacles
on his path, so that he may plant according to the new system. Ag·
riculture is not improved only in that way. It is necessary to aid
those who practice it. Those who from their comfortable chairs
think otherwise and see the incficacy of the royal decrees throw the
blame for its backwardness to the indolence of the Indio. They do
not know with what obstacles he has to contend and they ignore
that for a machine to run well, it is not enough that it be built ac·
cording to principles but also that it be perfect in its details, that
everything be levelled, and that no part get out of its proper place.
2 I pa.u on to the bast.
3 AiJ Rital was writing In Spain, he vft<m refer. lo lht Phlllppinea a• "tbero:'

~1
 These abuses, that for being unutterably bad become ridiculous,
ruin the country and impair the prestige of the government. This
system of prevention, of unfounded fears, of unjust suspicions, not
only irritates and awakens men but exposes the weakness of the
government: l\fuch fear reveals much weakness. This, added to
the inability to stop banditry, makes an evil-minded person say that
the government is only hard on 'peaceful and respectable citizen~
while it fondles or lets alone the rebellious and criminal. This is
the tJsual reproach of independent Indios on Christianized Indios.
This behavior of the goyernment there hurts the real interests
of Spain and through thi:; way of making discontented men, the
government appears as the foremost filibustero . 4 And as we believe
that one cannot serve a country better than to tell her the truth,
we say this to the Mother Country so that she can apply timely
remedy. Hence we ask for representation in the Cortes and freedom
of the press in Manila in order to expose abuses to public opinion.
Injustices there do not always find a writer who may relate them,
nor every article a generous newspaper that will accept it for its
columns; and even if it were not so, through the present road, the
remedy always arrives late, if the abuse is remedied at all.
We shall conclude by proposing to the minister a reform con·
cerning the granting of licenses for the use of firearms. ·
Inasmuch as they are not granted without the report of the
people, of the chief of the civil guard (European), and of the parish
priest (almost always European), instead of being issued in Manila,
they should be issued by the court ol every town, after previous con·
sultation or secret voting of the judge, of the officer of the civil
guard (European), and of the parish priest (almost always Europ·
ean). It should not be granted without unanimity. In this way
it is simplified and the business is shortened, and the time is better
employed. There are no other inconveniences but these two: There
would be some more unemployed men and hidden enmities could
not be satisfied with revenge and secret reports, but on the other
hand, the treasury and mankind would be the gainer-the treasury
with less employees and mankind with more loyal men and less
traitors.
4 To the SpaniMrdo every Filipino who sd,•oeeted reCornus for hla country was
a fi/ibu..etero-''a danlleroue patriot who ahould be hanq-ed soon," t>r & .. pr~umptuoue
man," accordin&: to Rlz.al In bia Jetter to Ferdinand Blumentrltt, BerJin, 29 March
1887
Published In La Solidaridad, vol. . L pp . 21-23, 15 March 1RB9·.

22
 TO "LA DEFENSA"
As we offcn~d in our preceding issue, we arc going to antedate
our work to examine the article of La vejensa in its issue for 30
March and we shall try to be brief because the Villanueva weekly
carries the discussion to a ground where we cannot follow it, as it
is full of mud and very slippery.
We said to La Defensa that we did not accept the authority of
i\Ir. Patricio de Ia Escosura on everything he says, for it is enough
to read his Memoria • to enable one to see that the Royal Commis-
sary wrote with a certa-in fear, a certain prudence, bordering on lack
of sincerity due to his difficult position, as it is evident even in hi~
boldest passages, as in those wherein he says that the friars are op-
posed to the teaching of Spanish so that they may remain perpetual
intermediaries, that the University was not enough :>.nd he propose!>
the creation of a faculty of medicine and pharmacy, in those passages
in which he describes the difficulty encountered by the captain gen·
era! , proposing t0 remedy the situation by creating the positions of
ministers to head the different departments, etc., etc. We shaU not
analyze here his words but La Defensa admits that Mr. Patricio de Ia
Escost;ra should express himself with more ·sincerity, with more in-
dependent criterion, for the high position that he holds gave him a
right to do it and it was his duty to -express his ideas very clearly.
Jf our colleague wants us to quote his words, we shall cite offhand
the following:
Page 11: " . . . and those shepherds (friars), generally speaking,
suffer nevertheless from a preoccupation that they have gone as far
as to contaminate many officials of the government ... "
Page 12: "In fact, Most Excellent Sir, it is said" (the friars
say) "and undoubtedly it is said in good faith that to teach the In·
dios Spanish ... would be to furnish them with a medium that they
lack now . . . of rising against Spanish rule; that from the moment
that they could understand easily the laws and orders of the gov·
ernment, they v.:iH discuss and comment on them from the point of
view of their local interests and for that reason in opposition to thos~
of the Metropolis; that to give these natives an idea of their owu
rights is to inculcate in them the spirit of rebellion (?), or at least
to foment their inclination to promote lawsuits or 'litigations; the
• See >Otnote 2 on paae ll.

23
superiority of race, which now exalts . the Europeans, destroyed thus,
it would be impossible to govern these provinces without material
force, as it is being done now; and lastly, that the Filipino army,
now dE:pendable, because if, for example, the Tagalogs rebel, the
Bisayos, hating the Tagalogs, will be on the side of the government,
and reciprocally ... " (Proof that the tendency of the friars is .to
foster racial hatred.)
Page 15: "The truth is, Most Excellent Sir, that once the Indio
is equipped with an education suitable to his capacity and status and
finds himself no longer in his present abject condition, it will not be
so easy nor so devoid of da1tger cis hitherto to abuse of his good dispo·
sition and exploit him without either scruple or mercy, as it has been
seen in more than one occasion and ·place."
Page 16: "And the abuses are overlooked by the authorities
and their author~ remain unpunished ."
Page 1<3: "I say that little can be expected from the parish
priests in the matter of diffusing the Spanish language "
"But I always said and I must repeat it: That it would be
dangerous to spread our language among the Indios is a preoccupa-
tion deeply rooted in these religiotLS orders . . . an error in very
good faith without doubt." (?)
Page 19: "All that can be hoped for is to neutralize the opinion
of the religious orders so that they may not hinder the teaching of
Spanish .
But enough of Escosura for the present. Let La Defensa study
that Memoria with which it is so much in love. It will note that that
good gentleman has tried to protect the friars and excuse the charges
against them he could not avoid.
With regard to what the Villanueva weekly says or insinuates
about our way of interpreting matters, we are going to transcribe
also so.me lines of ijurtado de Corcuera and La De.fensa can interpret
them as it pleases, whether in its favor or for the benefit of Ciruela.
it does not matter to us. Here they 3re:
And because the rivalry between some persons and the ecclesias·
tical communities which do not want to appear as vassals of Your
Majesty has fulminated complaints and revealed . blunders and ex-
cesses . . • divulging long and sinister accounts against the better
adjusted procedure of the governor, it& authors being without doubt
the cause of the scandals thn.t affect _

24
 In order to give a p~f of the arrogance of the religious cor·
porations and their contemp~ of the civil authorities, he says with
respect to an interdiction which had flimsy c~. uses.,, "and so the in
terdiction rtmained until the Recollect Fathers of St. Augustine,
when the11 celebrated the feast of San Nicolas, attained what 11either
the gover11or nor the whole town could attain in the celebration of
the feast of Our Lady."
Further~ he says:
"The governor heard that some ecclesiastics tried to flee carry·
ing with them · a 11umber of. soldiers and sailors who received sala-
ries frOtn Your Majest11 ... in fact tt hapPened that two friars and
oue clergvm«'l left and carried with them more than .10 soldiers and
sailors who had received more than 9,000 pesos as aid from the
rQVal treoSUT]/,,,"
Speaking about the Dominican Fr. Lucas Garcia, the governor
of Formosa said in his letter: "He is fond Of lawsuits and disputes
ooing as far as to forbid the ringing oj bells at night or the saying ol
'Praise be the Most Holy Sacrament and the immaculate concep_tion
of Our Lady the Virgin Mary, conceived without original sin'; he doeR
not want immaculate to be uttered together with Virgin' ... "
Speaking about a clergyman that some soldiers wanted to detain
by order of the governor, Hurtado de Corcuera say~: " ... instantly
many religious of St. Dominic came out to receive him so that they
attacked the soldiers and crashed through tile gunrd room and they
put him in their OO!n•enf .. .. "
Further below: " ... a certain Juan Dominguez, being appointed
pilot of the flagship ... it was learned thAt some religious had urge~
and persuaded him to flee with thern by way of India. The gov·
ernor seized him to protect him and issued an order to all the porti
not to let depart two religious who were going to escape and they
were_ not satisfied with revealing this fulsomely and so h·e was
excommunicated. But other religicus escaped through another
route, carrying with them a number of sailors and soldiers,"
But, for what are we going to continue since all this can be
Interpreted ·as a proof of the vows or obedience of the friars?
Does La Defensa want us to cite more paragraphs written by
other authors? Does it want us to tell it about scandals and cala·.
mitles that befell the Philippines due to the envy and ambitions of
the religious communities in the Far East, for example, in Japan.
Cambodia, China, ·the .Moluccas, the Philippines, and others? As
this is a long history whose publication will take up murh time and

25
space, in order to please La ·Defema, we are go\ng to publish It with
historical data and documents provided the weekly of Villanueva y
Geltru would buy from us one-half of the edition, assUring it that
we are going to do it only to please it because we no longer need
to convince anybody else of the pernicious influence of the friars in
this century. Europe has expelled them and we don't write for their
unfortunate partis:1ns remaining in some coniers. They deserve the
friars.
As to the rest, laying aside data from past centuries, if the
weekly wants other newer and more authentic ones, we shall also ·
furnish them without mixing them with phrases that La Defensa uses
with a certs.in satisfaction. We believe that without the need of
churlishness, truth can be stated, supported with reasons.
With respect to our mistakes in syntax of which La Defensa. is
so much enamoured, we shall tell it: · May we only have to discuss
syntax! May the social class that La Defensa defends have no other
fault but mistakes in syntax! Then eveeything would be e~y!
When a fact is discussed,' don't go about the bush and above all
look out 'which bush is h~Id, for this deviation can be Interpreted as
withdrawal or flight.
Let us not entangle the question. Let .La Defensa maintain its
thesis that hatred oi the friars will ruin the Philippines; that La
Solidaridad maintains the opposite and maintains something more.
It maintains that Spain must not and cannot cover with her beautiful
flag certain rascalities to the prejudice of her sons overseas.
Pllbi!Ahed In L4 Solidoridcd, vol. I, pp. 62-63, SO AprU 1889.

26
 HOW TO DECEIVE THE NATIVE LAND
There is great endeavor, much earnest endeavor, to conceal the
truth, to mislead public opinion on the means that are necessary to
employ so that the Philippines· may march toward progress without
convulsions, without turbulence.
The perusal of an editorial of La Voz de Espai'ia. of Manila, pub·
lished in its issue for 27 March last, caused us deep pain. Among
other superfluities, without reflection, and with scanty wisdom~ the
following is found in that editorial "How to Offend the Native Land":
The only ties that are properly social that unite this country
with the Peninsula are the CathOlic Religion and the traditional
respects. Neither the administrative affinities, nor economic prog·
ress, nor the new legal reforms, nor even the diffusion of Spanish,
nor much less the force of arms, are bonds that produce between
Filipino society and that which lives beyond the seas the unity ne·
cessary so that the moral organism that we know by the name Native
Land may be considered -perfectly rooted in this Archipelago. It i.i
indispensable to look for something in the life, in the intimate life,
of these races that joins powerfully and profoundly to the Metro•
polis the mass of the Philippine population; and without any great
effort of ratiocination, it can be understood that any of those things
not only lacks efficacy to produce so radical and profitable a result,
but t hat many of them, either because of their own nature, or be-
cause of their reckless application, perchance are destined to pro-
duce the opposite effect.
As can be seen by the quotation, the Manila newspaper claims
th!lt the Philippines does not progress, because she ignores or at
least she wants to ignore the efficacy of the means that the Metro-
polis or her governments employ so that she may enjoy liberty, hu-
man rights, modern culture. Certainly Lfr Voz de Espana, far from
being the organ of the Mother Country, as it calls itself pompously,
is the voice of the friars-the voice that resounds in its columns
and is 1'eflected in its columns. Because to say that "the only
properly called social ties that unite · the Philippines with the
Pcnmsula are the Catholic Religion and the traditional respects" is
to offend the 'Stainless patriotism and the loyalty of the Filipinos
who since Legazpi have been joined to Spain, not for reasons of
religion nor of traditionalism but, at the beginning, for reasons of
high polltical convenience, and later, for love, for affection for the
Mother Country.
To involve the integrity of the mother country in those Islands
in the mediation of the religious orders, as the friar organ seeks, IS
to involve it in the influence of obscurantism, of fanaticism, of op·
pression, and of tyranny; and certainly Spain did not plant in those
Islands the invincible standard of Castile so that thoy might be the
exclusive patrimony and feudal dominion of the reactionary friars
but rather to assimilate and equalize them with -herself, moaning if
she moans, unfortunate if she is unfortunate, enjoying progress.
liberty, .rights, social as well as political, when she enjoys these
precious gifts, this inestimable legacy of the French Revolution, sys·
tematically anathematized by the friars to their misfortune.
Returning to the article in question, where did the Manila news·
paper get the idea that to attack the friar is to attack the prevail·
ing religion in those Islands? Rel_igion is one thing and the friar lS
another: The reactionary Carlist friar, son of the convents, is him·
self a mean egoist, tyrant and oppressor, enemy of all progress and
lover of everything feudal, of everything absolute. To make the
friar personify religion and the Mother Country is to personify the
vicious, the absurd, the fanatical, and the worst is the disloyalty
itself to the same Mother Country. In a certain pulpit of the church
of a town in the Philippines, a friar u'lworthy to be a Spaniard, hurled
these or similar words: "Catholics first before Spaniards," in order
to incite to rebellion the plain Indios against the circular, which has
nothing anti-Catholic in it, issued by the Direccion Genera! de Admi·
nistracion Civil (General Office of Civil Administration). But those
Islanders, far from heeding such anti-government mcitements, de-
monstrated principally their indisputable Hispanism, 1,1nlike that bad
patriet friar who delivered those words from a sacred pulpit.
Does La Voz de Espana want another clear demonstration? The
division of races, who keep it up if not the friars?
· To deny that the diffusion of the Spanish tongue in those Is-
lands would not bind, would not link their inhabitants so that they
might in fact be Spaniards is to lack common sense or to be snob·
bish which, for the sake of charity, we ought to ascnbe to the news·
paper La Voz de Espana, attorney ad litem of the religious communi
ties.
The Island of Negros is an eloquent testimony which proves
that in order to be Catholic, it had not needed friars, that in order
to remain loyal, faithful to Spain, it had no need for religious com·
munities. The mission in that Bisayan islantl (after the expulsion

28
of the Jesuits by the immortal Count of Aranda) was entrusted to
poor Indio clergymen and in less than one century, they converted
those virgin forests and its inhabitants into rich Spanish towns and
fervent devotees of Catholicism.
After all if, as La voz de Espana assures us, the religious' orders
are in fact the only ties that link the Islands of Magallanes to the
Peninsula, what are governments for? What is the captain general
for? What is the army for? What is the director for? All these
are useless and more than useless, an additional burden on the gen-
eral budget of the nation. It would be better to let the friars govern
that Archipelago, playing the role of heads of barangay, civil guards,
carabineers, etc., etc.
For .if one binds. the other is superfluous.
Either the friars or the civil administration et terius non es~
ullus.•
Before all things and above all, we call the attention of our
rulers to this article in La Voz de Espana which, besides defending
the fria~s, discredits national decorum, and throws down the plans of
the Minister of Colonies concerning the diffusion of the Spanish
language in those Islands, and indirectly dishonors the dignity and
the punctiliousness of our civil representatives in those our distant
lands.
We shout very loudly that the friars at this historic moment
are detrimental to the national interest in the Philippines, because
they are an . obstacle to the introduction of any kind of liberal re-
forms which are urgently and peremptorily needed.
The Mother Country does not need coarse fine-drawers, like the
friars, to unite that piece of Spanish territory, to bind Filipino
hearts, to found Filipino aspirations on the destinies of Mother Spain.
Neither obscurantism an<1 fanaticism, nor oppression or supers-
titions ever bind nor have they ever bound peoples. On the other
hand, liberty, rights, and love group distinct races around the same
standard, one aspiration, one destiny.
Finally, La Voz de Espana is wrong when it says that the unity
of a territory in those Islands is supported by the monastic instltu·
tions. To say that the Filipinos love Spain because of the friars 1S
a caiumny. The Filipino does not need interested nurses to throw
themselves into the arms of the Mother Country and to unbosom in
her maternal lap her troubles, her complaints, and her afflictions.
• And tJaere I. DO third ODe.

29
He is a wretched man who says that because the Filipino is anti·friar,
he is a filibustero.
What is La voz de Espana trying to do in making this kind of
denunciation in its columns:
That certain propagandas cannot be beneficial to the country
whether from political centers and associations in Madrid or through
writings and speeches, or through orders that tend to diminish the
influence of the parish priests in the towns and the consideration
due every Spanish institution.
Does it want to muzzle us? A Voz de ESpaiia so Carlist like it,
capable ·of silencing us to prevent us from saying _the truth and de-
fend our dignity, has not been born yet.
To deceive the native land as La Voz de Espaiia does is the
greatest crime of all crimes.
Published in La SoUdaTidacl, vol. U, J:)l). 72·73,. 15 May 1889.

30
 THE TRUTH FOR ALL
Two long articles entitled The Petitions and The Authorities in
the Philippines were publi.:;hed in a Manila newspaper last March to
make it known that the principal citizens of the towns are infamous,
slanderers, demoralized, litigious, traitors, with energy for evil, in-
different towards the good, who do not know what they do, nor do
they do what they know; that all this is the defect of the race, that
one must never pay attention to their complaints against their op-
pressors, who ought to enjoy immunity, etcetera; that th.e destinies of
the people , in short, ought t.o be placed_ in the hands of three per-
sons, chosen and appointed by these same impeccable persons and
that these three should merely engage in making streets, etc., etc.
This is the substance of .so many enigmatic clauses, suggestions, and
innuendos.
That the sins of a few are attributed to the entire race is not
a new thing for us. In order to villify a country, it. is only neces-
sary to generalize the bad in her, just as to exalt her, it is enough
to remind her of the good examples; The system as it can be seen
produces fruits. Neither are we surprised that the mass of the
Filipino people, eight million people who feed with their .sweat thou-
sands and thousa.nds of their brothers in the Peninsula and shed
their blood for Spain, whose language they do not speak, are slan.·
dered and insulted with impunity behind a pseudonym. In the Phil-
ippines every insult from top to bottom is permitted; reply is pro-
hibited. It seems that Castilian chivalry and nobility were damaged
in the long voyage. In the Peninsula, he who insults a para\ytic
and a dumb would be a coward; in the Philippines ... in the Philip-
pines it is another thing!
Laying aside those insults that take shelter behind parapets
and memoranda. A.G.D.G., we are going· to analyze the background
of such masked accusations.
We agree that there is much immorality in the Philippines,
much confusion, much intrigue, and much misgovernment. But we
are not going to blame the people for it; we do not always hold it
responsible for another's deficiency and our own. In a house, where"
the father of the family ha:o unlimited authority, he is responsible
for the state of things. · The miseries of a people without freedom
should not be imputed to. the . people but to their rulers. In order

31
that one may be responsible, it is necessary that he is master of
his actions, and the Filipino people is neither master of their ac-
tions nor of their thoughts.
This will be bitter to certain ears, but since some want to un-
earth rags, let the rags of everyone be unearthed.
Let us examine how the unfortunate principales of a town were
and are made.
Save honorable exceptions that there are, we admit that the
majority of the so-called authorities, 1f they are not some poor
deviis overwhelmed by their office, they are despicable slaves, blind
tools · of some, cowardly adherents of others, humble and compla·
cent with the whims of their superiors, deaf and tyrannical. towards
their inferiors and the poor people whose destinies are in their
hands. Indeed, we admit that many of them remember least their
country, their conscience, mankind, God, and their whole solicitude
is to serve in order to command, to bribe in order to exploit, to
humble themselves in order to humiliate others and saijsfy their
vile passions. But, the reason for this? Its origin?
We are going to describe once more the internal political life
of the towns of the Philippines so that the government ot the Me-
tropolis may be informed and put remedies if it believes itself
strong enough to do so.
Undoubtedly in every town there are two parties in embryo.
One the intelligent, independent, that lives by itself without the
need for the support of powerful individuals or protectors, the one
that has a thirst for justice and peace, the party full of reproaches
for the excesses and tyrannies of certain classes, the party, in
short, denounced by its enemies as :filibustero for being composed
of worthy men and from which will surely come the real filibus-
teros, if the fatal system followed until now continues. The other
party is composed of vagabonds, intriguers, improperly called the
party of the friars for obeying and serving them because it con-
siders them a strong support, but towards whom it neither pro-
fesses love nor respect and whose vile enemies it will become the
day they become useless to it. A small group remains neutral
and it is composed of the indifferent.
Naturally, of these two parties, the parish priest, who aspires
to give orders to become strong and impose on the rulers, will
choose the second for being the most docile, the most malleable,
the most blind follower, the best to implement his ideas. Hence
the parish priests in their secret reports extol *he members of this

32
party as the most loyal and depict the others as the most dangerous
to the integrity of the mother country. And many believe it so.
As a consequence, the servant, the sacristan, the complacent
tale·bearer of the parish priest, thanks to the omnipotent influence
of the master in governmental spheres, often occupies the first
position in the town with the contempt of the intelligent class, a
contempt that the:: new petty tyrant pays with administrative charg·
es, reports, etc., etc., aided by his master whom he also serves by
serving his own passions. The system is to serve the master so
that he will defend him when he is accused of ·exploiting the poor
or he fails in his duties. The question is to have a good protector
The natural consequence is hatred in ·the opposing party, a
hatred that constitutes the desidemtwn of certain politicians who
have no mvre , knowledge nor more mischief than to create divi·
sions and enmities in the towns, favoring this or that party, demo-
ralizing them without suspecting that such weapons can· be harm·
ful to . them later.. He who sows wind will ·gather tempests, says
a proverb.
Filipino families that still preserve some modesty an~ are not
contaminated shun to fill these· debased and prostituted positions
in town governments when left vacant Educated families, the
lovers of their country, closed themselves up in lugubrious si·
lence ... and sigh. We know rich proprietors who gave money and
bribed the heads of barangay so that they would not vote for them
and elect them. Who is the one who has a little shame left who
will hold 1that staff still moist with the sweat of a low and vile
hand, that staff . at one time embem of power, now a sign of infa·
my and enslavement? In these towns generally the burden falls
on a· poor devil.
However, few are th0se who like these withdraw into their
futile stoicism and like Caesar, wraps himself up in his cloak and
delivers himself to his assassins.
In the majority of the towns there is a struggle. Some, in
order not to see their enemies exalted and to expose themselves
to their...J>hots, try to place obstacles to prevent vexations; others,
and these are the most numerous, carried by the bad example, with·
cut solid moral education, want to take part in the feast and say
to t.nemselves: "The social machine turns around moved by the
blood of the unfor~unate: We have a part in the universal tyran·
ny, let us oppress so that we may not be oppressed.'' A few, very
rare. perhaps the madmen, also fight, dreaming of doing good to

33
the pe·ople. introducing improvements, justice, honesty, but if they
triumph, they do not realize their dream·, because either they are
removed or they wake up in exile.
In this ignoble struggle all means, good or bad, are employed-
bribes, gifts, slander, accusa!ions, reports, etc. We know of ruined
families who rose again thar\ks to two years of rule. On the other
hand, others who were well·to·do, were ruined in litigation ,· aft~r
having paid the voters in advance. And though commonly, the·.
candidate of the people occupies the first place and in the second
place the candidate of the friar thanks to the influence and mani·
pulation of the friar, his candidate wins, and the other can consider
himself lucky if he is not banished. This is the case of Manaks3 in
Kabuyaw.
In. that way passions are inflamed, in that way resentments
are roused, and this is one of the causes of the general hatred of
the friar in the Philippines.
The author of the article in La Voz d,e Espana speaks of the
petitions signed by the principales who have no knowledge of the
matter. We are not going to contradict him, because we know
very well and for sometime that many heads of bQ:rangay have
signed, at the urging of the parish priest, docwnents , and petitions
in Spanish whose content was not even read to them. The excuse
they gave us was that the parish priest threatened them. Neither
do we excuse the cowardliness of such heads of bararrgay, nor do
we applaud the friar's machinations. And if any one doubts these
assertions, may he tell us because we shall cite to him towns and
persons who are still alive.
Hence the eagerness of the friar that the Indio remain ignorant
and blind. Now it will not be difficult that these blindness and ig·
norance would turn against him and the methods that he teaches
are employed to hurt him . However, all the petitions directed against
the friars differ from those the friars slip against their enemies in
1he sense that the former ask the government to clarify the facts
while in" the latter neither is the law asked to intervene nor is the
~ccused permitted any defense .

The writer':' of thes~ lines once placed himself at the head of

an anti-friar movement stirred by ·a question from the government.
The reply, if it had to be truthful, was going to hurt friar interests.
The friars had it answered according to their taste and convenience
and not in accordance with truth, but considering that this was to

• See Town of Calambe, PI/ ·

34
 sin agajnst the truth and to fail in the duty of a good subject, the
author wrote the reply in accordance with a detailed report, trans-
lated it intQ Tagalog, and read it before all the people and before
the very emissaries of the friars so that they could transmit its
content to their masters or contradict if it was contrary to truth.
Not e:ven one protested, and all signed it voluntarily, including the
friar adherents themselves, unable to refute the evidence. And at
that, the author reminded them that by signing they were inviting
all the rancour of the powerful.
What happened? The petition was presented; it passed through
all the legal channels ... and it was laid on the table. The friars
wanted to take revenge and the people presented another petition
asking for the intervention of the government since the government
was the cause of the conflict ... but the government kept silent,
neither did it say yes nor no, it did not hold a hearing, it did not
clarify the facts denounced; the government was afraid to fight
for the truth and abandoned the people. And the whole petition
dealt·with agriculture, urbanization, Mr. Writer of La Voz de Espana!
ln it the immaculate purity of the friars was not attacked; in it filth
was not denounced, because the author of the petition never wanted
to stain his pen with the filth with which cerJain habits are satur-
ated! In it there was nothing else but the question of planting.
lands, roads, schools, houses, etc. That petition was signed by all
the principales, Ly the author with his fuU name, by women, pro·
prletors, Chinese, servants, laborers-by the whole town. The peti·
tion was read to everybody to foes and friends alike, to the officials,
to Spaniards, because we have the courage of our convictions and
. because we believed in the sincerity of the government and in its
love of the welfare of the country.
Nothing, 'nothing was done. From all this there remains the
vengeance on the poor people, victim of their loyalty to the govern-
ment and their good faith. Plaridel's La Soberania Monaca!~ re·
prints in its appendix some imperfect copies of these representations
The governor of the province can say if all that we assert here is
uot the pure truth. This is in regard to our own experiences; we
teep quiet about what is happening in O'ther towns.
La Vo% de Espana wants the municipal governments to ask for
abe construction of buildings, roads, etc. Does the newspaper writer
tnow for sure how such works are carried out? At the expense of
1 P,.ridel t. au anqram of Marcelo H. del Pilar. author of La Sollera"i" Mo·
aoeol. an ludletment of friar rule In tbe PhiUpplnea. Published at Bar.elona In 1889

35
 the unhappy people, all gratis, with many vexations, and many beat-
ings, and then of what use are they?
In the town of Kalamba two school buildings of stone for boy.)
and girls were built at the expense of the town and the gobernador-
. cillo.Z The children nevertheless do not come and the Luildings now
serve ·as: barracks and court house.
In the 'own of Los Banos a hospitaJ was built by laborers snatched
from all· the towns of the province, each laborer forced by the au-
tlloril.ies being paid eight cuartosa daily, the ordinary daily wage
being two pesetas or four reaJes fuertes. In addition, sales and cha·
rity bazaars were held to defray the cost of the buildings. The
architect was a Franciscan brother. The hospital was erected, a
palace of the captain general was constructed, agriculture and the
towns suffered not a little, and now those lonely buildings are rot·
ting like buildings cursed by so many tears, by the cry. of the poor
that suffered for their construction. Why are the people who pay
their taxes compelled to work gratis? Why do they pay taxes if
they are not going tO be allowed to live for their families? Do they
pay their taxes so that they will be enslaved? Will the money of
the tax payer be used to hire petty tyrants and not to attend to the
demands of society? What? Is the Spanish-flag perchance the flag
of the slave trade?
Does the ~iter of the article want the people to close their liP'&
to all the immoralities of the so-called ministers of God and of tile
authorities .. . ? We believe that the writer of the article is not a
filibustero knowingly, but remember that when the lips are silent
the hands work. Be careful with what La Voz de Manila asks.
No, don't close the valves, don't drown human conscience, the
cry of the people. Air, though a v~ry weak and very compressible
substance, exph,des and bursts nevertheless when it is compressed
too much. The laws that govern the world of matter are the same
in the moral and politic~ world. And we say loyally to the Spanish
government: We shall say what we think, even though many be
displeased. We want to be loyal to the Metropolis and to her high
officia:Is.
There is a very mistaken idea about the Filipino people. The
writers who have described them slandered them, because in de·
picting them they have taken as models their servants, that multi·
tude of unfortunate devils without country, education, or home, who
2 The town's. chief executive who al•o performed judicial duties. He's popularly
addressed as CaJ>itdn.
8 ·They are equivalent to five centavos toda:v. (1959)

36
go to the great capital cities. They have described those ridiculous
characters who swarm like parasites around the offices and the
sidewalks. They do not know that the educated class who, seeing
so much mud and poverty, shut themselves in isolation, Neither
do they know the uncontaminated mass of the people in the pro·
vinces, as they neither know their spirit nor their language nor
their sufferings.
Well now; in this unfortunate struggle between the friars who
want ignorance and darkness like the bandit who lies in Rmbush at
night and in mystery and the educated _and noble classes· of the
country who want light, union, direct understanding with Spain, the
impolitic conduct of the government, lending itself as an arm of the
monastic corporations, hurts the sentiment of the country and the
true interests of the Mother Counry. The people is undeceived;
they see that 'they are isolated; that the government does not pro·
teet them, that it is afraid of its enemy towards whom it is com·
plaisant. The people doubt, hesitate, their love for Spain threatens
to go out, their hope in justice weakens, they are tired of extending
their supplicating hands. . . Be careful. The people fight the friars;
if the government puts itself on their · side unconditionally, it be·
cqmes the enemy of the people, it admits that it is an enemy of theit·
progress, and then the government itself will have opend a new
and unfortunate era!
To try to plunge the Filipinos into darkness and .brutalize them
is materially and morally impossible. Our enemies can preach from
their pulpits, gc to the extreme in all kinds of measures-imprison·
ment, banishment, censorship, prohibitions, inv~stigations, searches,
etc.-but they will not attain their objective. The educated Filipi·
nos, the liberals, who increase every day thanks to !Jersecutions, and
we the Filipino youth in Europe who have dedicated our strength
to the benefit of our country, we guarantee ·it. They could simuiate
another uprising, like that of Cavite, and cut off the throats of
so many educated heads, but from the blood thus spilled will sprout
more numerous and fresher shoots. Before the catastrophe of 1872
there were fewer thinkers, fewer anti·friars. They sacrificed 'in·
nocent victims and now you have the youth, women, girls, embracing
the same cause. Let the hecatomb be repeated and the execution·
ers shall have sealed their own seil~enc'e.
No; be undeceived, those who are obfuscated. It is necessary
to attend to the needs of the people, if it is tiesired to keep their
love. The Filipinos can neither be blinded nor enslaved; therefore
they must be given liberties and rights . . There is no example i.vhat·

37
. ever In history that says that a people in the process of enlighten·
ment can be made to go backward. Decadence does not come until
after apogee; a cascade does not go up, a fruit does not become a
flower again. Does the government want to be · assured of the love
of the Philippines? Give her liberty, treat her as she deserves.
Does it want to lose her? Then continue the unjust repressions,
close its ears to the clamors of the people, condemn them to slavery.
To conclude we shall. repeat: There is much demoralization
among the Filipinos. The boasted ministers of God and propaga·
gators· of light(!) have not sowed nor do they sow Christian moral,
they have not taught religion but rituals and superstitions. The
people, that they want to -eall child, have had bad teachers, they
have learned bad examples: Like teacher, like pupil. To blame
are the government that allows it through weakness, the people
through ignorance, and the good who fold their arms through scl·
fishness and wrap themselves in desperate silence. This demorali-
zation cannot be corrected by sealing the lips of the accusers such
as La Voz de Espana desires, but by the government inquiring ·into
the cause, persecuting criminals, and may he fall who should fall!
Give liberties, so that no one may have a right to conspire, and de-
puties, so that the complaints and the grudges are not condensed
in the bosom of the families and from there become the cause of
future tempests. Treat the people well, teach them the sweetness
of peace so that they may adore and maintain it. If you continue
the .system of ·banishments, imprisonments, and sudden assaults for
nothing, if you will punish the people for your own faults, you will
make them desperate, you take away from them the horror of-re-
volutions and disturbances, you harden them and excite them to
fight. In the Philippines there is no filibusterismo yet, but there
will assuredly be a terrible one if the hallooing continues: If you
want the dog of your neighbor to get mad, make it known that it
is mad. What more filibusterismo is there than the filibusterismo
of despair?
Published in La Sof;iJaridod , Vr>l. I, pp. 81-85·, 31 May 1889.

38
 VICENTE BARRANTES' TEATRO TAGALO
Barcelona, 15 June 1889
Most Excellent Vicente Barrantes
Most Excellent Sir,
They say that the most sensible man has to commit a folly at
least while be lives on earth. I, Most Excellent Sir, who neither
boast of being sensible nor even of most excellent, can permit my·
self to commit one (I have already so many on my conscience) by
addressing to you the following lines. May God and honorable men
forgive me for it! ·
Your Excellency published last year four articles on The Taga·
log Theater in numbers 259, 260, 361, and 362 of La Ilustracion
Artistica of 'Barcelona. Although it is only now that I have come
to learn of them, accept nevertheless my felicitation, for app.lause
and praises, like money, gifts, and other ex;1ctions; never come late,
as Your Excellency knows very well. And this is not the occasion·
to say that a asno muerto la cebada al rabo,t1 because while Your
Excellency lives, neither I nor anybody can apply to you the pro·
verb, much less take you for a dead ass.
I have read the articles from head to tail (not of the dead
ass) and I am very much pleased to find Your Excellency up·
to-date In many things. I am exceedingly delighted to note the
good opinion that Your Excellency has of yourself and the poor one
. that you have of others, of us, above all, the incompetent and entirely
inept Tagalogs, because personal satisfaction is a proof of a clean
conscience and contempt of others is self-mastery, two things that
I rejoice in finding in your majestic and intelligent personality.
For the same reason I fail to explain to myself the discontent
of the other Tagalogs •who had been able to read your articles.
Some say that the least Your Excellency occupies itself with is the
Tagalog theater which Your Excellency could discover whether· good
or bad, as it exists, and th&t instead of doing that, Your Excellency
breaks loose agajnst the Indios, against the Spanish Filipinos, against
The orialnal In Spanish appeared In La, Solidaridad, Vol I, 96-98 (115 June
1889) and 107·110 (80 June 2889).
Barrantes' artlelea were publiahed In book form, S.o, pp. 199, 'Madrid, 1890.
1 In En~rllah: Of what uae I~ barley to a dead donkey.

39
Philippine society, mistaking or taking many effects for causes and
many causes for effects. To this I -reply that they are not right
and yet they are my compatriots. Your Excellency in fact does not
take up the Tagalog theater, but inde~1 the theater and the Taga-
logs. ·It i~. not necessary for a civil governor or chief of the civil
administration to fulfill religiously his duties; it is enough if he
misgoverns or administers the country badly and his own interests
well and afterward.s be uncivil and other things besides. Your Excel-
lency and I are agreed that names are immaterial, at least in the
Philippines, and in the case of titles, all resemble insecticide pow·
der or hair tonic--whether or not they kill fleas, whether they
make the. hair ,;row or fall, this is beside the point; the question
is to make money. So then, that Your Excellency does not describe
the Tagalog theater but instead hurls menacing words to the Tu~a­
logs has nothing special. Would that Your Excellency had not
occupied itself with any other thing in your life, at least while
you w_ere · holding high positions in the Philippines!
Others note that Your ExcelleilCy must be loaded with bile and
must have some great physical or moral incongruity to have so
acrid a character as yflu have. To this I repiy that each one has
what he has and as no one has created himself, at least physically,
he does wrong in acquiring fot that reason a bad temper and an
evil heart. What is censurable is that one is not only satisfied with
his own but covets besides another's. It is another's whatever is the
property of others, so long as by this word "others" is not under-
stood either Ind.ios or. Tagalc.gs, or inhabitants of the Philippines.
Your Excellency and I are agreed that such beings (?) are crea-
tures neither divine nor human.
. Others, and this is the most serious, say Your Excellency neither
knows the history of the Philippines nor understands Chinese and
Japanese theaters and even less the Filipino which you pretend to
treat, .&nd thaf{ you have written these articles to display certain
dazzling knowledge and extol yourself and to denigrate and humble
those unfortunate people, assuage your conscience and satisfy il
certain cry of rublic opinion, as if to answer: One does not rob the
brute, one who is not a man should not b~ treated as such. Homo
homini itlnoto lupus est,2 said the · Latins, but the proverb could not
be applied because the Filipinos were not ignoti to Your Excellency.
The question is to make them non homi·~es in order to be able to be'
lupus. ·

2 . Man Is a wolf towards men unknown to him; figuratively, .ruen prey on

ont: .another.

