The Indolence of the Filipino
passes away but the evil and the passions engendered do not pass away
so long as reforms are devoted solely to changing the names.
The wars with the Dutch, the inroads and piratical attacks of the
people of Sulu and Mindanao disappeared; the people have been
transformed; new towns have grown up while others have become
impoverished; but the frauds subsist as much as or worse than they
did in those early years. We will not cite our own experiences, for
aside from the fact that, we do not know which to select, critical
persons may reproach us with partiality; neither will we cite those
of other Filipinos who write in the newspapers; but we shall confine
ourselves to translating the words of a modern French traveler who
was in the Philippines for a long time:
"The good curate," he says with reference to the rosy picture a friar
had given him of the Philippines, "had not told me about the governor,
the foremost official of the district, who was too much taken up
with the ideal of getting rich to have time to tyrannize over his
docile subjects; the governor, charged with ruling the country and
collecting the various taxes in the government's name, devoted himself
almost wholly to trade; in his hands the high and noble functions he
performs are nothing more than instruments of gain. He monopolizes
all the business and instead of developing on his part the love
of work, instead of stimulating the too natural indolence of the
natives, he with abuse of his powers thinks only of destroying all
competition that may trouble him or attempt to participate in his
profits. It matters little to him that the country is impoverished,
without cultivation, without commerce, without, industry, just so
the governor is quickly enriched!"
Yet the traveler has been unfair in picking out the governor
especially: Why only the governor?
We do not cite passages from other authors, because we have not their
works at hand and do not wish to quote from memory.
The great difficulty that every enterprise encountered with the
administration contributed not a little to kill off all commercial
and industrial movement. All the Filipinos, as well as all those who
have tried to engage in business in the Philippines, know how many
documents, what comings, how many stamped papers, how much patience is
needed to secure from the government a permit for an enterprise. One
must count upon the good will of this one, on the influence of that
one, on a good bribe to another in order that the application be not
pigeonholed, a present to the one further on so that he may pass it on
to his chief; one must pray to God to give him good humor and time to
see and examine it; to another, talent to recognize its expediency; to
one further on sufficient stupidity not to scent behind the enterprise
an insurrectionary purpose; and that they may not all spend the time
taking baths, hunting or playing cards with the reverend friars in
their convents or country houses. And above all, great patience,
great knowledge of how to get along, plenty of money, a great deal of
politics, many salutations, great influence, plenty of presents and
complete resignation! How is it strange that, the Philippines remain
poor in spite of their very fertile soil, when history tells us that
the countries now the most flourishing date their development from
the day of their liberty and civil rights? The most commercial and
most industrious countries have been the freest countries: France,
England and the United States prove this. Hongkong, which is not worth
the most insignificant of the Philippines, has more commercial movement
than all the islands together, because it is free and is well governed.
The trade with China, which was the whole occupation of the colonizers
of the Philippines, was not only prejudicial to Spain but also to
the life of her colonies; in fact, when the officials and private
persons at Manila found an easy method of getting rich they neglected
everything. They paid no attention either to cultivating the soil
or to fostering industry; and wherefore? China furnished the trade,
and they had only to take advantage of it and pick up the gold that
dropped out on its way from Mexico toward the interior of China,
the gulf whence it never returned.
The pernicious example of the dominators in surrounding themselves
with servants and despising manual or corporal labor as a thing
unbecoming the nobility and chivalrous pride of the heroes of so many
centuries; those lordly airs, which the natives have translated into
tila ka castila, and the desire of the dominated to be the equal of the
dominators, if not essentially, at least in their manners: all this had
naturally to produce aversion to activity and fear or hatred of work.
Moreover, 'Why work?' asked many natives. The curate says that the rich
man will not go to heaven The rich man on earth is liable to all kinds
of trouble, to be appointed a cabeza de barangay, to be deported if
an uprising occurs, to be forced banker of the military chief of the
town, who to reward him for favors received seizes his laborers and
his stock, in order to force him to beg for mercy, and thus easily
pays up. Why be rich? So that all the officers of justice may have
a lynx eye on your actions, so that at the least slip enemies may be
raised up against you, you may be indicted, a whole complicated and
labyrinthine story may be concocted against you, for which you can
only get away, not by the thread of Ariadne but by Danae's shower
of gold, and still give thanks that you are not kept in reserve for
some needy occasion? The native, whom they pretend to regard as an
imbecile, is not so much so that he does not understand that it is
ridiculous to work himself to death to become worse off. A proverb
of his says that the pig is cooked in its own lard, and as among
his bad qualities he has the good one of applying to himself all the
criticisms and censures he prefers to live miserable and indolent,
rather than play the part of the wretched beast of burden.
