Vocabulary:

Audencia - the Royal Audencia or the royal court of justice in Spain and its colonies
Ecclesistics - the religious missionaries
secular - having ideas and attitudes not determined by any religious bias

Introduction
During the Spanish colonial period, Philippines history was primarily written by the Spaniards. Early
Spanish historians took note of the native’s appearance and the way of life. Jose Rizal annotation of
Antonio Morga’s work, Sucesos de las Filipinas, was an attempt to redress this biased view of the Filipinos.
Although Rizal’s annotations have been “ largely disregarded.” His work has been credited as the first
Philippine history to be written from the viewpoint of a Pilipino.
Presentation

• Auidencia- the Royal Audencia or the royal court of justice in Spain and its colonies
• Ecclesiastics- the religious missionaries
• Secular- having ideas and attitudes not determined by any religious bias

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• Antonio de Morga Sánchez Garay was born in Seville. He graduated from the University of
Salamanca in 1574 and in 1578 received a doctorate in canon law. He taught briefly in Osuna,
and then returned to Salamanca to study civil law. In 1580 he joined the government service
as a lawyer. Among other positions in Spain, he held that of auditor general of the galleys. In
1582 he was serving as mayor of Baracaldo in Vizcaya when he first married, to Juana de
Briviesca de Munotones.
• In August 1593 he was notified that he had been selected as Lieutenant to the Governor-
General of the Philippines, starting what would become 43 years of colonial service. He
traveled accompanied by his family, 14 servants, three black slaves and his collection of
books. Following the route of that time, he sailed from Cadiz in February 1594, arriving in
Mexico in May. During the following period of preparation for the Pacific voyage, he heard two
important cases, and supervised the supplying of the two ships to be used. He also recruited
200 soldiers for the garrison in Manila. They departed Acapulco on March 22, 1595, reaching
Manila on June 11, 1595. He had the second-most powerful position in the colony.
• He first served under Governor-General Luis Pérez Dasmariñas, who was interim after his
father's death. Francisco Tello de Guzmán soon succeeded him, and Morga reported to him
during most of his time in the colony. In his account of the colonial Philippines published in
1609, Morga noted the miserable condition suffered by many of the Spanish/Mexican soldiers,
who were young, ill-paid and suffered in that unfamiliar environment. Few wanted to settle in
Manila, and higher-level government officials also sought to leave the colony in a few years.
His first two reports to the Crown covered a wide variety of topics, mentioning Japan,
Mindanao, and China, in addition to civil, military and ecclesiastical activities within the colony.
 • He issued regulations for administrative reform, known as the Ordenzas. Among his reforms
was to restore the audencia. In 1598 he resigned as lieutenant governor to assume the office
of oidor, or judge, in the newly re-established Audiencia of Manila. The position required his
removal from much public life.

SUCESOS DE LAS ISLAS FILIPINAS - An account of Spanish observations about the Filipinos and the
Philippines.

• Background information/ Important information about Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas

• Antonio De Morga - Author of Sucesos de las islas Filipinas
• This is one of the first books ever to tackle Philippine history.
• Book that describes the events inside and outside of the country from 1493 to 1603, including
the history of the Philippines.
• Consist of 8 Chapters
• Discuss the political, social and economical aspects of a colonizer and the colonized country.
• The content of the book is based on documentary research, observation and personal
experience of Morga.
• Rizal is a secondary source of the book due to his Annotations.
• Antonio de Morga Spanish lawyer and official in the Philippines during the 17th century.
• The Philippines was named in honor of King Philip II of Spain.

EVENTS, HAPPENINGS, OCCURRENCE

• The Sucesos is the work of an honest observer, a versatile bureaucrat, who knew the workings
of the administration from the inside.
• Rizal’s Objectives

1.To awaken the consciousness of the Filipinos regarding their glorious ways of the past

2. To correct what has been distorted about the Philippines due to Spanish conquest
3. To prove that Filipinos are civilized even before the coming of the Spaniards

• Blumentritt’s Influence on Rizal Ferdinand Blumentritt has encouraged Rizal to write about the
Philippines’ pre-colonial History.

