12/1/21, 2:59 PM Module 10 The Morga and Rizal’s Search for Origins

Module 10 The Morga and Rizal’s Search for Origins

Site: New Era University Printed by: Hedrei Anne D. Castroverde

Course: GECLWR-18 - The Life and Works of Rizal Date: Wednesday, 1 December 2021, 2:59 PM
Book: Module 10 The Morga and Rizal’s Search for Origins

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Description

Lesson 1: Title

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Table of contents

1. Introduction/Overview

2. Learning Outcomes

3. Dr. Morga and his ‘Sucesos’

4. Rizal’s Annotation of the Book

5. The Value of Rizal’s Annotation

6. Module 10 Assignment 1

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1. Introduction/Overview

Introduction:

Jose
Rizal learned about it either from his uncle or from his “best
friend”. Some references state that Rizal as a child heard from his
uncle, Jose
Alberto, about this ancient history of the Philippines
written by a Spaniard named Antonio de Morga. Some other sources
claim that Morga’s
Sucesos de
las Islas Filipinas (Events in
the Philippine Islands) was suggested by Austrian scholar Ferdinand
Blumentritt (1853-1913) for Rizal’s
research on pre-Spanish
Philippines.

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2. Learning Outcomes

Learning
Outcomes

1. Summarize
how Rizal portrayed the pre-colonial

2. Analyze
the reasons for his portrayal

3. Compare
and contrast Rizal and Morga’s different views about Filipino and
Philippine culture

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3. Dr. Morga and his ‘Sucesos’

Antonio
de Morga (1559-1636) was a Spanish historian and lawyer and a notable
colonial official for 43 years in the Philippines, New Spain, and
Peru. He stayed in the Philippines, then a colony of Spain, from 1594
to 1604. As Deputy Governor in the Philippines, he reestablished the
audencia
and took over the function of judge (“oidor”).

When
reassigned to Mexico, he published the book Sucesos
de las Islas Filipinas in 1609,
considered as one of the most significant works on
the early history
of the Spanish colonization in the Philippines. The history is said
to cover the years from 1493 to 1603. Discussions deal with
the
political, social, and economic phases of life of both the natives
and their colonizers. Morga’s official position as a colonial
officer allowed him
access to many government documents. Probably the
best account of Spanish colonialism in the Philippines written during
that period. Morga’s
work is based on documentary research, the
author’s keen observation, and his personal involvement and
knowledge.

The
history was published in two volumes, both in 1609, by Casa
de Geronymo Balli, in Mexico
City. The first English translation was published
in 1868 in London.
On the dedication page, Morga writes: “…this small book …is a
faithful narrative, devoid of any artifice and ornament…
regarding
the discovery, conquest and conversion of the Philippine Islands,
together with the various events in which they have taken
part…
specially describing their original condition.

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4. Rizal’s Annotation of the Book

Patriotic
as he was, Jose Rizal had an ardent longing to know the true
condition of the Philippines when the Spanish conquerors came ashore
to
the islands. He had been working on the sensible presupposition
that the native population in the archipelago were economically
self-sufficient
and thriving and culturally lively and colorful. He
did not believe the colonizer’s claim that they sociologically
improved the islands; instead, Rizal
supposed that the Spanish
colonization somewhat resulted in the deterioration of the
Philippine’s rich culture and tradition.

To
back his theory up, Rizal had to look for a reliable account of the
Philippines before and at the onset of Spanish colonization. Hence,
his
friend Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt, a knowledgeable Filipinologist,
recommended Dr. Antonio Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas.
Even then,
this history of the Philippines had the impression among
many scholars of having an honest description of the Philippine
situation as regards the
era covered.

In
1888-1889, Rizal largely spent his many months of stay in London at
the British Museim researching from the Filipiniana Collection,
looking
for Morga’s book, and then copying and annotating this rare
book available in the library. Having no high-tech copying technology
at that time,
he had painstakingly hand-copy whole 351 pages of
Morga’s work.

Leaving
London for Paris in March 1889, Rizal frequented the Bibliotheque
Nationale to continue working on
his annotation of the Sucesos.
It
was thus in Paris that he finished and published his annotation of
the Sucesos
in 1890.