Add to this the introduction of gambling. We do not mean to san that
before the coming of the Spaniards the natives did not gamble: the
passion for grumbling is innate in adventuresome and excitable races,
and such is the Malay. Pigafetta tells us of cock-fights and of bets
in the Island of Paragua. Cock-fighting must also have existed in
Luzon and in all the islands, for in the terminology of the game
are two Tagalog words: sabong, and tari (cockpit and gaff). But
there is not the least doubt that the fostering of this game is
due to the government, as well as the perfecting of it. Although
Pigafetta tells us of it, he mentions it only in Paragua, and not
in Cebu nor in any other island of the south, where he stayed long
time. Morga does not speak of it, in spite of his having spent
seven years in Manila, and yet he does describe the kinds of fowl,
the jungle hens and cocks. Neither does Morga, speak of gambling,
when he talks about vices and other defects, more or less concealed,
more or less insignificant. Moreover, excepting the two Tagalog words
sabong and tari, the others are of Spanish origin, as soltada (setting
the cocks to fight, then the fight itself), presto, (apuesta, bet),
logro (winnings), pago (payment), sentenciador (referee), case (to
cover the bets), etc. We say the same about gambling: the word sugal
(jugar, to gamble), like kumpisal (confesar, to confess to a priest),
indicates that gambling was unknown in the Philippines before the
Spaniards. The word laró (Tagalog, to play) is not the equivalent of
the word sunni. The word balasa (baraja, playing-card) proves that the
introduction of playing-cards was not due to the Chinese, who have a
kind of playing-cards also, because in that case they would have taken
the Chinese name. Is not this enough? The word tayá (taltar, to bet),
paris-paris (Spanish pares, pairs of cards), politana (napolitana,
a winning sequence of cards), sapore (to stack the cards), kapote
(to slam), monte, and so on, all prove the foreign origin of this
terrible plant, which only produces vice, and which has found in the
character of the native a fit soil, cultivated by circumstances.
Along with gambling, which breeds dislike for steady and difficult toil
by its promise of sudden wealth and its appeal to the emotions, with
the lotteries, with the prodigality and hospitality of the Filipinos,
went also, to swell this train of misfortunes, the religious functions,
the great number of fiestas, the long masses for the women to spend
their mornings and the novenaries to spend their afternoons, and
the night, for the processions and rosaries. Remember that lack of
capital and absence of means paralyze all movement, and you will see
how the native has perforce to be indolent for if any money might
remain to him from the trials, imposts and exactions, he would have
to give it to the curate for bulls, scapularies, candles, novenaries,
etc. And if this does not suffice to form an indolent character,
if the climate and nature are not enough in themselves to daze him
and deprive him of all energy, recall then that the doctrines of his
religion teach him to irrigate his fields in the dry season, not by
means of canals but with masses and prayers; to preserve his stock
during an epizootic with holy water, exorcisms and benedictions that
cost five dollars an animal; to drive away the locusts by a procession
with the image of St. Augustine, etc. It is well, undoubtedly, to
trust greatly in God; but it is better to do what one can and not
trouble the Creator every moment, even when these appeals redound
to the benefit of His ministers. We have noticed that the countries
which believe most in miracles are the laziest, just, as spoiled
children are the most ill-mannered. Whether they believe in miracles
to palliate their laziness or they are lazy because they believe in
miracles, we cannot say; but the fact is the Filipinos were much less
lazy before the word miracle was introduced into their language.
The facility with which individual liberty is curtailed, that continual
alarm of all from the knowledge that they are liable to secret report,
a governmental ukase, and to the accusation of rebel or suspect,
an accusation which, to be effective, does not need proof or the
production of the accuser. With that lack of confidence in the future,
that uncertainty of reaping the reward of labor, as in a city stricken
with the plague, everybody yields to fate, shuts himself in his house
or goes about amusing himself in the attempt to spend the few days
that remain to him in the least disagreeable way possible.
The apathy of the government itself toward everything in commerce
and agriculture contributes not a little to foster indolence. There
is no encouragement, at all for the manufacturer or for the farmer;
the government furnishes no aid either when poor crop comes, when
the locusts (23) sweep over the fields, or when a cyclone destroys
in its passage the wealth of the soil; nor does it take any trouble
to seek a market for the products of its colonies. Why should it do
so when these same products are burdened with taxes and imposts and
have not free entry into the ports, of the mother country, nor is
their consumption there encouraged? While we see all the walls of
London covered with advertisements of the products of its colonies,
while the English make heroic efforts to substitute Ceylon for Chinese
tea, beginning with the sacrifice of their taste and their stomach,
in Spain, with the exception of tobacco, nothing from the Philippines
is known: neither its sugar, coffee, hemp, fine cloths, nor its Ilocano
blankets. The name of Manila is known only from those cloths of China
or Indo-China which at one time reached Spain by way of Manila, heavy