What is Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas?

 One of the important works on the early history of Spanish colonization of the Philippines
 Narrates the history of wars, intrigues, diplomacy, and evangelization of Philippines in a
somewhat disjointed way
 Published in Mexico in 1609 by Antonio De Morga
 Annotated by Jose Rizal with a prologue by Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt

Antonio De Morga

 Spanish Conquistador, government official, and historical anthropologist

 Author of Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas (Events in the Philippine Islands)
 He wrote the first lay formal history of the Philippines conquest by Spain
 A doctorate in Canon Law and Civil Law
 His history is valuable in that Morga had access to the survivors of the earliest days of the
colony and he, himself, participated in many of the accounts that he rendered

Modern Historians (including Rizal) have noted that Morga has a definite bias and would often distort
facts or even rely on invention to fit his defense of the Spanish conquest

Morga’s purpose of writing Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas

 Morga wrote that the purpose for writing Sucesos was so he could chronicle
“The deeds achieved by our Spaniards is the discovery, conquest, and conversion of the Filipinas
Islands, as well as various fortunes that they have from time to time in the great kingdoms and
among the pagan peoples surrounding the Islands”
 Taking issue with the scopes of these claims, Rizal argued that
“The conversion and conquest were not as widespread as portrayed because the missionaries
were only successful in conquering a portion of the population of certain Islands.

Chapters in Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas

 Chapter 1- Magellan and Legazpi’s seminal expeditions

 Chapters 2-7- Chronological report on government administration under Governor-General
 Chapter 8- Philippine Islands, the natives there, their antiquity, customs and government

What leads Jose Rizal to Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas

 Rizal was an earnest seeker of truth and this marked him as a historian
 He had a burning desire to know exactly the conditions of the Philippines when the Spaniards
came ashore to the Islands
 His theory was that the country was economically self-sufficient and prosperous, entertained
the idea that it had a lively and vigorous community
 He believed that the conquest of the Spaniards contributed in part to the decline of the
Philippines’ rich tradition and culture
 He then decided to undertake the annotation of Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos De Las Islas
Filipinas
 His personal friendship with Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt provided the inspiration for doing a new
edition of Morga’s Sucesos
  Devoting four months research and writing and almost a year to get his manuscript published in
Paris in January 1890
 Rizal spent his entire stay in the city of London at the British Museum’s reading room
 Having found Morga’s book, he laboriously hand-copied the whole 351 pages of the Sucesos
 Rizal proceeded to annotate every chapter of the Sucesos

Rizal’s annotation of Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas

 His extensive annotation of Morga’s work number “no less than 639 items or almost two
annotations for every page”
 Rizal also annotated Morga’s typographical errors
 He commented on every statement that could be nuanced in Filipino cultural practices.
For example, on page 248, Morga describes the culinary art of the ancient Filipinos by recording:
“...they prefer to eat salt fish which begin to decompose and smell.”
Rizal’s footnotes: “This is another preoccupation of the Spaniards who like any other nation in
that matter of food, loathe to that which they are not accustomed or is unknown to them…The
fish that Morga mentions does not taste better when it is beginning to rot, all of the contrary “it
is bagoong , and all those who have eaten it and tasted it know it is not or ought not to be
rotten”
 Rizal commits the error of many historians in appraising the events of the past in the light of
present standards
 Rizal’s attacks on the church were unfair and unjustified because the abuses of the friars should
not be construed to mean the Catholicism is bad

Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt also wrote a preface emphasizing some salient points:

 The Spaniards have to correct their erroneous conception of the Filipinos as children of limited
intelligence
 That there existed three kinds of Spanish delusions about the Philippines
-Filipinos were an inferior face
-Filipinos were not ready for parliamentary representation and other reforms
-Denial of equal rights can be compensated by strict dispensation of justice

Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt’s Prologue

 Writing in Spanish, instead of his native German Language

 Praised Rizal’s work as “scholarly and well-thought out”
 He noted that Morga’s Sucesos was so rare that “the very few libraries that have it guard it with
the same solicitude as if it were the treasure of the Incas
 He criticized Rizal’s annotations on two counts:
-He first observed that Rizal had committed the mistake of many modern historians who judged
events in the past in the context of contemporary ideas and mores
-He perceived as the overreach of Rizal’s denunciations of Catholicism that Rizal should confine
his critique to the religious orders in the Philippines who spared no efforts to suppress calls for
reform
3 main propositions in Rizal’s new edition of Morga’s Sucesos

 The people of the Philippines had a culture on their own before the coming of the Spaniards
 Filipinos were decimated, demoralized, exploited and ruined by the Spanish colonization
 The present state of the Philippines was not necessarily superior to its past

Rizal’s Annotation

In his historical essay, this includes the narration of Philippine colonial history, punctuated as it
was with incidences of agony, tensions, tragedies, and prolonged periods of suffering that many of
people had been subjected to. He correctly observed that as a colony of Spain, “The Philippines was
depopulated, impoverished and retarded, astounded by metaphor, with no confidence in her past,
still without faith in her present and without faltering hope in the future.”

