ACTIVITY #6

Name: Grace Antonette G. Dargantes Subject: The Life Works of Rizal

Course, Year & Section: HRM 1-1 Date: March 13, 2022

Answer the following: (10 points each).

1. What are the salient goals of Rizal in writing the Annotations of Antonio Morga’s
Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas?

➔ The following are the three major goals of Rizal's annotation to Sucesos de las
Islas Filipinas:
- Awaken the Filipinos' unconsciousness to their ancient previous ways.
- He refuted the misconceptions that had arisen as a result of the Spanish
conquest of the Philippines.
- To demonstrate that Filipinos were sophisticated long before the
Spaniards arrived.

2. Discuss some of the points mentioned in the lesson that support Rizal’s sensible
presupposition that the native populations in the archipelago were economically
self-sufficient and thriving and culturally lively and colorful.

➔ Rizal, a historian known for his honest quest of the truth, wanted to know the
exact situation in the Philippines even before it became a Spanish colony for
more than 300 years. His logical premise is that the archipelago's aboriginal
inhabitants were self-sufficient economically. It attracted my curiosity because it
appeared to have an active and vibrant community. He argued that the Spanish
conquest contributed to the extinction of the Philippines' rich culture and
customs. Following that, he decided to annotate Antonio Morga's Sucesos De
Las Islas Filipinas. His friendship with Ferdinand Blumentritt sparked the idea for
a new version of Morga's Sucesos. He spent four months researching and writing
in January 1890, and nearly a year getting his book published in Paris. Rizal
spent the entire day in London's British Museum's reading room. He diligently
hand-copied all 351 pages of Sucesos after discovering Morga's book. After that,
Rizal began annotating each chapter of Sucesos.

3. Do you think that Morga might have been biased when he wrote the Sucesos de las
Islas Filipinas? Why or why not? Explain your answer.

➔ Antonio de Morga published it in Mexico in 1609 as one of the significant

publications in the early history of the Spanish colonization of the Philippines.
Jose Rizal annotated it, and Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt wrote the preface. It was
first published in Mexico in 1609 and has since been re-edited several times
(Cummins, 2017).

Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas tells the chronicle of the Philippines' conflicts,
intrigues, diplomacy, and evangelism in a disorganized manner. Modern
historians (including Rizal) have remarked that Morga had a clear prejudice and
would frequently alter facts or even rely on invention to support his justification of
the Spanish conquest.

He was biased because he was dissatisfied with the people he served and was
regularly at odds with the clerical order. Morga was defeated militarily by the
Dutch and was accused of cowardice (De Morga, 2019). Morga's history is
noteworthy since he had access to survivors from the colony's early days and
participated in many of the accounts he delivered.

He was also biased because his record involved many abilities, ethics, and social
norms that had become compromised or lost as a result of Spanish dominance
and the growing influence of Chinese culture.