HISTORICAL EVENTS

OF THE PHILIPPINE
ISLANDS
PART 1
“Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas”

⋄ written by Dr. Antonio de Morga

⋄ annotated by Jose Rizal with a prologue by Dr.
Ferdinand Blumentritt
⋄ published in January 1890 in Paris by Jose Rizal

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“Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas”
⋄ Rizal considers this as important for the propaganda activities
which at the time he directed, and in order to set the record
straight regarding the cultural conditions obtaining among
his countrymen, on the arrival of the Spanish adventures in the
Philippine Islands.
⋄ The purpose which inspired Rizal in undertaking the writing of
this book was stated in his dedicatory remarks

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The purpose of Rizal
 “
In my ‘Noli Me Tangere’ I commenced to sketch the
present conditions obtaining in our country. The
effect produced by my efforts gave before your eyes
other successive scenes – that it is to necessary to
first lay bare the past, in order the better to judge
the present and to survey the road trodden during
three centuries.
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 “
If the work succeeds in arousing in yourselves
the realization of our past, erased from the
memory, and in rectifying what has been
falsified and slandered, then my efforts shall not
have been in vain. With this as a basis, however
small it may be, we can all proceed to studying
the future.
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⋄ For this purpose, he chose “SUCESOS” by Dr. Morga,
which had been published in Mexico in 1609, and that
according to Dr. Blumentritt, became famous because it
described better the conditions obtaining in the country
the so-called period of conquest of the Philippine
Islands.

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Chapter Eight
Narrative of the Philippine Islands and their natives, their antiquity,
customs and Government, both during their gentility (non-conversion)
and after the Spaniards had conquered them; and other peculiarities.
Philippine Islands
⋄ numerous, large and small, subject to the Crown of Castile
⋄ lies within the tropic of Cancer and extend from twenty-four degrees
North latitude, up to the equinoxial line, which passes through the
Malaccan Islands
⋄ Have good temperature, many people, food supplies and other factors
favorable to the maintenance of human life
⋄ Have many minerals, rich metals, precious stones and pearls, animals
and plants

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 Philippine Islands
⋄ Known to have approximately 46 large ⋄ First island which the Spanish
islands which are all extensive and conquered and settled: Cebu –
principal: Luzon, Mindoro, Tendaya, inhabited by natives known as
Capul, Burias, Masbate, Marinduque, Visayans or “the tattooed ones”
Leyte, Samar, Ibabao (Southeastern
part of Samar), Cebu, Panay, Bohol,
Catanduanes, Calamianes, Mindanao,
and other less important ones.
It is very difficult now to determine exactly which was the island of Tendaya, called for
some years as “Isla Filipina”. According to the other documents of the epoch, there was no
island with this name, but a chief called Tandaya.

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 Luzon
⋄ Capital of the government and ⋄ The seasons of the year, i.e. winter, and
principal settlement transferred to summer, are the opposite of those in
Luzon which was large and nearer to Europe, as the rains generally fall over
the marine frontier of the great all these Islands from the month of June
country of China and Japan up to September. In summer from
October up to the end of May, the skies
are clear and the sea is smooth.
Morga take the rainy season as winter and the rest of the year as summer. However, this is
not quite exact, because in Manila by December to February, the thermometer goes down
and therefore with regard to the seasons it resembles Spain as all the rest of the North
Hemisphere.

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 Natives
⋄ Natives of Luzon wore: for men, clothes made of cangan fabric without
collar, sewn in front with short sleeves extending down to beyond the
waist, some blue and some black, while the headmen used red ones
which they called chininas. In the middle of the waist they wore
bahaque.

⋄ Perhaps a wrong phonetic transcription had been made of chinina the word
tinina (from tina) which in Tagalog means dyed.
⋄ Bahaque = Bahag

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 Natives
⋄ Around the neck they wore a long chain of engraved gold links the same
as we wear it. Some men used strings of stones, red agate and of other
colors and blue or white stones, which to them are valuable.

⋄ There were also of ivory.

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 Natives
⋄ In the province of Zambales, they shave their heads closely from the
middle to the forehead, with a large lock of loose hair on the back of the
head. The women throughout this province wear sayas or dresses with
sleeves called varo.

⋄ This manner of wearing the hair and the long attire of the Bisayas have an
analogy to the coiffure and kimono of the Japanese.
⋄ Varo = Baro

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 Natives
⋄ Both men and women, particularly the prominent people, dye their hair
and pride themselves with keeping it quite black. They shampoo it with
the boiled bark of a tree called gogo.

