126 The LiFE AND WORKS OF JOSE RIZAL

Brgliif Hr
Alatas, Syed Farid. 2011. “Rizal and the Sociology of Colonial
Society.” Conference Paper read at the Rizal@150
Conference, 22-24 June 2011, University of the Philippines. CHAPTER 11

Anderson, Benedict. 2008. Why counting counts: A study of

forms of consciousness and problems of language in Noli
Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. Quezon City: Ateneo de
Looking at
Manila University Press.

Guerrero, Leon Ma. 1974. The first Filipino. Manila: National

the Filipino past
Historical Institute.

Rizal, Jose (Translated by Ma. Soledad Lacson-Locsin). 1996.

Noli me tangere. Makati: Bookmark.

Testa-De Ocampo, Ana Melinda. 2011. The afterlives of the Noli

me Tangere. Philippine Studies 59(4): 495-527.

unng the Spanish colonial period, Philippine history was

primarily written by the Spaniards. Early Spanish historians took
of thesenote of the native's appearance and way of life. However m any
early histones depicted the Filipinos in negative terms and
often contained biases
against the coionized people.
Jose Rizal’s ,
a nnotation of Antonio Morga's work. Sucesos de
las Islas Filipinas,
Fill ■ «, C ' attempt to redress this biased view of the
pinos. Although Rizal's annotations have been "largely disregarded ”
LmTh Philippine history to be written '
from the viewpoint of a Filipino. ^

igi^gjf(N:(y;bBilfiCTrVES

At the end of this chapter, the students should be able to:

argue the
reasons why Jose Rizal decided to annotate Antonio
Morga’s work, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas;
^ relate how Rizal’s annotations conform with the overa ll aims of the
Propaganda Movement; and
^ create their
own annotations of a sample text.
128 THE Life AND WORKS OF JOSE RIZAL
VOCABULARY
Audiencia - the Royal Audiencia or the royal court of Justice in Spain
and its colonies
ecclesiastics - the religious missionaries
secular - having ideas and attitudes not determined by any religious
bias
Antonio Morga was a Spanish administrator who served
in the Philippines in the late sixteenth century. He was born in
Seville in 1559 and began working for the government in 1580.
He served as the Lieutenant-Governor—second most powerful
position in the colony—of the Philippines in 1593 and then as
a judge of the Audiencia in 1598. By 1615, he moved to Mexico
where he served as the president of the Audiencia. He was later
investigated for corruption and was found guilty. Before being
sent to the gallows, however, he died in 1636.
Morga’s work, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, was published
in 1609 in Mexico and consisted of eight chapters. The first
seven chapters dealt with the terms of the governor-generals who
had served in the Philippines from the time of Miguel Lopez de
Legazpi in 1565 to Pedro de Acuna in 1606. The last chapter,
titled “An account of the Philippine Islands,” provided ample
descriptions of early Filipinos upon the arrival of the Spaniards
in the sixteenth century.
While at the British Museum in late 1889, Rizal found a
copy of the first edition of Antonio Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas
Filipinas and began copying the text by hand. He annotated
the work along the way with the intention of creating a critical
work on the history of the Philippines. Despite hopes of getting
the work published through the help of Antonio Regidor, Rizal
ended up with no publisher when his annotations were done.
Looking AT THE FILIPINO Past 129
By September 1889, Rizal decided to publish the annotations
himself in Gamier Hermanns, a printing press based in Paris.
Rizal’s choice of annotating Morga’s work among all
other early chronicles written by Spaniards is not coincidental.
Historian Ambeth Ocampo provides five reasons behind Rizal’s
choice.
The first
reason, according to Ocampo, was the fact that
Morga s work in its original Spanish edition was rare. In fact, the
original Spanish text had never been reprinted in full until Rizal
published his annotations in 1889. Second, unlike other early
Spanish chronicles written by ecclesiastics, Morga was a civil
administrator and therefore provided a secular view of historical
events during the early Spanish colonial period. This second ’
reason relates to Rizal’s belief that a secular account was more
credible than those written by religious missionaries, which is
the third reason for his choice. Fourth, it was more sympathetic
towards the natives in contrast to the biased accounts written
by the friars. Finally, Morga’s work was a fitting choice because
he was an eyewitness to historical events that occurred in the
Philippines during the period of early Spanish colonization.
With the publication of his annotations to Sucesos, Rizal
presented an outline of a linear conception of history. While Noli ■;
Me Tdngere dealt with the nineteenth century or Rizal’s present,
and El Filibusterismo and the essay titled “The Philipines a
Century Hence covered the future, the annotations of Sucesos
tackled the past.
More than an
attempt to write the country’s history,
however, Rizal s annotation of Morga’s Sucesos must also be
seen within the context of the Propaganda Movement. At a
time when Filipino propagandists were clamoring for reforms
in Spain, presenting a critical narrative of the country’s history
might be considered as an endeavor to create a sense of national
consciousness or identity that was anchored on a glorious past.
Whereas early Spanish chroniclers ridiculed the early Filipinos
130 The LIFE AND WORKS OF JOSE RIZAL
for being barbarians, Rizal’s copious notes of Sucesos revealed
early Filipino culture as rich and flourishing. Thus, Rizal’s
annotations may be considered an effort to assert Filipino ''
identity within an oppressive colonial framework.
ACTIVITY 1
Critical Reading
Read the following excerpts from Rizal’s annotations of
Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. Answer the questions that
follow.
Excerpt 1
Morga:
Their regular daily food is rice... together with boiled
fish of which there is an abundance, and pork or venison,
likewise meat of wild buffalo or carabao. They prefer
meat and fish, saltfish which begin to decompose and
smell.
Rizal’s annotation:
This is another preoccupation of the Spaniards who,
like any other nation, in the matter of food, loathe that
to which they are not accustomed or is unknown to
them. The English, for example, is horrified on seeing
a Spaniard eating snails; to the Spaniard beefsteak is
repugnant and he can't understand how raw beefsteak
can be eaten; the Chinese who eat tahuri and shark
cannot stand Roquefort cheese, etc., etc. The fish
that Morga mentions does not taste better when it is
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 to be rotten.
looking at the Filipino Past 131
Excerpt 2
Morga:
In the rivers and streams there are very large and
small scorpions and great number of very fierce and
cruel crocodiles which frequently get the natives from
their bancas on which they ride... However much the
people may trap, catch and kill them, these reptiles hardly
seem to dimmish in number. For this reason, the natives
build on
the border of their rivers and streams in their
settlements where they bathe, traps and fences with thick
enclosures and bars of bamboo and timber within which
they do their bathing and washing, secure from these \
monsters which they fear and respect to the degree of
veneration, as if they were somehow superior to them.
Rizal’s annotation:
Perhaps for the same reason, other nations have great
esteem for the lion and bear, putting them on their shields
and giving them honorable epithets. The mysterious life
of the crocodile, the enormous size that it sometimes
reaches, its fatidical aspect, without counting any more
its voraciousness, must have influenced greatly the
imagination of the Malayan Filipinos.
Questions
1.
In Excerpt 1, what impression of the Filipinos do you get
from reading Morga’s description of the type of food
the natives eat? Which particular phrase gives you this
impression?

