Session 11.

Rizal and The Propaganda

Movement
To prove his point and refute the accusations of
prejudiced Spanish writers against his race, Rizal
annotated the book, Sucesos de las Islas
Filipinas, written by the Spaniard Antonio
Morga. The book was an unbiased presentation
of 16th century Filipino culture. Rizal through his
annotation showed that Filipinos had developed
culture even before the coming of the Spaniards.
While annotating Morga’s book, he began writing
the sequel to the Noli, the El Filibusterismo. He
completed the Fili in July 1891 while he was in
Brussels, Belgium. As in the printing of the Noli,
Rizal could not published the sequel for the lack
of finances. Fortunately, Valentin Ventura gave
him financial assistance and the Fili came out of
the printing press on September 1891.
The El Filibusterismo indicated Spanish colonial policies
and attacked the Filipino collaborators of such system. The
novel pictured a society on the brink of a revolution.

To buttress his defense of the native’s pride and dignity as

people, Rizal wrote three significant essays while abroad:
The Philippines a Century hence, the Indolence of the
Filipinos and the Letter to the Women of Malolos. These
writings were his brilliant responses to the vicious attacks
against the Indio and his culture.
While in Hongkong, Rizal planned the founding of the Liga
Filipina, a civil organization and the establishment of a
Filipino colony in Borneo. The colony was to be under the
protectorate of the North Borneo Company, he was
granted permission by the British Governor to establish a
settlement on a 190,000 acre property in North Borneo.
The colony was to be under the protectorate of the North
Borneo Company, with the "same privileges and conditions
at those given in the treaty with local Bornean rulers".
Governor Eulogio Despujol disapproved the
project for obvious and self-serving reasons. He
considered the plan impractical and improper
that Filipinos would settle and develop foreign
territories while the colony itself badly needed
such developments.