Dr.

Jose Rizal's annotations to Morga's

1609 Philippine History
Posted under General History
Tuesday February 28, 2012 (8 years ago)

TO the Filipinos: In Noli Me Tangere I started to sketch the present state of our native
land. But the effect which my effort produced made me realize that, before attempting to
unroll before your eyes the other pictures which were to follow, it was necessary first to
post you on the past. So only can you fairly judge the present and estimate how much
progress has been made during the three centuries (of Spanish rule).

(Dr. Jose P. Rizal, center beside Marcelo H. Del Pilar and other Filipinos in Madrid, Spain, 1890.)

Like almost all of you, I was born and brought up in ignorance of our country's past and
so, without knowledge or authority to speak of what I neither saw nor have studied, I
deem it necessary to quote the testimony of an illustrious Spaniard who in the beginning
of the new era controlled the destinies of the Philippines and had personal knowledge of
our ancient nationality in its last days.

It is then the shade of our ancestor's civilization which the author will call before you... If
the work serves to awaken in you a consciousness of our past, and to blot from your
memory or to rectify what has been falsified or is calumny, then I shall not have labored
in vain. With this preparation, slight though it be, we can all pass to the study of the
future.

JOSE RIZAL, Europe, 1889.

Governor Antonio de Morga was not only the first to write but also the first to publish
a Philippine history. This statement has regard to the concise and concrete form in
which our author has treated the matter. Father Chirino's work, printed at Rome in 1604,
is rather a chronicle of the Missions than a history of the Philippines; still it contains a
great deal of valuable material on usages and customs. The worthy Jesuit in fact admits
that he abandoned writing a political history because Morga had already done so, so
one must infer that he had seen the work in manuscript before leaving the Islands.

 By the Christian religion, Doctor Morga appears to mean the Roman Catholic
which by fire and sword he would preserve in its purity in the Philippines.
Nevertheless in other lands, notably in Flanders, these means were ineffective to
keep the church unchanged, or to maintain its supremacy, or even to hold its
subjects.
 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 expeditions captained by Columbus and Magellan, one a
Genoese Italian and the other a Portuguese, as well as those that came after
them, although Spanish fleets, still were manned by many nationalities and in
them went negroes, Moluccans, and even men from the Philippines and the
Marianes Islands.

 Three centuries ago it was the custom to write as intolerantly as Morga does, but
nowadays it would be called a bit presumptuous. No one has a monopoly of the
true God nor is there any nation or religion that can claim, or at any rate prove,
that to it has been given the exclusive right to the Creator of all things or sole
knowledge of His real being.

 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. Still there are Mahometans, the Moros, in the southern islands, and
negritos, igorots and other heathens yet occupy the greater part territorially of the
archipelago. Then the islands which the Spaniards early held but soon lost are
non-Christian-Formosa, Borneo, and the Moluccas. And if there are Christians in
the Carolines, that is due to Protestants, whom neither the Roman Catholics of
Morga's day nor many Catholics in our own day consider Christians.

 It is not the fact that the Filipinos were unprotected before the coming of the
Spaniards. Morga himself says, further on in telling of the pirate raids from the
south, that previous to the Spanish domination the islands had arms and
defended themselves. But after the natives were disarmed the pirates pillaged
them with impunity, coming at times when they were unprotected by the
government, which was the reason for many of the insurrections.

 The civilization of the Pre-Spanish Filipinos in regard to the duties of life for that
age was well advanced, as the Morga history shows in its eighth chapter.

 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. It will be seen later on in Morga that with the Spaniards and on
behalf of Spain there were always more Filipinos fighting than Spaniards.
 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
made a desert, calling it making peace.-C.)

Magellan's transferring from the service of his own king 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. But through this error and the inaccuracy of the nautical instruments
of that time, the Philippines did not fall into the hands of the Portuguese.

 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.

 The expedition of Villalobos, intermediate

between Magellan's and Legaspi's, gave   
the name "Philipina" to one of the
southern islands, Tendaya, now perhaps
Leyte, and this name later was extended to the whole archipelago.

 Of the native Manila rulers at the coming of the Spaniards, Raja Soliman was
called "Rahang mura", or young king, in distinction from the old king, "Rahang
matanda". Historians have confused these personages. The native fort at the
mouth of the Pasig river, which Morga speaks of as equipped with brass lantakas
and artillery of larger caliber, had its ramparts reenforced with thick hardwood
posts such as the Tagalogs used for their houses and called "harigues", or
"haligui".

 Morga has evidently confused the pacific coming of Legaspi with the attack of
Goiti and Salcedo, as to date. According to other historians it was in 1570 that
 Manila was burned, and with it a great plant for manufacturing artillery. Goiti did
not take posession of the city but withdrew to Cavite and afterwards to Panay,
which makes one suspicious of his alleged victory. As to the day of the date, the
Spaniards then, having come following the course of the sun, were some sixteen
hours later than Europe. This condition continued till the end of the year 1844,
when the 31st of December was by special arrangement among the authorities
dropped from the calendar for that year. Accordingly Legaspi did not arrive in
Manila on the 19th but on the 20th of May and consequently it was not on the
festival of Santa Potenciana but on San Baudelio's day. The same mistake was
made with reference to the other early events still wrongly commemorated, like
San Andres' day for the repulse of the Chinese corsair Li Ma-hong.

 Though not mentioned by Morga, the Cebuans aided the Spaniards in their
expedition against Manila, for which reason they were long exempted from
tribute.

 The southern islands, the Bisayas, were also called "The land of the Painted
People (or Pintados, in Spanish)" because the natives had their bodies decorated
with tracings made with fire, somewhat like tattooing.

 The Spaniards retained the native name for the new capital of the archipelago, a
little changed, however, for the Tagalogs had called their city "Maynila."

