The Life and Works of Rizal proudly presents this abridged version of The Philippines a Century Hence by Dr. Jose Rizal. While it is always better to read the piece in its entirety, here is an abridgment that covers all the important points covered in the essay.
No paraphrase or summarization has been done. All text is taken from the original English translation, occasionally condensed and truncated for clarity.
Related pages:
The Philippines a Century Hence Full Text
The Philippines a Century Hence Summary and Analysis
I.
In order to read the destiny of a people, it is necessary to open the book of its past, and this, for the Philippines, may be reduced to what follows.
Scarcely had they been attached to the Spanish crown than they had to sustain with their blood the ambitions of conquest of the Spanish people, and in these struggles, the Philippines were depopulated, impoverished and retarded.
They gradually lost their ancient traditions, their recollections—they forgot their writings, their songs, their poetry, their laws, in order to learn by heart other doctrines, other ethics, other tastes.
They were lowered in their own eyes, they became ashamed of what was distinctively their own, in order to admire and praise what was foreign and incomprehensible: their spirit was broken and they acquiesced.
Thus years and centuries rolled on.
Religious shows, rites, songs, lights, images arrayed with gold, worship in a strange language, hypnotized the already naturally superstitious spirit of the country.When they had become disgusted with themselves, an effort was made to add the final stroke for reducing so many dormant wills and intellects to nothingness.
So the lethargic spirit woke to life. Then he began to study himself and to realize his misfortune. The spirit of the people was not thereby cowed, and even though it had been awakened in only a few hearts, its flame was consumingly propagated.
Such is an outline of their past. We know their present. Now, what will their future be?
II.
What will become of the Philippines within a century? Will they continue to be a Spanish colony?
Had this question been asked three centuries ago, when at Legazpi’s death the Filipinos began to be undeceived, without any doubt whatsoever the reply would have been easy.
Now, then, are the Philippines in the same condition they were three centuries ago? For the liberal Spaniards the ethical condition of the people remains the same, that is, the native Filipinos have retrograded.
Let us draw a parallel between the political situation then and the situation at present, in order to see if what was not possible at that time can be so now, or vice versa. Let us suppose for a moment, that there exist only hatred and jealousy between the Philippines and Spain, and we may see whether or not the Spanish cause has gained ground in the Islands.
Formerly the Spanish authority was upheld among the natives by a handful of soldiers. Communication with Mexico and Spain was slow, rare and difficult. Then the seas in those regions were infested with pirates, all enemies of the Spanish name. Yet the Spanish authority still continues to rule the destinies of the Philippine group. Everything then, at first glance, presages another three centuries, at least, of domination.
But above the material considerations are arising others far more powerful and transcendental. Orientals, and the Malays in particular, are a sensitive people. Even now, in spite of contact with the occidental nations, who have ideals different from his, we see the Malayan Filipino sacrifice everything—liberty, ease, welfare, name, for the sake of an aspiration or a conceit.
So the Philippine peoples have remained faithful during three centuries, dazzled by the hope of the Paradise promised. Spanish domination once established, it was firmly maintained, thanks to the fact that the sensitive self-love of the native had not yet been wounded.
All this has passed away.
The people no longer has confidence in its former protectors, now its exploiters and executioners. The masks have fallen. If this should continue, what will become of the Philippines within a century?
The batteries are gradually becoming charged and some day the spark will be generated. If those who guide the destinies of the Philippines remain obstinate, they are going to force the latter to put into play the wretchedness of an unquiet life, filled with privation and bitterness.
What would be lost in the struggle? Almost nothing: the life of the discontented classes has no such great attraction that it should be preferred to a glorious death. It may indeed be a suicidal attempt—but then, what? All the petty insurrections that have occurred in the Philippines were the work of a few fanatics who had to deceive the people to gain their ends. So they all failed. When they saw that they had been duped, the people applauded the overthrow of the disturbers of their peace!
But what if the movement springs from the people themselves and bases its cause upon their woes? We can assert that in a few years the present state of affairs will have been modified completely—and inevitably.
A numerous enlightened class now exists within and without the Islands, a class which forces the inhabitants to leave the country, to secure education abroad. This class, whose number is cumulatively increasing, is in constant communication with the rest of the Islands, and if today it constitutes only the brain of the country in a few years it will form the whole nervous system and manifest its existence in all its acts.
The divine flame of thought is inextinguishable in the Filipino. It is impossible to brutalize the inhabitants of the Philippines! May poverty arrest their development? Perhaps, but it is a very dangerous means.
Experience has everywhere shown us and especially in the Philippines, that the classes which are better off have always been addicted to peace and order, because they live comparatively better and may be the losers in civil disturbances. Wealth brings with it refinement, the spirit of conservation, while poverty inspires adventurous ideas, the desire to change things, and has little care for life.
Machiavelli himself held this means of subjecting a people to be perilous, observing that loss of welfare stirs up more obdurate enemies than loss of life. And further, of what use to the mother country would a poor and lean colony be?
Neither is it possible gradually to exterminate the inhabitants. The Filipino embraces civilization and lives and thrives in every clime, in contact with every people.
