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A review by dean_issov
A History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos by Luis H. Francia
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
🧠What I learned & Highlights
1. Pre-colonial Filipinos were pretty awesome. Sex to women wasn't that much of a big deal because they didn't really have a conception of virginity, both men and women were sex positive as polyamous relationships were normal then, gender was pretty equal in their civilizations back then (crossdressing men was considered normal and their language were nongendered, pretty ahead-of-their-time, in my opinion), beliefs there were more polytheistic and rooted in nature. And then the Spaniards came and ruined everything, saw them as "hedonistic" and "barbarians" just because they didn't fit into their Catholic version of how humans should behave like.
2. On April 27, 1521, Magellan was rightfully murdered by Lapulapu.
3. Prior to 1565, Muslim port communities had already established themselves north of Mindanao, in Mindoro, and in Luzon, principally in the Maynila region and in what is now the province of Pampanga. The datus in Maynila and Tondo (across the river) were converts to the Muslim faith. Loarca noted that the river delta inhabitants were Moros—the Spanish word for “Moors,” or Muslims—and that they had the art of writing, indicative of the fact that pre-Hispanic Maynilans possessed not only their own script, but were aware of Bornean and Arabic writing.
4. By the end of the sixteenth century, more than 20,000 Chinese resided in the Parian district, just outside the walls of Intramuros, outnumbering the Spanish. The rapid growth of the Chinese immigrant community made the Spanish uneasy, and when a Chinese mission arrived in Manila in 1603, desirous of obtaining gold, the suspicions of the Spanish civil authorities were easily aroused. They instituted precautionary measures that in turn inflamed the resident Chinese, who decided, under the leadership of Juan Bautista de Vera, a Chinese convert to Catholicism, to strike the first blow. Their assault on Intramuros was repulsed, however, and the rebels fled to the mountains of Laguna and Batangas, where they were defeated by the Spanish forces—a combination of Spaniards, Filipinos, and even some Japanese. About 23,000 Chinese were killed as a result.
5. The encomendero was charged with ensuring the well-being of the Filipinos, a duty that included a good Christian education. Unfortunately, the battle-tested encomenderos treated the natives more like delinquent military units than a community of human beings, abusing them by exacting both tribute and labor. The encomienda system also gave the encomenderos a pretext for seizing land from barangay inhabitants. The system was finally abolished in 1720, though in the mid-nineteenth century, there still existed eleven encomiendas.
6. The Educational Decree of 1863 established a normal school for teachers in Manila, to be under the direction of the Jesuits, who having been expelled in 1768, had been allowed to return to the colony in 1859. (That same year, the Jesuits took over the Escuela Municipal de Manila, which in 1865 was raised to the status of a college, the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, now the private Ateneo de Manila university, the third-oldest university in the country.) The normal school was to serve as an educational center for God-fearing and obedient potential teachers. Again, at the top of the list of intended goals was the imparting of religion, morals, and sacred history. The unremitting emphasis on religious tutelage allowed Catholicism to be deeply entrenched, often at the expense of the secular pursuit of knowledge.
7. In summary, as the historian Reynaldo Ileto put it, in his Filipinos and Their Revolution, “The Spanish priest was the equivalent of the god-king elsewhere in Southeast Asia.” Thus, notwithstanding their excesses, the friars constituted the de facto bulwark of Spanish colonial rule and were therefore indispensable. To further solidify their indispensability, the friars resisted any systematic attempt for the Indios to learn Spanish. The main reason the friars so assiduously learned the various native languages was so that only they could mediate between the indigenous population and the civil state.
8. Born in 1861, José Rizal could converse in ten languages and corresponded in six. The most charismatic and well-known member of the Propaganda Movement, Rizal was also a medical doctor, scientist, fencer, and writer who brilliantly articulated the dreams and buried hurts fueling the newfound nationalism. His older brother, Paciano, had been a protégé of Fr. Burgos and had been living with the latter when he was implicated in the Cavite Mutiny. Paciano had described the grisly executions to the young José, eleven years old at the time, which undoubtedly helped shape his later views. Rizal would write the staff of La Solidaridad: “Without 1872 there would now be neither Plaridel nor Jaena nor Sancianco, nor the valiant and generous Filipino expatriates in Europe. Without 1872, Rizal would have been a Jesuit and instead of writing the Noli Me Tangere, would instead have written something entirely different.”
