THE LIMITS OF

LIBERAL POLITICS
(1887-1891)
Through Noli Me Tangere, how
was Philippine society
depicted?
KULTURNATION
● “cultural nation”
● Is a nation connected and ties together by a common
culture more than anything else
INTRODUCTION
● Rizal developed deeper interest in his native language
○ Translated William Tell and several Hans Christian Andersen fairytales
● 14 months in Germany was crucial to rizal’s development
○ Shifted his focus from the friars to the Filipino society due to the impact
of German civic society
○ Realization of that its the non Spanish speaking townsfolk that he must
reach and whose values he must change
● June 3 - Aug 7 1887
○ Marseilles -> Manila -> Calamba
CALAMBA HACIENDA DISPUTE
● Dominican hacienda management VS tenants in Calamba
● Conflicts rose due to:
○ Continued unreasonable increase of rentals
○ Land confiscation
○ Other exploitative practices of the management
○ Which then caused financial hardships
● Rizal was asked to asked to conduct an investigation regarding the
controversial fertile lands owned by the Dominican friars in relation to
the agricultural problem that pitted the tenants
● Also encouraged the residents to make either case to the government,
agreed to write a report to the authorities
○ Advised the tenants to show the landlords their deeds in court
■ Couldn’t be done due to the difference of the land they claimed
to what the deeds allowed
● Convinced to report the full amount of rents paid
○ Lawsuit arose from the tenants’ refusal to sign new, one-sided
contracts
● Feb 1888 - Rizal was forced to leave the country due to his

involvement in the dispute and provocation among the religious

authorities by the Noli

○ Rumor of him being a (German) spy

○ Rizal’s parents received anonymous threats against his life

● Reaction to Noli (reason for annotated Sucesos ) + Calamba

controversy (gestation of Filibusterismo)

RIZAL AND ANTHROPOLOGY
● Annotations to Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las islas filipinas
○ Immersed in modernist anthropological discourse
○ Define and construct a Filipino national community
● Enthusiasm on anthropological knowledge
○ Reading various ethnographic works
○ Commenced fieldwork on observing peasants and workers
○ Got in trouble with authorities who accused of him spying
● Anthropology = potent weapon against Spanish racism
● Nation was not one of anthropoids as the Spanish claimed
● Conclusions:
○ Human races differ only in external habits and skeletal
construct races exist only for anthropologists; social strata for
the observer of the lives of people
○ Intelligence = long process of heredity and struggle, not
inherent
○ Poor estimation of non whites by Europeans comes from the
sort of nonwhites with whom they are most in contact
● Cultural nationalism
○ “the notion that the integrity of all peoples and historical epochs
has intrinsic value and must be respected“
○ “the stress on the influence of climactic and geographic factors,
and historical circumstances on the development of cultures”
● Influence of German scholarship + cultural nationalism
○ Convinced of the absolute necessity for a thorough understanding
of one’s history and culture as an integral part of the project of
national emancipation
SUCESOS DE LAS ISLAS FILIPINAS
Events in the Philippine Islands
● Published in 1609, Mexico
● 8 chapters
○ First 7 - account of the major events
and terms of the first 11 governor-
generals who had served in the PH
from 1565 to 1606
○ Last chapter - “An account of the
Philippine Islands”
● Ample descriptions of early Filipinos upon
the arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th
century
Antonio de Morga
● 1593-98, Lieutenant governor of the Philippines
● Highly educated lay Spaniard and high-ranking
colonial official
● 1889, British Museum
○ Rizal found a 1st edition copy, began
copying it by hand
● Annotated with the intention of creating a
critical work on the history of the PH
● No publisher in the end
○ Sept 1889 - self-published in Garnier
Hermanos in Paris
RIZAL AND ISABELO DE LOS REYES
Isabelo de los Reyes
● Journalist, businessman, labor leader,
politician
● Prominent member of the Philippine
Independent Church
● Known for his fieldwork and compilations
of folklore, history and customs, usually
based in Ilocos
● De los Reyes called into attention of Rizal’s political passion blinded
him in some instances
○ Existing discrepancy between some of Rizal’s annotations to
Morga vis-a-vis his research, explained by Rizal’s excessive
patriotism
● Rizal attacked de los Reyes’ criticism in an October issue of La
Solidaridad
○ Flaunts his familiarity with the primary sources in Philippine
history
○ Finding fault with de los Reyes using “reliable” sources
● A work of propaganda
● History used as a weapon against the Spaniards
○ Undermined the claims of the Spaniards as purveyors of civilization
○ Provided hs Filipino national community with a memory of a past
predating Spain’s creation of Las islas Filipinas
● Coherent memory of a glorious past = basis for a viable national
community
● Invested in narrating the truth of the filipino nation as a community of
language and culture, the more need to confront the questions of how
such a community could attain to active political self consciousness
Jose Rizal Isabelo De los Reyes
● Tagalog centered view of history ● Rooted in the local
● History must be used as ap ● Extend the boundaries of
purpose to see history from the
Filipino-ness to include the
indio POV
tribal minorities
● Vision of a compact vigorous and
● Contraposed a broader, more
homogenous body
● Represented Committed plural vision of nation
Scholarship ● Represent objective
● Historical bias in favor of the indio scholarship
VS ilustrado concern to project the
ideal/correct image of the indio
Contents
● To show that Filipinos have always been a distinct group of people who do not owe their
existence to the historical intervention of Spain
● The arrival of spain break in Philippine history - stunted pre-hispanic Philippine
civilization
○ Led to loss of ph autonomy and its distinct character
○ Reconstruction of the Philippine past as a means to forge national identity
● Need for an indio interpretation of history + recreating the glories of the lost pre
Hispanic Philippines
● Argument: pre-hispanic Filipinos had their own culture before 1521, were not saved from
barbarism and did not require civilization/new religion from Spain
○ Could have developed into something great
REASONS FOR ANNOTATING
(AMBETH OCAMPO)
● Morga’s work in the original Spanish edition was rare
○ Originally published in 1609, never reprinted in full until Rizal
published his annotations in 1889.
○ Less than 30 first edition copies
● Unlike other early Spanish chronicles by ecclesiastics, Morga was a civil
administrator
○ Provided a secular view of historical events
○ The only civil history of the Philippines written during the colonial
period
○ For over two centuries, the onlys secular general history of the
Philippines in print
 ○ Existing histories of the Philippines written during colonial period
were chapters in the large history of Spain, or of Spain in the
Philippines
● Relates to Rizal’s belief that a secular account was more credible
than by religious missionaries
○ More objective
■ More trustworthy than those written by religious missionaries
liberally sprinkled with tales of miracles and apparitions
 ○ More sympathetic towards the natives