40
 AB Your Excellency can expect, I, who am such a partisan of
yours, had also to defend you against other accusations. For the
present they say that Your Excellency from the .very beginning slip
on an historical question and they cite me this: "At the moment
when Miguel Legazpi and Fr. Urdan.eta establish on the banks of the
Pasig a control more artificial than stable". (Chap. I, paragraph
1.) The stupid Tagalogs are surprised that. Fr. Urdaneta had been
in Manila when history books say that he was sent from Cebu to
Mexico, where he died, be{ore Legazpi came to Luzon. · These Ta-
galog brutes add that the first time Urdaneta came in the Villal:>bos
expedition neither did h·e decry from afar the coasts of Luzon, and
· then at the time he was not a friar but a soldier, spending almost
all his time fighting · in the Moluccas against the Portuguese. What
does Y('ur Excellency say of the infamy of these ignorant Ir.diOf
who pretend that history is more correct than Your Excellency?
One bas to be a Tagalog brute, Most Excellent Sir, in order to bar·
bor such a pretension. It is enough that Your Excellency, a man
of superior race, say so for me to believe it against all historical
citations, be they true or not. The point is that it be said by one
belonging to the race of demi-gods. And even supposing that they
were right, what? Could not Your Excellency undo the past and
through the art of enchantment make Fr. Urdaneta go to Manila
in spite of whatever th~y may say? Don't we hear of the ubiquity
of St. Alphonse of Liguria and of other monks and saintS? What
God could do cannot the divine person of Your Excellency accom-
plish in a country of savages? Well, I know so many things that
Your Excdlency did that surely neither God nor saint will dare or
can do!
Some who are more fastidious, without leaving chepter 1, para·
graph 1, criticize Your Excellency's phrase which says: "As the his·
tory or the Archipe~ago properly begins with our conquest in the
Jast years of the Xvt century ..• " These fastid:ous people cannot
nccept that the year 1521 when Magellan came for the first time,
be taken by Your Excellency as the last years of the century, that
is, they cannot agree that the beginning is the end. And the inept
says: "Granting for argument's sake that the history o£" a country
begins for another from the. day when he has knowledge of it, un-
doubtedly the history of the Philippines ought to begin for Spain
in the year 1521 when Pigafetta wrote his Primo viaggo intorno al
mondo in which he gives very detailed information about the variou!!
usages and customs in the Philippines· and when Elcano and others
on their return to Spain gave information about the country. But
we have still older data, manuscripts of the XIV century about the

41
Philippines, and history has to fall back several centuries still. If
Mr. Bartantcs does not know more than what he knows; he should
wri~e with Jess presumption."

To this I reply with my Achilles argument: It is enough that

Your Excellency, a man of superior race, says it for me to believe
it against all historical citations, be they true or not. The "mon·
keys" have nothing or ought not to reply! Speakin~ of monkeys,
Le Matin of 26 May 1889 contains a statement to prove the mad-
ness of Baron Raymond de Seillie~e and his pretensions: "Com·
pared with me", he said, "a-ll men are monkeys. I know everything
without having studied anything." But this does not apply to Your
Excellency, -however much resemblance one may like to sec!
Against all- future observations, Your Excellency, as a man of
superior race, had already written at the end of the famous chap·
ter 1, paragraph 1, the following: "Such a study ought not either
to be undertaken with hopes of increasing knowledge, but it is• done
because of the eaeerness that afflicts modern men to investigate
everything, though they are certain to be lost in a vacuum!"
. Above all "to be ·lost il) a vacuum.'' as it happened to Your Ex·
cellency~ . This is a proof or the semi-divinity of Your Excellency.
Only that after such a confession Your Excellency, in my humblo
opinio-n, ought to have thrown away your pen, because inter nos to
be: a . nuisance in four chapters, to write seventy and more para-
graphs, longer than the first and with more breaks and gaps, is
truly to be unkind to the readers and above all to be more unkind
to me, your devoted defender.
Where do I get so many arguments? If your divinity wiil noL
help me, I shall have to give up my persistence. I concede, how
ever, that if Your Excellency wanted to vent your anger and ill·
humor on readers and defenders, you did very well in writing so
·ma.ny paragraphs, because you have attained your purpose. I tell
you sotto voce: "That Your Excellency has caused all of us to
hurst~"

But on with my task .

Chapter 1, ·paragraph 2. They say, to my indignation, that Your
Excellency, despite your fumes and abundant bile, has moments of
exc~ssive candor. And to prove their assertion, they reproduce
what Your Excellency writes at the beginning of paragraph 2 :-"From
the combined documPnts and· memoirs that the conquerors left us,
it can be clearly inferred that they gave slight value fo the land
and its people, the Adelantado himself saying in his letter to the

42
commander of the Portuguese navy in the Moluccas, Gonzalo Perei·
ra, in the first days of his entry in Cebu, that 'they are not of such
high quality that '!Vill invite the covetousness of any body'." And
they believe that Your Excellency is more innocent than the very
same Portuguese, believing literally the astute words of the great
Legazpi! Of such little value were the people and the land that
Legaipi concluded with the first a treaty of defensive and offensive
aJliance, the Spanish soldiers fighting under the command of the
Indio Tupas, his men helping them in their expedition to Manila,
having taken from two provinces in one year alone 109,500 pesos in
gold. I say that Your Excellency ought not to disregard this and
other things as neither did the Portuguese commander that fm·
the sake of this "wretched'' country had a scuffle with the men of
Legazpi after long diplomatic pourparlers; but the point is to de·
monstrate that the country and its inhabitants were or are not worth
a straw and for that all means are proper, even silly ones.
Reading the rest of the paragraph, they deduce that Your ·Ex·
cellency has not read the historians who say that the Filipinos
had many industries before the arrival of the Spaniards and that
they lost them little by little since they took possession of the
country for reasons very sad and irritating to say. And they cite
Morga, Colin, Chirino, and Gasplfr de San Agustin himself, so · anti·
Indio as Your Excellency. Dr. Hans Meyer, who is no. Indiophile,
expresses the same opinion, seeing how diligent and industrialized
still are the independent and non-Christian Filipinos, and he ex·
presses the fear that they may become as lazy as the others once they
arc converted. Frankly, Most Excellent Sir, I have no answer to
this except the usual one. It is enough that Your ExceJlency, a
man of superior race, says it, etc. God alone is God and Barran·
tes, of superior race, is his prophet!
I fear that I may lack answers to the seventy or so paragraphS
that remain in which you let loose, to my torment and the joy of
the stupid Tagalogs so many monumental errors, manifest so much
ignorance, and show yourself so vulgar in your knowledge that less
could not be asked from the most ignorant member of Spanish so·
ciety in Manila , upon whom you look down · with so much eon tempt!
Inter nos, Your Excellency does not know a single thing about Fili·
pino writing, nor have you studied it. Your ExceJlency does not
know that weapons and copper objects have been found in the Phil·
ippines belonging to this age; Your Excellency knows nothing about
the origin of the Tagalogs and still you believe that their writing
1
is that of the Malays' Like the ignorant populace who do not go

43
deep into anything or read anythin~ carefully but are satisfied with
four axioms that they are tolti, Your Excellency believes that the
civilization of China and Japan had exerted a great influence on
the Philippines before the coming of the Spaniards. The Chinese
came to the Islands only as mere traders but without ever leaving
their crafts, without going into the interior, and without being able
even to establish themselves as they had done since the Spaniards
arrived. They had no political influence whatsoever. And asto the Ja·
panese, though there are signs and traditions of Japanese origin
that make us believe that some of them had come to the Philip·
pines, nevertheless neither did they have political influence in the
Philippines before the arrival of the Spaniards. But, what is the use
of telling Your Excellency these things, seeing that you will not un·
derstand or believe them, because you have .neither the background
nor have you done any preliminary studies? Your Excellency says
" ... The Portuguese and Chinese Legazpi found were brought in
and others were already established in the country." This is read·
ing history in your own way. What Legazpi found were the de·
predations and barbarous cruelties committed in the Bisayan group
of islands by the Portuguese who passed themselves for Spaniards
and hastily returned to the Moluccas in order to arouse the hatred
of the Indios against the Spaniards; and about the Chinese, on ac·
count of a typhoon, a ves.>el of theirs was seized by the inhabitants
of Mindoro. Legazpi freed it and he invited the Chinese to increase
their trade, promising them protection.
"As to ceramics and clothes, some curious objects that have been
found reveal Chinese or Japanese origin." Neither is this accurate,
for the celebrated ancient jars that Morga already talked about and
about which Jagor writes a fine chapter, ihough they are much ap·
preciated by the Chinese or Japanese, are not however made by
them.
I give up then defending Your Excellency as to the remainder,
because I see · that the effort is far above my ability. Your Ex·
cellency speaks of the Chinese and Japanese theaters and I riote that
neither have you studied them nor know them so well as the Tagalog
Why have not Your Excellency gone out with an interpreter to
study these dramatic performances once and several times, as va·
rious inepts and lazy Filipinos have done, among them the "mon·
key" who writes this, in the theaters of China and Japan? Your Ex·
cellency would say that the demigodlincss of your race did not per·
mit you to make such studies ar.d you contented yourself with what
some travelers said. In this f grant that you are right, hut I remind

44
 you that the demigods never talked to us about the Chinese and
Japanese theaters, .and i9 this regard Your Excellency set a bad pre·
cedent.
But why the inept Tagalogs· do not reflect or have in their so·
cial life 'anything of the Japanese or Chinese theater (which could
not get to the Philippines before the Spaniards, for Japanese drama.
never touched the Archipelago); why the Tagalogs do not preserve
anything of what they have seen, Your Excellency deduces they 1ack
the spirit of . assimilation. Frankly I am annihilated. Those ·who
disrespectfully l41ugh at you argue: . Does the Spanish race by chance
lack the spirit of assimilation for the mere fact that its literary his·
tory in the first centuries of the Carthaginian occupation does not
record remains of Greek grainmar? Should it be deduced from
this that the Spaniards are inept? The Tagalogs lack the spirit oi
assimilation. Well, do not Your Excellency and others say that the
Indios for their facility in "imitating" things are some "monkeys"?
Did they not assimilate easily as Your Excellency recounts later
Spanish dramatics, in spite of its little vigor, poor actors, and worse
plays? Wh~t would you answer us if we would put this question
to you: Your Excellency, suppose that a Roman proconsul, after
exploiting and robbing the government and the Spaniards, then a
Roman colony, upon his return to Italy, in order to escape the
censure and the complaints of the exploited, should go about pro-
claiming that the ·Spaniards are brutes, inepts, not men, . because
they neither had writing, nor did they know how to adopt Greek,
Phoenician, and Carthaginian literature, nor did they have trage-
dies or comedies, nor could they even imitate, even badly, the plays
that Eunius, Plautus, and Terence wrote? Would the proconsul be
right then to insult an entire people and justify his depredations?
To these gentlemen I say, Most Excellent Sir, nego paritatem.a
Your Excellency has nothing of the Roman proconsul, and if we,
like the Spaniards of that time, do .not reflect foreign dramaturgy,
on the . other hand we had our own writing, more or less imperfect,
but writing after all, that we used, which neither the Celts nor the
Gauls nor the Iberians nor even the Celtiberians possessed. Great
proof that we are inept and stupid and incapable of civili.u,.tion!
Your Excellency itseU says that the first theatrical reiJl'esenta-
tion that could be discovered in Spain, as the child of the new
· civilization, though it was in Provincial dates from the XII centu·
ry, that is, fourteen centuries after the golden age of Latin drama
(which must have passed through Spain, for the Romans carried
S I de117 Ukewlae.
 their customs, laws, language, and civilization everywhere, evidence
· of it being the ruins and mementoes found in Spain, and sixteen cen·
turies after the era of Euripides and Aristophanesl And how many
centuries ago did Spain bring her dramaturgy to the Philippines?
Does not Your Excellency say, though inccurately, that the first
theatrical representation was in the time of Corcuera, 5 July, 1637'
And Your Excellency wants the stupid and inept Tagalogs to achieve
in one century what the superior and intelligent Europeans could nol
accomplish in fourteen centuries? And nevertheless, Your Excellency
says that in 1750 the r~ugh Tagalogs already performed in a comedy
as actors. What European nation, after one century of Roman rule
-why do I say after a century, after twelve centuries-has tran·
slated into national verses, the Aeneid, some comedy of Plautus, or
any other Latin or Greek play, as Your Excellency claim the Taga·
logs and other Filipinos did with the PasiOn and various books
and comedies? Your Excellency says that the Pasion was
translated into the principal dialects of the country in the XVII
century, that is, a century after, but you have not read what Colin
says on page 54: "They are very fond of writing and reading.
Hardly was there a man <ir less a woman who did not know it and use
it eyen in devotional matters those who are already Christians. . From
the sermons they hear, the stories, lives of the saints, and prayers
they compose religious poems, for "there are such accomplished poets
among them who translate with elegance into their language any
Spanish comedy. They use many booklets and devotional books in
their own· tongue and written by their own hand. This is affirmed
in the manuscript history of Fr. Pedro Chirino to whom was en·
trusted in 1609 the examination of these books by the Provisor and
Vicar General of this Archbishopric." Thil) is what the Spanish Je·
suit Colin says who spent many years in the Philippines and wrote
her history about 1640 or so. We do not want to cite further, be-
cause it would be throwing it away. There are some which are so
precious that they are truly pearls. AU this indicates that the Fi·
lipinos are a people that cannot be civilized, and Your Excellency
is of superior race.
Everything that Your Excellency says about the corridos' could
be true, but the point is that Your Excellency does not know which
are the works that the Tagalogs call corridos. The Tagalogs dis·
tinguish them from the awit, a matter that Your Excellency need
4 In the corrldo ar korido, aa It Is written In the Filipino lan~rua~re, each verse
h"" 8 syllables; in the awit ll syllables. Then the au·it is read in a slow, singsong
manner. As to their subject matter, there Is no marked ditrercnce between the
korido and the awit; both usually dealin&' with tales of ohivaJry or Uvea of BRints
and maryt". ·

46
not know either. The purpose is to slander a people and in order
to slander them, knowledge is unnecessary.
What you say about the Pasion. is interesting, but Your Excel·
Ieney could have told us from what original work was translated
the version so much in vogue among the Filipinos, and then prove
it. The fact that other similar or analogous works are found in
other languages, does not mean to say that the later ones are trans·
lations of the former. Otherwise: three Gospels would be transla·
tions of that St. Matthews, and so of other works.
Your Excellency says: "Although there is but one step from
the recitative and vocal music to stage representation, it seems un·
questionable that the Pasion did not lead to it among the Indios ... ".
and afterwards he weakens on this principle with insulting · retlec~
tions on the whole morality of a people. ·Certainly Your }.';xcelleilcy
could have saved the succeeding paragraph if you have studied deep·
Iy the matter. Yes, Most Excellent Sir, there are dramatic scenes
in the Pasion; all the Tagalogs would tell ·you so. When I was a
child I saw the temptation on the mountain and the burial scenes
represented on the stage in priv~te houses.5 But what happens· to
Your Excellency with regard to' this is the same as with the 'FHipi:
no comedies-you have not seen them, therefore there are none;
therefore the stupid Tagalogs ought to be insulted.
We are going to give more careful attention to Filipino art
and Philippine literature when more serene days shine. Then we
shall say which stage representation was purely indigenous, which
was exotic, brought by the Spaniards, which was the product of
this mixture, which were the most notable works, etc. In the mean·
time, Your Excellency may please excuse me if I do not now
reveal these glories or little manifestations of the spirit of my coun·
try. Frankly, I do not want to see mentioned the name of Your
Excellency in the histOI'y of the arts of my native land. However
poor and crude they might be, howeyer infantile, ridiculous, and
puny Your Excellency may hold them, nevertheless they preserve for
me much poetry and a certain aureole of purity that Your Excel·
Ieney could not understand. The first songs, the first farces, the
first drama, that I saw in my childhood and which lasted three
nights, leaving an indelible remembrance in my mind , in spite of
their crudity and absurdity, were in Tagalog. They are, Most Ex·
5 Mariano Ponce In hlo Folk-Lor• B.Jaque;w, published in La Oceania Eepa·
tl414. Manila, aays the foUowlntr : "Until now, In the town of Baliwa:r, province of
BUlaean, people otiU observe the traditional euewm of ·atall'inll' in the publie oqu•re
on Easter Sunday the tratredY tltlecl. Th• B•h•ru!iila of L~»•ainiUI attended not only
by the townapeople but aho by thoee from nehrhborlnz towno a11d pravineeo." (l,a
Solid4riciG4, Vol. I, 109, footnote.) ·

47
 cellent Sir, like · an intimate festival of a family, of a poor family.
The name of Your Excellency which is of superior race would pro·
fane it and take away all ita charm.
And we shall try to finisa quickly.
I shall leave aside many observations in your articles. I will
overlook that of "the Malays of Colombo and Ceylon" that Your
Excellency states in chapter III, paragrapli. 3. I believe that Your Ex·
eellency does not refer to the Indians of Caucasian race, inhabitants
of Ceylon, but to some other Malay who had accidentally gone there,
unless Your Excellency wants to alter ethnography. Of course I
know that being of superior race, you can do anything. In that
ease, you could have said also "the Malays of Madrid and Spain, or
·of London and England, of Paris and ~'ranee", because it seems that
for Your Excellency the capital of a cour :.ry does not belong to her.
But ·Your Excellency, being of superior race, can make the Singha·
lese Malays and of Colombo, capital of Ceylon, whatever you may
want or fancy. They are all toadeaters and of dark color. Your
Excellency will say that at night all cats are drab; therefore all
those of dark color are ~alays. The chu!os (rogues) of Madrid call
them Chinese, however. Take note, Your Excellency, your fellow
countrymen, the chulos.
And skipping all, except the last one, for which not even I, your
ardent defender, can forgive you, the conclusion, in which you say:
" ... because the carrillo6 of Magdalena Street had dared to stage Don
Juan Tenorio, a play that was in fashion among perverted people
because a native actor of the Filipino theater was wont to behead
him frequently .. ". I say that I cannot forgive Your Excellency for
·it ana I repeat it, in exchange for your fury and your antipathies,
in exchange for the loss of all my good services and my work. . . I
cannot forgive you, no Most Excellent Sir, I cannot permit that Your
EXcellency convert into "a. native actor .of the Filipino theater" th~
actor of superior race, of the same race as Your Excellency. How?
Your Excellency lowering thus a demigod to the most unworthy
category of a native, only because he did not play well his role?
Look out, Your Excellency, if that system is generalized, the Filipi·
nos arc going to. be more numerous than the (,hinese, I say, they
are going to dominate the world, and perhaps, perhaps, I may have
for compatriots many Most Excellent Sirs and other titles besides,
which would be a calamity. Your EA:celleney, the whole Manila pub·
lie, all that society that Your Excellency says is apathetic and inert,
the stupid Tagalogs of Lu~on and l,· another Tagaiog and another
G Cam1lo wu a pupp" abow, the forerunner . of tbe motion picture.

48
stupid man, we know very well who i$ that actor. . . Be careful,
Most Excellent Sir, someone may sue for damages!
Abandon, Your Excellency, your intention of studying the bi·
bliography of the Filipino theater, because I know what schoolteach·
ers, what clerks have furnished you with the translation of some
works. Be contented, Your Excellency, with generalities for thus
you will commit yourself less; do not go down to the bottom, lest
what happened to Schiller's diver befall you. He was saved the first
time but the second time he was drowned. This time Yo.u r Excel·
Ieney found a defender, who knows if you will have the same luck
later.
And now by way of farewell , I have to tell you why you have
inspired nie with so many sympathies and I have appointed myself
your defender. Seeing that after you have twice occupied high
posts in my country and knowing many of the things that you have
done and attempted to do, I am delighted that my homeland, my
race, the whole Philippine society, everything that I love and revere
only deserve the contempt o{ Your Excellency and inspire you with
hatred and aversion. This time I speak sincerely, Most Excellent
Sir. The greatest insult from Your Excellency is for my country an
honor, because in spite of how miserable, ignorant, and unfortun·
ate she is, it ~eems that she still retains one good quality God re·
ward Your Excellency for the insults and contempt with which you
honor the Philippines in general! Thunder, Your Excellency, sian·
der, denigrate us, put us on the last step of the zoological ladder,
nothing matters to us. Stir up the ire of everybody against the Fi·
lipinos who protest against such insults, against the grandchildren
of those who have shed their blood for Spain, for her flag, to ex·
tend her dominions in the Orient, to preserve her colonial empire
against the Chinese, Japant:se, Mohammedans, Dutch, Portuguese,
and English, to help even the countries who are friends of Spain;
accuse· us of being ingrates and filibusteros only because we have a
sense of honor and because we want to protest against shielded out·
rages. It does not matter! We shall continue on our path, we shall
remain faithful to Spain, while those who guide her destinies have a
spark of love for our country, while she has ministers who plan libe·
ral reforms, while the toll of invectives does not erase from our
memory the names of Legazpi, Salcedo, Carriedo, and above all the
names of the Catholic kings who protected from afar the unfortunate
Malays of the Philippines!

JOSE RIZAL

49
 A PROF'ANATION_
In the town. of Kalamba, Province of La Lagmia, Philippines,
two citizens, both prominent and highly respected and beloved of
their fellow townsmen, died of cholera on 23 May last. The cho·
lera attack was so rapid that they died in less than 20 hours.
One of them was a brother·in~lnw ·of Rizal, author of Noli me
tangere and was called Mr. Mariano Herbosa, and the other, Mr.
Isidro Alcala, and both were senior deputy officials.
Immediately the coadjutor, Fr. Domingo Afionuevo, enemy of
Rizal and of his brother-in-law, telcg!'aphcd to Manila in these terms:
Mariano Herbosa, Rizal's brother·in·law, has died. He
had not
confessed since his marriage until the time of his death.
The ecclesiastical governor r~plies to the parish priest of Ka·
lamba in telegram number 6608: ·
Telegram received, the information being true, we deny him ec·
clesiastical burial.
In accordance with this, they buried Mr. Mariano Herbosa in a
hill outside of the town and the other who died in the same way,
but who was not a brother·in·law of Rizal, in the cemetery, costing
his family more than . 55 pesos, although the body did not pass
through the church. ·
No one has a right to complain just because a body lies bu-
ried here or there, in a h~nd belonging to the church, .or in another
that belongs to the estate of the Domin.ican fathers. Corpses will
rot in any grave, there is no ground more· honored than others, .
the ground of the cemetery is not the only one created by God,
just as that of hills and mountains has not been moulded by the
deviL The sun illuminates the entire earth, the rain waters the
earth without distinction nor preferences in accordanre with dif·
ferent climates, the breeze caresses it equally, and nature does
not make flowers grow · more in the cemeteries than in other places.
at least in the Philippines; On the other hand the family of the
dead ought to be grateful to the priests for this revenge, · for be·
sides not costing it anything, it saved the corpse, who in life was
a man of great talent and .cleverness, from contact with . the corpses
oi so :nany rough men and the insults of the grave-d!ggers who,
when least expected, dig up remains still very fresh, and from paid

50
prayers said without either faith or piety by the priest who offi-
ciates in a hurry, _with a certain loathing mingled with laziness.
Over the hill where the -corpse rests or rots, the breeze from the
lake passes, purifying the atmosphere. There the sun shines and
rain does not inundate it as it happens in the cemetery of the
town of Kalamba. There his family and friends can visit· him
sure that they will not catch any fever, sure that they will not
breathe any deleterious molecule. To God who has created all
things and all beings without excepting the priests in the Phi-
lippines, to the Christian Religion that preaches love and not
mean vengeance and gives more attention to the soul than to the
body or matter, what does it matter to have a grave in a hill and
one in a flooded cemetery? To man, to a philosopher, to a free·
body or matter, what does it matter to have a grave in a hill and
thinker, to the modern spirit, what has the ground in a cemetery
exploited by a religious caste that is preferable to the ground in
a hill that serves for morning and hygienic stroll and which pro·
duces useful plants that nourish other creatures?
Nothing.
The incident in itself then has nothi~g bad or prejudicial and
all the friends and members of the family of the deceased un·
derstood it thus.
But those which should be offended are religion, justice, and
the government since its duty is to govern and not to permit
stupid and extravagant revenge.
The Catholic religion ought to rPgard itself as offended because
it has served as a plaything and instrument of vile passions. It
should consider itself humiliated for having as member a liar and
impostor, like the one who sent the telegram saying that -Mr. Ma-
riano Herbosa, since he got married, had not gone to confession,
which is untrue, and the one who said it lied like an ignoramu5
and a villain.
Firstly, he could not po~sibly know whether he had confessed
or not during the period of twelve years, in as much as he had not
followed him at every steps. Neither was he the only priest to
whom everybody must confess nor even if he were so, he could
not write down the names of all the persons who confessed to hirp.
We know for one that the deceased used to confess to the priests
of. the neighborin.~ toVI-ns, Jik(; Kebuyao an\! Los Banos, and even
to the Jesuit priests of Manila, as he did in 1877, a very common
custom in the Philippines, when townsrr.en and parish priests know
each other too well .

5l
 That he was not able to confess at the hour of his death was
not supriaing, for he was attacked by cholera, dyi~ in less than
20 hours, and we are certai11 and we can assert that the very
same priest who is persecuting him has a horror of this malady,
so much so that during the epidt:mic of 1882, he always went
about with his nose covered with a handkerchief, a habit that he
kept in the church and even when he was on a visit in private hou-
ses. And moreover, do not many die without -confession and for
that reason they are buried elsewhere?
What is the purpose besides of putting in the telegram "Ri·
zal's brother-in-law", if his purpose is not mean, revengeful, and
infamous? What has Holy Religion to do with kinship? What
is the purpose of this insinuation in so sacred a thing as the things
related to religion ought to be?
Justice is insulted because it is an indecent slander to the
memory of a person who had been a good son, a good husband,
a good father, a good CatHolic, and a good Christian, of one who
had loaned his home to destitute sick people to whom these very
sarrie priests have denied their aid, of a man who fed and
who took care of poor mothers who suffered from loathsome though
not shameful maladies, only for love of humanity and for Christ·
ian piety. The Christian work that the deceased had performed
without being obliged to do it had never been dreamed of by his
persecutors. ·
He belonged to a family of benefactors of the town church.
The greater number of the images in gold and siiver that adorn
the altars of the church are donations of his family. Belonging
to his family l).re the Holy Sepulcher, the Virgin of Aransazu, the
Image of the Third Fall, Mary Magdalene, St.John, Jesus of Na·
zareth, and others. Those andas• and silver carts were the family
fortune and he took care of those images and he spent his time
nnd money on the~. And only for being "Rizal's brother-in-law"
they deny him church burial! And Rizal's family to whom he
was related was another benefactor of churches, almost with as
many religious images and silver carts as the other!.
If we have to deny c!turch burial to all those we believe have
not confessed since they got married, grass will grow on the paths
leading to . cemeteries. Ask every honest man in Spain and the
Philippines if they are better Catholics than Mr. Mariano Herbosa,
if they hear Mass on holidays like he did.
• A1Ulu are frames with ahafta on wbleh rellaloua images are placed to be
carried on rnen'a ahoulden. Sometimes wheela are attached to them and they are
J>Uile<i by men 01' divote(.s Of tbe~!'IDt. .
 An adulterer kills his paramour . and afterwards commits sui·
cide and nevertheless for being the son of kings, he is burfed in
noly ground and a chapel is erected on the spot of the adultery, aa·
sassination, and of the suicide. A young man, a classmate of , this
writer, committed suicide and they buried him in the cemetery
of Paco in Manila. But a good man dies, a respectable person, an
heir of so many benefactors of the church, nephew of a priest, edu·
cated by a priest, the protector of the . poor and destitute, and for
being Rizal's brother·in·law, they bury him in a field!
To the Spanish people, to all honest Catholics, to all noble Spa·
niards, to the free and intelligent press of Spain, to the liberal and
sensible government of Mr. Becerra, we denounce these injusti~es!­
We are sure that these incidents have not been known before by the
civil authorities. General Weyler may not know it. In the Phil-
1ppines there is no free press, but here in Spain where it exists as
guardian of good sense, justice, and liberty, here we protest against
this insult inflicted on mankind on the person of one of its members
and to the Spanish nation on one of its subjects! LeUt not be said
that in the XIX century we have different ways of understanding
justice!
It is the turn of the government to assuage the offended senti-
ments of a peopie, the grief of a widow, and to vindicate the memory
of a father that ought ·to be venerated by his innocent orpha~s: It
is the turn of the government to see if it is time to secularize the
cemeteries, as it is done in Spain and other cultured countries in
order to prevent this childish and posthumous revenge, so that the
dead, those who have ceased to exist, may be respected. Unfor·
tunately the evil is not new; it dates back to the remote past. Rizal
had already denounced it in the first pages of Noli me tangere.
His adversaries are only showing that he is i-lght.
Publi•hed 1ft LG Solida.ridatl, vol. I, pp, 137-139, 81 July 18811,
Thle article was ubshrned, but It W&ll written by Rlzal and ~ent to LG Solida.rl·
d<&tl aceompanied with a 11hort letter In Tagalosr . t.r om Rlzal to lltarlano· Ponce dated
Parla, 22 J.11ly 18811.· ·

53
 NEW TRUTHS
With the title "Philippine Affairs" La Patria publishes in its
issue for 4 July 1889, Madrid, a letter of Mr. Vicente Belloc San·
chez attacking the reforming tendencies of a Manila journalist who
signs with the pseudonym of Abenhumeya.1
We don't have the honor of knowing this correspondent of El
Globo nor have we read the .article Mr. Belloc impugns; but some
assertions of this gentleman compel us to write and join the deb·
ate, not because Mr. "Abenhumeya" needs a defender (he can very
well defend the principles he maintains) but because the subject is of
very general interest and because it discloses and maintains ideas
that more than debatable have much of the appearance of being
erroneous.
It tries to inculcate: 1st, that the introduction of reforms
into the Philippine Archipelago can ruin our peaceful maternal rule
and consequenly it is necessary to preserve our rule and not to limit
the present field of action of the religious OTders; 2nd, that the
friars there are good models of rulers, counselors, kind to their pa-
ri.~hioners (!), hospitable, etc., etc., while there are Spaniards who
are shameless, ungrateful, and even thieves of horses and carriages:
3rd, that we the Indios of the Philippines are nothing less than sav-
ages and that the friars in 25 years civilized us, made laws for us,
etc., etc.
It is true that before asserting these things, Mr. Belloc states
his qualifications: He stayed twelve years in the Philippines, he
traveled through all the provinces inch by inch; he studied the
country from the religious, moral, economic, and political point of
view, he tried to delve into the character and manner of life of the
Indio, etc. Mr. Belloc gives this and many other things in his favor
and asks Mr. "Abenhumeya" what are his titles to decide wi*h such
absolute sureness affairs of so much · transcendental importance.
Mr. "Abenhumeya" will show his credentials at the right time
to Mr. Belloc that he held positions in the judicial and financial
branches of the government that justify his right to speak on things
affecting the country. We, in conformity with this new rule, are

1 Jose Antonio Guillen, -a Spaniard af lon~r roo;ldenee In the Philippines. He

attacked Governor Emilio Terrero and the frlara, especially Fr. Payo, tor the di-
IIBBter of the cruiser Filipinaa built at Hon~rkoq. He died at Barcelona about the
end of 1889.

54
going to state our titles before we attempt to discuss the ideas
supported by Mr. Belloc.
We stayed twenty-one years in the country and we have re·
turned to it after an absence of six years and if we . had not. tra·
veled through all the provinces inch by inch like Mr. Belloc, it was
-because in our time we Indios needed passports to travel from one
provinces that we visited, we traveled through them by foot; we
guards would recognize them as valid. On the other hand the few
provinces that we visited, we traveled through them by foot; we
studied the country from every possible point of view and even
from sad experiences. We did not try to understand the character
of the Indio, because we are also Indios ourselves and because we
were first educated among pure Indios, in the towns of Indios, af-
terwards in college among Indios, Spaniards, and mestizos, later
among pure Spaniards, and afterwards among foreigners, always
with our gaze fixed on our country.
If these are enough f.or us to join the debate on thing:; per·
taining to our country, we shall go ahead, and we go to the first
question:
The introduction of reforms can ruin our peaceful and maternal
rule and consequently the friars must not be disturbed in their de-
lightful dominion.
If the writer of these lines were really a filibustero, as his ad-
versaries depict him, he would try to support the thesis of Mr. Bel-
loc, .a thesis which had always been posed formerly whenever an
attempt was ma4e to repress a little the excesses of the friars. I
would wish that the government sleep, allowing itself to be led, to
be discredited more and more, to continue under tutorship, like a
big imbecile, and thus the Filipino people-whose thoughts he knows
for being one of them-may one day rise up, burdened already with
so much tyranny, and so much imbecility, and close its hand that it
has for so long kept open, so that it may begin to brush away the
weak government as wen · as the mischievous coxcombs.
But no; our adversaries do not dispose of our political convic·
tions and for that reason we are going to put to Mr. Belloc this
question: On what is that peaceful wnd maternal rule based that
it would fall like a castle of cards upon the mere introduction- of
reforms by the government? Is it because the Spanish Government
has no other support there than ignorance, op.pression, all the pos·
sible backwardness and all the abuses, in all its .branches? Is it'
because that ruie is like those skeletons that arc found in some

55
cemeteries that at the slightest touch are reduced to ashes for be-
ing extremely old? Is the peaceful rule assured and maintained
by the frtars like a soap-bubble, like a noli me tangere?2 What a
grand rule that is then! And in three centuries the Spanish Gov·
ernment has done nothing to secure the love of the Filipinos, the
friars have done nothing to make the Philippines love Spain so that
upon the introduction of reforms everything will topple down? If
what Mr. Belloc says were possible, I would have to admit that all
that pretended and boasted power that the friars built up in the
Philippines is nothing more than shadows, fog, phantoms that va·
nish with a little light, unless the friars adl)lit that they have made
that rule for themselves, for their own use, and therefore they
should not come around asking anyone for gratitude and calling
themselves patriots and civilizers.
But laying this aside, can Mr. Belloc tell us, can all the parti·
sans of the friars and all who threaten the government, rell us why
introducing a reform, why making the religious orders comply strict·
ly with their duty and each one work in . his own sphere, all that
edifice would sag and tumble down? This is dways reiterated as a
threat, but it is never shown why and many come to believe it, and
the government with a patience superior to that of Job allows
it to be said and shouted and does not comprehend its reach. Thal
is to say that there to govern is to misgovern, that the whole or-
ganization is so corrupt, that disorder is its normal state, its second
nature, in such a way that order is abnormal there and would only
be a perturbing factor, like what happened to that good professor
who accustomed to having lazy and turbulent students, had an · ac·
cess of ire on the -day when his studen'ts knew their lesson and
sat down quietly on their benches. That is to say in addition that
the government is ignorant, impotent, despicable, and is supported
only by dint of plasters, crutches, tricks, props, etc. Its most se-
vere enemies cannot say worse things to discredit it.
But, supposing that all these were true, that the governmer.t
there governs only because the friars support it, supposing that the
Filipino people were an enemy of the government ar.d only live in
peace with it because the friars keep them in submission, as Mr. Bel-
loc claims; admitting that the Spaniards irritate the Indio with ex-
cessive burdens and that the friars . restrain the ill humor that of·
ten attacks the native due to the blunders · of the administration;
ad1nitting all these and even more, we ask: Is this sutficient rea·
2 Don't toueb me.

56
son to perpetuate the status quo, for the government to refrain from
correcting its blunders and to prepare itself for a more decent fu·
ture? Why could not the government emancipate itself from the
tutelage of the friars? The renowned General Salamanca,s in spite
of his fame and his sword, hides behind the friars at the very ses·
sion of the Senate and in fear asks for their protection when he
dreams of possible disturbances in the Philippines; well and very
good, because valor. is not the foremost qu<.lity neces~ary to a gen·
eral but prudence; all that is very good, but a government ought
to act in another way; it ought to know how to curb its fears, show
more confidtmce, more dignity, a·nd ':lbove all to think of the fu·
ture. What is going to happen to it if it is contented with the
eternal friar tutelage? The exploited people is getting educated ·
and intelligent, in spite of the four convents,4 and when it opens
its eyes and finds itself with an idiotic govei·n:ment that wraps it-
self in the folds of the cassocks, what is going· to happen tnen?
Is it not better to · try now to mend the mistakes of three centuries
of neglect, to win its sympathies as a mother tries to · regain the·
affection of a son whose education and childhood hav£. been en·
trusted to mercenary hands?
Moreover, either the reforms are good or they are bad; if they
are good, we cannot understand why tney cou•d imperil the pa-
ternal. rule more than the abuses they correct; if tney are b~d,
the government deserves the people's disaffection C!nd the people
would turn to the friars and recognize their most excellent kind·
ness or it would get rid of both. But we don't believe nor do we
want the Filipino people to believe that t:,e government of the
Metropolis is a suicide and that our first rulers are stupid.
In conclusion: With the system followed by the partisans of
the status . quo, the people -is slandered in the eyes of the govern
ment, being depict€d as its enemy which obeys it only thanks to the
good words of the friars. The government loses prestige in the
eyes of the foreigner, of the Filipino people, and of Spain, as a
puppet government, a mmor, a government that avails itself of
tricks and frauds, at the -mercy Jf some religious corporations, and
it has to deceive the people to get money from it, in short, somt·
thing like a company of charlatans disguised as executioners.
J General Jose Salamanca, a Spanish senator, who started a debate on the
floor of the Senate or. account of a demonstration a~ainst the friars and Archbishop
Payo at Manila on 1 March 188~. · · .
4 The four religious corporations established in the Philippines: Dominican,
Franciscan, Augustinian, and Recollect.

57
 Whether the friars there are angels, models, saints, and many
Spaniards are thieves of carriages, horses, etc., we don't want to say
anything. It can be true that the friars are so good that barbarous
Spain and ignorant Europe do not want them. Some day we shall
civilize the Old World with our religious communities.
Neither do we want to say anything for the present about what
the friars have done in the Philippines and what savages we were
before they came. It is a subject we shall discuss extensively in
the future. It is enough to say tha:t according to 'hree religious,
whim the Spaniards arrived, all the Indios knew bow to read and
write in their own characters, they had their own traditions and
legends, and. now only 70 per cent of them know now to read and
write. These religious · are Fr. Chirino, Fr. Colin, and Fr. Font. .
Publlshed In La Solid4ridad, voL I. pp. 130-182, 81 July 1889.