Rizal
meticulously annotated every chapter of the Sucesos,
commenting even on Morga’s typographical errors. He provided
enlightenment on
every statement, which he believed misrepresenting
the locals’ cultural practices. For instance, Morga describes on
page 248 the culinary of the
ancient Philippines natives by
recording: “They prefer to eat salt fish which begin to decompose
and smell.” Rizal’s annotative footnote explains:
“This is
another preoccupation of the Spaniards who, like any other nation in
the matter of food, loathe that which they are not accustomed or is
unknown to them… The fish that Morga mentions does not taste better
when it is the beginning to rot; all on the contrary; it is bagoong,
and all
those who have eaten it and tasted it know that it is not or
ought not or be rotten.”

The
Preface

With “Jose Rizal, Europe, 1889” as a

signature, Rizal had the following as his Preface to his work (as
translated in English).

To the Filipinos: In Noli

Me Tangere (“The Social
Cancer”) I started to sketch the present state of our native land.
But the effect which my effort
produced made me realize that, before
attempting to unroll before your eyes the other pictures which were
to follow, it was necessary first to
post you on the past. So only
can you fairly judge the present and estimate how much progress has
been made during the three centuries (of
Spanish rule).

Like almost all of you, I was born and

brought up in ignorance of our country’s past and so, without
knowledge or authority to speak of what I
neither saw nor have
studied. I deem it necessary to quote the testimony of an illustrious
Spaniard who in the beginning of the new era
controlled the destinies
of the Philippines and had personal knowledge of our ancient
nationality in its last days.

It is then the shade of our ancestor’s

civilization which the author will call before you. If the work
serves to awaken in you a consciousness of our
past, and to blot from
your memory to rectify what has been falsified or is calumny, then I
shall not have labored in vain. With the preparation,
slight though
it may be, we can all pass to the study of the future”

Some
Important Annotation

Austin
Craig (1872-1949), an early biographer of Rizal, translated into
English some of the more important of Rizal’s annotations in the
Sucesos.
The following are some of Rizal’s annotations as
translated by Craig.

Governor Morga was not only the first to

write but also the first to publish a Philippine history. This
statement has regard to the concise and
concrete form in which our
author has treated the matter. Father Chirino’s work, printed in
Rome in 1604, is rather a chronicle of the Missions
than a history of
the Philippines; still it contains a great deal of valuable material
on usages and customs. The worthy Jesuit in fact admits that
he
abandoned writing a political history because Morga had already done
so, so no one must infer that he had seen the work in manuscript
before leaving the islands.

By the Christian religion, Dr. Morga

appears to mean the Roman Catholic which by fire and sword he would
preserve in its purity in the
Philippines. Nevertheless in other
lands, notably in Flanders, these means were ineffective to keep the
church unchanged, or to maintain its
supremacy, or even to hold its
subjects.

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Great kingdoms were indeed discovered and
conquered in the remote and unknown parts of the world by Spanish
ships but to the Spaniards
who sailed in them we may add Poruguese,
Italians, French, Greeks, and even Africans and Polynesians. The
expeditions captained by
Columbus and Magellan, one a Ganoese Italian
and the other Portuguese, as well as those that came after them,
although Spanish fleets, still
were manned by many nationalities and
in them were Negroes, Moluccans, and even men from the Philippines
and the Marianes Islands.

These centuries ago it was the custom to

write as intolerantly as Morga does, but nowadays it would be called
a bit presumptuous. No one has
a monopoly of the true God nor is
there any nation or religion that can claim, or any rate prove, that
to it has been given the exclusive right to the
Creator of all things
or sole knowledge of His real being.

The conversions by the Spaniards were not

as general as their historians claim. The missionaries only succeeded
in converting a part of the
people of the Philippines. Still there
are Mohammedans, the Moros, in the southern islands, and Negritos,
Igorots and other heathens yet
occupy the greater part territorially
of the archipelago. Then the islands the Spaniards early held but
soon lost are non-Christians – Formosa,
Borneo, and the Moluccas.
And if there are Christians in the Carolines, that is due to
Protestants, whom neither the Roman Catholics of Morga’s
day nor
many Catholics in our own day consider Christians.

It is not the fact that the Filipinos were

unprotected before the coming of the Spaniards. Morga himself says,
further on in telling of the pirate
raids from the islands had arms
and defended themselves. But after the natives were disarmed the
pirates pillaged them with impunity, coming
at times when they were
unprotected by the government, which was the reason for many of the
insurrections.

The civilization of the Pre-Spanish

Filipinos in regard to the duties of life for that age was well
advanced, as the Morga history shows in its eighth
chapter.

