Period of

Enlightenment
(1972- 1898)
After the 300 years of passivity under Spanish rule,
the Filipino spirit reawakened when the 3 priests
Gomez, Burgos and Zamora were killed without
sufficient evidence of guilt. They were executed by
garrote by Spanish authorities on Feb. 17, 1872.
The three - who all advocated for the rights of
native-born priests - were falsely accused of
instigating a mutiny in Cavite.
The Propaganda Movement was spearheaded mostly
by the intellectual middle-class like: Marcelo del Pilar
Graciano Lopez Jeana
Antonio Luna
Mariano Ponce
Jose Ma. Panganiban
Pedro Paterno
The objectives of this movement were to seek
changes in the following:

1. To get equal treatment for the Filipinos and the

Spaniards under the law.
2. To make a Philippines a colony of Spain.
3. To restore the Filipino representation in the Spanish
Cortes.
4. To Filipinize the Parishes to give Filipinos the freedom
of speech of the press.
5. To give Filipinos the freedom of speech of the press.
 THE WORKS OF GRACIANO LOPEZ JAENA:

1. ANG FRAY BOTOD (Friar Botod): One of his works in Jaro,

Iloilo in 1876, six years after the Cavite Revolt attacking the Friars
in the Philippines. He exposed how the friars were ambitious,
greedy and immoral.
2. LA HIJA DEL FRAIL (The Child of The Friar) and EVERYTHING
IS HAMBUG (Everything is mere how): Explains the tragedy of
marrying Spaniards.
3. SA MGA PILIPINO (1891)-A speech aimed to improve the
condition of Filipinos to become free and progressive.
4. SOBRE LA INDOLENCIA DE LOS FILIPINOS (On the
Indolence of the Filipinos)
An essay on the so-called Filipino Indolence and an
evaluation of the reasons for such allegations.
5. FILIPINAS DENTRO DE CIEN ANOS (The Philippines
within a century). An essay predicting the increasing
influence of the US in the Philippines and the decreasing
interest of Europe here.
What are
 1. Wars

the inhabitants of the

Philippines were dragged
to maintain the honor of
Spain
governors got the natives
as crews for the vessels
2. Attitude of the Friars
 At that time, the friars
advised their poor
parishioners:
 to stop work in the mines,

 to abandon their

industries,
 to destroy their looms and

pointing them that heaven

is their sole hope
 The friars told them that it is
easier for a poor man to
enter heaven than for a rich
man
4.Lessening encouragement
to Labor
Trade contact or relations
between the Borneans,
Siamese, Cambodians and
Japanese nations were being
cut off
The coast wide trade which
was flourishing before
disappeared
5. Miserly return for one’s
Labor
 (selfish, greedy, mean)
 Encomenderos
 reduced many to slavery
compelled Filipinos to work for
their benefit
Made them sell their products at an
insignificant price or for nothing or
cheated them with false measures
 Treated them like slaves
6. Gambling
 Thesugal (from the Spanish word jugar,
to gamble) indicates that gambling was
unknown in the Philippines before the
Spaniards

 Balasa – from the Spanish word barajar,

the introduction of playing
cards
7. Fiestas
 Gave their contribution to large number
of fiestas, lengthy masses, novenae,
processions, rosaries

 Filipinos
were much less lazy before the
word miracle was introduced into their
language
 8. Curtailment of individual
liberty
 (to cut off, to cut short, doubtful)
 Individual liberty is being cut off
 accused of being a filibustero (rebel) or a
suspect
 Lack of confidence in the future
 Uncertainty of reaping the fruits of their
labor
9. Apathy of the Government
 No encouragement, aid pertaining to
commerce or agriculture
 The products coming from the
Philippines were burdened with
imposts and duties and have no free
entry in the ports of the mother
country and the consumption of the
products are not encouraged
 Due to the fraudulent (dishonest,
deceitful) manipulations of the
Chinese, the Filipino industries were
dying.
10. Ownership of the big
estates by the friars
 the best estates, the best tracts of land in
some provinces were in the hands of the
religious corporations

 thefriars have deceived many by making

them believe that those estates were
prospering because those were under
their supervision
11. Lack of moral support
 Absence of moral support
 Absence of help from the government
 Chemist (competitive examination)
 Young man won a prize in a literary contest
 Education of the Filipino
 12. Deprivation of human
dignity
 the students have to contend with the daily
preaching that lowers human dignity,
gradually or brutally killing their self-respect

 Priests who boldly declared that it is evil for

the Filipinos to know Castilian, that the
Filipinos should not be separated from his
carabao, and that he should not have any
further ambition.
13. Feeling of inferiority
 Constant plucking (pulling, removing) of
the soul
 Deadens the energy
 Paralyzes all tendency towards
advancement
 14. Vicious dressing of the
intelligence and will
 “You can’t do more than old So and So!-
Don’t aspire to be greater than the
curate! You belong to an inferior race! You
haven’t any energy.”
 They say this to the child; and as it is
repeated so often, it has inevitably
engraved in his mind and thence it seals
and shapes all his actions.
 Ridicules with cruel sarcasm
 15. Lack of an ideal for a
good worker
 theFilipinos’ spirits were transformed according to the
taste of the nation that imposed upon them its God
and its laws
•INSTEAD:
 Ideal and prototype tanned and muscular laborer (who
should have brought along with him the useful iron
implements and the hoes to till the fields)
•BUT IT WAS AN:
 Aristocratic lord who brought along with him stamped
papers, crucifixes, bulls and prayer books
AS A RESULT:
 the imitative people became clerks,
devout, prayer-loving, acquired ideas of
luxurious and ostentatious living without
improving correspondingly their means of
subsistence.
 16. Lack of national
sentiment
 (expression of emotional ideas,
feelings, etc.)
 Scarcity of any opposition to the
measures that prejudicial to
are
people the
and the absence of any initiative
that will redound to their welfare
 Deprived of the right of association,
therefore they were weak and inert
(inactive, unmotivated, passive)
The Indolence of the Filipino: Analysis
• What is the selection means?
• A socio-political essay published in
La Solidaridad in Madrid in 1890
• It explains the alleged idleness of
his people during the Spanish
colonization
• Why did Rizal write this essay?
• Rizal wrote this essay to defend
the Filipinos from the charge that
they were born indolent.