Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas

LRIZAL1: READINGS ON RIZAL’S LIFE,

WORKS AND WRITINGS

PROF. ALFONSO C. BALBIN, JR CI

28 APRIL, 2021
“To foretell the destiny of a nation, it is necessary
to open the books that tell of her past”.

Jose Rizal, 1889

The Philippines A Century
Hence
Why is there such poor knowledge of the
Filipinos of their distant Past?
1. The iconoclastic doctrine of the Spanish Colonizers. This means that the
Spaniards systematically supplanted the relics and artifacts of the pre-
Hispanic Filipino society.
Rizal said, “then … began a new era for the Filipinos; little by little they lost
their old traditions, the mementos of their past; they gave up their writing,
their songs, their poems, their laws in order to learn by rote other doctrine
which they did not understand, another morality, another aesthetics different
from those inspired by their climate and their manner of thinking. Then they
declined, degrading themselves in their own eyes; they became ashamed of
what was their own; they began to admire and praise whatever was foreign
and incomprehensible; their spirit was dismayed and it surrendered”. (The
Philippines A Century Hence, 1889)
The Result:
• National Amnesia.
• A Lobotomized Nation
(De Quiros, PDI, June
15, 2006).
Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas
Historical Events in the Philippine Islands
EVENTS IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
DEDICATED
TO DON CRISTOVAL GOMEZ DE
Sandoval y Rojas, Duke of Cea.
BY DOCTOR ANTONIO DE MORGA,
Alcalde of Criminal Causes, in the Royal
Audiencia of Nuevà España, and Counsel for
the holy Office of the Inquisition.
IN MEXICO.
At the shop of Geronymo Balli, in the year
1609.
By Cornelio Adriano Cesar.
Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas
Historical Events in the Philippine Islands

Events in the Philippine Islands by Dr. Antonio

de Morga.
A work published in Mexico in the year 1609,
reprinted and annotated by Jose Rizal
and preceded by an introduction by professor
Ferdinand Blumentritt.
Why Rizal Chose the Sucesos over other historical
materials available in the Philippines?

And Why Antonio De Morga?

 The Philippines A Century

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past history of the
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SUCESOS DE
• The conditions of
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Filipinos FILIPINAS By: the Filipinos prior
Filipino Antonio De to and at the point
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of contact with
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Civilization Spain.
• The impact of
Spanish
colonization to the
Indolence of the Filipino Filipinos.
People
• Pablo Feced for example scorned the Indio for not sporting enough “beard
which is the sign of virility in a race.” Citing Darwin’s theory of evolution,
Feced poured his scorn on the anthropoid ancestry of the Filipino people.
• Bishop Francisco Gainza (1863) characterized the Indio as one who “lived in
the midst of eternal hatred and vengeance, hunting one another down in the
thick forests without other law than that of oppression, without other right
than force, ignorant or contemptuous of the eternal principles of justice, and
bowing their heads . . . before ridiculous figures, symbols of a repugnant
cynicism.”
The good bishop went on to say:
“their character, as deceitful as it was savage, the depravity of their customs,
the degeneration of their intellectual faculties, their savage sacrifices, and even
their feasts and pleasures, so often bespattered with human blood, the infernal
harmony of their accursed dances, of their impure bacchanals.” (Engaging Jose
Rizal, p. 180)
The Exposicion de Filipinas, 1888—the plight of the
Native Filipinos—Igorots, Muslim Moros and other
ethnic groups were shown for public spectacle.
Who is Antonio De Morga?
1. A Graduate from the University of Salamanca at the age of 15.
2. 4 years later he already held a title in Doctorate in Canon
Law.
3. After a stint of teaching in Seville, he returned to Salamanca in
order to study Civil Law.
4. Lieutenant-Governor of the Philippines in 1593
5. A judge of the Royal Audiencia in Manila 1598
6. Became Chief of Ecuador’s Royal Audiencia in 1615
7. What drew Rizal to Morga was the latter’s status not being one
of the clergy.
8. Morga himself witnessed the events he described, wrote them
more objectively without exaggerations.
 Objectives for Annotating Sucesos:
1. To establish the Filipino Civilization before Spanish colonization.
– They were engaged in manifold industries: proud traders, industrious farmers,
miners, shipbuilders, livestock raisers and productive crop growers, etc.
– There was high literacy among the people.
– Having a government of their own.
2. To raise the consciousness of the Filipinos about their past.
3. To let the Filipinos see the beauty and glory of their race snatched
away at the point of colonial contact.
4. To let them feel a certain pride about themselves.
5. To anticipate a future for themselves that is of their own handiwork.
 Impact of Spanish Colonialism
1. Destruction and not one of civilization.
2. Destruction of native culture.
3. Destruction of native industries.
4. Filipinos Growth retarded, not advanced.
5. Exploitation and Depopulation of the Filipinos.
6. The Indolence of the Filipinos.
Importance of Rizal’s Morga’s Sucesos:

1. Sucesos forms the triad of Rizaline nationalist project.

– Sucesos—the past of the Filipinos
– Noli and Indolence of the Filipinos—the Filipinos’ present
– Fili and the Philippines a Century Hence—the Filipinos’ future
2. High culture of the Filipinos validated the demand for Reforms.
3. High culture of the Filipinos will justify the cry for Separation
from Spain
4. How history could be potent device for nation building.
History becomes a tool of nationalism; to love one’s more than any
other country in the world.
 Some themes Rizal annotated in the Sucesos:
1. Filipinos' veneration of their parents.
“Filipino parents, as also true among Asians, are believed to be life-
givers much like the gods who must be honored. Their bones were
preserved or their bodies buried beside or around their houses if not
beneath them by their children, a gesture that though parents have
departed, their remains being around them tells that they are still
regarded as part of the family”. (Engaging Jose Rizal, p. 181)
2. On the subject of divorce. Divorce was rare; allowed only
in cases of childlessness.
 Some themes Rizal annotated in the Sucesos:
3. On the Morality of Filipino Women.
– Filipino women, according to the Spaniards, were possessed of loose
morality.
– Rizal countered that such a vice exists anywhere in the world—even in
Europe. He pointed the orgies that went with the cults of Venus, Priapus,
Bacchus and the history of prostitution in Europe.
– These were an evidence that no country in the world is completely immune
from such moral failings.
– Rizal therefore exhorted the Filipinas to keep their heads up to anyone
because they “have no reason to blush before the women of the most
chaste nation in the world” for the tad flaw in the character of their
country’s women”. (Engaging Jose Rizal, p. 181)
 Some themes Rizal annotated:
4. On Filipino Diet/Food.
• Morga: “Their regular daily food is rice, crushed by wooden pilons or pounders, which is
cooked and is then called morisqucta,25and this constitutes the daily mainstay for the entire
country, together with boiled fish of which there is an abundance, and pork or venison,
likewise, meat of wild buffalo or carabao. They prefer meat, fish, saltfish, which begin to
decompose and smell.26
• Rizal: 26This is another preoccupation of the Spaniards who, like any other nation, in the
matter of food, loathe what they are not accustomed or what is unknown to them. The
English, for example, is horrified on seeing a Spaniard eating snails; to the Spaniard beef
steak is repugnant and he can't understand how raw beefsteak can be eaten; the Chinese
who eat tahuri and shark cannot stand Roquefort cheese, etc., etc. The fish that Morga
mentions does not taste better when it is beginning to rot; all on the contrary: it is
bagoong and all those who have eaten it and tasted it know that it is not or ought not to
be rotten.
Thank you for listening.
 Lesson Exam (10 minutes)

BRING OUT A SHEET OF PAD PAPER

Write the word TRUE if the statement is true or correct; if your answer is FALSE, then
WRITE THE CORRECTED FORM ON YOUR PAPER THE UNDERLINED WORD IN
THE SENTENCE.
1. Tales of bravery filled the works of religious historians when they wrote the history of
the Philippines.
2. “To foretell the destiny of a nation”, says Rizal, “one must open the books that tell of her
past”.
3. A lawyer before his political career, Antonio De Morga was appointed Captain-General
of the Philippine Islands.
4. Pre-colonial Filipinos desecrated the person and memory of their parents.
5. To the Spaniards, Filipino women were known to possess loose morality.
6. On Filipino foods, the Spaniards said the Filipinos loved to eat meat or fish that start to
rot or decompose.
Write the word TRUE if the statement is true or correct; if your answer is FALSE, then
WRITE THE CORRECTED FORM ON YOUR PAPER THE UNDERLINED WORD IN
THE SENTENCE.
7. Rizal
agrees that the Filipinos were uncivilized before the
Spaniards came.
8. One of Rizal’s objectives is to maintain the consciousness of the
Filipinos about their glorious past.
9. The coming of Spain caused the overpopulation of the Filipinos.
10. History is a lame instrument to create a nation.
11. For the Filipinos, their growth retarded rather than advanced
when colonized by Spain.
 CEASE WORK!

CADETS EXCHANGE
PAPERS
 ANSWERS:
1. MIRACLES
2. BOOKS
3. LIEUTENANT-GENERAL
4. VENERATED/HONORED
5. TRUE
6. TRUE
7. CIVILIZED
8. RAISE
9. DEPOPULATION
10. POTENT/STRONG/POWERFUL
11. TRUE
 Thanks for Listening.
See you in the
The Philippines A Century Hence