MODULE LIFE AND WORKS OF RIZAL

CHAPTER 2: SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

Objectives:
a.) Appraise the link between the individual society.
b.) Analyze the social changes that occurred in the
nineteenth century.
c.) Understand Jose Rizal in the context of his time.

THE EDUCATION SYSTEM

A key factor in the emergence of the nationalism in late 19th century was the
cultural development consequent on the rapid spread of education from about 1861.
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One of the major influences on the educational development of the 19 century
was the return of the Jesuits. They returned with ideas and methods new to the
Philippine educational system.

1859 - Asked by the Ayuntamiento to take over the municipal primary school that
became Escuela Municipal, later renamed Ateneo Municipal de Manila in 1865, now
Ateneo de Manila University and opened it to the Filipino students as well as the
Spaniards for whom it has been founded.

1865 - Ateneo Municipal had been transformed into secondary school that offered a level of
instruction beyond the official requirements and more approximated today’s college than
high school. Aside from Latin and Spanish, Greek, French and English were studied. Rizal
studied at Ateneo Municipal when this school was located at Intramuros, Manila.

At the same time, such role was given to the natural sciences that Rizal has the
Filisopo Tasio (Rizal’s father, Francisco) say, “The Philippines owes (the Jesuits) the
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beginning of Natural Science, soul of the 19 century”.

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The Escuela Normal Superior de Maestros (Superior Normal School) for female
teachers was founded and supervised by Jesuits to provide Spanish-speaking teachers
for the projected new primary school system. The Escuela Normal represented a hope
of progress in the mind of many Filipinos that just as would be opposed by those for
whom modern education for Filipinos pose a danger to the continuance of Spanish rule.

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OTHER SCHOOLS OPENED IN THE 19 CENTURY

On April 28, 1811, The Universidad de Sto

Tomas was founded in manila initially as the Colegio
de Nuestra Señora del Santisimo Rosario and later
renamed Colegio de Santo Tomas. UST was first
located in Intramuros, Manila where Rizal took his
course in Medicine.
November 20, 1645, Pope Innocent X elevated it to University.
1785 - King Charles III of Spain bestowed the title “Royal Patronage”
1902 - Pope Leo XIII “Pontifical”
1947 - Pope Pius XII designated it as La Real y Pontificia Universidad de Santo
Tomas de
Aquino Universidad Catolica de Filipinas (The Catholic University of the
Philippines)

San Carlos and Santo Tomas maintain a friendly rivalry over the claim to be the
oldest university in Asia. The University of San Carlos makes the claim of tracing its
roots to the Colegio de San Ildefonso founded by the Spanish Jesuits fathers Antonio
Sedeno, Pedro Chirino and Antonio Pereira in 1595. However, this claim is opposed by
the Pontificial and Royal University of Santo Tomas, including notable scholars Dr. Jose
Victor Torres, professor of history at the De La Salle, Fr. Aloysius Cartagenas STD,
professor at the Semenario Mayor de San Carlos of Cebu, and Fr. Fidel Villaroel, OP,
respected historian and former archivist of Santo Tomas, argued that that there is no
visible and clear link between San Carlos and San Ildefonso.

1601- The Jesuits also founded the Colegio de San Jose and took over the
management of a school that became the Escuela Municipal (1859, later renamed
Ateneo Municipal de Manila in 1865, now the Ateneo de Manila University).

1640 - Universidad de San Felipe de Austria was established in Manila. It was the first
public university created by the Spanish government in the Philippines. It closed down
in 1643.

1620 - The Dominicans on their part had the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Manila.
All of them provided courses leading to different prestigious degrees, like the Bachiller
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in Arts, that by the 19 century included science subjects such as physics, chemistry,
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natural history and mathematics. The University of Santo Tomas, for example, started
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by teaching theology, philosophy and humanities. During 18 century, the Faculty of
Jurisprudence and Canonical Law was established.

1871- several schools of medicine and pharmacy were opened.

1871 to 1883 - Santo Tomas alone had 829 registrations of medical students, and from
1883 until 1898, 7,965 medical students.

1898- the university had granted the degree of Licenciado en Medicina to 359
graduates and 108 medical doctors. For the doctorate degree in medicine, its provision
was inspired in the same set of oppositions than those of universities in the metropolis,
and at least and an additional year of study was required at the Universidad Central de
Madrid in Spain.

SECONDARY SCHOOLS

January 1, 1820 - A Nautical School was created which offered a four-year course of
study (for the profession of pilot of merchant marine) that included subjects such as
arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, physics, hydrography, meteorology,
navigation and pilotage.

A School of Commercial Accounting and a School of French and English Languages

were established.

November 4, 1861 - The Don Honorio Ventura College of Arts and Trades (DHVCAT) in
Bacolor, Pampanga is said to be the oldest official vocational school in Asia. Augustinian
Friar Juan Zita and civic leader Don Felino Gil established the vocational school.

Other important vocational schools Escuela de Contaduria, Academia de pintura y

Dibujo and the seminaries of manila, Nueva Segovia, Cebu, Jaro and Nueva Caceres.

1887 - the Manila School of Agriculture was created, but open

its doors on July 1889. Its mission is to provide theoretical and
practical education by agricultural engineers to skilled farmers
to promote agricultural development by means of observation,
experiments and investigation. It included subjects such as
mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural history, agriculture,
topography, linear and topography drawing. Agricultural
schools and monitoring stations, run by professors who were
agricultural engineers, were also established in Isabela, Ilocos,
Albay, Cebu, Iloilo, Leyte and parts of Mindanao.