The island came under Spanish sovereignty

and control through compacts, treaties of friendship and alliances
for reciprocity. By virtue of the
last arrangement, according to some
historians, Magellan lost his life in Mactan and the soldiers of
Legaspi fought under the banner of King
Tupas of Cebu.

The term “conquest” is admissible but

for a part of the islands and then only in its broader sense. Cebu,
Pany, Luzon, Mindoro, and some other
cannot be said to have been
conquered.

The discovery, conquest and conversion cost

Spanish blood but still more Filipino blood. It will be seen later on
in Morga that with the Spaniards
and on behalf of Spain there will
always more Filipinos fighting than Spaniards.

Morga shows that ancient Filipinos had army

and navy with artillery and other implements of warfare. Their prized
krises
and kampilans
for their
magnificent temper are worthy of admiration and some of
them are richly damascened. Their coats of mail and helmets, of which
there are
specimens in various European museums, attest their great
advancement in this industry.

Morga’s expression that the Spaniards

“brought war to the gates of the Filipinos” is in marked contrast
with the word used by subsequent
historians whenever recording Spain
possesses herself of a province, that she pacified it. Perhaps “to
make peace” then meant the same as “to
stir up war”.

Magellan’s transferring from the service

of his own king (i.e., the Portuguese) to employment under the King
of Spain, according to historic
documents, was because the Portuguese
king had refused to grant him the raise in salary which he asked.

Now it is known that Magellan was mistaken

when he presented to the King of Spain that Mulocca Islands were
within the limits assigned by the
Pope to the Spaniards. But through
this error and the inaccuracy of the nautical instruments at that
time, the Philippines did not fall into the
hands of Potuguese.

Cebu, which Morga calls “The City of the

Most Holy Name of Jesus”, was at first called “The Village of San
Miguel”.

The image of the Holy Child of Cebu, which

many religious writers believed was brought by the angels, was in
fact given by the worthy Italian
chronicler of Magellan’s
expedition, the Chevalier Pigafetta, to the Cebuano queen.

The expedition of Villalobos, intermediate

between Magellan’s and Legaspi’s gave the name “Pilipina” to
one of the southern islands, ‘Tendaya,
now perhaps Leyte, and this
name later was extended to the whole archipelago.

Of the native Manila rulers at the coming

of the Spaniards, Raja Soliman was called Rahang
mura, young king, in distinction
from the old king,
Rahang
matanda. Historians have
confused these personages.

The native fort at the mouth of Pasig

river, which Morga speaks of as equipped with brass latakas
and artillery of larger caliber, had its ramparts
reinforced with
thick hardwood posts such as the Tagalogs used for their houses and
called harigues
or haligui.

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Morga has evidently confused the pacific
coming of Legaspi with the attack of Goiti and Salcedo, as to date.
According to other historians, it was
in 1570 that Manila was burned
and with it a great plant for manufacturing artillery. Goiti did not
take possession of the city but withdrew to
Cavite and afterwards to
Panay, which makes one suspicious of his alleged victory. As to the
day of the date, the Spaniards then, having come
following the course
of the sun, were some sixteen hours later than Europe. This condition
continued until the end of the year 1844, when the
31st
of December was by special arrangement among the authorities dropped
from the calendar for that year. Accordingly Legaspi did not
arrived
in Manila on the 19th
but on the 20th
of May and consequently it was not the festival of Santa Potenciana
but on San Baudelio’s day. The
same mistake was made with reference
to the other early events still wrongly commemorated. Like San
Andres’ day for the repulse of the
Chinese corsair Li Ma-hong.

Though not mentioned by Morga, the Cebuanos

aided the Spaniards in their expedition against Manila, for which
reason they were long
exempted from tribute.

The southern islands, the Bisayas, were

also called “The land of the Painted People (or pintados,
in Spanish)” because the natives had their
bodies decorated with
tracing made with fire, somewhat like tattooing.

The Spaniards retained the native name for

the new capital of the archipelago, a little changed, however, for
the Tagalogs had called their city
“Maynila”.

When Morga says that the lands were

“entrusted” (given as encomiendas)
to those who had “pacified” them, he means “divided up among.”
The
word “entrust” like “pacify”, later came to have a sort
of ironical signification. To entrust a province was then as if it
were that it was turned over to
sack, abandoned to the cruelty and
covetousness of the encomendero,
to judge from the way these gentry misbehaved.

