INDIVIDUAL THOUGHT PAPER:

RIZAL'S ANNOTATION OF MORGA'S SUCESOS DE LAS ISLAS FILIPINAS

In the late 1880s, Dr. Jose Rizal spent several months in London improving his English
proficiency. During those days, he regretted having been born and raised without deep
recognition of what life was like in his homeland, the Philippines, before the Spanish regime.
Hence, this had formed a huge curiosity in the mind of the young intellect because he believed
that he had neither privilege nor power to speak of situations he did not know about. He
speculated that the country had a prosperous and established way of living enriched by culture,
tradition, and solidarity contrary to what the Spaniards claimed that the Philippines was living
backward. In fact, Rizal pointed out that the pre-Hispanic Philippine civilization could have
nurtured and developed into something great hadn't the Spain and the friars obliterated it. And
this burning desire brought him to going through British Museum where he stumbled upon
Antonio de Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas (1609).

There have been numerous published works about the pre-colonial Philippine history.
However, Rizal's choice of annotating Morga rather than other contemporary historical accounts
was due to the obvious fact that the book itself was rare. The author, Antontio de Morga, was
civil in writing the book as it was written free from religious narratives full of miracle stories,
reflecting Rizal's strong anti-clerical bias. Moreover, Rizal thinks that Morga was more
sympathetic to the Indios and he was not only an eyewitness but he played a huge role in the
events he narrated. And thus, with his dedication to give his fellow Filipino a view of the history
of the Philippines, he laboriously copied the entire work while making annotations.

Rizal felt that the annotations of Morga should be written not from the colonizer, but this
time from the colonized. There was no history of the Philippines written by an Indio at such a
period. The Philippines have been neglected and what was available before was not a history of
the Philippines, but a history of Spain in the Philippines. It was ambitious at those times being
given that Indios were given less importance or value and deemed to not have the ability to
produce such scholarly works. Most of the available sources were written by religious order
members, zealous missionaries determined to destroy native traditions that they considered to be

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 idolatrous and wild cultural practices. However, Rizal was not hindered by these reasons and
toiled which resulted in the production of the first historical version of an Indio, Rizal's version
of Morga. Moreover, when the Spanish arrived in the Philippines, they eradicated original
Philippines writings because they believed that it contained demonic meaning which for them,
immorally adheres to their beliefs and religion.

The book entitled, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, is a primary sourced account of the early
Spanish colonial venture in the Philippines as well as narration of Filipino customs, government,
antiquity, and religion experienced by the author himself. The book contained eight chapters but
Rizal only focused on Chapter 8 because it provides an interpretation of the precolonial
Filipinos, or rather of the Indios, at the Spanish contact. To Rizal, this same chapter was
invaluable not only for its ethnographic importance but also to help him recreate the pre-
Hispanic Philippines that Rizal wanted to present to his countrymen. After four months of
intensive historical research, Rizal was able to complete 639 annotations, longer than the chapter
itself, on each detail in the cultural practices of the Philippines that Morga wrote about.
Moreover, his annotations also contained corrections of the errors of the author in the name of
the places, plants, and animals as well as the several social issues in the Philippines.

The significance of Rizal's comments to Morga was that he attempted to utilize history
and verifiable amendment, not simply to express his perspectives on the historiography, but to
make a feeling of national consciousness or identity. Rizal, notwithstanding, was a pragmatist
who acknowledged that scholarly books, for example, the Morga would not be monetarily
rewarding. Thus, he purposefully made the work, not for himself alone, but for his country, to
bring honor to the Filipino people. His work, almost certainly, was commendable for its time,
however in his enthusiasm to reproduce the significance of the lost pre-His-panic Philippine
progress, he some of the time drew on creative mind more than proof. Rizal's chronicled
comments must be found in this light. They were part of a propaganda. Rizal used history as a
propaganda weapon against the abuses of the colonial Spaniards through a historical use of
hindsight and a strong anticlerical bias, which can be gleaned on his several annotations.

On page 273 of Morga, Morga said that local people of the extensive number of islands
had their one of a kind sort of forming with characters that took after Greek or Arabic.
Tragically, enough, Rizal stated, that was never again obvious. Even though the provincial
government

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 guaranteed, in word and deed, that it was teaching the Filipinos, in truth, it was inciting
obliviousness by placing the monks accountable for instruction. Filipinos, as well as Peninsulares
and outsiders, blamed them for needing to stun the country and that was apparent in their
compositions and conduct. Besides, the precolonial Filipinos having an arrangement of
composing and accompanying written literature was demolished by the missionaries who saw
these as "works of the devil". Rizal goes above and beyond in accepting that there was an
incredible volume of composed writing at the time the Spaniards landed in the Philippines. Be
that as it may, at present, there is no surviving body, not, in any case, a section, of this pre-
Hispanic composed writing. The missionaries are blamed for a long-lost pre-Hispanic literature
which probably did not exist.

Besides, on page 275, true to form, Morga was reproachful of the arrangement of
government, which he stated, scarcely existed because there were no amazing figures that
managed over bunch networks, the majority of the seaside, each with its very own arrangement
of pioneers. Rizal contended that it was better that way. As he would see it, for what reason
should the communities be obliged to one ruler who didn't live among them and was
inexperienced with their needs and issues. He likewise addressed how could such a ruler settle
questions, dispense equity, execute strategies, on the off chance that he didn't live in the
community. Once more, in my very own understanding, this appeared to be an unpretentious
assault on the Spanish government suggesting that the abusive, unfriendly and outdated decision
of the Spaniards should conclude since they were unjustly made and it does not serve everyone.

Lastly, on page 248, Morga portrays the culinary specialty of the old Filipinos by
recording: "They prefer to eat salt fish which begin to decompose and smell." Rizal's
commentaries peruse: "This is another distraction of the Spaniards who, similar to some other
country in the matter of nourishment, severely dislike that to which they are not acclimated or is
obscure to them. The fish that Morga refers to doesn't taste better when it is starting to decay; all
despite what might be expected: it is bagoong and every one of the individuals who have eaten it
and tasted it realize that it isn't or should not to be spoiled."

Rizal utilized history as a promulgation weapon against the maltreatment of the pioneer
Spaniards. His energy made him over-touchy or even narrow-minded of analysis. Furthermore,
that entirely praiseworthy nationalism of his, it appears to me, blinds him now and again, and as

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 a historian, he should be thoroughly fair-minded. He communicated a translation of Philippine
history for Filipinos and enthusiasm was the support that decided the level of objectivity and
promulgation in his work. Because of his excitement in displaying a background marked by the
Philippines before colonization to his compatriots, he neglected to understand that he too was
getting inclination as he would like to think driven by his disdain to the Spanish rule.

Rizal's Morga recreated the pre-Hispanic Philippine past which he needed to present to
his sleeping countrymen to stir in them a feeling of pride in their race. For Rizal, he believes that
before continuing to unfurl before your eyes other progressive pictures, it is important to give
you information on the past to empower you to enable you to judge what lies in the present better
and to measure the roads we have gone in search for our national identity. The significance of
Rizal's perspective on Philippine history is that its impact is still felt and, taken with regards to
Philippine historiography remains the way into a comprehension of the reproduction of the
Philippine past as a way to fashion a national personality

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 References:

a) Clemente, J. E. & Cruz, G. R. (2019). Life and works of Rizal. Quezon City,
Philippines: C & E Publishing, Inc.
b) Ocampo, A. (1998). Rizal’s Morga and views of Philippines history. Philippines
Studies. 46(2), 184-214
c) Annotations of Morga

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