The Indolence of the Filipino People

“The Indolence of the Filipino People”
Summary
On the first chapter, it primarily deals with the admittance of Rizal that indolence does exist to Filipinos and he also pointed out reasons why it existed. Rizal also elucidate that the term indolence was greatly altered in the sense of no love or little love for work. In the Philippines, Rizal pointed out that the disaster, hardships, and weakness of the others are blamed to the indolence of the Filipino. Rizal agreed that laziness has been present to the lives of the natives. It has always been a battle between natives and the climate, native versus nature and natives versus natives. But despite this laziness and how natives battled with some factors of it, Rizal stated that it should have positive effects. The indolence of the native does not causes backwardness and misfortune but it is actually the effect of misfortune and backwardness. Rizal compared the climate of the Philippines to the European countries. He said that hot and humid climate in the country could be a reasonable rationalization for the indolence of the Filipinos. Unlike those European countries, which has cold climates and need to exert more strength to work, it is not correct for the Philippines to be compared to them. He even pointed out that an hour work under the scorching heat of the sun in our country is equivalent to a day work in temperate countries.
The second chapter of this article, Rizal labelled indolence as a chronic disease. He said that if a disease is given a wrong treatment, then it would also follow that the disease will aggravate. In the case of indolence, the Filipinos should not be defeated in combating this malady. In this chapter, Rizal argued that the natives were engaged in trade and commerce even before the Spaniards came. This was even first noticed by Pigefatta when they arrived in the country in 1521 with Magellan. The involvement of natives in buying and selling and other industrial activities disproves the belief that Filipinos are indolent. Rizal ended this chapter with a question on what have caused the natives to completely forget their fertile past.
The main ideas being discussed by Rizal in chapter three are the reasons that could have caused the native’s culture and economy dissolution. There have been existences of frequent war, pirate attacks and invasion that lead to chaos among the natives. As a result, massive destruction of local areas was felt by the people. Aside from it, many natives were pulled out from their daily industrial activities and was sent to Spain for expeditions (natives were the one who is rowing the big ships of Spaniards) or to fight in battles. Some natives were put on forced labour in building ships of the Spaniards. Those native who has suffered too much and was able to escape the dilemma, fled to the upper lands. As a result, the once fertile and toiled land were abandoned and left barren. These scenarios presented are just few of good reasons that could have explained that there are deep rooted causes of the indolence of the Filipinos.
Rizal pointed out in the fourth chapter that Filipinos who are not masters of liberty is not responsible for its misfortunes and anguish. The trade industry in the country died due to how the country was governed by the Spaniards. There has been pirate attacks and lack of funding from the government which were too much burden to the farmers. Encomenderos abused the natives which made them abandon the fields. The corrupt officials and friars have found way in easy money and they monopolized the trade. The government even tolerated gambling. The situations of the country were compounded by the Church’s off beam dogma. It has been emphasized by the church that being rich is a sin and this leads to wrong mind-set towards work. Natives were discriminated and were not given proper education.
The last chapter solely emphasized on two factors that causes indolence. These two factors are the poor and limited education or training of the natives and the lack of national sentiment of unity among the people. It has been known that there have been discriminations among Spanish and the natives. Spaniards thought that the natives are of inferior race and thus does not need to have same opportunities as the foreigners. Since it has already been inculcated in the minds of the Filipinos are inferior, they easily surrender to foreign culture and would try their very best to be part of it by imitating other cultures. Many proposed ways on how to combat indolence. The government imposed higher taxes but this futile solution resulted into an increase number of thieves and criminals. With these factors being analyzed by Rizal, he said that the only solution to this is liberty and education. Rizal stressed that through education, the natives will be intelligent enough to be separated from the colonizers or questions and asked for their rights that they are worthy of.