⋄ Rather than bark, it is the body itself of a shrub that is crushed but not
cooked.

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 Natives
⋄ They are all careful of their teeth, and from their early age, they file and
even up their teeth with grinders and other implements of stone

⋄ This practice is still done.

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 Natives
⋄ and give them a permanent black color which is preserved until their old
age, even if it be unpleasant to the eyes.

⋄ This custom is also found in Japan among married women, as a proof of

virtue. Today, it is declining.

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 Natives
⋄ The young and the old ordinarily bathe their entire bodies in the rivers
and streams without regard to whether this may be injurious to their
health.

⋄ The Spaniards think so but they are mistaken. The Indios are very careful
not to take a bath during siesta, after Luncheon, the first two days of a
catarrh, when they have herpes, some women during menstruation, etc.

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Natives
⋄ The women pound the rice which is to be cooked for their meals.

⋄ Though this work is not very hard, for the pestle is light, it is
now done generally by men, leaving to the women the cleaning of
the rice.

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Natives
⋄ Men and women are covetous and money-loving, so that when
there is a price, they easily yield.

⋄ This weakness of Indio women that historians relate, it seems, can be

attributed not only to the sincerity with which they obey nature and their
own instincts but also a religious belief that Fr. Chirino tells us about.

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 “
“A doctrine planted the devil in some women of these
islands and I believe in all who cannot be saved, be they
married or marriageable, is the woman who does not
have some lover. Because they say he will help them in
the next life by leading them by the hand in crossing a
very dangerous river that has no bridge but a very
narrow piece of timber which must be crossed in order to
reach what they call Kalualhatian.

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Natives
⋄ Their regular daily food is rice, crushed by wooden pilons or
pounders, which is cooked and is then called morisqueta.

⋄ Morisqueta to the Spaniards, because the Tagalogs call it kanin.

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Natives
⋄ They prefer meat and fish, saltfish which begin to decompose
and smell.

⋄ The fish that Morga mentions does not taste better when it is
beginning to rot; all on the contrary: it is bagoong and all those
who have eaten it and tasted it know that it is not or ought not to
be rotten.

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Natives
⋄ There are many fruit-trees in the land such as santol, mabolo,
tamarind, nanca or jack-fruit, anomas, papayas, guayaba and
various kinds or oranges both small and large, sweet and sour,
citrus and lemons, about ten or twelve varieties of bananas.

⋄ There are more than 57 species

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Natives
⋄ The ordinary food of the natives is a very small fish which is
netted, dried in the sun or air, then cooked in various ways; and
they enjoy them better than the larger fishes. Among them they
call this fish laulau.

⋄ What is now called lawlaw is the salted and dried sardine. It seems that
the author refers to the tawilis of Batangas or dilis, which is smaller and
a large quantity of it is eaten by the natives.

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Natives
⋄ Throughout these Islands are certain places where there is an abundance
of rich gold deposits and other mineral products which are collected by
the natives through washing or placer-mining. However, after the
Spaniards has settled in the land, the natives became more lax in the
mining of gold.
⋄ The Indios on seeing that wealth aroused the capacity of the
encomenderos and soldiers, abandoned the work in the mines, and
priest-historians related that, in order to save them from vexations,
they recommended to them such procedure.

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Natives
⋄ However, after the Spaniards had settled in the land, the natives became
more lax in the mining of gold.

⋄ The indios on seeing that wealth aroused the capacity of the

encomienderos and soldiers, abandoned the work in the mines, and
priest-historians relate that in order to save them from vexations, they
recommended to them such procedure.

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Natives
⋄ They also weave blankets in various ways which they also sell or trade
likewise clothes made out of the fibre of bananas.

⋄ Out of cotton textile alone, there was an encomiendero who left a fortune
of more than 50,000 accumulated in a few years. This is not surprising
because it is known how the encomienderos exploited the Indios.

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Island of Panay
⋄ The island of Panay which is large and has a circumference over one
hundred leagues, having many native settlements.

⋄ When the Spaniards arrived at this island, it was said there were 50
families but they diminished lately. Driven by the vexations they
received from some provincial governors, they have abandoned the work
preferring to live in poverty to suffer in such hardships.

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Education
⋄ Throughout the islands, writing as well developed.

⋄ The same thing can’t be said today.

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 Gracias!
Medina · Menchavez · Momongan ·Montehermoso

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