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1780 - The Real Sociedad Economica de los Amigos del Pais de Filipinas (Royal
Economic Society of Friends of the Philippines) was first introduced in the islands and
offered local and foreign scholarships to Filipinos professorship and financed trips of
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scientists from Spain to the Philippines. Throughout the 19 century, the Society
established an Academy of Design, financed the publication of scientific and technical
literature, and granted awards to successful experiments and inventions that improved
agriculture and industry.

1865 - The Observatorio Meteorologico del Ateneo Municipal de Manila (Manila

Observatory) was founded by the Jesuits after an article they published in the newspaper
Diario de Manila, describing typhoon observations in September 1865, attracted the
attention of many readers who publicly requested for the observations to be continued.

1884 - The Spanish government made the observatory the official institution for weather
forecasting in the Philippines in

1885 - it started its time service.

1887 - Its seismology section was set up

1899 - astronomical studies began

The Observatory published typhoon and climatological observations and studies,

including the first typhoon warnings, a service that was highly appreciated by the
business community, especially those involved in merchant shipping.

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THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM IN THE 19 CENTURY

Free access to modern public education by all Filipinos was made possible
through the enactment of the Education Decree of December 20, 1863 by Queen
Isabela II. Primary instruction was made free and the teaching of Spanish was
compulsory. The royal decree provided for a complete educational system which would
consist of primary, secondary and tertiary levels, finally making officially available to
Filipinos valuable training for leadership after three centuries of colonization.

The education Decree of 1863 provided the establishment of at least two free
primary schools, one for boys and another for girls, in each town under the responsibility
of the municipal government.

It also commended the creation of a free public normal school to train men as
teachers, supervised by the Jesuits.

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1896 - the Escuela Normal Elemental, which became the Escuela Normal Superior de
Maestros de Manila (Manila Ordinary School for Schoolmistresses).
1879 - the Spanish government established a school for midwives

1892 - Escuela Normal Superior de Maestras (Superior Normal School) for female
teachers

1890’s - free public secondary schools were opening outside of Manila, including 10
normal schools for women. The Philippines was ahead of some European countries in
offering education for women.
In 1866, the total population of the Philippines was only 4,411,261. The total
public school was 841 for boys and 833 for girls. In 1982, the number of schools
increased to 2, 137, 1.087 of which was for boys and 1,050 for girls.

THE CHINESE MESTIZOS IN THE PHILIPPINES

The Chinese Mestizos population in the Philippines exceeded 200,000 by the

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late 19 century.

The Chinese mestizos rose to prominence between 1741

and 1898, primarily as a landholder and a middleman wholesaler
of local produce and foreign imports, although there were also
mestizos in the professions. The rise of the mestizos implies the
existence of social change during Spanish period, a condition that
has been ignored or implicitly denied by many who have written
about the Philippines. It needs to be emphasized that the mestizo
impact was greatest in Central Luzon, Cebu, and Iloilo.

The renewal of Chinese immigration to the Philippines resulted in diversion of

mestizo energies away from commerce, so that the mestizos lost their change to
become a native middle class, a position then taken over by the Chinese.

The Chinese mestizos in the Philippines possessed a unique combination of cultural

characteristics. Lovers of ostentation, ardent devotees of Spanish Yet with those
characteristics they combined a financial acumen that seemed out of place. Rejecters of
their Chinese heritage, they were not completely at home with their indio heritage. The
nearest approximation to them was the urbanized, heavily-hispanized Indio. Only when
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hispanization had reached a high level in the 19 century urban areas could the mestizo
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find a basis of rapport with the indio. Thus, during the late 19 century, because of cultural,
economic, and social changes, the mestizos increasingly identified themselves with the
indios in a new kind of “Filipino” cultural and national consensus.

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THE RISE OF THE INQUILLINOS (HACIENDEROS)

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The rapidly growing population in the 19 century needed increased amounts of rice.
Thus, those who controlled large rice, sugar, and abaca-growing lands in Central Luzon,
Batangas, parts of Bicol region, Negros, and Panay profited the most. These included not
only the Filipino hacenderos of Pampanga, Batangas, and Western Visayas, and the friar
orders owning the large haciendas of Bulacan, Laguna and Cavite, but also inquilinos of the
friar haciendas. By this time, many of these inquilinos were equivalently hacenderos in their
own right, pass on from one generation to the next lands they rented from the flier hacienda
and farming them by means of their share-tenants or kasama. To the latter, they stood in a
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semi feudal relationship little different from that which existed during Rizal’s time in the 19
century context between owner-hacenderos and their tenants. The prosperity which the new
export economy has brought to some may be illustrated by the case of Rizal’s Chinese
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ancestor Domingo Lam-co. When he had come to the Biñan hacienda in the mid-18
century, the average holding of an inquilino was 2.9 hectare; after Rizal’s father had moved
to the hacienda, the Rizal family in the 1890’s rented the hacienda over 390 hectares. But
on the friar haciendas, rising prosperity had also brought friction between inquilinos and
hacienda as lands grew in value and rents were raised. A combination of traditional
methods and modernizing efficiency led to disputes, ultimately over who should reap the
larger part of the fruits of the economic boom. Eventually, this would lead to a questioning of
the friar’s rights to the haciendas. But it is a gross misnomer to speak of the revolution as an
“agrarian revolt” in the modern sense. For it would not be the kasama who would challenge
friar ownership, but the prosperous inquilinos. And their motive would be as much political
as economic – to weaken the friars’ influence in the Philippines political life.

To know more about this Chapter, please click the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0ZA3RTMYao
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEv8wleg8f0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SjqnGfhhm0

Dr. Mariano M. Ariola The Life and Works of Rizal. Unlimited Books Library Service &
Publishing Inc.: 2018

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