ON RIZAL’s ANNOTATION
THE FIRST OBJECTIVE

• The Early Filipino Pride

Rizal strove to establish that the Filipinos could be proud of their pre-conquest past.
THE SECOND OBJECTIVE

• History as a Propaganda Weapon

Rizal aimed to use history as a propaganda weapon.

• EARLY GOVERNMENT

Our forefathers in the pre-colonial Philippines already possessed a working judicial and legislative system

• HIGH LITERACY RATE

The Spanish missionaries exploited the baybayin for their own ends, learning and using it to translate their
goals

• EARLY ARTILLERY

Our ancestors were very proficient in the art of war. Aside from wielding swords and spears, they also knew
how to make and fire guns and cannons.

• SMOOTH FOREIGN RELATIONS

The pre-colonial Filipinos had already established trading and diplomatic relations with countries as far
away as the Middle East

• SELF- SUFFICIENT

In terms of food, our forefathers did not suffer from any lack thereof. Blessed with such a resource-rich
country, they had enough for themselves and their families

• ADVANCED CIVILIZATION

Our ancestors possessed a complex working society and a culture replete with works of arts and literature
IMPORTANT POINTS

• Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas is the first book to tackle the Philippine history.
• The book discusses the political, social and economical aspects of a colonizer and the
colonized country.
• The book that describes the events inside and outside of the country from 1493 to 1603,
including the history of the

Philippines.

• The pre-colonial Philippines already possessed a working judicial and legislative system
• Spanish missionaries put an end to the baybayin written system of the Philippines to translate
their goals
• Our ancestors possessed a complex society and culture filled with arts and literature

RIZAL’s Annotations
 1. Philippines was NOT DESERTED and was actually HABITABLE.
2. Spaniards, like any other nation, treat food to which they are not accustomed or is unknown to
them with disgust. This fish that Morga mentions is bagoong (salted & fermented fish)

Morga’s Sucesos

1. Philippines was DESERTED and INHABITABLE.

2. Beef and fish they know it best when it has started to rot and stink Rizal’s Annotations vs. De
Morga’s Sucesos ...

RIZAL’S 3 PROPOSITIONS

1. The people of the Philippines have a culture on their own, before the coming of the Spaniards
2. Filipinos were decimated, demoralized, exploited, and ruined by the Spanish colonization
3. The present state of the Philippines was not necessarily superior to its past

JOSE RIZAL AS PHILIPPINES’ NATIONAL HERO

• Rizal gave us freedom by using goodness.

• Jose Rizal became the Philippines’ National Hero because he fought for freedom in a silent but
powerful way.
• He expressed his love for the Philippines through his novels, essays and articles rather than
through the use of force or aggression.

“To foretell the destiny of a nation, it is necessary to open the books that tell of her past.” - Rizal
IMPORTANCE OF RIZAL’S ANNOTATIONS TO THE PRESENT GENERATION

1. To awaken in the Filipinos the consciousness of our past

2. To devote ourselves to studying the future
3. To first lay bare the past, in order to better judge the present and to survey the road trodden
during three centuries
4. To prove Filipinos had a culture of their own, prior to colonization, that the Filipinos were NOT
inferior to the white man
5. To shatter the myth of the so-called “Indolence of the Filipinos”
6. To reduce those Filipinos who denied their native tongue into rotten fish
7. To seriously study Tagalog and produce a comprehensive Tagalog dictionary
8. To embrace the generic term “Indio”, or in today’s case, Filipino, with all its negative
connotations, and turn it into one of dignity and nobility

Introduction
In the opening scene of Noli Me Tangere, a social gathering in the house of Kapitan Tiago serves as a
venue for guests to mingle and converse. In one such occasions, Father Damaso explicitly states his
opinion of the indio.While speaking to a young man about the native Filipinos, Damaso exclaims, “ As I
believe in the Gospel!The Indian is so indolent!” To this young man poses the question, Does this indolence
actually, naturally, exist among the natives or is there some truth in what a foreign traveler says that with
indolence we excuse our own, as well backwardness and our colonial system?” Indolence in the natives
was a view commonly held by foreigners who came to the Philippines as evident in the conversation
narrated above. Rizal and the other propagandists, however, felt that this view was misguided and made
efforts for its rectification. One such attempt was through Rizal’s essay, “ Sobre la Indolencia de los
Filipinas” ( On the Indolence of the Filipinos), which will serve as the topic of this chapter.