Legaspi’s grandson, Salcedo called the

Hernando Cortez of the Philippines was the “conqueror’s”
intelligent right arm and the hero of the
‘conquest’. His honesty
and fine qualities, talent and personal bravery, all won the
admiration of the Filipinos. Because of him they yielded to
their
enemies, making peace and friendship with the Spaniards. It was him
who saved Manila from Li Ma-hong. He died at the early age of
twenty
seven and is the only encomendero
recorded to have left the great
part of his possessions to the Indians of his encomienda.
Vigan was
his encomienda
and Ilokanos there were his heirs.

The expedition which followed the Chinese

corsair Li Ma-hong, after his unsuccessful attack upon Manila, to
Pangasinan province, with the
Spaniards of whom Morga tells, had in
it 1,500 friendly Indians from Cebu, Bohol, Leyte and Panay, besides
many other serving as laborers and
crews of the ships. Former Raja
Lakandula, of Tondo, with his sons and his kinsmen went too, with 200
more Bisayans and they were joined by
other Filipinos in Pangasinan.

If discovery and occupation justify

annexation, then Borneo ought to belong to Spain. In the Spanish
expedition to replace on its throne a Sirela
or Malacla, as he is
variously called, who had been driven out by his brother, more than
fifteen hundred Filipino bowmen from the provinces of
Pangasinan,
Kagayan and the Bisayas participated.

It is notable how strictly the early

Spanish governors were held account. Some stayed in Manila as
prisoners, one, Governor Corcuera, passed
five years with Fort
Santiago as his prison.

In the fruitless expedition against the

Portuguese in the island of Ternate, in the Molucca group, which was
abandoned because of prevalence of
beriberi among the troops, there
went 1,500 Filipino soldiers from the more warlike provinces,
principally Kagayans and Pampangans.

The “pacification” of Kagayan was

accomplished by taking advantage of the jealous among its people,
particularly the rivalry between the two
brothers who were chiefs. An
early historians asserts that without this fortunate circumstance,
for the Spaniards, it would have been impossible
to subjugate them.

Captain Gabriel de Rivera, a Spanish

commander who had gained fame in a raid to Borneo and the Malacca
coast, was the first envoy from the
Philippines to take up with the
king of spain the needs of the archipelago.

The early conspiracy of the Manila and

Pampangan former chiefs was revealed to the Spaniards by a Filipina,
the wife of a soldier, and many
concerned lost their lives.

The artillery cast for the new stone fort

in Manila, says Morga, was by the hand of ancient Filipino. That is,
he knew how to cast cannon even
before the coming of the Spaniards,
hence he was distinguished as “ancient”. In this difficult art of
ironworking, as in so many others, the
modern or present-day
Filipinos are not so far advanced as were their ancestors.

When the English freebooter Candavish

captured the Mexican galleon Santa Ana, with 122,000 gold pesos, a
great quantity of rich textiles –
silks, satins and damask, musk
perfume, and stores of provisions, he took 150 prisoners. All these
because of their brave defense were put
ashore with ample supplies,
except two Japanese lads. A Portuguese and a skilled Spanish pilot
whom he kept as guides in his further
voyaging.

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From the earliest Spanish days ships were
built in the islands, which might be considered evidence of native
culture. Nowadays this industry is
reduced to small crafts, scows and
coasters.

The Jesuit, Father Alonzo Sanchez, who

visited the papal court at Rome and the Spanish King at Madrid, had a
mission much like that of
deputies now, but of even greater
importance since he came to be a sort of counselor or representative
to the absolute monarch of that epoch.
One wonders why the
Philippines could have a representative then but may not have one
now.

In the time of Governor Gomez Perez

Dasmariñas, Manila was guarded against further damage such as was
suffered from Li Ma-hong by the
construction of a massive stone wall
around it. This was accomplished “without expense to the royal
treasury”. The same governor, in like the
manner, also fortified
the point at the entrance to the river where had been the ancient
native fort of wood, and he gave it the name Fort
Santiago.

The early cathedral of wood which was

burned through carelessness at the time of the funeral of the
Governor Dasmariñas’ predecessor,
Governor Ronquillo, was made,
according to the Jesuit historian Chirino, with hardwood pillars
around which two men could not reach, and in
harmony with the
massiveness was all the woodwork above and below. It may be surmised
from this how hard workers were the Filipinos at that
time.

A stone for the bishop was built before

starting on the governor-general’s residence. This precedence is
interesting for those who upload the
civil power.

Morga’s mention of the scant output of

large artillery from the Manila cannon works because of lack of
master foundry workers show that after
the death of the Filipino
Panday Pira there were not Spaniards skilled enough to take his place
nor were his sons as expert as he is.

