Karen P.

Felipe
BEEd-IV

Readings in Philippine History

Activity 4: Week 4 (Sept. 6-10)
Mrs. Pamela Carbonel

Page 18-27: Roman No. III

1. List down all the descriptions written by Rizal about the situations of the
Philippines still run by Spaniards until the end of the century or after 100 years.

 Violent and fatal transformation originate from the masses; peaceful and rich in
results if from upper classes.
 All reforms of a palliative character are not only useless but even injurious when
the government is confronted with evils that need a radical remedy. All the
reforms of liberal ministers will be good.
 The government in the country can dispense of the press because it is on the spot ,
it has eyes and ears, it sees at close hand what is ruling and administering . The
government that rules from afar absolutely needs that the truth and the facts reach
it through all possible means so that it can appreciate and judge them better and
this necessity becomes imperative when it concerns a country like the Philippines
whose inhabitants speak and complain in a language unknown to the authorities.
 No valid reason why the Philippines should not have deputies. With their creation
many discontented persons will be mollified, and instead of imputing the evils in
the country to the government, as it happens today, they will bear them better,
because at least they can complain, and because having their own sons among the
lawmakers, makes them in a certain way responsible for their acts.
 Filipino people know that lack of enlightenment, the pusillanimity, the selfishness
of many of their compatriots, and the audacity, astuteness and the powerful
means at the command of those who want obscurantism to prevail there can
convert the reform into an obnoxious instrument. They wish to be loyal to the
government and they point out to it to the road that seems to them best so that its
efforts would not come to naught, so that the discontented elements would
disappear.
 The press will let the government know the throbs of public opinion, and the
deputies.
 No one loses his rights to civilization for being solely more or less civilized.
 Filipinos know how to read and write.
 The most humble families make enormous sacrifices so that their children can
obtain a little education, even going to the extent of letting them become servants
in order to to learn Spanish at least.
 The Filipino is sufficiently intelligent to pay taxes, also to be so elect a
representative who can watch over the school administrator(controller) interests
with the product of which they serve the government of the country.
 The laws and act of authorities being watched over, the word justice will cease to
a colonial irony. The English are respected in their professions because of their
strict and expeditious administration of justice, in such a way that the people
place full confidence in the judges. Justice is the foremost virtue of civilized
nations.
 The government posts filled through competitive examination, the examination
results made public so that discontent would not arise and there would be
encouragement.
 The Spaniards can demonstrate their superiority through superiority of their
intelligence. Although this is not done in the Metropolis, it should be practised in
the colonies, inasmuch as true prestige should be sought in moral endowments,
because colonizers should be or seem to be at least, just intelligent, and upright,
just as man feigns virtues when he is in contact with strangers.
 Positions thus gained are not subject to arbitrary dismissal and this method of
selecting government employees creates employees and officials who are apt and
know their duties.
 The posts occupied by the Indios, instead of endangering Spanish rule, will serve
only to strengthen it.
 The Filipinos can add other particular reforms referring to commerce, agriculture,
security of the individual and property, education, and others.
 Civilization has left far behind the land of Utopia; human will and conscience
have realized miracles, have abolished slavery, and the death penalty for adultery.
 It is desired to consider the islands a lode to be exploited, a means to satisfy
ambitions, it free the Metropolis of taxes, exhausting the goose that lays the
golden eggs and lending a deaf ear to all the cries of reason.
 If what Filipino people desire is not realized. . . it is necessary that fear not deter
them, that instead of closing their eyes, they should look straight ahead to see
what the future has in store for them. They will let enter freely the abyss to probe
its terrible mysteries.
 The Philippines one day will declare herself inevitably and unmistakably
independent. Neither Spanish patriotism nor the appeal of the little tyrants in the
colonies, nor the love of Spain of all the Filipinos, nor the doubtful
dismemberment of the islands and internal strife can go against this law of
destiny. Necessity is the result of physical laws put into action by moral forces.
 If the Philippines obtains her independence at the end of heroic and tenacious
struggles, she can be sure that neither England nor France, and less Holland, will
dare to pick up what Spain has not been able to keep.
 The Philippines will defend with indescribable ardor the liberty she has bought at
the cost of so much blood and sacrifice. With the new men that will spring from
her bosom and the remembrances of the past.
 The Philippines will perhaps enter openly the wide road of progress and all will
work jointly to strengthen the mother country at home as well as abroad with
same enthusiasm with which a young man returns to cultivate his father’s
farmland so long devastated and abandoned due to the negligence of thos who
had alienated it.
 The Filipino people will revive their maritime and commercial activities for
which the islanders have a natural aptitude, and free once more, like the bird that
leaves his cage, like the flower that returns to the open air, she will recover her
good old qualities which she is losing little by little and again become a lover of
peace, gay, lively, smiling, hospitable, and fearless.