Presentation
indio- a term used by the Spaniards to refer to the native Filipinos; occasionally used in a derogatory
manner
Moro piracy – a series of raids in several Philippine towns committed by Muslims from Mindanao during
the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries
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• Indolence or Industry Sobre la Indolencia de los Filipinos ("On the Indolence of the Filipinos" in
Spanish) is a socio-political essay published in La Solidaridad in Madrid in 1890. It was written
by José Rizal as a response to the accusation of Indio or Malay indolence. Before the
Spaniards came, we were active and honest in trading; we use our abilities and resources for
our country’s benefits, and we never corrupt. Besides that, we are industrious and passionate,
independent, value nature, and protective and defensive of our territory. When the Spaniards
came we became gamblers, dependent, powerless, corrupt, amnesiacs (makakalimutin),
disloyal to our “identity”, and indolent. Being discontent, having continual wars and tolerance,
due to slavery, getting deceits from the Spaniards, allowing pirates from the south (Mindanao
Muslim pirates), and lacking unity, the Filipinos became indolent.

• CHAPTER 1 SUMMARY:

Rizal admits that indolence does exist among the Filipinos, but it cannot be attributed to the troubles and
backwardness of the country; rather it is the effect of the backwardness and troubles experienced by the
country. Past writings on indolence revolve only on either denying or affirming, and never studying its
causes in depth. One must study the causes of indolence, Rizal says, before curing it. He therefore
enumerates the causes of indolence and elaborates on the circumstances that have led to it. The hot
climate, he points out, is a reasonable predisposition for indolence. Filipinos cannot be compared to
Europeans, who live in cold countries and who must exert much more effort at work. An hour's work under
the Philippine sun, he says, is equivalent to a day's work in temperate regions

• CHAPTER 2 SUMMARY:

Rizal says that an illness will worsen if the wrong treatment is given. The same applies to indolence.
People, however, should not lose hope in fighting indolence. Even before the Spaniards arrived, Rizal
argues, the early Filipinos were already carrying out trade within provinces and with other neighboring
countries; they were also engaged in agriculture and mining; some natives even spoke Spanish. All this
disproves the notion that Filipinos are by nature indolent. Rizal ends by asking what then would have
caused Filipinos to forget their past.

• CHAPTER 3 SUMMARY:

Rizal enumerates several reasons that may have caused the Filipinos' cultural and economic decadence.
The frequent wars, insurrections, and invasions have brought disorder to the communities. Chaos has been
widespread, and destruction rampant. Many Filipinos have also been sent abroad to fight wars for Spain or
for expeditions. Thus, the population has decreased in number. Due to forced labor, many men have been
sent to shipyards to construct vessels. Meanwhile, natives who have had enough of abuse have gone to
the mountains. As a result, the farms have been neglected. The so-called indolence of Filipinos definitely
has deeply rooted causes.

• CHAPTER 4 SUMMARY:

Filipinos, according to Rizal, are not responsible for their misfortunes, as they are not their own masters.
The Spanish government has not encouraged labor and trade, which ceased after the government treated
the country's neighboring trade partners with great suspicion. Trade has declined, furthermore, because of
pirate attacks and the many restrictions imposed by the government, which gives no aid for crops and
farmers. This and the abuse suffered under encomenderos have caused many to abandon the fields.
Businesses are monopolized by many government officials, red tape and bribery operate on a wide scale,
and rampant gambling is tolerated by the government. This situation is compounded by the Church's wrong
doctrine which holds that the rich will not go to heaven, thus engendering a wrong attitude toward work.
There has also been discrimination in education against natives. These are some of the main reasons that
Rizal cites as causing the deterioration of values among the Filipinos.