It is worthy of note that China, Japan and

Cambodia at this time maintained relations with the Philippines. But
in our day it has been more than a
century since the natives of the
latter two countries have come here. The causes which ended the
relationship may be found in the interference
by the religious orders
which the institutions of those lands.

For Governor Dasmariñas’ expedition to

conquer Ternate, in the Moluccan groups, two Jesuits there gave
secret information. In his 200 ships,
besides 900 Spaniards, there
must have been Filipinos for one chronicler speaks of Indians, as the
Spaniards called the natives of the
Philippines, who lost their lives
and others who were made captives when the Chinese rowers mutinied.
It was the custom then always to have a
thousand or more native
bowmen and besides the crew were almost all Filipinos, for most part
Bisayans.

The historian Argensola, in telling of four

special galleys for the Dasmariñas’ expedition, says that they
were manned by an expedient which was
generally considered rather
than harsh. It was ordered that there be bought enough of the Indians
who were slaves of the former Indian chiefs,
of principals, to form
these crews, and the price, that which had been customary in
pre-Spanish times, was to be advanced by the
encomenderos
who later would be reimbursed from the royal treasury. In spite of
this promised compensation, the measures still seem severe
since
those Filipinos were not correct in calling their dependents slaves.
The masters treated these, and loved them, like sons rather, for they
seated them at their own tables and gave them their own daughters in
marriage.

Morga said that the 250 Chinese oarsmen who

manned Governor Dasmariñas’ swift galley were under pay and had
the special favor of not
being chained to their benches. According to
him it was covetousness of wealth aboard that led them to revolt and
kill the governor. But the
historian Gaspar de San Agustin states
that the reason for the revolt was the governor’s abusive language
and his threatening the rowers. Both
these authors’ allegation may
have contributed, but more important was the fact that there was no
law to compel these Chinamen to row in the
galleys. They had come to
Manila to engage in commerce or to work in trades or to follow
professions. Still the incident contradicts the
reputation for
enduring everything which they have had. The Filipinos have been much
more long-suffering than the Chinese since, in spite of
having been
obliged to row on more than one occasion, they never mutinied.

It is difficult to excuse the missionaries’

disregard of the laws of nations and the usages of honorable politics
in their interference in Cambodia on
the ground that it was to spread
the Faith. Religion had a broad field awaiting them in the
Philippines where more than nine-tenths of the natives
were infidels.
That even now there are to be found here so many tribes and
settlements of non-Christians take away much of the prestige of that
religious zeal which in the easy life in towns of wealth, liberal and
fond of display, grows lethargic. Truth is that the ancient activity
was scarcely
for the Faith alone, because the missionaries had to go
to islands rich in spices in gold though there were at hand
Mohammedans and Jews in
Spain and Africa. Indians by the million in
the Americas and more millions of the Protestants, schismatics and
heretics peopled, and still people,
over six-sevenths of Europe. All
of these doubtless would have accepted the Light and the true
religion if the friars, under pretext of preaching to
them, had not
abused their hospitability and if behind the name Religion had not
lurked the unnamed Domination.

In the attempt made by Rodriguez de Figeroa

to conquer Mindanao according to his contract with the King of Spain,
there was fighting along the
Rio Grande with the people called the
Buhahayenes. Their general, according to Argensola, was the
celebrated Silonga, later distinguished for
many deeds in raids on
the Bisayas and adjacent islands. Chirino relates an anecdote of his
coolness under fire once during a truce for a
marriage among Mindanao
principallia.
Young Spaniards out of bravado fired at his feet but he passed on as
if unconscious of the bullets.

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Argensola has preserved the name of the
Filipino who killed Rodriguez de Figueroa. It was Ubal. Two days
previously he had given a banquet,
slaying for it a beef animal of
his own, and then made the promise which he kept, to do away with the
leader of the Spanish invaders. A Jesuit
writer calls him a traitor
though the justification for that term of reproach is not apparent.
The Buhayhayen people were in their own country, and
had neither
offended nor declared war upon the Spaniards. They had to defend
their homes against powerful invaders, with superior forces,
many of
whom were, by reason of their armor, invulnerable so far as rude
Indians were concerned. Yet these same Indians were defenseless
against the balls from their muskets. By the Jesuit line of
reasoning, the heroic Spanish peasantry in their war for independence
would have
been a people even more treacherous. It was not Ubal’s
fault that he was not seen and, as it was wartime, it would have been
the height of folly,
in view of the immense disparity of arms to have
first called out to his preoccupied opponent, and then been killed
himself.