58
 DIFFERENCES
La Patria in its issue for 14 August publishes an article en·
titled "Old Truths" in reply to "New Truths'' that we published
in La Solidaridad. -
He refers to our person with sublime disdain and lays aside
all our arguments and our questions to cling to our phrase "par·
tisans of the status quo" which he ridicule5, saying that we don't
know Latin "for Jack of grammatical concord in estatu quo," aa
it says.
Bad hold, Lady La Patria, alias Ciruelas,t by your leave.
Who taught you that the antecedent must agree in case with the
relative? Who taught you Latin that you write. estatu. instead
of statu? They have made you waste your time wretchedly, and .
if you are a friar who says Mass, you admit that you don't under-
stand much of what the Missal says.
We say "partisans of the status quo," "so that the status quo
may be perpetuated", and we don't put stat';), quo nor estatu quo
as you like, precisely because we studied a little Latin and we arv
vexed to place an ablative where there ought to be a genitive or
nominative, and · we prefer to displease La Patria rather than
break a rule of grammar. We admit that this is not the usage in
Spain, but indeed it is in other countries, like Germany where
Latin is studied very well. Out of respect for our readers we don't
decline status, statu; but when status is in a sentence as an abla· ·
tive, we will say statu and not estatu as you like; example, La
Pdtria in regard to Latin, remains in statu quo ante lectionem.
/ .
Let us go to another story or hold. You say: "On the
other hand, to praise the prudence of the governor general-re-
presented by the defender of "Abenhumeya" as hiding behind the
friars-for which he censures the government is the most stupen·
dous of inconsequences."
But, where did you read this? l have to recite that of
Pobre Geroncio, a mi ver
Tu locu~a es singular
1 CiT1<elaa literally, "plus"; eqlloqulally and figuratively, a pen10n who knowe
nothing
 Quien te mete a censurar
Lo que no sabes leer?2
You admit that this is either to deceive your readers, slandering
shamelessly your adversary, or you do not unders.tand what you
read. When was General Salamanca governor general of the Phil·
ippines?3 When were the passions, the' fears, or the virtues of
a private citizen identified with the rule of general conduct that
.a government must follow in its policy? . We have a better and
more lofty opinion of the government of the Mother Country, and
we shall not yet knock asunder at the beginning the mistakes th~t
individuals commit or may commit so long as La Patria does not show
us that we must think otherwise.
It shows then that there is no inconsequence on our part, rather
a certain rashness and carelessness on yDurs in reading the articles
you attack. Everything remains then in statu q{to, not estatu quo.
Also the questions that constitute the theme of our article
remain in statu quo (not estatu quo)
On what is the peaceftil and paternal rule based that it would
fall like a castle· of card,s should the government merely intro·
duce reforms?
Why, by introducing reforms, why, by making the religious orders
comply strictly with their duty and each one work in his own sphere,
should all that edifice collapse and fall apart?
We ask for order, we want the government to govern, the friar
or the monk to stay in the convent and comply with the statutes
of his order and not to govern and make the government follow
him. "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's." It seems to me that
greater love for the government cannot be asked. Between the
Filipinos who ask that the government govern and the friars who
want a· governed government the people can · choose. Frankly it
is humiliating for us, even if we are Igorots and Indios, · to be go·
verned by people repudiated in Europe for being representatives
of obscurantism. Between the tail of the lion and the head of the
mouse one still has a choice, but between being the lion's tail and
the little tail ot: a rat,let the friar government choose; we abs-
tain.
2 Free translation
.. Poor Geroneio, in my opinion
Your madness Is singular.
Who lnd11eed you to criticize
What you don•t know how to read?
·s There was one Juan Cerezo de Salamanca who .was actin~r ~rovernor general
of the Philippines from 1633 to 1635. 'See footnote ·On p, 56.

60
 As to the rest, we don't ask for the expulsion of the friars; we
are far from doing to them what civilized Europe and Spam herself
have done, shedding their blood and burning their convents. Our
country is more hospitable, and though the friars want to erase
from our memory the benefits that at one time they did us with their
present policy of hate and repression, we shall not forget them, and
we shall always remember that at one time when the Filipino peo·
pie had to change beliefs, name, masters, and government, they were
the ones who interposed between the wretched Indios and the eq1co ·
menderos. 4 We shall never forget this and without finding out
whether their intervention was selfish or not, we shall always acknow-
ledge it and shall only regret to see them now taking the place of
those executioners.
But between this gratitude that we acknowledge and the eternal
ignorance to which they condemn us there is an abyss. Just to
claim it in the name of the benefits received is absurd, it is to dis·
credit all the past, it is to demolish the whole bulding that has been
raised up. To fall into Charybdis fleeing from Scylla. 5 If the
friars claim it, they deserve that our gratitude be converted into
hatred.
With regard to the idea of La Patria that "the significance of
the friars in the Philippines ought to be very great when they consti·
tute the axis of the polemic," we shall say that it is right. Their
significance is so great that beside them all others are crushed and
become small--governmer.t, .::ountry, religion, everything. To
speak about the Philippin~s. it is necessary first to speak about the
friar, for the friar is ~;verywhere , from the governinent office to the
suitcase of the poor, hidden in the corner of his hut.
Well now, to make believe that the friars are attacked for sup-
posing them to be an .obstacle to bastard purposes is either too much
Machiavellism or too much stupidity. And because men who' think
thus are not lacking and perhaps they defend them for that very
fact, we hesitate whether to defend them in the future also or at-
tack them furiously. Probably the best way is to leave the govern-
ment alone to arrange with them and let time take care of ·deciding
who is right. If we attack them, they will call lis filibustero s; if m
defend them, we are traitors to our convictions, and we believe that

• Spaniards who held vast agricultural lands and entire towna by royal grant
for oervices .-..ndered to the Crown. They oppressed their tenants contrary to the
monarchs' jnstructions to them to treat them fairly. establish ochools. etc.
·6 Between Scylla and Char)·bdis: that Is. IM>tween two dange,.,. either ol which
Is difficult to avoid without enoountering the othe r . Scylla is a rock on the Italian
coast oppDflile the whirlpool Charybdis off the Sicilian coast. Tbe ancients pel"!loni-
fied Scylla and Cba..,.bdlo ao fctnale manoter•.

61
peace in the Philippines will he endangered. Let the sun come out
where it can!
We shall say then that at bottom (taking away that of estatu and
of calling Mr. Salamanca governor general) we are ~lso in accord
with La Patria in asking for good reforms. They must be good re-
forms so that the Philippines may march through a peaceful and
progressive road and occupy the place she deserves, without shocks
or. violence. It is already a fatal and unavoidable law that nothing
in the world remains stationary, but everything pirfects itself and
marches on, and colonies too are subject to this law. To try or to
wish that they remain in a stationary state is worse than to pretend
to stop the flow of a river, because the force of millions of men who
think and feel cannot be inferior to the force of the waves.
Thanking La Patria for its final recommendations to us not tl!l
incur in the exaggerations of American writers, 6 we shall tell it that
on historical questions we are always guided by friar and national
writers, only that in our estimates we limit ourselYes to following
the little that our conscience suggests to us.
And to conclude, La Patria may note that its contempt of our
magazine, alluding to it without mentioning its name, has not in the
le<U!t offended us. We always mention the names of our adversaries
or enemies, for we are not afraid that our readers may verify the
accuracy of what we say or compare our principles to those of our
adversaries. Let us fight staun~hly. Without spite.
6 By "American writera" are meanf Latin or South Americans; and thoee of
the United Stat.s of America Spanish writers call "Nortl:a Am.,rlc&n."
Published In La Solitlarid4d, vol. I, pp. 16&-168, 15 September 1889.

62
 INCONSEQUENCES
El. Pueblo Soberano 1 in its issue for 9 November surprised us
beyond measure with a furiliund article, to say the least, in which it
attacks very personally the painter Luna for believing him to be
the author of an article that displeased it.
As Painter Luna was not the "Taga-Ilog" who wrote the of-
fending· article that aroused the ire of El Pueblo Soberano, as the
said gentleman can settle directly with the one who has so unjustly
offended and slandered him, choosing the way that seems best to
him, we shall lay aside these personal questions and we are going
to discuss some assertions of the impressionable colleague or the
rash author who so easily believed in the suppositions. drawing from
them unwarranted infer~nces . .
The colleague does well in saying in his note that he was aim-
ing at ·one person alone. It would have been very lamentabie had
he imputed to an entire race the crimes or guilt that he has forged
in his mind. We, on the other hand, in answering his article, neither
do we want to aim at personalities nor do we want to particularize,
much less to throw in the face of a whole race or an entire party-
that takes pride in being republican and has for its mottoes equality
and justice-the despotic and tyrannical pretensions natur.a l to the
parties that El Pueblo Soberano is used to combat.
No; neither do we throw in the face of the author of the article
the troublesome words that in a moment of bad humor he put on
paper. They are unworthy of a cultured press and we consider them
---·-·
1 A Barcelona newspaper. Its editor, Cclso Mir Deog, pllblished an article at • .
tacking viciously the Filipino painter Juan Luna. bel!eving him to be the author
of bnpresinnes J\ladri!eiias de un Filipino, which appeared in La Soliclaridad for 31
October 188a under the by-line of Taga-llog, Its true author was the painter'& bro-
ther, Antonio l.una, wh<>•• nom do ,z,..,.. was Taga-llol[. Mir Deas re!used to heed
Lun~L'd demand for an explanation and lnRtead continued his attacks in the press.
From Madrid Luna went to Barcelona seekin~t him and finding him at the Cafe de '"
Pajarera, he spat on his face, at the same time throwing him hi• catd, which sig-
n ified a challenge to a <:luel. The duel never took place because of Mir Deas' cowar-
dice!. As an. aitermateh of this incident Mir Deas denounced Mariano Ponce to
the Barcelona poli.cP. for posse<sing pamphlets without imprint. The police Hearchcd
Ponee'a house finding there &oJn-.·e pamphlP.ts-Rizal's !'or Tel~/uno and La v-ision de
Fr. Rodriguez and F'r. Rodrigne:t.' Cuestirmes de au.mo interCe. It was denounced in
the newspepers that at Barceicna bad been discovered a center of cor.-piracy to over-
throw · Spanish sovereignty ·in the Philippines. The case ended with the <"nergetic
protests of tbe Filipinos nt Madrid and Barcelona supported by some liberal Sranish
newspapers •. (See Antonio Luna'• let.tel'B to Rizal dated Madrid, 16 November 1889,
Barcelona, 26 November 1889, and Madrid, 10 December 1889 and the supplemen;
to 1'fo. 21 of La Solida~idad.)

63
 children of the same rashness. fhat supposed one thing and took it
.for the truth.
What we want to discuss with the colleague, if he wants to dis-
cuss, and if his impressionability does not deprive him of cold blood,
nor of his reasoning, is whether or not the citizen of any country has
the right to express his impressions of another country whose sons
since antiquity have written abo~t his country whatever their whims
dictated , or rather, if a Filipino can write his impressions of Spain
in the same or similar way as the Spaniards write about the Phil·
ippines.
If E.l Pu.eblo Soberano, which is inspired by Rousseau, Mlrabeau,
Lamartine, and Zorrilla, says no, then condemn Taga·Ilog; but then
it condemns itself, · because it disowns itself and its principleli of
liberty, equality, and justice.
if it says yes, then it should not say anything against Taga·Ilog
rather it should condemn the excesses of its article.
The proof that Taga·Ilog has done nothing more than to imitate
his teachers is that the same colleague begins his article copying
Cafiamaque;s insults. And before Cafiamaque,2 there were Gaspar
de San Agustin, Mas, Barrantes,· and others, and before them Quio·
quiap 3 and company who related all kinds of absurdities about the
filipinos.
And not for that.reason have we unchained insults against our
slanderers, neither have we attacked their persons nor under the
name of Quioquiap have we wished to recognize very worthy and
respectable persons and less have we unleashed against them im·.
proper language and insults charging them of being ungrateful' to
our country. ·
But even without this, even removing such bad examples and
worse precedents; even supposing that nobody has a right to return
to others what they have received from them, given gratuitously,
(if this does not offend the dignity of our colleague), that we Fili·
pinos were born to endure all the outrages and the Spaniards to tell
them to us, the question was to see whether Taga·Ilog had lied in
order to show him his absurdities, to have the right to say: "Only
we, Spaniards can be truthful in the descriptions of voyages."
But instead of doing it that way, the author of the article con·
siders Taga·Ilog right, praising in a certain way the manners of the
2 FrRnolsco Cai\amaque, Spanish writer and deputy In the Cortes who spoke
ill of the Filipinos.
3 Nom de plume of· Pablo Fered, Spanish author and newspaperman, notoriou.o
for his antl·Ftlipino wrltirtge,

64
chulos 4 and even supporting them. He admits fully what Taga-IIog
says about the ignorance in Spain about Phihppine geography and
he only throws in his face the ignorance about the country in the
Philippines itself,· which is also .true; but the Filipinos should not
be blamed for it as they are not the ones who have colleges, neither
are they the teachers, nor do they make the plan of study, nor can
they travel, nor make maps, and so forth, It is iucky if in the
schools there they teach children what map is, excepting the ro-
sary, the rod, the books on miracles, the novenas, the rattan whip
reading aPd writing Spanish, but without learning the language or
understanding it, all the geography that is taugllt is reduced to the
tiny piece of ground where they have to kneel down or stretch them·
selves to be flogged. Not only the writer of the a~ ~icle but all those
of his part.y may see if with these means one can learn about the
geography of an archipelago between whose islands and provinces
travelers encounter so many obstacles and inconveniences. ·
As to what our colleague says about our "mothers who have
children'' we shall answer him: That our mothers, . without the
promptings of the writer of the article, weep and weep a thousand
times for not being able to give us any other thing except the un-
fortunate country where we were born. Were it ·possible, they
would have given birth in other countries where the words humanity,
jastice, and equality are not empty words, where rights a~d duties
. are common to all, where the law does not have two balances. Our
mothers ought to emigrate from our country, cross the seas, and if
-they cannot, drown themselves and drown the fruits of their wombs.r.
As to "our mothers who have no children", like the Mothers of
Charity, the H.,ly Mother Church ·and others more metaphorical,
those are like ·tJur Reverend Fathers who neither have children.
:Joth have no reason to weep. Thus shall we all be shockingly notor-
ious.
With regard to what our colleague says that "we have stained
our pages with the filthy writing of a bad Filipipo and a bad Span-
iard", we shall calrr, him by saying that it is not tllat bad. So long
as there are writers wi1 ' give an example to others of how to ridicule
other countries and so long as it not demonstrated that Taga-Ilog
had -lied, the pages of La Solidaridad will be considered clean, for
until now it has not been said that truth can stain. If it is ~hown
that Taga-Ilog lied, he will retract,

<l Chuloa Ia Spanish slang for rascals. ,

5 In hla aposttophe to "aria Clara, tlie fiction character lu his novel, be eX•
pr.,.!e& this same idea. See El F"ilibueteriom?, Mliucei, Barcelona, 1911, vol, 11, 51· il2.

65
 We are grateful to the colleague nevertheless for the regret he
manifests for this supposed stain and in proof of our. gratitude, we
shall tell him that we regr"t also (and even more than the colleague
can imagine) that a magazine belonging to a party with lofty aspira·
tions, that dreams of realizing great ideals, that symbolizes equality
in the form of government and legislation, in dealing with the Fill~
pinos, denies completely all its beliefs to adopt the language of
the most unjust and cruel despotism, based on error, as if to driV•!
to despair the faithful inhabitants of the. Archipelago, as if to say
to ihem: "Ah! Don't hop~ for justice, don't expect that your rights
would be recognized, don't expect pity; we ~hall never be your
brothers! We want liberty, justice, equality indeed, but we want
them for ourselves only. We fight for the laws of mankind, but
only for European mankind. Our gaze does not reach farther; you
who are of the yellow or brown race, manage as you can! All par-
•ties, even the most liberal, are despotic toward the colonies! Ii
you want justice, fight for it.
Published in La Solidaridad, vol. I, 226-228, 30 Novernber 1890.

66
 TEARS AND LAUGHTER
I don't :niss my childhood nor my adolescence, full of golden
dreams; they · say! I don't sigh for my Motherland, the magic gar·
den of the sirens of the Orient! A child and an advlescent when I
was in hPr bosom, I saw the sun only through my tears; T did not
breathe its breeze without a sigh.
Someone has compared his childhood to a stem full of roses and
buds; I too compare mine to a stem, but a stem full of thorns only.
And notwithstanding, I lived in my native land, in my home, in
the mid~tof the family.
Scarcely did I know my ego. I had teachers, many of whom
·taught me all their knowledge. Their knowledge was confined to
some simple maxims, like these: Spare the rod and spoil the child;
children are born bad; and others.
By dint of spanking they compelled us to learn ~Y heart books
in a language we die not understand; in this language they taught
us prayers and they made us pray whoie hours-and we were very
sleepy-before the images whi~h must he tired of seeing our tearfui
faces. ·
Then college. .Many times the professor, forgetting the lesson.
would discourse on our face and our country; 1nd we, trembling be·
fore his omnipotence, cowardly swallowed our tears and kept silent.
Later, at the university, despite the fact that the pr0fessors did
not understand themselves, I understood better the world I was in;
there were privileges for some and laws for others, and certainly
not according to merit. -
Endowed with physical vigor and thirst for life, one has to
drag himself out of a .narrow prison when he sees an open field, a
vast horizon in the distance, when he hears the vibration high 11bove,
when he feels the heart throbbing, and believes. he has a right to
cherish beautiful ambition!i.
Putting on the vizor, I took part in literary contests 1 and un•
fortunately I won; I heard the sound of sincere r.nd enthusiastic
applause; but, we revealed ourself." and the applause was transformed
1 He all_utles to . hi.rmel~ 'when he w<m the !ir•t prize in the literary cont.,.t
held by t!te Ltceo Art1sttc;o.L1terario de Mnn ila in lH~O . His winnhg entry is ConaP.jo
de lo• Dtote•. an all~i'Ortcal drama.

67
 into coldness, into mockery, into insult, and the defeated one was
honored instead!
Victim of a brutal aggression , 2 I demanded justice, believing in
it, and I was answcrf:'d with threats ... Note, however, that this time,
the guilty was not promoted.
I don't miss my childhood nor m~ adolescence!
I loved my native country and I fled from her; binding me to
the world are only some beings and a home and I abandoned them
without bidding them goodbye! 3 My country's breeze keeps my
sighs : in her springs ar<' drops of my tears; on the leaves of her
canes, palms, and trees I ha\·e written my complaints and my re-
membrances. She offers me a sweet death and nevertheless, far
from all that I love, in a foreign land, among unknown and indif-
ferent people, I don't weep for her, and her outstretched arms fright-
en me. My cye3 are dry and I laugh!
I laugh when I think of her miseries , when I hear the com-
plaints of my brothers, when I seek the dark fog that covers her hori-
zor..! I laugh when I see my people brutalized and deceb1ed with
great theories and dazzling words, when I hear the demand for free-
dom and !'cason for one, shaekles and routine for another, humane
l~ws, fraternity, rights for others, and exceptions for others. -
Instead of irritating me, instead of arousing my anger, I raise
my eyes to heaven and I pray.
Blessed art Thou, God of freemen . God of Clement VII, Tor-
. quemada, England, Russia, Bismarck, La Epoca, and of La Union! •
God of Krupp, Thou art the friend of those who have 'many cannons.
guns, torpedoes. and money; Thou always help the strongest, in or-
der not to quarrel with him, and Thou give the reason to the one
who has tHe strongest clutches. Thou created the lion, tiger, fox,
and Sagasta o who levies taxes on eight million people and denies
them representation in the Cortes. I thank Thee for so many good
things that Thou have created, for the kindness Thou s.howers on
me alone, favoring the existence of so many calamities to make me
laugh, in the same· way Thou have created big and numberless celes-
tial bodies so that the earth can see little lights when the sky is

2 He wo• hit by R civil guard one nillht whon he fa iled to "'lute him, n ot hav-
ina noticed his pre-5ence on ac("ount of the darkneEI
3 He alludee to his first d~parture for Spain on 3 M a y 1Sk2 to contin ue his
Mtudif'B . .St"e' hia diary. "'Calamba to Barcelona," in R (.•mi ni sc c11C<! I and Travel• o/
Joac Rizal, Cenknni•l Edition Manila 191; 1
4 Ln. Epoca 11.0 •1 I~a Unir;n were M a niJ& new,.papeTA.
5 Praxodt'11 Mu•.eo fiOilRBia 11~27-190a). lilx>rol, waY Rl>poiri ted prime minister
\n U SS L:r Que~n H•g~nt Marla l ' d • •.lne o f Svoih. · ·

68
cloudy, so that our military officers would have sornethin·g . to put
on their sleeves, after having killed our brothers! Permit me, Thou
who can forestall everything,, Thou · whose earthquakes, typhoons
and locusts help the others to impoverish us, permit -me to address
to Thee my entreaty. Thou who said that to enter heaven one must
he poor, Thou who promised to look after those who thirst for
justice, keep for our welf~re Sagasta and qll the Conservatives,
those who deny us the Penal Code, the friars of the four corporations
and those who with time may go there, the civil guards, carabineers,
and government employees! Dpn't forget to send us every fortnight
ly the worst left-overs in Spain, like · the rascals; the dissolute, the
hypocrites, the lazy, the ignorant, and the l>tmgry; make a bureau of
all of them, put a tax on anything, place at every street corner a
censorship ··office and twenty spies; forbid us to read, write, and
speak; turn us blind, deaf, and muto; and leave ·us only enough
strength to applaud and to work.
And if still Thou: consider us not poor eno1::;h and hungry
enough for justice to deserve heaven, then convert all of us intf)
ministers of the Crown or presidents of the Council so thlt we shall
be at once eternally damned. Amen!

69
 l N G RAT IT u ·D E
El Dia in ~ts issue for 29 December of lasl year publishes under
"CorresP<>ndence ·from the Philippines" the following:
Accompanied by various Dominican friars, some of ·whom are
professors of his children, and the others, parish priests of some
towns of the Pro.vince of La Laguna, Governor General Weyler
visited that province.
According to a I'engthy article published by the newspapers,
His Excellency was ' received with great demonstrations of rejoicing·
and visited ~he school and townhall.
To the speeches of welcome the official replied saying, among
-other things, that the towns should not allow themselves to be de·
luded b'!J the vain promises .of ungrateful sons.
In order to understand this well, . it must be added that Mr. Rizal
is a native of that prov'ince. He is the author of the novel NOli me
tangere which combats the friars and bad administration in general.
Besides, it was said around Manila that there was great ill-feeling
between the frilus and the Indios, particularly the relatives of Mr.
Rizal, who pay canon to the large and rich estate that .tne Domini·
cans own there ...
We thank the correspondent of El Dia for the explanation and
for the impartiality with which he had judged our work. ·
Likewise .lwe are grateful to His Excellency, the Most Excellent
Governor and Captain General of the Philippines, for alluding to us
in his address, thus conferring on us a high honor in the eyes of our
fellow countrymen. · ·
And now we are going to talk about ourself with the permission
of our readers. It is nothing less than a Captain General of the
Philippines who calls us ungrateful sons and it would be niore than
a discourtesy, it would be almost filibusterismo, not to take notice of
that accusation that emanates, from such sublime heights.
Let it be understood that we are not answering Mr. Weyler but
IIis Excellency, the omni~otent viceroy of the Philippine Islands.
Unlike Veuillot who let pass the bishop to get hold of the man, we
let thP man pass and we take off our hat and humble ourself bdore
the bishop, or rather the Captain General.

70
 His Excellency calls us ungrateful sons. His Excellency says it,
arid though infallibility is an attribute only recently discovered in
popes,l we also have to attribute it to His Excellency, because
he is more than five popes to us inhabitants of the Philippines.
We wish to know from what fath~s or mothers did we get th\)
ugly vice of ingratitude.
As the -fathers and mothers 'COuld be real or metaphorical, we ·
find ourself under the obligation to examilie our conscience and our
acts ill. relation to the Mother Country, our country, all the friars
and non·friars in the Phi_lippines, all the mothers, and others, all
the persons, in short, who there take part .in the maternal govern·
ment more or less resembling the parents of a certain story of Per-
rault. 2
And as they are so many (as many or more than the saints in
the calendar), we don't begin our "I, sinner'', for fear that we may
never fhiish and the grandchildren may have to continue it, in case
the maternal g<>.!:ernment would permit us to have them.
If His Excellency class us as ungrateful sons with respect to the
province where we ~aw the first friars and the first civil guards,
His Excellency is right: We are ungrateful, most ungrateful,. mea
culpa, mea maxima culpa!
On the fine sand of the shores of the lake of Bay we have
passed long hours of our childhood ·thinking 3lld dreaming of what
might be yonder, on the. other side of the waves. In our town a we
saw almost daily the lieutenant of the civll..guard, the Alcalde when
he visited it, drubbing or wounding the unarmed and' peaceful citizen
who. did .not take off his .hat and saluted froiD afar. In our town
we saw the unbridled force, violence,· and other excesses committed
by those who were in charge of watching over public . peace, and
outside, banditry, the highwaymen, against whom our authorities
were impotent. Within we had tyranny, and outside, captivity• . And
I asked myself then if in the countries on the other side of the lake
life was the same, if there · the rural man on mere suspicion was
racked with harsh and &ruel lashes, if there the home was not re·
spected, if in order to live in peace it was necessary to bribe the
tyrants, who came from Manila as well as from the provincial capital.
Santa Cruz, a name that filled me with terror knowing that in it
there was a large jail, called Bilibid. I knew through what I had
1 Tbe doetrlne of papal _lnfalUblllty ,;,.. promulgated In 1870 by the Vatican
Oounoll, 1869-1870, aummoned by Pope Plaa· IX (1846-1878).
2 Cberlea Perrault (1628-17C)S), French fal17 tale writer,
3 His native town ·of Calamba, or Kalamba, ·province of l.quna.

71
 seen and heard that when a cltlzen of the town went to .the provin·
cial capital, it was to go ·to Bilibid, if he did not carry money to
appease justice. All this and many mere things I learned in my
province and I have been ungrateful to it because I have not done
anything to improve its situation! His Excellency speaks of the pro·
mises of ungrateful sons. Probably His Excellency does not know
what those promises are.
Towards the end of the year 1887 when w.e were in our home·
town in the Province of La Laguna, there was received a communi·
cation from the Department of Public Finance asking the people
about the products of the Estate. The Dominican Fathers, owners
of the Estate, wanted the question to be answered not according · to
truth but according to their interests and concealing in a certain way
from the government the large rents that they collected yearly from
the lands, whose canon rose up arbitrarily and ,unjustly. We op·
posed this wicked trick and with us was the whole town. Con·
sequently the question was answered in detail giving data, citing
figt.lres, expounding all the facts, and the people asked for the in·
tervention of the government so that there_might be· stability in the
contracts with the Estate and the tenants would not be subject to
the whims or bad humor of the lay brother of the Estate. Naturally ·
the Dominican Fathers, who had a right to fear government inter·
vention, threatened first all those who had signed and afterwards.
seeing that their threats were futile, promised to lower the tributes,
which had been arbitrarily and excessively increased, if the signers
would withdraw their signatures. • We then said that we wanted a
formal contract, sanctioned and authorized by the government, so
that the owners of , the Estate, once the danger had passed away,
would not flout the people. The friars, seeing the firmness and the.
confidence of the people in the loyalty of the government, redoubled
their threats, saying that they would win in the litigation as they
had more money ·while the people were poor. Again we raised our
voice to the government asking for its intervention and begging it
I).Ot to abandon the people in a conflict stirred up by it, but to send
a commission to examine at close hand the state of things and de-
cide who was right. We sent this petition through the provincial
governor, Mr. Ordax, and we tried to calm the excitement of · the
.people, asking them to trust in the fairness of the rulers. Well,
nothing '!arne out of it. The government kept quiet, it did not dare
intervene, it did not inquire into the truth of the matter, it did not
reply neither to the petition of all the citizens nor to their just com·
plaints ... We have promised the people that the ·government would
o& See "The Town of Calamba." p.

72
attend to their complaints and we told th~m to have confidence; none
of what we- promised was fulfilled. His Excellency is right in say·
ing to the Province of La Laguna not to believe in the promises of un·
gratefut sons! But he has done wrong in deceiving the people! I
admit that I have been ungrateful promising them a thing that I
ought not to believe in; but at that time Mr. Terrero governed the
Philippines, and Mr. Terrero did not visit the towns in the company
of the friars!
These were the promises of un~ateful sons! We challenge all
the excellencies in the world to tell us if we bad promised anything
else. 'Provinces of the Philippines, now His Excellency tells you
not to believe in such promises!
We don't believe th lt in calling us umgrateful sons, His Excel·
Ieney had wished to allude to our natural parents. Here we admit
also'that we have been unfortunate, because in venturing to tell the
truth to the powerful and in attempting to fight for justice, we for·
got that we were in the Philippines where not only the sins of the
parents devolve upon their children but also the sins of the children
devolve upon their parents. r; Cur enemies, who undoubtedly -have
no parents, not daring to satiate th'Cir ire on us, take revenge on
members of our family. Frankly we had a better opinion of them:
We believed we were among men and J.ived in the XIX century.
_ We are ungrateful sons of Otu' country, because we have not
done for her all that we could 1Jo. We say so seriously.
And with respect to the Mother Country, & we also accept the
qualification of ungrateful sons, if by ingratitude is meant to say the
truth so that the abuses of her otl•..:r sons might be corrected, so
that she might prepare for the future, and so that she may not be
responsible for the numerous abuses tnat others commit in her name.
We believed we acted well; we speak loyally; we believed that our
Mother Country was a nation that loved truth and not a tyrant that
abhorred it. Only thus do we accept the qualification of ungrateful.
Otherwise, no.
Well now; if the reverend fathers of St. Dominic at whose univer·
sity 6 we studied metaphysics one year, 'consider us ungrateful be-
cause we dare tell them the truth face to face, we shall answer them:
That, if in exchange for the education they give us they want

15 The per•ecutl<m oi Rlzal'a J)areub aDd brotllen wu one u:ample.

6 Spain. .
7 The Unlveraldo.d de Sa'l'to TomU, Manila, of the Dominican Order, owner
of vut propertlee In the Phlll;u~lna
Publlehed In La Solid4rid44; vol. II, 7-t. 11 .January 1890.

73
to require us to renege the truth, the voice of our conscience, to
silence the cries of that something that God has put in us and which
we call sentiment of justice; in order to sacrifice the interests of our
country, of our fellowmen and of our brothers, to the interests of
their wealthy order, we ctirse atid we disown their teaching, and
they must never_ expect from us the least g1·atitude.
Education with such bastard purposes is not education; it is cor·
ruption, it is prostitution of the most noble that we have in ourselves,
and cer~inly no one can ask us to be grateful for the dei:Jasement
of our dignity.
w~ shall answer them that the teachers who edacate Filipino
routh ought to consider themselves the nurses or the perceptor1.
that a mother pays to rear her child. So long as their h1terests are
not in conflict with truth and the family intPrests, the child ought
to love them and side with them. Between the interests of the
friars and those of our country, we are for tilosc of· the latter. Any
other behavior would be infamous and the mere fact of desiring our
infamy is enough to discredit and annihilate all the sacrifices those
who call themselves cur preceptors might have made for us. In in·
dividual and doubtful matters we ~hall nev<'r forget the good that
we have received from them.
Our country feeds them and enriches them in order that they
may educate us. 'l'hey and we·, then, must first look after her in·
terests. To do otherwise is treason. '
And enough for now.

74
 RIZAL'S ·REPLY TO BARRANTES' CRITICISM
OF "NOLI .ME TANGERE"
To the Most. Excellent Vicente Barrarites
Most Excellent Sir.
The honor that you confer upon me )ly dealing _with my person
and Noli me tangere in the Seccio?d~ispano-Ultramarina -in La. Espa-
iia Yoderna, January 1890, volume XIII, as well as certain insinua·
tions · and attacks you direct now to me, now to the ideas expressed
in my book, give me a right to answer you, at le,a st to defend myself
and put things in their pr(lper place. Far from being offended by
the tone of your article, sometimes acri'moniotis, but always patroniz·
ing, though it degenerates into the language of the master, I con,
sider myself up to a certain point obliged, for frankly, I expected a
crudE'r and more virulent (though perhaps less malicicus) attack.
considering the literary past that exists ' between Your Excellency and
me, and accustomed as I am to read the unbosoming of the . journalists
of my couhtry. Your doctrinal tone and your advices move me and
I find them' natural in one who, like Your Exceilency, is a member
of the Reales Academias Espanola y de la Historia, 'two peaks. from
which poor writers like me ought .to look 'like pigmies _ or ants, who,
in order to write, have yet to do it in a borrowed language.
The whole thesis and synthesis of pages 177·181 are reduced .to
this: That I have incurred in contradictiims, that I am "a store·
hous~ of contradictions", because in one part of my Noli me tangere,
the captain general said to my protagonist that he was "the first man
with whom I talk in this country'' :md because I, Rizal, in La So·
lidaridad ask for reforms for my fellow countrymen. And for this
Your Excellency calls me "a novelist of his sins, a storehouse, etc."
Your Excellency says that my style is exceedingly bad. Be it known
that these 'epithets are not my fabrication. God save me from eng·
aging in being a n.:>-velist of 't he sins of Your Excellency! Your con·
fessor should take care of that!
If Your Excellency, who throws in my face that I have cited
only one proper name , ~peaking of 'outrageous friars , have not been
able to find in my v:ritings more contradictions than this one, in
truth I can be considered - twice fortunate--first, for being more
consistent than the Bible,- the Gospels, ' the popes, and all mortals;
and second, for seeing the miracle of the bread and thtt fishes cor·

75
reeled and augmented. Your Excellency establishes a storehouse of
what you call contradictions. If, instead of choosing to be a literary
man, Your Excellency makes yourself a shop-clerk or manufacturer,
holy God, ho\V commoditie.> would abound! .
But let us examine this "terrible" contradiction. Your Excel·
Ieney writes (page 177): " ... Quioquiap himself does not have such
a poor opinion of the Fifipinos as you have, nor would he dare to
put in the mouth of the captain general tho.se sanguinary words ad·
dressed to the protagonist of Noli me tangere: 'Mr. Ibarra, you are
the first person I talk to in this country.' You don't even consider
your compatriots men, Mr. Rizal! A Spaniard or even a Christian I
repeat, would not commit such a. tremendous injustice ... " (It seems
that the best Christian is Jess than the last Spaniard, Mr. Barran·
tes?)
And · I say: Neither an Indio, nor even a Tagalog 1, would
.draw such a tremendous deduction! Because, in order to make a
syJlogism of four legs as the Dominicans say, and deduce a universal
conclusion from a secondary premise, it is necessary to suppose,
first that the captain reneral and I are equal (I would not be bound
by the consequences); second that the captain general spoke with
aJI the Filipinos before speaking with Mr. Ibarra; thira, that in every
conversation His Excellency knew thoroughly his interloc:utor; and
fourth, that His ·Excellency never exaggerates.
I don't know, Most Excellent Sir, if the academicians ambarum
domorum 2 have already laid down as law that the ideas expressed by
the characters in a novel have to be precisely the writer's own con·
victions and not what are suitable ~o them considering their cir·
cumstances, beliefs, habits, ecfucation, and passions. The blessed Fr.
Jose Rodriguez abounds with the ideas of Your Excellency or vice
vers11 (the order of factors does not alter the product); but until
now that said friar is not yet an academician, know, so far as 1
thought he might be, two do not make a majority in the learned cor-
porations and even· if they did, their Jaw would have no retroactive
effect. It <;an very well be that Your Excellency might have acquir·
ed this literary conviction from your frequent contact with the friars
as proven by certain tricks of yours, certain phrases like those "to
reprimand me, a novelist of rriy sins," and others, which smack of the
convent and seem to be of the very same Fr. Jose Rodriguez. Until
now, unable to give freedom to my ·country, I give it to my charac·
ters and I let my captain general· say what he wants without bother-
~-·--
1 In Riz.~J~l"~ time the name ''TAghtotr" was often nAE'd to rnean "Filipino'-.
2 Ot both hou&H. CE. A .•

76
ing aboul reciprocity. 1 had learned besides from lhe authors of
rhetoric and poetic& what they call mixed laws in which diverse
characters and the author himself intervene. In the narration ar~
attributed to the character what they say and to the author what
he says. '!'o Caesar what is Caesar's! But this is too much to ask.
1 shall be satisfied if they tell me whether or not my character have
life . and a character of their own, if they act and speak according
to their circumstances and different manners of thinking and to
lay aside my own convictions.
But, transeat,3 let us adopt for a moment the Rodriguez-Barran-
tes law. I am the spirit, I am the captain general himself; I have
spoken with "all" the Filipinos, I have understood them and I have
even spoken with the last Ibarra, I did not find a single man. Good!
To what literary law will you resort now, Your Excellency, in order
to nullify the corrective that Ibarra applies to "my" incontrovertible
wor.ds? Because if Your Excellency had read the follo\\'ing lines, you
would not have committed "this tremendous injustice that neither
a Spaniard nor··even a Christian, would commit, nor would he have
written so many pages resembling the digressions of those who
write on what does not exist.
In fact Ibarra replies in the following line:
"Your Excellency have seen only those who move in the city.
had you visited the slandered hovels ·or our towns, Your Excellency
would have been able to see true men, if to be a man it is enough
to have a generous heart ~nd simple customs."
Who speaks now for Ibarra, Most Excellent Sir? Will it be per-
chance, Your Excellency? And then, what happens to the Rodriguez·
Barrantes law? And then, why do Your Excellency ·say afterwards
that Ibarra and Rizal are the same? Either we are or we are not?
I do not like to attribute to bad faith Your Excellency's way of
citing. Accuse me of injustice and keep silent on the reply that is
precisely in the next line! That is called in plain language to de-
ceive the public, Most Excellent Sir. Your Excellency have been
civil governor and director of adfninislration in my country for
many years. Your Excellency are a consummate literary man, you
have a grand style and irreproachable pen. Your Excellency are
a member of royal and learned academies and you never contradict
yourself. Your Excellency are rich in years, experience, and honors
and you belong to a superior and privileged race. I am a pariah, a
poor expatriate. a bad literary writer with the worst style, a "store-
3 Let It pass.