 When Morga says that the lands were "entrusted" (given as encomiendas) to
those who had "pacified" them, he means "divided up among." The word "en
trust," like "pacify," later came to have a sort of ironical signification. To entrust a
province was then as if it were said that it was turned over to sack, abandoned to
the cruelty and covetousness of the encomendero, to judge from the way these
gentry misbehaved.

 Legaspi's grandson, Salcedo, called the Hernando Cortez of the Philippines, was
the "conqueror's" intelligent right arm and the hero of the "conquest." His honesty
and fine qualities, talent and personal bravery, all won the admiration of the
Filipinos. Because of him they yielded to their enemies, making peace and
friendship with the Spaniards. He it was who saved Manila from Li Ma-hong. He
died at the early age of twenty-seven and is the only encomendero recorded to
have left the great part of his possessions to the Indians of his encomienda.
Vigan was his encomienda and the Ilokanos there were his heirs.

 The expedition which followed the Chinese corsair Li Ma-hong, after his
unsuccessful attack upon Manila, to Pangasinan province, with the Spaniards of
whom Morga tells, had in it 1,500 friendly Indians from Cebu, Bohol, Leyte and
Panay, besides the many others serving as laborers and crews of the ships.
Former Raja Lakandola, of Tondo, with his sons and his kinsmen went, too, with
200 more Bisayans and they were joined by other Filipinos in Pangasinan.
 If discovery and occupation justify annexation, then Borneo ought to belong to
Spain. In the Spanish expedition to replace on its throne a Sirela or Malaela, as
he is variously called, who had been driven out by his brother, more than fifteen
hundred Filipino bowmen from the provinces of Pangasinan, Kagayan, and the
Bisayas participated.

 It is notable how strictly the earlier Spanish governors were held to account.
Some stayed in Manila as prisoners, one, Governor Corcuera, passing five years
with Fort Santiago as his prison.

 In the fruitless expedition against the Portuguese in the island of Ternate, in the
Molucca group, which was abandoned because of the prevalence of beriberi
among the troops, there went 1,500 Filipino soldiers from the more warlike
provinces, principally Kagayans and Pampangans.

 The "pacification" of Kagayan was accomplished by taking advantage of the

jealousies among its people, particularly the rivalry between two brothers who
were chiefs. An early historian asserts that without this fortunate circumstance,
for the Spaniards, it would have been impossible to subjugate them.

 Captain Gabriel de Rivera, a Spanish commander who had gained fame in a raid
on Borneo and the Malacca coast, was the first envoy from the Philippines to
take up with the King of Spain the needs of the archipelago.

 -The early conspiracy of the Manila and Pampangan former chiefs was revealed
to the Spaniards by a Filipina, the wife of a soldier, and many concerned lost
their lives.

 The artillery cast for the new stone fort in Manila, says Morga, was by the hand of
an ancient Filipino. That is, he knew how to cast cannon even before the coming
of the Spaniards, hence he was distinguished as 4"ancient." In this difficult art of
ironworking, as in so many others, the modern or present-day Filipinos are not so
far advanced as were their ancestors.

 When the English freeboother Cavendish captured the Mexican galleon Santa
Ana, with 122,000 gold pesos, a great quantity of rich textiles-silks, satins and
damask, musk perfume, and stores of provisions, he took 150 prisoners. All
these because of their brave defense were put ashore with ample supplies,
except two Japanese lads, three Filipinos, a Portuguese and a skilled Spanish
pilot whom he kept as guides in his further voyaging.

 From the earliset Spanish days ships were built in the islands, which might be
considered evidence of native culture. Nowadays this industry is reduced to small
craft, scows and coasters.

 The Jesuit, Father Alonso Sanchez, who visited the papal court at Rome and the
Spanish King at Madrid, had a mission much like that of deputies now, but of
 even greater importance since he came to be a sort of counsellor or
representative to the absolute monarch of that epoch. One wonders why the
Philippines could have a representative then but may not have one now.

 In the time of Governor Gomez Perez Dasmarinias, Manila was guarded against
further damage such as was suffered from Li Ma-hong by the construction of a
massive stone wall around it. This was accomplished "without expense to the
royal treasury." The same governor, in like manner, also fortified the point at the
entrance to the river where had been the ancient native fort of wood, and he
gave it the name Fort Santiago.

 The early cathedral of wood which was burned through carelessness at the time
of the funeral of Governor Dasmarifias' predecessor, Governor Ronquillo, was
made, according to the Jesuit historian Chirino, with hardwood pillars around
which two men could not reach, and in harmony with this massiveness was all
the woodwork above and below. It may be surmised from this how hard workers
were the Filipinos of that time.

 A stone house for the bishop was built before starting on the governor-general's
residence. This precedence is interesting for those who uphold the civil power.
Morga's mention of the scant output of large artillery from the Manila cannon
works because of lack of master foundrymen shows that after the death of the
Filipino Panday Pira there were not Spaniards skilled enough to take his place,
nor were his sons as expert as he.

 It is worthy of note that China, Japan and Cambodia at this time maintained
relations with the Philippines. But in our day it has been more than a century
since the natives of the latter two countries have come here. The causes which
ended the relationship may be found in the interference by the religious orders
with the institutions of those lands.

 For Governor Dasmarinas' expedition to conquer Ternate, in the Moluccan group,

two Jesuits there gave secret information. In his 200 ships, besides 900
Spaniards, there must have been Filipinos for one chronicler speaks of Indians,
as the Spaniards called the natives of the Philippines, who lost their lives and
others who were made captives when the Chinese rowers mutinied. It was the
custom then always to have a thousand or more native bowmen and besides the
crew were almost all Filipinos, for the most part Bisayans.