The muskets used by the Buhayhayens were

probably some that had belonged Figueroa’s soldiers who had died in
battle. Though the
Philippines had latakas
and other artillery, muskets were unknown until Spaniards came.

That the Spaniards used the word “discover”

of the Solomon Islands though he noted that the islands had been
discovered before.

Death has always been the first sign of

European civilization on its introduction in the Pacific Ocean. God
grant that it may not be the last,
though to judge by statistics the
civilized islands are losing their population at a terrible rate.
Magellan himself inaugurated his arrival in the
Marianes islands by
burning more than forty houses, many small crafts and seven people
because one of his ships had been stolen. Yet to the
simple savages
the act had nothing wrong in it but was done in the same naturalness
that civilized people hunt, fish and subjugate people that
are weak
or ill-armed.

The Spanish historians of the Philippines

never overlook any opportunity, be it suspicion or accident that may
be twisted into something
unfavorable to the Filipinos. They seem to
forget that in almost every case the reason for the rupture has been
some act of those who were
pretending to civilize helpless people by
force of arms and at the cost of their native land. What would the
same writers have said if the crimes
committed by the Spaniards, the
Portuguese and the Dutch in their colonies had been committed by the
islanders?

The Japanese were not in error when they

suspected the Spanish and Portuguese religious propaganda to have
political motive back of the
missionary activities. Witness the
Moluccas where Spanish missionaries served as spies; Cambodia, which
it was sought to conquer under the
cloak of converting; and many
other nations, among them the Filipinos, where the sacrament of
baptism made of inhabitants not only subjects of
the king of Spain
but also slaves of the encomenderos,
and as well slaves of the churches and converts. What would Japan had
been now, had
not its emperors uprooted Catholicism? A missionary
record of 1625 sets forth that the king of Spain had arranged with
certain members of
Philippine religious orders that, under guise of
preaching the faith and making Christians, they should win over the
Japanese and oblige them to
make themselves of the Spanish party, and
finally it told of a plan whereby the King of Spain should become
also King of japan. In corroboration
of this may be cited the claims
that Japan fell within the Pope’s demarcation lines for Spanish
expansion and so there was complaint of
missionaries other than
Spanish there. Therefor it was not for religion that they were
converting the infidels!

The raid by Datus Sali and Silonga of

Mindanao, in 1599 with 50 sailing vessels and 3,000 warriors, against
the capitol of Panay, is the first act
of piracy by the inhabitants
of the South which is recorded in Philippine history. I say “by the
inhabitants of the South” because earlier there had
been other acts
of piracy, the earliest being that of Magellan’s expedition when it
seized the shipping of friendly islands and even of those whom
they
did not know, extorting for them heavy ransoms. It will be remembered
that these Moro piracies continued for more than two centuries,
during which the indomitable sons of the South made captives and
carried fire and sword not only in neighboring islands but into
Manila bay to
Malate, to the very gates of the capital, and not once
a year merely by at times reporting their raids five and six times in
a single season. Yet the
government was unable to repel them or to
defend the people whom it had disarmed and left without protection.
Estimating that the cost to the
islands was but 800 victims a year,
still the total would be more than 200,000 persons sold into slavery
or killed, all sacrificed together with so
many other things to the
prestige of that empty title, Spanish sovereignty.

Still the Spaniards say that the Filipinos

have contributed nothing to Mother Spain, and that it is the islands
which owe everything. It may be so,
but what about the enormous sum
of gold which was taken from the islands in the early years of
Spanish rule of the tributes collected by the
encomenderos,
of the nine million dollars yearly collected to pay the military
expenses of the employees, diplomatic agents, corporations and
the
like, charged to the Philippines, with salaries paid out of the
Philippine treasury not only for those who come to the Philippines
but also for
those who leave, to some who never have been and never
will be in the islands, as well as to others who have nothing to do
with them. Yet all of
this is nothing in comparison with so many
captives gone, such a great number of soldiers killed in expeditions,
islands depopulated, their
inhabitants sold as slaves by the
Spaniards themselves, the death of industry, the demoralization of
the Filipinos, and so forth. Enormous indeed
would the benefits which
that sacred civilization brought to the archipelago have to be in
order to counterbalance so heavy a cost.