77
house oi contradictions", an inexperienced young mau, and of an
enslaved race, and despite all that I am going to dare give you an
advice in exchange for what you give me paternally. When one
has the titles and aspirations of Your Excellency, one must write
with more goou faith and more sincerity. One must not hold on the
tl'icks of the polemists of the cafes, for as Your Excellency yourseli
~ays 'll•arning is not the best emblem or the exclusive attribute oJ
man but virtues and moral endowments". What Your Excelkncy
says of man can be applied to the critic and historian.
For the same reason I find highly censurable the assertion that
you attribute to me on p:ige 179 in which you say that I call "car·
penters" the modest artists of Santa Cruz and Paete. By what rea·
son, Most Excellent Sir? How could Your Excellency see in the
phrase carpinter1as de Paete in my Noli me tangere the shops of
sculpture of ·Santa Cruz? Do Your Excellency think that t:1e dis·
trict of Santa Cru?. is inside the carpentry shop of that town of my
·province? Your Excellency in another article place Colombo ap·
parently outside of Ceylon and now you yield to the opposite vice-
you put towns inside others like the boxes of the jugglers. To what
system do you adhere? Come now, Your Excellency ha\'e done it
to discredit me in the eyes of my compatriots or is it because Yolll'
Excellency do not know how to read and now you want to pose as
defender of the Indios, who remember so many things about Your
Excellency? Thus cited also Fr. Rodriguez and following that sys·
tem, the Holy Ghost itself can come down to write and I assure you
that it will come out stripped of honor. That is why Your Excel·
Ieney doubts my love for truth because in somethings I do not
agree with Your Excellency, Your Excellency, it !s evident, dis-
pose of the truth at your pleasure and monopolize it!
nut returning to the cruel words of my general, I shall admit
that they are cruel, nr~ cruel, indeed, but they are not false, con·
sidering the personality of the speaker. Your Excellency speak with
greater cruelty even on page 180 and you arc a Spaniard and a
Christian and you already had before your eyes the satire of my
g-eneral. Your Excellency say:
''In truth, in truth, - I have I.ookcd indefatigably with the very
same lantern of Diogenes throughout the Archipelago and with bet· ·
ler sense of smell, undoubtedly on account of my experience, than
the aforesaid general, who found only 'one n.a.1' and he was_ you,
hecaUSE; Ibarra and Rizal .lre the same, the sarpe."
Let us conclude, Did Your Excellency find him? Did-Your Ex·
eellency find more men? If Your Excellency found what you were
looking for, why talk to us of the "in.:efatigability" of the very
same lantern of Diogenes (popularly, the lantern of the civil guard)j
and if you did not .find him, why talk to us of your sense of. smeU
superior to that of my general, who was not indebtigable, nor did
he go around the Archipelago looking for his mart, nor did he have a
lantern even of the Middle Ages? Would Your Excellency want.me
to have t~ken you for the model of my captain general? Why talk
to us about ~anguinary words? Your Excellency, who in all )OUT
writings breathes the harshest hl\tred of my race and my country ;
Your Excellency who :1ave always enjoyed seeing us suffer; Your
Excellency now poses as a defender of the Indios? To what extent has
our misfortune gone when we have to be defendd by the very same
ones who have insulted us? ·
Who is the one who contradicts himself'! Do Your Excellency
call me a "storehouse of contradictions" because I ha 'JC in my memo-
ry a good supply of your contradictions?
Is it strange that a captain general who spends the three years
of his term of office ' in an atmosphere of conceit and flattery, sur-
rout'ded by friars anJ inten:sted persons, does not know the inha.bit-
nnts of the country, when Your Excellency yourself, despite your
many airs, does not know them, Your Excellency whom the friars do
not court but who courts them? And .tell me, who is the sensible man
who will l.ke to place himself within reach of a captain general of
the Philippines and talk to him freely and frankly when he knows
that dysentery or the bad digestion of His Excellency can upset tha:
tranquility of his home? And consider that in the Philippines dysen-
tery and bad digestion arc the order of the day among certain
classes. I know of a brother-in-law of mine who is now banished
for the second time, without he and the gc :ernor general ever hav-
ing seen each other, without trial, without knowing what crime he
is. accused of, except that he is my brother-in-law. I myself, ''the .
man", the Ibarra of Your Excellency (I don't know why, for I am
neither rich nor a mestizo, nor an orphan, nor do the qualities of
Ibarra coincide with mine) the two times that I presented myselL
at Malac;lfiang ha"e been to my regret. The first in 1880 because
I was knocked down and wo\tnded one dark night by a civil guard
because I passed before a bundle and I did not salute. and the bundle
turned out to be the lieutenant commander of the military post. I
was wounded treacherously in the· back without any exchange of
words. I went to Malacafiang but I did not sec His Excellency
Primo de Rivera nor did I · get justice either . . . and the · second
time, in 1887 because I was sun.moned by Mr. Tcrreros to answer
the accusations and charges against me on "~count of my book Now

79
then, how many thousands 11nd thousands of men more worthy and
more honorable than Ibarra and I have seen even the end of the
hair or the bald pate of His Excellency? And Your Excellency who
prides yourself in knowing the Archipelago, with how many Filipinoa
have you spoken? How many have unbosomed themselves to you?
Does Your Excellency know the spirit of the country? If you did,
you would not say that I am "a spirit twisted by a German educa·
tion", for the spirit that breathes in me I have had since a child
before leaving the .Philippines, before I h~d learned a word of Ger·
man. My spirit is "twisted" because I ha,ve been reared among in·
justices and abuses, because since a child I have seen many suffer
stupidly and because I too have ~uffered. My "twisted spirit" is the
product of that constant vision of moral ideals succumbing before
th_e powerful reality ef abuses, arbitrariness, hypocrisies, farces, vio·
lence, and other vile passions. And twisted like my spirit is that' of
hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who have not yet left their miser·
able homes, who do not speak any other language but their own,
and if they would write or express their thoughts, they would leave
my Noli me tangere very puny indeed and with their volumes there
would be enough to raise pyramids for the corpJes of all the
tyrants. . . . · ·
Yes, Your Excellency are right; Noli me tangere is a satire and
not an apology. Yes, I have depicted the social sores of "my home·
land"; in it are "pessimism and darkness" and it is because I see
much infamy in ..my country; there the wretched equal in number
the imbeciles. I confess that I found a keen delight in bringing out
so much shame and blushes, but in doing the painting with the
blood of my · heart, I wanted to correct them and save the
others. Quioquiap, with whom Your Excellency compare me, un·
doubtedly to humiliate me and make me hateful in the eyes of my
countrymen, has depicted native customs in order to insult and
humiliate an entire race, in order to mock it and laugh at its mis·
fortune, generalizing the bad ' and the abject without exceptions,
drawing, like Your Excellency, universal conclusions from secondary
and remote premises. But I have depicted the good 'beside the bad
I have depicted an Elias and a Tasio, because the Elias and the Ta-
sios exist, exist, and exist, however much it may displease Your Ex-
cellency. Only that Your Excellency and your partisans, fearing that
the few good men I have portrayed may serve as an example to the
bad and redeem them, shout that it is false, poetic, exaggerated,
ideal, impossible, improbable; what more do I know? And you only
acknowledge the bad so that the people may stoop down and be
humiliated, for ·being incapable of rising you o,yant every one around

80
you to. go down in order that you may appear · great and exalled.
There is indeed much corruption over there, may be more than any
where else, but it is becaus'3 to the soil's own rubbish has been added
the dross of birds of passage and the corp.<"ll6 that the sea deposits on
the beach. And because of the existence of this corruption, I have
written my Noli me tangere, I ask for reforms so that the little good
that there is may be saved and the bad may be redeemed. If my
country were a republic like that of Plato, neither would I have
written nor would the Noli me tangere achieve the success that it had
nor would reforms be needed, because, for what do the healthy want
medici:1e?
But Your Excellency wants to c.1tch me in an error with your
device on page 179 claiming that the men who need liberal reforms
that I ask in Filipinas dentro de cicn aiios are not in Noli me tangere.
I see now that Your Excellency has not read my entire book and
I am not sorry because I had not written it for Your Excellency. But
since you want to be a censor, ar.d an infalhble censor at that, you
should have read it whole in order not to waste time asking stupid
questions. Your Excellency asks slothfully: "Why have you kept si·
lent so long a time? Wh11t a !....: .ter occasion than a novel to an-
nounce to the world your wonders?"
The greatest wonder here is the boldness of Your Excellency
who imagines one thing, takes it for truth, and draws from it whatever
conclusions !nay occur to yuu. Well, indeed, Most Excellent Sir,
those of whom I speak in my Filiptnas den.tro de cien aiios are an·
nounced on pages 290 and 291 and I do not quote them here because
that is wasting time and paper. Everybody can read it. That move-
ment that has reached thr! corners of the provinces-for even the
philosopher Tasio has observed it ten or twelve years ago, the period
covered by my novel-has produced the men of today, but. Your Ex-
cellency call this consequence, even the chronology of vents a con-
tradiction. Your Excell(~l'J.cy has also called the natives of Ceylon
Malayans, you have placed Santa Cruz in Paetc, and Colombo I do
not know where. May you profit from that procedure!
Your Excellency cites the names of Anacleto flel Rosario, Isabelo
de los Reyes, and Arellano. You could cite more if you knew better
the country and its men and you did not haggle with us much for
our little national glories. I could cite to you in additic·1 a Leon
Guerrero, a Zamora, a Joaquin Garrido, a Jose Luna, a Regino Gar-
cia, Pardo de Tavera, Benedicta · Lima, Vicente Garcia, Del Pilar,
Mariano Sevilla, Pedro Serrano, and many others; but here it is not
a question of making a catalogue of men who are' worthy, there are
and that ia enough. Your Excellency asks abou~ historiographers,
freethinkers, and pbilo!ophers. Of the first, though they not of are
the Real Academia de la Historla, there are, like Isabelo de los Reyes
who, though he has not written Gut'l"TaB Piraticas, has, on the other
hand, great merit for the conscientiousness of his works. As to
giving Your Excellency the names of the freethinkers and philoso-
phers,· God save me from falling into the trap! "Rather!" as the
English say, not even the name of the province! We know enough
of how the unhappy Mr. Francisco Rodriguez was persecuted and
slandered while Ji\•ing and after death because of his fame as a
freethinker! Your Excellency, pretending to be innocent, asks me for
the works of the philosophers. And the prior censorship? Have it
suppressed, Your Excellency and I promise you that the first copies
will be dedicated toyou. Find out also the number ot copies sold
of the works of Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Cantu, Sue, Dumas,
Lamartine, Thiers, Aiguals de Izco, and others and .by the con·
sumpiion you will ·have an idea of the number of consumers .
. Your thesis is reduced to this: I am a storehouse of contradic·
tions, because Your Excellency fancies . me thus and because you sec
contradiction in everything. Does Your Excellency use spectacles with
the quality of conlr<!!liction or Your Excellency have the spirit of
contradiction in your nature? ·
Does Your Excellency by chance persist in your opinion that the
characters of a novel nwst all conform to the convictions of the
author? Then indeed, I acknowledge the "storehouse of contradict
lions'' and still more. But that Poetica of Fr. Rodriguez should have
been published before, Most Excellent Sir!
I am glad that Your Excellency places Quioquiap many cubits
above me. Put him in the moon and in Heaven too. I will never
aspire to ha\'e his style; I keep mine which is very bad, as Yo1,1r Ex·
cellenc.y say, Academicus Vincentius Ba1·rantes dixit, ergo jtd est.J
But however bad it might be, it is not as bad as the abuses it com-
bats, and I can say with Llsta: .
De mi lilwe Musa
jama.s el eco adormecio a tiranos
ni vil liscmjci emponz01io su. alien to . . . . s
It has never corrupted an administratioa nor has it served to
cover . up frauds, oppress or exploit an over-confident people. Bad
and all, it bas served . what I liked and ii it ·is not the conic, nid:el
plated, and polished bullet that an academician can shoot but only

4. AC811vmldan Vie(>ftfe Barrantes !tas ~i4 it, tlwrefore It lo so.

82
a rough pebble picked from the brook, on the other hand it has htt
the mark, hitting on the bead that double-faced Goliath that in the
Philippines is called f?•ailismo 6 and bad government. It is just that
it should kick about violently; I do not deny its right to do so. The
wound is there, death is there, what does the missile matter to me?
Unable to ·deny the veracity of the facts, Jet them cling to the style,
to the bark. A dog bites the stone that wounds it. For the rest,
if I. do have detractors, I do not lack panegyrists-one compensates
for the other. It would be madness to ask the offended powerful to
reward he who told him bitter truths. I consider myself very lucky
that I am still alive. Only the demi-gods ask that their hands that .
slap be kissed. What I .would have felt · indeed is to hear, instead
of curses and roarings in the ranks of the enemy, applause and com-
pliments, for then it would be a proof that the shot had come out
of the butt end of the musket. And . as I did not write for myself
nor to be admitted to the porter's lodge of he Academy but only to
denounce abuses and unmask hypocrites, my purpose having been
achieved, what do the rest matter to me? My book, moreover, has
not been judged nor can it be judged because its effects are still felt.
When the men that it fustigates and the abuses that it combats shall
have disappeared from the politics of my homeland; when there shall
come a generation that will not countenanee the crimes or immorali·
ties of the present; when Spain shall put an end to these struggles
by means of sincere and liberal reforms; in short, when all of us
shall have disappeared and with us our self-esteem, our vanities, and
our little •passions, then Spaniards and Filipinos shall be able to
judge it tranquilly and impartially, without enthusiasm or rancour.

JOSE RIZAL
6 Fr<!t! tranala.tlon: 'Ihe echo of D\Y free Muoe Nor vile ndulatlon poison her
breathe. Never lulled tyromto to sleep. Alberto · T,Ista )' An~ron 11775-1848) Spanish
"P""t and lllathematlclan ·
6 That Ia, friar dolnsre.
Lo Solidaridod, . vol. U, 43-U. 28 Febru11ry 1890

83
 NAMELESS
We won't know how to de~cribe the incident· which we are going
to report to honorable Spaniards and in particular to the Ministry·
of Colonies.
Towards the end of the year 1887 on account of an inquiry of
the government, a conflict arose between the tenants of the Hacienda
de Kalamba (Kalamba Estate) and its owners, the Reverend Domi-
nican Fathers. The tenants, threatened · by thp Dominicans, resorted
to a .petition to the government asking for its intervention and for
its representative to examine the truth of the facts that the ten·
ants had stated. I Innumerable were the complaints, the aets ac·
knowledged, and the arbitrariness committed, and the petition was
signed by almost all the townspeople. We have before us copies of
both documents.
Well then; if the papers before us do not lie, it seems that the
petition was laid on the table so that the then governor genera 1.
Mr. Terrero 2 who was already tired <'f certain tyrannies, would noi
see it and act as he should. The fact was that it was not acted upon
until five months later when the vice governor became acting gover·
nor general.
Instead of sending his delegate, as the petitioners asked, to the
town of Kalamba, the acting governor general sent there a confi ·
dential persLn, the Provincial of the Dominicans no less, that is,
the accused party, in order to report on the truth of the case. We
have a copy of this original paper dated 8 May 1888. ·
Naturally, as the general was not the confessor of His Reverence,
the latter was not under obligation to say, Peccavi (I have :;i.med).
He reported what was convenient to the Dominicans and naturally
that official decided to disregard the petition, describing as false
the facts that the tenants of Kalamha reported to the Governn.ent,
asking their clarification and verification. We have also a copy o£
this no less original decision, dated 30 May 1888 and addressed also
to His Reverence who replied immediately on 4 June thanking the
governor for such a satisfactory communication, as His Reverence
himself calls it.
I See "The Town of Calami>«," p ..
2 G<>v~rnor Gtm~rnl
Emilio Terrerc; y Perlnat (1885-1888\

84
 Frankly, we don't know if this manner of administering justice
-the judge asking the advice of the accused and not listening to
the voice that clamors for the clarification of the truth--we don't
know if this is practiced in some savage country. It will not be
impossible inasmuch as we see lt used by a general belonging to a
nation which is such a lover of progress and justice as Spain is.
What indeed we can say is that in the Philippines, before the coming
of the Spaniards, before any one had thought of being baptized and
civilized, before the light of truth shone on that country, when the
friars did not have there yet ln inch of land, when the tilled and
worked land still belonged to the one who had made it fruitful and
had consecrated it with the sweat of his brow, the administration oi
justice wns done in a different way. The justice and lieute:~anl
governor of the Philippines, Dr. Antonio de Morga, wrote in HitJ~ in
the Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas (chapter VIII):
When some natives had litigations or differences with others
over land or business or over personal injuries and damages, they
appointed elders of the same community (that is, of the same baran·
gay) to hear the case, the parties heing present, . and there must be
brought proofs and witnesses. Guided by what they found they
afterwards judge the case in accordance with the procedure used
by their ancestors in such cases, and their decision was respected
and executed without prot~st or delay.
'l'hus the uncivilized Filipinos administered justice.
Without doubt it is bitter, Mr. Minister of Colonies, to complain
and complain evr.ry day to a liberal government, without succeeding
to be he<Jrd. This is very bitter to the one complaining, but it is
much more bittH still not only for the Philippines but also for Spain,
to consider that aft~r three centuries and . a half that the Spanish
flag has been flying over there, after so many sacrifices, after so
much blood shed and so much gold spent, the Filipinos had thus
gone bacl~ward in the administration of justice, the foundation of
society and of governments; and Spain, the colonial power, had been
able to give her that only, despite her Civil Code. If our ancestors
would return to life!
Is the Government of the Philippines already so impotent be·
fore certain corporations 3 that it does not only content itself to
close its eyes to many abuses but goes as iar as to be guided by
and to ask for the opinion of the accused? Has the judge gone to
that extent? If he disregarded the petition of the tenant.$ because
3 That Is, religious corpor:~tlone.

85
the accused called the allegations' false, why were not the slanderen
prosecuted? Why were they not brought to court? Why wasn't the
accused·judge converted into judge·accuser? This is easier and
more decent than the othP.r way. Was he afraid to hear the voice
of the unfortunate tenants?
Frankly, we don't know how to describe this procbdure. We
ought not to call it Spanish·F!lipino, though the frequency of similar
incidents almost justified it; but it is not right that the stain fall on
either Spain or the Philippines. Neither one nor the other, though
they, are involved, ought to be collectively responsible for this pro·
cedure.
We report this to the Minister of Colonies, the honorable Span-
iards, and the townspeople of Kalamba.
Publl•h<'d ll't' La Solidarid'J.d, \'ol. lt, 43-44, 28 February 18911.

86
 THE PHILIPPINES AT THE SPANISH
CONGRESS
The session of 6 March c:in be marked with a diamond in the
political history of the Philippines. A deputy, Mr. Francisco Calvo
Munoz, doing justice to that country and honoring the title of Spanish
deputy, has asked with conviction and feeling, the representation of
the Archipelago in the Cortes. We do not wish to diminish his merit
by extolling him. We shall only say that he has complied with his
duty and his conscience.
The Congress received favorably the words of the deputy. lt
understood the justice of the petition and its approval' wants to say
that the Mother Country owes the Philippines a reparation.
The Minister of Colonies replied that he held the same ideas
and declared his vehement desire to demand from the Parliament
the representation of that country. Nay: The 1\Iinister criticized
t-he bill of .Mr. Calvo Muiioz as not liberal enough for it asked only
for three deputies at the moment when universal suffrage was being
asked for Spain.
The Filipino' people can believe in tile sincerity of the worJs of
the minister, because, although many of his bills and reforms are
not approved and those which are carried out are not satisfactorily.
implemented, the cause of that ought to be attributed to the great
opposition that they encounter on their path. Let us wllit . a little
more, inasmuch as we have already learned to wait. The ·skeptics
over there ought not to see in the excuse of .Mr. Becerra-invoking
timeliness-nor in hig declarations in ~avor of assimilation, any of
those banal subterfuges to which we are accustomed there whenever
we ask· for something lik•! the question of the school of arts and
trades of which the Augustinian fathers took charge . . . so that it
would not materialize, for example. Neither is it the excuse of a
timorous man who thereby pretends to give a decent appearance to .
his ignorance, his indecision, or his incapacity. A man like Mr. Be·
cerra ought not t0 have more than one word, the expression of his
idea, and one will, that of his· conviction.
The Minister :;poke of timeliness and said that that was not the
right time to pose the question. Though when asked whether or not
we Indios had intelligence, he admitted that it was certain that we
had it in the eyes and in the hands, though he regretted greatly the

87
 poverty and the ignorance that prevailed there, saying "that it is
uot certainly through their fault, nor are very enlightened persons
lacking there". We Indios nevertheless, are grateful to him for the
motives that have impelhd him to consider premature the amend·
ment of Mr. Calvo ·Munoz. And we thank him b::cause, tho)lgh in
·certain parts of his speech be bas expressed himself with much re·
ticence and sufficient obscurity, we suspect that he was not guided
by any unjust or offensive thought but only by the prudence of the
legislator who did not want to S"e the fruit of his labors to be spoiled
by sowing in an unprepared grouT'd. We can believe that• Mr. Be-
cerra fears that in the present circ•tmstances, when municipalities
do not as yet exist in the Philippines nor are the duties of a citizen
known, parliamentary representation can be an evil, because certain
elements can take hold of it and use it contrary to the purposes for
which it has been created. For this good intention, we. Indios over-
look his remarks about our manual and vi~ual intelligence and we
thank him from the bottom of our hef.:t.
However, we are not entirely in accord with the fears of the
ministers. Certainly, and very certainly, we said more than once
that there is much ignorance in the country and the partisans of
the people's backwardness have plenty of money and power. But
this does not prevent us from saying that it is imperative to save the
country from her poverty and ignorance_:."for which she is not to
blame"-while she is not yet totally brutalized. Mr. Becerra has
said that "it is Christian-like to defend the disinherited poor, be-
caUse the rich and the powerful being able to defend themselves do
not need other defenders". Well then, the only remedy is to give
them representation in the Cortes with restricted suffrage, not as
much as proposed by Mr. Calvo Munoz, nor so extensive as universal
suffrage. It is true that in a country where the only rostrum al-
lowed is the confessional, to grant universal suffrage is to make the
reactionaries triumph; but if for the present we restrict voting
(speaking of the Indios), and it is granted not only to the ex-goberna-
dorcillos, lieutenants and heads of barangay, we believe that .the re·
form will not be a failure. Ignorance is found only among certain
classes, who, .because of their unfortunate condition, are at the mercy
of everybOdy and are the object of all kinds of tyrannies. These
unfortunates, as they have to live on what they earn daily are obliged
~o draw near to the best tree so that it can protect them against all
calamities and to be able to continue vegetating, and this tree in
the Philippines is the friar. The people know unfortunately that
the real king is the friar who disposes of the government and of the
rulers and naturally they fear him more than the others. But re·

88
 cent experiences are gradually undeceiving them, and soon, if their
ills are not remedied, they will have to seek protection in themselves:
The voice of the laws does not reach there nor the borders of the
towns.
For this reason we ask for the freedom of the press so that
through it public opinion may be enlightened and guarded against
certain intrigues. We don't believe that the 'Minister would fear it.
Since Cuba has had it. , she has not rebelled; the British colonic3
have it as well as the French. A free press is the inseparable com-
panion, rather, the one that opens the road to parliamentary repre-
Sentation. Both things are complementary.
There arc numerous very serious and very intelligent persons
among the Indios and we say it however unbecoming for us to do so.
Only that the lndio in general and the Indio in the provinces in
particular, closes up before a stranger, and even before a Spamard,
with a certain reserve that flighty minds rarely penetrate. We have
been greatly slandered. Tra vclers who undergo hardships and dis
pleasures for hitting upon a population that regard with disapproval
their pretensions and airs of conquerors; writers who want to show
off their wit and smartness in their books and to cause a sensation
darken the background an<l depict the Indio all black and ridiculous
Friars who arc interested in making believe that there are only
children there (Philippines) who need their protection; government
employees who want to exculpate stupidities or abuses; sheep of
Panurge I who say and believe what others have told them without
taking the trouble of finding out the truth '\bout the matter-all
the.se petsonag(•S have Slandered the COuntry, and .as they always
use the argument that "they have been there", there is no possible
reply. The majority do not know any one but their servant and it is
lucky if the two understand each other. The writer of these lines,
who perhaps it not unworthy to place himself beside the last shoe-
maker who has a vote and elects his deputy, has found in the Philip·
pines, not only in Manila, but also in the provinces, men of vast
knowledge and of such good sense that one would not suspect. The
Minister of Colonies said very well that there were not lacking there .
''very intelligent persons". Perhaps there are more than he sus·
pects, only they do not nor can they reveal themselves. One who
did so would be foolish, for in a country where jealousy and arbitra·
riness are at the service of retrogression, to give signs of iatelligence
is to make gold tinkle in the pocket when one is in the cave of
1 Panurg<>, a rogue, is a character in Rabelais' Plllltaoruel. Pantarruel, ie the
Q'illnt ~ton of Gargantus

89
robbers. Each one keeps in his shirt what he knows and chews
buyo. 2 The most imbecile has more probability of living in peace.
We believe then that it is time to give the Philippines represen·
tation in the Cortes and freedom of the press. With these two re·
forms, carried out wisely by a minister and a governor who do not
allow themselves to be influenced by anybody, all other reforms that
may later be presented will succeed; under their protection, they
will prosper. Whereas now that the country bas neither organ of
public opinion nor voice in the legislature; when a reform is ordered,
it cannot be known. here whether it is implemented or not, if the
govt!rnor general, in order to please So and So, suspends it, mutilates
it or interprets it in his own way. A free press would watch over
its implementation and the deputies could defend it in the Cortes.
With these two reforms we believe firmly that the pessimists and the
discontented will disappear from the moment \;hey are furnished
with a medium to inform them. It is already something to be able
to complain when one feels outraged.
We beli~ve that Mr. Becerra has as much impatience as the most
impatient among the _Filipinos to fulfill his promise. We hope so
for we would like to see confidence reborn in the minds of our fel·
low countrymen, cowered long ago by the state of things. They
are face to face a powerful enemy, far from the aid of the laws, and
they do not have a voice to defend them. They know that at any
moment an uprising can break out, "simulated or purchased" _which
undoubtedly will be smothered in the blood of innocents or the ene·
mies of the powerful, and they know that J>y then they have no one
to protect them. It would be a miracle if, throwing themselves into
the arms of despair, they do not then try to sell their lives dearly.
And everybody knows how easy it is to simulate such uprisings. We
have already seen some and even in Barcelona domiciliary search
was attempted, only it did not succeed, because it seems that it need·
ed the atmosphere of the Philippines. 3 A "purchased· uprising" at
this time might aJfect certain reforms and as in such moments one
hardiy can reason cold·bloodedly, fear may make us recoil and undo
what has been done.
We remind Mr. Becerra of his motto: "Do not leave for tomor·
row what should be done today".
2 A leaf of betel (Piper betls L.) with a lltUe lime and a piece of betel nut
(Areccl catechu) .
3 See footnote on pa~re
Published In La Solidnridad, vol. 11, 69-71, 31 Mareh. 18BO,

90
 LET US BE JUST
In its preceding issue La Solidaridad published a letter that
various Filipinos of Manila had addressed to La Opjnion on the oeca-
slon of a homicide committed on the Island of Negros. It seems
that this periodical in an article entitled "Plain Justice" asked for the
the proclamation of martial law in Negros.
The letter of Various Filipinos J:rotesting against this absurd pe·
tition is written with so much timidity and so much respect ... that
the periodical, without doubt, for Dn excess of misunderstood patriot-
ism . . . for an exaggerated zeal and in a moment of weakness ...
did not want to publish it.
The assassin or murderer seems to be a laborer; father of a
Camily, without a bad record. He was not impelled by viie motive
but rathe.r, after committing the act, he presented himself to the
authorities, giving information about how he assassinated his master,
a landowner.
And in view of this deed, of the conduct of this man, two news·
papers ask that martial law be declared. The others claimings to be
liberal and just, reject the military procedure and ask that lhe full
weight vf the law fall upon the guilty, that inexorable penalty be
meted out to the delinquent, and so forth.
And this is not the first time that the full severity of the law is
asked to ·be applied to the poor rural workers of the Philippines
when the victims unfortunately belong to the European race! Some
months ago a husband surprised a friar staining his honor. The ·
irate husband wounded and maltreated him and the newspapers also
then cu;ked that the guilty assas~in be rigorously published, that the
full force of the law be applied to him, etc.
It is sad to record these desires for the morality of I hose con-
sciences! The existence of such desires is a sad omen for the as-
similation of the Philippines! What will a man who reflects and
judges infer in view of these moral ailments? Would these men
who' ask for such vengeance act differt>ntly if their own dignity had
been offended or their honor stained?
How can abysses be Closed up, how can ties be formed when
such ab:mrd formulas are seen, when justice has two balances, when
the law has complacency for some and furry for others? All the
91
wise maxims of the world, all the eloquent aspirations of generous
souls who would like to make that people a Spanish people, if they
encounter such obstacles, will vanish like smoke! Ah! The prior
cen~orship in Manila must have filibustero tendencies, or it must be
ver:· near·sighted not to see the scope of such cries! ·
Why? What is. the purpose of invoking ·th·e full rigor of the law
against a man, who is deeply wronged, for -the assassination of a
landowner, or of a friar? Is not that telling the entire people not
to believe in justice? Is it perchance the first time that an assassi·
nation is committed? Do not thousands and thousands of persons ;n
all the countries of the globe die daily under conditions a thousand
and thousand times more serious, with more aggravating drcums·
tances than in the cases before us? Who guarantees to us [hat the
landowner had not -maltreated or offended :leeply the aggressor?
Why, instead of saying, let the court investigate well and weigh the
motives and the causes that led to the perpetration of the deed, all
go out shouting, "Plain justice! Martis.! law!"
When, . in Europe, among a people who have all the means ot
being educated and improving their morality, in a society where
class abuses and oppression can be easily denounced, where the poor
find protection, where al\ are equal before the law, where the crimi:
nal is :nuch more responsible, inasmuch as he is governed by laws
that he knows and to whose making he has given his asr.ent, when
in Europe, we say the jury proceeds with tht> utmost caution aud
acquits most of the time those who commit horrible and cruel mur·
ders, always seeking in th<: wretchedness of man some attenuating,
saving circumstance, should no excuse be found to declare the
t:riminal not responsible, we see in Catholic Philippines, in a country
which had exchanged her past and her independence for the law of
l~hrist, for that religion of love and charity. man armed with all
kinds of vengeance, hurling all kinds of imprecations against th(.'
unfortunate who perhaps, rightly examined, had 11.0 other crime tnan
that of not being a God, that is, who is not infinite in his sufferings~
And in the Philippines, those who today want to show themselves
severe and inflexible, what moral have the)' taught us, what. exam·
pies have they given us, what have they done to enlighten our mind,
prevent abuses, make the poor trust in the law anC: in the justice of
the courts?Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing! when it is a power·
·ful man who has sinned! Is this not wishing to excite the most
peaceful people in the world to rebellion?
That it is a landowner who punishes excessively a laborer?
mystery, action on the papers in the case, compromise.

92
 We, in the name of humanity, rebel against such hehavier
That it is a friar whom e husband surprises? Do they personify
perchance all the morality on earth that their Plain justice when
it is a poor devil who has sinned; death should be avenged with
martial laws and Draconian penalties? Let those who still have love
fur their dignity, love for their hume and their f!l mily speak; let
those who still feel. in the ir breast a remnant of impartiality speak .
If we are to think of. the disastrous effects that such crazy man ·
ifestations have produced in the breas t of the poor Filipinos , we have
lO infe r· that there are there tendencies that want to llllllify the at ·
tempts of those who want the Hispanization of that country. While
the sensibility of the peo ple is wounded and excitr.d in thi s way
while racial antagoni sms are fostered through hat e and vengeance,
the e nlightened minds , those who drram of the Hispaniza tion of the
Arthipe lago _ that one day might be the life of Spain; like a solicitous
daughter in the Mother's old age. will spend heir lives wenving
Pene lope·s cloth!
And it is marvellous to consid er how ignorance ard routine
persist in their minds, draggi ng down the peoples who have entrusted
their destinies to them . There is no doubt that those clamors for
rn.artW.llaw and plain ju s tice pass there for being the most patriotic
when a prudent policy, a policy of attraction. wise and far-sighted,
counsels a conduct that probably the prior censnrsh1p there would
prohibit to be mentioned even . ·Quos Jupilrr t'ltil perdere, t. . .. In
short, as Professor Blumentritt rightly says : Ilabet1t sua fata, non
wlum libelli, sed etiam regne. 2
Finally, that unfortunate man will he hanged as after the mur ·
der, he presented him se lf to the court. Perhaps martial law may
be proclaimed ; th<' strictne~s may go to the extreme . Perhaps they
may also hang th e husband of whom we spoke so that the strictness
of the law, public ven geanc.e, the wt•ight of justice, etc, etc,. etc
But the executioner should be careful in performing his sad mission ;
he might nl so execute the law, justice, the love of the Philippines
for Spain dying in the mind of the people. Now various Filipinos
protest despite the condition .in which they are found; tomorrow it
will be the whole peop le and who knows if it will already be too
late . The military · men should be careful about their martial laws;
sometimes they sentence themselves, because the cessation of the
organs of the body is not the only death; there is another, death
before public opinion. bef~re conscience, before posterity . Without

1 Those whom Jupilt:r wa nts to d<·st r()y . he first makes 1n fui .

2 N (1t Mdy books h w., ~ their dt·Stiniea hut. also rf'i~rn~ .

93
 the autos de je a of the Inquisition, the religious corporations would
not have died in Europe. Those · tortures and those burnings tore
away and burned all that was fair, great, and beautiful that the
convents did in the past. The ambitions of some popes killed the
papacy, and Louis XV by ordering that the criminal who wounded
him slightly be quartered, prepared the scaffold of Louis XVI.
The powers-that-be should be careful that in believing that they
remedy a present evil, they sin against justice and humanity! There
is a God in history! If the nations whose might was founded on
force have not been able to abuse it as well as the weakness of the
vanquished or subjects with impunity, but rather laying aside the
eternal moral law had to succumb in their turn by the same means,
what have we to say to the powers that have to rely on esteem,
respect, and prestige?
Physical superiority is notl,ing before moral superiority, and
men, like all animals, have to respect this and submit to it. Colonial
powers, above all those who do not dispose of armies and navies to
guard every shrub or prevent the passage of the waves, must need
above all to display this moral superiority before the subject peoples,
otherwise we can predict their proximate end. And there is nothing
Ulat wins man more thari the idea of justice, serene, without hatred
or f~,;ry, as there is nothing like injustice to arouse his indignation,
and a government commits suicide and loses prestige before the
entire people these ravings, it becomes too exacting with the luckless
and when, obeying the fears of the moment that shine through closes
its eyes to the deeds of the powerful.
Perhaps they will say to us that they ask for the law of retalia·
tion. If this law governed all, however barbarous and stupid it
might be, the oppressed would have some comfort. But the penalty
of lex talionis is asked in a loud voice there only for the. poor, be·
cause the poor have neither newspapers nor defenders; but should
it be applied with all its blind stupidity, half of mankind · w.ould go
to prison and to the seaffold the other half.
No, let justice act, but without incitements to cruelty, without
martial laws, without barbarism nor clemency. Let it perform its
mission quietly, carefully, serenely, like one that is conscious of
its power and of its august ministry. It must not go down to the
level of vengeance. Examine impartially the facts and when it has
to mete out a penalty, be very careful and incline more towards
benevolence, for aside from the fact that man is weak, there is the
I A11to-do-1• 11 the Hntence ll'lven by the Inquisition wbich io execution. eo-
peelel!J burDin!'.

94
high political consideration of not allowing any racial animosity to
show, inasmuch e.s the one who has to judge the criminal is of the
same color as the deceased. And more than elsewhere, judges ought
to consider that in the Philippines climate produces effects on pas·
sions. A state of anemia, due to the heat, produces an unbalanced
condition which is manifested by nervous irritability. The hamok,
or momentary obfuscation is a phenomenon observed among the
Malay race, sometimes provoked by hunger, heat, etc. Add to this
what various Filipinos who have protested there observe: The Indio,
the personification of suffering, will only kill when all his patience
has been exhausted and nothing remains to him but despair. And we
know Spaniards who criticized this excessive patience and who in·
terpreted this endurance of suffering as lack of dignity.
Be very careful then!
Published in La Solidaridad, vol. II. 82·84. 15 April 1990. ·

95
 PHILIPPINES AFFAIRS
We haVE.' read very strange ideas in Philippine. newspapers which
in many instances seem to as to have a certain ironic flavor or bitter
sarcasm that has slipped despite the vigilant and jealous prior cen·
sorship.
In 1888, on the occasion of the pardon of a man condemned to
death, the Philippine press had the curious idea that the people
should be eternally grateful for that pardon as if the entire popula
tion lived on the neck of that criminal who escaped the garrotte, or
as if society had received a great benefit because the life of a bad
member had been preserved. The criminal had suffered all the
moral torments, for the commutation of his sentence to lif.!'! impri·
sonment came dramatically or farcically only a second before. his
execution, so that the criminal suffered moral execution and bes1des,
life imprisonment. It is not strange that he became mad; it was
an excessive good luck for one man alone. And !hen the Manila
press with a terrible irony, with cruel sarcasm, hurls dithyrambs
about the immense, eternal gratitude of the Filipino people, of the
criminal, etc. The prior censorship let it pass.
Regarding this, as if their appetite had been aroused, the press
speaks of a banquet offered by the prisoners to the officialdom as a
very holy and beautiful thing, .. The prior censorship seemed to be
absent·minded. Aliquando bona dormitat censura.l
We could cite very many strokes in which the nicety of S~>r
casm exceeds all foresight. Their perusal would only produce in us
the following· rE.'Ilections: That he who wants to censor too much.
censors noth1ng.
Penance is in the sin itself.
We, then, were already accustomed to the genial sallies of the
journalists beyond the sea, nnd we adopted towarC:s them the policy
of 11ihil admirari; 2 so that when we picked up casually a newspaper
to breathe in the odor of the Pasig and local flavor, we first took a
good dose of security and we winked our eyes as if to say to our·
self: You will see how well they mock the censor!

Even the JI"OOd censor sometimes nods.

Or, )'til odmirari CHoraee) . To wonder at nothiJ'Itr .