 The historian Argensola, in telling of four special galleys for Dasmarinas'

expedition, says that they were manned by an expedient which was generally
considered rather harsh. It was ordered that there be bought enough of the
Indians who were slaves of the former Indian chiefs, or principales, to form these
crews, and the price, that which had been customary in pre-Spanish times, was
to be advanced by the encomenderos who later would be reimbursed from the
royal treasury. In spite of this promised compensation, the measures still seemed
severe since those Filipinos were not correct in calling their dependents slaves.
 The masters treated these, and loved them, like sons rather, for they seated
them at their own tables an gave them their own daughters in marriage.

 Morga says that the 250 Chinese oarsmen who manned Governor Dasmariias'
swift galley were under pay and had the special favor of not being chained to
their benches. According to him it was covetousness of the wealth aboard that
led them to revolt and kill the governor. But the historian Gaspar de San Agustin
states that the reason for the revolt was the governor's abusive language and his
threatening the rowers. Both these authors' allegations may have contributed, but
more important was the fact that there was no law to compel these Chinamen to
row in the galleys. They had come to Manila to engage in commerce or to work in
trades or to follow professions. Still the incident contradicts the reputation for
enduring everything which they have had. The Filipinos have been much more
long-suffering than the Chinese since, in spite of having been obliged to row on
more than one occasion, they never mutinied.

 It is difficult to excuse the missionaries' disregard of the laws of nations and the
usages of honorable politics in their interference in Cambodia on the ground that
it was to spread the Faith. Religion had a broad field awaiting it then in the
Philippines where more than nine-tenths of the natives were infidels. That even
now there are to be found here so many tribes and settlements of non-Christians
takes away much of the prestige of that religious zeal which in the easy life in
towns of wealth, liberal and fond of display, grows lethargic. Truth is that the
ancient activity was scarcely for the Faith alone, because the missionaries had to
go to islands rich in spices and gold though there were at hand Mahometans and
Jews in Spain and Africa, Indians by the million in the Americas, and more
millions of protestants, schismatics and heretics peopled, and still people, over
six-sevenths of Europe. All of these doubtless would have accepted the Light and
the true religion if the friars, under pretext of preaching to them, had not abused
their hospitality and if behind the name Religion had not lurked the unnamed
Domination.

 In the attempt made by Rodriguez de Figueroa to conquer Mindanao according

to his contract with the King of Spain, there was fighting along the Rio Grande
with the people called the Buhahayenes. Their general, according to Argensola,
was the celebrated Silonga, later distinguished for many deeds in raids on the
Bisayas and adjacent islands. Chirino relates an anecdote of his coolness under
fire once during a truce for a marriage among Mindanao "principalia." Young
Spaniards out of bravado fired at his feet but he passed on as if unconscious of
the bullets.

 Argensola has preserved the name of the Filipino who killed Rodriguez de
Figueroa. It was Ubal. Two days previously he had given a banquet, slaying for it
a beef animal of his own, and then made the promise which he kept, to do away
with the leader of the Spanish invaders. A Jesuit writer calls him a traitor though
the justification for that term of reproach is not apparent. The Buhahayen people
were in their own country, and had neither offended nor declared war upon the
 Spaniards. They had to defend their homes against a powerful invader, with
superior forces, many of whom were, by reason of their armor, invulnerable so
far as rude Indians were concerned. Yet these same Indians were defenceless
against the balls from their muskets. By the Jesuit's line of reasoning, the heroic
Spanish peasantry in their war for independence would have been a people even
more treacherous. It was not Ubal's fault that he was not seen and, as it was
wartime, it would have been the height of folly, in view of the immense disparity
of arms, to have first called out to this preoccupied opponent,and then been killed
himself.

 The muskets used by the Buhahayens were probably some that had belonged to
Figueroa's soldiers who had died in battle. Though the Philippines had lantakas
and other artillery, muskets were unknown till the Spaniards came.

 That the Spaniards used the word "discover" very carelessly may be seen from
an admiral's turning in a report of his "discovery" of the Solomon islands though
he noted that the islands had been discovered before.

 Death has always been the first sign of European civilization on its introduction in
the Pacific Ocean. God grant that it may not be the last, though to judge by
statistics the civilized islands are losing their populations at a terrible rate.
Magellan himself inaugurated his arrival in the Marianes islands by burning more
than forty houses, many small craft and seven people because one of his boats
had been stolen. Yet to the simple savages the act had nothing wrong in it but
was done with the same naturalness that civilized people hunt, fish, and
subjugate people that are weak or ill-armed.

 The Spanish historians of the Philippines never overlook any opportunity, be it

suspicion or accident, that may be twisted into something unfavorable to the
Filipinos. They seem to forget that in almost every case the reason for the
rupture has been some act of those who were pretending to civilize helpless
peoples by force of arms and at the cost of their native land. What would these
same writers have said if the crimes committed by the Spaniards, the Portuguese
and the Dutch in their colonies had been committed by the islanders?

 The Japanese were not in error when they suspected the Spanish and
Portuguese religious propaganda to have political motives back of the missionary
activities. Witness the Moluccas where Spanish missionaries served as spies;
Cambodia, which it was sought to conquer under cloak of converting; and many
other nations, among them the Filipinos, where the sacrament of baptism made
of the inhabitants not only subjects of the King of Spain but also slaves of the
encomenderos, and as well slaves of the churches and convents. What would
Japan have been now had not its emperors uprooted catholicism? A missionary
record of 1625 sets forth that the King of Spain had arranged with certain
members of Philippine religious orders that, under guise of preaching the faith
and making Christians, they should win over the Japanese and oblige them to
make themselves of the Spanish party, and finally it told of a plan whereby the
 King of Spain should become also King of Japan. In corroboration of this may be
cited the claims that Japan fell within the Pope's demarcation lines for Spanish
expansion and so there was complaint of missionaries other than Spanish there.
Therefore it was not for religion that they were converting the infidels!

