Some Important

Annotations of Rizal in
Antonio Morga’s Sucesos
de las Islas Filipinas
FAITH JEWELL P. BALAI
Austin Craig (1872-
1949), an early
biographer of Rizal,
translated into
English some of
these important
annotations.

Governor Morga was not

only the first to write but
also the first to publish a
Philippine history.
• By the Christian religion, Dr. Morga appears to
mean the Roman Catholic which by fire and
sword he would preserve in its purity in the
Philippines.

• Great kingdoms were indeed discovered and

conquered in the remote and unknown parts of
the world by Spanish ships but to the Spaniards
who sailed in them we may add Portuguese,
Italians, French, Greeks, and even Africans and
Polynesians.

• The conversions by the Spaniards were not as

general as their historians claim. The
missionaries only succeeded in converting a part
of the people of the Philippines.
• It is not the fact that the Filipinos were
unprotected before the coming of the
Spaniards.

• The civilization of the Pre-Spanish Filipinos in

regard to the duties of life for that age was well
advanced.

• The islands came under Spanish sovereignty

and control through compacts, treaties of
friendship and alliances for reciprocity. By
virtue of the last arrangement, according to
some historians, Magellan lost his life on
Mactan and the soldiers of Legaspi fought
under the banner of King Tupas of Cebu.
• The term "conquest" is admissible but for a part
of the islands and then only in its broadest
sense. Cebu, Panay, Luzon, Mindoro, and some
others cannot be said to have been conquered.

• The discovery, conquest and conversion cost

Spanish blood but still more Filipino blood.
• Morga shows that the ancient Filipinos had army and
navy with artillery and other implements of warfare.
Their prized krises and kampilans for their magnificent
temper are worthy of admiration and some of them are
richly damascened. Their coats of mail and helmets, of
which there are specimens in various European
museums, attest their great advancement in this
industry.
• Morga's expression that the Spaniards "brought war to
the gates of the Filipinos" is in marked contrast with
the word used by subsequent historians whenever
recording Spain's possessing herself of a province, that
she pacified it. Perhaps "to make peace" then meant
the same as "to stir up war." (This is a veiled allusion to
the old Latin saying of Romans, often quoted by
Spaniard's that they make a desert, calling it making
peace. -- Austin Craig)
• Megellan's transferring from the service of his
own king (i.e. the Portuguese) to employment
under the King of Spain, according to historic
documents, was because the Portuguese King
had refused to grant him the raise in salary
which he asked.

• Now it is known that Magellan was mistaken

when he represented to the King of Spain that
the Molucca Islands were within the limits
assigned by the Pope to the Spaniards.
• Cebu, which Morga calls "The City of the Most
Holy Name of Jesus," was at first called "The
village of San Miguel.“

• The image of the Holy Child of Cebu, which

many religious writers believed was brought to
Cebu by the angels, was in fact given by the
worthy Italian chronicler of Magellan's
expedition, the Chevalier Pigafetta, to the
Cebuan queen.