He went to say “…little by little, they (Filipinos) lost their old traditions, the mementoes of their
past, they gave up their writing, their songs, their poems, their laws, in order to learn other doctrines
which they do not understand, another morality, another aesthetics, different from those inspired by
their climate and their manner of thinking. They declined, degrading themselves in their own eyes. They
become ashamed of what was their own, they began to admire and praise whatever was foreign and
incomprehensible, their spirit was damage and it surrendered.”

Rizal’s annotation of Morga’s Sucesos

To the Filipinos: “In my “Noli Me Tangere”, I commenced to sketch the present conditions
obtaining in our country. The effect produced by my efforts gave me to understand before proceeding to
develop before your eyes other successive scenes that are necessary to first lay bare the past, in order
to better to judge the present and to survey the road trodden during three centuries.

Like almost all of you, I was born and brought up in ignorance of our country’s past and so,
without knowledge or authority to speak of what I neither saw nor have studied, I deem it necessary to
quote the testimony of the illustrious Spaniard who in the beginning of the new era controlled the
destinies of the Philippines and had personal knowledge of our ancient nationality in its last days

It is then the shade of our ancestor’s civilization which the author will call before you. If the
work serves to awaken in you a consciousness of our past, and to blot from your memory or to rectify
what has been falsified or is calumny, then I shall not have labored in vain. With this preparation, slight
though it may be, we can all pass to the study of the future

-Jose Rizal

The “Sucesos” as annotated by Rizal, appeared for the first time in the Philippines sixty eight
years later when a publisher in Manila, published the new work in 1958, to contribute his bit to the
national effort to honor Rizal. The present work is the sixth volume of the Series of Writings of Jose Rizal
which the Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission has no published in commemoration of his birth

“To foretell the destiny of a nation, it is necessary to open the books that tells of her past”

-Jose Rizal
Noli Me Tangere

 Written in Spanish
 Means “touch me not”
 Book is the passionate expose about the evils of the Spanish friars in the Philippines
 Wrote a sequel in 1891 “El Filibusterismo” (The Subversive)

To my Motherland

 An introduction that Rizal wrote for Noli

 He equates colonialism to Cancer

Synopsis

 Liberal, Realistic, Fearless

 Shows how the abuses suffered by the native indios

Ideas of Noli Me Tangere

 Shows nationalism
 Changes the mind of people
 Patriotic

Similarities of Crisostomo Ibarra and Jose Rizal

 Studies in Europe
 Love the Country
 Against the Spanish

Difference of Crisostomo Ibarra and Jose Rizal

 Ibarra is a revolutionist and separalist

Conclusion

 Rizal’s aim to awaken his countrymen is fulfilled

 “Now I die content” –Jose Rizal

Summary of Noli Me Tangere

Crisostomo Ibarra who, after a seven-year stay in Europe to study, comes home to his town of
San Diego, brimming with the desire to contribute to the development of the townspeople.
More specifically, as a reformist, he aims to make education accessible to more people.  His idealism,
however, cannot bear fruit because of insidious forces bent on destroying him.  Ibarra learns that his
father, Don Rafael, had been embroiled in a conflict with Padre Damaso, who eventually causes his
humiliation and death.  It is not only political power that the friar wields; he has also used power to
seduce the mother of Maria Clara, Ibarra' s sweetheart.  Ibarra has another enemy in the person of
Padre Salvi, who lusts after Maria Clara.  It is also Padre Salvi who almost causes Ibarra ' s death at the
groundbreaking ceremonies for the school.  Things come to a head when Ibarra is implicated in a failed
uprising instigated by Padre Salvi.  The young man is imprisoned but is eventually rescued by Elias,
whose life Ibarra has saved in the past.  As the novel ends, the thoroughly disillusioned Ibarra sees a
bleak future.

Characters

 Crisóstomo Ibarra
Also known in his full name as Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra y Magsalin, a Filipino who studied in Europe for 7
years, the love interest of Maria Clara.  Son of the deceased Don Rafael Ibarra; Crisostomo changed his
surname from Eibarramendia to Ibarra, from his ancestor's surname.

 Elías
Ibarra's mysterious friend, a master boater, also a fugitive.  He was referred to at one point as the pilot.
He wants to revolutionize his country.  Ibarra's grandfather condemned his grandfather of burning a
warehouse, making Elias the fugitive he is.

 María Clara
María Clara de los Santos, Ibarra's sweetheart; the illegitimate daughter of Father Dámaso and
Pía Alba.

 Father Dámaso
Also known in his full name as Dámaso Verdolagas, Franciscan friar and María Clara's biological
father.

 Don Filipo
A close relative of Ibarra, and a Filibuster.

 Linares
A distant nephew of Don Tiburcio de Espadana, the would-be fiance of Maria Clara.

 Captain General (no specific name)

The most powerful official in the Philippines, a hater of secular priests and corrupt officials, and
a friend of Ibarra.