 The raid by Datus Sali and Silonga of Mindanao, in 1599 with 50 sailing vessels
and 3,000 warriors, against the capital of Panay, is the first act of piracy by the
inhabitants of the South which is recorded in Philippine history. I say "by the
inhabitants of the South" because earlier there had been other acts of piracy, the
earliest being that of Magellan's expedition when it seized the shipping of friendly
islands and even of those whom they did not know, extorting for them heavy
ransoms. It will be remembered that these Moro piracies continued for more than
two centuries, during which the indomitable sons of the South made captives and
carried fire and sword not only in neighboring islands but into Manila Bay to
Malate, to the very gates of the capital, and not once a year merely but at times
repeating their raids five and six times in a single season. Yet the government
was unable to repel them or to defend the people whom it had disarmed and left
without protection. Estimating that the cost to the islands was but 800 victims a
year, still the total would be more than 200,000 persons sold into slavery or
killed, all sacrificed together with so many other things to the prestige of that
empty title, Spanish sovereignty.

 Still the Spaniards say that the Filipinos have contributed nothing to Mother
Spain, and that it is the islands which owe everything. It may be so, but what
about the enormous sum of gold which was taken from the islands in the early
years of Spanish rule, of the tributes collected by the encomenderos, of the nine
million dollars yearly collected to pay the military, expenses of the employees,
diplomatic agents, corporations and the like, charged to the Philippines, with
salaries paid out of the Philippine treasury not only for those who come to the
Philippines but also for those who leave, to some who never have been and
never will be in the islands, as well as to others who have nothing to do with
them. Yet all of this is as nothing in comparison with so many captives gone,
such a great number of soldiers killed in expeditions, islands depopulated, their
inhabitants sold as slaves by the Spaniards themselves, the death of industry,
the demoralization of the Filipinos, and so forth, and so forth. Enormous indeed
would the benefits which that sacred civilization brought to the archipelago have
to be in order to counterbalance so heavy a-cost.

 While Japan was preparing to invade the Philippines, these islands were sending
expeditions to Tonquin and Cambodia, leaving the homeland helpless even
against the undisciplined hordes from the South, so obsessed were the
Spaniards with the idea of making conquests.

 In the alleged victory of Morga over the Dutch ships, the latter found upon the
bodies of five Spaniards, who lost their lives in that combat, little silver boxes
filled with prayers and invocations to the saints. Here would seem to be the origin
 of the anting-anting of the modern tulisanes, which are also of a religious
character.

 In Morga's time, the Philippines exported silk to Japan whence now comes the
best quality of that merchandise.

 Morga's views upon the failure of Governor Pedro de Acunia's ambitious

expedition against the Moros unhappily still apply for the same conditions yet
exist. For fear of uprisings and loss of Spain's sovereignty over the islands, the
inhabitants were disarmed, leaving them exposed to the harassing of a powerful
and dreaded enemy. Even now, though the use of steam vessels has put an end
to piracy from outside, the same fatal system still is followed. The peaceful
countryfolk are deprived of arms and thus made unable to defend themselves
against the bandits, or tulisanes, which the government cannot restrain. It is an
encouragemnnt to banditry thus to make easy its getting booty.

 Hernando de los Rios blames these Moluccan wars for the fact that at first the
Philippines were a source of expense to Spain instead of profitable in spite of the
tremendous sacrifices of the Filipinos, their practically gratuitous labor in building
and equipping the galleons, and despite, too, the tribute, tariffs and other imposts
and monopolies. These wars to gain the Moluccas, which soon were lost forever
with the little that had been so laboriously obtained, were a heavy drain upon the
Philippines. They depopulated the country and bankrupted the treasury, with not
the slightest compensating benefit. True also is it that it was to gain the Moluccas
that Spain kept the Philippines, the desire for the rich spice islands being one of
the most powerful arguments when, because of their expense to him, the King
thought of withdrawing and abandoning them.

 Among the Filipinos who aided the government when the Manila Chinese
revolted, Argensola says there were 4,000 Pampangans "armed after the way of
their land, with bows and arrows, short lances, shields, and broad and long
daggers." Some Spanish writers say that the Japanese volunteers and the
Filipinos showed themselves cruel in slaughtering the Chinese refugees. This
may very well have been so, considering the hatred and rancor then existing, but
those in command set the example.

 The loss of two Mexican galleons in 1603 called forth no comment from the
religious chroniclers who were accustomed to see the avenging hand of God in
the misfortunes and accidents of their enemies. Yet there were repeated
shipwrecks of the vessels that carried from the Philippines wealth which
encomenderos had extorted from the Filipinos, using force, or making their own
laws, and, when not using these open means, cheating by the weights and
measures.

 The Filipino chiefs who at their own expense went with the Spanish expedition
against Ternate, in the Moluccas, in 1605, were Don Guillermo Palaot, maestro
de campo, and Captains Francisco Palaot, Juan Lit, Luis Lont, and Agustin Lont.
 They had with them 400 Tagalogs and Pampangans. The leaders bore
themselves bravely for Argensola writes that in the assault on Ternate, "No
officer, Spaniard or Indian, went unscathed."

 The Cebuans drew a pattern on the skin before starting in to tatoo. The Bisayan
usage then was the same procedure that the Japanese today follow.

 Ancient traditions ascribe the origin of the Malay Filipinos to the island of
Sumatra. These traditions were almost completely lost as well as the mythology
and the genealogies of which the early historians tell, thanks to the zeal of the
missionaries in eradicating all national remembances as heathen or idolatrous.
The study of ethnology is restoring this somewhat.

