The Legacy of Ignorantism — Reading Notes

There were primary schools in almost all the towns supported by the Government in which a very elementary instruction was given * * * reading, writing, catechism, and a little arithmetic.

The Filipinos, as a general rule, have good memory but without great talent; they have no good talent.

Almost all education in the Philippines was given by the religious orders, that is to say, the secondary and university instruction was maintained by the religious orders, and primary instruction by the curates of the towns.

Among the Filipinos all is imitation. They lack originality. They were taught how to read and write Spanish but the majority of them learned it in a purely mechanical manner.

The Indios were very averse to the Castilian language; those who knew how to speak it did not like to speak it. This was true in Manila as well as in its suburbs. Those who know Spanish prefer to speak their own language in their homes.

From Fray Jose M. Ruiz in his Memoria presented to the Philippine Exposition in Madrid in 1887, we take the following:

The curate is a local inspector of public instruction, adviser of the gobernadorcillos, and president of the various local boards. The Indios see in them a father, a pastor, and a protector, and as such they have always been recognized by the Government of these Islands (p. 239).

A great part of the Philippine inhabitants, that is to say, that which lives in the barrios and places more or less isolated and inaccessible, is about to be civilized (esta casi por civilizar) (p. 247).

Referring to the mass of the people the same father says:

The masters devoted as they are, save in a few honorable exceptions, to their proper interests, have ignored completely the instruction of these unhappy ones in their religious duties * * * and their children, given over to the pasture of work animals, are reared in the midst of the most stupid ignorance (p. 254).

Later the author adds:

To give the Indio means of instruction and to place him in condition to benefit from it, and while this is not done, and until now this has not been done as we shall later show, is to concede rights to him who does not know how to appreciate what he deserves to the disgrace of the Spanish name and to the shame of the Spaniards in these Islands (p. 288).

Says the same Friar Ruiz:

And altho they are inimical to going to schools (the Indios) and to sending their children, it is because it is nothing but for wasting time since they learn nothing * * *. Furthermore, the towns are so crowded with ignorant teachers that without consulting anybody they establish private schools paid for by the parents of the children. Thus they learn what little good and a great deal of bad which they possess, to whom they teach Cartilla, and something of reading and writing, utilizing as texts for both the books called Corridos, which are full of anachronisms, errors, and absurdities of all kinds * * *. They also learn something of the Catechism (p. 337).

The places for the schools besides being bad are completely abandoned, and many are in ruins (p. 339).

There is no order in the school, and each one goes in and out without permission whenever he pleases (p. 440).

Recognition of a Dominican

Fray Jose M. Ruiz very faithfully recognizes the lamentable state in which the so-called public instruction in the Philippines was found outside of Manila where things were not so bad. From his standpoint it was necessary to teach Spanish and at least to give to the Filipinos books in the dialects, from which they would learn the most elementary things of which they were ignorant, and Religion and Moral. The Rueda [5] translation would be better adding something about the Philippines and the grammar of his dialect in Spanish. Undoubtedly he wanted to say that the Spanish grammar should be translated into the dialects.

If this is not done we believe that we would only lose time. With such measures in thirty years the Spanish language would be diffused among the children (pp. 440-441).

For the same reason (distance and lack of roads) the boys and girls do not attend schools, and what little they know they learn from some ignorant teachers (maestrillos). People, ordinarily of bad life, escaped from other towns, some of whom are also quack doctors and bone-setters who at the same time that they are teaching the Cartilla and a little bit of the Catechism imbue the children with a thousand and one superstitions and all kinds of vices. The priest who at times goes, out of necessity, to attend to some one who is seriously ill, and very seldom visits them (the Indios) ex-profeso, the parochial districts being generally very large and their duties so numerous and urgent, can only in part remedy some of these evils.

Now let us see what kind of people the Filipinos were. It is essential to know the psychology of the community. No opinion is so valuable for the present case than that of the missionary above cited, who says the following about the psychology of the Filipino.

