The Indolence of the Filipinos

This article authored by Jose Rizal, our national hero, served as a springboard to express his deepest sentiments and to show his great concern about his fellow Filipino citizens being considered as indolent by Spaniards during their regime in the Philippines. In this said article, he revealed about his viewpoint if indolence was really manifested in the lives of the Filipinos or just a sort of a destructive criticism. Rizal then in his very keen mind with his broader scope of observation and deep kind of realization made up a great revelation in this literary work if he would agree or not with the Spaniards about the ‘indolent’ term they used to call the Filipinos. Glad that I have read this work of Rizal because this really adds to my limited knowledge about the picture of life that the Filipinos had before and during the Spanish colonization in the country. This also grabs my attention as it included the countries who were involved in money-making with the Filipinos, being capable to produce goods and services that were in demand in the market world in the past regardless of their simple status in life. I am also impressed about their knowledge about hierarchical government system before and how the native Filipino people lived a very fruitful, peaceful and harmonious life before Spanish regime 

I have bunch of things I can agree with this Rizal’s literary piece. First, Rizal wanted to impress the idea that Spaniards were the true indolent during their rule in the Philippines. I was very hurt with the fact that the Spanish authorities were so abusive to the wealth and possessions owned by the Filipinos. During the Spanish era, as Rizal mentioned in his article that they just spent few hours of work, received money with less effort, and had been too much dependent to Filipinos to earn their living. They were lazy to think and act what they ought to. 

Another thing I have agreement with in this article is the thought that if the Filipinos then became indolent, the Spanish authorities were to be blamed. The Spaniards were the ones who taught the Filipinos not to strive more. Even in the area of education, they didn’t give the Filipinos a chance to learn more because of their fear that the Filipinos could overpower them. In this article, it also included the fact that Filipinos in the Pre-Spanish era had knowledge already how to tilt a land and to produce crops suitable for the climate. Filipinos then had never been taught about that and they had just learned it by themselves and together with their hard work too they had produced a lot of crops, so why then Spaniards called them indolent? The third thing I agree with this article is that indolence grew more in the lives of the Filipinos because of the crookedness and instability of the Spanish governance, their maltreatment among the Filipinos, exercising racial discrimination to brown-skinned Filipinos, and not granting them rights to cultivate their God-given potentials, talents, and abilities. Instead, the Spaniards became selfish of their powers and greatly impacted a malady of indolence to the Filipino people under their oppressive powers. 

Due to this article, my mind is stirred up and my heart is greatly overwhelmed about the past condition of the Filipinos before. This literary work of Rizal serves as an eye-opener to me and that now I have learned to be more thankful for the liberty that the government has been granted to me at this present time. I highly recommend this article to be read by every Filipino because it could make you aware what had happened in the past and for us to look back where we had come from. As we look back upon the wounds in the past being inflicted to our Filipino forefathers who had experienced Spanish brutality, let us rather choose to see the good side of that certain event. Let us lay aside all the negatives we had in the past and foresee the positives that lie ahead in front of us, as we can learn to move on and move forward to a brighter future.

~ S.M.T.A (2015)