WHENCE CAME THE PROPAGANDA?

25

- ...,
__~,::.~;
., ,, ' ,
We show we are aware of this by accepting Burgos as a "precursor" of
the propagandists and revolutionaries. Did the Propaganda then begin around
the 1870s? Does the Word spring up with Burgos? But even as we ponder the
.
~.,(

question, behind Burgos rises the mysterious figure of Father Pelaez, already,
MARCELO H. DEL PILAR before 1872, a propagandist, and in the 1880 sense of the term. Burgos was his
August 30, 1850-July 4, 1896 diaciple. Therefore Burgos, too, is already in mid-stream. The Propaganda goes
b1ack still farther, to Father Pelaez, and beyond. And as we push back, the
bumbling detectives of history, we begin to comprehend the course of the
movement- a movement that has had its ups and downs, its floods and pauses,
its recoils and deviations, but which yet remains, throughout its career, instantly
identifiable, all its branches traceable to a more or less definite source.
Whence came the Propaganda?
Tentatively, one would trace it back to the last decade of the 18th
century, to the group of Creole writers who first imported to the islands the
ideas of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution: Manuel Zumalde,
Luis Rodriguez Varela, Jose Javier de Torres, and (but he comes later) Pedro
2 Whence Came The Propaganda? Pelaez. Like the writers of the succeeding fin-de-siecle, these pioneer pro-
pagandists were anti-friar and anti-Peninsular but advocated, as did their
successors, not separation from Spain but assimilation, not revolt but reform.
And the reforms they demanded are familiar: secularization of the parishes;
no friars; hispanization of the country; better schools; more participation in

The Word, as in Scriptures, was in the beginning. But when was the t
the government; representation in the Cortes. The ideas of the later Propa-
ganda are already here in embryo and would need merely development and
beginning? Whence sprang the Word that created th e Nation? ·f intensification.
Was the Propaganda of the '80s and '90s the beginning? Was it the Word? In Luis Rodriguez Varela, especially- the "Conde Filipino" - there is so
Th.is is the usual view. And Del Pilar, Lopez-Jaena, and Rizal are accepted as the much linkage to the later propagandists that he it is who can most truly be called
creators of the nationalist movement, as the "first Filipinos." But were they the precursor of Philippine nationalism. If this initial phase of the Propaganda
starting or continuing a movement? Were they not, rather, crowning a tradition? has a climax it's the publication in 1809 of Rodriguez Varela's Proc/ama historial-
Was the Propaganda limited to the final two decades of the last century, or did the first book, noted Spaniards, in which a Philippine Creole styled himself a
it antedate the first issue of Lt Solida,idad, the first edition of Noli Me Tangere, Filipino. Philippine Creoles were reftmd lo in Spain and America as Filipinos,
the first pamphlets of Del Pilar? but they themselves called each other Spaniards and were thus designated in
Th.is is not to confuse the Propaganda with the series of native revolts official documents. Rodriguez Varela was the first to call himself a Filipino -
that extend right back to the days of the Conquista. What our history enshrines and in print yet! - and the first to use that term in a nationalistic spirit.
as the Propaganda is a definite sophisticated movement, conducted with pen The movement he and his colleagues launched seems to have been ef-
and word, seeking reform, preaching enlightenment, spreading nationalist ideas. fective enough to put the friars on the defensive. By the beginning of the 19th
But this movement is older and larger than the Propaganda we know, for this century the friars were already publishing gratuitous apologias to justify their
m~~ementgoes back farther than 1880, when Del Pilar began his propagandist presence in the Philippines; and in their replies to Rodriguez Varela appear the
acttvtnes.
first really vicious reflections on the character of the Indio.
 MARCELO H. DEL PILA!l
WHENCE CAME THE PROPAGANDA? 27
26

. of a propaganda movement at the mercial expansion.

