El

Filibusterismo
PERSONAL TROUBLES ARE PUBLIC ISSUES
Key Points to Cover

TOPIC
Characteristics of a Filibuster
Three Faces of Evil In El Filibusterismo
Towards a National Liberation
El Filibusterism
BASIC FACTS

◉Published Ghent, Belgium in 1891

◉Financed by Valentin Ventura
◉38 chapters
DEDICATED TO: TO THE FILIPINO PEOPLE AND
THEIR GOVERNMENT

So often have we been hunted by the specter of subversion which, with some fostering,
has come to be a positive and real being, whose very name steals our serenity and makes
us commit the greatest blunders. Setting aside, therefore, the old custom of respecting
myths in order not to encounter the dreaded reality, we look at it face to face instead of
fleeing, and with assertive though inexpert hand, we raise the shroud in order to uncover
before the multitude the structure of the skeleton.

If at the sight, our country and her government reflect, we would consider ourselves
happy. It matters not if they censure our audacity; it matters not if we must pay for our
boldness, as did the young student of Sais who wished to penetrate the secret of priestly
deceit.

On the other hand, if before the reality, instead of changing, the fear of one is increased,
and the confusion of the other exacerbated, then they may have to be left in the hands
of time, which teaches the children, and in the hands of fate, which weaves the destinies
of peoples and governments with their deficiencies and the mistakes which they commit
each day.
Who is Considered a
Filibuster?
Those who do not raise their hats to Spaniards.
1 Those who only greet a friar instead of kissing his
hand or his habit.

Those who offer resistance to being addressed with

2 the familiar “tu” by the best Spaniards.

Those who subscribe to a periodical from Spain or

3
another European Country.

Those who, at elections, give their vote to a

4 candidate other than the one recommended by the
priest.
Those who read books other than miracle stories
5
and biographies of saints.
 NOLI ME TANGERE EL FILIBUSTERISM

Historical and Desciptive Political and Prescriptive

 Three Faces of Evil

Institutional Evil Personal Evil The Good

Unjust Social Personal Traits and Person
Structues Actions Use of Evil Means
Institutional
Evil
AGRARIAN TRAGEDY

The system of land tenure whereby enormous tracts

of land - inhabited and uninhabited - were assigned
by the colonial power to individuals or corporations,
depriving thepeople of ownerhip of the land, and
making them perpetually dependent as "tenants" of
the nominal landowner
THE CASE OF CABESANG TALES

I have cleared this land. My wife and daughter

died in the process. I have watered it with my
sweat. I am not going to let anyone take it
away, least of all a foreigner who came to this
country without bringing even a handful of this
soil with him.
THE EVICTION FROM CALAMBA

Do not be alarms, peaceful citizens of Calamba. Not

one of you is called Tales, not one of you has
committed the crime.,.You are called the whole town
of Calamba. You have cleared you own fields, you have
spent on them the labor of a lifetime, savings, sleepless
nights, privations and you have been deprived of them,
expelled from your own homes and they have
forbidden the rest to give you hospitality. They were
not content with violating justice; they stepped down
on the sacred traditions of your country...Any one of
you has suffered more than Cabesang Tales and
nevertheless no one, not one has had justice…There was
neither pity nor humanity for you and you have been
persecuted beyond the grave like Mariano Herbosa.
Weep or laugh in the lonely islands where you roam
useless and uncertain of the future…
Personal Evil
THE GOOD PERSON USE OF EVIL
MEANS

Personal evil could not have done so much harmd

had they not been put in positions of power and
protected by privilege and wealth.
THE CASE OF SIMOUN

Your government endeavors to have keep your

own tongue, and you, in turn, an extraordinary
people under an incredible government, you
forcibly strip yourselves of your national
identity. Both of you forget that as long as
people conserve their language they preserve
the security of their liberty, as a man his
independence while he keeps his way of
thinking...
THE PERSPECTIVE OF BASILIO

Science is more eternal, more humane, more universal…

Within a few centuries, when humanity shall have been
redeemed and enlightened; when there shall no longer
be races; when all people shall have become free; when
there are no longer tyrants nor slaves, colonies nor
empires; when one justice reigns and man becomes a
citizen of the world, only the cult of Science will
remain; the word patriotism will sound fanaticism, and
whosoever will take pride in patriotic virtues will surely
be locked up as dangerous maniac, as a disturber of
social harmony.”
 BASILIO'S REACTION IN RIZAL'S WORDS

Such bloody sophism, uttered by Simoun with conviction, numbed

the young man. His mind, weakened by more than three months in
prison and blinded by a desire for revenge, was in no position to
examine the morality of what was being proposed. Instead of
replying that every person, even the most evil, is something more
than a vegetable because he has a soul and an intelligence that, no
matter how vitiated or brutalized, can still be redeemed; instead of
replying that no one has the right to dispose of the life of another
for the aggrandizement of anyone; that each individual has a right
to life and liberty and the truth, instead of replying that, if it is
wrong for the government's own injustice, so much the more is it
wrong for an individual to punish a people for the wrongs
committed by the government; instead of saying that God alone,
who has the power to create and who holds in his hand the destiny
of all, has also the power to destroy - instead of these reasonings,
all Basilio could do was ask the trivial question:

What will the world say to such carnage?

 Towards National
Liberatoin

Liberty and The Result of The Crucial Role

How NOT to Government of People in
achieve it Corruption Political
Transformation
Chapter 39
CONCLUSION
PHASE 1: THE QUESTION OF COUNTRY'S
LIBERTY

Because you have chosen means that He cannot

approve. The salvation of a country cannot be achieved
by using the very means used to destroy it. You have
believed that what has been stained and depraved by
crime can be purified by another crime. How mistaken
you are! Hate can produce nothing but monsters.
Crime begets criminals. Only love can produce
marvelous results.

