Rizal spent many months at the British Museum researching and carefully hand-copying Antonio Morga's 351-page book "Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas". Rizal then meticulously annotated every chapter, correcting errors and providing context about pre-Hispanic Philippine civilization. He published this annotated version in 1890 to educate Filipinos about their history and culture before Spanish colonization. Rizal's work was initially criticized by some for being too propagandist, but it helped establish a sense of Filipino identity and shaped Philippine historiography. His goal was to awaken consciousness of the Philippines' proud past and rectify falsities, in order to fairly judge the present and future.
Rizal spent many months at the British Museum researching and carefully hand-copying Antonio Morga's 351-page book "Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas". Rizal then meticulously annotated every chapter, correcting errors and providing context about pre-Hispanic Philippine civilization. He published this annotated version in 1890 to educate Filipinos about their history and culture before Spanish colonization. Rizal's work was initially criticized by some for being too propagandist, but it helped establish a sense of Filipino identity and shaped Philippine historiography. His goal was to awaken consciousness of the Philippines' proud past and rectify falsities, in order to fairly judge the present and future.
Rizal spent many months at the British Museum researching and carefully hand-copying Antonio Morga's 351-page book "Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas". Rizal then meticulously annotated every chapter, correcting errors and providing context about pre-Hispanic Philippine civilization. He published this annotated version in 1890 to educate Filipinos about their history and culture before Spanish colonization. Rizal's work was initially criticized by some for being too propagandist, but it helped establish a sense of Filipino identity and shaped Philippine historiography. His goal was to awaken consciousness of the Philippines' proud past and rectify falsities, in order to fairly judge the present and future.
UNIT IV: SELECTED WRITINGS AND THEIR IMPACT ON TODAY’S SOCIETY
LESSON 1: ANNOTATION OF ANTONIO MORGA’S SUCESSOS DE LAS ISLAS FILIPINAS
Objectives:
1. Analyze Rizal’s ideas on how to rewrite Philippine history.
2. Compare and contrast Jose Rizal and Antonio Morga’s different views about Filipinos and Philippine culture.
Rizal’s Annotation of the Book
In 1888-1889, Rizal largely spent his many months of stay in London at the British Museum researching from its Filipiniana Collection, looking for Morga’s book that was recommended by his friend Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt, a knowledgeable Filipiniologist. Even then, this history had the impressions among many scholars of having the most honest description of the Philippine situation as regards the era covered. Rizal, having no copying technology present during those times, had to carefully hand-copy the 351 pages of Morga’s work. In 1889 Rizal left London for Paris and continue to work for the Sucesos until it was published in 1890. Meticulously, Rizal annotated every chapter of the Sucesos, commenting even on Morga’s typographical errors, for instance, the cuisine of the ancient Filipinos which according to Mogra “Filipinos prefer to eat salted fish which begins to decompose and stinking”. The fish that Morga described does not taste better when it is beginning to rot; on the contrary: it is “Bagoong”. Rizal also mentioned in his annotation the system of writings, advanced knowledge of metallurgy, and the shipbuilding industry of the early Filipino natives. (Mañebog et al., 2018). The first critic of Rizal’s work was his friend Blumentritt. In his introduction to the book, he cited hindsight and anticlericalism as fatal defects in purely scholarly work. Rizal used history as a propaganda weapon. It was deemed too much propaganda for his historians and too historical for propagandists. By recreating the proud pre-Hispanic civilization, Rizal’s Morga set the tone for Philippine historiography and Filipino Identity. (Ariola, 2018). The Preface Austin Craig, an early biographer of Rizal translated into English the preface of Rizal’s translation of Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. 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). 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 at 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 (General History, 2012). The Value of Rizal’s Annotation The value of Rizal’s annotation of Sucesos is immense as through the work he provided especially Filipino readers with rich annotative footnotes concerning Philippine culture and society, coupled with complete scholarly referenced resources and full citations. Most especially, through this work, Rizal proved and showed that the Philippines was an advanced civilization before the coming of the Spaniards. The significance of Rizal’s noble purpose in working on Morga’s book s prophetically encapsulated in some of his statements in his preface: “if the book succeeds to awaken your consciousness of our past, already effaced from your memory, and to rectify what has been falsified and slandered, then I have not worked in vain, and with this as a basis, however small it may be, we shall be able to study the future” (Mañebog et al., 2018).