Module 2 The Philippines in The 19th Century Within Rizals
Module 2 The Philippines in The 19th Century Within Rizals
2020-21 Module Packet for General Educa on -2 (Readings in Philippines History), College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Educa on, University
of San Agus n Iloilo City, Philippines.
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https://www.coursehero.com/file/40563744/
Module-in-GEC-9-Part-1docx/
Watch
15 min.
1. The History of the Philippines (https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-I4Bay5SXo)
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This module deals with vital economic, social, cultural, and political developments of
the 19th century that played crucial roles in shaping Rizal as a Filipino and in influencing
his nationalist belief.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
a. analyze the various social, political, economic and cultural changes that occurred in
the nineteenth century;
b. critically analyze how these changes affected and influenced Jose Rizal and the
development of national consciousness; and
Formative Assessment
Similarities and Differences Picture Sort Activity (Interactive Boom Card Activity).
The life of a person is shaped by the society that he or she is a part of. Thus, in studying
and understanding the life of Jose Rizal, it is necessary to look into the social context where
he was situated in- the 19th century Philippines.
2020-21 Module Packet for General Educa on -2 (Readings in Philippines History), College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Educa on, University
of San Agus n Iloilo City, Philippines.
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Jose Rizal was born in the 19th century. During this time, Spain’s glory and rule as a colonial
power was already waning. The natives of the Philippines were slowly realizing the need to
awaken their national consciousness. This was sparked by the movements against the
oppression of the Spanish colonizers.
The events around the world also contributed to the formation of the national consciousness
led by Rizal and other noted ilustrados during the 19th century. Different events contributed
to how Rizal’s own national consciousness was shaped. The Industrial Revolution had its
effect on the Philippine economy.
Political
Structure
Spanish Government Hierarchy in the Philippines
Spain governed the Philippines through the Ministro de Ultramar established in Madrid in
1863. This body helped the Spanish monarchs manage the affairs of the colonies and
governed the Philippines through centralized machinery exercising executive, legislative,
judicial, and religious powers. The Governor General appointed by the Spanish monarch
headed the central administration in Manila. He was the Kin’s representative in all state and
religious matters and as such exercised extensive powers. He is assisted by the Lieutenant
Governor and advisory bodies. The provincial governments is led by alcaldes mayors; and
the city governments called Cabildo or Ayuntamiento administered by two alcaldes en
ordinario (mayor and vice mayor). The gobernadorcillo was the chief execuitive and judge
of the town. He was elected every year by a board composed of members of the town
principalia, a body of citizens of high standing, usually made up of incumbent or ex-cabeza
de barangay. The smallest uniy of a government was the arangay or barrio.
The guardia civil and cuadrilleros performed police duties. The alferes headed the corps of
guardia civil in each town. The sytem of court was centralized in the mid-19th century. It
2020-21 Module Packet for General Educa on -2 (Readings in Philippines History), College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Educa on, University
of San Agus n Iloilo City, Philippines.
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was a pyramidical organization headed by the Royal Audiencia, the highest judicial body
(the highest court). This serve also as the high council to which important government
affairs were referred.
The Spaniards ruled the Filipinos in the 19th century. The Filipinos became the Spaniard’s
slave. The Spaniards claimed their taxes and they worked under the power of the
Spaniards. The sources of abuses in the Administrative System: (1) Appointment of officials
with inferior qualifications, without dedication of duty and moral strength to resist
corruption for material advancement; (2) complicating functions and union of the church
and the state; (3) there was no effective effort to check these abuses and the people
despaired knowing there would be no hope for change; (4) participation of the natives were
confined to lowest offices in the administrative hierarchy; (5) arbitrary collection of taxes;
(6) the judicial system was not properly implemented because many of the judges are
corrupt and incompetent, and all are Spaniards; and (7) the natural and constitutional rights
and liberties of the indios were curtailed.
The principal officials of the administrative system obtained their position by royal
appointment, while the rest of the position were either filled by the Governor General
himself or were sold to the highest bidder.
Term of office
The term of office or term in office defined as the length of time a person (usually a
politician) serves in a particular office is dependent on the whims of the King of the country.
They were corrupt during the 19th century and the Alcaldias/Alcalde is considered as the
most corrupt over the other corrupts. The Alcaldias/Alcalde includes the administrators,
judges and military commandants. They usually have P25/mo liberal allowances and
privileges to take a certain percentage of money from the total amount of taxes. They
bought the goods from the natives at a cheap rate and sold these goods back to the natives
in times of scarcity at much higher price. There were also monopoly trades or business
practices known as indulto para comerciar. The government position was much coveted
because of the lucrative monetary gains for the officials.
2020-21 Module Packet for General Educa on -2 (Readings in Philippines History), College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Educa on, University
of San Agus n Iloilo City, Philippines.
