The Life and Works of Rizal

Annotation of Antonio Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1. Analyze Rizal’s ideas on how to rewrite the Philippine History.
2. Explain the underlying purpose of Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas.
3. Compare and contrast Rizal and Morga’s different views about Filipinos and Philippine
culture.

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Through the centuries, Jose Rizal has been known to be an earnest seeker of truth – it is this
characteristic that marked him as a great historian. When the Spaniards came to conquer the
islands, he had been so passionate to know the true conditions of the Philippines. But imagine how
difficult it was to search for information during those days – most of the available sources were
either written by friars of the religious orders and zealous missionaries determined to wipe out
native beliefs and cultural practices, which they considered idolatrous and savage.
Despite the colonizers’ claim that they were solely responsible for refining the Philippine islands,
Rizal’s beliefs say otherwise. For him, the native populations of the Filipinos were self-sustaining
and customarily spirited - it was because of the Spanish colonization that the Philippine’s rich
culture and tradition faded to a certain extent.
Ferdinand Blumentritt, author of “Versucheiner Ethnographie der Philippinen.” Rizal wrote to
him and that was how their friendship began. It was Dr. Blumentritt, acknowledgeable
Filipinologist, who recommended Dr. Antonio Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, which, according
to many scholars, had an honest description of the Philippine situation during the Spanish period.
Other sources, however, claim that Rizal learned about Antonio Morga from his uncle, Jose Alberto,
this knowledge about an ancient Philippine history written by aSpaniard came from the English
Governor of Hong Kong, Sir John Browning, who had once paid his uncle a visit. While in London,
Rizal immediately acquainted himself with the British Museum where he found one of the
few remaining copies of Morga’s Sucesos. At his own expense, Rizal had the work republished
with annotations that showed that the Philippines was an advanced civilization prior to Spanish
colonization. Austin Craig, an early biographer of Rizal, translated some of the more
important annotations into English.
Dr. Antonio Morga and his Sucesos
Antonio de Morga (1559-1636) was a Spanish conquistador, a lawyer and a government
official for 43 years in the Philippines (1594-1604), New Spain and Peru. As Deputy Governor in the
country, he reinstated the Audiencia, taking over the function of judge or oidor. He was also in
command of the Spanish ships in a 1600 naval battle against Dutch corsairs, but suffered defeat
and barely survived. He may have undergone important failures in both his military and
political capacities but he is now remembered for his work as a historian.
He was also a historian. He authored the book Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas (Events in the Philippine
Islands) in 1609 after being reassigned to Mexico. This book narrates observations about the
Filipinos and the Philippines from the perspective of the Spaniards. In fact, this book is considered
valuable in the sense that it reflects the first formal record of the earliest days of the Philippines as a
Spanish colony. Morga’s work, which is based partly on documentary research, keen observation,
and partly on his personal involvement and knowledge, is said to be the best account of
Spanish colonialism in the country. With Morga’s position in the colonial government, he
had access to many important documents that allowed him to write about the natives’ and their
conquerors ’political, social and economic phases of life from the year 1493 to 1603.
Rizal was greatly impressed by Morga’s work that he, himself, decided to annotate it
and publish a new edition. He meticulously added footnotes on every chapter of the
Sucesos that could be a misrepresentation of Filipino cultural practices.
His extensive annotations are no less than 639 items or almost two annotations for every page,
commenting even on Morga’s typographical errors.
Rizal began his work in London and completed it in Paris in 1890. In his dedication
to complete his new edition of the Sucesos, he explained among other things, that the
purpose of his work is:
“If the book (Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas) succeeds to awaken your consciousness of
our past, already effaced from your memory, and to rectify what has been falsified and slandered,
then I have not worked in vain, and with this as a basis, however small it may be, we shall be able to
study the future.
“What, then, was Morga’s purpose for writing the Sucesos? Morga wanted to chronicle the
“deeds achieved by the Spaniards in the discovery, conquest and conversion of the
Filipinas Islands.” Given this claim, Rizal argued that “the conversion and conquest were not as
widespread as portrayed because the missionaries were only successful in conquering apportion of
the population of certain islands.