96
 And indeed -the~1 do meek the ~cnsor. There is nothing like op
pression to make the mind work; the greater the pressure the grellter
the explosion!
But despite our nihil admirari; despite our philosophical consid·
crations. despite being accustomed to the knavery of the press, of
our own country, the following incident stupefied us :
A laborer killed his landlord and immediately he presented him·
self to the co~:~rt, reporting the crime he had committed. As the
deed took place at Log, the Civil Guard was given charge of con·
ducting the criminal ~o Bacolod, capital of the Island .of Negros.
They shot him twice on the way, alleging that in an access of mad·
ness, he tried to flee. He who had voluntarily presented himself to
the court!
See how illogical! Desiring to flee after having presented him-
self spontaneously! In truth he deserved to be shot, for the Ci~l
Guard cannot tolerate illogical men.
But here is how El Porvenir de Visaya.s, comments on the inci•
dent:
It was confirmed. On the 23 we received a letter from Negros
in which the information was confirmed that the Civil Guard was
compelled to fire on the murderer of Mr. Felipe Vidaurrazaga in or·
der to prevent him from escaping.
We repeat ·today what we said yesterday: There are provident·
ial actions that justify that certain punishments ought to be immedi·
ate not only b~cause they are deserved but because of the wholesome
example they produce.
Once more the Civil Guard has fulfilled its duty!!!
La Oceania and La Opinio!l have been very mischi~ous in wish·
ing to compromise El POrvenir de Visayas if not with the censor, at
least with moral sense by reprinting the item we copy here.
El Porvmir de Visayas is a cruel newspaper and if we did not
know that there are no true filibusteros there, we would say that it's
editor is one, consciously or unconsciously. What a sarcasm for the
worthy Corps of Civil Guard to be told that it has complied with its
duty by removing from the judicial power a criminal whom it \va:;
charged to deliver to its hands! Voltaire could not have said more
if there had existed civil guards in his time! Give to the last porter
in Europe or to a Chinese porter (if you are in the Philippines) a
vase, a mirror, or any work of art; pay him well so that he may lake
it to your house, and if he breaks it on his way, tell him afterwards

97
in an elated voice: "You have complied with your duty mapifi·
centlyl" H the porter has any spark of honesty, he would break
your head or his own; if he is stupid, he would smile very much
satisfied. Here EL Porvenir de Visayas has fooled the whole worthy
civil guard.
Because the last policeman of the last country in the world.
the last cuadrillero, 3 the last gecdarm~ without half. a finger-width
of forehead, knows very well how to insure a criminaL For that
purpose u,e soldiers of the civil guard have their pockets full of
1trings with which they tie elbow to elbow not only criminals but
even those who have no other crime but to have good chickens or
fat capons; for that purpose they have handcuffs, shackles, etc., etc.
To pretend that the criminal had tried to escape in an access of mad·
ness is to be madder than the crimina! himself and the one who al·
leges it as an excuse deserves another civil guard. Because, if my
porter tells me: "Sir, as the mirror that you gave me in an access
of 11Wdness was tending towards the ground, in order to prevent it
from escaping my hands, I broke it to pieces!"
'Bravo, man, bravo! Once more you have fulfiled your duty!"
Because the desire to escape on the part of a criminal is so natu·
ral, like gravitation to the center of the earth. If it were not so,
for what is a guard or a porter? They should have told the mur
derer: "Take these twenty pesos and go to Bakolod and let us
see if they hang you there." And who knows? He might have ar·
rived there more safely, becaus£; as we saw, he presented hlmseli
alone to the court.
Nothing. The Civil Guard has once more complied with its duty!
We are sorry for the comment, for we have known very scrut
(.oulous men iD that corps.
Well now; to call the action providential is no longer an insult
to the porter, I say, to the civil guard, but to the laws and the courts.
The criminal was its prize. He escapes from his guards. Bravo! I
mocked you!!! Providence!!! Follownig the exa!llple of the porter
and the mirror, if I intend.ed this as a present to a friend or a rela·
iive and upon learning that my civil guard has broken it, I would
exclaim clapping my hands: Providence! There are certain provi·
dential' acts that justify that certain gifts ought to be broken, etc.,
etc. Eh? Surely my relative or friend will take me for El Porvnir
de VisaJitlS.

3 Rural ~ruard.

98
 But ii the mirror belongs to our relative or friend and it is his
property, the criminal belongs to the court. 'fhen he shall have the
right to take us to court for slander or insult, because to attribute
its loss to Providence, is to call Providence ·pureiy and delicately
a thief or something of the kind. And here El Porvenir de· Visayas
has also fooled the laws, the administration of justice, the judges,
and the courts of the Philippines.
Yes, indeed; censorship permits these things to be said, to call
providential an act that impairs the force of the law. It permits
to be said that the courts are not worth a straw and that the civil
guard may be treated scoffingly when through incapacity or barba·
rity, it fails in its duties or does not accomplish the mission en·
trusted to it. It permits this to be called wholesome when it is
the most pernicious; for', if criminal have to be treated in this way,
there will not be any more criminal who will present himself or
allow himself to be caught henceforth, like our candid laborer. As
the law has neither force nor prestige, as the courts no longer ins·
pire any one with confidence, as the civil guards neither know how
to guard criminals, considering one who commits an offence a des·
perado, a ferocious beast, and in order to live he will be obliged to
multiply his exploits. Lasciate ogni speranza!4 And as there shall
always be criminals, because there shall .always be injustice, pas·
sions; oppresors, despots and wretched men, it turns out that the
wholesome example will be very wholesome in increasing the deliil
quents qualitatively and quantitatively.
However, from all this regrettable incident, it seems that it can
be inferred, like the mephitic exhalation of a heap of garbage, the
desire not to do justi~e but to kill the criminal; something sangui-
nary, inhuman, base, something ferocious. But we are sure that
those newspapers expressed themselves thus out of pure irony.
Indeed, there are cruel sarcasms; there are ironies in the Phil·
lippines that are not suspected 1n Europe! The Tacitus, Voltaires,
Byrons, and Heines abound there unknowingly.
And we say to the Civil Guard: If that. man whom you ought
to deliver safe and sound to the court of justice and whom you have.
shot on the way, is a maniac, hysterical, like many who are seen in
Europe, who are presented as the presumed criminals ·in famous
crimes, what responsibility must you have before God since you
have none before your fellow men? In London we saw in the case

' Or, Luciate oan.i aperu1Ua.. voi eh!etttrat·e. (AbAndon all hope ye who enter
here.) }'rom Dant~. /,u Di"llitla Comm•dia, Zanioh~lli. Bolognu, 1944, canto HI.
ataaEa 3 . · · ·

99
ol Jack, the dise1nboweDer, more than the men present themselves
as the famous murderer. If the policemen in charge of their .cus·
tody had complied With their duty, ~s you did with your own . . .
but, not here in Europe, the policeman nev~r compljes with his
duty, here there is no Providence; the criminals arrive safe and
sound; the police qefends them sometimes at great personal risk
against the ire of the indignant and exasperated multitude. No.
here where there are more criminals, where horrible crimes are
committed, parricides, barbarous,. ,cruel, and well meditated mur:
ders; here where the criminal has better means of escaping because
of the excessive number of inhabitants, because domicile searches
do not exist, because of the way houses are built, but because of the
ease of means of communication, because of ihe frontiers, because
of the size of the continent, here never has a criminal been known
to have been killed because jn access of madness he had tried to
escape! .. Ah! We don't know if the Philippines has her equal · in
the uncivilized world; we can't say so definitely, but indeed we main·
tain that the irony of her journalists knows no rivals.
And we shall conclude giving a warning.
The Civil Guard of the Philippines is called a Worthy Corps,
because in the Peninsula this body is really so, as it is also dif·
ferently formed and its clllembers are better chosen. The Inquisi·
tion was also called Holy and those who composed it believed that
under the protection of this name, they could dare everything, that
they could abuse everything. But no; posterity has judged it, has
execrated it; the epithet of Holy did not save it, and its name now
means everything that ilil odious, cruel, inhuman, horrible. God and
man have condemned it.
Neither will the name "worthy" be of any avail to you if you
continue a.busing your immunity, it under the protection of your
privileges, you oppress the unfortunate, you break their bones with
the butts of guns, or you shoot them as for sport, in obedience to pas·
sions and vengeance. The daily will come, sooner or later, when the
people, more intelligent and better educated, shall awaken from
their ignorance and discover the long wake of blood and tears
that marked your path in the past, and then, horrified by a natu·
ral reaction, will condemn you to abomination as the Europe-
en peoples have condemned their executions in the past cen-
turies. Perhaps its resentment might reduce you to the most ig-
noble level of society, like the utensils in a house necessary to clean
it of all filth, the most abject and lowest, and you will wander
shamefully, avoiding the centers of light, -exiled from respectable

100
society, like those upon whom weigh the curse of so many victims,
burnt, tortured and buried during centuries of the religious mto·
lerance of the Inquisition and ambitious theocracy, unfortunate heirs
of mockery and contempt, compelled to disguise themselves and to
slip away unperceived in order not to rouse vengeance with the odor
of the corpses of their victims. Then the people who have forgotten
the great learned men who fled with truly apostolic I:IlOnks and meu,
only to remember the Torquemadas 6 and Alexander VI's s will also
forget all the good services that the worthy corps had rendered and
will remember only its tyrannies and cruelties and perhaps confuse
with the tyrants the rest to whom the mother country is indebted.
But, in the meantime, fuUill your duty!
6 Tomas de Torquemada (1420-1498), Spanish ll'r&nd lnqulaltor.
6 Pope (1492-1503). Hlo name was Rodrl~ro Lanzo! y Borjn of tba 80181& fa.
mlly, roted for his wordiness and the father of Lucrezla Borl!'i&.
Published in La Solidaridad, vol. II, 93·95, SO April 1890.

101
 MORE ON THE NEGROS AFFAIR
In the preceding issue, commenting on the article in El Por
venir de Visayas on the shooting of a prisoner by the civil guards in
charge of escorting him, we said that it was a sarcasm to the Corps
and the administration of justice, and we could have also added
to Providence whom the newsman identified with Remington guns
. in describing it as truly providential.
Well then, a person who claims to know the reporters of that
newspaper wants to assure us that there was no such sarcasm but
only a pure and simple, naked expression of the convictions and ideas
that its reporters profess.
We protest against the accusation that depicts under a very
poor li~ht not only the moral sense of the newsmen of those re·
gions but also the common sense and the most rudimentary theories
of reasoning. In fact, how can the most incapable of the most in·
capable among men (and we no longer speak of the El POrven~r de
VisayaS) maintain without sarcasm "or mockery that the civil guard
h!id fulfilled his duty when precisely he has done the. r~verse? El
Po1·ve<nir de Visayas should know how to read, and must have un·
.doubtedlv read everything that the Cartilla del Guardia Civil says in
chapter IX (part I) pages 34, 35, 36, 37, concerning the Conveyance
o~ Prisoners which says thus:

ARTICLE 1. If the duties of the Civil Guard hitherto stated

ought to compel him to live with extreme ·and continuous vigilance,
11.0-ne demands from him so much greater circumspection and care
than the conveyance of pri.~oners; for to this service should be close·
ly joined the sacred fulfillment of ltis duties, the security of the pri·
soners, and the consideratbn and kindness with which they ought to
be treated.
ART. 2. Every prisoner who is plac~d under the Civil Guard
ought to be considered sufficiently safe and will be guarded without
any fail until his destination assigned by the laws; in the same way
that he ought to believe that he will be justly free from insults or
nbuses from any one, whatever his category may be, and from the
excesses that at times are wont to be committed against prisoners.

102
 AAT. 3. The civil gua.rd is the first agent of justice, and rather
than toleraie that the least violence or outrage be committed against
the prisoners he may escort, he ought to perish. He should never
permit anyone to insult them before or after suffering the penalty
imposed upon them by law.
ART. 4. The escape of a prisoner will be a very grave charge
against the civil guard; and he ought to keep in mind that besides
requiring, for the good of the service, the complete security of
those entrusted to his care, for this offence, a penalty may be im·
posed upon him equal to what ought to have been imposed upon the
escaped prisoner, according to the seriousness of the crime of which
be was accused.
AAT. 5. He should not engage in any kind of conversation with
the prisoners of both sexes whom he is escorting nor permit any in·
timacy whatever.
AaT. 6. If he has to pass through forests, ravines, and craggy
terrain, he must redouble his vigilance and tie together the prisoners.
if it were necessary, to prevent escape that they frequently attempt
taking advantage of places of this nature.
Au. 7. Sick prisoners conveyed on beasts of burdea will be
guarded without ever trusting in the circumstance of their illness,
always making them all march together at a com/o1·table P<tele.
AllT- 8. He will avoid, under the pretext of colic, accident, or
other illness, that there be any distance between the prisoners he is
escortin.;; because they can very well have the idea that through a
feigned illness, they can succeed to flout the vigilance of their guards
and escape.
AaT. 9. Whenever a prisoner by his category, office that he
might have held or any other circumstance, is entitled to couHesy,
the civil guard will fulfill his duty by giving him what he deserves,
complying with the laws in this regard.
A&T. 10. If any of the prisoners should ask for permission to
do some personal necessity, a guard will accompany him, making all
the others stop until he returns.
Au. 11. The one in command of the force he is escorting in
the category of prisoners-some military men-will take care that
on the first day of each month they draw up their service records
which will be attested by the corresponding official, taking care be·
sldes of forwarding the said documents to the c)tiefs on detail of

103
the Corps to which they belong so that they may be credited their
salaries.
ART. 12. In the towns where they have to spend the night, the
civil guard escorting a prisoner or prisoners ought to deliver him or
them to the gob ernadorcillo.*, taking the corresponding receipt
which he must return the next day when he takes the prisoners,
which he will do !It the moment he resumes the journey.
ART. 13. By no means should the guard either eat or drink with
the prisoners he is escorting, nor buy anything at their request.
ART. 14.. The service of the conveyance of prisoners must be
regulated in such a way that the marches may be commensurate
tvith the condition of the prisoners who are being escorted and they
will be forced only if there is an express order to do so.
ART. 15. When the prisoners reached their destination, they
will be delivered to the competent authority who will issue·the cor·
responding receipt.
As the readers can see, there is nothing in all this chapter,
written in the true spirit of humanitarianism and morality, even n
half phrase authorizing the civil guard to shoot a criminal who, in an
cccess of fury, attempts to escape. Consequently, to suppose that El
Porvenir de Visayas had spoken seriously in saying that the civil
guard had complied with his duty, when he had done nothing more
than fail in it, is to consider him openly and frankly an imbecile
who reasons with the sole of his shoes, an opinion that we are far
from attributing to El Porvenir de Visayas however much the futu,re
ot those islands may seem ''ery unfortunate.
But let us leave aside the jeen of the newspaper and let us
analyze the incident by itself.
Is it possible that a prisoner, guarded and manacled by a 1101-
dier, can escape in such a way that his guard cannot prevent him?
The most furious prisoner, the most robust, the most agile,
once manacled (and in the manner that the civil guards know how
to do it, · who any excuse the elbow with elbow the most inoffen·
sive and decrepit persons) cannot evade his guardian however little ·
careful and perspicacious he might be. As the conveyance took
place in the daytime, the guArd could perceive the intentions of the
prisoner to untie or loosen his ligatures. Moreover, it is a well
·observed fact that without the freedom of the upper members;
movement and running would be very difficult and the most agile
• llaJ>or of tiM toWJI.

104
runner without the counter-balance of his arms loses one-third of
his speed. We have seen chains or rosaries of prisoners escorted
by soldiers of the civil guard, ·thirty or twenty, of all ages and cons-
titutions, go through towns and solitary roads, we have seen them
lashed with roads and beaten with the butts of muskets so that they
may walk faster, and in wishing to hasten their step, the lack of
freedom of their arms made them fall to the ground from which
they rose with great diffieulty, in spite of all the blows and lashing
that they received. Well now; if among thirty men no one had
suceeeded to escape. notwithstanding that there were only two guards
how could one prisoner alone, who was carefully guarded,
attempt an escape that would compel the civil guard to fire at him?
Because it must be supposed that the one escorting him (if he is
alone, and not two) will not be a lame man and if he were, be must
not lose sight of him and will hold in his hand the end of the cord
with which he is tied. The articles in the regulation for the con·
veyance of prisoners specify in detail nil the circumstances and all
the eventualities, as cur readers must have seen, that only an ex-
cessive carelessness, a complete but punishable disregard of. them,
can encourage a prisoner to escape. And neither the prisoner nor
liuman justice is responsible for this but the guard who forgets his
trust.
But even supposing that the civil guard had been careless and
for an instant loses sight of him, the movement of the criminal
will be enough to attract his 3ttention and stop the fugitive after
a few steps, and if it were not so, his prudence and his kindness will
suggest to him a shot in the air to frighten him, whieh unfortunately
is not done in these cases but rather some seem to entice the pri-
soner to escape. and letting him run ten or twelve steps, they shoot
him with their rifle or revolver. This is absolutely barbarous and
surpasses everything that can be imagined, that, not only does it
remind us of African custa!lls, but what is more of a contrary- mean·
ing. No one authorizes a jockey to kill a horse that escapes him
and the life of a horse cannot be more sacred than that of a man.
even if he is an Indio subject to Spanish rule.
It is the duty of the civil guard to watch the criminal and ::s
the regulation provides definitely, "to guard him without fail unCil
the destination assigned by the laws," he has the means and intel·
Jigence to insure his person. In civilized Europe, where human
dignity is more respected and where the rope is not abused, the
police have found means to prevent criminals fr01ri escaping, some·
timeg by removing from them one shoe, gometimes by pulling ont

105
the buttons of their pant<:loons. In the Philippines the rope has
nlways served in place of the intelligence of the civil guards and.
now they want to substitute lead for it.
If this is sanctioned, in truth it would be better to live among
savages, go to the mount10ins where the Negrios live, and to dis·
own e\'erything that smells of Christianity ·and civilization.
Nevertheless, there is nothing in ·the entire Cartilla de la Guardiu
Civil, even an article, that authorizes the guard to use his firearm
and Jess to execute the criminals. The regulation that we cite,
dated 1879, only names two · cases in which a firearm can be used
and they are: Ar.ticle 7 of chapter I, first part, and article 26 of
thapter JI, part 3, which state the following:
AaT. 7. His first weapons should be persuasion and moral force;
resorting to what he carries with him, only when he finds himself
confronted with others, or his words had not sufficed.
ART. 26. Every soldier is forbidden to fire his arm without the
authorization of the commander, excepting the cases that are re·
served · for the sentry.
These cases are when one does not reply to "Who coes there?",
repeated three times, one flees, or disobeys the cry, etc., etc. . . . .
The disjunctive, "or his words bad not sufficed" refers to tu·
mults on the street, disturbances, and so forth, for it is ridiculous .to
apply it to the conveyance of prisoners. It is rare that any one goes
to prison willingly and "persuaded". Ours indeed was a rara avis,
for he presented himself voluntarily, though perhaps with the knowl·
edce of what was going to happen to him. For that reason perhaps~
and for being an exception. they shot him, though shootings of this
kind are not rnre over there.
The author of the regulation, though he had studied all cases,
foreseen all eventualities, atJd asserted the serio1,1sness of the escape
of a prisoner (Art. 4), never made the most remote allusion to the
use of this barbarous method to stop an esctlpe.
To speak of access of fury is stupid, for never has it been said
that madness may be punished with summary execution.
The court of justiee ought to ask for a strict accountiog of those
who abuse their power and fail in their sacred ministry. The
Corps of the Civil Guard, if it wants to be exempted from this crime
and to fulfill nobly the purpose for which it was created, ought to
pun~h those who prevent the investigation of the truth in violation
of their duty and of their downright and repeated abuses. ~o

106
can assure us that the assassin was not a mere tool? Who knows if
his hand was moved by another will? Did it not happen in Manila
a few years ago that a countryman assassinated some Spaniards who
lived in the environs and later turned out to be a paid assassin? If
on that occasion plain justice had played one of its own pranks, it
would have rer.dered without doubt some great service to the ins-
tigator of those murders, but it would have contributed also to im·
morality by leaving tmpuni~hed the real criminal.
Moreover, if we are going to accept these abuses and close our
eyes to them; if we are going to substitute for the courts of justice
military rule and still without its councils of war and its procedures;
if we are going to recognize the right of every soldier to shoot any
one for this. or that excuse, more or less puerile and stupid, then
close the courts of justice, dismiss all the judges, silence all the
lawyers, and burn all the codes! Congratulations! Thus we shall
economize a great deal, and we cannot be charged of being hypo-
crites or frauds, that while we talk of laws, of justice, and of morali-
ty before an audience, behind the stage we have all cowardice, all
complacency! In this way at least the people will know what to ex-
pect, will know what awaits them, and will not trust innocently
phrases and hollow phrases! And time will tell who will come out
the winner.
But, in the mear.time, let us hope that Mr. Becerra who has
begun to direct the affairs ·of the ministry of colonies with spirit and
good intention, will have enough energy to make the laws respected.
Mr. Becerra knows very well the fate that awaits those who begin
with a human head and end in fish, dessinant in piscem, as Horace
says. Let us hope that he will prove that he has not fallen in a
profound lethargy after having earned an excellent fame .
PuQiisbN In Lc Solidcridcd, vol. II. 105-108, 16 Ma:v 1S90.

107
 A HOPE
The :Ministry and the party to which Mr. Becerra 1 belonged
have fallen, dragging down with them !Jiany hopes.
Gone with them also are those of many Filipinos who had heard
the speeches of Mr. Becerra delivered at the Congress on 6 March
of the present year on the occasion of the debate on the parliament·
llry representation of the Philippines.
Mr. Becerra had said that he was in favor of this reform, that
the Filipinos ougHt to have a voice, that it was just that one who
pays tax votes, ~nd that it was Christian-like to defend the helpless
~nd defenseless, that it was little to ask only for three deputies
when Spain asks for universal suffrage, and in short, what can be
done today should r.ot be left for tomorrow .
If that statement of Mr. Becerra today does not mean exactly
what it did on 6 March, the time he !:poke, tomorrow neither ought to
mean never.
The Filipino people, trusting in the honorable promise ·of a
Spanish Minister, hoped and believed that the silence that followed
the actiVity of Mr. Becerra signified the eve of a great day.
Four months x:assed and during this long period of time, the
promise of the Minister was not mentioned again nor the justice that
is due eight million subjects.
Oh, Thou who has made the heart of man believe in the pro·
mises ol another man, why have Thou not given him a part of your
in!lexible will and a reflection of yol1r memory so that he may re·
member all his promises?
But enough! Mr. Bec~rra has fallen and we don't want to tell
him now our bitterness however ~re.1t our rE'sentmerit may be. We
have hoped in a man!
We are human and nothing human can surprise us, we say, trans·
lating Terence.
We prefer to recall the reforms that the Philippines hea1'd during
the ministry of Mr. Becerra.
These reforms, though lew , are not insignificant
I Manuel Bec.,rra, Liberal, minfoter of CoL>nlee.

108
 We would prefer to talk aboul the Civil Code, if the arbitrariness
of General Weyler and the complacency, not to say weakness, of Mr.
Becerra had not left by halves that reform, which has made more
patent the power of the religious corporations and the impotence ol
the ministers who are called besides democrats and liberals.
Mr. Balaguer who had given the example with the introduction
of the Penal Code, did not allow any amcudment proposed on behalf
of Captain General Terreros and his reform was implemented whole
in _spite of all protests.
That reform of Mr. Balaguer was a beautiful precedence. In-
tegrity and conviction!
The heads of barangay owe Mr. Becerra a great benefit: The
fixing of the stipend of the curates. We must not forget it. So
rare are the reforms carried out!
Mterwards?
We don't remember others that may have general interest but
nonetheless, we must admit that Mr. Becerra has had very good and
grand designs and these 2.re not little when one considers that the
Ministry of Colonies is a ministry for beginners.
Let us throw the blame of the failure not on the man but on
circumstances and on men. Bah! One cannot always struggte; there
is the quarter hour of Rabelais.
Let us see what the Conservatives have for us. Until now the
Conservative ministers who have heid the portfolio of overseas colo·
nies have been neither good nor bad to the Philippines; that is,
they have hardly paid any attention to that country. Their old
motto seemed to be :
Peor es meneallo. 2
Ayala left some dramas and very good sonnets. Have the dra-
mas been staged in Manila? We don't know. The sonnets have
been read and have pleased many people.
Of the others not even an assonant remains.
There was, if our memory docs not fail us, one Count Tejada de
Valdosera, but frankly we don't remember _whether he was a con-
servative or a liberal. We have nothing in our mind to enlighten
us somewhat about what . this minister did for the Philippines. We
have a vague idea about him in the same manner as a figure which
2 Or, ffte;or u ..., .,,.,,.e<JUo (Better let It alone I.
Lo Solid..rid<&d, vol. H. 153-154, lli lubr lll90

100
 is confused with others placed in the extreme end oC a painting and
we don't forget him on account of a name and a title. For us he
belongs to the blessed name of Ministers. Peace to them!
Nonetheless we confess that under the conservative ministries
we have had such good and such bad governors-general as under the
liberal~. The conservatives have never given us a Weyler but indeed
a Jovellar, a Terreros, who can be accused of anything one likes ex·
cept of complacency ....
It seems also that General Jovellar and General Terreros did not
return from the Philippines much richer than when they went out
there; neither did they go about surrounded by friars, nor did they
allow them to dominate them.
Let. us be just to b~th.
Now, may the Filipino people, without distrusting men place
their confidence in something more iofty, in someone with better
memory, in someone who knows better the value of JUstice arid of a
sacred promise.
God has made man free and has promised victory to one who
perseveres, to one who struggles, to one who acts justly.
God has promised man his redemption after the sacrifice.
Let man fulfill his duty and God will fulfill his!
La Solidaridad. Vol. H, 153-164 (15 July, 1890).

ll{)
 THE INDOLENCE OF THE :FILIPINOS
I
Doctor Sancianco in his Progreso de Filipinas {Philipl>ine Prog·
ress) bas dealt with this question-cackled about it, as he says. Cit·
ing facts and r~ports furni3hed by the very same Peninsular author·
ities who govern the Philippines, he has demonstrated that such in·
dolence docs not exist and whatever is said about it does not deserve
a reply nor even slight attention.
However, as it is still being discussed, not only by the govern·
ment employees who bold it responsible for their own stupidities,
not only by the friars who consider it necessary to make themselves
irreplaceable, but also by serious and disinterested persons; and as
against the evidence cited by Dr. Sancianco, others of greater or less
weight can be presented, it seems to us desirable to study tho·
roughly this question without contempt or sensitiveness, without bias,
without pessimism. And as we can only serve our country by tell-
ing her the truth, however bitter it be, as a categorical and artificial
denial cannot destroy a real and pos_itive fact, despite the brilliance
of the arguments, as a mere assertion is not enough to create an
impossible thing, we are going to examine the question calmly with
all the impartiality of which a man is capable who is convinced that
there is no redemption unless based solidly on vir~ue.
Very much misused is the word indolence, in the sense of little
love for work, lack of activity, etc.; but ridicule has covered the
misuse. This popular subject has suffered the same fate as certain
panaceas and specifics which have been . discredited because of the
impossible virtues attributed to them by charlatans. In the Medieval
Age, and even in many Catholic countries of our times, whatever
superstitious folk cannot ur.derstand, or men because of malice ref-
use to confess, is attributed to the devil; in the Philippines, one's
own and another's shortcomings, the stupidities of some, and the
crimes of others are attributed to indolence. Thus, as in the Medie·
val Age, one who tried to seek an explanation of natural phenomena
outside of the devil's influence was persecuted, in · the Philippines
one who seeks the origin of his ignorance beyond the accepted be·
liefs meets a worse fate.

111
 lt turns out that there are some who are very much interested
in declaring this misuse a dogma and others in co:nbatting it as a
ridiculous superstition, if not a punishable fraud. However, it should
not be deduced that 1\ thing does not exist because of its misuse.
We believe that there should be somethiDg behind so much out·
cry, for so many people cannot have agreed to lie at tne same time,
among whom, as we have said, are some very serious and disinterest·
ed individuals. Some will act in bad faith through levity, through
lack of discernment, faulty reasoning, ignorance of the past, etc.;
others will repeat what they hear without investigation nor reflec-
tion; others will speak through pessimism or impelled by that human
characteristic which re~ards perfect or almost perfect whatever is
one's own and defective what is another's; but it cannot be denied
that there are some who worship truth, if not always the truth itself,
at least its semblance, which is truth in the mind of the crowd.
Analyzing carefully then all the incidents and all the men wt'
have known since our childhood and the life in our country, we be·
lieve that indolence exists there. 1 The Filipinos who can stand
beside the most active men of the world will doubtless not challenge
this admission. It is true that there they have to work and struggle
much against the climate, against nature, and against men; but. we
should not take the exception for the gener&l rule .and we should
seek the welfare of our country by stating what we believe is true.
We must confess that the indolence actually and positively ex1sts;
but instead of regarding it as the cause of the backwardness and dis·
order, we should regard it as the effect of · disorder and backward·
ness, which fosters the gr3wth of a disastrous predisposition.
With the exception of Dr. Sancianco, those who. have dealt with
the subJect of indoJence have been satlstied with denying or aff,rru·
ing it; we .don't know anyone who has studied its causes. However,
those who admit its existence and exaggerate it more or less have
not failed to prescribe remedies taken here and there, from Java
and other Dutch and English colonies, like the quack who, having
seen a fever cured with a dozen sardines, prescribed this fish for
every rise in temperature he observed in his patients.
We shall do the opposite. Before proposing a remedy, we shall
examine the causes and though a predisposition, strictly speaking, is
not a C1.>.use, we are going to study however · in its true worth the
predisposition due to nature.
1 Thla article was written In Spain and henee the UH of 'there" In relerrlllJ
to the Philippin..,, It waa publiohed In lnatalmenta in La SoUdarid<uf, vol. II, 168-160,
16 July 18gO; 167-169, 31 July 1890; 178-11!0, 15 Aul(uat 1890; 190-196, 31 Au~run
1~90; 203-204, 1 September 1890.

112
 The predisposition exist.s. Why should U not exlat.?
The warni climate requlr~ quiet and retlt for the individual,
ju5t as cold incites him to work and to aetion. For thts reason the
Spaniard is more indolent than the French, and the French more so
than the German. The very Europeans who accuse the peoples of
the colonies of indolence (and I'm no longer referring to the Span·
iards but also to the Germans and Englishmen), how do they live
in the tropical countries? Surrounded by many servants, never
walking but riding, needing servants not only to remove their shoea
but even to fan them! And nevertheless they live and eat better,
work for themselves and to enrich themselves, with the hope of a
future, free, respected, while the poor colonial, the indolent colonial,
is poorly nourished and lives without hope, toils for others, and is
forced and compelled to work! What? The white men will reply
perhaps that they are not made to suffer the rigors of the climate.
A mistake! Man can live under any climate if he will only adapt
himself to its requirements and conditions. What kills the European
in the warm countries is the abuse of alcohol, the desire to live as
in his own country under another sky and another sun. We the
inhabitants of trC\pical countries live well in northern Europe when·
ever we take the same precautions as the people there do. The
Europeans can nlso live well in the torrid zone if they would only
get rid of their prejudices.
The fact is that in the tropical countries severe work is not a
good thing as in cold countries, for there it is annihilation, it is
death, it is destruction, Nature, as a just mother knowing this, has
therefore made the land more fertile, more productive, as_ a com·
pensation. An hour's work under that burning sun and in the midst
of pernicious influences coming out of an active nature is equivalent
to a day's work in a temperate climate; it is proper then that the
land yield a hundredfold! Moreover, don't we see the active Europ-
ean who has gained strength during winter, who feels the fresh blood
of spring boil in his veins, don't we see him abandon his work during
the few days of his changeable summer, close his office, where the
work after all is not hard-for many, consisting of talking and gesti-
culating in the shade beside a desk-rt!n to watering-places, sit down
at the cafes, stroll about, etc.? What wonder then that the inha·
bitant of tropical countries, worn out and with his blood thinned by
the prolonged and excessive heat, is reduced to inaction? Who is
the indolent one in the offices in Manila? Is it the poor clerk who
comes in at eight in the morning and leaves at one o'clock in the
afternoon with only his parasol, and copies and writes and works by

113
himself and for his chief, or is it his dlie£ who comes in a carriage
at ten o'clock, leaves before twelve, reads his newspaper while smok-
ing with his feet stretched out on a chair or a table, or speaking ill
of everything with his friends? Who Is the indolent one, the Indio
coadjutor, poorly paid and badly treated, who has to visit all the in-
digent sick living in the country, or the friar curate who gets fab·
ulously rich, goes about in a carriage, eats and drinks well, and does
not trouble himself unless he can collect excessive fe~s?
Leaving aside the Europeans, in what hard work do the Chinese
engage, the industrious Chinese who flee from their country driven
by hunger and want snd whose sole ambitiqn is to amass a small
fortune? With the exception of some porters, an occupation which
the Filipinos also follow, almost all of them are engaged in trading,
in commerce; so very rarely do they take up agriculture that we
know of no one. The Chinese who cultivate the soil in other colonies
do so only for a certain number of years and then retire.
We find then the tendency to indolence very natural and we have
to admit it and bless it because we cannQt ·a lter natural laws, and
because without it the race would have disappeared. Man is not a
brute, he is not a machine. His aim is not merely to produce despite
the claim of some white Christians who wish to make of the colored
Christfan a kind of motive power somewhat more intelligent and less
costly than steam. ~ His purpose is not to satisfy the passions of an·
other man. His object is to seek happiness for himself and his fel·
low men by following the road towards progress and perfection.
The evil. is not that a more or less latent indolence exists, but
that it is fostered and magnified. Among men, as well as among
nations, there exist not only aptitudes but also tendencies toward
·good and evil. To foster the good ones and aid them, as well as
correct the bad ones and repress them would be the duty of society
or of governments; if less noble thoughts did not absorb their atten-
tion. The evil is that indolence in the Philippines is a magnified in·
dolence, a snow-ball indolence, if we may be permitted the expres·
sion, an evil which increases in direct proportion to the square of
the periods of tim~!, an effect of misgovernment and backwe.rdness,
as we said and not a cause of them. Others will think otherwise,
especially those who have a hand in the misgovernment, but it does
not matter: we have affirmed one thing and we are going to prove it.
II
When the condition of the patient IS examined after a long chro·
nic illness. the question may arise Whether the weakening of the

114
fibers and the debility of the organs arc responsible for rbe persjSt·
ence of·the malady or its continuation is the effect of the poor treat-
ment. The attending physician attributes the failure of his skill to
the poor constitution of the patient, to the climate, to his s\lfToundings,
etc. On the t>ther hand, the patient will attribute the aggravation of
his illness to the method of n·eatment followed. Only the common
men, the curious ones, ·will shake their heads unable to reach a de·
oision.
Something like this happens to the Philippine question.
Instead of physician, read Philippines; instead of malady, indo!·
ence.
As it happens in similat cases, when a patient gets worse, every·
body loses his head, each one dodges the responsibility to throw it
to somebody else, and instead of discovering the causes to combat the
evil in them, they devote themselves at best to attacking the symp-
toms. Here a blood-letting, a tax; there a plaster, forced labor;
farther there a sedative, a trifling reform, etc. Every new arrival
proposes a new remedy: One, novenae, the relic of a saint, the
viaticum, the friars ; another proposes. a shower-bath; still another,
pretending to hold modern ideas, a blood transfusion. "Nothing; the
patient has only eight million indolent red corpuscles; some tiny
white ones in the form of an agricultural c.olony which will get us
out of the trouble." ·
So on all sides there are lamentations, gnawing of lips, clenching
of fists, many empty words, much ignorance, a great deal of talk,
much fear. The patient is nearing his end !
Yes, blood transfusion, blood transfusion! New life, new vitali-
ty! Yes, H the new white corpuscles, all -that you are going to in·
troduce into her veins, the new white globules that were a cancer in
another organism, have to resist the evils of the organism, have to
resist the many blood-lettings that she undergoes each day, have more
resistance than eight million red corpuscles, must cure all the dis·
orders, all the degeneration, all the trouble in the principal organs.
be thankful that they are transformed into coagulations which im·
pede circulation and produce gangrenes, be thankful that they do not
reproduce the cancer!
While the patient breathes, we should not lose hope, and how·
ever late we may be, never is a conscientious study superfluous, at
least, if she dies, the cause of death will be known. We are not try-
ing to put all the biame on the physician and still less on the patient.
As we have already mentioned, if the predisposition due to the clim·

115
ate-a just and nalural predisposition-did nol extst, the race would
disappear, a victim of excetsive work in a tropical country. ·
Indolence in the Philippines is a chronic malady, but not a here·
ditary one. The Filipinos have not always been what they are now,
. witnesses · being all the historians of the first year& of the discovery
of the Philippines.
The Malayan Filipinos before the coming of the Europeans car-
ried on an active trade, not only among themselves but also with all
their neighboring countries. A Chinese manuscript of the XIII cen-
tury, translated by Dr. Hirth tGlobus, Sept. 1889) and which we will
take up on another occasion, speaks of the relations of China with
the Islands-purely commercial relationS-and the activity and hon-
esty of Luzon traders who took Chinese products and distributed
them throughout the Islands, traveling for nine months, and returned
afterwards to pay religiously even for goods that the Chinese did
not remember to have given them. The products which they export-
ed in exchange were crude wax, cotton, pearls, tortoise-shell, betel-
nuts, dry-goods, etc.
The first thing noticed by Pigafetta, who came with Magellan
in 1521, on arriving in Samar-the first island of the Archipelago
they reached-was the courtesy and kindness· of the inhabitants
(cortesi e buoni) and their trade. · "To honor our captain," he says.
"they conducted him to their boats where they had their merchandise
consisting of cloves, cinnamon, pepper, nutmegs, mace,
gold, and other things; and they made us understand through ges-
tures that such articles could be found in the islands to which we
were going .... "
Further on he mentions vessels and utensils of pure gold he
found in Butuan where the people were engaged in mining; he des-
cribes the"silk dresses, daggers with long gold hilts and scabbards of
carved wood, gold teeth, and others. Among the cereals and fruita
he mentions rice, millet, oranges, lemon, Indian corn, etc.
That the Islands maintained relations with neighboring countries
and even with distant ones was proven by the Siamese boats loaded
with gold and slaves which Magellan found at Cebu. These boats
paid certain duties to the ruler of the islaTJd. In the same year 1521
the survivors of Magellan's expedition found the son of the rajah of
Luzon who, as captain-general of the Sultan of Borneo and admiral
of his fleet, had conquered for rim the great city of Lave {Sara-
wak?). Might this captain, who was greatly feared by all his ene·

116
mies (temuto soinmamente de gentili) 2, be the Rajah Matanda whom
the Spaniards afterw&rds found in Tondo in 1570?
In 1539, the warriors of Luzon took part in the formidable strug·
gle for Sumatra, and under the orders of Angi Siry Timor, Rajah of
Batta, conquered and overthrew the terrible Alzadin, Sultan of
Atchin, celebrated in the annals of the Far East. (Marsdeu, Histor11
of Sumatra, Chapter XX)
At that time, that sea, where float these islands like a handful
of emeralds on a crystal tray, sailet,l in all directions junks, paraus,
balanngys, vintas-craft light as shuttles and so large that they can
hold one hundred rowers on one side (Morga); that sea bore every·
where commerce, industry, and agriculture by the force of oars mov·
ing to the tune of war songs, genealogy songs, and songs of the pro·
wess of Philippine deities . (Colin, Book I, Chapter XV.)
Wealth abounded in the Islands. Pigafetta tells us of the abun·
dance of foodstuffs in Paragua and of · its inhabitants almost all of
whom cultivated their own farms (qua si tu.tti lavorano i propri cam-
pl.) On this island the survivcrs of Magellan's expedition were well
rcc'cived and provisioned. Shortly after, these same people captured
a vessel, plundered and sacked it (pigliammo e lo saccheggiammo)
and captured in it the chief of the same Island of Paragua (!) to·
gether with his son and brother.
In this same vessel Utey captured bronze lombards, a and this is
the first mention of Philippine artillery. These lombards were used
by the chief of Paragua in fighting the savages in the interior.
Th<'Y let him ransom himself within seven days, demanding 400
measures (ca\:anes?) of rice, 20 pigs, 20 gonts, and 450 chickens.
This is the first case of piracy recorded in Philippine history. The
!'aragua chief paid everything and moreover spontaneously added co·
conuts, bananas, sugar cane, and jars full of palm·wine. When Cae·
sar was taken prisoner by the corsairs imd required to pay a ransom
of twenty-five talents he replied: "I'll give you fifty, but afterwards
I'll have you crucified!"
The chief of Paragua was more generous: He forgot. While
his conduct might reveal weakness, it also showed that the islands
had abundant supplies. This chief was named Tuan Mahamud; his
brother, Guantail; and his son, Tuan Mahamed. (Martin Mendez. ·
Purser of the ship Victoria, Archivo de Indlas) . .