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Ter Definiti
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Indio person of pure Austronesian (Malay/Malayo-Polynesian) ancestry
2020-21 Module Packet for General Educa on -2 (Readings in Philippines History), College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Educa on, University
of San Agus n Iloilo City, Philippines.
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Americano person of Criollo, Castizo, or Mestizo descent born in Spanish America ("from
theAmericas")
Peninsulares person of pure Spanish descent born in Spain ("from the peninsula")
A Society will always give way to the existence of social classes. What we want is equality
among people, however, reality dictates that as long as social structures thrives, inequality
continues. Looking at the bright side, we see a vast diversity of opportunities to co-exist in
peace and order. Laws must make sure of that. Meanwhile, let’s find out the kind of social
structure in the 19th century Philippines. The history of racial mixture in the Philippines
occurred mostly during the Spanish colonial period from the 16th to 19th century.
The Filipinos in the 19th century had suffered from feudalistic and master slave relationship
by the Spaniards. Their social structure is ranked into three groups:
Highest class
The people that belong in this class include the Spaniards, peninsulares, insulares and the
friars. They have the power and authority to rule over the Filipinos. They enjoyed their
positions and do what they want.
The Peninsulares (Spaniards who were born in Spain). They held the most important
government jobs, and made up the smallest number of the population. The Friars
are members of any of certain religious orders of men, especially the four
mendicant orders (Augustinians, Carmelites, Dominicans, and Franciscans).
Middle Class
The people that belongs into this class includes the
natives, mestizos and the criollos. The Mestizos are the
Filipinos of mixed indigenous Filipino or European or
Chinese ancestry.
2020-21 Module Packet for General Educa on -2 (Readings in Philippines History), College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Educa on, University
of San Agus n Iloilo City, Philippines.
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Lowest class
This class includes the Filipinos only. The Indios, the natives are the poor people
ruled by the Spaniards.
The Spanish had initially hoped to turn the Philippines into another Spice Island but
they soon found that the island’s soil, terrain and climate were not suited for
growing spices. Mining opportunities did not present themselves as they did in Latin
America. Trade was stubbled upon sort of by accident.
In 1571, the Spaniards rescued some Chinese sailors whose sampans sunk off the
Philippines and helped them get back to China. The next year the grateful Chinese
returned the favor in the form of a trading vessel filled with gifts of silk, porcelain
and other Chinese goods. This ship was sent eastward and arrived in Mexico in
1573, and its cargo ultimately made it to Spain, where people liked what they saw
and a demand for Chinese goods was born.
2020-21 Module Packet for General Educa on -2 (Readings in Philippines History), College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Educa on, University
of San Agus n Iloilo City, Philippines.
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Manila became the center of a major trade network that funneled goods from
Southeast Asia, Japan, Indonesia, India and especially China to Europe. Spain
developed and maintained a monopoly over the transpacific trade route. The trade
became the primary reason for the existence of the Philippines. Development of the
archipelago was largely neglected.
The most important source of goods for the Spanish in the Philippines was China.
For a while the Spaniards maintained a trading post on China but for the most part
they relied on Chinese intermediaries to bring goods to Manila. About 30 or 40
junks, laden with goods arrived in the Philippines from China a year. Over time the
Chinese not only dominated trade but also dominated many of the trades, such as
shipbuilding, on which trade was based, and outnumbered the Spanish.
The Chinese were very enterprising, sometimes too much for their own good. A
Spanish trader named Diego de Bobadilla wrote: “A Spaniard who lost his nose
through a certain illness, sent for a Chinaman to make him one wood, in order to
hide the deformity. The workman made him so good a nose that the Spaniard in
great delight paid him munificently, giving him 20 escudos. The Chinaman, attracted
by the ease with which he made that gain, loaded a fine boatload of wooden noses
the next year and returned to Manila.”
The Manila Galleons were also known in New Spain as "La Nao de la China" (The
China Ship) on their return voyage from the Philippines because they carried mostly
Chinese goods, shipped from Manila.
2020-21 Module Packet for General Educa on -2 (Readings in Philippines History), College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Educa on, University
of San Agus n Iloilo City, Philippines.
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The Manila Galleon trade route was inaugurated in 1565 after Augustinian friar and
navigator Andrés de Urdaneta discovered the tornaviaje or return route from the
Philippines to Mexico. The first successful round trips were made by Urdaneta and by
Alonso de Arellano that year. The route lasted until 1815 when the Mexican War of
Independence broke out. The Manila galleons sailed the Pacific for 250 years, bringing
to the Americas cargoes of luxury goods such as spices and porcelain, in exchange for
silver. The route also created a cultural exchange that shaped the identities and culture
of the countries involved.