But what explams the emergence . hR .
·ous reason 1s the Frenc evolution This golden age that crowns the Spanish effort spa,ns a century: from
fh18h tury:>Themostov b l . . .
end o t e _t_ c~n · b I d to the European world It was inevitable 1785, when the Real Compaiiia de Filipinas started setting economic forces in
s·mce the.Philippines then e onge .
di would sooner or later reach the islands motion, to the 1880s, when the cultural flowering of those forces became
that the ideas of the Encyc1ope a . .
aken by the cataclysm In Europe. Rodnguez evident in a Del Pilar, a Rizal, a Juan Luna, a Mabini. The chief value of the Real
and that the coIony wouId b e sh
Varela and Andres Bonifacio, though a centmy apart, were moved by ~e Compafua -:,vas a~ stimulant to new industries - for ex.ample, silk, cotton, spices,
'd Th h =•er a more immediate local reason: an econorruc indigo, and the manufacture of textiles and dyes. By the first half of the 19th
same ti e. ere was, ow... , ,
century the various regions were enjoying simultaneous booms in their respec-
boom in the islands. . tive crops: tobacco and indigo in the Ilocos, rice in the Central Plain, sugar in
The common belief is that Philippine insurgency was a reaction to
Pampanga, copra in Laguna, coffee in Batangas, copra and abaca in Bicolandia,
misery. The economic facts indicate the reverse. An insurgent intellectua~ move-
sugar in the Visayas.
ment appeared precisely during an era of peace, progress and prospenty; and
The rapid swell of the boom may be seen in the indigo trade. This
those three P's generated a fourth: the Propaganda. For the last decades of the
industry started from scratch in the mid-1780s, fostered by an Augustinian
18th century saw the start of a boom period in the country greater than that
friar and a Manila merchant By 1786 it was shipping 140 quintals of indigo (a
during the early days of the Galleon trade (when the friar chroniclers were
quintal is 100 kilos) to Spain; only two years later the shipments had doubled.
describing Manila as "the Tyre and Sidon of the Orient"). From the last part of
Sugar was being exported at the rate of 30,000 piculs in the 1780s;
the 18th century through most of the 19th , the Philippines was an Affluent
shipments rose to 146,661 piculs in the 1840s, had quadrupled by mid-century.
Society: we were even exporting rice. Indeed, if the insurgency was a reaction
Hemp exports swelled from 83,790 piCllls in 1840 to 412,502 piculs in 1858. In
to misery, then the Revolution should have exploded in, say, Samar or Leyte, the
1859 Iloilo shipped 9,344 piculs of sugar abroad and 77,488 piCllls to Manila.
most miserable areas in the country then as now. But, no, the Revolution
A decade later Iloilo sugar was being shipped at the rate of 170,000 piculs
exploded precisely in the country's most affluent region: the Tagalog and
abroad and 80,000 piCllls to Manila. In 1857 the Pangasinan port of Sual sent
Pampango provinces. It's easy to see why. People become less and less willing
225 shiploads of rice to Manila and exported 12 shiploads of rice to mainland
to_swallow _slights as they become more and more wealthy and cultured. A
Asia. Three years later Sual was exporting 60 shiploads of rice to the mainland
Rizal born In a mansion and educated in Europe is not going to kowtow to and sending 172 shiploads to Manila - staggering figures to our day of rice
some ignorant small-town curate.
shortages!
N The Negro revolution exploded in the United States not when the The local economy had changed radically - from entrepot, when we
co:~rs:;ys tthhc ve~ bottofm _of society but only now that he is on the rise. And were merely shipping, on the Galleons, other countries' products, to producer
, e racism o his maste b .
inferior Negro b . rs ecame Intensest when the supposedly and exporter of our own goods. And there was already an awareness that the
egan gomg to college b · . .
stylish suburbs and P • h ' econung a professional, movmg to agricultural boom should not result in a colonial economy. The C\llture of silk
' rovmg e could do an th ' th .
same thing happened in th Phili' . Y mg e white man does. The and cotton, for instance, was fostered to insure raw materials for the newly
• . e ppmes. As the ec · b alth established textile factories, so we would be exporting not raw but finished
into Indio hands the Incli d . onotruc oom poured we
• ' 0 turne tnto a sen ii products. Within the first three decades of the 19th century the value of Philip-
Sparuard; and the shabbier Sp . d th or, an ustrado, an equal of the
• aruar s erefore h d · · • pine exports jumped from P500,000 to P2,674,220, and the country's_popula-
o f thc Indio at a time when th di a to ms1st on the inferiortty
· e 1n o was pr · him tion doubled. No wonder the alarmed friars - alarmed because they saw their
superior to the Spaniard. ovmg self equal or even
day ending- execrated the new rich of this golden age, both Creole and Indio,
. Commerce
. and culture
are supposed tO b .
Ia tter 1s child to the former (the Ii e an apathetic· actually the as "bestiCIS cargadas de oro " - animals loaded with gold. .
. . ~ t y ~ ~ - Of ' For wealth bred insolence, the insolence of grandeur. From these tunes
m proportJon to the quantity of its tr d ) t an Athens or a Venice is
· h' a e and th p date those grand houses we now fight to preserve, and those magnificent churches
pm cs, w ich was a cultural movem . e ropaganda in the Philip-
ent, owed Its vit Ii
a ty to an age of com-
 MARCELO H. DEL Pi¼
28 WHENCE CAME THE PROPAGANDA?
29