2 Literally, " extrernely teared by tbe beatben". .

3 J,ombard ; I.ontako? It Is the small Koro cannon otlll In use. ( Rlul)

117
 A very extraordinary thing which showed the facility with which
the Filipinos learned Spanish was that fifty years before the arrival
of the Spaniards in Luzon, in the very same year of 1521 when they
first came to the Islands, there were already people of Luzon who
understood Castilian. In the negotiations for peace between the sur-
vivors of Magellan's expedition and the chiefs of Paragua after the
death of the servant-interpreter Henry, "they availed themselves of
the services of a Moro who had been captured in the island of the
King of Luzon who understood some Castilian," (Martin Mendez,
doc. cit.) Where did this extemporaneous mterpreter learn Casti·
lian? In the Moluccas? In Malacca, from the Portu
guese? In Cebu during the short stay of Magellan's expedition? The
Spaniards had not reached Luzon before 1571.
Legaspi's expedition found in Butuan several traders form Lu·
zon embarked in their paraws (boats) laden with iron, wax, blankets,
porcelain, etc. (Gaspar de San Agustin), plenty.of foodstuffs, trade.
activity, life in all the southern islands. The first news they heard
was that Luzon, or its capital, Manila, was the point to which the
largest boats from China went and that even the traders from Bor·
neo went there to get their stock. (G . de S. A. )
They reached the Island of Cebu, "abounding in provisions, with
mines and gold placers and peopled with natives", as Morga says.
"Very populous and the port is frequented by many ships that came
fro!fl the islands and kingdoms near India", says Colin, and although
they were received peacefully, soon discords arose. The city was
taken by force and burned. The fire destroyed the food supplies and
naturally famine broke out in that town of one hundred thousand
inhabitants, as the historians say, and among the members of the
expedition; but the neighboring islands quickly remedied the situa-
tion, thanks to the abundance or their own food supplies.
All the histories of those first years, in short, abound in long
accounts of the industry and agriculture of the people-mines, gold
placers, looms, ~ultivated farms, barter, (trade), shipbuilding, poultry
and stock-raising, silk imd cotton-weaving, distilleries, manufacture
of arms, pearl-fisheries, the civet industry, horn and leather indus-
try~ etc. All these could be found at every step and considering the
time and conditions of the Islands, they prove that there was life,
there was activity, there was movement.
And if this, which is a deduction, does not convince one whose
mind is imbued with unjust prejudices, of some worth should be the
testimony of the much-quoted Dr. Morga who was Lieutenant Gov·

118
ernor of the Philippines and Justice in the Audiencia • of Manila for
seven years, and after rendering valuable service in the Archipelago,
was appointed Criminal Judge in the Audiencia of Mexico and Coun·
sellor .of the Inquisition. His testimony, we say, is highly credible,
not only because all his contemporaries have spoken of him in terms
that border on veneration but also because his work--from which
we take these quotations-is written with .much circumspection and
prudence with reference to the authorities in the Philippines as well
as to the mistakes they committed. "The natives"-Morga says in
Chapter VIII, speaking. of the occupations of the Chinese-"are very
far from pursuing these occupations and have even forgotten much
about farming , poultry and stock-raising, weaving cotton blankets as
they used to do when they were pagans and a. long time after the
conquest of the country."
The whole chapter VIII of his work deals with this moribund
and greatly forgotten industry and yet in spite of that how long is
his chapter VIII!
And not only Morga, not only Chirino, Colin, Argensola, Gas·
par de San Agustin, and others agree in this matter; modern travelers
after two hundred and fifty years, considering the prevailing de·
cadence and misery, assert the same thing. When Dr. Hans Meyer
saw how well the' unconquered tribes cultivate their land, working
energetically, he asks himself if they would not become indolent
when they in turn were converted into Christianity and placed under
a paternal government.
Consequently the Filipinos, in spite of the climate, in spite of
their few necessities (they then had less than now) were not the
indolent creatures of our time, and as we shall see later on, neither
were their morals and their mode of living what they are now pleased
to attribute to them.
How then and in what way was the active and· enterprising
heathen Indio of ancient tiJl1es converted into a lazy and indolent
Christian, as our contemporary writers say of him?
We have already spoken of the more or less latent tendency to
indolence existing In the Philippines and should exist everywhere, in
the whole world, in every man, for all of us hate work in varying
degrees, according to whether it is more or less hard, more or less
unprofitable. The dolce far niente of the Italians; the ra.scarse la
barriga (scratch the belly) of the Spaniards and the supreme ambi·
tion of the bourgeois to live in peace and tranquility ou his income,
attest this.

119
 What forces contribute to awaken from its lethargy this terrible
predisposition? How did the Filipino people so devoted to their
customs as to border on habit, . abandon their former industry, their
trade, their -sea-faring, etc. to the point of forgetting completely their
past?
lll
A fatal combination of circumstances, some independent of the
will despite the efforts of men, others the offspring of stupidity and
ignorance, others the inevitable corollaries of false principles, and
still others . the result of more or less base passions, has induct!d the
decline of work, an evil which instead of being remedied by prudence,
mature reflection, and recognition of the errors committed by a-dep·
lorable policy through regrett~ble blindness and obstinacy, has gone
Crom. bad to worse until reaching the condition ifl which we see it
now.
First carne the wars; internal disturbances wtich the new order
naturally brought about. It was necessary to subject the people
either by cajolery or by force; there were fights, there were deaths;
those who have submitted peacefully seemed to repent of it; insur·
rections were suspected and some occurred; naturally ·there were
executions a-nd many skilled workers peri<;herl. To the£e · disorders
add the invasion of Limahong, add the continuous wars to which tht!
inhabitants of the Philippines were dragged to maintain the honor
of Spain, to extend the SW!'.Y of her flag in Borneo, in the Moluccas,
and Indochina. To repel the Dutch foe, costly wars; futile expedi·
tions in each of which it was k<<Own that thousands and thousand~ of
Filipino archers and rowers were sent but nothi;;g was saift if .hey
ever returned to their homes. Like the tribute that at one time
Greece sent to the Minotaur of Crete, the Filipino youth who joined
the expedition bade their country farewell forever. Before them, in
the horizon, was the stormy sea, the endless wars, the hazardous
expeditions. For this reason, G. de San Agustin says: "Though for·
inerly there were m~ny people in this town of Dumangas, in the
course of time there has been a great diminution because the natives
are the best sailors a.nd most skilled rowers on the whole coast, and
so the governors in the port of Iloilo get here most of the crew for
the vessels they send out . . . . When the Spaniards arrived in this
island (Panay); it is said it had more than fifty thvusand families;
but they diminished grea.tly . . . . and at present they are about
fourteen · thousand tax-payers . , .. " From fifty-thousand families to
fourteen thousand tax-payers In a. little over half 11 century~

120
 We would never get through if we had to quote all the evidence
presented by authors on the frightful diminution of the inhabitants
of the Philippines in the first years following the discovery. In the
time of their first bishop, that is, ten years after Legazpi, Philip II
said that they had been reduced to less than two-thirds.
Add to these fatal ex9editions that wasted all the moral and
material energies of the country the frightful depredations of the
terrible pirates of the South instigated and encouraged by the Gov·
ernment, first to provoke a quarrel with them and afterwards to
leave unarmed the islands subjected to it. During these incursions,
which reached the very shores of Manila until Malate itself, could
be seen through the sinister glow of burning towns depart for cap·
tivity and slavery chains of wretched men who had not been able to
defend themselves, leaving behind them the nshes of their homes and
the corpses of their parents and children. Morga , who gives an ac·
count of the first piratical incursion, says: "This boldness of the
Mindanaos in the Pintados Islands caused great damage anrl fear and
fright which they in!:tilled in the inhabitants who, being under Span-
ish rtlle, were disarmed and subjected to tributes so that they were
ldt without the means to defend themselves nor were they protected
by the Government, .unlike the time when there .were no Spaniards
in the land .. .. " These piratical incursions reduced more and more
the number of inhabitants of the Philippines, for the independent
Malays were notorious for their atrocities and murders whether be ·
cause they considered it necessary in order to preserve their inde-
pendence to weaken the Spaniards by reducing the number of their
subjects or because they were animated by a grel\t hatred and pro-
found resentment against the Christian Filipinos who, though belong-
ing to their race, served and helped the foreigners to deprive them
of their precious liberty. And these expeditions ·lasted nearly three
centuries, occurring five or ten times a year, and each expedition
cost the Islands more than eight hundred prisoners.
"With the invasions of the pirates, Joloans, and Mindanaos•·
says Fr. G. de San Agustin, "the population of Bantayan Island has
greatly diminished, because the pirates captured the inhabitants with ·
ease as they had no forts and were far from Cebu where help could
come. In the year 1688 the Jolo enem:v caused much riamage in
this island leaving it almost depopulated." (P. 380)
These severe attacks coming from outside produced a counter
effect .on the interior which, following our clinical. comparisons, was
like the effect of a cathartic or diet on an individual who has just
lost a great deal of blood. In order to face so many calamities to

121
secure their hold, to take the offensive in these disastrous struggles,
to isolate the bellicose Joloan from his -neighbors of the south, to
care for the needs of the empire of the lndias (for one of the reasons
why the Philippines was retained was its strategic position between
New Spain and the Indias, as contemporary cJocuments attest); to
wrest from the Dutch their growing colonies of. the Moluccas ang get
rid of troublesome neighbors; in short to maintain the trade of
China with New Spain, it was necessary to construct new and large
ships which, as we have seen, costly as they were to the country be-
cause of their equipment and the rowers they required, were not
less so for the way they were buill Fernando de los Rios Coronel,
who fought in these wars and later became a priest, speaking of
these ships to the king, said that "As they were so large, the neces-
sary timber scarcely could be found in the mountains (of the Philip·
pines!) and thus it was imperative to seek it even with great dif-
ficulty in the interior and once found, in order to haul and bring it
to the shipyard, it was necessary to employ so many men that the
towns of the surrounding country became depopulated. They got it
out with immense labor, damage, and cost to them. The Indios fur-
nished the masts of a galleon, according to the Franciscan friars;
and I heard the governor of the province where they were cut, which
is Laguna de Bay, say that to haul them seven leagues across rough
mountains took 6,000 Indios three months and they 1vere paid by tJAe
towns 40 reales each a month, without food whi'ch the wre-tched Indio
has to get himself .... "
And Gaspar de S. Agustin says: In these times (1690) Bakolor
has not the people that it had in the past on account of the uprising
in that province under Governor Sabiniano Manrique de Lara and of
the continuous cutting of timber for His Maj«Sty's shipyards, whic~
hinders them from curtivating the very fertile plain they have, etc."
If this is not sufficient to explain the depopulation of the Islands
and the neglect of industry, agriculture, and commerce, then add
"the Indios who were hanged, those who left their wives and children
and fled in disgust to the mountains, t.~ose who were sold Into slavery
to pay the taxes levied on them", as Fernando de los Rios says. Add
all this to what Philip II said in reprimanding Bishop Salazar about
"Indios sold by some encomenderos to others, those flogged to death;
the women who are crushed to death by their heavy burdens and who
sleep in the fields and give birth and nurse their children there and
die bitten by poisonous inse'!ts; the many who are executed and left
to die of hunger, and who die for eating poisonous herbs . . . . and
the children killed by their mothers at birth," and you will under-

122
stand how in less than thirty years the population of the Philippines
was reduced one-third. We don't say this ourselves; it was said by
Gaspar de San Agustin, the anti-Filipino Augustinian friar par excel-
lence, and he proved it throughout the rest of his work by mentioning
often the state of neglect in which lay the farms once flourishing
and so well cultivated, the sparsely populated towns which before
were inhabited by ' many families of principles.
Is it strange then that the inhabitants of the Philippines should
be dispirited when in the face of so many calamities they could not
tell if they would ever see sprout the seed they have planted, if their
fanns would be their graves, or if their crop would feed their execu-
tioner? What is strange when we see the pious but impotent friars
of that time advise their poor parishioners, in order to free them
from the tyranny of the encomenderos, to stop work in the mines, to
abandon their industries, to destroy their looms, pointing to them
heaven as their sole hope, preparing them for death as their only
consolation?
Man works for a purpose; remove the purpose and you reduce
him to inaction. The most industrious man in the world will fold his
arms the moment he learns that it is folly to be so, that his work
will be the cause of his trouble, that because of it he will be the
object of vexations at home and the greed .of the pirates from outside.
It seems that these thoughts never crossed the minds of those .whi:l
cry out against the indolence of tbe Filipinos.
Even if the Filipino were not a man like the rest; even if we
suppose tll1lt his zeal for work is as essential as the movement of a
wheel fitted in the gear of other wheels in motion; even if we re-
gard him as Jacking in foresight and understanding of the past and
the present; we still have to explain the existence of the evil. The
neglect of the fanns by their tillers-many of WhOm were dragged
out of their homes by wars and piracy-was sufficient to nullify the
hard labor of so many generations. In the Philippines, abandon for
a year the best cultivated land and you will see that you win havt'
to begin all over again. The rain will wipe out the furrows, tht
floods will drown the planting, weeds and shrubs will grow every-
where, and on seeing so much futile labor, the farmer drops his hoe
and abandons his plow. Isn't there left the ~ine life of a pirate?
Thus is understood the sad disappointment we find in the writ-
ings of the friars of the XVII century in speaking of flooded plains,
once very fertile, of depopulated provinces and towns, of products
which have disappeared from trade, of the extermination of leading
families. Those pages seem like a sad and monotonous night scenP.

123
after a lively day. About Ksgayan, Fr. San Agustin said with sad
brevity: "They had much cotton which they made into good cloth
that the Chinese and the Japanese bought and carried away." Jn the
time of this historian industry and commerce had come to an end!
It seems that these caus~s are sufficient to breed indolen,ce even
in the bosom of a beehive. Thus is explained why after thirty-two
years of Spanish rule the circumspect and prudent Morga said that
the Indios "have forgotten much about farming, poultry and stock .
raising, cotton growing, and weaving of blankets as they did when
th~y ~re Pagans and long after the cotvntry had been conquered.

Still they struggled on for a long time against indolence, indeed,

but their enemies were so many that at last they gave up.

IV
We know the causes that predisposed and provoked the evil. Let
IJSnow see what factors foster and sustain it. In this connection,
the Government and we the governed should bow our heads and
say: We deserve our fate.
It is very true that we have once said that when a house be-
comes disturbed and disorderly, we should . not blame the youngest
child nor the servants but its head, especially if his power is un-
limited. He who does not act freely is not responsible for his ac-
tions; and the Filipino people, not being free, are not responsible
either for their misfortunes or their woes It is true we said this; but
as will be seen later on, we a I so have a large share in the perpetua-
tion of such a disorder.
Among other things the following contributed to foster the evil
and aggravate it:
( 1) The constantly lessening encouragement to labor in the Phil-
ippines. The Government, fearing the frequent contact between the
Filipinos and other men oi the same race who are independent and
free like the Borneans, Siamese Cambodians, and Japanese-people
whose customs and feelings differ very much from those of the
Chinese-has looked upon them with great mistrust and treated. them
harshly, as Morga attests in the latter part of his book, until they
have finally stoppf'd coming lo the country. In fact, the Government
at one time thought !hat the Borneans were planning an uprising ;
we say thought, because there was not even an attempt, though there
were many' executions ir.deed. And as these nations were precisely
the only ones that absorbed Philippine products, relations with them
being cut off. their consumption of our products also ceased The

124
only two countries whose relations w.i th the Philippines cuntinued
were China and Mexico or New Spain, and this trade benefited on!y
China and some private individuals of Manila. In fact the Celesti:ll
Empire used to send to the Philippines its junks laden with merchan·
dise, which led to the closing down of the factories in Seville and
ruined Spanish industry, and returned laden with the silver that
every year was sent to the Philippines from Mexico. Nothing from
the Philippines then went to China, not even gold, for in those years
the Chinese traders would l!Ccept no payment except silve; coin. To
Mexico went something more-some blankets and textile which the
enc<imenderos obtainfod, by force or bought at an absurd price from
the Filipinos . . Also went small quantities of wax, amber, gold, civet,
etc., but no more, as Admiral Jeronimo de Banuelos y Carrillo attest-
ed, when he petitioned the King to allow (!) the people of Manila to
load as many ships as they could with the products of the country,
such as wax, gold, perfum.es, ivory, am.d cotton cloth which they
should buy from the na-tives . . . Thus would they win the friend
ship of these peoples, furnish New Spain with their products. and
the money brought to Manila would not leave this place.
The coastwise trade, so flourishing formerly, disappeared on ac·
count of the piracy of the Malayans of the South; and trade in the
interior of the Islands almost disappeared completely owing to rest-
rictions, passports, and other administrative requirements. ·
Of no little importance were the impediments and obstacles
which since the very beginning have b.c en thrown in the way of the
farmer by the rulers who were influenced by childish fear and saw
everywhere signs of conspiracies and uprisings. The Filipinos were
not allowed to go to their work or ·farms ( granjerias as they were
then called) unless with a permit from the Governor or the provin·
cial governors and justices and even of the priests, as Morga says.
Those who know the administrative slowness and confusion in a
country where the authorities work scarcely two · hours a day; those
who know the cost of going to and coming from the provincial capi·
tal to ask for a permit; those who are aware of the petty retaliation
of the little office tyrants will understand how with this barbaric
arrangement it is possible to have only the most absurd agriculture
It is true that this absurdity-which would be ludicrous if it were
not so serious- has disappeared long ago; but if the ruling has dis·
appeared other things and regulations have been substituted for it.
The Moro pirate has disappeared, but the bandit remains, infesting
the farms and awaiting to kidnap the farmer for a ransom . Well
now, the Government which constantly fears the people. denies all

125
the farmers even the use of a rifle, or if it does allow it, it makes
its acquisition very difficult and withdraws it at pleasure. And so it
happens ·that the farmer, thanks to his means of defense, sows and
pours his meager capital into the furrows he has so laboriously open·
ed ; but, when harvest time comes, it occurs to the Government-
which is unable to repress banditry-to deprive . him. of his weapon.
Then, without a means to defend himself and without security, he is
reduced to inaction and abandoned the farm, the work, and indulges
in gambling as a better means of gaining a livelihood. The gambling
table is under government protection; it is safer! A deplorable
counselor is fear, which ·does not only weaken, but, in confiscating
the weapons, strengthens the very same foe!
The miserly return that the Filipino gets from his labor would
in the end discourage him. Through the historians we learn that
the encomenderos, after reducing many to slavery and compelling
them to work for their benefit, made the rest sell them their pro- -
ducts at an insignificant price or for nothing or cheated them with
false measures. Speaking about Ipior in Panay Fr. G. de San Agus·
tin says : It was formerly very rich in gold . . . but irked by the
vexations they received from some provincial governors, they havt>
ceased getting it, preferring to live in poverty than to suffer such
hardships." (P. 378) Further on, speaking of other towns, he says:
"They were irritated by the bad treatment of the encomenderos who, ·
in the administration of justice had treated them more like slaves
than their children, and they only looked after their own interests
at the expense of the modest fortunes and lives of their charges."
(P. 422) Further on : "In Leite, where they wanted to kill an enco·
mendero of the town of Dagami for . the great vexations that he was
causing them, demanding for a tribute of wax which he weighed on a
false balance he himself has made .. . "
This state of affairs has lasted a long time and still exists, de-
spite the fact that the breed ·of encomendero.s has become extinct.
A name is gone but the vice and passions do not disappear while
reforms merely change names.
The wars with the Dutch, the invasions and piracy of the Jolo·
ans and Mindanaos have ended, the people have been transformed;
new towns have arisen while others have become impoverished; but
surviving are the vexations and the frauds as much as, if not worso
than in those early years. We will not cite our own experiences,
for aside from the fact that we don't know which to select, critical
individuals may reproach us with being partial; 11either will we cite
those of other Filipinos who write for the newspapers, no. We will

126
confine ourselves to translating the words of a modern French tra-
veler who stayed in the Philippines for a long time: " ... the good
curate", he says, referring to the rosy picture of the Philippines
given him by a member of a religious order, "had not told me of
the governor (Alcalde Mayor) the highest functionary of the dis-
trict, who is so . busy with _enriching himself that he has no time
to tyrannize his docile subjects. The governor, in charge of admi-
nistering the country and collecting the various taxes in the name
of the Government, devotes himself almost entirely to business; for
him the high and noble functions of his office are nothing more
than instruments for personal gain. He monopolizes all business,
and instead of stimulating around him love of work, instead of
curbing the very natural indolence of the natives, abusing his au-
thority, he thinks of nothing else but of destroying all competition
which might bother him or attempt to share in his profits. Little
ctoes it matter if the country is impoverished, is without education.
without trade, without industry, provided the governor gets rich
quickly."
The traveler, however, has been unfair in picking out parti-
cularly the governor, why · the governor only?
We are not quoting passages from the writings of other travel-
ers because we don't have their works before us and we don't want
to quote from memory. '
The great difficulty that every enterprise encountered with the
Administration also contributed not a little to kill off every commer·
cial or · industrial movement. All the Filipinos and all those in the
Philippines who have wished to engage in business know how many
documents, how many comings and goings, how many stamped pa-
pers, and how much patience are necessary to secure from the Gov-
ernment a permit for an enterprise. One must count on the good
will of this one, on the influence of that one, on a good bribe to
another so that he would not pigeonhole the application, a gift to
the one further on so that he may pass it on to his chief. One
must pray to God to giv-e him good humor and time to look it over;
to give another enough talent to see its expediency; to one further
away sufficient stupidity not to scent a revolutionary purpose be-
hind the enterprise; and may they not spend their time taking baths,
hunting, or playing cards with the Reverend Friars in their con·
vents or in their country houses. And above all, much patience,
a great knowledge of how to get along, plenty of money, much
politics, many bows, complete resignation. How strange it is that
the Philippines should remain poor despite its very fertile soil

127
 when History te!ls us that the most flourishing - countries today
date their development end well-being from the day they got their
liberty and civil right? The most commercilll and most indust·
rious countries have been the freest countries. France, England.
and the United States prove this. Hong Kong, whicJ:l is not worth
the most insignificant island of the Philippines, has more commer·
cial activity than all our islands put together because it is free and
well governed .
Trading with China which was the whole occupation of the co·
Ionizers of the Philippines was not only prejudicial to Spain but also
to the life of her colonies. In fact, the government officials and pri-
vate citizens of Manila, finding an easy means of enriching them·
selves, neglected everything. They did not see to it that the land Is
cultivated nor did they encourage industry. For what? They had
the trade with China, all they had to do was to take advantage of
it and gather the gold that dropped on its path from Mexico to the
interior of the Celestial Empire. an abyss from which it did not come
out again.
The pernicious influence of the rulers, that of surrounding them·
selves with servants and despising physical or . manual labor as un·
worthy or the nobility and aristocratic pride of the heroes of so
many centuries: those lordly manners that the Filipinos have trans·
lated into Tila ka Kastila (You're like a Spaniard); and the desire
of the ruled to be the equal of the rulers, if not entirely. at
least in manners-all these naturally produced aversion to activi·
ty and hatred or fear of work.
Moreover. why work? Many Filipinos said to themselves. The
curate says that the rich man will do not go to heaven. The rich
man on earth is exposed to all kinds of vexation, to all kinds or
trouble: to be appointed Cabeza de Barangay (Head of the Baran-
gay). to be deported if an uprising breaks out, to be forced to lend
money to the military chief of the town. who, in order to pay you
for favors received, will seize your workmen and farm animals to
compel you to beg him for clemency and thus very easily pays upo.
Why be rich'? So that all officers of justice would . keep .a lynx
eye on your actions; so that at the least mistake they would stir
enemies against you and indict you and concoct a labyrinthine
and complicated story against you from which you can only get
out. not by Ariadne's thread but by Dana's~ shower or gold, and
• She was the daughtt-r, aecording to G!"t~ ck mytholo)<()·. of King- Minus of
Cn~te, who gtt ve The.&e\J!t, a h~ro and ac,n of KinJ( Aegeue of Ath~n!f. a baU of
thna.d to guide him out of the labyrinth of the Minotaur, a monoter.
6 In classical mytho!Olll' ohe .,....., the rnoth<'r or Perot'u• loy Zeus. who visited hQ'
"" a ~ro!den abower !n her orlao'l tower

128
 still be grateful if you arc not afterwards set aside for some othtl'
case if need be. The Indio, whom they pretend to regard as an
imbecile, is not so much so tbat he does not understand that it is
ridiculous to work himself to death to live as he did. A sayin"
of his is that swine is cooked in its own fat, and as among his bad
qualities he has the good one of applying to himself aU the rep-
roaches and censures that he hears, he prefers to remain mise·
rablc and indolent to playing the role of the wretched pachy-
dcnn.
Add to this the introduction of gambling. We don't mean to
say that before the coming of the Spllniards the Iudios did nol
. gamble-the passion for gambling is innate in ad\·enturous and cxci·
table races and the Malayan race is one of them Pigafctta tells us
ol cockfights and betting on Parngua Isl;md-cockfightin~: must
also have existed in Luzon and all the islands, for in the term_i-
nology of the game are found two Tagalog words-sa.bong (fight)
and f4ri (gaff). But there is not the least doubt that the Govern·
ment is responsible for its promotion and perfection. Through Piga·
fetta tells us about it, he mentions only Paragun and not Cr.hu or
any other island in the south where he stayed a long timr . Mor·
ga does not mention it, despite the fact that he spent seven year!:.
In Manila, and he describes various kinds of fowl, wild hens, and
roosters. Neither docs Morga speak of gambling 'Yhfln he talks
about vices and other defects more or less hidden, more or lrss in·
significant. Moreover, with the exception of the two Tagalo~:
words-sabong and tori-the others arc of Spanish origin, like 11CJ.
tada (the act of setting free the cocks for the fight ;~nd the fil!ht
itself) pustn (fl'orn the Spanish word apuesta, bet), logro (winnings)
pugo (payment). senteuciador (referee) !:CJse (to cover the bets),
etc. We say the same about gamblinp,. The word ~ugal (from the
Spanish jugar, to gamble), like ktLJitpisal (ctmfesar, to confess to
a priest) indicates that gambling was unknown · in the Philippines be·
fore the Spaniards, the Tagalog word laro (play)not equivalent tt1
sugat The word 'balasa (from the Spanish barajar) proves that the
introduction of playing-cards was not due to the Chinese, who also
have a kind o! playing-cards, because if it were so, it would have
taken the Chinese name. What more? The words tuua (lallar, to
bet), paris-paris (Spanish pares, pairs of cards), politana (-napoli·
tana. a winning combination of cards), sapote (to stack the'cards)
Kupotll (to slam), monte (a card·game), etc., all prove thr foreign
origin of this terriLlc plant which only produces vice and has found
in the character of the lrrdif) :: suitnhll' soil. fl'rtili7.1'11 by circum
stances.

129
 Along with gambling which breeds dislike for steady arid dif·
ficult work by its promise of easy money and its appeal to the emo·
tions, with the lotteries, with the prodigality and hospitality of the
Filipinos went also, .to swell this train of misfcrtuncs, the religious
functions-the large number of fiestas, the lenthy Masses at which
wome_n spellt their whole mornings, the novenae, their afternoons,
and the processions and rosaries, their nights. Consider that lack
of capital, lack of means, paralyzes all activity and you will see why
the Indio must perforce be indolent; for if any money might remain
to him from the trials, imposts, exactions, he would have to give
it to the curates for bulls, scapularies, candles, novenae, etc. And
if this does not suffice to produce an indolent character, if climate
and· nature are not enough in themselves to daze him and depriv<l
him of all energy, then consider that the doctrines of his religion
teach him to irritate his fields during the dry-season, not by means
ol canals but with Masses and prayers; to protect his animal during
an epidemic with holy · water, exorcism, and benedictions costing
five dttros an animal; to drive away the locusts with a procession
led by the image of St. Augustine, etc. Doubtless it is good to
trust greatly in God, but it is better to do what one can and not
bother the Creator so often even when these importunities re-
dound to the benefit of His ministers. We have observed that the
peoples who believe most . in miracles are the laziest, just as spoiled
children are the most ill-bred. Whether they believe in miracles
to lull their laziness or they are lazy because they believe in miracles,
we cannot say; but the fact is that the Filipinos were much less lazy
before th(' word miracle was introduced into their language.
The facility with which individual liberty is curtailed; the
endless worry of all people knowing that they are liable to a sec·
ret report, an administrative ·action, and to be accused of being
a filibustero (rebel) or a suspect, an accusation which . need not
be proven nor is the presence of the accuser necessary to produce the
desired result; the lack of confidence .in the future; the uncertainty
of reaping the fruit of -one's labor, as in a· city in the grip of an
epidemic where every individual yields to fate, shuts himself in
his house or goes about amusing himself trying to spend the few days
that remain of his life in- the least disagreeable way possible.
The .· apathy of the Government itself toward · everything per·
taining to commerce or agriculture contributes not a little to fos·
ter indolence. There is no encouragement at all either for the
manufacturer or the farmer; the Government gives no aid
either when the harvest, is poor, when the locusts lay

130
waste in the fields, or when a typhoon destroys in its path the wealth
of the land; nor does it bother to seek a market for the products
of its colonies. Why should it do so when these same products
are buried with imposts and duties and have no free entry in
the ports of the mother country, not· is their consumption there
encouraged? While we see all the walls of London covered with
advertisements of the products of its . c~lonies, while the English
make heroic efforts to substitute Ceylon tea for Chinese, they
themselves starting the sacrifice of their taste and stomach, in
Spain, with the exception of tobacCQ, nothing from the Philippines
is known-neither its sugar, coffee, hemp, fine textile, nor its llo ·
cano blankets. The name of Manila is known only thanks to the
shawls from China or Indochina which at one time reached Spain
by way of Manila-silk shawls embroidered fantastically but co·
arsely which no one in · Manila has thought of imitating. as they
are so easily made; but the Government is engrossed in other
things and the Filipinos do not know that in the Peninsula pina
embroideries and very fine jusi gauze. Just as our· indigo trade
disappeared due to the fraudulent manipulations of the Chinese
whom the Government could not watch, busy with other things
as it was. so are our other industries now dying. The fine manu·
facturers of the Bisayas are gradually disappearing from the mar·
ket and from use, the people getting poorer cannot afford to buy
the costly fabrics and have to be content with calico or the imi~
tations by the Germans who imitate even the works of our sil-
versmiths.
The fact that the best estates, the best tracts of land in some.
provinces, the more profitable ones because of their accessibility,
are in the hands of the religious corporations whose desideratum
is the ignorance and the condition of semi-wretchedness of the
Filipinos so that they can continue governing them and make
themselves necessary to their hapless existence, is one of
the reasons why many towns do not progress despite the efforts
of 'their inhabitants. We will be contradicted with the argument
that the towns which are the property of the friars are relatively
richer than those which do not belong to them. We believe it!
Just as their brethren in Europe, in founding their convents, have
chosen the best valleys, the best uplands for the cultivation of the
vine or the manufacturer of beer, so also the Philippine monks
have known how to select the best towns, the beautiful · plains,
the well-watered fields to make of them very rich estates. For
sometime the friars have deceived many by making them believe
that if these estates were prospering it was because they were

131
under their superv1s1on and they have goaded the indolence of
the Filipino. But they forget that in some provinces, where they
have not succeeded to get possession of the best tracts of land for
one reason or another, their estates, Bauan and Liang, are infe-
rior to Taal, Balayan, and Lipa, regions cultivated entirely by
Filipinos without any monkish interlerence.
Add to this lack of material inducement the absence of moral
support and you'll see that in that country cne who is not lazy must
needs be a fool or at least an imbecile. What future awaits one
who distinguishes himself, who studies, who rises above the crowd?
A young man becomes a great chemist 6 through study and sacrifice
and after a long course of training during which neither the Govern-
ment nor anyone gave him the least help, graduates from the
university and works. A competitive examination is held to fill
a certain position. The young man because of his knowledge and
perseverance wins it, but after winning it the position is abo-
lished because. . . we do not wish to give the reason. But when a
municipal laboratory is closed in order to abolish the position of di-
rector who got his post through a competitive examination, while
other positions, like that of press censor, are retained, it is be-
cause of the belief that the light of progress will hurt the people
more than all the adulterated foods. In the · same way anothe~
young man 7 wins a prize in a literary contest, and as long as his
identity was unknown, his work is discussed, the newspaper praise
it, and consider it a masterpiece; the sealed envelopes are opened,
the winner tur~s out to be a Filipino, and among the loser3 are Pe-
ninsulars; then all the newspapers extol the losers! Not one word
of encouragement from the Government nor from anybody· for the
native who fondly cultivates the language and literature of the mo-
ther country! Finally, leaving out many other more or less in-
significant ·reasons, the enumE:ration of which would be intermina-
ble, we are going to conclude this dreary list with the principal one
and the greatest of all-the education of the Filipino.
The education of the Filipino from birth until the grave is
brutalizing, depressing, and anti-human (the word in-human is not
expressive enough; whether the Academys approves it or not, let it
6 .. The great ch•mi•t" nllwl<'<l to wns Anacleto tiel Rosario, a Jo'illplno. Th~
J)()tiition for which he quolified through competith·e examination was Director of ttle
Municipnl Laboratory of Manila with an annual salary of PS,OOO.OO. When the
..:overnor general, Valeriano Weyler, learnf.."tl that he was a. Filipino. he reduced
the salory to PJOO.OO il yen. ( Rizal's letter to Mariano Ponce, dated London, 8
D«ember 1888 in Epi•tclario Rizalino, ll. !17-RS).
i This was Ri ... J himself whose eompO<tition 1-:1 Co,..•jo de loa Diooe• won the
first prize in the cont<'Bt sponR•m'd by the I.iceo Artistleo-Liternrio de Manila In
1879 when be wus a stud<:nt at the Unh·eroity ol Santo Tomas.
8 The Real Academia de Ia Lengua. the authority on the Spani•b langu~.re And
publisht"r or what is populorly ~allf'd Dicciona.rio de Ja IA."ngua Espailoln.