Sugarcane had been produced and refined using crude methods at least as early as the
beginning of the eighteenth century. The opening of the port of Iloilo on Panay in
1855 and the encouragement of the British vice consul in that town, Nicholas Loney
(described by a modern writer as "a one-man whirlwind of entrepreneurial and
technical innovation"), led to the development of the previously unsettled island of
Negros as the center of the Philippine sugar industry, exporting its product to Britain
and Australia. Loney arranged liberal credit terms for local landlords to invest in the
new crop, encouraged the migration of labor from the neighboring and overpopulated
island of Panay, and introduced stream-driven sugar refineries that replaced the
traditional method of producing low-grade sugar in loaves. The population of Negros
tripled. Local "sugar barons"--- the owners of the sugar plantations--became a potent
political and economic force by the end of the nineteenth century.
The country was opened to foreign trade at the end of the 18th century which resulted
in the rapid rise of foreign firms in Manila. This stimulated agricultural production and
export of sugar, rice hemp and tobacco. The number of families which prospered from
foreign commerce and trade were able to send their sons for an education in Europe.
Filipinos who were educated abroad were able to absorb the intellectual development
2020-21 Module Packet for General Educa on -2 (Readings in Philippines History), College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Educa on, University
of San Agus n Iloilo City, Philippines.
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in Europe.
The pre-Spanish system of education underwent major changes during the Spanish
colonization. The tribal tutors were replaced by the Spanish Missionaries. Education was
religion-oriented. It was for the elite, especially in the early years of Spanish colonization.
Access to education by the Filipinos was later liberalized through the enactment of the
Educational Decree of 1863 which provided for the establishment of at least one primary
school for boys and girls in each town under the responsibility of the municipal government;
and the establishment of a normal school for male teachers under the supervision of the
Jesuits. Primary instruction was free and the teaching of Spanish was compulsory. Education
during that period was inadequate, suppressed, and controlled. There are several criticisms
received in the educational system of the Philippines in the late 19th century. Below are the
following:
The power of religious orders remained one of the great constants, over the centuries, of
Spanish colonial rule. The friars of the Augustinian, Dominican, and Franciscan orders
conducted many of the executive and control functions of government on the local level.
They were responsible for education and health measures. These missionaries emphasized
2020-21 Module Packet for General Educa on -2 (Readings in Philippines History), College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Educa on, University
of San Agus n Iloilo City, Philippines.
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the teachings of the Catholic religion starting from the primary level to the tertiary level of
education: Obsolete teaching methods and their methods are outdated.
Limited curriculum
The students in the primary level were taught the Christian Doctrines, the reading of
Spanish books and a little of the natives’ language. Science and Mathematics were not very
much taught to the students even in the universities. Aside from the Christian Doctrines
taught, Latin was also taught to the students instead of Spanish.
Poor classroom facilities are evident. In addition, there is absence of teaching materials.
Primary education was neglected and absence of academic freedom is exercised.
The absence of academic freedom in Spain’s educational system was extended to the
schools that Spaniards established in the Philippines. Learning in every level was largely by
rote. Students memorized and repeated the contents of book which they did not
understand. In most cases knowledge was measured in the ability of the students to
memorize, largely hampering intellectual progress.
In entirety, education during the Spanish regime was privileged only to Spanish students.
The supposed Philippine education was only a means to remain in the Philippines as
colonizers. For this reason, the Filipinos became followers to the Spaniards in their own
country. Even auspicious Filipinos became cronies, to the extent that even their life styles
were patterned from the Spaniards.
The friars controlled the educational system during the Spanish times. They owned different
schools, ranging from the primary level to the tertiary levels of education. The missionaries
took charge in teaching, controlling and maintaining the rules and regulations imposed to
the students.
2020-21 Module Packet for General Educa on -2 (Readings in Philippines History), College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Educa on, University
of San Agus n Iloilo City, Philippines.
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This section discusses the historical context of the birth of Filipino national consciousness. It
also provides a discussion on the events that have shaped or influenced it and its
repercussion to the Spanish colonial regime and to the Filipinos
Religious movements such as the cofradía and colorums expressed an inchoate desire of
their members to be rid of the Spanish and discover a promised land that would reflect
memories of a world that existed before the coming of the colonists. Nationalism in the
modern sense developed in an urban context, in Manila and the major towns and, perhaps
more significantly, in Spain and other parts of Europe where Filipino students and exiles
were exposed to modern intellectual currents. Folk religion, for all its power, did not form
the basis of the national ideology. Yet the millenarian tradition of rural revolt would merge
with the Europeanized nationalism of the ilustrados to spur a truly national resistance, first
against Spain in 1896 and then against the Americans in 1899.
