Christian Jay M. Mendinueta Prof. N.

Cabanilla

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Assessment

Instruction: Discuss the following items thoroughly. Write the question before each answer. Each answer

should contain at least three (3) paragraphs of not less than four (4) sentences each. You may write your

answers in Filipino. Do not forget to write your full name in the upper left corner of the paper and your

course, year and section below it while the name of your professors should be indicated in the upper right.

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

2. Why was this document written? Provide evidences from the document.

3. What can you tell about life in the Hacienda de Calamba during the time the document was written?

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

5. What was the reaction to the complaint?

6. What were the final demands of the petition?

Answer

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

The petition of the Town of Calamba was written to document the pleas of tenant, farmers,

principales. As the residents fight for the land, there were multiple personages involved. First

personage that was mentioned in the document was the Gobernadordcillo of Calamba. He was

informed about the situation that the Dominican Friars have continuously increasing the rent of

tenants in the past three years. They were also accused of not paying real estate taxes to all their

lands.

The petition was signed by at least 50 residents from the Town of Calamba. These signees

include tenants and principales, who have joined together to fight against the situation that the

Dominican Friars have put them in. The Dominican Friars were unrightfully increasing the rent of

tenants without measuring the size of land or creating a ghost measurement, and when they decided

to upgrade even the little like a wooden fence into stone. And their produce has been getting low
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for the past years, where they are getting less payment each year. That’s when they started noticing

that the Dominican Friars are taking advantage of their work.

The document is full of complaints of how they are being treated by the Dominican Friars

and accusations of evading taxes. Multiple personages were involved, the tenants and principales

that joined forces to create multiple pleas wherein Jose Rizal wrote the petition. Dominican Friars

who were the residents of Calamba are fighting against. And Gobernadorcillo who was informed

about the event happening and the crime that the Dominican Friars are committing.

2. Why was this document written? Provide evidences from the document.

The document was written because of the continuous decline in produce and the expensive

rent that the residents are experiencing. The Dominican Friars are the ones with the authority and

control on these lands, where the residents are living and create a way to life. The document stated

that the residents were given wild forest lands at a very cheap rent, but every year as they clear and

clean the lands the rent keeps increasing, where the old 45 pesos became 900 in a span of a couple

year. But this was not the only problem, as their rent increases the income on their produce is

declining, making it harder for the residents make a living and support their families.

In the document, there was also a statement wherein whenever some from the Estate

measures the area it somehow increases. This is how the Dominican Friars is taking advantage of

the residents of Town of Calamba. It also states that, if a resident decides to make any improvement

in their land, the Dominican Friars will also increase their rent; so, some residents just no longer

want to improve their land in fear of getting their rent higher. And there are some instances where

the residents’ rents increases even if no one measured the land on the year prior.

Even with the increasing number of rents, the Estate never decided on making the town’s

welfare better, there was nothing beneficial for the public. Jose Rizal wrote the document in hopes

of changing the unrightful and greedy behavior of Dominican Friars, making and end to it. But the

Dominican Friars uses their power, so the petition was dismissed and the town’s people of Calamba
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were evicted from the province, including Rizal’s family. This shows the how unjust the system is

that can still be reflected up to date, where the greedy wins and the lower classes are left behind

continuing their suffering.

3. What can you tell about life in the Hacienda de Calamba during the time the document was

written?

Jose Rizal wrote the petition because of the townspeople’s complaints about the ongoing

treatment that they are experiencing form the Dominican Friars while renting lands in the Hacienda

de Calamba. Calamba townspeople are being exploited to do much and earn less, while the

Dominican Friars are getting most of the earnings. I could see families working hard, even doing

more work just to have something to feed, and children who are not getting the life that they deserve

because of this. It’s like a foreshadowing of how most of Filipinos will live until this day.

Resident farmers of the Hacienda de Calamba are being taken for granted, by doing more

work and being tricked into paying more rents. They continue their work each year, but each year

their rent also increases with little to no changes at all in anything. Normal tenants who live inside

the lands of Calamba are also charged in trying to improve the living spaces, so most of them just

decides not to upgrade even if they haves the means to do so. Most residents are indebted due to

the high rents and low income even though they have more produce.

