RIZAL GROUP REPORTING

RIZAL'S CHANGING
VIEWS OF SPANISH
RULE AND EL FILI
Evidente, Geolingo, Padilla, Traje and Villarosa
 KEYPOINT # 1

VIEWS ON
COLONIAL
SOCIETY
 • the corrupt Spanish colonial bureaucracy relentlessly exploited
MAIN the Filipinos but blamed the underdevelopment of the people on

ARGUEME their presumed indolence.

NTS • pre-colonial Filipino society was relatively advanced,

suggesting that the presumed backwardness was due to
colonialism.

• despite the claims of the heavy-handed colonial government

and the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, colonial
policy was oppressive.
Rizal referred to the "boasted
ministers of God [the friars] and
propagators of light(!) [who] have not
sowed nor do they sow Christian
moral, they have not taught religion,
but rituals and superstitions."
Rizal, 1963b: 38
 SIGNIFICANCE

Rizal’s thoughts about the nature of

Filipino colonial society laid the
foundations for an original Southeast
Asian sociology of colonial society.

HIGHLIGHT
 KEYPOINT # 2

CRITIQUE OF
COLONIAL
HISTORY
FOUR REVOLVING CRITIQUES

RETROGRESSION OF GOVERNMENT POLICIES

BACKWARDNESS OF AND THE
FILIPINOS
colonization disconnected the filipinos from DISCOURAGEMENT
blamed on the encomienda system TO
their own glorious past and tradition WORK

RELIGION AND THE DEFECTIVE EDUCATIONAL

DECLINE OF FILIPINOS SYSTEM
cause factor of all maladies in 19th century
Catholic faith transformed not only our beliefs but Philippines.
also worldviews
 KEYPOINT # 3

THE
MEANING
OF
INDOLENCE
 • Indolence means avoidance of activity or
exertion; laziness

MEANING OF INDOLENCE
• Rizal was very aware that in Spanish colonial
discourse, the backwardness of the Filipinos was
blamed on their indolence.

• Late Malaysian academic and politician Syed

Hussein Alatas has noted that the unwillingness
of Filipinos to cultivate land under the feudal
encomenderos (overseers) was interpreted out of
context and understood to be the result of
laziness
 1. Rizal observed that the "miseries of
OBSERVATIONS a people without freedom should not be
imputed to the people but to their rulers”
RIZAL'S

2. Rizal insisted that the Filipinos were

not inherently indolent.
THE PROBLEM
APPROACH TO • He made a distinction between being "indolent" as
a reaction to climate or environment and indolence
RIZAL’S

in terms of the absence of love for work or the

avoidance of work.

• The second kind of indolence Rizal noted was a

consequence of the experience of the Filipinos
under Spanish rule.
 SIGNIFICANCE

The theme of indolence, or the lazy

native, in colonial scholarship formed
a vital component of the ideology of
colonial capitalism. Rizal was
probably the first to deal with it
systematically and sociologically.
HIGHLIGHT
 KEYPOINT # 4

FREEDOM
OF
THOUGHT
AND
EMANCIPATI
ON
 The Church was against
RIZAL'S enlightenment, the supremacy of
REALIZATION reason. The European
Enlightenment was good for
Filipinos, while the Church was
against it because it established
reason as authority, and not God
or the Church.
FACTOR'S THAT INFLUENCED RIZAL'S
THINKING

he saw that the

exposure to
Philippines was His time abroad
The controversies
not sufficiently and close
between liberals
Kalamba modern, being friendship with Dr.
and conservative
held back by an Fernando
Incident Catholics
Blumentritt
anti-rational
Church
The revolution against Spanish rule
and the Church seems inevitable and
the only means of achieving freedom.

Rizal's take on emancipati on

HOW DID RIZAL'S
CHANGING VIEWS ON
SPANISH RULE AFFECT
HIS WRITING IN EL
FILI?

El Filibusterismo is a prescription for revolution.

 Noli Me Tangere only suggests the need to displace
the civil power of the villainous Franciscan friars. In
TANGERE this novel, the civil and military power exercised by
NOLI ME
the Spanish Captain General, a colonial officer, is
perceived as rational and progressive. Elias, a noble,
patriotic and selfless Filipino dies in the niovel,
while the egoist Ibarra, a confused romantic in love
with the iconic symbol of Filipino womanhood,
Maria Clara, survives.
FILIBUSTERISMO
In the Fili, the villains now include both the clergy, this
time the Dominican priests, as well as the mercenary
Captain General. The revolution does not succeed,
which was a reflection of Rizal's assessment of the lack
of preparedness of the Filipinos for revolution. He
EL

feared that those who would spearhead a revolution

would be motivated by little more than self-interest
rather than social commitment.
EL FILI WAS HIGHLY
POLITICAL

The main objective of this 2nd book is to criticize the Spanish government and form a sense
of Filipino identity.