The Reign of Greed
[20] The Dominican corporation, at whose instigation Captain-General
Valeriano Weyler sent a battery of artillery to Kalamba to destroy the
property of tenants who were contesting in the courts the friars’
titles to land there. The author’s family were the largest
sufferers.—Tr.
[21] A relative of the author, whose body was dragged from the tomb and
thrown to the dogs, on the pretext that he had died without receiving
final absolution.—Tr.
[22] Under the Spanish régime the government paid no attention to
education, the schools (!) being under the control of the religious
orders and the friar-curates of the towns.—Tr.
[23] The cockpits are farmed out annually by the local governments, the
terms “contract,” and “contractor,” having now been softened into
“license” and “licensee.”—Tr.
[24] The “Municipal School for Girls” was founded by the municipality
of Manila in 1864.... The institution was in charge of the Sisters of
Charity.—Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. III, p. 615.
[25] Now known as Plaza España.—Tr.
[26] Patroness of the Dominican Order. She was formally and sumptuously
recrowned a queen of the skies in 1907.—Tr.
[27] A burlesque on an association of students known as the Milicia
Angelica, organized by the Dominicans to strengthen their hold on the
people. The name used is significant, “carbineers” being the local
revenue officers, notorious in their later days for graft and
abuse.—Tr.
[28] “Tinamáan ñg lintik!”—a Tagalog exclamation of anger,
disappointment, or dismay, regarded as a very strong expression,
equivalent to profanity. Literally, “May the lightning strike you!”—Tr.
[29] “To lie about the stars is a safe kind of lying.”—Tr.
[30] Throughout this chapter the professor uses the familiar tu in
addressing the students, thus giving his remarks a contemptuous
tone.—Tr.
[31] The professor speaks these words in vulgar dialect.
[32] To confuse the letters p and f in speaking Spanish was a common
error among uneducated Filipinos.—Tr.
[33] No cristianos, not Christians, i.e., savages.—Tr.
[34] The patron saint of Spain, St. James.—Tr.
[35] Houses of bamboo and nipa, such as form the homes of the masses of
the natives.—Tr.
[36] “In this paragraph Rizal alludes to an incident that had very
serious results. There was annually celebrated in Binondo a certain
religious festival, principally at the expense of the Chinese mestizos.
The latter finally petitioned that their gobernadorcillo be given the
presidency of it, and this was granted, thanks to the fact that the
parish priest (the Dominican, Fray José Hevia Campomanes) held to the
opinion that the presidency belonged to those who paid the most. The
Tagalogs protested, alleging their better right to it, as the genuine
sons of the country, not to mention the historical precedent, but the
friar, who was looking after his own interests, did not yield. General
Terrero (Governor, 1885–1888), at the advice of his liberal councilors,
finally had the parish priest removed and for the time being decided
the affair in favor of the Tagalogs. The matter reached the Colonial
Office (Ministerio de Ultramar) and the Minister was not even content
merely to settle it in the way the friars desired, but made amends to
Padre Hevia by appointing him a bishop.”—W. E. Retana, who was a
journalist in Manila at the time, in a note to this chapter.
Childish and ridiculous as this may appear now, it was far from being
so at the time, especially in view of the supreme contempt with which
the pugnacious Tagalog looks down upon the meek and complaisant Chinese
and the mortal antipathy that exists between the two races.—Tr.
[37] It is regrettable that Quiroga’s picturesque butchery of Spanish
and Tagalog—the dialect of the Manila Chinese—cannot be reproduced
here. Only the thought can be given. There is the same difficulty with
r’s, d’s, and l’s that the Chinese show in English.—Tr.
[38] Up to the outbreak of the insurrection in 1896, the only genuinely
Spanish troops in the islands were a few hundred artillerymen, the rest
being natives, with Spanish officers.—Tr.
[39] Abaka is the fiber obtained from the leaves of the Musa textilis
and is known commercially as Manila hemp. As it is exclusively a
product of the Philippines, it may be taken here to symbolize the
country.—Tr.
[40] Yet Ben-Zayb was not very much mistaken. The three legs of the
table have grooves in them in which slide the mirrors hidden below the
platform and covered by the squares of the carpet. By placing the box
upon the table a spring is pressed and the mirrors rise gently. The
cloth is then removed, with care to raise it instead of letting it
slide off, and then there is the ordinary table of the talking heads.
The table is connected with the bottom of the box. The exhibition
ended, the prestidigitator again covers the table, presses another
spring, and the mirrors descend.—Author’s note.
[41] The Malay method of kissing is quite different from the
Occidental. The mouth is placed close to the object and a deep breath
taken, often without actually touching the object, being more of a
sniff than a kiss.—Tr.
[42] Now Calle Tetuan, Santa Cruz. The other names are still in
use.—Tr.
[43] The Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País for the encouragement of
agricultural and industrial development, was established by Basco de
Vargas in 1780.—Tr.
[44] Funds managed by the government for making loans and supporting
charitable enterprises.—Tr.
[45] The names are fictitious burlesques.—Tr.
[46] “Boiled Shrimp”—Tr.
[47] “Uncle Frank.”—Tr.
[48] Messageries Maritimes, a French line of steamers in the Oriental
trade.—Tr.
