ESSAY of Jose Rizal: 2. Recourse to impoverishment also failed.
PHILIPPINES A Why?
CENTURY HENCE
in Spanish “FILIPINAS DENTRO DE CIEN AÑOS”
FILIPINAS DENTRO DE CIEN AÑOS
• This essay, published in La Solidaridad
starts by analyzing the various causes of the
miseries suffered by the Filipino people.
• Dr. Jose Rizal wrote this to forecast the
future of the country within a hundred years.
• Rizal had a prediction, he tried to respond to
the ff. questions:
o What would be the situation of the
Philippines within 100 years?
o Would the Philippines remain a colony
of Spain?
o Would it become independent?
o Would it be a colony of another
nation?
THE PHILIPPINES A CENTURY HENCE
✓ This essay starts with an analysis of the
causes of the miseries of the people.
✓ One of the causes identified in this article was
Spain’s implementation of her military
policies.
✓ A second cause of the misery was the
deterioration and disappearance of Filipino
indigenous culture.
✓ The third cause of this miserable condition of
the people was their passivity and
submissiveness to the Spanish colonizers.
✓ What then had made the people realize their
sad situation under Spanish rule?
✓ Could Spain prevent the progress of the
Philippines? If Spain decides to do so, what
could she possibly do:
o Keep the people ignorant?
o Keep the people in poverty?
o Exterminate the Filipino race?
1. Keeping the people ignorant failed. Why?
❖ Awakening of national consciousness
among the people united them.
❖ With the spread of enlightenment, the
ilustrado class arose.
❖ Keeping the people in poverty created
in the Filipinos the desire to change
things.
3. Extermination of the people as an alternative
to hindering progress was an impossibility
according to Rizal. Why?
❖ The people had survived in spite of the
wars they had engaged in and the
epidemics that had plagued society.
4. Can the divide et impera or divide and rule
policy still work to foster enmity between and
among the natives?
❖ To Rizal, this would no longer be effective
owing to the ease of movement in the
archipelago brought about by improved
means of transportation.
➢ Therefore, Spain has no way of blocking the
reforms and progress of the Philippines.
• Rizal’s essay centered on the reforms and
political changes needed for the Philippines to
remain under Spanish rule. Nevertheless, he
stressed that reforms have to be initiated by
the government for them to be peaceful and
effective.
• These reforms were the following:
o Freedom of press in the country;
o Representation of the Filipinos in the
Spanish Cortes;
o Granting of Spanish citizenship to the
people;
o Filling of government positions through
competitive examinations;
o And reforms in commerce, agriculture
and education; and
o Greater security for the individual and
other reforms.
• Which colonizing power will replace Spain?
Will it be a European power or an Asian
power?
o If Spain will not be replaced either by a
European or an Asian power, which
country then will be interested in what
Spain has to give up? To Rizal, this
country is none other than the United
States of America. What Rizal
envisioned in this essay came true.
The American entered the Philippines
and wrestled from Spain the control of
the Philippines.