The Life and Works of Jose Rizal

Metacognitive Reading Report # 1

Name: Peaucel Perartilla Date: September 2, 2020

1. Three (3) Things that I significantly learned from the readings

Through the readings, I have learned that (1) Chinese mestizo was a term used for the
middle-class citizens of the Colonial Philippines under Spain. A person will be called
Chinese mestizo if he had a blood of both Indio (Filipino) and Chinese. This usually
happens when a Chinese merchant decides to marry an India through Catholicism.
Because of the growing Chinese community in the country, the Spanish Government
therefore decided to build Binondo specifically for the Chinese to get ahold of them and
lessen the risks of rebellion. Since most of the Chinese merchants were male, they
colonized the Chinese through converting to Catholicism when they are to marry an
India.

(2) Though they were considered as Chinese mestizos, their status in the legislation of the
Philippines depend if they were male or female. The status of the father determines the
status of the Child, if his father married an India, he would get the title of his father and
subsequently, the India mother will be considered as Chinese mestiza. But if the woman
considered as a Chinese in the legislation married an Indio, her status would become an
India, the lowest status in the legislation of the Philippines before.

(3) Chinese played a big part in the economical aspect of the Philippines as they were
known as good handlers of money and businesses. They were also title holders of land in
some part of the Philippines and make money for the economy. Not only this, but they
also had a big impact on the social and cultural aspect of the country as the later
generation of the Chinese became the Chinese Mestizo, and later on wants to identify
themselves as Indio, that was later on developed as Filipino, has helped in building the
Filipino community we have in the present.

2. Three (3) Things that are still unclear to me

The three things that are still uncleared to me was (1) how the Chinese have a large
population in the Luzon Province: Bulacan (20,037.5), Pampanga (20,937.5) and Tondo
(35,077.5) but lower on the other parts of the Philippines specifically in the places of
Visayas and Mindanao. (2) It is stated in the readings that the Spanish government
decided to build a place that is specifically made for the Chinese, the Binondo community
that is located near the walled city of Intramuros. It is known that Intramuros was
primarily build for the Spanish community, including the environment, but is there a
significance why Binondo was build near it? (3) Last, it is unclear to me why the
 Spaniards considered the Chinese as a threat in their time when they played a big part in
the industrialization of the country and its economy.

3. I used to think that….

I used to think that mestizos are term used for those who have white skin or a Spanish
descent, but now I know that other nationalities has its own term of mestizo (Chinese), as
it is my first time to encounter Chinese mestizo in the history text books. Although I
know that the Chinese are here in the Philippines before the Spaniards colonized the
country, I was not aware that they have a term for the Chinese-Filipino blood that is
widely used in the 1600s.

4. Three (3) questions that I want to ask about the readings

The three questions that I want to ask about the readings are the following:
(1) Why was there the legislation status of the Philippines were three (Chinese/ Spanish,
mestizo, Indio) when the mestizos were basically the children of the Chinese and
Spaniards?
(2) Why does the population of the Chinese community lessened when mentioned the
parts of Visayas and Mindanao? Also, Nueva Ecija was a part of Luzon but why was
it mentioned that there is no Chinese community there when other parts of Luzon
were full of Chinese?
(3) Why was the built Chinese community in the country is named, Binondo? Was there
a reason behind this?