“Why, you may ask, would Rizal annotate Morga’s work? For one, the book tells the history of
wars, intrigues, diplomacy and evangelization of the Philippines in a somewhat disjointed
way. Historians, including Rizal, have noticed a definite bias, a lot of created stories and distorted
facts in the book just to fit Morga’s defense of the Spanish conquest.
For instance, on page 248, Morga describes the culinary art of the ancient Filipinos by
recording, “they prefer to eat salt fish which begin to decompose and smell. Rizal’s footnote
explains, “This is another preoccupation of the Spaniards who, like any other nation in that matter
of food, loathe that to which they are not accustomed or is unknown to them…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 it is not or ought to be rotten.
Notable Annotations
The English translation of some of the more important annotations of the Sucesos was
done by an early biographer of Rizal, Austin Craig (1872-1949). The following are excerpts
from Rizal's annotations to inspire young Filipinos of today (Taken from Craig, 1929 as translated
by Derbyshire, n.d. in kahimyang.com).
Governor Antonio de Morga was not only the first to write but also the first to publish a Philippine
history. This statement has regard to the concise and concrete form in which our author has treated
the matter. Father Chirino's work, printed at Rome in 1604, is rather a chronicle of the Missions
than a history of the Philippines; still it contains a great deal of valuable material on usages
and customs. The worthy Jesuit in fact admits that he abandoned writing a political history because
Morga had already done so, so one must infer that he had seen the work in manuscript before
leaving the Islands.
By the Christian religion, Doctor Morga appears to mean the Roman Catholic which by fire and
sword he would preserve in its purity in the Philippines. Nevertheless in other lands, notably in
Flanders, these means were ineffective to keep the church unchanged, or to maintain its supremacy,
or even to hold its subjects.
Great kingdoms were indeed discovered and conquered in the remote and unknown parts
of the world by Spanish ships but to the Spaniards who sailed in them we may add Portuguese,
Italians, French, Greeks, and even Africans and Polynesians. The expeditions captained by Columbus
and Magellan, one a Genoese Italian and the other a Portuguese, as well as those that came after
them, although Spanish fleets, still were manned by many nationalities and in them went negroes,
Moluccans, and even men from the Philippines and the Marianes Islands.
Three centuries ago it was the custom to write as intolerantly as Morga does, but nowadays it would
be called a bit presumptuous. No one has a monopoly of the true God nor is there any nation or
religion that can claim, or at any rate prove, that to it has been given the exclusive right to the
Creator of all things or sole knowledge of His real being.
The conversions by the Spaniards were not as general as their historians claim.The missionaries
only succeeded in converting a part of the people of the Philippines. Still there are Mahometans, the
Moros, in the southern islands, and Negritos, Igorots, and other heathens yet occupy the greater
part territorially of the archipelago. Then the islands which the Spaniards early held but
soon lost are non-Christian-Formosa, Borneo, and the Moluccas. And if there are Christians in the
Carolines, that is due to Protestants, whom neither the Roman Catholics of Morga's day nor many
Catholics in our own day consider Christians.
It is not the fact that the Filipinos were unprotected before the coming of the Spaniards. Morga
himself says, further on in telling of the pirate raids from the south, that previous to the Spanish
domination the islands had arms and defended themselves. But after the natives were
disarmed the pirates pillaged them with impunity, coming at times when they were unprotected by
the government, which was the reason for many of the insurrections.
The civilization of the Pre-Spanish Filipinos in regard to the duties of life for that age was well
advanced, as the Morga history shows in its eighth chapter.
The islands came under Spanish sovereignty and control through compacts, treaties of
friendship and alliances for reciprocity. By virtue of the last arrangement, according to some
historians, Magellan lost his life on Mactan and the soldiers of Legaspi fought under the
banner of King Tupas of Cebu.
The term "conquest" is admissible but for a part of the islands and then only in its broadest sense.
