Discussion Practice Questions

Buhay at Mga Sinulat ni Rizal – Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Manila

UNIT 3 – Lesson 4: Assessment

1. Who are the personages mentioned and what is their relationship with each
other?

Main personage on the case of Hacienda de Calamba were the tenants. August of
year 1889, after they boycotted the May canon collection, the hacienda formally asked
the court for their eviction. Almost sixty tenants were sued by Friar Gabriel Fernandez,
administrator of the said hacienda, before the Court of the Justice of the Peace. The list
of receivables shown to the governor general during his November visit at the hacienda
appeared that the tenants paid nothing. This alarmed the governor general for it displayed
civil disobedience.

Three things worried the Calambeños about the case. First, Don Procopio
Pabalan, Justice of the Peace, confessed that he cannot go against the interests of the
Dominican fathers, because he was a servant of the former syndic. Then, majority of the
tenants have no money to defray the costs of litigation. Lastly, word spread that if the
tenants lose the case, they will be expelled, and their warehouses, sugar mills and
everything built on the ground will be demolished. Moreover, the case of Don Francisco
Rizal y Mercado, father of Jose Rizal, was a representative case.

The petitioner was represented by Don Vicente Ilagan who, upon request of the
respondents, presented his power of attorney to prosecute the case. The respondents,
on the other hand, were represented by Don Paciano Rizal y Mercado, a law undergrad
but able solicitor. Preliminary hearings were made on 26 November 1889 and 6
December 1889. The trial was conducted on 7 January 1890 where both parties asserted
and proved their respective claims. Petitioners claimed that the contract of tenancy held
by the respondents had already expired and that respondents failed to pay a part of the
annual rent amounting to 472.21 pesos due on the year 1889 (Donesa, 2012).
2. Why was this document written? Provide evidence from the document.

The Estate of the reverend Father Dominicans is not situated in the locality of
Calamba but in fact constitutes the whole town, the Reverend Fathers believing that the
boundaries set up by them for the last years should be the limits of the Estate. On the
north, the part of the lake until the Island of Calamba; on the south, until the Bigo Bridge,
Olango, Santol, Mount Sungay. On the east, until Los Banos in Bacong, comprising
almost one half of Mount Maquiling; on the west, until Cabuyao and Santa Rosa, having
an area of at least 700 quinones (a quinon is 2.8 hectares) of clean cleared lands. These
informations were stated on the undersigned Gobernadorcillo and principales of the town
in compliance with the preceding order.

Hence, if by products are to be understood everything that the land produces -

have increased for the Estate sand diminished remarkably for the tenants, not only in
former years but also recently, in the last three, as the enclosed account proves. Such a
statement needs to be explained. For instance, wild forests which are given to the tenants
for a low rent at the beginning, according as the tenants clear and clean them, invest large
capital in them, according as the fortune of the farmer becomes involved in them, the
contract is arbitrarily altered by the Estate, the rent rises enormously, there being a case
when 45 pesos became 900 in a few years through an annual force imposition.

From all the evidence mentioned, one reason why Jose Rizal has written the
document was because his family was one of the evictees of the Hacienda de Calamba,
Rizal himself was an eminent propagandist. His earnestness, personal discipline, and
determination to win reforms for the Philippines were admired not only by his colleagues
but also by liberal Spaniards. Thus, though helpless in a faraway land, he was not alone
in his struggle to help the Calambeños and his family seeking justice before the Supreme
Court in Madrid. With him were his co-propagandists who did not only espoused the
Calambeños’ cause but also used the incident as a propaganda battle cry to win reforms
for the Philippines.
3. What can you tell about life in the Hacienda de Calamba during the time the
document was written.

The injustices and hypocrisy deprived and brutalized the Calambeños. The
Philippines was struggling including its people. This is even the social condition, the life,
the beliefs, the hopes, and desires. Despite of these, Rizal helped the people unmask the
hypocrisy and ease their griefs because he never stops fighting for the independence of
the Philippines (Ello, n.d.). He has always been this patriotic to his beloved country.

The life during the time the document was written was in total chaos. The events
spurred a more passionate propaganda staged by the ilustrados in Spain. Since the
implementation of these decrees was defied, the friars then asked and were granted
assistance of the governor general which deployed troops to Calamba to effect mass
evictions. Hence, Dominicans were able to successfully fight for their rightful ownership
over the subject lands in the courts of first level. They were likewise successful in
obtaining eviction decrees.

Moreover, the agrarian dispute that occurred between 1887 and 1891 at the
Hacienda de San Juan Bautista in the province of Laguna was the loudest expression of
peasant discontent in this far Spanish colony. The hacienda included the territory of what
is now Calamba, and the dispute involved, among others, the respected Rizal family. On
the other hand, the Hacienda, for many years, yielded more than enough for the tenants.
The tenants were able to erect houses of strong materials and their children were able to
study in elite schools in Manila and Europe (Donesa, 2012).

4. What are the complaints of the tenants? Enumerate at least three.

Tenants complain because products increase only to the benefit of the Estate. For
instance, wild forests which are given to the tenants for a low rent at the beginning,
according as the tenants clear and clean them, invest large capital in them, according as
the fortune of the farmer becomes involved in them, the contract is arbitrarily altered by
the Estate, the rent rises enormously, there being a case when 45 pesos became 900 in
a few years through an annual force imposition. Some lands pay twice for two harvests
of rice, where some bamboo groves are found, the farmer pays for the land and for each
bamboo grove besides, regardless of whether it is useless or it has been felled. In the
lands where huts have been erected for the workers, one must pay for the lots and the
huts besides.