 The chiefs used to wear upper garments, usually of Indian fine gauze according
to Colin, of red color, a shade for which they had the same fondness that the
Romans had. The barbarous tribes in Mindanao still have the same taste.

 The "easy virtue" of the native women that historians note is not solely
attributable to the simplicity with which they obeyed their natural instincts but
much more due to a religious belief of which Father Chirino tells. It was that in
the journey after death to "Kalualhatian," the abode of the spirit, there was a
dangerous river to cross that had no bridge other than a very narrow strip of
wood over which a woman could not pass unless she had a husband or lover to
extend a hand to assist her. Furthermore, the religious annals of the early
missions are filled with countless instances where native maidens chose death
rather than sacrifice their chastity to the threats and violence of encomenderos
and Spanish soldiers. As to the mercenary social evil, that is worldwide and there
is no nation that can 'throw the first stone' at any other. For the rest, today the
Philippines has no reason to blush in comparing its womankind with the women
of the most chaste nation in the world.

 Morga's remark that the Filipinos like fish better when it is commencing to turn
bad is another of those prejudices which Spaniards like all other nations, have. In
matters of food, each is nauseated with what he is unaccustomed to or doesn't
know is eatable. The English, for example, find their gorge rising when they see a
Spaniard eating snails, while in turn the Spanish find roastbeef English-style
repugnant and can't understand the relish of other Europeans for beefsteak a la
Tartar which to them is simply raw meat. The Chinaman, who likes shark's meat,
cannot bear Roquefort cheese, and these examples might be indefinitely
extended. The Filipinos' favorite fish dish is the bagong and whoever has tried to
eat it knows that it is not considered improved when tainted. It neither is, nor
ought to be, decayed.

 Colin says the ancient Filipinos had minstrels who had memorized songs telling
their genealogies and of the deeds ascribed to their deities. These were chanted
on voyages in cadence with the rowing, or at festivals, or funerals, or wherever
there happened to be any considerable gatherings. It is regretable that these
 chants have not been preserved as from them it would have been possible to
learn much of the Filipinos' past and possibly of the history of neighboring
islands.

 The cannon foundry mentioned by Morga as in the walled city was probably on
the site of the Tagalog one which was destroyed by fire on the first coming of the
Spaniards. That established in 1584 was in Lamayan, that is, Santa Ana now,
and was transferred to the old site in 1590. It continued to work until 1805.
According to Gaspar San Agustin, the cannon which the pre-Spanish Filipinos
cast were "as great as those of Malaga," Spain's foundry. The Filipino plant was
burned with all that was in it save a dozen large cannons and some smaller
pieces which the Spanish invaders took back with them to Panay. The rest of
their artillery equipment had been thrown by the Manilans, then Moros, into the
sea when they recognized their defeat.

 Malate, better Maalat, was where the Tagalog aristocracy lived after they were
dispossessed by the Spaniards of their old homes in what is now the walled city
of Manila. Among the Malate residents were the families of Raja Matanda and
Raja Soliman. The men had various positions in Manila and some were
employed in government work near by. "They were very courteous and well-
mannered," says San Agustin. "The women were very expert in lacemaking, so
much so that they were not at all behind the women of Flanders."

 Morga's statement that there was not a province or town of the Filipinos that
resisted conversion or did not want it may have been true of the civilized natives.
But the contrary was the fact among the mountain tribes. We have the testimony
of several Dominican and Augustinian missionaries that it was impossible to go
anywhere to make conversions without other Filipinos along and a guard of
soldiers. "Otherwise, says Gaspar de San Agustin, there would have been no
fruit of the Evangelic Doctrine gathered, for the infidels wanted to kill the Friars
who came to preach to them." An example of this method of conversion given by
the same writer was a trip to the mountains by two Friars who had a numerous
escort of Pampangans. The escort's leader was Don Agustin Sonson who had a
reputation for daring and carried fire and sword into the country, killing many,
including the chief, Kabadi.

 "The Spaniards, says Morga, were accustomed to hold as slaves such natives as
they bought and others that they took in the forays in the conquest or pacification
of the islands." Consequently in this respect the "pacifiers" introduced no moral
improvement. We even do not know if in their wars the Filipinos used to make
slaves of each other, though that would not have been strange, for the
chroniclers tell of captives returned to their own people. The practice of the
Southern pirates almost proves this, although in these piratical wars the
Spaniards were the first aggressors and gave them their character.

Source: Rizal's Life and Minor Writtings, pp 310-331, Austin Craig, 1929, Translations
were made by Mr. Chas. E. Derbyshire for the author.
Morga's puropose for Writing Sucesos

Rizal’s First consideration for the choice of Morga

1. The original book was rare
2. Morga is a layman not a religious chronicler.
3. Rizal felt Morga to be more “objective”. (Than the religious writers who
included many miracle stories.)
Antonio de Morga
His history is valuable in that Morga had access to the survivors of the earliest days of the colony and he,
himself, participated in many of the accounts that he rendered.
The book (Sucesos..) narrates the history of wars, intrigues, diplomacy and evangelization of the
Philipinnes in a somewhat disjointed way.
Modern historians (including Rizal) have noted that Morga has a definite bias and would often distort facts
or even rely on invention to fit his defense of the Spanish conquest.
Rizal's Annotation of Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas

Rizal:
"You wish that the Spaniards embrace us as brothers, but we do not ask for this
by always imploring and repeating this because the resdt is humiliating for us. If
the Spaniards do not want us as brothers, nei- ther are we eager for their
affection. We will not ask for fraternal love as if it we like alms. I am convinced
that you wish too much and also wish the good of Spain. But we do not solicit the
compassion of Spain. We do not want compassion, but justice. . . . Fraternity like
alms from the proud Spaniard we do not seek. I repeat, you only have the best
intentions, you want to see the whole world embraced by means of love and
reason but I doubt if the Spaniards wish the same"
Blumentritt:
Rizal’s annotation of Morga
Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas
In his preface to the Morga Rizal addressed his countrymen:
"In the Noli me tangne I began the sketch of the present state of our motherland.
The effect that my exercise produced in me was the un- derstanding that, before
proceeding to unfold before your eyes other successive pictures, it is necessary
to give you first a knowledge of the past in order to enable you to judge the
present better a& to measure the road we have traveled during the last three
centuries (Rizal 1890, preface)."
Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas
CHAPTER 1 : Magellan and Legazpi's seminal expeditions. CHAPTER 2 - 7 : Chronological report on
gov't administration under Governor-General. CHAPTER 8 : Philippine Islands, the natives there, their
antiquity, custom and gov't.
Morga wrote that the purpose for writing Sucesos was so he could chronicle "the deeds achieved by our
Spaniards i the discovery, conquest, and conversion of the Filipinas Islands - as well as various fortunes
that they have from time to time in the great kingdoms and among the pagan peoples surrounding the
islands. "

 Events in the Philippine Islands

 by Antonio de Morga
 Published in 1609 in Mexico
 One of the most important works on the early history of the Spanish colonization of the
Philippines.

Third consideration for the choice of Morga

It was more objective, rather than liberally with tales of miracle, devils and
apparitions written by the religious missionaries.
These are two categories in Rizal’s annotation
1. Rizal corrects the original one. “The straight forward historical annotations”
2. “Historical based reflect his anticlerical bias”

 a high-ranking colonial official in the Philippines, New Spain and Peru.

 led the Spanish in one naval battle against Dutch corsairs in the Philippines, in 1600.
 wrote the first lay formal history of the Philippines conquest by Spain. (Sucesos De Las Islas
Filipinas)

1559 – July 21, 1636

Second consideration for the choice Morga
It was the only civil, as opposed to religious or ecclesiastical, history of the
Philippines written during the colonial period.
Rizal wants to write an edition of morga, for there was no history that was written
by an Indio, or one written from the viewpoint of the Indio.
When Austin Craig an American historian pointed that the histories of the
Philippines written during the colonial period was nothing but a chapters in the
larger history of Spain.
 Rizal doesn’t want that idea because for Rizal, Philippine histories must from
the point of view a Filipino.
Antonio de Morga Sánchez Garay
"My great esteem for your notes does not impede me from confessing that, more
than once, I have observed that you participate in the error of many modern
historians who censure the events of past centuries accoding to the concepts
that correspond to contemporary ideas. This should not be so. The historian
should not impute to the men of the sixteenth century the broad horizon of ideas
that moves the nineteenth century. The second point with which I do not agree is
against Catholicism. I believe that you cannot find the origin of numerous events
regrettable for Spain and for the good name of the European race in religion, but
in the hard behavior and abuses of many priests"
Blumentritt:
"These new points of view give your notes an imperishable value, an undeniable
value even for those who dream of an inaccessible superi- ority of race or
nationality. The scholar will salute your erudite anno- tations with enthusiasm,
the colonial politician gratitude and respect. Through these lines run a flood of
serious observations equally inter- esting and important to historians and
ministers of overseas colonies alike"
• The original Spanish text of 1609 had never been printed in full.
• Rizal’s edition came off the press of Garnier Hermanos in Paris in 1889.
• Reissued in photo-offset reproduction in 1958.
• English translation of Rizal’s Morga in 1961, Jose Rizal National Centennial
Commission.
• Everything is reproduced in full with no censorship.
• The annotation to Morga should be made not by a foreigner but by an indio.
Importance of Rizal's Annotation:
To create a sense of national consciousness or identity.
Two defects of Rizal's scholarship which have been condemned
- An ahistorical use of hindsight
- A strong anticlerical bias.
Fourth consideration for the choice of Morga

 For Rizal, morga was sympathetic to the Indios because it contrast the friars point of view in
which the Philippine histories must only written by a foreigner not by an Indio.
 Rizal wrote a letter for Blumentritt to express his preference for Morga.
“The Morga is an excellent book; it can be said that Morga is a modern learned
explorer (modern sabio explorador). He has nothing of the superficiality and
exaggeration so typical of present-day Spaniards. He writes very simply, but in
reading him there is much between the lines because he was governor general in
the Philippines and after, head (Alcalde) of the Inquisition ( Epistolario 1938,
5:308).”
Fifth consideration for the choice of Morga

 Rizal emphasizes that Morga was the evidence and the primary source of history in the
Philippines.
 Rizal’s argued that Filipinos before has their own culture, and did not require a new religion or
“civilization” from Spain.

Rizal's annotation of Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas

 The people of the Philippines had a culture on their own, before the coming of the Spaniards
 Filipinos were decimated, demoralized, exploited and ruined by the Spanish colonization
 The present state of the Philippines was not necessarily superior to its past.

Morga wrote that the purpose for writing Sucesos was so he could
chronicle "the deeds achieved by our Spaniards i the discovery, conquest,
and conversion of the Filipinas Islands - as well as various fortunes that
they have from time to time in the great kingdoms and among the pagan
peoples surrounding the islands. "
Conclusion

