HOLY NAME UNIVERSITY

College of Arts and Sciences

J.A Clarin St., Tagbilaran City

GEC RIZAL: The Life and Works of Rizal

Lesson 10: Indolence or Industry
Learning Outcome: To manifest respect and reverence for the achievements, ideas
and ideals of Rizal especially through his writing and relate the issues raised in the novels
to the changing landscape of the contemporary world.
Learning Targets:
At the end of this chapter, the students should be able to:
a) summarize in your own words Rizal’s essay, “On the Indolence of the Filipinos”;
b) explain the factors that cause the indolence of Filipinos; and
c) defend your personal views on the question of the indolence of the Filipinos.

Concept Notes:

I. 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
occasion, 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, the 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 this indolence we excuse our own, as well as our 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
Filipinos" (On the Indolence of the Filipinos), which will serve as the topic of this lesson.

II. DISCUSSION

Filipinos during the period of Spanish colonization were commonly described as

lazy. Several foreigners visiting the Philippines from the seventeenth to the nineteenth
centuries affirmed this view with their observations. Gemelli Careri, an Italian traveler
who came to the country in the seventeenth century, remarked, "It is their laziness that
makes them appear less ingenious; and they are so entirely addicted to it, that if in
walking they find a thorn run into their foot, they will not stoop to put it out of the way,
that another may not tread on it.” A more scathing portrayal was given by Friar Gaspar
de San Agustin in 1720. He stated that “their laziness is such that if they open a door,
they never close it; and if they take implement for any use, such as a knife, pair of
scissors, hamm etc., they never return it whence they took it, but drop it there at the
foot of the work.” Indolence was also commented upon by the German scholar Feodor
Jagor in the nineteenth century "Along the river Pasig, somebody might be seen asleep
on a heap of coconuts. If the nuts run ashore, the sleeper rouses himself, pushes off with
a long bamboo, and contentedly relapses into slumber, as his eccentric rafts regains
the current of the river.” More than simple observations, the remarks given by these
foreigners resulted in a perennial view of the Filipinos as incapable or inherently lacking
in abilities.

Rizal's work, “Sobre la Indolencia de los Filipinos” (On Indolence of the Filipinos),
was an attempt to rectify this view.

The essay was serialized in six issues of La Solidaridad from July 15 to September
15, 1890. It addressed the accusations made by foreign observers by establishing
through careful argumentation that indolence was not an inherent trait but was an
effect of other conditions imposed upon the Filipinos.

Rizal’s reasoning echoes the ideas laid down earlier by Gregorio Sancianco’s El
Progreso de las Filipinas in 1881. Sancianco advocated for reforms in the government’s
taxation system because he believed that public revenues were necessary for the
overall development of the country. He also confronted the issue of the laziness of
Filipinos by attributing the trait to the poor economic conditions that rendered the
natives lethargic and unmotivated.

Rizal’s essay, though, addresses the issue of the Filipino’s laziness more directly
“inasmuch as the talk about it has continued, not only by employees who blame it to
cover their own stupidity, not only by friars who consider it necessary for the
perpetuation of their pretention that they cannot be replaced, but also by serious-
minded and disinterested persons.”

From the outset, Rizal does not deny the existence of indolence in the Filipinos.
“The predisposition exists," he notes, "[because] the warm climate demands of the
individual quietness and rest, just as cold climate stirs up men to work and to be active.”
However, he asserts that the evil does not lie in the existence of indolence, but in the
way that it is perpetuated. He points out, “The evil is found in the fact that indolence in
the Philippines is an exaggerated indolence, a snowball indolence, so to speak, a vice
which increases fourfold as time elapses.”
 The Filipinos were not always lazy, according to Rizal. When one looked back at
the pre-colonial past, he/she would see the industry, agriculture, and commerce the
early Filipinos engaged in. Rizal cites as one example an account written by Pigafetta
who described the flourishing trade of goods such as cinnamon, pepper, nuts, and
other articles. Mining was also practiced by early Filipinos as evidenced by Pigafetta's
descriptions of vessels and utensils made of pure gold. If early Spanish accounts were in
agreement on the industry of the Filipinos, what then brought about a change in them?
Rizal determines that the circumstances that produced a predisposition towards laziness
were the constant wars waged during the early stages of colonization, the Moro
piracies that occurred in the centuries that followed, and the abuses committed by the
Spaniards against the Filipinos. All the death and destruction brought about by these
situations, according to Rizal, took away from the Filipinos their desire to work.

Yet, Rizal also argues that while the previous circumstances made it possible for
laziness to take root in the Filipino's constitution, other factors ensured its maintenance.
Rizal points out that while the government did not provide the economic and moral
incentives to encourage industry among the Filipinos, the Filipinos themselves also had
their own flaws. He states that the defect of education and lack of national sentiment
seen in the Filipinos only contributed to maintaining the Filipino's predisposition towards
indolence.

Having explained the reasons why the Filipinos became lazy, Rizal concludes
that all attempts to reform the Filipino would only be successful with education and
freedom. With this, Rizal argues convincingly that indolence in the Filipinos is not an
inherent trait, but rather a malady with its own causes and cures.