• CHAPTER 5 SUMMARY:

According to Rizal, all the causes of indolence can be reduced to two factors. The first factor is the limited
training and education Filipino natives receive. Segregated from Spaniards, Filipinos do not receive the
same opportunities that are available to the foreigners. They are taught to be inferior. The second factor is
the lack of a national sentiment of unity among them. Because Filipinos think they are inferior, they submit
to the foreign culture and do everything to imitate it. The solution, according to Rizal, would be education
and liberty.

• ISSUES AND CAUSES OF INDOLENCE:

First, the establishment of the Galleon Trade cut off all previous associations of the Philippines with other
countries in Asia and the Middle East. As a result, business was only conducted with Spain through
Mexico. Because of this, the small businesses and handicraft industries that flourished during the pre-
Spanish period gradually disappeared.
Second, Spain also extinguished the natives’ love of work because of the implementation of forced labor.
Because of the wars between Spain and other countries in Europe as well as the Muslims in Mindanao, the
Filipinos were compelled to work in shipyards, roads, and other public works, abandoning agriculture,
industry, and commerce.
Third, Spain did not protect the people against foreign invaders and pirates. With no arms to defend
themselves, the natives were killed, their houses burned, and their lands destroyed. As a result of this, the
Filipinos were forced to become nomads, lost interest in cultivating their lands or in rebuilding the industries
that were shut down, and simply became submissive to the mercy of God.
Fourth, there was a crooked system of education, if it was to be considered an education. What were being
taught in the schools were repetitive prayers and other things that could not be used by the students to lead
the country to progress. There were no courses in Agriculture, Industry, etc., which were badly needed by
the Philippines during those times.
Fifth, the Spanish rulers were a bad example to despise manual labor. The officials reported to work at
noon and left early, all the while doing nothing in line with their duties. The women were seen constantly
followed by servants who dressed them and fanned them – personal things which they ought to have done
for themselves.
Sixth, gambling was established and widely propagated during those times. Almost every day there were
cockfights, and during feast days, the government officials and friars were the first to engage in all sorts of
bets and gambles.
Seventh, there was a crooked system of religion. The friars taught the naïve Filipinos that it was easier for
a poor man to enter heaven, and so they preferred not to work and remain poor so that they could easily
enter heaven after they died. Lastly, the taxes were extremely high, so much so that a huge portion of what
they earned went to the government or to the friars. When the object of their labor was removed and they
were exploited, they were reduced to inaction.
Vocabulary:
filibustero - ( nineteenth century context)- translated as " subversive", a patriot who was usually
associated with revolutionary activities
guardia civil - police/military force assigned by the colonial government to maintain peace and order
cabeza de barangay - head of the barangay

Introduction
Rizal's second novel, El Filibusterismo , is a story set in twilight years of the Spanish colonial
government in the Philippines . It was first translated into English by Charles Derbyshire in 1912 under the
title , Reign of Greed. The book according to the translator " represents Rizal's more mature judgment on
political and social conditions in the islands , and in its graver and less hopeful tone reflects the
disappointments and discouragements which he had encountered in his efforts to lead the way to reform.
Presentation

• El filibusterismo - Rizal second novel sequel to the Noli Me Tangere.

• The Reign of Greed - traslated into english by Charles Derbyshire in 1912.
• Filibustero - a patriot who was usually associated with revolutionary activities.
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HISTORY AND CONTEXT
THE PRINTING

• February 1888 - rizal continued working oh his novel and made some revisions while he was in
London.
• March 29, 1891 - complete the novel after three years in biarittz france.
• September 18, 1891 - book published in Ghent with the help of his friend Valentin Ventura.
• Rizal sent 2 copies to Hongkong one for Basa and the other to Sixto Lopez. The original
manuscript and a printed copy gave to Valentin Ventura with his autograph.
• El Fili - is dedicated to Gomburza, the three priest accused of being filibusters in 1872.
• Gomburza - Don Mariano Gomez - died 73 years old.- Don Jose Burgos - died 35 years old.-
Don Jacinto Zamora - died 37 years old.
• February 17, 1872 - gomburza publicly executed by garrote in Bagumbayan on the early
morning.

