Name: Isabela, Chennie Kim C.

Instructor: Narciso Cabanilla

Course/Year/Section: BABR 1-1D

ASSESSMENT 4

Instruction: Discuss the following items thoroughly. Write the question before each answer. Each

answer should contain at least three (3) paragraphs of not less than four (4) sentences each. You

may write your answers in Filipino. Do not forget to write your full name in the upper left corner

of the paper and your course, year, and section below it while the name of your professors should

be indicated in the upper right.

1. Who are the personages mentioned and what is their relationship with each other?

Answer:

The Dominican Friar Orders, a mendicant order of the Catholic Church founded in France

by the Spanish priest Saint Dominic, is formally known as the Order of Preachers, and one of the

characters in the case of Hacienda de Calamba. The Spaniards entrusted them with the maintenance

and supervision of the country. The Dominicans took possession of the Calamba hacienda after

the Jesuits, who had previously held it, were expelled in 1768. The Dominicans held nearly all of

the territory surrounding Calamba. Another individual that has been cited is Rizal, whose

hometown was Laguna, Calamba.

The tenants of Calamba were also mentioned as they asked Rizal to undertake an

investigation into the disputed rich property possessed by the Dominican friars. The Rizal family

as well as the other tenants of Calamba determined to find out the truth. The renters urged Rizal to
produce a report for the city council. For the renters' benefit. The renters suffered for several years

as a result of the unjustifiable levies they were forced to pay.

If the economy had suffered a slump or the crop had been bad, rent and taxes would rise. The

tenants suffered beneath the friars. It’s unfair to see how the tenants are badly treated by the

Dominicans. Following a thorough examination, the following report was written and signed by

more than fifty residents, including renters and principals.

2. Why was this document written? Provide evidence from the document.?

Answer:

According to Rizal, the inhabitants of Calamba and him petitioned the administrator of

Laguna's public islands to avert the rise in land rent. The renters suffered for several years as a

result of the unjustifiable levies they were forced to pay. And if the economy had suffered a slump

or the crop had been bad, rent and taxes would rise. Not only that, but Rizal's desire to promote

awareness was another reason for the document's creation. Despite the constant labor, things for

the tenants have substantially dropped. Indebted and deprived of their property, as evidenced by a

huge number of bankrupt farmers not only previously, but also in the recent three years.

This document was produced in order to put a stop to the Dominican friars' corruption, and

it is evidently shown in one of the residents' complaints from the document. When the sugar harvest

was good during harvest time, it was said that the price of sugar was high, but when the selling

time came, the price was low. Estate executives claim that individuals may drag chains because

the company is affluent, and they offer to pay ten thousand pesos to win the litigation for telling

the truth in this post. They have, in brief, a copy of a letter from the Treasury threatening the

tenants who testified according to the evidence rather than the estate's intentions. As a result, Rizal

made the decision to extricate his family from the suffering of the tenants.
 3. What can you tell about life in the Hacienda de Calamba during the time the document was

written?

Answer:

The Roman Catholic Church was intimately involved in colonial government for most of

the three centuries of Spanish dominance in the Philippines. By the late nineteenth century, three

religious orders—Dominicans, Augustinians, and Recollects—had purchased around one-tenth of

the archipelago's developed lands. The native peasants' dissatisfaction with the circumstances was

a contributing element in the Philippine Revolution of 1896–1898. The agrarian conflict at the

Hacienda de San Juan Bautista in the province of Laguna between 1887 and 1891 was the most

vocal display of peasant dissatisfaction in this remote Spanish territory. The property comprised

what is now Calamba, and the conflict implicated the famed Rizal family, among others.

Although this was not the first time the local tenants had contested the friars' ownership of

enormous expanses of property, it was the most serious. The friars, alarmed and intimidated,

labelled the matter as revolt and its actors as filibusters. Later, it resulted in the expulsion of

powerful Calamba people to various regions of the archipelago. This resulted in a difficult life

situation for the people of Calamba especially the tenants of the Hacienda.

Life must have been terrible during those times, especially for the farmers who were in

tremendous debt merely to pay the Dominican friars. Despite the Dominican friars' authority and

intimidation, the tenants who were interested in this must have battled hard. Farmers are frustrated

by the fact that the land they have worked so hard to develop is being arbitrarily taken away for

worthless or unjustified uses. Despite all that was going on at the time, the tenants were hesitant

to be heard.

4. What are the complaints of the tenants? Enumerate at least three.

Answer:

As the enclosed account shows, not only in previous years but also later, in the last

three. The contract is unilaterally changed by the Estate, the rent increases immensely, there being

a case when, in a few years, 45 pesos became 900 by an annual imposition of powers. Some areas

pay twice for two rice harvests, where there are some bamboo groves. Besides, the farmer pays for

the land and for each bamboo grove, regardless of whether it has been felled or useless.

In addition, because of the rising shortage of resources and the exhaustion of the people,

the land that is opened each year is not all planted, and if it is planted, it generates little profit. In

recent years, there has been a marked decrease in interest and activity compared to 10 years ago.

Another complaint about public tragedies such as locusts and sugar price drops. Many people who

were unable to pay their rent were promised a decrease of 15% or less, a promise that was kept in

some circumstances but not in others. On the contrary, others' rents were exorbitantly inflated, or

their sugar harvest was forcibly stolen and then sold at a price lower than the market rate. There

were several complaints from fifty residents, and these are only a few of them.

5. What was the reaction to the complaint?

Answer:

Because the report was completed in the Tribunal and was signed by three Estate officials

in addition to the lay-friar manager of the Reverend Dominican Fathers, it reached the ears of the

lay-friar manager of the Reverend Dominican Fathers. He took it badly, and he threatened some

tenants with raising their rents if, as a result of this report, the Administration of Taxes was to

collect the ten percent real estate taxes equal to the number of tributes from the Estate. The friars

eventually did an action to evict the tenants from the land and it appears that they want to follow

out these threats, since they have attempted to deprive certain tenants of their lands, halt their labor
via force, and so on. The Dominicans filed an eviction case. However, the Calamba justice of the

peace court found in favor of the renters. The cases were transferred to Sta Court’s of First

Instance. Cruz, Laguna, and Manila's Real Audiencia. Both courts found in the Dominicans' favor.

The Rizal family and the Calamba renters filed an appeal with Madrid's Supremo Tribunal, but it

was denied.

6. What were the final demands of the petition?

Answer:

Alarmed by these irrational pretensions, the people plead to the government for urgent and

direct involvement to avoid incalculable disasters. In this impossible condition of living in peace

with the Estate, the people, faced with the hard choice of lying to the Government in order not to

die or be deprived of their land for doing their job worthily, call for the separation of its interests,

selling to them or transferring these lands to them who have made them tillable and spent capital,

labor, and toil in them. This process is critical not only for the sake of the government's sterling

reputation, the prestige and honor of the leaders, and the good ties between them and their subjects,

but also for a variety of other reasons.

References:

I. Donesa, R. J., & Complete Profile, V. M. (2012, June 23). The Hacienda De Calamba: June

2012. The Hacienda de Calamba: June 2012. http://haciendadecalamba.blogspot.com/2012/06/.

Ocampo, A. R. (2013, June 14). Rizal’s Agrarian Dispute | Inquirer Opinion. INQUIRER.net.

https://opinion.inquirer.net/54539/rizals-agrarian-dispute.