As a people who are ignorant and with but little culture, the Indios are bound to have considerable superstitious beliefs which they practice, unconsciously deceived by medicine men, who are the ones who keep alive these ridiculous traditions of their ancestors, without knowing the reasons for what they do (p. 261).

They (the Indios) are deeply superstitious, a thing which is revealed in all their acts.

Citing the words of Dr. Lacalle, Father Ruiz says:

To pretend that a people taking the first steps on the road of civilization, and that in their religious acts manifest themselves in their acts as religious, severe, cultured and real thinkers, is absurd in the extreme (p. 348).

And he adds what follows:

We should not lose sight of the fact that the Indio is a child badly educated, but a big child completely developed in his passions. He acts not from conscience but from fear; he is moved not by reasons but by impressions; a friend of novelties and spectacles, he acts to the tune of the various impressions which he receives. Naturally he is inconstant and flighty, desiring one thing and another, now liking what he formerly disliked, without firmness nor stability in anything, without knowing many times what to like, nor what befits him. Such is the Indio briefly sketched.

The Filipino Spaniards

The Filipino Spaniards (espanoles filipinos) are of two classes: some are immediate descendants of Spaniards, descendants of Filipino Spaniards, or also children of a Filipina mother and a peninsular father (p. 288).

Unfortunately, they have all the bad qualities of the Spaniard and the Indio, and lack that docility of character observed in the latter and the nobility and greatness characteristic of the former. They are of little heart, coward and mean besides being arrogant and choleric and are very rude with the Indios, whom they usually despise and maltreat in words and in deed, and frequently are stupid and troublesome.

From the Indios they learned all the superstitions, numerous, untrue, absurd fables which are traditional among them, and in a word, all their habits and customs. Thus they eat rice with their fingers and have marked fondness for the sweets and dirty foodstuffs of the Indios.

Since they are brought up with much petting and are not strictly punished, they make bad servants, disobedient, capricious, insolent, and foul-mouthed. The women are so lacking in modesty, and, since they have been reared in the atmosphere of abandon and laziness, they are useless for the management of the home and the family (pp. 289-290).

* * * Thus the men as well as the women, altho religious, are credulous and superstitious as the Indios themselves.

Such is the idea that can be given about the Filipinos (p. 290).

The Chinese half-breed is described in the same manner.

Literature for the Filipinos

The only literature accessible to the Filipinos of little culture and also to those of the better class consisted of Corridos which constitute the profane literature, and the Pasion and the Novenas which formed the religious reading. Corridos, Pasiones, and Novenas were printed in abundance, in cheap editions, in Spanish as well as in the dialects of the country.

The Corridos are stories in verse about historic events, falsified and fanciful, and love tragedies full of wonderful events mixed with divine prodigies and diabolical magics--all lengthy, exaggerated, puerile, and absurd in the extreme. None of the characters is native. All are Turks, Arabs, knights, errants, ambassadors, dukes, warriors in armor provided with magic arms and with balsams like the famous one of Fierabras, good Castilians and bad strangers. All the characters are antipodal to Philippine realities and with the semblance of the real and true being from unknown lands and prodigious races. The same is true with the scene of activities; wonderful lands, Palestine, the kingdom of Navarra, the Empire of Great Kahn, the Palace of Macedonia, and not only are they ignorant of, and do they falsify, the face of the earth, but the planetary system itself suffers a radical change. Palms and tamarind grow in the vicinities of Moscow; Palestine and Macedonia are covered with prairies like Norway and Switzerland, and whales appear in the Mediterranean. Events which begin in the morning in Macedonia and in the most natural manner in the afternoon of the same day in a palace of Babylonia, and a princess of Aragon captured early in the morning in Sicily discusses at midnight and without an interpreter with a Moro of Samarcanda.

The Pasion, a work in verse in the different Filipino dialects, is not only the passion of Christ, but it consists of a sort of abridged edition of sacred history.

