Motoki, Makiko A.

1BSA-ABM2

Module 12 Assignment
Instruction: Explain the historical environment during the time the novel El Filibusterismo
was written and how the situations affect Rizal?

The historical environment during which El Filibusterismo was written by Jose Rizal
involved the abuses and corruptions of the Spanish empire, the clergy and the colonial
government during the Spanish era. The condition of the Filipino people gave Jose
Rizal the inspiration to write the book El Filibusterismo to reveal what truly happens to
the Filipino society and the cruelty of the Spanish rulers during that regime.
During the time when Jose Rizal wrote El Filibusterismo, the Spanish government
ruled with cruelty and abuses and yielding religious establishment with much power as
the state. The Spanish empire, in the late nineteenth century, was in irreparable decline.
They ruled the Philippine islands since the year 1565 except when the British took over
in the year 1762. While the Spanish empire rules the State, their government executes
abuses in the clergy, ideas of liberalism and the progress of international trade had
sustained consciousness among the people. Jose Rizal wrote El Filibusterismo in
dedication to the three native priests who were accused of treason and were publicly
executed. In such tragic execution of Don Jose Burgos, Don Mariano Gomez and Don
Jacinto Zamora, the book of Rizal was also written against the oppressions and
background of threats he and his family suffered from. Jose Rizal fearlessly portrayed
the abuses and the corruption under the Spanish regime through his work El
Filibusterismo and also Noli Me Tangere which disclosed the reality and the situation of
the Filipino community during the Spanish era.