Tenants must have had the worst experience of it all, because if they want to upgrade their

living their rents will automatically increase but even if they don’t upgrade, the rent on the lands

where their houses are built are always increasing every year. They are being tricked by the

Dominican Friars without them knowing what is happening to their income and their payments.

The farmers even increase their produce just so they would have more income to support their

financial needs, but this did not help them. They continue for years doing this until one day they

decided enough is enough, they will fight for what is right and Jose Rizal helped them file a petition

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

Residents of the Town of Calamba are experiencing unfair treatment wherein their rents

are consistently each year. The document mentioned that when the land was given to them, it started

low at 45 pesos but after three years it went up to 900 pesos. Farmers are paying twice, for two

harvest of rice and each bamboo groves beside the lands, even if it is useless, they are still obligated

to pay it. And if the workers build a hut, they will also pay a separate rent for the lot and the hut

that is built.

Residents who have lots where houses and warehouses are built are being tricked too.

Every time any official is sent to measure the lots, houses, or warehouses, their measurements are

somehow extended, which affects their rent. Without this trickery, the Dominican Friars have some

other ways of increasing the rents, if residents improve their living space like changing from

bamboo fences into a solid rock one, their rents will increase as well. And with the fear of losing

the lands where they plant rice, Farmers pay more than what they plant.

Farmers are also losing their land for obscure reasons or no reasons at all. These lands are

the ones they worked hard for, improving, clearing, and cultivating it. The friars also command

them to buy machinery, improve their land, and other expenses that will just be destroyed down the

line by them as well and make the Farmers pay for its demolition as well. These are some of the

complaints of the residents of the Town of Calamba to the Dominican Friars.

5. What was the reaction to the complaint?

The petition reached the lay-friar manager of the Reverend Dominican Fathers, in which

he did not took ill of it and threatened several tenants with raising their rents. Only if the

Administration of taxes hears about this report and decides to collect 10% real estate taxes

corresponding to the number of tributes. He also said to others that he will make the

Gobernadorcillo take all the responsibility when any theft happened in the Town of Calamba. The
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Estate officials proclaimed that the townspeople are dragging chains by telling this truth because

the corporation is ready to use their riches just to win this dispute.

They were serious about all their threats and acted on it immediately to induce fear in the

townspeople. They tried depriving some tenants of their lands. Also preventing them on working

and creating an income for their family. They did much worse to the townspeople after receiving

the petition.

They had a brutal reaction to the complaints so the residents will be afraid to fight. Instead

of changing the ways they run the town, they decided to frighten their people by thinking this would

stop them. They even make the residents live even harder than it already is with the high rents and

low incomes. They did everything not to change for the betterment of the town but to make it worse.

6. What were the final demands of the petition?

Being signed by more than 50 residents, in which tenants and principales are among them,

they had created a petition to demand the rights that they are entitled with. As the continued fight

on the petition happens, the final demands were created. The residents said that they were forced

into lying to the government because if they do not, their lands will be ceased of off them. The

demands include, the tenants ask for the interest between them and the Estate to be separated.

The farmers demanded that the sale of their land to be transferred under their names, as

they are the ones that cleared, cleaned, and improved the land. Without the farmers sacrifices, the

soil on the land will not be useful for anyone. They also were investing on machineries that help in

making the lands farmable. It is just fair to say that the farmers deserve to be given the land that

they worked hard and taken care on.

These are reasonable demands to be asked for, considering the hard times the Dominican

Friars have put them in. As per the document, the townspeople were suffering for years without

complaining and following what they believed were the rules. The residents continuously accepted

the treatment that they are experiencing and go through the rough times to make a living. They
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were afraid that their only means of living will be taken from them of they did not follow. All these

hardships but they did not ask for extravagant things in return, but the security that they will no

longer be treated badly, and the land that they work hard on for most of their life.