Moreover, the rent of the town lots where houses or warehouses are erected
increases every time an official or servant of the Estate measures them. There seems to
exist either a supernatural power that invisibly extends the land or a natural power that
shortens the measure of the official, who after all is neither an expert nor a surveyor,
though he is very venal indeed. Without this trick, the rent is also raised when the tenant
makes improvement in the lot as when he replaces the bamboo fence with a stone one,
or builds a wooden house, for comfort and public embellishment; therefore, many do not
improve their dwelling even if they have the means to do so. The rent is raised by 16
duros (duro is a silver dollar) that was formerly 100, though it had not been enlarged nor
has any improvement been made in it.

As a result, the products for the tenants have decreased considerably. Despite
continuous labor, not only before but also the last three years as proven by the large
number of ruined farmers which are indebted and dispossessed of their property. By the
discouragement of the farmers on seeing that the lands they have so laboriously
cultivated and cleared are taken away arbitrarily for futile reasons or without reason, on
seeing that they cannot trust the Estate itself. At times what the lay-friar manager orders,
such as, making the farmer buy machinery, make improvements, and compelling him to
make excessive expenditures, are later destroyed by his successor, who make the farmer
pay for the expenses of demolition.

5. What was the reaction to the complaint?

As the report was done in the Tribunal and was signed besides by three officials
of the Estate itself, it reached the ears of the lay-friar manager of the Reverend Dominican
Fathers. He took it ill, and he threatened several tenants with raising their rentals. If,
because of this report, the Administration of Taxes should collect from the Estate the ten
percent real estate taxes corresponding to the number of tributes. He said to the others
that he would like to make the gobernadorcillo responsible for any pillage or theft that the
Estate might henceforth suffer, when in this sense he cannot in any way complain against
the people in the least.

Estate officials proclaim that for having told the truth in this report, the people would
drag chains because the corporation is rich and proposes to spend ten thousand pesos
to win the suit. In short, they have shown a copy of a letter of the Treasury which
threatened the tenants who have testified according to facts and not according to the wish
of the Estate. Such threats, inexplicable and suspicious though they might appear, have
not disturbed the peace of this town, being confident in the justice of its cause and the
rectitude of the government that has provoked the conflict upon asking them to tell the
truth. But lately it seems that they want to carry out these threats, for they have tried to
deprive some tenants of their lands, to suspend their work through force and the like.

In the face of those unreasonable pretensions, alarmed, the people appeal to the
Government asking for its prompt and direct intervention to prevent incalculable evils. In
this impossibility of living henceforth in peace with the Estate, the people, placed in the
harsh alternative of lying to the Government in order not to die or to be deprived of their
land for complying worthily with their duty, in this very anomalous situation, they ask the
separation of its interests, selling to them or transferring these lands to them who have
made them tillable and have invested in them capital, labor, and toil. This measure is
demanded not only by the good name of the Government. The prestige and dignity of the
rulers, and the good relations between them and their subjects but also it is based on the
given considerations.

6. What were the final demands of the petition?

The administrator of the Hacienda de Calamba, for and on behalf of the

Corporacion de Padres Dominicos de Filipinas (hereinafter, Corporacion) filed a formal
petition to declare the estate rented and held by one Don Francisco Rizal y Mercado and
his family vacant. The petition further prayed that the tenants be evicted from said land
and tenements. The petition was filed before the Municipal Court of Calamba, Province
of Laguna presided by Don Procopio Pabalan, Justice of the Peace. Petitioners claimed
that the contract of tenancy held by the respondents had already expired and that
respondents failed to pay a part of the annual rent amounting to 472.21 pesos due on the
year 1889. And since the petition was founded on the ownership of the leased lands by
the corporation, respondents argued, said ownership must be proven by presenting the
land title.

As per the petitioners, the town of Calamba has given proofs of having been and
is one of the most industrious and farming towns of the province. Proof of this is the
cleared forests; the land on the mountain sloped cleaned in a few years, the machinery
and the mills turned by animals and its extensive rice-fields. “If, despite all this, agriculture
declines, the people are impoverished, the capitalist is ruined, and education is backward
(before there were more than 20 men students and three girls, now there are no more
than three of the first and one of the latter); should we look for the cause only in the fall
of the price of sugar when other sugar towns do not experience the poverty in which we
are found? Several farmers abandon the Estate and go elsewhere and if they are not
followed by all, it is because the others lack capital, or they are indebted and have
invested much in the lands of the Estate,” they added.

On 8 January 1888, the petitioners also stated that an imminent evil threatens the
poor town if the government does not stop it. The people who place their cause in its
hands hope either for a serious, formal contract between the Estate and the former. If it
is the otherwise, the sale of these lands to those who have made them tillable under
government auspices and according to a standard that may be fixed. For all the
pretensions and titles, the Estate can claim cannot be more valid before the tribunal of
the nation than the remonstrances of an entire people, always submissive indeed, but
already tired of so many injustices.

References:

Donesa, R. J. (2012, June 23). The Hacienda de Calamba. Blogspot. Retrieved March
11, 2022, from http://haciendadecalamba.blogspot.com/2012/06/chapter-iv-cases-of-
eviction.html

Donesa, R. J. (2012b, June 23). The Hacienda de Calamba Agrarian Problem (1887–
1891): A Historical Assessment. Blogspot. Retrieved March 16, 2022, from
http://haciendadecalamba.blogspot.com/2012/06/hacienda-de-calamba-agrarian-
problem.html

Ello, K. J. (n.d.). Rizal. PDF Coffee. Retrieved March 16, 2022, from
https://pdfcoffee.com/riza-l-pdf-free.html