While Japan was preparing to invade the

Philippines, these islands were sending expeditions to Tonquin and
Cambodia, leaving the homeland
helpless, even against the
undisciplined hordes from the South, so obsessed were the Spaniards
with the idea of making conquests.

In the alleged victory of Morga over the

Dutch ships, the latter found upon the bodies of five Spaniards, who
lost their lives in that combat, little
silver boxed filled with
prayers and innovations to the saints. Here would seem to be the
origin of the anting-anting of the modern tulisanes,
which are also
of religious character.

In Morga’s time, the Philippines exported

silk to Japan whence now comes the best quality of that merchandise.
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Morga’s views upon the failure of
Governor Pedro de Acuñas ambitious expedition against the Moros
unhappily still apply for the same
conditions yet exist. For fear of
uprisings and loss of Spain’s sovereignty over the islands, the
inhabitants were disarmed, leaving them exposed
to the harassing of a
powerful and dreaded enemy. Even now, though the use of steam vessels
has put an end to piracy from outside, the same
fatal system still is
followed. The peaceful country folk are deprived of arms and thus
made unable to defend themselves against the bandits, or
tulisanes,
which the government cannot restrain. It is an encouragement to
banditry thus to make easy its getting booty.

Hernando de los Rios blames these Moluccan

wars for the fact that at first the Philippines were a source of
expense to Spain instead of
profitable in spite of the tremendous
sacrifices of the Filipinos, their partially gratuitous labor in
building and equipping the galleons and despite,
too, the tribute
tariffs and other imposts and monopolies. These wars to gain the
Moluccas, which soon were lost forever with the little that had
been
so laboriously obtained, were a heavy drain upon the Philippines.
They depopulated the country and bankrupted the treasury, with not
the
slightest compensating benefit. True also is it that it was to
gain the Moluccas that Spain kept the Philippines, the desire for the
rich spice
islands being one of the most powerful arguments when,
because of their expense to him, the King thought of withdrawing and
abandoning
them.

Among the Filipinos who aided the

government when then Manila Chinese revolted Argensola says there
were 4,000 Pampangans “armed after
the way of their land, with bows
and arrows, short lances, shields, and broad and long daggers”.
Some Spanish writers say that the Japanese
volunteers and the
Filipinos showed themselves cruel in slaughtering the Chinese
refugees. This may very well have been so, considering the
hatred and
rancor then existing, but those in command set example.

The loss of two Mexican galleons in 1603

called forth no comment from the religious chroniclers who were
accustomed to see the avenging
hand of God in the misfortunes and
accidents of their enemies. Yet, there were repeated shipwrecks of
the vessels that carried from the
Philippines wealth which
encomenderos had
extorted from the Filipinos, using force, or making their own laws,
and when not using these open
means, cheating by the weights and
measures.

The Filipino chiefs who at their own

expense went with the Spanish expedition against Ternate, in the
Moluccas, in 1605, were Don Guillermo
Palaot, Maestro de Campo, and
Captains Francisco Palaot, Juan Lit, Luis Lont, and Agustin Lont.
They had with them 400 Tagalogs and
Pampangans. The leaders bore
themselves bravely for Argensola writes that in the assault on
Ternate. “No officer, Spaniard or Indian, went
unscathed!”

The Cebuanos drew a pattern on the skin

before starting into tattoo. The Bisayan usage then was the same
procedure that the Japanese that
the Japanese follow today.

Ancient traditions ascribe the origin of

the Malay Filipinos to the islands of Sumatra. These traditions were
almost completely lost as well as the
mythology and the genealogies
of which the historians tell, thanks to zeal of the missionaries in
eradicating all national remembrances as
heathen or idolatrous. The
study of ethnology is restring this somewhat.

The chiefs used to wear upper garments,

usually of Indian fine gauze according to Colin, of red color, a
shade for which they had the same
fondness that the Romans had. The
barbarous tribes in Mindanao still have same taste.

The “easy virtue” of the native women

that historians note is not solely to the simplicity with which they
obeyed their natural instincts but much
more due to a religious
belief of which father Chirino tells. It was that in the journey
after death to “Kalualhatiran,” the abode of the spirit, there
was a dangerous river to cross that had no bridge other than a very
narrow strip of wood over which a woman could not pass unless she had
a
husband or a lover to extend a hand to assist her. Furthermore, the
religious annals of the early missions are filled with countless
instances
where native maidens chose death rather than sacrifice
their chastity to the threats and violence of encomenderos
and Spanish soldiers. As to
the mercenary social evil, that is
worldwide and there is no nation that can “throw the first stone”
at the other. For the rest, today in the
Philippines has no reason to
blush in comparing the womankind with the women of the most
conservative nation in the world.