The Novenas are religious booklets dedicated to a saint whose favor is invoked in order to obtain from God such and such favors. They consist of a system of prayers in relation to certain miracles with reflections about the saint, which are said every day for a period of nine consecutive days. To Virgin Mary is attributed the origin of the Novenas because she venerated the number 9 in memory of the fact that nine days it was when she was apprised of the incarnation of the divine Messiah, and also because of the nine months in which she carried Him in her virgin womb. (Novena to Jesus, Maria, and Jose, Manila, 1903, in the Exordium.)

The Novenas offer a very simple way of obtaining from heaven what is asked in them from a protector saint. If the sympathy and aid of a patron or a patroness whose mediation is implored is won, one can obtain everything, be it appertaining to earthly life or future life. It is a very easy means. It is like a magic ceremony with its ritual composed of praises and acts of humiliation, devotion, submission, admiration, and other propitiatory manifestations looking toward gaining the sympathy and the protection of the saint. This follows an enumeration of favors which may be requested and which are always attended to by God as demonstrated by the numerous examples which are mentioned with scrupulous care in the Novena. All the Novenas are published with ecclesiastical permit after the censorship of the prelate who examines scrupulously the writings to see if there is anything that is contrary to morals, good customs, and absolute orthodoxy. In a word, all are printed with the necessary licenses.

The prodigies mentioned in these Novenas compare very well with the enchantments, magics, and sorceries of the primitive Filipinos who invoked the propitiation of their divine spirits by means of ceremonies, sacrifices, charms, and incantations performed by their mangkukulam (witch), babailanas, and other prestidigitators, priests, medicine men, charmers, and fortune-tellers, which are referred to and are enumerated in the old chronicles written by the missionaries in the Philippines.

Substitution of "Unseen Powers"

All the fear of the mysterious as well as the belief of the Filipinos in unseen powers which took away life, attracted misfortunes, gave victory, or conduced to disaster was conserved, changing only the concepts that they had about the spirits that governed the affairs of life and the phenomena of nature. The patron saints recommended by the missionaries came to take the place of the ancient anitos representative of their past which they gave intervention in their idolatry in all the affairs of life.

When the missionaries preached their religion, they condemned the old Pagan superstitions but they taught new superstitions more powerful than the original, not only because of the prestige of the new patrons who are all members of a Celestial Court organized as an earthly aristocracy and headed by the same God, Creator of the Universe, but by communicating with God in the same tongue, which the ordinary man supposed was spoken by Him, which is the Latin tongue, in which the priests said their prayers and sang their hymns.

The Oremus, the Laus Deo, Agnus Dei, Deo Gracias, Nos cum prole pia, Benedicat Virgo Maria, Per omnia secula seculorum, Kyrie eleyson, Christe eleyson, came under the category of enchantments (ensalmos) known by the terms bolong and mantala of the primitive mangkukulam, manghihikup, mananangisama, etc. etc., of Philippine paganism. All of these Latin phrases acquired so great a prestige that they were looked upon as a form of irresistible invocation for conquering the divine will, and a certain ridiculous sect came to be known as the Colorum, which term originated from the wrong pronunciation of secula seculorum with which many Latin prayers ended, prayers which were incomprehensible but used due to the ignorance of many.

The phrase agnus dei qui tolis pecata mundi is used as an incantation in which every word more or less incomprehensible has a sacred character so that if one should say that he despises qui tolis, it would be considered a blasphemy because the Qui Tolis is something sacred or divine. A child after saying the trisagio said by way of protest: "I am tired of saying kirileson (Kyrie eleyson)." His mother then punished him for playing with the name of God. Another child who happened to name a dog Qui Tolis was corrected by his aunt, saying: "The name of God is never used for naming an animal."

All this constitutes a real array of magic invocation in the efficacy of which there is great confidence to avoid evil, ridding of danger, securing more good, and attaining some grace. As an example of the power of the invocations and what can be obtained by merely saying frequently "Jesus, Maria, y Jose" (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph), which constitutes the most "divine trinity on earth," the following cases are related: (Novena a Jesus, Maria y Jose, Manila, 1903).

