GEC Rizal Lesson 6: Emerging Nationalism PDF

HOLY NAME UNIVERSITY College of Arts and Sciences J.A Clarin St., Tagbilaran City GEC RIZAL: The Life and Works of Rizal Lesson 6: Emerging Nationalism Outcomes: To manifest respect and reverence for the achievements, ideas and ideals of Rizal esp...

HOLY NAME UNIVERSITY College of Arts and Sciences J.A Clarin St., Tagbilaran City GEC RIZAL: The Life and Works of Rizal Lesson 6: Emerging Nationalism Outcomes: To manifest respect and reverence for the achievements, ideas and ideals of Rizal especially through his writing and relate the issues raised in the novels to the changing landscape of the contemporary world. Learning Targets: a. Examine the causes and effects of the Cavite Mutiny; and b. Explain the conflict between the Filipino secular priests and the Spanish regular priests. Concept Notes: I. DISCUSSION When Rizal published El Filibusterismo in 1891, he dedicated the book to the three martyred priests, Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora. In his dedication, he wrote: I have the right to dedicate my work to you as victims of the evil which I undertake to combat. And while we await expectantly upon Spain some day to restore your good name and cease to be answerable for your death, let these pages serve as a tardy wreath of dried leaves over your unknown tombs, and let it be understood that every one who without clear proofs attack your memory stains his hands in your blood! Although Rizal was only 10 years old when the three priests were executed, the events of 1972 would play a decisive role in shaping Rizal’s ideas and decisions. II. CAVITE MUTINY On January 20, 1872, approximately 250 Filipino soldiers and workers rose in revolt at an arsenal in Cavite. Eleven Spaniards were killed during the mutiny, but an immediate assault led by government forces put an end to the uprising after three days. An oft-cited reason for the mutiny was a decree released by Governor- General Rafael de Izquierdo. The decree ordered that the arsenal workers would no longer be exempt from the tributo and polo, a privilege they had enjoyed in the past. Official accounts, however, argued that the revolt was part of a larger movement with the aim of overthrowing the Spanish government and asserting independence. Official reports also claimed that the leaders of the mutiny had expected the support of close to 2,000 men from regiments based both in Cavite and in Manila. The plan was to begin the revolt after midnight in Manila with rebels setting fires in Tondo to distract the authorities. A signal by way of fireworks would then be sent to the rebels in Cavite who would then lay siege to the arsenal. In reality, however, the mutiny in Cavite began earlier in the evening and many of those who pledged support defected and vowed loyalty to Spain. Ultimately, the mutiny failed and the Spanish government used the incident as a means to suppress the increasing calls for a more liberal administration. Among those who clamored for reforms were Filipino secular priests. To understand how the Filipino secular priests became involved in the Cavite Mutiny of 1872, a brief historical background on missionary efforts in the Philippines shall first be discussed. III. SECULARIZATION MOVEMENT The introduction and the strengthening of the Catholic faith were largely through the efforts of two types of clergy: the regular priests and the secular priests. The regular clergy, whose jurisdiction fell on their elected prelates, were better prepared for missionary work because of their standards of discipline and asceticism. Their job, then, was to introduce the faith, convert the natives, and establish religious communities. In the Philippines, five religious orders took on this task: the Augustinians who arrived in 1565, the Discalced Franciscans who arrived in 1578, the Jesuits who arrived in 1581, the Dominicans who arrived in 1587, and the Augustinian Recollects who arrived in 1606. The secular clergy, on the other hand, were priests who "live in the world.” They were under the authority of bishops and not members of a religious order. Their primary task was the management of the religious communities and ideally, the continuation of the work already laid down by the regular clergy. In other words, while it was the task of the regular clergy to introduce the faith and establish religious communities, the management of the parishes themselves was left to the secular priests. The missionary efforts in the Philippines, however, presented a unique case. In other Spanish colonies, well-established parishes witnessed the replacement of regular clergy by secular priests in the management of the religious communities. In the Philippines, the regular clergy remained administrators of the parishes well into the nineteenth century. Two issues were particularly contentious among the clergy in the Philippines. The first issue had to do with episcopal visitations. An omnimoda bull passed by Pope Adrian VI in 1522 allowed the regulars to administer the sacraments and act as parish priests independent from the authority of the local bishop. This bull, however, conflicted with reforms established in the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which declared that no priest could care for the souls of laymen unless they were subjected to episcopal authority that often came in the form of visitations. Although King Philip II was granted discretionary power to enforce the reforms in the Philippines, the regular clergy often thwarted their implementation. The regular clergy argued that if they allowed the visitations to occur, the congregation would be subjected to two sources of authority, the bishop and the provincial superiors, who may, at some point, issue conflicting orders. By refusing the episcopal visitations, they hoped to avoid the possibility of violating their vows of obedience to their own superiors. Serious attempts to enforce the visitations, however, were often countered by the regular clergy who abused their authority by resigning from their posts and leaving the parishes unattended. This type of situation was especially disastrous in the early stages