9. On April 19, Aguinaldo issued a proclamation for peace, which said in part: “The Philippines decidedly wishes peace: be it so. Let the stream of blood cease to flow; let there be an end to tears and desolation…. I proclaim before all the world that I cannot remain deaf to the voice of a people yearning for peace nor to the lamentations of thousands of families who long for freedom of their loved ones, which is promised them through the magnanimity of the great American nation.” Although the head of the Philippine Republic did desire a free and independent country, he had initially been too trustful of the United States, and ignored signs until it was too late that the North Americans intended to stay. In the end, like most of the ilustrados, Aguinaldo sought compromise even as he and his men bore arms. Despite Aguinaldo’s pronouncement, the war of resistance continued. As a counterinsurgency tactic, the reconcentrado method was used mercilessly. In southern Luzon, Bell’s reconcentrado bore fruit: a weakened General Malvar, along with his men, surrendered in April of 1902. With Aguinaldo quiescent and Malvar captured, President Theodore Roosevelt declared the war over on July 4, 1902. Henceforth, revolutionary fighters would be classified as bandits and thieves.
10. In 1903, the colonial government set up a program for qualified Filipinos to be sent to the United States and there earn their university degrees. The idea was to produce trained people who would return and take over the tasks of civil administration. Called pensionados (literally, pensioners but here meaning those sent to boarding school), by 1912, over 200 men and women had received their higher-education degrees. The pensionados were usually drawn from middle- to upper-middle-class families, thus reinforcing class ties between the local elites and their U.S. patrons. With landlords, wealthy entrepreneurs, and the bourgeoisie favoring accommodation to U.S. rule, the only sectors of society that consistently opposed such rule were the working class and the peasantry. Gaining the least they despaired the most.
âť“ Would I recommend this book?
Yes. I recommend this to all Filipinos who seeks to educate themselves.
1. Pre-colonial Filipinos were pretty awesome. Sex to women wasn't that much of a big deal because they didn't really have a conception of virginity, both men and women were sex positive as polyamous relationships were normal then, gender was pretty equal in their civilizations back then (crossdressing men was considered normal and their language were nongendered, pretty ahead-of-their-time, in my opinion), beliefs there were more polytheistic and rooted in nature. And then the Spaniards came and ruined everything, saw them as "hedonistic" and "barbarians" just because they didn't fit into their Catholic version of how humans should behave like.
2. On April 27, 1521, Magellan was rightfully murdered by Lapulapu.
3. Prior to 1565, Muslim port communities had already established themselves north of Mindanao, in Mindoro, and in Luzon, principally in the Maynila region and in what is now the province of Pampanga. The datus in Maynila and Tondo (across the river) were converts to the Muslim faith. Loarca noted that the river delta inhabitants were Moros—the Spanish word for “Moors,” or Muslims—and that they had the art of writing, indicative of the fact that pre-Hispanic Maynilans possessed not only their own script, but were aware of Bornean and Arabic writing.
4. By the end of the sixteenth century, more than 20,000 Chinese resided in the Parian district, just outside the walls of Intramuros, outnumbering the Spanish. The rapid growth of the Chinese immigrant community made the Spanish uneasy, and when a Chinese mission arrived in Manila in 1603, desirous of obtaining gold, the suspicions of the Spanish civil authorities were easily aroused. They instituted precautionary measures that in turn inflamed the resident Chinese, who decided, under the leadership of Juan Bautista de Vera, a Chinese convert to Catholicism, to strike the first blow. Their assault on Intramuros was repulsed, however, and the rebels fled to the mountains of Laguna and Batangas, where they were defeated by the Spanish forces—a combination of Spaniards, Filipinos, and even some Japanese. About 23,000 Chinese were killed as a result.