132
 go). Undoubtedly, the Government, some Jesuit priests and some
Dominicans like Fr. Benavides, have done much by founding col·
leges, primary schools, etc. But this is not enough; their effect
turns out to be uselt?ss. For five or ten years the youth comes in
contact with books, chosen by the very same priests who boldly dec·
lare that it is an evil for the Filipinos to know Castilian, that the
Filipino should not be separated from his carabao, that he should
not have allY further ambition, etc. During these fh•e or ten years
the majority of students have grasped nothing more than that no
one understands what the books say, not even perhaps the profes-
sors themselves. During these five or ten years the students have
to contend with the daily preaching that lowers human dignity, ·
gradually or brutally killing their self-respect-that eternal, tena-
cious, persistent effort to humble the native, to make him accept
the yoke, to reduce him to the level of a beast, an effort supported
by some private individuals, writers or not. If this produces the
desired effect on some, on others it has an opposite effect, like the
breaking of a cord that is stretched too far. Thus, while they try
to make of the Filipino a kind of animal, they expect from him di-
vine actions. And we say divine actions because he · must be a God
who does not become indolent under that climate and the circums·
tances already mentioned. Depdve a man then of his dignity, and
you not only deprive him of his moral stamina but also you render
him useless even to those who want to make usc of him . Every be
ing in creation has his spur, his mainspring; ran's is his self-
respect; take it away from him and be becomes a corpse, and he
who demands acti.vity from a corpse' will iind only worms.
Thus is explained why the Filipinos of today are no longer
the same as those of the . time of the discovery, either morally or
physically.
The old writers, like Chirino, Morga, and Colin ,. are pleased to
describe them as "well-featured with good llPtitudes for anything
they take up, keen and irascible, and resolute, very clean and neat
in their persons and clothing, and of good mien and bearing" ttc:.
(Morga) ')thers delight in detailed accounts of their intelligence
and pleasant manners, or their aptitude for music, the drama, danc-
ing, and singing, of the facility with which they learned, not only
Spanish but also Latin, which they acquired by themselves <Colin) ,
others, of their exquisite urbanity in their dealings and the ir social
life; others, like the early Augustinians whose accounts Gaspar de
San Agustin copies, find them more gallant nn<l genteel thltn the

133
inhabitants of the Moluccas, etc. "All live off their husbandry''
adds Morga, "their farms, fisheries, and trade, sailing from island
to island and going by land from one province to the other."
On the other ·hand, our present-day writers, without being bet-
ter than th9 old ones, either as men or as historians, without being
more brave than Hernan Cortes and Salcedo, nor more prudent than
Legazpi, nor more righteous than Morga, nor more studious than
Colin and Gaspar de San Agustin, our v.Titers today, we say, find
that the Indio is "a creature something more ·than a monkey but
much less than a man, an anthropoid, dull-witted, imbecile, exceed·
ingly . homely, . dirty, meek. smiling, ill-dressed, indolent, vici-
ous. I_azy, brainless, unmoral, etc."
To what is this retrogression due? Is it the lucky civilization,
is it the religion of salvation of the friars, called euphemistically of
Jesus Christ, that has produced this miracle, that has atrophied his
brain, paralyzed his heart and converted him into the vicious animal
that · writers depict?
Alas! The .whole misfortune of the Filipinos of today is that
they . have become brutes only half-way. The Filipino is convinced
that to be happy it is necessary for him to lay aside his dignity . as a
~ational being, ·to hear Mass, to confess, obey the curate, believe
whatever he is told, pay whatever is demanded of him, pay and al-
ways . pay; toil, sufter and keep silent, without aspiring to know, to
understand not even Castilian, without separating himself from his
carabao. as the friars impudently say, 9 without protesting against
an injustice, against an arbitrariness. against an assault, l\gainst an
insult; that is, not to have 2 heart, brain, or gall-a creature with
arms and a purse full of gold-there's the ideal Indio! Unfortunate·
ly, or because the brutalization is not yet complete, or because the
qua1ity of man is inherent in his being in spite of his condition, tbe
lndio protests, he still aspires, he thinks ~nd strives to rise - · and
there's the trouble'
v
In the preceding chapter we outlined the causes proceeding
from the government which foster and maintain the evil we are dis·
cussing. Now it behooves us to analyze those emanating from the
people. Peoples and governments are correlated and complement·
ary. A stupid government is an anomaly among a righteous people
9 Cf. Fray Mltruc! Lucio Bustamante, Si Tantfang Ba.!iDnJJ Ma~nat, 1856, a
pamphlet wr!tten In Tell'alosr a~rslilat educatln~r the Filipinos,

134
just as a corrupt people cannot exist under rulers and wise laws. Like
people, like government, we will say, paraphrasing a popular adage
All these causes can be reduced to two classes: Defects of
education and lack of national sentiment.
We have already spoken of the influence of climate at the be-
ginning, so we will n~t treat of the effects arising from it.
The very limited home education, the tyrannical and sterile
education in the few educational centers, the blind subjection of
youth to his elders, influence. the mind not to aspire to excel those
who preceded him nild merely to be content to follow or walk be-
hind them. Stagnation in~vitably results from this, and as he who
devotes himself to copying fails to develop his inherent qualities,
he naturally becomes sterile; hence decadence. Indolence is a corol·
lary derived from the absence of stimulus and vitality.
The modesty infused into the conviction of everyone, or to
speak more dearly, the insinuated inferiority, n kind of daily and
constant plucking of the soul so that it would not fly to the region
of light, deadens the energies, paralyzes all tendency towards ad-
vancement, and at the least strife a man ·gives up without fighting.
Jf by one of those rare accidents, some madman, that is, ·al'l active·
man, excels,. instead of his example serving as a stimulus to others,
it only induces them to persist in their indolence. "There · is the
one who will work for us, let us sleep!," relatives and friends say
to themselves. It is true :.lso that sometimes the spirit of rivalry is
awakened, but only it awakens with bad h'u mor and envy. and in·
stead of being a helpful lever, it is a discouraging obstacle. ·
Nurtured with the stories of anchorites who lead a contempla-
tive and lazy life, the Filipinos spend theirs giving their money to
the Church in the hope of miracles and other wonderful things.
Their will is hypnotized. Since childhood they have learned to act
mechanically, without knowing the purpose, thanks to the exercise
imposed upon them very early of praying for whole hours in an un·
known language, of worshipping without understanding, of accepting
beliefs without questioning, of imposing upon themselves absunli-
ties, while the protests o£ reason arc repressed.
Is it any wonder that the Filipino, with tbis vicious dressing of
his intelUgence and will, who was formerly logical and consist~nt-as
proven by the analysis · of his past and his language-should now ba
a monstrosity of disastrous contradictions? This incessant struggle
between reaGon and duty, between his organism and his · new-Ideals,
this .civil war which disturbs the peace of his conscience all his

135
 life, will in the end paralyze all his energies, and with the aid of the
severe climate, makes his eternal vacillation, 'his doubts, the origin
of his indolent disposition.-"You can't do more than old So and Sol
Don't aspire to be greater than the curate! You belong to an in-
ferior race! You havcn•t any energy." They -say this to the child;
and as it is repeated so often, it has perforce become engraved in
his mind and thence it seals and shapes all his actions. The child
or the youth who tries to be anything e~ is char~ed of being vain
and presumptuous; the curate ridicules him with cruel sarcasm, his
relatives look upon him with fear, and strangers pity him greatly.
No ~roing forward! Get in line and follow the crowd!
His mind conditioned thus, the Filipino follows the most per-
nicious of all routines-a routine, not based on reason but imposed
and forced. And note that the Filipino himself is not naturally in-
clined to routine, for his mind is di&posed to accept all the truth,
just as his house is open to all strangers. The ·good and the. beauti-
ful attr::ct him, seeude him, and captivate him · like the Japanese,
many times he exchanges the gOOd for the bad, if it is presE'nted t()
him adorned and glittering. What he lacks principally are freedom
to give. cKpansion to his adventuresome spirit and good examples,
beautiful prospects in· the distance. It is necessary for his spirit,
though it is dismayed and frightened by the elements and the over-
whelming manifestation of its mighty forces, to store up energy, to
pursue lofty purposes, in order ·to struggle against the obstacles in
the midst of unfavorable natural environment. In order that he may
progress it is essential that a revolutionary spirit, so to speak, should
boil in his veins, since progress necessarily requires change, implies
.the overthrow of the past, there erected . as God, for the present.
the triumph of new ideas over the old and accepted ones. It is not
enough to appeal to his fancy, to offer him exquisite things, nor to
dazzle him with lights like the ign-is fatuHs which n1isleud travelers
at night; all th~ flattering promises of the fairest hopes will not suf
fice w long as his spirit is not free, his intelligence is not respected
The reasons arising from the absence of national sentiment are
even more lamentable and more transcendental.
Convinced through Insinuation of his inferiority, his mind be·
wildered by his education-if the brutalization we discussed above
can be called education-with only his racial susceptibility and
poetical imagination remaining in him, the Filipino in the exchange
of usages and ideas among the different nations, allows himself to
be guided by his fancy and self-love. It is sufficient that a foreign-
er praise to him the Imported merchandise and find fault with the

136
 native product for him to shift hastily, without thinking that every
thing has its weak side and the most ~ensible custom appears ridi-
culous to the eyes of those who do not follow it. They dazzled him,
with tinsel, with strings of multi-colored glass beads, with noisy
rattles, shining mirrors, and other trinkets, and in exchange he
gave his gold, his conscience, and even his liberty. He changed his
religion for the rituals of another religion, the convictions and usages
dictated by his climate and his necessities for other usages and
other convictions which have grown under another sky and under a
different inspiration. His spirit, disposed to everything which seem-
ed to be good, then was transformed according to the taste of the
nation th:tt imposed upon him its God and its laws; and as the trader
with whom he dealt did not bring -along the useful iron impfements,
the hoes to till the fields, but stamped papers, crucifixes, bulls, and
prayer-books; as he did not have for an ideal and prototype the tan-
ned and muscular laborer but the aristocratic lord, carried in a
soft litter, the result was that the imitative people- became clerks.
devout, prayer-loving, acquired ideas of luxurious and ostentatious
lh·ing without improving correspondingly their means or subsistence.
Morover, the lack - of national sentiment breeds another evil
which is the scarcity of any opposition to the measures that are
prejudicial to the people and the absence of any initiative that will
redound to their welfare, A man in the Philippines is only an in-
dividual; he is not a inember of a nation. He is deprived of the
right of association and therefore he is weak and inert. ThC' Philip·
pines is an organism whose cells must have no arterial system to
water them, nor a nervous system to register thcil' Impressions; none-
theless these cells must yield their product, get it where they can.
if they perish, Jet them perish. In the opinion of some persons, this
is de!>irablc so that a colony may remain a colony. · Perhaps they
are right, but not that a colony may flourish.
The result of this is that if a harmful measure is promulgated,
no one protests: everything goes well apparently until later the evils
are felt_ Another blood-letting and as the organism neither has
nerves nor \'Oicc, the physician proceeds, believing that' the treat-
ment is not injurious. He needs a reform but as he must not speak ,
he keeps silent and gets no reform. The patient wants to eat.
wants to breathe fresh air; but as such desires m:-.y offend the sus.-
ceptibility of the physician who thinks that he has already provided
everything necessary, he suffers and ianguishes for fear of receiving
a bawling, enduring a plaster. and a new blood-letting-. And so on
indefinitely.

137
 In addition to this, love of peace and the horror many have of
accepting the few administrative posts that fail to the Jot Of the
Filipinos on account of the · troubles and annoyances they .bring
them, lead to the appointment of the most stupid and incompetent
men to municipal posts-Officials who submit to -everything, who
endur.c all the caprices and el(actions of the curates and their super-
iors. · And with imbecility in the lower echelons, and ignorance and
giddiness in the upper, with .the frequent changes -and endless ap-
prenticeships, with great fear and numerous administrative obsta
cles, with a voiceless people that have neither initiative nor cohe·
sion. with government employees, · who nearly all strive to amass a
fort~1ne' and return to their country, with people who exist · with
great difficulty from birth, to create prosperity, to develop agri-
culture and industry, to establish enterprises and associations, which
prosper with difficulty even in free and well-organized countries,
cannot be expected to happen in the Philippines.
Yes! F:very attempt ~s useless which docs not spring from a
profo!md study of. the malady that afflicts us. In order to combat
in~olence some have proposed increasing the needs of the btdio,
raising his taxes; etc. Wh11-t happened? Ciiminals have multiplied ;
penury hns been aggravated. Why? Because the Indio already has
enough nf:'l'essitics with the Chur!!h functions, feasts, head-ships of
the barangay, arid bribes th~t he must give so that his life may drag
on wretchedly. The cord is ah·eady too taut.
We have heard many complaints and every day we read in the
pape;·s about the efforts the Government is making to pull the coun-
try c•i t of its st.ate of indolence. In considering its plans, its illu:
sions, and its difficulties ~:omes to . our mind the story of the gar-
dener who wished a tree he planted in a small pot to grow big. Th~
gardener spent his time fcrtili!ing and watering the handful of
earth, pruning the plant frequently, pulling at it to lengthen it and
hl'lsten its growth, grafting on it,cedars and oaks until one day th.e
little tree died . The gardener was convinced that it belonged to a
degenerate species. He attributed the failure of his experiment to
everything · except to the lack of soil arid to his indescribable folly.
Without education and liberty-the soil and the sun of man·
kind-no reform is possible, no measure can give the desired re ·
sult This does not mean that we r;hould iirst demand for the }"Hi·
pi no the education- of the sage -and all imaginable iiberties before
putting a .hoe in his hand or placing him in a workshop; such a pre·
lension would be an absurdity and vain felly. What we want is that
no ohstacles be placed on his way, n.ot to increase the many t hat