of Christianization when the paucity of secular priests often forced the government to give in to the wishes of the regular clergy. The second issue had to do with the management of the parishes. Regular priests maintained control over the parishes in the early stages of Christianization out of necessity because of the scarcity of secular priests to whom the parishes would be passed on. However, beginning in the late seventeenth century, efforts were intensified to produce and train Filipino secular priests that by the nineteenth century, they constituted an increasingly significant number. Despite this, the regular clergy usually contested, if not outright refused, the rights of the secular clergy to the parishes. One reason provided by the regulars was that the Philippines still remained an active mission, en viva conquista espiritual, with some groups not yet Christianized. They would, therefore, argue that the Filipinos were not ready to be turned over to the secular clergy. Another reason was more economic in nature with the regulars refusing to give up the parishes that generated large profits for them. However, an overwhelming reason why the regulars refused to give up the parishes had to do with their view that the Filipino secular clergy were unqualified and incompetent. Even worse, some viewed the seculars as potential leaders of any future separatist movement. The secular clergy would react strongly to these claims. In the mid- nineteenth century, Fr. Mariano Gomez, parish priest of Bacoor, and Fr. Pedro Pelaez, secretary to the archbishop, drew up expositions to the government on behalf of the secular clergy, but their efforts proved futile. The struggle eventually took on a different tone towards the 1860s as the issue of secularization was no longer limited to questions of merit and competence. By 1864, the nature of the issue became one of racial equality as well. At the forefront of this struggle to gain equality between Spanish and Filipino priests was Fr. Jose Burgos. IV. EXECUTION OF GOMEZ, BURGOS, AND ZAMORA As a result of the revolt in Cavite, several priests and laymen were arrested on the orders of Governor-General Izquierdo. Among the priests arrested in the succeeding days were Fathers Jose Burgos, Jacinto Zamora, Jose Guevara, Mariano Gomez, Feliciano Gomez, Mariano Sevilla, Bartolome Serra, Miguel de Laza, Justo Guazon, Vicente del Rosario, Pedro Dandan, and Anacleto Desiderio. Among the laymen were lawyers and businessmen: Gervacio Sanchez, Pedro Carillo, Maxime Inocencio, Balbino Mauricio, Ramon Maurente, Maximo Paterno, and Jose Basa. These Filipinos were sentenced to varying terms of exile in Guam. The three priests, Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, on the other hand, were condemned to death by garrote on February 15, 1872. A French writer-journalist named Edmund Plauchut gave an account of the execution: Late in the night of the 15th of February 1872, a Spanish court martial found three secular priests, Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomez and Jacinto Zamora, guilty of treason as the instigators of a mutiny in the Cavite navy- yard a month before, and sentenced them to death. The judgment of the court martial was read to the priests in Fort Santiago early the next morning and they were told it would be executed the following day... Upon hearing the sentence, Burgos broke into sobs, Zamora lost his mind  and never recovered, and only Gomez listened impassively, an old man accustomed to the thought of death. When dawn broke on the 17th of February, there were almost forty thousand of Filipinos (who came from as far as Bulacan, Pampanga, Cavite and Laguna) surrounding the four platforms where the three priests and the man whose testimony had convicted them, a former artilleryman called Saldua, would die. The three priests followed Saldua: Burgos "weeping like a child,” Zamora with vacant eyes, and Gomez's head held high, blessing the Filipinos who knelt at his feet. heads bared and praying. He was next to die. When his confessor, a Recollect friar, exhorted him loudly to accept his fate, he replied: "Father, I know that not a leaf falls to ground but by the will of God. Since He wills that I should die here, His holy will be done." Zamora went up the scaffold without a word and delivered his body to the executioner; his mind had already left it. Burgos was the last, a refinement of cruelty that compelled him to watch the death of his companions. He seated himself on the iron rest and then sprang up crying: “But what crime have I committed? Is it possible that I should die like this? My God, is there no justice on earth?" A dozen friars surrounded him and pressed him down again upon the seat of the garrote, pleading with him to die a Christian death. He obeyed but, feeling his arms tied round the fatal post, protested once again: “But I am innocent!" “So was Jesus Christ,” said one of the friars. At this Burgos resigned himself. The executioner knelt at his feet and asked his forgiveness. "I forgive you, my son. Do your duty.” And it was done. Although the public execution of the three priests was meant to instill fear in the Filipinos, it had the opposite effect. In his La Revolucion Filipina, Apolinario Mabini stated: The friars wanted to make an example of Burgos and his companions so that the Filipinos should be afraid to go against them from then on. But that patent injustice, that official crime, aroused not fear but hatred of the friars and of the regime that supported them, and a profound sympathy and sorrow for the victims. This sorrow worked a miracle: it made the Filipinos realize their condition for the first time. Conscious of pain, and thus conscious of life, they asked themselves what kind of a life they lived. The awakening was painful, and working to stay alive more painful still, but one must live. How? They did not know, and the desire to know, the anxiety to learn, overwhelmed and took possession of the youth of the Philippines. The curtain of ignorance woven diligently for centuries was rent at last: fiat lux, let there be light, would not be long in coming, the dawn of a new day was nearing