5. The encomendero was charged with ensuring the well-being of the Filipinos, a duty that included a good Christian education. Unfortunately, the battle-tested encomenderos treated the natives more like delinquent military units than a community of human beings, abusing them by exacting both tribute and labor. The encomienda system also gave the encomenderos a pretext for seizing land from barangay inhabitants. The system was finally abolished in 1720, though in the mid-nineteenth century, there still existed eleven encomiendas.
6. The Educational Decree of 1863 established a normal school for teachers in Manila, to be under the direction of the Jesuits, who having been expelled in 1768, had been allowed to return to the colony in 1859. (That same year, the Jesuits took over the Escuela Municipal de Manila, which in 1865 was raised to the status of a college, the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, now the private Ateneo de Manila university, the third-oldest university in the country.) The normal school was to serve as an educational center for God-fearing and obedient potential teachers. Again, at the top of the list of intended goals was the imparting of religion, morals, and sacred history. The unremitting emphasis on religious tutelage allowed Catholicism to be deeply entrenched, often at the expense of the secular pursuit of knowledge.
7. In summary, as the historian Reynaldo Ileto put it, in his Filipinos and Their Revolution, “The Spanish priest was the equivalent of the god-king elsewhere in Southeast Asia.” Thus, notwithstanding their excesses, the friars constituted the de facto bulwark of Spanish colonial rule and were therefore indispensable. To further solidify their indispensability, the friars resisted any systematic attempt for the Indios to learn Spanish. The main reason the friars so assiduously learned the various native languages was so that only they could mediate between the indigenous population and the civil state.
8. Born in 1861, José Rizal could converse in ten languages and corresponded in six. The most charismatic and well-known member of the Propaganda Movement, Rizal was also a medical doctor, scientist, fencer, and writer who brilliantly articulated the dreams and buried hurts fueling the newfound nationalism. His older brother, Paciano, had been a protégé of Fr. Burgos and had been living with the latter when he was implicated in the Cavite Mutiny. Paciano had described the grisly executions to the young José, eleven years old at the time, which undoubtedly helped shape his later views. Rizal would write the staff of La Solidaridad: “Without 1872 there would now be neither Plaridel nor Jaena nor Sancianco, nor the valiant and generous Filipino expatriates in Europe. Without 1872, Rizal would have been a Jesuit and instead of writing the Noli Me Tangere, would instead have written something entirely different.”
9. On April 19, Aguinaldo issued a proclamation for peace, which said in part: “The Philippines decidedly wishes peace: be it so. Let the stream of blood cease to flow; let there be an end to tears and desolation…. I proclaim before all the world that I cannot remain deaf to the voice of a people yearning for peace nor to the lamentations of thousands of families who long for freedom of their loved ones, which is promised them through the magnanimity of the great American nation.” Although the head of the Philippine Republic did desire a free and independent country, he had initially been too trustful of the United States, and ignored signs until it was too late that the North Americans intended to stay. In the end, like most of the ilustrados, Aguinaldo sought compromise even as he and his men bore arms. Despite Aguinaldo’s pronouncement, the war of resistance continued. As a counterinsurgency tactic, the reconcentrado method was used mercilessly. In southern Luzon, Bell’s reconcentrado bore fruit: a weakened General Malvar, along with his men, surrendered in April of 1902. With Aguinaldo quiescent and Malvar captured, President Theodore Roosevelt declared the war over on July 4, 1902. Henceforth, revolutionary fighters would be classified as bandits and thieves.
10. In 1903, the colonial government set up a program for qualified Filipinos to be sent to the United States and there earn their university degrees. The idea was to produce trained people who would return and take over the tasks of civil administration. Called pensionados (literally, pensioners but here meaning those sent to boarding school), by 1912, over 200 men and women had received their higher-education degrees. The pensionados were usually drawn from middle- to upper-middle-class families, thus reinforcing class ties between the local elites and their U.S. patrons. With landlords, wealthy entrepreneurs, and the bourgeoisie favoring accommodation to U.S. rule, the only sectors of society that consistently opposed such rule were the working class and the peasantry. Gaining the least they despaired the most.
âť“ Would I recommend this book?
Yes. I recommend this to all Filipinos who seeks to educate themselves.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Slavery, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Colonisation, War, and Classism