 Rizal was an earnest seeker of truth and this marked him as a historian.
 He had a burning desire to know exactly the conditions of the Philippines when the Spaniards
came ashore to the islands
 His theory was that the country was economically self-sufficient and prosperous . Entertained the
idea that it had a lively and vigorous community.
 He believed the conquest of the Spaniards contributed in part to the decline of the Philippine's
rich tradition and culture.
RIZAL'S ANNOTATION
The "SUCESOS" as annotated by Rizal, appeared for the first time
in the Philippines sixty eight years later when a publisher in Manila,
published the new work in 1958, to contribute his bit to the national
effort to honor Rizal. The present work is the sixth volume of the Series
of Writings of Jose Rizal which the Jose Rizal National Centennial
Commission has no published in commemoration of his birth.
In his historical essay, which includes the narration of Philippine colonial
history, punctuated as it was with incidences of agony, tensions, tragedies
and prolonged periods of suffering that many of people had been subjected
to. He correctly observed that as a colony of Spain, "The Philippines was
depopulated, impoverished and retarded, astounded by metaphor sis, with
no confidence in her past, still without faith in her present and without
faltering hope in the future."
Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas
"To foretell the destiny of a nation, it is necessary to open the books that
tell of her past"
What leads Jose Rizal to Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas?
3 Main Propositions in Rizal's New Edition of Morga's Sucesos
1. Rizal commits the error of many historians in appraising the events of
the past in the light of present standards.
2. Rizal's attacks on the church were unfair and unjustified because the
abuses of the friars should not be construed to mean the Catholicism is
bad.
It is then the shade of our ancestor's civilization which the author will call
before you. . . If the work serves to awaken in you a consciousness of our
past, and to blot from your memory or to rectify what has been falsified or
is calumny, then I shall not have labored in vain. With this preparation,
slight though it may be, we can all pass to the study of the future.
JOSE RIZAL
Rizal's annotation of Morga's Sucesos
Ferdinand Blumentritt's Prologue

 He then decided to undertake the annotation of Antonio de Morga's Sucesos De Las Islas
Filipinas.
 His personal friendship with Ferdinand Blumentritt provided the inspiration for doing a new edition
of Morga's Sucesos.
 Devoting four months research and writing and almost a year to get his manuscript published in
Paris in January 1890.

 His extensive annotations of Morga's work number "no less than 639 items or almost two
annotations for every page."
 Rizal also annotated Morga's typographical errors.
 He commented on every statement that could be nuanced in Filipino cultural practices. For
example, on page 248 Morga describes the culinary art of the ancient Filipinos by recording: "...
they prefer to eat salt fish which begin to decompose and smell." Rizal's footnotes : "This is
another preoccupation of the Spaniards who, like any other nation in that matter of food, loathe
that to which they are not accustomed or is unknown to them... The fish that Morga mentions
does not taste better when it is beginning to rot; all on the contrary" it is bagoong,and all those
who have eaten it and tasted it know it is not or ought not to be rotten"

Ferdianand Blumentritt also wrote a preface emphasizing some salient

points:

 The Spaniards have to correct their erroneous conception of the filipinos as children of limited
intelligence
 That there existed three kinds of Spanish delusions about the Philippines:
 Filipinos were an inferior race
 Filipinos were not ready for parliamentary representation and other reforms
 Denial of equal rights can be compensated by strict dispensation of justice

 Rizal spent his entire stay in the city of London at the British Museum's reading room.
 Having found Morga's book, he laboriously hand-copied the whole 351 pages of the Sucesos
 Rizal proceeded to annotate every chapter of the Sucesos
Antonio de Morga
His history is valuable in that Morga had access to the survivors of the
earliest days of the colony and he, himself, participated in many of the
accounts that he rendered.
The book (Sucesos..) narrates the history of wars, intrigues, diplomacy and
evangelization of the Philipinnes in a somewhat disjointed way.
Modern historians (including Rizal) have noted that Morga has a definite
bias and would often distort facts or even rely on invention to fit his
defense of the Spanish conquest.
Rizal's annotation of Morga's Sucesos
Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas
A
R
G
U
M
E
N
T
Rizal's purpose of the Morga's Sucesos
He went to say:
"... little by little, they (Filipinos) lost their old traditions, the mementoes of
their past; they gave up their writing, their songs, their poems, their laws,
in order to learn other doctrines which they did not understand, another
morality, another aesthetics, different from those inspired by their climate
and their manner of thinking. They declined, degrading themselves in their
own eyes. They become ashamed of what was their own; they began to
admire and praise whatever was foreign and incomprehensible; their spirit
was damaged and it surrendered."

 it is one of the important works on the early history of the Spanish colonization of the Philippines
pulished in Mexico in 1609 by Antonio de Morga.
 Annotated by Jose Rizal with a prologue by Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt.

What is Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas?

Antonio de Morga

 Spanish conquistador, gov't official, and historical anthropologist; author of Sucesos De Las Islas
Filipinas (Events in the Philippine Islands).
 He wrote the first lay formal history of the Philippines conquest by Spain.
 A doctorate in canon law and civil law
taking issue with the scopes of these claims, Rizal argued that the
conversion and conquest were not as widespread as portrayed because
the missionaries were only successful in conquering a portion of the
population of certain Islands.
Rizal's annotation of Morga's Sucesos
What leads Jose Rizal to Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas?
In Jose Rizal's dedication, he explained among other things, the purpose of
the new edition of Morga's Sucesos:
"if the book succeeds in awakening in you the consciousness of our past
which has been obliterated from memory and in rectifying what has been
falsified and calumniated, I shall not have labored in vain, and on such
basis, little though it may be, we can all devote ourselves to studying the
future"

 Writing in Spanish, instead of his native German language.

 Praised Rizal's work as "scholarly and well-thought out"
 He noted that Morga's Sucesos was so rare that "the very few libraries that have it guard it with
the same solicitude as if it were the treasure of the Incas"
 He criticized Rizal's annotations on two counts:
 He first observed that Rizal had committed the mistake of many modern historians who judged
events in the past in the context of contemporary ideas and mores.
 He perceived as the overreach of Rizal's denunciations of Catholicism. that Rizal should confine
his critique to the religious orders in the Philippines who spared no effort to suppress calls for
reform
To the Filipinos: "In my "NOLI ME TANGERE" I commenced to sketch the
present conditions obtaining in our country. The effect produced by my
efforts gave me to understand - before proceeding to develop before your
eyes other successive scenes - that is necessary to first lay bare the past,
in order the better to judge the present and to survey the road trodden
during three centuries. "

 CHAPTER 1 : Magellan and Legazpi's seminal expeditions. CHAPTER 2 - 7 : Chronological

report on gov't administration under Governor-General. CHAPTER 8 : Philippine Islands, the
natives there, their antiquity, custom and gov't.