There remains the fostering of intestine feuds among the provinces. This was formerly possible, when communication from one island to another was rare and difficult. But now that the inhabitants move from one island to another, and as all see themselves threatened by the same peril and wounded in the same feelings, they clasp hands and make common cause.
Abroad, the inhabitants of the most widely separated provinces are impressed by their patriotic feelings, and at the sight of modern liberty and the memory of the misfortunes of their country, they embrace and call one another brothers.
In short, then, the advancement and ethical progress of the Philippines are inevitable, are decreed by fate. The Islands cannot remain in the condition they are without requiring from the sovereign country more liberty Mutatis mutandis. For new men, a new social order.
The Philippines, then, will remain under Spanish domination, but with more law and greater liberty, or they will declare themselves independent, after steeping themselves and the mother country in blood. As no one should desire or hope for such an unfortunate rupture, let us see by what forms of peaceful evolution the Islands may remain subjected to the Spanish authority with the very least detriment to the rights, interests and dignity of both parties.
III.
If the Philippines must remain under the control of Spain, they will necessarily have to be transformed in a political sense. This we demonstrated in the preceding article. We also said that this transformation will be violent and fatal if it proceeds from the ranks of the people, but peaceful and fruitful if it emanate from the upper classes.
The minister, then, who wants reforms, must begin by declaring the press in the Philippines free and by instituting Filipino delegates.
A government that rules a country from a great distance is the one that has the most need for a free press, if it wishes to rule rightly and fitly.
Uprisings have always occurred in countries where human thought and the human heart have been forced to remain silent. We say the same about the Filipino representatives. What risks does the government see in them? One of three things: either that they will prove unruly, become political trimmers, or act properly.
Supposing that we should yield to the most absurd pessimism and admit that all the representatives would be separatists: is there not present the vigilance of the governing powers to combat and oppose such intentions?
Moreover, it is said that the Filipinos are indolent and peaceful—then what need the government fear?
If they become political trimmers, so much the better for the government and so much the worse for their constituents. They would be a few more favorable votes, and the government could laugh openly at the separatists, if any there be.
If they become what they should be, worthy, honest and faithful to their trust, they will undoubtedly annoy an incapable minister with their questions, but they will help him to govern the nation.
Now then, if the real objection to the Filipino delegates is that they smell like Igorots. If this were all, the Filipinos, who there in their own country are accustomed to bathe every day, when they become representatives may give up such a dirty custom, at least during the legislative session, so as not to offend the delicate nostrils of the Salamancas with the odor of the bath.
It is useless to answer certain objections regarding the rather brown skins and faces with somewhat wide nostrils. Law has no skin, nor reason nostrils. So we see no serious reason why the Philippines may not have representatives.
These are the two fundamental reforms, which will make all succeeding reforms fruitful.
Justice is the foremost virtue of the civilizing races. It subdues the barbarous nations, while injustice arouses the weakest. Close indeed are the bonds that unite us to Spain. Two peoples do not live for three centuries in continual contact, but that ties are formed between them stronger than those fashioned by arms or fear.
Howsoever much the Filipinos owe Spain, they cannot be required to forego their redemption. Spain cannot claim, not even in the name of God himself, that six millions of people should be brutalized, exploited and oppressed.
IV.
History does not record in its annals any lasting domination exercised by one people over another, of different race, of diverse usages and customs, of opposite and divergent ideals. One of the two had to yield and succumb.
Either the foreigner was driven out, or else these autochthons had to give way and perish. Now, applying these considerations to the Philippines, we must conclude that if their population be not assimilated to the Spanish nation, someday the Philippines will fatally and infallibly declare themselves independent.
The Spaniard is gallant and patriotic, and sacrifices everything for his country’s good. The Filipino loves his country no less, and although he is quieter, more peaceful, when he is once aroused he does not hesitate, and for him the struggle means death to one or the other combatant.
If the Philippines secure their independence after heroic and stubborn conflicts, they can rest assured that neither England, nor Germany, nor France, and still less Holland, will dare to take up what Spain has been unable to hold.
It is probable that England will look favorably upon the independence of the Philippines, for it will open their ports to her and afford greater freedom to her commerce.
For the same reasons Germany will not care to run any risk, and because a scattering of her forces and a war in distant countries will endanger her existence on the continent.
France has enough to do and sees more of a future in Tongking and China. She has also other obligations, both internally and on the continent.
Holland is sensible and will be content to keep the Moluccas and Java.
China will consider herself fortunate if she succeeds in keeping herself.
The same is true of Japan. Korea attracts her more than the Philippines and is, also, easier to seize.
Perhaps the great American Republic may some day dream of foreign possession. Very likely the Philippines will defend with inexpressible valor the liberty secured at the price of so much blood and sacrifice.
These and many other things may come to pass within something like a hundred years. But the most logical prognostication may err through remote and insignificant causes. Upon what chance accidents will the destiny of the Philippines depend? Nevertheless, it is not well to trust to accident, for there is sometimes logic in the workings of history. Fortunately, peoples as well as governments are subject to it.
Therefore, it is better to keep pace with the desires of a people than to give way before them. Since it is necessary to grant six million Filipinos their rights, so that they may be in fact Spaniards, let the government grant these rights freely and spontaneously.
Abridged by J.R. Lim