Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the galleon trade, a venture that involved re-exporting goods from China through
Manila to Mexico. The Catholic Church, dreading change, did nothing to improve the
subsistence economy, while in the capital, according to an early diarist, “the rich spend
ten months of the year with nothing to do”.
In theory, the Philippines was ruled by civil and military representatives of the King
of Spain, but in practice it was the Catholic
friars
who ran the show. They derived their
power from the enormous influence of the monastic orders - Augustinian, Dominican
and Franciscan - which spanned the world like global corporations. Secular o
cials
came and went, but the clergy stayed. Many friars ignored their vows of celibacy and
sired children with local women. They exercised their power through a number of
administrative functions, including setting budgets, conducting the parish census,
screening recruits for the military and presiding over the police. There were cosmetic
local administrations, but they could not act without the friars' consent.
It wasn't until the late eighteenth century that the ossification brought about by the
colonial regime began to ease, the result of a series of external shocks. Attempts by the
Dutch, Portuguese and Chinese to establish a presence in the archipelago were repelled,
but the
British
managed to occupy Manila in 1762, raiding it in a sideshow to the
Seven Years' War
. They handed it back to Spain under the conditions of the Treaty of
Paris, signed in 1763, but their easy victory served notice that the Philippines was
vulnerable. In 1821 Mexico became independent, the galleon trade ended and the
Philippines were administered directly from Madrid thereafter, ushering in a period of
relatively enlightened colonial rule and prosperity.
The independence movement
The Spanish began to establish a free public school system in the Philippines in 1863,
increasing the number of educated and Spanish-speaking Filipinos. The opening of the
Suez Canal in 1869 (combined with the increasing use of steam power) cut travel times
between Spain and the Philippines to weeks rather than months, and many of this new
generation were able to continue their studies in Europe. They frequently returned with
liberal ideas and talk of freedom.
A small
revolt
in Cavite in 1872 was quickly put down, but the anger and frustration
Filipinos felt about colonial rule would not go away. Intellectuals such as Marcelo
H. Del Pilar and Juan Luna were the spiritual founders of the independence
movement, but it was the writings of a diminutive young doctor from Laguna
province,
José Rizal
(1861-96), that provided the spark for the flame. His novel
Noli Me Tángere
was written while he was studying in Spain in the 1880s, and
portrayed colonial rule as a cancer and the Spanish friars as fat, pompous fools. It was
promptly banned by the Spanish, but distributed underground along with other
inflammatory essays by Rizal and, later, his second novel,
El Filibusterismo
.
In 1892, Rizal returned to Manila and founded the movement La Liga Filipina,
which espoused moderate reform, though never revolution. Its members swore oaths
and took part in blood rites, and, innocuous as the movement was, the friars smelled
sedition. Rizal was arrested and exiled to Dapitan on Mindanao.
Andrés Bonifacio
(1863-97) took over the reins by establishing the secret society known as the
Katipunan or KKK (its full name was Kataastaasan, Kagalanggalang na Katipunan
nang mga Anak ng Bayan, which means “Honorable, respectable sons and daughters of
1571
1570-1890s
1762
Legazpi founds Manila;
formal Spanish control
over the islands begins
The “Friarocracy” controls the Philippines during
the colonial Spanish period; the Manila galleon
trade links Asia with Spanish Mexico
British occupy
Manila during the
Seven Years' War.