Morga’s remark that the Filipinos like

fish better when it’s commencing to turn bad is another of those
prejudices which the Spaniards like all
other nations have. In
matters of food, each is nauseated with what he is unaccustomed to or
doesn’t know is eatable. The English, for example,
find their gorge
rising when they see a Spaniard eating snails, while in turn the
Spanish find roast beef English style repugnant and can’t
understand the relish of other Europeans for beef steak a la Tartar
which to them is simply raw meat. The Chinamen, who likes shark’s
meat,
cannot bear Roquefort cheese, and these examples might be
indefinitely extended. The Filipino favorite fish dish is the Bagoong
and whoever
has tried to eat it knows that it is not considered
improved when tainted. It neither is, nor ought to be, decayed.

Colin says the ancient Filipinos had

minstrels who had memorized songs telling their genealogies and of
the deeds ascribed to their deities.
These were chanted on voyage in
cadence with the rowing, or at festivals, or funerals, or wherever
there happened to be any considerable
gatherings. It is regrettable
that these chants have not been preserved as from them it would have
been possible to learn much of the Filipinos’
past and possibly of
the history of neighboring islands.

The cannon foundry mentioned by Morga as in

the walled city was probably on the site of the Tagalog one which was
destroyed by fire on the
first coming of the Spaniards. That
established in 1584 was in Lamayan, that is, Santa Ana now, and was
transferred to the old site in 1590. It
continued to work until 1805.
According to Gaspar San Agustin, the cannon which the pre-Spanish
Filipinos cast were “as great as of those of

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Malaga,” Spain’s
foundry. The Filipino plant was burned with all that was in it save a
dozen large cannons and some smaller pieces which the
Spanish
invaders took back with them to Panay. The rest of their artillery
equipment had been thrown by the Manilans, then Moros, into the sea
when they recognized their defeat.

Malate better than Maalat, was where the

Tagalog aristocracy lived after they were dispossessed by the
Spaniards of their old homes in what is
now the walled city of
Manila. Among the Malate residents were the families of Raja Matanda
and Raja Soliman. The men had various positions
in Manila and some
were employed in the government work nearby. “They were very expert
in lace-making, so much that they were not at all
behind the women of
the Flanders.”

Morga’s statement that there was not a

province or town of the Filipinos that resisted conversion or did not
want it may have been true of the
civilized natives. But the contrary
was the fact among the mountain tribes. We have the testimony of
several Dominican and Augustinian
missionaries that it was impossible
to go anywhere to make conversions without other Filipino along and a
guard of soldiers. “Otherwise,” says
Gaspar de San Agustin,
“there would have been no fruit of the Evangelic Doctrine gathered,
for the infidels wanted to kill the Friars who came to
preach to
them. “An example of this method of conversion given by the same
writer was a trip to the mountains by the two Friars who had a
numerous escort of Pampangans. The escort’s leader was Don Agustin
de Sonson who had a reputation for daring and carried fire and sword
into the country, killing many, including the chief, Kabadi.

“The Spaniards,” says Morga, “were

accustomed to hold as slaves such natives as they bought and others
that they took in the forays in the
conquest or pacification of the
islands”.

Consequently in this respect the

“pacifiers” introduced no moral improvement. We even do not know
if in their wars the Filipinos used to make
slaves of each other,
though that would not have been strange, for the chroniclers tell of
captives returned to their own people. The practice of
the southern
pirates, almost proves this, although in this piratical wars the
Spaniards were the first aggressors and gave them their character.

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5. The Value of Rizal’s Annotation

The value of Rizal’s annotation of

Sucesus is immense as through the work, he provided especially the
Filipino readers with rich annotative
footnotes concerning Philippine
culture and society, coupled with complete scholarly referenced
resources and full citations. Most especially,
through this work,
Rizal had proved and showed that the Philippines was an advanced
civilization prior to the Spanish conquest.

The significance of Rizal’s noble purpose

in working on Morga’s book is prophetically encapsulated in some of
his statements in his preface: “If
the book (Sucesus de las Islas
Filipinas) succeeds to awaken your consciousness of our past, already
effaced from your memory, and to rectify
what has been falsified and
slandered, then I have not worked in vain, and with this as a basis,
however small it may be, we shall be able to
study the future.”

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6. Module 10 Assignment 1

Answer

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