LEARNING GUIDE

Week No.: __3__

TOPIC: The 19th Century Philippines as Rizal’s Context

EXPECTED COMPETENCIES

By the end of this lesson, the students are expected to:

1. evaluate the stand of Jose Rizal in the economic, political and cultural contexts of his
times; and
2. assess and compare the economic, political and/or cultural situation from 19 th century
Philippines to the present time.

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?

Conditions in the Philippines in the 19th Century

 Liberal stirrings in Europe reached the Philippines.

 Some locals, including leading citizens in Ilocos called Kailenes, refused to believe that
the Cadiz Constitution was abolished by King Ferdinand. They rose up to revolt.
 Many other revolts followed, but the natives were continuously defeated.
 Basi Revolt by Esteban Villanueva

 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.

Understanding Rizal’s Ideas and Ideals

 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.

Exports Imports Total Trade

Year
(in pesos) (in pesos) (in pesos)
 1825 1,000,000 1,800,000 2,800,000

1875 18,900,000 12,200,000 31,100,000

1895 36,600,000 25,400,000 62,000,000

 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.)

Abaca tuxy (courtesy of the Philippine Fiber Industry Development Authority)

 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.

Farming in the Philippines

  In the mid-18th century, when Rizal’s Chinese ancestor Domingo Lam-co came to Biñan
Laguna, the average holding of an inquilino was 2.9 hectares. But after Rizal’s father
moved to the Calamba hacienda, the Rizal family in the 1890s rented from the hacienda
over 390 hectares.
 But tension started to arise in the friar hacienda. As land value grew, so did the rent.
 There was also a dispute as to who should profit more from the fruit bearing lands.
 This led to the friars’ ownership being questioned. But the ones challenging the
ownership were not the share-tenants or the kasama. It was the inquilinos.
 Their motives for questioning were both economic and political for they wanted to
weaken the friar’s influence in Philippine political life.

Political Development

 Economic development had important political consequences as well.

 Modernizing Filipinos saw that the colonial policies of Spain were not the cause for the
economic development. They were hindrances because the colonizers were threatened by
progress.
 In Spain, the Liberals succeeded the Conservatives at irregular intervals. How did this
affect the colonized country (the Philippines)?
 This instability in the government made it impossible to have a consistent set of policies
for overseas colonies.
 Worse, both parties used the Philippines as a handy dumping ground to reward party
hangers-on with jobs.
 So, each change in the government would bring about a new mob of job seekers in the
Philippines.
 These job seekers would take the jobs of the Filipinos, taking the money with them too.
 The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 made it easier to travel between Spain and the
Philippines. This made it easier for the Spaniards including bureaucrats to become “birds
of prey” staying only long enough to get rich.
 The corruption of the government also revealed its inability to provide the basic needs of
public works, schools, peace and order, and other prerequisites.
 In addition, the government created the Guardia Civil to get rid of the bands of tulisanes in
the provinces. But even this was a failure because the Guardia Civil became an oppressive
force that harassed the farmers and using their position for personal profit.
 Highly protective tariffs forced Filipinos to buy expensive Spanish textiles and other
products instead of the traditional cheaper British ones.
  These consistent oppression and abuse made national liberalists and even conservative
upper-class Filipinos think that there is no longer any compelling motive for maintaining
the Spanish colonial regime.
 To a nationalist like Rizal, the decision to separate from Spain took him long and it was
just a question of when and how to revolt.

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.

Jose Rizal in Ateneo

 How did the students develop their sense of nationalism and liberal ideas?
o By imparting to its students, a humanistic education in literature, science, and
philosophy and in inculcating the principles of human dignity and justice and
equality of all men; it effectively undermined the foundations of the Spanish
colonial regime.
 The students would draw the conclusions themselves.
 The eyes of the Filipinos had been opened to a much wider perspective than their narrow
Philippine experience even before they ever set foot in Europe. They rejected the
established order.
 The Filipinos were also less appreciative of the other religious order running the schools,
the Dominicans, because they still focused on the traditional methods.
 However, leading nationalists were also products of Dominican institutions such as
University of Santo Tomas, San Jose, and San Juan de Letran.
o Fr. Jose Burgos
o Fr. Mariano Sevilla
o Marcelo del Pilar
o Emilio Jacinto
o Apolinario Mabini

 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)