138
the climate and the situation of the islands already create for him
not to begrudge him educational opportunities for fear that when he
becomes intelligent he will separate from the colonizing nation or
demand rights to which he is entitled. Since some rlay or other he
will become enliehtened whether the Government likes it or not, let
his enlightenment be as a gift given to him and not as a
spoil of war. We wish the policy to be sincere and consistent or
highly civilizing, without petty reservations, without distrust, without
fear nor misgivings, wishing the good for the sake of the good, civili·
zation for the sake of civilization, without ulterior thoughts of grati-
tude or Ingratitude, or if not, a policy of courageous, open exploita·
tion, tyrannical, and selfish, without hypocrisy or deception, withal
a well thought out and studied system for domination and t:om-
pelling obedien~e. for ruling to get rich, and getting rich to enjoy.
If the Government adopts the first, it can rest assured that some
day or other it will reap the fruits and find a people who will be
with it at heart and in interests; there's nothing like a favor to
\Vin friendship or enmity, or it is either hurled into his face or best-
owed on him in spite of himself. If the Government decides in
favor of systematic and regulated exploitation, stifling the desire
for independence of the colonists with the jingle of gold and the
sheen .of opulence, paying with material wealth the lack of t'reedom
as the English do in India, leaving them tinder the rule of native
potentates, then build roads, lay out highways, construct railroads.
foster freedom of trade; let the Government ::;ttend more to material
interests rather than to the interests of the four friar corporations:
let it send out intl'lligent employees to develop industry, just judges,
all well paid, so that they would not pilfer or be venal, and lay
aside all religious pretext. This policy has the advantage in that
while it may not completely lull to sleep the instinct of liberty, yet
the day that the mother country lose her colonies she will at least
keep the goln amassed and not regret ·having reared tmgrnteful
~~~ - -

139
 COWARDLY REVENGE
We received a telegram from Hong Kong dated 14 August in·
forming us of the filing of administrative charges against· Messrs.
Paciano Mercado, Silvestre Ubaldo, Antonino and Leandro Lopez,
Mateo ~lejorde, and others, brother, brothers-in-law, and friends of ·
J.fr. Jose Rizal respectively.
Mr. Manuel Hidalgo, brother-in-law also of Mr. Rizal, has been
twice exiled to Bohol without trial, without being permitted to de-
fend himself, without knowing what his crime was, besides being
brother-in-law of the author of Noli me tangere, a book the friars be·
Heve prejudicial to their interests.
Mt•. Mariano Herbosa, also bt'other-in-law of the same Mr. Rizal,
who di~d of cholera, was buried outside of the cemetery, denied
all obsequies, in spite of the fact that he descended from a family to
whom the town's church owed all the images of saints that were
venerated on its altars; "in spite of the fact that half of his patrimony
if not t.wo·third:; of it, ..had been invested in dresses for the saints,
in cars for saints' images, nlms, in pious donations. The church of
Calam~a . 9r rather the one who manages it, has a very poor memory
indeed not to remember the good done it. It is true of course that
he ·. is a young man who has no memory for any thing except his
indigestible / and ridiculous sermons.
We know how these administrative charges are formulated and
may God will that those who took part in their preparatiOJl may nol
regret it later. The victims are all peacdul and honorable citizens
and their greatest crime in the eyes of those who persecute them is
t.he good example that they give by earning their livelihood worthily
nnd honestly.
Tyranny in France had its Bastille; the Inquisition, its autos· dn·
J« and tortures; the Philippines has her arbitrary banishments.
It seems that some are bent upon showing the Filipinos in a
practical way · that there it is nonsense to live honestly trusting in
the efficacy of the laws;. that in a disorderly country, it is a great
crime to think of tranquility and work, without ever asking the
Government anything except to farm in peace the lands of their
ancestors.

140
 Let us see who will get tired first, whether the provokers or
the peaceful people of the Philippines.
It is the turn of the Government to put a remedy to these in·
famies, because once in a while the Government pays for _broken
g~. -
• Rizal was writintr in Spain ; ..there" meana th~ Philippinft.

141
 IRRITATION
It is an ungrateful task to intervene in a dispute and defend
persons who are neither armless nor paralytic or whose pen is
kept down or who do not need defenders. For that reason we hesi-
tate to an~wer the article of Bachelor Manuel de Veras,' published
in the satirical magazine Manil'lla of Manila, 1 June 1889.
Moreover there are other reasons.
The character of ManiLilla {a weekly, illustrated, comical, and
humorous) explains the kind of attack and precludes very serious
reply.
The author, despite his apparent evil intention, his irritation,
and his coarse jokes, does more harm to himself than to the illus·
trious Professor Ferdinand Blumentritt, and his attacks are per·
son:~~.l rather than arguments and reasons.

But there a1 e certain conside~:ations that oblige us to defend

him or to slmu.lt~te a defense, if one who does not feel really at-
tacked can need defense. Mr. Blumentritt, because of his love
for Spain and the Philippines, is now the target of some childish
Spaniards and gross insults and it seems that it is the duty of
Spaniards and Filipinos to defend him, at least for the purpose
of protesting against those attacks and to prove that we know
what is justice and what is gratitude. Because, if not, the worthy
Austrian professor could curse the hour he began to advocate for
the rights of Spain, to learn her language, to study her histocy,
to wish the welfare of her colonies, devoting to that nation his
time and his life, only to encounter later insults instead of con-
.;;iderations, ingrates instead of grateful men!
No; under pain that Bachelor Manuel de Veras himself might
laugh at our candour for taking seriously his sallies against our
learned Austrian professor, we are going to make a defense pro·
portional to the attack, for we prefer to be taken as naive rather
than ingrates and ill-bred.
There is a certain irritation against Blumentritt for dealing
with Spanish affairs. Another writer from Manila already asked
him who had given him candles for the funeral.2
1 Pseudonym of Manuel Marla Rincon, a Spanlant.
2 Literal translation of a Spanish aayin11: meaninlf "what rleht has he to rned-
die In the affair.'

142
 While he defended the rights of Spain agalil.Bt foreign nations;
against the Germans themselves, against Bismark himself, while
in his writings he tried to recover the glories of Spain and to ex·
cuse or explain the defects and faults of the rulers and the re·
ligous corporations, everything was excellent, ·they praised him and
decorated him, all considered him learned, no one doubted his
learning, no one asked him why he held a candle at the funeral.
not even Bismark despite his fame of · tyrant and absolute. Ah!
Happy days were those ... ! Then, neither the Indios themselv~s,
who .were almost the only ones · who were censured in his · works
(thanks to the description that those who now and then call them·
selves their faJthers or their brothers made of them) protested or
complained but rather they looked upon him with sympathy for
his disinterestedness and his learning and they excused some of
his estimates or prejudices infued by the books he had studied.
But·, according as the professor studied the matter and came
iJi contact with the oppressed and slandered race, his estimates
also were modified. In order to jtidge a case, it was not always
gOod to hear only one side, and then be
understood that not all
the injustice was on the side of the Indios just as neither were
virtues, reason, and justice a monopoly of the Spaniards. Then his
love for Spain and the Philippines moved him to say the truth in order
to put the Mother Country on the alert, to make her unders·tand
her interests and the s.byss that was opening at her feet; and hence
the ire of the gods!
Ah! Gil Bias de Santillana!S
Why do not his enemies discuss with him, why do they reply
to his ·arguments and alleged data with mud and filth?
And his word is not a figure of speech but it is the content of
the article in which the Bachelor attacks him. He says at the end:
For Blumentritt is a zero who is looking for ~ figure to give
him courage, inasmuch as , he al~ne does not have it.
Thus, his friendship with the other zero is explained.
And hence between the two, by placing Philippine unity ahead,
they may have real coura~e., -
One and two zoros.
Then. . . The number one hundred.
H this end of tae article will be examined, it will have uothing
8 Gil Blaa IU Santillaf'AJ, a novel by the French writer Alain-Rene Le Sa!re.
G!l Bw, the hero, is a clever but weak and eoneelted fellow who, In reliati n~r bis
YarioUII adv~turao, doee not always eshiblte blmaelf in tlae baot lilfbt.

143
funny about · it, for it is dirty, above all to thoae who travelled
through Spain and know how their number ciemos are.
The author of the article hu the modesty not to appropriate
his funny joke and he attributes it to a person of werv renowned
merit, resident of the Philippines, etc., etc.
We are very sorry for the merit, for the Philippines, and for
Manililla.
One can be a person with many epithets and etceteras without
being dirty and a magazine can be funny without being indecent.
Besides, there is one thing. When one picks up rubbish to hurl
against some on~. tQ.ere is, to begin with, the certainty that he
himself will get soiled first and one does not know if the shot wili
hit the mark.
And this is what has happened to the Bachelor Manuel de Veras.
With respect to his criticism that Blumentritt's bibliography
listed. as "books a series of newspaper articles," it proves that he
does not know the use of a bibliography, he has not seen biblio·
graphical catalogs in which are included not only periodical articles
that deal specially with one subject but even extraneoue ones
· that incidentally deal with the subject, and he believes that the me-
rit of a work consists in a greater or less number of pages or in the
form of the writings. There are periodical articles that are more
valuable than books, although the author of the article thinks other·
'wise. Moreover Blumentritt, in putting in his bibliography periodical
articles, so states and cites the periodical, the volume, etc. Now, we
can agree that many of the books and articles that he cites, especially
bibliographer ought not to reject them as a critic. One must admire
him and we admire him more than anybody else, because we would
never have been capable of doing what he does, despite all that we
owe the Philippines.
Now, to say this: "That it received a prize at the Exposi·
tion! How remarkable! Real merit, considering the profusion of
rewards, consists in not having . been awarded a prize." This does
not concern Mr. Blumentritt. Perchance Mr. Manuel de Veras had
not been ·awarded a prize, if he bas presented something, but this
is not the fault of the Austrian professor. They rewarded him
and as at that time, it was not yet agreed that a reward means the
opposite, it is not surprising that he had not been able to proteat
against the distinction with which they honored him. The fault
lies with the Madrid government or Bachel'lr Manuel de v'eras for
not having made it known before.
Let them settle it there!
Publlahod In lA So1Uorirlo4. •ol. I. pp. 143-tn. 15 A.Q'IWt 1888

144
 THE PHILIPPINES A CENTURY HENCE
I
Following our custom of discussing frankly the most · difficult
and delicate questions relating to the Philippines, regardless of the
consequences that our frankness might bring upon us, we are going
to deal in the present article with her future.
To foretell the destiny of a nation it is necessary to open the
book that tells of her past. The past of the Philippines can be
summarized briefly as follows:
Soon after being incorporated in the crown of Spain she had
to support with her blood and the vigor of her sons the wars and
imperialistic ambitions of the Spanish nation. In these struggles,
in this terrible crisis of peoples when they change government,
laws, usages, customs, religion, and beliefs, the Philippines wa.s
depopulated, impoverished, and retarded, astounded by her meta-
morphosis with no more confidence in her past, still without faith in
her prooent, ~nd without any flatteri~g hope in the future. The
former rulers who. had endeavored only to inspire their subjects
with fear, keep them in subjection, and accustom them to bondage,
fell like the leaves of a dried tree; and the people who had no
love for them and who had no notion of liberty, readily changed
masters, hoping perhaps to gain something from the new order.
Then began a new era for the Filipinos; little by little they
lost their old traditions, the mementos of their past; they gave up
their writing, their songs, their poems, their laws in order to learn
by rote other doctrines which they did not understand, another
morality, another aesthetics different from those inspired by their
climate and their manner of thinking. .Then they declined, de-
grading themselves in their own eyes; they became ashamed of what
was their own; they began to admire and praise whatever was
foreign and incomprehensible; their spirit was dismayed and it
surrendered.
Thus passed away years and centuries. Religious pomp, the
rituals, songs, lights, images dressed in gold that appealed to the
eyes, the cult in a mysterious language, the stories, the miracles,
and the sermons hypnotized the spirit of the people, by nature al-
ready superstitious, though without succeeding to destroy it com-
pletely, despite the system thai was followed with implacable
tenacity.
Having reached this low ebb of moral degradation, this dismay,
this disgust of themselves, the inhabitants of these Islands wera

145
ready for the coup de gru,t:e callculated to destroy totally their will
power and their dormant minds, to convert them into brutes and
beasts of burden, a humankind without brains and without hearts.
Then the race was openly insulted, denying that it posses£ed . any
virtue, any human quality, and there were even writers and priests
who went further in alleging that the people of this country had
no capacity not only for virtue but also for vice.

This blow, which they thought was mortal, became precisely its
salvation. ' There are dying men who recover thanks to some strong
medicine administered to them.
So many sufferings. were topped with insults and the lethargic
spirit again became alive. Sensibility, the quality par excellence
of the Indio, was wounded; and if he had the patience to suffer
and die at the feet of a foreign flag; he lost it when the one for
whom he was dying paid him with insults and inanities. . Then
he examined himself little by little and realized his misfortune.
Those who didn't expect this outcome, like despotic ~asters, con-
sidered every complaint and every protest an offenre, and they
punished with death, drowned in blood, every cry of pain, and mis-
deeds after misdeeds were committed.

The spirit of the people didn't allow itself to be thus intimi-

dated, and though it had been awakened in a few hearts only, its
flame, however, was spreading surely and fiercely thanks to the
abuses and stupid tricks of certain cla£ses to destroy noble and
generous · sentiments. Thus, when a flame puts on fire a dress,
fear and confusion make if spread more and more, and every
shake, every blow,· is a blast of the bellows that serves to quicken it.
Undoubtedly . during all this period.-neither were there lacking
generom:. a nd noble spirits among the ruling race who stood for the
laws of justice and humanity, nor mean and cowardly men among
the subject people who aided in the debasement of their own
native'and. But both classes were exceptions and we speak in
general terms.

This is a sketch of her past. Let's understand her present.

And now, what will her future be?

Will the Philippines remain as a .spanish colony, and in this

case, what kind of colony? Will she become a Spanish province with
or without autonomy? And in order to attain this status, what
kind of sacrifices must she make?

146
 Will she eventually separ'ate from the mother country, Spain,
to live independently, to fall into the hands of other nations o:r
to ally herself with other neighboring powers?
It's impossible to answer these questions, for to all of them
one can reply with a yes or no, according to the time one has in
mind. If there's no permanent condition in nature, how much less
there ought to be in the life of peoples, beings endowed with
mobility and movement! So that in order to reply to these ques-
tions .it's necessary to fix a limited space of time, .and with r~
ference to it, attempt to -f oresee future happenings.

II

What will the Philippines be a century hence?

Will it continue to be a Spanish colony?

If this quedion had been ,asked three centuries ago when, at

the de'lth of Legazpi, the Malayan Filipinos began little by little
to be disillusioned and finding the yoke burdensome, tried in vain
to shake it off, without doubt the answer would have been easy.
For thore who were enthusiastic about the freedom of their native
land, for those indomitable Kagayanes who were animated by the
spirit of the Magalats, for the descendants of the heroic Gat •
Pulintang and Gat Salakab of the Province of Batangas, independ-
ence was mre; it was only a question of mutual understanding and
making a determined effort. However, for one disillusioned through
sad experiences who saw everywhere ·disagreement and disorder,
apathy and brutalization in the lower classes, dismay and disunio.n
in the upper classes, there was only one answer and this was:
Stretch out the hands to the chains, lower the neck to put it under
the yoke, and accept the future with the resignation of a sick
man who sees the leaves falling and has a premonition of a long
winter among whose snows he can discern the brink of his grave.
At that time disagreement was the cause of pessimism. Three
centuries passed, the neck was getting accustomed to the yoke,
and every new generation, born in chains, adapted itself better
each time to the new conditions.
Well now, is the Philippines in the same condition as three
centuries ago?

• Gat was a Tagalog title prefixed to the name of a man who belonged te the
aristocracy.

147
 To the Spanish liberals the moral condition of the Philippines
remains the same, that is, the Filipino Indios have not advanced.
To the friars and their henchmen the people have been redeemed
from savagery, that is, they have progressed. To many Filipinos.
their moral, their spirit, and their customs have degenerated, as
all the good qualities of a peopile degenerate when they fall into
slavery, that is, when they have gone backward.
Setting aside this appraisal in order not to depart from our
objective, we are going to draw a brief parallel between the political
situation then and that of -the present to find out whether what
was not possible at that time will now be possible or vice versa.
Let us discard whatever adherence the Filipinos might have
t.o Spain. Let us suppose for a moment that between the two
peoples there exist only hatred and suspicion, as Spanish writers
allege. Let us admit the premises cackled by many that three
centuries of Spanish domination hav~ not succeeded to make the
seed of affection or gratitude germinate in the heart of the Indio,
and let us see if the Spanish cause has gained ground or not in the
Archipelago.
Formerly, defending the Spanish standard in the Islands was
a handful of soldiers, three or five hundred at most, many of
whom were engaged in commerce and were scattered not only m
the Archipelago but also in the neighboring countries, busy with
the wars against the Muslims of the South, the English, and Dutch
and incessantly disturbed by the Japanese, Chinese, and by this
or that province or tribe at home. At that time the communica-
tion between Mexico and Spain was slow, infrequent, and difficult;
frequent and violent were the disturbances among the powers that
ruled the Archipelago; the treasury was almost always empty, the
life of the colonizers depending on one fragile ship, the carrier of
Chinese trade; at that time the seas in those regions were infested
with pirates, all enemies o.f the name Spaniard, the navy defending
tQis being an improvised one, manned very often by untrained
soldiers of fortune, if not by foreigners and enemies, as was the
armada of Gomez Perez Dasmariiias,* frustrated and captured by
the Chinese rowers who assassinated him, putting an end to all his
plans and ambitions. Nevertheless, despite such misfortune, the
Spanish standard has remained aloft for more than three centuries
and its power, though diminished, continues to govern the destinies
of the Philippine Arcl1ipelago.
• Governor-general of the Philippines (15!10-1593). killed while asleep by Chin.,.•
rowm of the gaUey on which he wu snbarked during his e><Pedition to tbe
Koluocu in U93.
148
 On the other hand the present situation seems to be rosy and
golden, we would say, a beautiful morning compared with the
tempestuous and agitated night of the pasts. Now the materJal
forces of the Spanish government have trebled; relatively the
navy has improved; the civil as . well as the military branches are
better organized; the communication with the Metropolis is quicker
and more · dependable; she no longer has enemies outside; her
possession is assured; and the subject country apparently has les.
spirit, less aspiration for independence, a word that seems almost
incomprehensible to her; at first glance everything then augurs
another three centuries at least of peaceful domination and tranquil
lordship.
However, over these material considerations soar invisible others
of a moral character, much more transcendental and cogent.
The peoples of the Orient in general and the Malayans in
particular are notable .for their sensitiveness; in them predominates
a nice sensibility of feeling. Even today, despite the contact with
Western nations, whose ideals are distinct from theirs, we see the
Malayan Filipinos sacrifice everything, liberty, comfort, welfare,
name, on the altar of an aspiration, of· a vanity, be it religious,
scientific, or of any other character whatsoever, but at the slightest
injury to his amour propre, he forgets all his sacrifices and he never
forgets the offense he believed he had received.
Thus the Filipinos have remained faithful to Spain for three
centuries, giving up their liberty and independence, now fascinated
by the hope of a promised heaven, now flattered by the friendship
offered them by a great and noble nation, now also compelled to
submission by the superiority in arms that for persons with a low
opinion of themseilves held a mysterious character, or now because
the foreign invader, taking advantage of internal dissensions, played
the role of a third party to divide and, rule.
Once under Spanish domination, the Philippines remained stable .
thanks to the adhesion of the towns, to the enmities between them
and to the fact that the sensitive amour propre of the native had
not yet been hurt. At that time the people saw their fellow
nationals occupying the higher ranks in the army, Filipino masters
of camp fighting beside the heroes of Spain, sharing their laurels,
and never deprived of either honor, fame, or consideration. Then
for fidelity and adhesion to Spain, love of the Mother Country,
~he Indio ·could become. an encomendero . and even general in the
anny, as during the British invasion. They have not yet invented

148
the insulting and ridiculous names with which lat~r they disgraced
the most difficult and painful posts held by native chiefs. Thea
it was not yet fashionable to insult and injure .in print, in news•
papers, in books with superior permission or ecclesiastical license
the people who paid, fought, and shed their blood for the honor of
Spain, nor was it considered noble or a joke to insult an entire
race, which is forbidden tr1 reply and defend itself. And if there
were hypochondriac priests who, in the leisure of their cloisters, had
dared to write against the people, like the Augu~tinian Gaspar de
San Agustin and the Jesuit Velarde, the1r offensive writings never
were published and much less were they honored with mitres or
promoted to high posts. It is also true that the Indios of that time
were not like those of today: Three centuries of brutalization and
obscurantism must have exerted some influence on us. The most
beautiful divine work in the hands of certain artisans can be
converted. in the end into a caricature.
The friars of that time, desiring to secure their power over
the people, sided with them and together they turned against the
oppressive encomenderos. Naturally the people who considered them
better educated and influential trusted them, followed their advice
and listened to them even in their most bitter moments. If they
wrote, they defend€d .the rights of the Indios and they made their
complaints reach the distant steps of the Spanish throne. And
not a few friars among laymen and military men undertook perilous
journeys as representatives of the country. Added to this was
the strict residencia 1 to which were subjected all departing officials
of the government from the captain general to the lowest which
consoled a little and pacified the injured parties and satisfied, though
only in form, all the discontented elements.
All this has disappeared. The mocking laughter like mortal
poison penetrates the heart of the Indio who pays and suffers and
it is more offensive when it is under protection. The same sore,
the general outrage perpetrated against an entire race has erased
the ancient enmities between the different provinces. The people
no longer have confidence in their former protectors, now their ex-
ploiters and executioners. The masks have fallen off. They have
realized that, that affection and piety of old resemble the affection of
a wet-nurse who, unable to nive elsewhere, desires their perpetual
childhood, the eternal weakness of the infant, so that she can con·
• A government functionary was required to give an accounting of his official
actions at the end of hi• term. Then all th""e who had grudges against him
~ould present their charges. If the complainants were influential, they could
prevent his return to Spain and imprison him In Fort Santiago. ·

150
 tinue to receive her salary and live on him. They have seen that
not only do they not nourish him so that he would grow but they
poison him to thwart his growth, and at his slightest protest, they
become furious! The old s<,mblance of justice, the holy r esidencia,
has been abandoned. The chaos begins in the conscience. The
affection shown to a governor-general like La Torre becomes a
crime under the administration of his successor and it's enough for
a citizen to lose his libe1·ty and his home. If the order of a chief
is obeyed, as in the recent question of the admission of corpses dn
churches, that is sufficient cause later to annoy and persecute by
all means possible the obedient subject. Duties, taxes, and contri-
butions increase without any corresponding increase in rights,.
privileges, and liberties or an assurance of the continuation of the
few existing ones. A regime of continuous terrorism and anguish
stirs up the minds of tnen, a regime worse than an era of disturbances,
for the fears .that the imagination created are generally greater
than the real ones. The country is poor; it is going through a
great financial crisis, and everybody points with their fingers to
the persons who are causing the evil, and yet no one dares to lay
their hands on them!

It is true that the Penal Code, like a drop of balsam on so much

bitterness, has been promulgated; but of what use are aH the codes
in the world if because of confidential ·reports, trivial motives,
anonymous traitors, any respectable citizen is banished, is exiled,
without any triwl? Of what use is that Penal Code, of what use
is life, if there are no security of the home, faith .in justice, and
confidence in the tranquility of conscience? Of what use are all
that scaffolding of names and all that pile of articles, if the
cowardly accusation of a traitor can influence the timorous ears of
the supreme autocrat more than all the cries of justice?

If this state of things continl!es; what will the Philippines be

a century hence?

The storage batteries are charging little by little, and if the

prudence of the government does not provide an outlet for th!!
complaints that are accumulating, it',s possible that one day the
spark would fly out. This is not the place to speak of the success
that such an unfortunate_conflict might have; it depends upon fate,
upon arms, and on a mioll.ir,n circumstances that men cannot foresee;
but even if a!Q the advantages were on the side of the government
and consequently, the probabilities of victory, it would be a Pyrrhic
victory, and a government should not want that.

151
 If those who guide the destinies of the Philippines should persist
in their refusal to g1·ant reforms, in making the country retrogress,
in going to the extreme in its rigorous repression of the classes that
suffer and think, they will succeed in making them gamble away the
luiseries of an insecure .life, full of privations and bitterness, for
the hope of obtaining something uncertain. What would be lost
in the struggle? Almost nothing. The life of large discontented
~lasses offers no great attraction that it shou~d be preferred to a
glorious death. Suicide can well be· attempted; but afterwards?
Would there not remain a stream of blood between victors and
vanquished, and could not the latter with time and experience become
equal in strength as they fl.re already numerically superior to their
rulers? Who says no? All the petty insurrections that had broken
out in the Philippines had been the work of a few fanatics and
discontented military men who, in order to attain their ends, had to
resort to deceit and trickery or avail .themselves of the subordination
of their suballterns. Thus they all fell. None of the insu-rrections
was popular in character nor: based on the necessity of the whole
nation nor did it struggle for the laws of humanity or of justice.
'fhus the insurrections did not leave behind them indeLible mementos;
on the contrary, the people, their wounds healed, realizing that
they have been deceived, applauded the downfall of those who had
disturbed their peace! But, if the movement springs from the
people themselves and adopts for its cause their sufferings?

Therefore, if the prudence and wise reforms of our ministers

do not find competent and determined interpreters among the rulers
beyond the seas and faithful continuators in ·those caNed upon
by the frequent political crises to occupy so sensitive a post; -if the
complaints and needs of the Filipino people are eternallly to be
nnswered with the petitio-n is denied inspired by the classes that thrive
on the backwardness of the ;;ubject; if all just claims are disregarded ·
and considered subversive tendencies, denying to the country re-
presentation -in the Cortes and the .r ight to protest against all kinds
of abu~es which escape the snare of the laws; and if finally the
system so effective in alienating the people's goodwiB, spurring their
apathy by means of insults and ingratitude, '\\.'ill be continued, we
can assure that w.ithin a few years the present state of things will
be modified completely and inevitably. Today there is a factor which
did not exist before. The national spirit has awakened, and a
common misfortune and a common abasement have united all the
inhabitants of the Islands. It counts on a large enlightened cl~ss
within and \Y-ithout the Archipelago, a class created and augmented

lii2
inore and more by the stupidities of certain rulers who compel the
inhabitants to expatriate themselves, to seek . education abroa<i-a
Class that perseveres and struggles thanks to the official
provocations and the system of persecution. This class whose
number is increasing progressively Js ·i n constant communication
w.ith the rest of the Islands, and if today it constitutes the brains
of the country, within a few years it will constitute its entire nervous
system and demonstrate its existence in all its acts.
Well now, in order to block the road to progress of a people,
the government counts on various means: Brutalization of the
masses through a caste loyal to the government, aristocratic as in
the Dutch colonies, or theocratic as in the Philippines; the impov-
erishment of the country; the gradual destruction of its inhabitants;
and the fostering of the enmity between the races.
The brutalization of the .Malayan Filipinos has been ;:;hown to
be impos:sible. Despite the black plague of friars in whose hands
is the education of the youth, who waste miserably years and yean;
in the classrooms, coming out of them tired, fatigued, and disgusted
with books; despite the censorship that wants to close all roads to
progress; despite all the pulpits, confessionals, books, novenae tlaat
inculcate hatred of all lmowledge, not only scientific but even of the
Castilian language; despite all that system, organized, perfected, and
followed with tenacity by those who wish to keep the Islands in holy
ignorance; there are Filipino writers, free thinkers, historiog::1.phers,
chemists, physicians, artists, jurists, etc.· Enlightenment is spread-
ing and its persecution encourages it. No; the divine flame of
thought is inextinguishable among the Filipino people, and in some
way or another it has t.o shine and make itself known. It is not
·possible to brutalize the inhabitants of the Philippines!
Can poverty arrest their development?
Perhaps, but it is a very dangerous measure. Experience
shows us everywhere and above all in the Philippines, that the well-
to-do classes have always been the partisans of peace and order,
because they live relatively better and might lose in ca!!e of civil
disturbances. Wealth brings with it refinement and the spirit of
preservation, while poverty inspires adventurous ideas, the desire ·
to change things, ittle attachment to I.ife, and the like. Machiavelli
himself ·finds dangerous this method of subjecting a people, for
he ebserves that the loss of well-being raises more tenacio11s enemies
than the loss of life. Moreover, when there are wealth and abund-
ance, there is less discontent, there are lesiil complaint£, and the

153
government, richer, has also more means to support ~tself. On the
other hand, a poor country is like a house where poverty exists; and
moreover, of what use has the Metropolis of an emancipated and poor
colony?

Neither is it possible to destroy gradually the entire population.

The Filipino race, llike all the Malayans, does not succumb to the
foreigner as do the aborigines of Australia, the Polyne.:;mnc;, and
Indian~> of the New World. Despite the numerous wars that the
Filipinos had engaged in, despite the epidemics that visit them period-
ically, their number has trebled, like the Malayans of Java and th~ ·
:Moluccas. The Filipinos accept civilization and maintain contact with
all people:;:, and can live in all climes. Alcohol, the poiso11 that
exterminates the natives of the islands in the Pacific, ha:;; no sway
in the Philippines; on the contrary, it seems that the Filipinos have
become more sober, if their present condition is compared with that
described by the old historians. The little wars with the inhabitants
of the South consume only the soldiers, people whose loyalty to the
Spanish flag, far from making them a danger, makes them p;.-ecisei,
one of its strongest supports.

There remruns the fostering of hostility between the provincea

themselves.

This was possible before when communication between the islands

was difficult and infrequent, when there were no steamships or tele-
graph, when the different provinces had their own regiments, and some
of them wers flattered by the grant of privileges and honors and some
were supported against the stronger ones. But now that these priv-
ileges have been withdrawn, the regiments have been rearra·nged
because of distrust, the people go from one .island to another, natu-
rally communication and exchange of ideas have increased, and
realizing that they are all menaced with the same danger and their
common sentiments are hurt, they become friends and they unite.
It is true that their union is not as yet complete, but the measures
of good . government, the deportations, the oppression suffered py
citizens in their towns, the mobility of government offiCJals, the
scarcity of schools, which brings together the youth of all the islands,
who thus get to know each other-all these lead to national unity.
The trips to Europe contribute also not a little towards unity, for
abroad person from the most distant provinces, from the saHors to
the wealthy businessmen, seal their patriotic sentiments, and at the
sight of modern liberties and the remembrance of their country's
misfortunes they embrace and call themselvea brothers.

154
 In short, then, the advancement and moral progress of the
Philippines .i s inevitable; it is fated.
The Islands cannot remain in their present condition without
petitioning the Metropolis for more aiberties. Mutatis, mutandis.
(With the necessary changes.) To new men, a new social status.
To wish them to remai.1 in their swaddling clothes is to risk
that the so-called mfant turn agaim;t his nurse and flee, tearing
away the old rags that confine him.
The Philippine, then, either will remain under Spain but with
more rights and freedom, or will declare herself independent after
atainin&" herself and the Mother Country with her own blood.
As no one should wish or hope for such an unfortunate rupture
of relations, which would be bad for all and shouldJ only be the last
argument in a most desperate case, let us examine the forms of
peaceful evolution under which the Islands coulld remain under the
Spanish flag without injuring in the least the rights, interests, or
dignity of both countries.
III
If the Philippines has to remain under Spanish rule, she must
be transformed politicaUy as demanded by the course of her histor-
ical evolution and the needs of her inhabitants. We have proven
this in the previous article.
This transformation, we aJiso said, has to be violent andJ fatal
if it should originate from the masses; peaceful and rich in results
if from the upper classes.
Some rulers have perceived this truth and, inspired by their
patriotism, have tried to institute needed reforms to forestall events.
Until the present, notwithstanding how many reforms have been
ordered, they have produced li.mited results for the government as
well as for the country, and in some instances they spoiled even
those that promised success. ·It is because they are building on
ground lacking in solidity.
We said, and we are repeating it once more, and will aJiways
repeat it: All ref~rms of a palliative character are not oniy useless
but ·even injurious when the government is confronted with evils
that need a radical remedy. If we were not convinced of the
integrity and uprightness of certain rulers, we would be tempted to
say that all those partial reforms were only pouUtices and pomades
of a physician who, not knowing how to cure cancer or not daring
to eradicate it, wishes to mitigate the sufferings of the !)atient or
temporize with the pusillanimity of the timid and ignorant.

lli5
 All the reforms of our liberal ministers were, ar~, and will
be good •.. if they were carried out.
When we think of them, we are reminded of Sancho Panza's
dietetic regimen on the Insula Barataria (Barataria Isle)."' He sat
at a sumptuous table "full of fruits and a large variety_ of dishes",
but between the mouth of the unhappy man and each dish the
doctor, Pedro Rezio, interposed his wand, saying, Absit! (Remove!)
and they -r~moved the food leaving Sancho more hungry than ever.
It is true that the despotic Pedro Rezio gave reasons which it
seemed Cervantes intended for the government of the colonies:
"One should not eat, Governor, unless it is the usage and custom
on other islands where there are governors", etc. He found fault
with every dish, some are hot, others moist, etc., exactly like our
Pedro Rezios here and overseas. Damned the good that the art
of liis cook did to Sancho!
In the case of our country, the reforms play the role of the
d.i shes; the Philippines is Sancho, and the role of the quack is played
by many persons who are interested in leaving the dishes untouched
so that they themselves would enjoy them perhaps.
It turns out that the exceedingly patient Sancho, or the
Philippines, misses his freedom, detesting all governments, and ends
by rebelling against his false physician.
In the same way, while the Philippines has no free press, no
voice in the legislative body to 'inform the Spanish government
and the nation whether the decrees are being duly enforced or not,
are beneficial or not to the country, a~I the skill of the minister
of the colonies will meet the same fate as the dishes on Jngula Ba;ra-
taria.
The minister then who would wish his reforms to be real
reforms should begin by declaring frl:)edom of the press in the
Philippines and creating Filipino deputies.
A free press in the Philippines is necessary because rarely do
the complaints there reach the Peninsula, very rarely, '.lnd if they
do reach i"t, they are so masked, so mysterious, that no newspaper
would dare publish them, ar.d .i f they are published at all, they are
published late a!Jd badly.
The governn1ent that administers the country from a very far
distance has more need of a free press, even more than the govern-
ment in the Metropolis, if it wishes to be straight and decent. The ·
• Sancho Panza is the squire cf Don Quijote de Ia Mancha, also the ·title of a
Spanish romance by Miguel de Cervantea Saavedra ridiculing books of cloinJrY,
Saneho Panu is a peesant, crude and 'ignorant, but shrewd.

156
government in the country can still dispense with the press (if it
can) ·because it is on the spot, because it has eyes and ears, and
because it sees at close hand what it is ruling and administering. But
the government that rules from afar, abso1utely needs that the truth
and the facts reach it through all possible means so that it can
appreciate and judge them better and this necessity becomes imper-
ative when it concerns a country like the Philippines whose
inhabitants speak and complain in a language unknown to the author-
ities. To govern in another way will also be called "to govern",
as it is necessary to give it a name, but that is to govern badly;
it is like judging by listening to only one of the parties; it is to
steer a ship without taking · into account its conditions, the condition
of the sea, the reefs, the shoals, the direction of the wind, the
currents, etc. It is to administer a house thinking only of giving
it lustre and importance without finding out what is in the s-afe,
without considering the servants and the family:
But routine is common to many government and routine says
that the freedom of the prel's is a danger. Let us see what history
says. Uprisings and revolutions have always taken place in countries
under tyrannical governments, under those where the mind and the
human heart are compelled to keep silent.
If the great Napoleon had not muzzled the press, p<!rhaps it
would have warned him of the danger into which he was fa:lling
and it might have made him understand that the people were tired
and the land needed pea<.!e. Perhaps his genius, instead of being
spent in external aggrandizement, falling back on itself, might have
worked for the consolidation of his power and succeeded. In the
history of Spain itself many revolutions occurred when the press
was muzzled. What colony, having a free press and enjoying
liberties, has become independent? Is it preferable to govern in
the dark or to govern with understanding?
Some one may reply that a free press would endanger the
rulers' prestige, that pillar of spurious governments. We will
ans'wer him that the prestige of the nation is preferable to that of
some individuals. A nation wins respect not by covering up abuses,
but by punishing them and condemning them. Besides, to that
prestige happens what Napoleon said of great men and their valets.
_We who suffer and know aM the stories and oppression of those
false gods do not need a free press to understand them; long ago
they have lost their prestige. The government needs a free press,
the g-overnment that still dreams of prestige, that builds on mined
gro~nd. ·
157
 We say the same thing about Filipino deputies.
What danger. does the government see in them? One of three
things: They turn out seditious, trimmers, or as they should be.
Supposing that we became absurdly pessimistic and admitted the
insult, great for the Phillippines but greater still for Spain, that
all the FHipino deputies arc separatists and all entertain revolu-
tionary ideas, isn't there the majority, Spanish and patriotic, isn't
there the clear-Eightedness of the rulers to oppose their proposal~
and combat them? And isn't this better than to let discontent
ferment and spread in the privacy of the home, in the huts, and in
the countrysides? It is true that the Spanish ·people never deny
their blood if patriotism demands it; but would not the fight for
principles in the parliament be preferab:e to the exchange of bullets
on swampy grou"l.d, 3.000 leagues away from the motherland, in
impenetrable forests, under a burning sun or in torrential rains?
The pac:fic struggle of ideas, besides serving as a thermometer for
the government, has the advantage of being cheaper and more
glorious, because the Spa!)ish parliament abounds precisely in cham-
pions of the word, invincible in the field of speeches. Moreover,
they say that the Filipinos are indolent and mild; what then has
the government to fear? Does it not influence elections? Fran~y
it is giving the rebels too much honor to fear them in the Cortes oi
the nation.
If they turn out trimmers, which is to be expected! and probably
they have to be, so much the better for the govenrment, and so much
the worse for the voters. They are a few more votes in favor of the
government which can laugh all it pleases at the rebels, if there
are any.
If they turn out as they should be, worthy, honorable, and
loyal to their mission, they will doubtless annoy the ignorant and
incompetent miuister with their que3tions, but they wiil telp him
govern, and they will be :m addition to the honorable persons among
the representatives of the nation.
Well now; if the real handicap of the FHipino deputies is their
I gorot smell which makes the veteran general Mr. SaJ'amanca feel
so uneasy in plain Senate, Mr. Sinibaldo de Mas, who has seen
the Igorots closely and has wished to live with them, can affirm
that they will smell at the worst .like gunpowder, and Mr. Salamanca
undoubtedly iE not afraid of that smell. { And if it is only this,
the Fitipinos who in their country have the habit of taking a bath
every day, once they become deputies can abandon such a dirty
158
custom, at least during th(> legislative session, in order not to
molest with the odor of the bath the delicate olfa ctory sense o:!
the Salamancas.
It is useless to refute certain impediments some fine writer'
have put forth, such a s more or .less brown color of the skin and the
more or less large-nosed faces. In the . matter of aesthetics each
race has its own idea. China, for example, which has 414 minion
inhabitants and porsesses a very ancient civilization, finds all Eu-
ropeans ugly, calling them Fan-Kuai or red devils. Her aesthetic!'
has 100 million more followers than European aesthetics. Besides,
if we have to discuss this, we would have to accept the inferiority
of the Latins, especially of the Spaniards, with respect to the SaxonJ
who are much fairer.
·And so long as the Spanish Cortes is not an assembly o:!
Adonises, Antinouser , boys, and other similar angels; so long a!'
one goes there to legislate and not to socratize or wandf'r through
imaginary hemisphere, we believe that the government should
not be deterred by those obstacles. Right has no skin nor bas
reason noses.
We see, then, no valid reason why the Philippines should not
have deputies. With their creation many discontented persons will
be mollified, and instead of imputing the evils in the country to
the government, as it happens today, they will bear them better,
because at least they can complain, and because, having their own
sons among the lawmakers, makes them in a certain way responsible
for their acts.
W'e do not know if we are serving well the r eal interests of
our country by asking for deputies. We know that the lack o:!
enlightenment, the pusillanimity, the selfishness of many of ou-r
compatriots, and the audacity, the astuteness, and the powerful
me:1ns a t the command of thore who want obscurantism to prevail
there can convert the reform into an obnoxious instrument. But
we wish to be loyal to the government and we point out to it the
road that seems to us best so that its efforts would not come to
naught, so that the discontented elements would disappear . . lf
after such a just as well as necesrary measure is implemented,·
the Filipino people are so foolish and pusillanimous that they would
turn a gainst their own interests, then let them bear the responsi-
bilities a nd suffer all the consequences. Every country meets th~
fate that she dererves, _a nd the government can say that it has ful-
filled its duty.

159
 These are the two fundamental reforms which, well interpreted
and implemented, can dispel all the clouds, attest the affection of
Snain, and make fruitful all subsequent ones. These are the reform~
si·ne qui bus non.*

The fear that from them would come independence is puerile.

The lfree press wiH let the government know the throbs of public
opinion, and the deputies, if they are the best among the >:ons of
the 'P hilippines, as they should be, will be its hostages.

There being no motive for discontent, with what will the masses
be stirred up?

In a similar way, the obstacle that others find in the defective

education of the ·majority of the Filipinos is inadmissible. Beside.;,
not being as defective as alleged, there is no plausible reason what-
soever to deprive the ignorant and the helpless (through his own
fault or another's) of a representative who can watch over him
· so that he would not be trampled.._ He's precisely the ·one who
needs it most. Nobody ceases to be a man, no one loses his rights
to civilization for being solely more or less civilized. lnasrnuch as
the Filipino is considered a competent citizen when he is asked to
pay taxes and to defend the Mother •Country with his life, why
should he be denied competence when it comes to conceding him a
right! Moreover, why should he be responsible for his ignorance?
Every one, friend and foe alike, admits that every Filipino even
before the arrival of the Spaniards knew how to read and write.
Today we see that the most humble families make enormous sacri-
fices so that their children can obtain a little education, even going
to the extent of letting them become servants in order to learn
Spanish at least. How can we expect the people to be enlightened
in their present condition when we see that many educational
decrees the government issues encounter Pedro Rezios who prevent
their implementation because they are in control of education? If
the Filipino then is sufficiently intelligent to pay taxes, he should
also be so to elect a representative who can watch over him and
his interests with the pi·oduct of which he serves the government
of the country, To reason out in another way is a one-sided
argument.

The laws and acts of the a~thorities being watched over, the
word Justice will cease to be a colonial irony. The English are
respected in their posse>:sions because of their strict and ex-
•· 'J1I.e are the indispensllble reforms.

160
peantous administration of justice, in such a way that ·the people
place full confidence in the judges. Justice is the foremost virtue of
civilized nations; it subdues the most barbarous nations. Injustice
excites the weakest to rebellion.

The government posts should be filled through cc•mpetitive

examination, and the examination results should be mada public so
that discontent would not arise and there would be encouragement.
Thus if the Indio does not shake off his indolence, he can not com-
plain if all the positions are filled Ly Castilas (Spaniards).

We suppose that Spaniards are not afraid to take part in this

competition; thus they can demonstrate their superiority through
the superiority of their intelligence. Although this is not done in
the Metropolis, it should be practised in the colonies, inasmuch as
true prestige should be sought in moral endowments, because
colonizers should be or seem to be at least, just, intelligent, and
upright, just as man feigns virtues when he is in contact with
strangers. Positions thus gained are not subject to arbitary dis-
missal and this method of selecting government employees creates
emp'ioyees and officials who are apt and know their duties. The
posts occupied by the Indios, instead of endangering Spanish rule,
will serve only to strengthen it; for, what interest would they have
to change what is secure and stable for the uncertain and prob-
lematical? The Indio, besides, is a lover of quietude and preferR
a modest present to a brilliant future. The various Filipino func-
tionaries who are still holding office attest it; they are the most
sluggish conservatives.

We can add other particular reforms referring to commerce,

agriculture, security of the individual and property, education, and
others, but we are going to discuss them separately in other articles.
At present· we are satisfied with the present projects, lest someone
say we are asking too much. ·

Some may criticize us for being utopians, but what's utopia!

Utopia was a country imagined by Thomas Moore where there were
universal suffrage, religious toleration, an almost complete aboli-
tion of the death penalty, etc. When the little novel was published,
these things were considered impossible dreams, that is uwpian.
Nonetheless, civilization has left far behind the land of Utopia;
human will and conscience have realized miracles, have abolished
slavery and the death penalty for adultery-impossible things enn
in that very same ·utopia!

161
 The French colonies have representatives; .in the British Parlia-
ment they have also discussed the representation of the Crown
colonies, for others already enjoy a certain autonomy and the press
there is also free; only in Spain, who in the XVI century was the
model colonizing power, is colonial representation delayed. Cuba
and Puerto Rico, whose population is not even a third of that of
the Philippines and have not made sacrifices for Spain as the
Philippines has, have many deputies. At the beginning, the Philip-
pines had hers who dealt with the kings and popes about the needs
of the country. She had them in the critical moments when Spain
was groaning under the Napoleonic yoke and she did not take
advantage of the misfortune of the Metropolis as the other colonies
did but even drew closer to Spain, thus giving proofs of her loyalty;
she remained loyal many years afterwards . . . . What crime has
the Philippines committed that she should thus be deprived of her
rights?

In short, the Philippines will remain Spanish if she enters

the path of rightful and civilized life, if the rights of her people
are ·respected, if they are granted others · they should have, if the
liberal policy of the government is carried out without shackles or
meanness, without subterfuges or false interpretations.

On the other hand, if it is desired to consider-.. the Islands a

lode to be · exploited, a means to satisfy ambitions, to free the
Metropolis of taxes, exhausting the goose that lays the golden
eggs and lending a deaf ear to all the cries of reason, then, however
great is the loyalty of the Filipinos, they cannot prevent that the
fatal laws of History be fulfilled. The colonies established to serve
the political or commercial polic,y of a Metropolis all end by be-
coming' independent, said Bachelet; before Bachelet said so, it had
already been said by all Phoenician, Carthaginian, Greek, Roman,
English, Portuguese, and Spanish colonies.

Close doubtless are the ties that Hnd us to Spain. Two peoples
cannot live in continuous contact for three centuries sharing a
common fate, shedding their blood on the same battlefields, believing
in the same faith, worshipping the same God, exchanging common
ideas, without developing between them bonds stronger than those
imposed by arms and fear. Inevitably mutual sacrifices and benefits
have brought mutual affection. As Machiavelli, who had a deep
knowledge of the human heart said: La natura d'oumini, e cosi
obbligarsi per 1le beneficii che essi fanno, come per quelli che essi
recevono. (It is human to be bound by benefits given as weil as

162
 those received.) All this and still more are true; but it is pure
sentimentalism, for on the bitter field of politics stark necessity
and interests prevail. No matter how much the Filipinos owe
Spain they cannot be compelled to renounce their right to redemri-
tion, to let the liberal and enlightened among them roam :1s exiles
from their native land, to let the most common aspirations smother
in its atmosphere, to tolerate that the peaceful citizen live in con-
tinuous anguish and the fate of the people depend on the caprice
of only one man. Spain can not justify even in the name of God
himself that six million men be brutalized, exploited, and oppressed,
denying them light, the innate human rights and afterwards heap
upon them contempt and insults. No, there is no gratitude that
can excuse it, there is no wfficient gunpowder in the world
that can justify the attacks against the Liberty of the individuwl,
against the sanctity of the home, against the laws, against peace
and honor, attacks which are committed daily in the Philippines.
There is no God that will applaud the sacrifice of our dearest
affections, of our families, the sacrilege and transgressions which
are committed by those who have the name of God on their lips.
No one can demand from the Filipino people the impossible. The
noble Spanish people, so devoted to their liberties and rights, cannot
. tell the Filipino people to renounce theirs; the people that delight
in the glories of their past cannot ask of another, educated by
them, to accept the vilification and dishonor of their name!

We who are now fighting on the legal and peaceful ground of

discm:sions understand it thus, and with our sight fixed on our
ideals we shall not cease to advocate for our causes, without going
beyond the limits of the law; but, if violence will silence U3 or we
have the bad luck of falling (which is possible, for we are not
immortal), then we would not know what road will be followed by
the numerous shoots of better sap who will rush headlong to take
the places that we shall leave vacant.

If w:Oat we desire is not realized

Before that unfortunate eventuality, it is necessary that fear

should not deter us, that instead of closing our eyes, we should
look ftraight ahead to see what the future has in store for us.
And for that purpose, after throwing a handful of earth in tribute
to Cerherus* let us enter freely the abyEs to probe its terrible
mysteries.

• In Greek and Roman mythology a three-headed dcog guarding the entrance ta

Hadel, the Abode of the dead and colloquially, Hell.

163
 IV
History does not record in its annals any enduring rule of
one people over another, who belong to different races, with distinct
usages and customs, with adv~rse or divergent ideals.
One of the two has had to yield or succumb. Either the
foreigner was overthrown, as it happened to the Carthaginians, the
Arabs, and the French in Spain, or the native people had to
succumb or withdraw, as in the case of the inhabitants of the New
World, Australia, New Zealand, and others.

One of the longest foreign rulee was that of the Arabs in

Spain which lasted seven centuries. But, despite the fact that the
conquering people lived in the midst of the vanquished; despite the
division of the small states of the Peninsula that emerged little by
little like tiny islands in the center of the great Saracen flood;
despite the knightly spirit, the gallantry, and religious tolerance
of the caliphs, they were finally driven out after bloody and tenacious
battles which built the Spanish nation and created the Spain of the
XV and XVI centuries.

The existence of a foreign body in another endowed with

strength and activity is against all natural and moral laws. Science
teaches us that either it is assimilated, it destroys the organism,
it is eliminated, or it is encysted.

The encystment of a conquering people is impossible, whenever

.i t means complete isolation, absolute inertia, adynamia ~f ihc victor-
ious element. Encystment here signifies the tomb of the foreigrl
invader.
Well then; applying these considerations to the Philippines,
we are obliged to conclude, deducing from everything we have been
saying, that if her people are not assimilated by the Spanish nation,
if the rulers do not take possession of the spirit of her inhabitants,
if equitable laws and sincere and liberal reforms do not make them
forget that they belong to distinct races, ·or if both peoples do not
fuse to form one homogenous social and political mass, which is not
troubled by opposing tendencies and antagonistic feelings and in-
terests, the Philippines one day will declare herself inevitably and
unmistakably independent. Neither Spanish patriotism nor the ap-
peal of all the little tyrants .in the colonies, nor the love for Spain
of all the Filipinos, nor the doubtful dismembermenf of the Islands
and internal strife can go against this law of destiny. N~cessity

164
is the strongest god the world' knows, and necessity is the result
of physical laws put into action by moral forces.

We said, and statistics prove it, that it is impossible to destroy

the Filipino race. And though it might be possible, what interest
could Spain have in the destruction of the inhabitants of a land that
she could not occupy or cultivate, whose climate is to a certain
degree dismal? Of what use would the Philippines be to her without
the Filipinos'! Precisely, considering her system of colonization and
the transient character of the Spaniards who go to the colonies, a
colony is · more useful to her and more valuable the more inhabitants
and riches it possesses. Moreover, in order to destroy six million
Malayans, even supposing that they are still in their infancy and
they never can learn how to fight and defend themselves, Spain
would need to sacrifice a fourth of her population. .We wish to
remind the partisans of colonial exploitation of this fact. But
nothing like this can happen. What is imminent is that if S:Pain
would deny the Filipinos education and the liberties essential to
human life, they would seek their education abroad behind the
back of Spain, the Mother Country, and will secure in some way or
another certain advantages in their country. The result: the resist-
ance of .n ear-sighted and rickety politicians is not only useless but
injurious, for what could be a motive for gratitude and love is
converted into resentment and hatred.

Hatred and resentment on one side, distrust and indignation

on the other, will finally end in a violent and terrible collision,
especially when there are elements interested in the disturbance of
public order so that they can gain something out of it, so that
they can show their great power, so that they can hurl lamentations,
so that they can recriminate and activate violent measures, and the
like. Expected to triumph is the government, and generally (and
that is the custom) it goes to the extreme in meting out punishment,
either · to give a terrible warning, to make a show of severity or
in order to take revenge on the vanquished for the moments of terror
and anguish that the danger had caused it. Inevitable accessory
of these catastrophes is the pile of injustices committed against
innocent and peaceful people. Personal revenge, denunciations,
infamous accusations, covetousness, the opportune moment for a
calumny, the hurried and expeditious proceeding of the military tri-
bunal, the pretext of the integrity of the Mother Country and reason
of State which covers and answers for everything even .for scrupu-
lous consciences, that unfortunately are now rare, and above all the
dread, the cowardice, that takes holt:! of the vanquished-all these

165
 things augment the severity of the victor and the number of victims.
The result is that a stream of blood is interposed between the two
peoples; that the wounded and rest-ntful, instead of diminishing,
increase, for to the families and friends of the guilty who always
believe the punishment excessive and the judge unfair, one has to add
the families and friends of the innocent who see no adv<1ntage in
living and acting submissively and peacefully. 'Consider, moreover,
that if the prescribed measures are already dangerous in a country
with a homogenous population, the danger becomes a hundredfold
when the government is run by a race different from that of the
governed. In the first case, an injustice can still be attributed
·to a single man, to a ruler motivated by personal passions, and
with the tyrant dead, the offended is reconciled with the go~·ernment
of his nation. But in countries ruled by a foreign nation, the most
justly severe measure is interpreted as injustice and oppression,
because it is ordered by a foreigner who has no sympathy with or
is an enemy of the country. The offense not only offends the
offended but his entire race, because it is not generally considered
personal, and resentment naturally extends· to the whole governing
nation and does not die with the offender.
For this reason, the colonizing powers should be endowed with
immense prudence and exquisite tact; and the fact that the govern-
ment of the colonies in general and the ministry of the colonies
in particular are considered schools for apprenticeship contribute
notably towards the fulfilment of the great law that colonies declare
themselves independent sooner or later.
Thus from that precipice peoples hurl themselves headlong
while they bathe in blood and are soaked in gall and tt'ars. . If
the colony has vitality, it learns to fight and improve itself in the
struggle, while the Mother Country, whose survival in the colony
depends on the peacefulness and submission of the subjects, weakens
each time, and though she makes heroic efforts, at last, as her
defenders are inferior in number and she has only a fictitious life,
she ends by dying. She is like a rich sybarite who, accustomed to
be served by numerous servants who work and plant for him, the
day when his slaves refuse to obey him, as he canr1ot live by
himself, has to die.
Vengeance, injm:.tice, and distrust on one hand and on the
other the sentiment of patriotism and of liberty, which will be
awakened by these continuous struggles, insurrections, and ~1prisings,
will end by spreading the movement and one of the two peoplea
has to succumb. The laxness will be brief since it would be equi-

166
valent to a much more cruel slavery than death for the people and
to a loss of prestige disgraceful to the ruler. · One of the two
peoples has to succumb.

Spain, on account of the size of her population, the condition

of her army and navy, her distance from the Islands, her little
knowledge of the ' colony, and for fighting against a people whose
love and goodwill have been alienated, has by force to yield, if
she does not wish to risk, not only her other possessions and her
future in Africa, but also her own independence in Europe. All
this at the cost of much blood, many crimes, after mortal combats,
assassinations, conflagration, executions, hunger, destitution, and so
forth. The Spaniard is brave and patriotic and sacrifices every-
thing in favorable moments for the good of the Motherland; he has
the boldness and determination of his bull. The Filipino a<'es not
love his country less, and though he is more calm, peaceful, and
not easily excited, once started, he does not stop, and for him
every fight means the death of one of the fighters; he preserves
all the meekness and all the tenacity and fury of the carabao.
Climate influences equally bipeds and quadrupeds.

The terrible lessons and the harsh teachings that these strifes
have given the Filipinos have served to improve and strengthen his
morale. Spain of the XV century was not the Spain of the VIII
century. With their harsh experience, instead of engaging in the
internal strife of some islands with others, as it is generally feared,
the Filipinos will stretch out their hands mutually, like the ship-
wrecked when they reach an island after a dreadful stormy night.
Let them not say that what happened to the American republics
will happen to us. These won their independence easily and their
peoples were animated by a spirit different from that of the Fili-
pinos. Besides, the danger of falling again into the hands of other
powers, of the English or the Germans, for example, will compel
them to be sensible and prudent. The absence of the preponderance
of one race over the others will dissuade them from entertaining
the mad ambition to dominate; and as the tendency of oppressed
countries, once they have shaken off the foreign yoke, is to adopt a
freer government, like a lad who comes out of school, like the
oscillation of the pendulum, by the law of reaction, the Islands will
adopt probably a federal republic . . •

If the Philippines obtain her independence at the end of heroic

and tenacious struggles, she. can be sure that neither England nor
France, and less Holland, will dare to pick up what Spain has not

167
been able to keep. Africa, within a few years, will completely
absorb the attention of the Europeans., and there is no sensible
nation that, in order to get a handful of poor and war-stricken
islands, would neglect the immense territory that the Black Con-
tinent offers-virgin, unexploited, and scarcely defended. England
already has enough colonies in the East and will not expose herself
to lose the balance of power. She will not sacrifice her Indian
Empire for the poor Philippine Archipelago; if she cherished this
ambition, she would not have returned to Manila in 1763; • she would
have retained any point in the Philippines to expand little by little
from there. Besides, why should the merchant John Bull allow
himself to be killed for the Philippines when England after all is
no longer the Mistress of the Orient..-when she has Singapore,
Hongkong, Shanghai, and others? Probably England will favor
Philippine independence, for an independent Philippines will open
her ports to her and grant her more commercial privileges. More-
over, in the United Kingdom there is a prevailing opinion that she
has already too many colonies which are detrimental to and weakens
much the Metropolis.
For the same reasons Germany will not want to run a risk,
because her forces wouid be unbalanced and a war in distant count-
ries will endanger her position in Europe. So we see that her
policy in the Pacific as well as in Africa is limited to the easy
acquisition of territories which do not belong to anybody. Germany
avoids all foreign entanglements.
France has much to do and sees more future in Tonkin and
China. Besides, France is not eager to acquire colonies. .She loves
glory but the glory and the laurels that grow on the battlefields
of Europe; the echo of the battlefields of the Far East does not
satisfy her thirst for renown because it is already lusterless when it
reaches her. She has besides other duties at home as well as on
the Continent.
Holland is sensible and will be contented to hold · the Moluccas
and Java. Sumatra offers her a better future than the Philippines,
whose seas and coasts are of bad omen for the Dutch expeditions.
Holland goes about cautiously in Sumatra and Borneo for fear of
losing them all.
China will consider herself lucky if she succeeds in maintaining
her unity and is not dismembered or divided by the European powers
engaged in colonizing on the Asiatic continent.
• Rizal refers to the Treaty of Paris, 10 F ebruary 1763, ending the war between
England and Spain and the British ocmpation of Manila,

168
 The same happens to Japan. On her north is Russia who covets
and spies on her, on her south is England who has even introduced
English as an official language in her country. She is moreover
under such a European diplomatic pressure that she cannot think of
colonial expansion until she can get rid of it, which will not be
easy to achieve. It is true she is over-populated, but Korea attracts
her more than the Philippines, and it is· easier to take besides.
Perhaps the great American republic with interest in the Pacifie
and without a share in the partition of Africa may one day think
of acquiring possessions beyond the seas. It is not impossible, for
example is contagious, greed and ambition being the vices of the
strong, and Harrison expressed himself in this sense over the question
of Samoa; but neither is the Panama 'Canal open nor do her states
have a plethora of inhabitants, and in case she openly embarks on
colonial expansion, the European powers may not leave the way
open to her, as they know very well that appetite :is whetted by
the first morsels. North America would be a bothersome rival
once she enters the field. It is moreover against her traditions.
Very probably the Philippines will defend with indescribable
ardor the liberty she has bought at the cost of so much blood and
sacrifice. With the new men that will spring from her bosom and
the remembrance of the . past, she will perhaps enter openly the
wide road of progress and all will work jointly to strengthen . the
Mother Country at home as well as abroad with the same enthusiasm
with which a young man returns to cultivate his father's farmland
so long devastated and abandoned due to the negligence of those
who had alienated it. Then the mines-gold, iron, copper, lead,.coal,
and others-will be worked again, which will help solve the problem
of poverty. Perhaps the people will revive their maritime and
commercial activities for which the islanders have a natural aptitude,
and free once more, aike the bird that leaves his cage, like the flower
that returns to the open air, she will recover her good old qualities
which she is losing little by little and again become a lover of
peace, gay, lively, smiling, hospitable, and fearless.
This and other things besides can happen within on'e hundred
years more or less. But the most logical augury, the prophecy
based on better probabilities can fail due to insignificant and
remote reasons. An octopus which clung to Mark Anthony's ship
changed the face of the·- world; a cross on Calvary and a Just Man
nailed on it changed the morality of half of mankind, and never-
theless, before Christ, ·how many just men did not perish iniquitously
and how many crosses were not raised on that hill? The death

169
of the Just sanctified His teaching incontrovertible. A crag on the
battlefield of Waterloo buried all the glories of two luminous decades,
the. whole Napoleonic world, and liberated Europe. On what fortui-
tous circumstances will depend the destiny of the Philippines?
However, it is unwise to trust in the fortuitous; there is all
imperceptible and incomprehensible logic at times in historical events.
It is to be desired that peoples as well as governments adjust ·
themselves to it.
So we repeat and we shall always repeat, while there is time,
that it is better to anticipate the wishes of a people rather than
to yield to force; the first wins sympathy and love; the second,
contempt and indignation. Inasmuch as it is necessary to gjve to six
million Filipinos their rights so that they would be Spaniards in
fact, let the government grant them freel1y and spontaneously with
out insulting reservations, without irritating distrust. We will not
tire repeating this while there remains a spark of hope; we prefer
this disagreeable task to have to say one day to the Mother Country:
"Spain, we have spent our youth serving your interests in our
country, we have appealed to you, we have consumed all the light
of our intellect, all the ardor and enthusiasm of our heart :working
for the good of what was yours, entreating you for a loving glance,
for a liberal policy to insure the peace of our country and your
rule over these devoted but unfortunate Islands! Spain, you have
remained deaf, and wrapped in your pride, you have pursued your
fateful way and you have accused us · of being traitors, solely be-
cause we love our country, because we tell you the truth and we
hate all kinds of injustice. What do you want us to tell our un-
happy country when she a sks us about the result of our efforts'!
Have we to tell her that, as for her sake we have lost everything-
youth, future, illusions, tranquility, family-as in her service we
have exhausted all the rewurces of hope, all the disappointments
of our eagerness, she takes the remainder that is useless to us,
the blood of our veins, and the strength that remains in our arms!
Spain! Have we to say one day to the Philippines that you are deaf
to her ills and that if she wants to be saved she should redeem
herself alone?''

Th& author wrote these articles in Spain, hence the use of "there" In referrina:
t& the Phl!ipp.i nes.
Published in La Solidn.ridad, Vol. I, 17S-180 (30 Sept. 1889); 202-~'07 (31 Oct.
1889) ; 239- 243 (15 Dec. 1889); 15-18 (1' Feb. 1890).

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170
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POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL WRITINGS * RIZAL

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 REPUBLIC OV THE PHILIPPINES
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND CULTUJIE
NATIONAL IDSTORICAL INSTITUTE
Manila

FERDINAND E. MARCOS
Pre.~ident
Republic of the PhiLippines

JUAN L. l\IANUEL
Secreta'ry of Education ·¢nd Cult~re

ESTEBAN A. DE OCAMPO
Chairman & ExeCU.tiv.e Director

DOMINGO ABELLA TEODORO A. AGONCILLO

~ember ~ember

HORACIO DE LA COSTA, S. J. EMILIO AGUILAR CRUZ

~ember ~ember

GODOFREDO L. ALCASID SERAFIN D. QUIASON

Ex-Officio ~ember Ex-Officio ~ember

FLORDELIZA K. MILIT~
Assist4nt Executi"e Director

RAMON G. CONCEPCION EULOGIO M. LEA&O

Chief, Admininratiue Diuision Chief, Research and
Publications Diuision

AVELINA M. CASTAm:DA RENATO R. PERDON

Chief, Special and Commemot"Ctiue Chief, Monuments and
E"ent8 Diui8ion Heraldry Diuision

ROSAURO G. UNTIVERO BELEN V. FORTU

Supervising Information Budget Officer
Officer and Editor

GODOFREDO C. ABARRO
Auditor