■ In parts to the indios with the existence of biased or

downright racist accounts written by the friars in tone and

interpretation

● An eyewitness and a major actor who the narrated events, Morga’s

was fitting as he was an eyewitness to historical events that

occurred in the PH during the early Spanish colonization

● With the publication of the annotations, Rizal presented an outline of a
linear conception of history
○ Created a pre-Hispanic Golden Age
■ Glorification of the Filipino past
■ Indictment of the Spanish conquest and the work of the
missionaries
● Provided one of the base positions from which Filipino identity was to be built
○ Noli Me Tangere - 19th century; Rizal’s present
○ El Filibusterismo & The Philippines a Century Hence - the future
○ Annotations of Sucesos - the past
● In the context of the Propaganda Movement
○ Presenting a critical narrative of the country’s history = an
endeavor to create a sense of national
consciousness/identity that was anchored on a glorious
past.
● Rizal’s notes revealed early Filipino culture as rich and
flourishing.
○ May be considered an effort to assert Filipino identity
within an oppressive colonial framework
THE PHILIPPINES A CENTURY HENCE
THE PHILIPPINES A CENTURY HENCE
● Serialized in La Solidaridad in 4 installments
○ Sept 30 1889 to Jan 31 (Feb 1) 1890
● Attempts to answer the basic question:
○ Whether the PH will remain a Spanish colony
or not?
● Presents what the state of the country will be
like in the future
● “In order to read the destiny of a people, it is
necessary to open the book of its past.”
Will the Philippines remain a Spanish colony?
Will she become a province?
Or will she eventually separate to live
independently, with all the risks that this
entails?
● First part - illustrates that with the arrival of the Spaniards, the Filipinos
were forced to accept and subject themselves to a new and foreign
culture
● Continued oppression only resulted in the gradual awakening of the
Filipinos
● 19th century - economic conditions had become better
○ Points out that Filipinos remain brutalized and oppressed.
○ Inevitable advancement and moral progress of the Philippines
● 2 fundamental reforms:
○ freedom of the press and representation in the Cortes
● The advancement and moral progress of the Philippines is inevitable; it is fated
● The existence of a foreign body in another endowed with strength and activity is
against all natural and moral laws
● Only alternative to a violent separation was assimilation
○ Equitable laws and liberal reforms make Spaniards and Filipinos forget that
they belong to different races
○ If both people fuse into one homogenous social and political body
○ For the Philippines to remain Spanish, Filipinos should become Spaniards in
fact.
● To remain to be exploited -> Will eventually declare and secure her independence
ON THE INDOLENCE OF THE FILIPINOS
Father Damaso (about the Indio):
“As I believe in the Gospel! The Indian is so indolent!”