which graphed a town's progress by the continuous elevation of th~ facadci.

Pe~s~lars; he had been made a knight of the Order of Carlos III, the only
The new rich ofBatangas were said to wuh thctr hands 10 gold~ bas10s and to Philippine Creole to be admitted to that order, whi·ch dcman ds patents o f
shod their feet in golden slippers studded with diamon~ !n Manila, the wolllen nobility. .In 1795 the climber almost reached a room at th e top: the court gazette
of the arrabal of Sta. Cruz took to wearing a fortune 10 Jewels whenever they
of Ma~d announced that he was being made a count. Though the royal order
marched in the October procession of their patroness. And now came dona for this was never issued, Rodriguez Varda from then on always used the title
from Spain to marry heiresses in the Philippines. Rizal catches the social picture of Conde Filipino.
in his novels: Dona Victorina married to a Peninsubr; Maria Clara courted by At the two extremes of the Propaganda movement stands a snob _
another. And a Simoun corrupting society with fabulous gems. The Philippines Rodriguez Varela at the beginning, and Pedro Paterno (who also aspired to
had, after all, turned into the fabled Indies the conquistador sought. becorrung a count or duke or something) at the other end. But behind the
Whence came the Propaganda? snobbery is a common desire to exalt the race and to put the Filipino on equal
From gilded soil footing with the Spaniard.
Haciendas rose and spread as the Creole, no longer dependent on the The propaganda activities of Rodriguez Varela begin all of a sudden in
Galleons, turned to the land, to produce for export; and with economic inde, 1799, when he published a series of three books: Ano Domtki, Siglo I/111/mtki, and
pendence came the craving for political power. There were heroic forerunners Fin di la m1ll1ria - all dealing with the libertarian ideas of the Enlightenment and
to invoke: Espcleta, who occupied the two highest positions in the coun try and all anathema to the friars. He was on the side of the French Revolution until its
defied the Peninsulan to unseat him; and Anda, who held the country against capture by Bonaparte, against whom he wrote Proclama hiJtorial (1809), which
the British, with no help from Spain, and founded a virtually independent called on " Filipinos" to unite and prepare for a possible clash with the forces
government As the economic boom dttw more and more fortune-huntm of the E mperor. The book was passed by the state censor with the notation
from Spain the Philippine Creole bristled with resentment. The Propaganda that it was a " tc,timony of the author's patriotic zeal."
about to erupt And toward the end of the 18th century the first inswgent In 1810 he was commissioned by the City of Manila to compose the
voices were heard MM!ud Zumaldc penned L, Basroana, a blistering attack instructions to Ventura de los Reyes, who was to represent the Philippines in the
on Governor-General Buco. Jose Javier de Torres, a secular priest, issued a Spanish Cortes. These Instructions are Rodriguez Varda's most serious work,
"Collccbon of 50 Satires." And in 1790 commenced the writing career of Liis for they embody the plan of reforms then advocated by the propagandists. In
Rodrigue2 Varela, who proudly styled himself not only a Filipino but a Conde the Instructions, he asked for the opening of free schools for the poor (to be
Filipino! run no t by the friars but by the Esculapian hrothers) and the establishment of
colleges of pharmacy, mathematics and navigation. He asked for more Spanish
immigration, bur on a selective basis, and (ma secret codicil) advised that Chi-
From The Conde ... nese immigrantt be limited to agriculturists. Most significant of all, he asked that
marriages between Spaniah males and native girls be encouraged, by providing
the couples with state aid He may have thought this the quickest way to hispanize
He was born in Manila on February 13, 1768, and was sent to stud)' the islands and increase the power of the Creole class.
in France, where he fell under the influence of the Encyclopedists. On his rel\ltll At the time of the Instructions he seems to have been governor of
to the Philippines he wu appointed 'Vf,lo,- p,rp,1"" (permanent councilman) aome province and to be already engaged in political activities not favorable to