132 THE LIFE AND WORKS OF lose RIZAL
an annotation about the
2. What is Rizal’s purpose in writing
food preferences of the English, Spaniards, and Chinese?
3. In Excerpt 2, how did Morga portray the Filipinos?
4. In Rizal’s subsequent annotation, what does he mean when
he says,“Perhaps for the same reason, other nations have
great esteem for the lion and bear, putting them on their
shields and giving them honorable epithets”?
5. In general, what is Rizal’s motive in writing his annotations
of Morga’s work? How does this fit into the aims of other
propagandists working for reforms during this time?
LOOKING AT THE FILIPINO PAST 133
ACTIVlir 2
Annotating a Text
Form yourselves into groups of three to four members.
Choose one article from the headlines section of a recent issue of
a local newspaper. Reflect on the article by annotating the text.
Use the following pointers to help you write your annotations.
1. Define words. Look up and write down definitions of
unfamiliar words.
2. Relate certain portions to other parts of the article.
3. Relate certain ideas to what you have read from other
materials.
4. Re-write by paraphrasing or summarizing portions that
you find difficult to understand.
5. Relate certain ideas to your own experiences.
6. Explain the context behind the article you have read.
7. Analyze or interpret what is being said in the text.
’For more pointers, see Brown. Matthew D, March 2007. I'll have mine annotated, please: helping
students make connections with texts. English Journal 96-4: 73-78. Also available online at http://
’www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/iesson1132/EJ0964Have.pdf
SUMMARY
Rizal’s annotations of Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas may be
considered an attempt to write Philippine history from the point
of view of a Filipino. With the publication of this work, Rizal
provided a linear view of history with Noli Me Tdngere showing
a view of the present, El Filibusterismo and “The Philippines
a Century Hence” illustrating a view of the future, and the
annotations clarifying g view of the past.
In addition, Rizal’s annotations should also be understood
within the context of propaganda work that Filipinos in Spain
were engaged in. The annotations explored the possibilities of
creating a Filipino identity anchored clearly on a pre-Spanish
past.