If your country is very to be free, it will not be through

vice and crime, corrupting her sons, deceiving some,
bribing others. No. Redemption requires virtue, virtue
demands sacrifice, and sacrifice, love.
PHASE 2: THE RESULT OF CORRUPTION

Simoun:

I accept your explanation. I have been wrong. But, just

because of my error, will God deny liberty to n entire
nation? And will God grant success to those who are
worse criminals than I? What is crime compared to the
crimes of those in power? Will God pay more attention
to punishing the wrong I have done, and pay no heed
to the groans of the innocent people suffering under
oppression? Why not punish me alone, instead of
punishing an entire nation, including the justy and the
innocent, while at the same time dealing tolerantly with
those who oppress them
PHASE 2: THE RESULT OF CORRUPTION

Padre Florentino:

The just and the innocent must suffer so that their ideas
can be spread and known. The jar must be broken so
that the perfume can be poured out. The flintstone
must be bruised so that sparks may be produced.

But the results only in more bloodshed. From that

fomenting of vices, nothing can grow except fungus.
Only fungi are born from garbage. It is true, vice will
eventually destroy a government, but it will also
destroy the society in which that government has
developed.

Where the government is immoral, the people are

demoralized. Where the administration is without
conscience, there will be rapacious citizens in the towns
and bandits in the hills. As the master, so the slave. As
the government, so the people
PHASE 3: THE PRICE OF LIBERTY

Simoun:

Suffer and work! Ah, how easy it is to say "Suffer" when

one does not have to suffer! How easy to say, "Work",
when work is well-rewarded. If your God demands so
much sacrifice from a man who can hardly cope with
the present and has nothing for the future - if you had
seen what I have seen - wretched, miserable people
suffering unspeakable tortures for crimes they never
commited; murders perpetrated to cover up with the
crimes and mistakes of others; fathers of families
dragged away from their homes to work on roads that
break up the next day, enterprises apparently
undertaken merely to keep the people under
subjection! Sufer? Work? That is the will of God? What
kind of God is that?
PHASE 3: THE PRICE OF LIBERTY

Padre Florentino:

A just God. A God who punished our lack of faith, our

vices, our disregard for human dignity, our low regard
for civic virtues. We tolerate vice, even connive at ir.
We even applaud a a man for a man for his vices. Is it
not just - indeed totally in conformity with justice -
that we and our children should suffer the
consequences?

God is the God of liberty, and He makes us loveliberty

by placing a heavy yoke on our shoulders. He is also a
God of mercy, of righteousness, who improves us while
chasting us. He grants national well-being only to a
people who merit it by their efforts. The school of
suffering tempers the soul.The field of combat
invigorates it.
PHASE 3: THE PRICE OF LIBERTY

Padre Florentino:

I am not saying that liberty must be won by the sworn.

The sword counts for little among modern nations. But
liberty must be earned by meriting it. Liberty can be
achieved by elevating the intellect and the dignity of
the individual. Liberty is won by loving what is good,
what is just, what is great; loving liberty to the extent of
dying for it. When a people has reached such a height,
God will provide the weapons, and the idols will fall;
tyranny will collapse like a house of cards.

Our ills are due to ourselves. Let us not blame others. If

Spain saw us less tolerant of tyranny than we are, if
Spain saw that we were prepared to fight and suffer for
our rights, Spain would be the first to grant us liberty.
When the child in the womb is ready for birth,
wretched is the mother that would keep it in the
womb.
PHASE 3: THE PRICE OF LIBERTY

Padre Florentino:

As long as the Filipino people do not have the energy

to proclaim, with head raised and breast bared, our
right to social life, guaranteeing it with our sacrifices
and even our blood - why give us liberty?

In private we condemn injustice, in public we keep

silent, perhaps we even join in the chorus of praise for
those who commit the injustice, cynically making fun of
the victims. In our selfishness, we praise with forced
smile those guilty of corruption, lusting with our eyes
for part of the lot. As long as these things happen, why
give us liberty? Without without Spain, we should
remain the same, perhaps even worse. What good is
independence if the slaves of today become the tyrants
of tomorrow? And they will surely be tyrants: because
those love tyranny who submit to it.
PHASE 3: THE PRICE OF LIBERTY

Where are the youth who will

consecrate their precious hours, their
ambitions and enthusiasms for the
welfare of the country?
Main Ideas
The people are responsible for their own fate. If they
1 are oppressed, it is because they submit to
oppression.

True national redemption and liberty can be

2 achieved only if the people are improved -
intellectually, morally and other ways.

3 National redemption and liberty must be earned.

National redemption and liberty cannot be achieved

4 through vice and crime.

Good government is impossible without respect for

5 justice, and justice is impossible without respect for
human dignity.
PREPARATION EDUCATION
Rizal's ideas are
nothing but a
collection of
cliches.
GENERAL OBSERVATION

Noli Me Tangere and El

Filibusterismo
Strength of the novels lie in the subplot,
digressions and vignettes
Created characters various sectors of society
Rizal is not Ibarra or Simoun but the synthesis
of all characters
Rizal indicted the colonial society, was not
kind to his fellowmen
Evolution of the two (2) novels, from Tagalog
to Filipino
Connection between
literature and reality
Society makes victims and then
silences them – but as criminals and
not as victims.
- Elias