 Captain Pablo
The Leader of the rebels, whose family was destroyed because of the Spanish.

 Tarcilo and Bruno

Brothers, whose father was killed by the Spaniards.

 Sisa
The mother of Basilio and Crispín, who went insane after losing her sons.

 Basilio
The elder son of Sisa.

 Crispín
The younger son of Sisa who died from the punishment from the soldiers from the false
accusation of stealing an amount of money.
  Padre Sibyla
Hernando de la Sibyla, a Filipino friar.  He is described as short and has fair skin.

 Kaptain Tiago
Also known in his fullname as Don Santiago de los Santos the known father of María Clara but
not the real one; lives in Binondo.

 Padri Salví
Also known in his full name as Bernardo Salví, a secret admirer of María Clara.

 Pilosopo Tasyo
Also known as Don Anastasio, portrayed in the novel as a pessimist, cynic, and mad by his
neighbors.

 The Alférez
Chief of the Guardia Civil ; mortal enemy of the priests for the power in San Diego.

 Don Tiburcio
Spanish husband of Donya Victorina who is limp and submissive to his wife; he also pretends to
be a doctor.

 Doña Victorina
Victorina de los Reyes de De Espadaña, a woman who passes herself off as a Peninsular.

 Doña Consolación
Wife of the Alférez, another woman who passes herself as a Peninsular; best remembered for
her abusive treatment of Sisa.

 Pedro
Abusive husband of Sisa who loves cockfighting.

 Old Tasio
An older man who Ibarra seeks advice from. The town thinks him mad, but in actuality he is
quite wise.

Summary of El Filibusterismo

Filibusterismo offers a much bleaker picture of the last decades of the nineteenth century.
Crisostomo Ibarra, the reformist hero of the earlier novel, has come back to the Philippines as the
enigmatic stranger named Simoun, a rich jeweller.  Driven by hatred and a fierce desire to avenge his
sufferings, and to rescue Maria Clara from the nunnery where she has fled, Simoun embarks on a
crusade the goal of which is to corrupt and thus weaken various institutions that would eventually lead
to a bloody revolution.  He schemes and plans systematically and plots with various characters, including
Basilio, to bring about the downfall of the government.  The first plot fails, as does the second one.
Simoun, carrying his huge stash of jewelry, flees to the mountain retreat of Padre Florentino, who
absolves the dying man from his sins.  The novel ends as the priest throws Simoun's treasures into the
sea with the hope that they could be retrieved and used only for the good of the people.
Characters in El Filibusterismo

 Simoun
Crisóstomo Ibarra reincarnated as a wealthy jeweler, bent on starting a revolution
 Basilio
Sisa's son, now an aspiring doctor
 Isagani
poet and Basilio's best friend; portrayed as emotional and reactive; Paulita Gómez' boyfriend
before being dumped for fellow student Juanito Peláez
 Kabesang Tales
Telesforo Juan de Dios, a former cabeza de barangay (barangay head) who resurfaced as the
feared Luzón bandit Matanglawin (Tagalog for Hawkeye); his father, Old Man Selo, dies
eventually after his own son Tano, who became a guardia civil, unknowingly shoots his
grandfather in an encounter
 Don Custodio
Custodio de Salazar y Sánchez de Monteredondo, a famous journalist who was asked by the
students about his decision for the Academia de Castellano. In reality, he is quite an ordinary
fellow who married a rich woman in order to be a member of Manila's high society
 Paulita Gómez
the girlfriend of Isagani and the niece of Doña Victorina, the old India who passes herself off as a
Peninsular, who is the wife of the quack doctor Tiburcio de Espadaña. In the end, she and Juanito
Peláez are wed, and she dumps Isagani, believing that she will have no future if she marries him
 Father Florentino
Isagani's godfather, and a secular priest; was engaged to be married, but chose the priesthood
instead, the story hinting at the ambivalence of his decision as he chooses an assignment to a
remote place, living in solitude near the sea.
 Huli
Juliana de Dios, the girlfriend of Basilio, and the youngest daughter of Kabesang Tales
 Ben Zayb
Abraham Ibañez is his real name. He is a journalist who thinks he is the only one thinking in the
Philippines
 Placido Penitente
a student of the University of Santo Tomas who is always miserable, and therefore controls his
temper
 Quiroga
 a Chinese businessman who dreamt of being a consul of a Consulate of China in the Philippines.
He hid Simoun's weapons inside his house
 Old Man Selo
father of Kabesang Tales. He raised the sick and young Basilio after his mother Sisa had died
 Father Fernandez
the priest-friend of Isagani. He promised to Isagani that he and the other priests will give in to the
students' demands
 Attorney Pasta
one of the great lawyers of mid-Hispanic Manila
 Captain-General
(no specific name) the powerful highest official of the Philippines
 Padre Sibyla
Hernando de la Sibyla, a Filipino friar and now vice-rector of the University of Santo Tomas
(U.S.T.)