NOLI
Themes that can be seen in the story "El Fili begins where the Noli leaves off where:
-Love
-Romance
-Aspiration
-Heroism
-Mercy
-Idealism
EL FILI
Turns to :-Hatred -Pain -Bitterness -Anger -Disillusionment -Vengeance

• In 1890, Wenceslao Retana wrote about the “ filibuster” and described the term as “ the one
who, eager for the independence of the country, resorts to various extralegal proceedings in
order to reach the objectives that he pursues’ (Aguilar, 2011)
• By the end of the nineteenth century, the Spanish colonial government defined” filibuster: as
“someone who works for the separation of our overseas provinces”

SYNOPSIS
Plot

• The story of El Filibusterismo revolved around the main character, Simoun, who was the rich
jeweller. Simoun was actually Crisostomo Ibarra of the Noli whom everyone thought was killed
 by the guardia civil at the Laguna de Bay thirteen years ago. He was able to escape and fled to
Cuba. He became wealthy and was able to establish connections with prominent Spaniards
officials. Upon his return to the Philippines, Simoun became very influential being the
consultant of the governor general.
• Simoun came back with his grand plan to exact revenge on Spanish officials and to rescue
Maria Clara who entered the convent after learning the news of Ibbara’s death. He planned to
launch a revolution. Planting a bomb at the wedding ceremony which he started by smuggling
arms and recruiting followers, mainly from the exploited and abused natives. One of his
recruits was Basilio, the son of Sisa. With the help of Capitan Tiago, Basilio was able to study
medicine in Manila. Simoun also began to establish an alliance with Kabesang Tales and his
revolutionary group. Kabesang Tales was a former cabeza de barangay who was maltreated
by the friars. Using his position, Simoun encouraged corruption and more oppressive
government policies to enrage the people and thus provoke them to revolt.
• Simoun’s plans of revolution failed twice. In his first attempt, he decided not to give signal for
the outbreak of the uprising upon hearing the news of Maria Clara’s death. Basilio and the
other students were the arrested for allegedly forming a seditious organization. Simoun
arranged the release of Basilio who became bitter and vengeful. However, he was very
grateful to Simoun and offered his full support for the revolution. The second attempt at starting
a revolution entailed the planting of a bomb at wedding reception of Paulita Gomez and
Juanito Pelaez. Illustrious guests at the mansion included Padre Salvi and the governor
general. In Simouns’s plan, the revolution would be triggered by his gift to the couple, a
kerosene lamp with an explosive. When the lamp starts flickering and someone turns the wick,
there would be an explosion, signaling the revolutionaries to attack all government buildings in
Manila.
• As planned, Simoun gave the lamp during the reception. Before leaving the venue, he left a
note with a message: “You will die tonight,” signed by Crisostomo Ibarra. Meanwhile, when
Basilo saw all the people at the venue, his conscience bothered him. He saw his friend
Isagani, who was secretly watching his love, Paulita, celebrating her wedding. Basilio told
Isagani about the explosive and asked him to leave the place.
• When Padre Salvi confirmed Ibarra’s handwriting, the guess began to panic. The lamp
flickered and Padre Irene tried to turn the wick. But Isagani, wanting to save Paulita, ran into
the house, grabbed the lamp, and threw it into the river where it exploded.
• Simoun took refuge in the house of a kind Filipino preist, Padre Florentino. The guardias
civiles, however, learned about the whereabouts of the fugitive, and informed the priest that
they would come in the evening to arrest Simoun.
• Instead of surrending to the authorities, Simoun poisoned himself. As the poison started to
take effect on his body, he confessed to Padre Florentino his true identity and his plans for
revenge. After the long and redius confession, the priest told Simoun that his plans might have
failed because of the unjust means that were used. He assured Simoun that there was still
hope for the freedom of the country.
• The story ended with Padre Florentino throwing Simouns’s jewels into the sea so that they
would not be used by the greedy. He also prayed that when the right time comes, the treasure
would be recovered and used for a noble purpose.