Cebu, Panay, Luzon Mindoro and some others cannot be said to have been conquered.
The discovery, conquest, and conversion cost Spanish blood but still more Filipino blood. It will be
seen later on in Morga that with the Spaniards and on behalf of Spain there were always more
Filipinos fighting than Spaniards.
Morga shows that the ancient Filipinos had army and navy with artillery and other implements of
warfare. Their prized krises and kampilans for their magnificent temper are worthy of admiration
and some of them are richly damascened. Their coats of mail and helmets, of which there are
specimens in various European museums, attest their great advancement in this industry.
Morga's expression that the Spaniards "brought war to the gates of the Filipinos “is in marked
contrast with the word used by subsequent historians whenever recording Spain’s possessing
herself of a province, that she pacified it. Perhaps "to make peace “then meant the same as "to stir
up war." (This is a veiled allusion to the old Latin saying of Romans, often quoted by Spaniard's,
that they made a desert, calling it making peace. (Austin Craig).
Magellan's transferring from the service of his own king to employment under the King of Spain,
according to historic documents, was because the Portuguese King had refused to grant him the
raise in salary which he asked.
Now it is known that Magellan was mistaken when he represented to the King of Spain that the
Molucca Islands were within the limits assigned by the Pope to the Spaniards. But through this
error and the inaccuracy of the nautical instruments of that time, the Philippines did not fall into the
hands of the Portuguese.
Cebu, which Morga calls "The City of the Most Holy Name of Jesus," was at first called "The village of
San Miguel."
The image of the Holy Child of Cebu, which many religious writers believed was brought to Cebu by
the angels, was in fact given by the worthy Italian chronicler of Magellan's expedition, the Chevalier
Pigafetta, to the Cebuano queen.
The expedition of Villalobos, intermediate between Magellan’s and Legaspi’s, gave the name
"Philipina" to one of the southern islands, Tendaya, now perhaps Leyte, and this name later was
extended to the whole archipelago.
Of the native Manila rulers at the coming of the Spaniards, Raja Soliman was called "Rahang
mura”, or young king, in distinction from the old king, "Rahang matanda". Historians have
confused these personages. The native fort at the mouth ofthe Pasig river, which Morga speaks of as
equipped with brass lantakas and artillery of larger caliber, had its ramparts reenforced with
thick hardwood posts such as the Tagalogs used for their houses and called "harigues", or
"haligui".
Morga has evidently confused the pacific coming of Legaspi with the attack of Goiti and Salcedo, as
to date. According to other historians it was in 1570 that Manila was burned, and with it a great
plant for manufacturing artillery. Goiti did not take possession of the city but withdrew to
Cavite and afterwards to Panay, which makes one suspicious of his alleged victory. As to the day of
the date, the Spaniards then, having come following the course of the sun, were some
sixteen hours later than Europe. This condition continued till the end of the year 1844,
when the 31st of December was by special arrangement among the authorities dropped
from the calendar for that year. Accordingly Legaspi did not arrive in Manila on the 19th but on the
20th of May and consequently it was not on the festival of Santa Potenciana but on San Baudelio’s
day. The same mistake was made with reference to the other early events still wrongly
commemorated, like San Andres' day for the repulse of the Chinese corsair Li Ma-hong.
Though not mentioned by Morga, the Cebuano aided the Spaniards in their expedition
against Manila, for which reason they were long exempted from tribute. The southern islands, the
Bisayas, were also called "The Land of the Painted People (or Pintados, in Spanish)" because the
natives had their bodies decorated with tracings made with fire, somewhat like tattooing. The
Spaniards retained the native name for the new capital of the archipelago, a little changed, however,
for the Tagalogs had called their city "Maynila."

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Reference:
Neri, IC and Sion, PG G. (2021). The Life and Works of Rizal. Retrieved from
https://www.studocu.com/ph/document/university-of-rizal-system/life-and-works-of-rizal/
chapter-6-annotation-of-antonio-morgas-sucesos-de-las-islas-filipinas/20844768