Young Man:
“Does this indolence actually, naturally, exist among the
natives or is there some truth in what a foreign traveler
says that with this indolence we excuse our own, as well as
our own backwardness and our colonial system?”
● Filipinos were commonly described as lazy
○ 17th-19th centuries, affirmed by foreigners who came to the country
○ Gemelli Careri, Italian traveler
■ “...their laziness makes them appear less ingenious; and they
are entirely addicted to it...”
○ Friar Gaspar de San Agustin (1870)
■ “their laziness is such that if they open a door, they never
close it; if they any implement for any use [...] they never
return it whence they took it, but drop it there at the foot of
the work”
● An attempt to rectify the view of Filipinos
being seen as incapable or inherently
lacking in abilities
● Serialized in 6 issues of La Solidaridad,
JUL 15-SEPT 15
● Addressed the accusations made by
foreign observers by establishing
through careful argumentation that
indolence was not an inherent trait
○ It was an effect of other conditions
imposed upon the Filipinos.
● Echoes the ideas of Gregorio Sanciano’s El
Progreso de las Filipinas (1881)
● Advocated for reforms in the government’s
taxation system
● Believed public revenues were necessary
for the overall development of the country
● Confronted the issue of the laziness of
Filipinos by attributing the trait to the poor
economic conditions that rendered the
natives lethargic and unmotivated.
● Addresses the issue of the Filipino’s laziness more directly
○ Employees who blame it to cover their own stupidity -> Friars
considering it necessary for the perpetuation of their pretension
○ Cannot be replaced by serious-minded and interested persons.
● Rizal does not deny the existence of indolence in the FIlipinos
○ “...because the warm climate demands of the individual quietness
and rest, just as cold climate stirs up men to work and it be active”
● Asserts that evil does not lie in the existence of indolence, but in the way
that it is perpetuated.
 ○ “...evil is found in the fact that indolence in the PH is an
exaggerated indolence, a snowball indolence, so to speak, a vice
which increases four- fold as time elapses.”
● The Filipinos weren’t always lazy
○ Precolonial past - industry, agriculture and commerce engaged by
early Filipinos
○ Pigafetta’s account
■ described the flourishing trade of goods and other articles.
■ Mining was also practices, evidenced by descriptions of
vessels and utensils made of pure gold.
● What brought change in the industry of the Filipinos?
○ Constant wars waged during the early stages of colonization Moro
piracies
○ Abuses committed by the Spaniards against the Filipinos
● Death and destruction took away the desire to work
● Previous circumstances made it possible for laziness to take root in the
Filipino’s constitution
○ Others ensured its maintenance
● The government did not provide the economic & moral incentives to
encourage industry
● Filipinos had their own flaws:
○ defect of education and lack of national sentiment seen in the
Filipinos only contributed to maintaining the Filipino’s
predisposition.
● All attempts to reform the Filipino would only be successful with
education and freedom
● Indolence in the Filipinos is not an inherent trait but a malady with
own causes and curses.
● Rizal’s general approach to reform was no longer the
granting of new status to new men (political
transformation)
○ Insisted that no reform was possible without education &
liberty
○ Any change of the political status would be pointless if not
based on the transformation of the habits of the people
● Presented with 2 options:
○ A highly civilizing policy pursued for the sake of the Filipinos;
will make them a people who will be the Government in their
heart and in their interests
○ A policy darily exploitative, tyrannical and selfish, without
hypocrisy or lies with a well thought out and studied system
for domination to make itself obeyed , for ruling to enrich and
enjoy itself
A RADICAL SHIFT
● Absence of national sentiment
○ Their role in bringing about the sad state of colonial governance
○ National spirit in its infancy
● 1886 -1890
○ moved away from Voltairean obsession with liberal rights
○ Tattered faith in the inevitability of progress and viability of the Filipino nation
● From a cultural to an ethical understanding of the nation
○ Before: the nation as a historical community of language & culture,
existence affirmed by European science
○ Disillusioned; increasing disappointment of expatriate colleagues,
personal tragedy and pain
THE BREAK WITH DEL PILAR
● Increasingly difficult relationship with some of his colleagues in the
Propaganda Movement
○ Openly critical to them
○ Many filipinos in madrid found him too harsh, demanding and
patronizing and lacking in moderation
● Lack of political savvy
● Tension developed between him and del Pilar
○ 1891 election same position of leadership
● Low opinion of the filipinos’ capacity for collective action
EL FILIBUSTERISMO
● 1891 - Fully convinced that Filipinos lacked the civic disposition
necessary for meaningful political action
○ Faith in reform had all but disappeared
○ Expressed his doubts about peaceful struggle
○ Willing to consider violent means, were the situation to become
hopeless
● Political project for assimilation was dead and peaceful reform was an
illusion
○ Yet Filipinos were not ready for revolutionary struggle and
independent life
EL FILIBUSTERISMO
● Doubts of progress of Filosofo Tasio -> Terrible words of Padre
Florentino
○ “a God who punished our lack of faith, our vices, the little regard
we have for dignity and civic virtues”
● Primary problem:
○ not the theocratic rule of the friars; but the absence of a viable
nation