Learning Guide: Reflection Questions
Learning Guide: Reflection Questions
Learning Guide: Reflection Questions
EXPECTED COMPETENCIES
CONTENT
Reflection Questions:
1. What was the Philippines like during Rizal’s time?
2. Has the economic, political or cultural situation in the Philippines improved since Rizal’s
time?
The defeat demonstrated that the Philippines was disunited because of the lack of
national identity.
The Spaniards took advantage of this and divided the country for them to rule.
Regardless of the minority status of the Spaniards because of the number, they still
managed to rule us for more than 300 years. How?
Local officials were natives. But the Spaniards managed to retain their loyalty by giving
them certain privileges that kept them separated from the rest of the population.
o Local officials were composed of gobernadorcillos, councilmen, and
principalia, capitan municipalia, teniente, and cabeza.
o Even though these positions did not pay much, the titles gave them exalted
positions and they were called principals, or leading citizens.
Native local officials who were loyal to the Spaniards were given the following
privileges:
1. Exemption from taxation and community labor or prestacion personal
2. Entitlement to receive a portion of their collection from the people
3. Re-election
Basically, Spain controlled the natives through the native leaders.
One of the ironies was that Rizal’s words and thoughts have been invoked without
any consideration of the historical context.
Some major economic, political, cultural and religious developments of the 19 th
century have influenced Rizal’s growth as a nationalist and conditioned the evolution
of his thought.
Economic Development
After about 1830, the export economy grew, and it brought increasing prosperity to the
Filipino middle and upper class who were in a position to profit from it together with the
Western merchants (chiefly British and American) who organized it.
It also brought machinery and other consumer goods which the industrialized economies
of the West could supply, and that Spain could not, or would not supply.
Philippine exports were agricultural products such as rice, sugar, and abaca. (Abaca is
an important crop in the Philippine economy. Its fibers are used to create products like
cordage, specialty papers, textiles, furniture and fixtures, to name a few.)
Filipino hacienderos and friar orders owning lands benefited more from this growing
economy. The inquilinos of the friar hacienda also gained profit from this.
o Inquilinos - leaseholder
The inquilinos would tend the farm with the help of share-tenants or kasama.
Political Development
Cultural Development
This was a key factor in the emergence of nationalism in the late 19th century because of
the ideas learned by the European-educated ilustrados.
The spread of higher education among the middle and lower-middle class Filipinos who
could not afford to go abroad was more important in propagating the liberal and
progressive ideas written about from Europe by Rizal or Del Pilar.
A limited but substantial number (some 5 percent perhaps) of Filipinos were able to
communicate in Spanish.
One of the major influences on the educational developments of the 19 th century was the
return of the Jesuits in 1859 to take charge of the evangelization of Mindanao.
They brought methods and ideas new to the Philippine educational system.
In 1859, the Jesuits renamed the municipal primary school Ateneo Municipal and opened
it to both Filipinos and Spaniards.
Ateneo Municipal
In 1865, it had been transformed into a secondary school that offered subjects in Latin,
Spanish, Greek, French, and English.
The natural sciences (the soul of the 19 th century according to Rizal’s Filosofo Tasio)
were also studied.
In 1865, the Jesuits also established the Escuela Normal de Maestros for the Spanish-
speaking teachers.
This was opposed by those who believed that modern education for the Filipinos would
be a danger to the continuation of Spanish rule.
This was given emphasized by Rizal in Noli where he described in vivid details the trials
of a schoolteacher.
Franciscan Fr. Miguel Lucio y Bustamante, in his book published in 1885, denounced
that it was a danger for these new teachers to study and learn Spanish. He declared that an
indio, separated from his carabao, would often turn out to be a bad person.
Rizal, through the rebellious character Placido Penitente in El Filibusterismo, mocked
Bustamante’s novel entitled Tandang Bacio Macunat which expressed disdain over the
indio’s attitude of seeking education and its assertion that Filipino men who came from
the provinces to Manila to pursue education would “lose their souls”.
It was in the secondary schools that the ideas of nationalism were to awake even those
who had never gone to Europe.
Rizal would write in his Memorias that through his studies of literature, science, and
philosophy, the eyes of his intelligence opened a little and his heart began to cherish
nobler sentiments.
In his fifth year at the Ateneo, his patriotic sentiments greatly developed.
BUT, Ateneo did not really teach nationalism or the liberal principles of progress.
As early as 1843, the Spanish official Juan de la Matta proposed the closing of these
institutions because he believed that they are “nurseries of subversive ideas.”
But the major factor that really gave nationalism its form was the experience of the
Filipino students in Spain.
They witnessed liberties enjoyed in the Peninsula and they became more conscious of
their people’s sufferings.
They also saw the corruption and futility of the Spanish political system and its inability
to promote even the welfare of Spain.
Those who came to Spain with hopes of reform and modernization realized that none will
be achieved.
The Filipinos must look to themselves to help the country.
“Umasa sa sariling lakas…”
~ Jose Rizal
One final factor involved in the rise of nationalism was the interest in the Filipino past, as
inspired by the Europeans who paid attention to history and ethnology.
Rizal was the principal (but not the only one) Filipino to see the importance of such a
historical investigation for the creation of a national consciousness among his
countrymen.
In the preface to his edition of Antonio Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, his most
important historical work, Rizal explained the importance of the historical past for the
foundation of nationalism and how it is necessary for a national task.
Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas by Antonio Morga
REFERENCES
De Viana, A.V., et al. (2018). Jose Rizal: Social Reformer and Patriot, A Study of His Life and
Times. Rex Bookstore, Inc.
Reyes, S.S. (1998). Transgression and Absolution in Si Tandang Bacio Macunat (1885).
Retrieved on July 01, 2020 from
https://journals.ateneo.edu/ojs/budhi/article/viewFile/495/497
Schumacher, J..(n.d.). Rizal in the context of the 19th century Philippines.” In The Making of a
Nation: Essays on 19th Century Filipino Nationalism. ADMU Press.
Image Sources
Abaca tuxy (photo from the Philippine Fiber Industry Development Authority).BM (Business
Mirror). https://businessmirror.com.ph/2020/03/14/philippines-retains-top-slot-in-global-
abaca-production/ (page 21)
Ateneo Municipal (photo). Ateneo de Manila University. Retrieved from
https://www.ateneo.edu/grade-school/news/looking-back-rizal%E2%80%99s-ateneo
(page 23)
Farming in the Philippines (photo). Kahimyang Project. Retrieved from
https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/1693/today-in-philippine-history-july-2-1889-
the-manila-school-of-agriculture-was-established (page 21)
Jose Rizal in Ateneo (photo). Ateneo de Manila University. Retrieved from
https://www.ateneo.edu/grade-school/news/looking-back-rizal%E2%80%99s-ateneo
(page 24)
Villanueva, E. (1821). Basi Revolt (painting). Watawat.
http://www.watawat.net/the_basi_or_ambaristo_revolt.html (page 19)