A bad man walking in the middle of the night in front of the church of San Francisco in Cuzco, Peru, saw lights in the cemetery, and knowing it to be a funeral, went to the place to witness it. Presently he noted that there was a throne where Jesus Christ was found seated between Mary and Joseph. Then several demons appeared, each one with a book in his hand. One of them began accusing a bad woman from Buenos Aires. "Jesus," says the Novena, "pronounced a sentence against her of instant death and with it eternal perdition" (p. 7). The demon disappeared in order to execute the sentence. Another devil read from his book that in Chile there was another bad woman. "Jesus sentenced her to death and condemnation" (p. 8). The devil ran to carry out the sentence. Another one appeared accusing a bad man of Cuzco, and this man was precisely the same who tarried to witness the scene at the cemetery. "When the just judge was about to sentence him to death and condemnation, Blessed Mary and Joseph knelt before the divine Master, asking mercy on behalf of the accused, alleging that many times he invoked the holy names (Jesus, Maria y Jose). Jesus having denied pardon, his parents begged him anew, and seeing that they were not making headway toward securing pardon, the Blessed Virgin showed to her Blessed Son the breast from which He sucked, and the Patriarch Saint showed him the hands that maintained him thru his labors" (p. 8). Then Jesus conceded the pardon as a matter of grace which can only be characterized as material gratefulness (estomago agradecido).

Great Incentive to Crime

The invocation "Jesus, Maria y Jose" working as a magic formula saved that man who had no more merit than his ability to mention the names of the "trinity on earth." In the same novena there is a consideration of this most marvelous favor, and that is, that in order to obtain some reform in our lives in view of the favor conceded by Jesus, Mary, and Joseph to their devotee, tho he be a confirmed sinner, it was only necessary to imitate an invocation so frequently repeated in all his days of malice, the words "Jesus, Maria y Jose" (p. 10). The man in question had no other merit nor is he enjoined to have one. It is enough that he utters the magic invocation and that he does as he pleases in the belief of being free from punishment. What a great incentive this is to crime!

Another notable case of the effect of the same invocation is that of a Dominican friar called Fray Juan Masias, who for more than twelve years stayed in his dark cell in prayer. He was visited by many devils who pulled and pushed him, treating him very badly in words and in deed. But he was freed from them by saying "Jesus Savior, Mary, and Joseph, be with me." "On other occasions the devils entered hurriedly and noisily catching him by the legs and dragged him from his room to the cloister. Some hit him and slapped him, others stepped on his stomach and on his head, still others scratched his face and sought to pluck his eyes, but invoking the names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, they (the devils) vanished and left him (p. 14). And the strangest part of it is that the friar made the invocation after suffering the consequences of the punishment above mentioned; so that, in other words, he condescended to allow the devils to have some fun for a while at his expense.

An Economical Diversion

The same friar "at other times while going to church in prayer, was caught by the devils and was taken; and they threw him up in the air so high that, passing above the roofs of the capitular hall which divides the first cloister from the next, he fell in the latter. There other devils were awaiting him and receiving him they threw him anew in the same manner so that he landed again in the principal cloister without hearing from him a word of protest or suffering until invoking the sacred names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, they left him (p. 15). Who on reading this would not envy a friar having a diversion so entertaining and so sane and economical? How can one help being grateful to the demons who received him in the other hall instead of letting him fall on the floor? With reference to these prodigies mentioned one reads in the same Novena the following considerations: "What trouble is there for us to habituate ourselves in repeating in our invocations the sweetest names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph? (p. 27).

At every step this infernal power is amplified and magnified in these Novenas. Not only is the devil deemed among the enemies of the soul, together with our body and the entire humanity, but at every moment we tremble at his snares, we consider ourselves weak to resist him and even at times seemingly fearing that the self same God will not know how to defend Himself from the devil because at every step it is sought to awaken God and place him as a sort of guard against this infernal power. "Help us Lord from heaven, our strong liberator in this struggle with the powers of darkness; and as other times thou hast freed thy son, Jesus, from imminent peril of life, so now defend the Holy Church of God from the snares of their enemies and from all adversity, and keep each one of us under thy eternal protection." (Page 54, Ofrecimiento al Santisimo Rosario, Manila, 1905.)