HOW TO DECEIVE THE
NATIVE LAND
Jose Rizal
There
is great endeavor, much earnest endeavor, to conceal the truth, to mislead
public opinion on the means that are necessary to employ so that the
Philippines may march toward progress without convulsion, without turbulence.
The
perusal of an editorial of La Voz de Espana of Manila, published in its
issue for 27 March last, caused us deep pain. Among other superfluities,
without reflection, and with scanty wisdom, the following is found in that
editorial "How to Offend the Native Land":
The
only ties that are properly social that unite this country with the Peninsula
are the Catholic Religion and the traditional respects. Neither the
administrative affinities, nor economic progress, nor the new legal reforms,
nor even the diffusion of Spanish, nor much less the force of arms, are bonds
that produce between Filipino society and that which lives beyond the seas the
unity necessary so that the moral organism that we know by the name Native Land
may be considered perfectly rooted in this Archipelago. It is indispensable to
look for something in the life, in the intimate life, of these races that joins
powerfully and profoundly to the Metropolis the mass of the Philippine
population; and without any great effort of ratiocination, it can be understood
that any of those things not only lacks efficacy to produce so radical and
profitable a result, but that many of them, either because of their own nature,
or because of their reckless application, perchance are destined to produce the
opposite effect.
As
can be seen by the quotation, the Manila newspaper claims that the Philippines
does not progress, because she ignores or at least she wants to ignore the
efficacy of the means that the Metropolis or her governments employ so that she
may enjoy liberty, human rights, modern culture. Certainly La Voz de Espana,
far from being the organ of the Mother Country, as it calls itself
pompously, is the voice of the friars – the voice that resounds in its columns
and is reflected in its columns. Because to say that "the only properly
called social ties that unite the Philippines with the Peninsula are the
Catholic Religion and the traditional respects" is to offend the stainless
patriotism and the loyalty of the Filipinos who since Legaspi have been joined
to Spain, not for reasons of religion nor of traditionalism but, at the
beginning, for reasons of high political convenience, and later, for love, for
affection for the Mother Country.
To
involve the integrity of the mother country in those Islands in the mediation
of the religious orders, as the friar organ seeks, is to involve it in the
influence of obscurantism, of fanaticism, of oppression, and of tyranny; and
certainly Spain did not plant in those Islands the invincible standard of
Castile so that they might be the exclusive patrimony and feudal dominion of
the reactionary friars but rather to assimilate and equalize them with herself,
moaning if she moans, unfortunate if she is unfortunate, enjoying progress,
liberty, rights, social as well as political, when she enjoys these precious
gifts, this inestimable legacy of the French Revolution, systematically
anathematized by the friars to their misfortune.
Returning
to the article in question, where did the Manila newspaper get the idea that to
attack the friar is to attack the prevailing religion in those Islands?
Religion is one thing and the friar is another: The reactionary Carlist friar,
son of the convents, is himself a mean egoist, tyrant, and oppressor, enemy of
all progress and lover of everything feudal, of everything absolute. To make
the friar personify religion and the Mother Country is to personify the
vicious, the absurd, the fanatical, and the worst is the disloyalty itself to
the same Mother Country. In a certain pulpit of the church of a town in the
Philippines, a friar, unworthy to be a Spaniard, hurled these or similar words:
"Catholics first before Spaniards," in order to incite to rebellion
the plain Indios against the circular, which has nothing anti-Catholic in it,
issued by the Direccion General de Administracion Civil (General Office
of Civil Administration). But those Islanders, far from heeding such
anti-government incitements, demonstrated principally their indisputable
Hispanism, unlike that bad patriot friar who delivered those words from a
sacred pulpit.
Does
La Voz de Espana want another clear demonstration? The division of
races, who keep it up not the friars?
To
deny that the diffusion of the Spanish tongue in those Islands would not bind,
would not link their inhabitants so that they might in fact be Spaniards is to
lack common sense or to be snobbish which, for the sake of charity, we ought to
ascribe to the newspaper La Voz de Espana, attorney ad litem of
the religious communities.
The
Island of Negros is an eloquent testimony which proves that in order to be
Catholic, it had not needed friars, that in order to remain loyal, faithful to
Spain, it had no need for religious communities. The mission in that Bisayan
Island (after the expulsion of the Jesuits by the immortal Count of Aranda) was
entrusted to poor Indio clergymen and in less than one century, they converted
those virgin forests into rich Spanish towns and its inhabitants fervent
devotees of Catholicism.
After
all, if, as La Voz de Espana assures us, the religious orders are in
fact the only ties that link the Islands of Magallanes to the Peninsula, what
are governments for? What is the captain general for? What is the army for?
What is the director for? All these are useless and more than useless, an
additional burden on the general budget of the nation. It would be better to
let the friars govern that Archipelago, playing the role of heads of barangay,
civil guards, carabineers, etc., etc.
For
if one binds, the other is superfluous.
Either
the friars or the civil administration et tertius non est ullus.
Before
all things and above all, we call the attention of our rulers to this article
in La Voz de Espana which besides defending the friars, discredits
national decorum, and throws down the plans of the Minister of Colonies
concerning the diffusion of the Spanish language in those Islands, and
indirectly dishonors the dignity and the punctiliousness of our civil
representatives in those our distant lands.
We
shout very loudly that the friars at this historic moment are detrimental to
the national interest in the Philippines, because they are an obstacle to the
introduction of any kind of liberal reforms, which are urgently and
peremptorily needed.
The
Mother Country does not need coarse fine-drawers, like the friars, to unite
that piece of Spanish territory, to bind Filipino hearts, to found Filipino
aspirations on the destinies of Mother Spain.
Neither
obscurantism and fanaticism, nor oppression or superstitions ever bind nor have
they have ever bound peoples. On the other hand, liberty, rights, and love
group distinct races around the same standard, one aspiration, one destiny.
Finally,
La Voz de Espana is wrong when it says that the unity of a territory in
those Islands is supported by the monastic institutions. To say that the
Filipinos love Spain because of the friars is a calumny. The Filipino does not
need interested nurses to throw themselves into the arms of the Mother Country
and to unbosom in her maternal lap her troubles, her complaints, and her
afflictions. He is a wretched man who says that because the Filipino is
anti-friar, he is a filibustero.
What
is La Voz de Espana trying to do in making this kind of denunciation in
its columns?
The
certain propaganda cannot be beneficial to the country whether from political
centers and associations in Madrid or through writings and speeches, or through
orders that tend to diminish the influence of the parish priests in the towns
and the consideration due every Spanish institution.
Does
it want to muzzle us? A Voz de Espana so Carlist like it, capable of
silencing us to prevent us from saying the truth and defend our dignity, has
not been born yet.
To
deceive the native land as La Voz de Espana does, is the greatest crime
of all crimes.