Morga's puropose for Writing Sucesos

Jose Rizal
Like almost all of you, I was born and brought up in ignorance of our
country's past and so, without knowledge or authority to speak of what I
neither saw nor have studied, I deem it necessary to quote the testimony of
an illustrious Spaniard who in the beginning of the new era controlled the
destinies of the Philippines and had personal knowledge of our ancient
nationality in its last days.

Rizal on Annotations of Antonio Morga’s

Sucesos las Islas Filipinas
 FROM A DISTANCE - Carmen N. Pedrosa (The Philippine Star) - October 28, 2018 - 12:00am
Yesterday I received an email from Veronica Pedrosa who now lives in London. She
said that she was writing a book and was at the British Museum for her research.

I texted her back that one of the less known books of Jose Rizal, “Annotations on
Antonio Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Pilipinas” was researched and written there.

It was by way of reply on just who and what Filipinos were before the Spanish
colonialists came. I have excerpted from a translation by Austin Craig of the introduction
to the book.

“As a child José Rizal heard from his uncle, José Alberto, about an ancient history of the
Philippines written by a Spaniard named Antonio de Morga. The knowledge of this book
came from the English Governor of Hong Kong, Sir John Browning, who had once paid
his uncle a visit. While in London, Rizal immediately acquainted himself with the British
Museum where he found one of the few remaining copies of that work. At his own
expense, he had the work republished with annotations that showed the Philippines was
an advanced civilization prior to the Spanish conquest. Austin Craig, an early
biographer of Rizal, translated into English some of the more important of these
annotations.

Here are excerpts from Rizal’s annotations to inspire young Filipinos of today.

“To the Filipinos: In Noli Me Tangere (The Social Cancer) I started to sketch the present
state of our native land. But the effect which my effort produced made me realize that,
before attempting to unroll before your eyes the other pictures which were to follow, it
was necessary first to post you on the past. So only can you fairly judge the present and
estimate how much  progress has been made during the three centuries (of Spanish
rule). Like almost all of you, I was born and brought up in ignorance of our country’s
past and so, without knowledge or authority to speak of what I neither saw nor have
studied, I deem it necessary to quote the testimony of an illustrious Spaniard who in the
beginning of the new era controlled the destinies of the Philippines and had personal
knowledge of our ancient nationality in its last days.

It is then the shade of our ancestor’s civilization which the author will call before you. If
the work serves to awaken in you a consciousness of our past, and to blot from your
memory or to rectify what has been falsified or is calumny, then I shall not have labored
in vain. With this preparation, slight though it may be, we can all pass to the study of the
future, wrote Rizal in Europe in 1889.

“Governor Morga was not only the first to write but also the first to publish a Philippine
history. This statement has regard to the concise and concrete form in which our author
has treated the matter. Father Chirino’s work, printed in Rome in 1604, is rather a
chronicle of the Missions than a history of the Philippines; still it contains a great deal of
valuable material on usages and customs. The worthy Jesuit in fact admits that he
abandoned writing a political history because Morga had already done so, so one must
infer that he had seen the work in manuscript before leaving the Islands.”

Here are items I have chosen from the annotations.

“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. Nevertheless in other lands,
notably in Flanders, these means were ineffective to keep the church unchanged, or to
maintain its supremacy, or even to hold its subjects.

These centuries ago it was the custom to write as intolerantly as Morga does, but
nowadays it would be called a bit presumptuous. No one has a monopoly of the true
God nor is there any nation or religion that can claim, or at any rate prove, that to it has
been given the exclusive right to the Creator of all things or sole knowledge of His real
being.

The civilization of the Pre-Spanish Filipinos in regard to the duties of life for that age
was well advanced, as the Morga history shows in its eighth chapter.

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.

Of the native Manila rulers at the coming of the Spaniards, Raja Soliman was called
“Rahang mura,” or young king, in distinction from the old king, “Rahang matanda.”
Historians have confused these personages.

The artillery cast for the new stone fort in Manila, says Morga, was by the hand of an
ancient Filipino. That is, he knew how to cast cannon even before the coming of the
Spaniards, hence he was distinguished as “ancient.” In this difficult art of ironworking,
as in so many others, the modern or present-day Filipinos are not so far advanced as
were their ancestors.

From the earliest Spanish days ships were built in the islands, which might be
considered evidence of native culture. Nowadays this industry is reduced to small craft,
scows and coasters.

In Morga’s time, the Philippines exported silk to Japan whence now comes the best
quality of that merchandise. Morga’s views upon the failure of Governor Pedro de
Acuña’s ambitious expedition against the Moros unhappily still apply for the same
conditions yet exist.

Ancient traditions ascribe the origin of the Malay Filipinos to the island of Sumatra.
These traditions were almost completely lost as well as the mythology and the
genealogies of which the early historians tell, thanks to the zeal of the missionaries in
eradicating all national remembrances as heathen or idolatrous. The study of ethnology
is restring this somewhat.

Filipinos had had minstrels who had memorized songs telling their genealogies and of
the deeds ascribed to their deities. These were chanted on voyages in cadence with the
rowing, or at festivals, or funerals, or wherever there happened to be any considerable
gatherings. It is regrettable that these chants have not been preserved as from them it
would have been possible to learn much of the Filipinos’ past and possibly of the history
of neighboring islands.”