Following the Spanish revolution of September 1868, in which the unpopular Queen Isabella
II was deposed, the new government appointed General Carlos María de la Torre governor
of the Philippines. An outspoken liberal, de la Torre extended to Filipinos the promise of
reform. In a break with established practice, he fraternized with Filipinos, invited them to
the governor's palace, and rode with them in official processions. Filipinos in turn welcomed
de la Torre warmly, held a "liberty parade" to celebrate the adoption of the liberal 1869
Spanish constitution, and established a reform committee to lay the foundations of a new
order. Prominent among de la Torre's supporters in Manila were professional and business
leaders of the ilustrado community and, perhaps more significantly, Filipino secular priests.
These included the learned Father José Burgos, a Spanish mestizo, who had published a
pamphlet, Manifesto to the Noble Spanish Nation, criticizing those racially prejudiced
Spanish who barred Filipinos from the priesthood and government service. For a brief time,
the tide seemed to be turning against the friars. In December 1870, the archbishop of
Manila, Gregorio Melitón Martínez, wrote to the Spanish regent advocating secularization
and warning that discrimination against Filipino priests would encourage anti-Spanish
sentiments.
According to historian Austin Coates, "1869 and 1870 stand distinct and apart from the
whole of the rest of the period as a time when for a brief moment a real breath of the
nineteenth century penetrated the Islands, which till then had been living largely in the
seventeenth century." De la Torre abolished censorship of newspapers and legalized the
holding of public demonstrations, free speech, and assembly--rights guaranteed in the 1869
Spanish constitution. Students at the University of Santo Tomás formed an association, the
Liberal Young Students (Juventud Escolar Liberal), and in October 1869 held demonstrations
protesting the abuses of the university's Dominican friar administrators and teachers.
The liberal period came to an abrupt end in 1871. Friars and other conservative Spaniards in
Manila managed to engineer the replacement of de la Torre by a more conservative figure,
2020-21 Module Packet for General Educa on -2 (Readings in Philippines History), College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Educa on, University
of San Agus n Iloilo City, Philippines.
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Rafael de Izquierdo, who, following his installation as governor in April 1871, reimposed the
severities of the old regime. He is alleged to have boasted that he came to the islands "with
a crucifix in one
hand and a sword in the other." Liberal laws were rescinded, and the enthusiastic Filipino
supporters of de la Torre came under political suspicion.
The heaviest blow came after a mutiny on January 20, 1872, when about 200 Filipino
dockworkers and soldiers in Cavite Province revolted and killed their Spanish officers,
apparently in the mistaken belief that a general uprising was in progress among Filipino
regiments in Manila. Grievances connected with the government's revocation of old
privileges--particularly exemption from tribute service--inspired the revolt, which was put
down by January 22. The authorities, however, began weaving a tale of conspiracy between
the mutineers and prominent members of the Filipino community, particularly diocesan
priests. The governor asserted that a secret junta, with connections to liberal parties in
Spain, existed in Manila and was ready to overthrow Spanish rule.
A military court sentenced to death the three Filipino priests most closely associated with
liberal reformism--José Burgos, Mariano Gomez, and Jacinto Zamora--and exiled a number
of prominent ilustrados to Guam and the Marianas (then Spanish possessions), from which
they escaped to carry on the struggle from Hong Kong, Singapore, and Europe. Archbishop
Martínez requested that the governor commute the priests' death sentences and refused the
governor's order that they be defrocked. Martínez's efforts were in vain, however, and on
February 17, 1872, they were publicly executed with the brutal garrote on the Luneta (the
broad park facing Manila Bay). The archbishop ordered that Manila church bells toll a
requiem for the victims, a requiem that turned out to be for Spanish rule in the islands as
well. Although a policy of accommodation would have won the loyalty of peasant and
ilustrado alike, intransigence--particularly on the question of the secularization of the
clergy--led increasing numbers of Filipinos to question the need for a continuing association
with Spain.
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ASSESSMENT
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Instruction: Identify at least five events that took place in the mid-19th century in the
Philippines that have influenced Jose Rizal in the formation of his ideals, mission and
aspiration for the Philippines. Describe these events through pictures. Present this in the
class.
REFERENCES
Romero, Sta. Romana, & Santos (2003). Rizal & the Development of National
Consciousness. JMC Press. Quezon City, Philippines
Schumacher, J. (1991). “Rizal in the Context of the 19ᵗh Century Philippines” in The Making
of a Nation: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Filipino Nationalism.
Quezon City: ADMU Press, 1991.
The End of the Galleon Trade. In Kasaysayan Series Vol4.4: Life in Colony, 7-25, Hongkong :
Asia Publishing Ltd.
https://www.coursehero.com/file/40563744/Module-in-GEC-9-Part-1docx/
2020-21 Module Packet for General Educa on -2 (Readings in Philippines History), College of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Educa on, University
of San Agus n Iloilo City, Philippines.
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