[49] Referring to the expeditions—Misión Española Católica—to the
Caroline and Pelew Islands from 1886 to 1895, headed by the Capuchin
Fathers, which brought misery and disaster upon the natives of those
islands, unprofitable losses and sufferings to the Filipino soldiers
engaged in them, discredit to Spain, and decorations of merit to a
number of Spanish officers.—Tr.
[50] Over the possession of the Caroline and Pelew Islands. The
expeditions referred to in the previous note were largely inspired by
German activity with regard to those islands, which had always been
claimed by Spain, who sold her claim to them to Germany after the loss
of the Philippines.—Tr.
[51] “Where the wind wrinkles the silent waves, that rapidly break,
of their own movement, with a gentle murmur on the shore.”—Tr.
[52] “Where rapid and winged engines will rush in flight.”—Tr.
[53] There is something almost uncanny about the general accuracy of
the prophecy in these lines, the economic part of which is now so well
on the way to realization, although the writer of them would doubtless
have been a very much surprised individual had he also foreseen how it
would come about. But one of his own expressions was “fire and steel to
the cancer,” and it surely got them.
On the very day that this passage was translated and this note written,
the first commercial liner was tied up at the new docks, which have
destroyed the Malecon but raised Manila to the front rank of Oriental
seaports, and the final revision is made at Baguio, Mountain Province,
amid the “cooler temperatures on the slopes of the mountains.” As for
the political portion, it is difficult even now to contemplate calmly
the blundering fatuity of that bigoted medieval brand of “patriotism”
which led the decrepit Philippine government to play the Ancient
Mariner and shoot the Albatross that brought this message.—Tr.
[54] These establishments are still a notable feature of native life in
Manila. Whether the author adopted a title already common or
popularized one of his own invention, the fact is that they are now
invariably known by the name used here. The use of macanista was due to
the presence in Manila of a large number of Chinese from Macao.—Tr.
[55] Originally, Plaza San Gabriel, from the Dominican mission for the
Chinese established there; later, as it became a commercial center,
Plaza Vivac; and now known as Plaza Cervantes, being the financial
center of Manila.—Tr.
[56] “The manager of this restaurant warns the public to leave
absolutely nothing on any table or chair.”—Tr.
[57] “We do not believe in the verisimilitude of this dialogue,
fabricated by the author in order to refute the arguments of the
friars, whose pride was so great that it would not permit any Isagani
to tell them these truths face to face. The invention of Padre
Fernandez as a Dominican professor is a stroke of generosity on Rizal’s
part, in conceding that there could have existed any friar capable of
talking frankly with an Indian.”—W. E. Retana, in note to this chapter
in the edition published by him at Barcelona in 1908. Retana ought to
know of what he is writing, for he was in the employ of the friars for
several years and later in Spain wrote extensively for the journal
supported by them to defend their position in the Philippines. He has
also been charged with having strongly urged Rizal’s execution in 1896.
Since 1898, however, he has doubled about, or, perhaps more aptly,
performed a journalistic somersault—having written a diffuse biography
and other works dealing with Rizal. He is strong in unassorted facts,
but his comments, when not inane and wearisome, approach a maudlin wail
over “spilt milk,” so the above is given at its face value only.—Tr.
[58] Quite suggestive of, and perhaps inspired by, the author’s own
experience.—Tr.
[59] The Walled City, the original Manila, is still known to the
Spaniards and older natives exclusively as such, the other districts
being referred to by their distinctive names.—Tr.
[60] Nearly all the dialogue in this chapter is in the mongrel
Spanish-Tagalog “market language,” which cannot be reproduced in
English.—Tr.
[61] Doubtless a reference to the author’s first work, Noli Me Tangere,
which was tabooed by the authorities.—Tr.
[62] Such inanities as these are still a feature of Manila
journalism.—Tr.
[63] “Whether there would be a talisain cock, armed with a sharp gaff,
whether the blessed Peter’s fighting-cock would be a bulik—”
Talisain and bulik are distinguishing terms in the vernacular for
fighting-cocks, tari and sasabung̃in the Tagalog terms for “gaff” and
“game-cock,” respectively.
The Tagalog terminology of the cockpit and monkish Latin certainly make
a fearful and wonderful mixture—nor did the author have to resort to
his imagination to get samples of it.—Tr.
[64] This is Quiroga’s pronunciation of Christo.—Tr.
[65] The native priests Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, charged with
complicity in the uprising of 1872, and executed.—Tr.
[66] This versicle, found in the booklets of prayer, is common on the
scapularies, which, during the late insurrection, were easily converted
into the anting-anting, or amulets, worn by the fanatics.—Tr.
[67] This practise—secretly compelling suspects to sign a request to be
transferred to some other island—was by no means a figment of the
author’s imagination, but was extensively practised to anticipate any
legal difficulties that might arise.—Tr.
[68] “Hawk-Eye.”—Tr.
[69] Ultima Razón de Reyes: the last argument of kings—force.
(Expression attributed to Calderon de la Barca, the great Spanish
dramatist.)—Tr.
[70] Curiously enough, and by what must have been more than a mere
coincidence, this route through Santa Mesa from San Juan del Monte was
the one taken by an armed party in their attempt to enter the city at
the outbreak of the Katipunan rebellion on the morning of August 30,
1896. (Foreman’s The Philippine Islands, Chap. XXVI.)
It was also on the bridge connecting these two places that the first
shot in the insurrection against American sovereignty was fired on the