and alf"'Z. rraJ of the Ayunwniento de Manila. D espite his French ideas be doct the government. In 1813 he published G/oriaJ di fupana .J Fi/ipi"_"1 and P_"'1tt1Jo
not seem to have been a radical u a young man. On the accession to the Filipino, the latter a collection of his verses. In the prologue to this collccuon he
Spaniah throne of Carloa Iv, Rodriguez Varda organized the state celebratioll defended the new liberal con,titution of Spain and proclaimed his profusdy
in Manila, during which he recited his Vfflea. They~ ridiculed by Spaniardl nationalistic political ideas. This drew an attack from the friars_on_the abili~cs of
as inept TWo years later, in 1792, the young Creole could spit back at the the Indio, who had been granted equal righu by the nc:w consntuuon. Rodriguez
 MARCELO H. DEL PILA~
30
WHENCE CAME THE PROPAGANDA/
31
Varela replied with Di.rcurso Apologetiro, in defense of the Filipino. A short while
later, he - and several of his fellow propagandists - were ~emoved from he was from a position of power - but for an act of God. On June 3 1863
government office. However, he persisted in his activities, helping_to set up, in during the great Corpus Christi earthquake, Father Pelaez, the man wh~ could
1820, the Sociedad Economica de Amigos del Pais, which did its bit m swelling have been the second Filipino archbishop of Manila, perished when his cathe-
the economic boom. But the forces of reaction returned to power and in 1823 dral came tumbling down over his head. One can imagine the friars chuckling
Rodriguez Varela and a group of insurgent Creoles were deported to Spain as tha_t the Creole upstart had ~vited the wrath of God. He left two bulky manu-
subversives. scnpts: his Sermone.r (which his admirers in Spain published in 1864) and a disser-
The effect of this on Rodriguez Varela presaged the sad fate of the tation on "Canonical and Theological Problems."
Creole revolution. In Spain he renounced his radical ideas, indited a most reac- Hi_s best legacy is, of course, Burgos - and the "separatist plot" of
tionary poem to a duke, and urged the Absolute King to send more friars to 1872, which more or less ended the Creole revolution. It's melancholy to
the Philippines. This gained him a pardon and the right to return to his native ponder the aftermath. The noon of that movement was the administration
land, where he died. But his end was not entirely ignominious. Though he had of Governor-General Carlos de la Torre (1869-71) when the liberals were
held high office (he had also been corregidor and captain of Tondo) it was in such high gear they seem to have launched their own "religious persecu-
found at his death that he was penniless, with no hacienda to leave to his son~ tion" o f clerical partisans. But after the execution of Burgos, the Creole
He had managed to stay honest in a time of rampant opportunism. movement simply collapsed. One reason for this was the wholesale depor-
The movement he started was carried on during the middle decades of ta tion of liberals; but even those who escaped this fate - like the Zobels
the century by the most prominent Creole families of the country: the Palmeros, and Palmeros - apparently lost their militancy. The Pardo de Taveras and
Zobels, Pardo de Taveras, Garchitorenas, and Regidors; and produced a the Regidors have an even sadder ending, in the style set by Rodriguez
second key figure in Father Pelaez, the man who might have pushed through Varela.
the secularization of the clergy but for an earthquake. The Pardo de Taveras are represented in the 1860s by Joaquin, a fiscal
Pedro Pelaez was born on June 29, 1812, in La Laguna, of a Spanish o f the Audiencia, councilman of Manila, and a liberal: he organized the
father and a naave mother. His father was alcalde-mayor, or governor, of welcome for De La Torre. Implicated in the Cavite revolt, he was exiled to
Laguna. Orphaned when young, he_was granted a scholarship by the University the Marianas. This seems to have broken his spirit. \Vhen he was pardoned
tSanto Tomas, where he disW1gu1shed himself as a brilliant theologian. After two years later, Joaquin Pardo de Tavera renounced politics and retreated to
cmg ordamed pnest, he taught philosophy at the Colegio de San J ose· then Paris. The next generation of his family was represented by Trinidad Pardo
de Tavera, who began by building up native pride with his studies on Philip-
· d da canon of. the Manil. a Ca th edral· H e was one o f the founders of
Sbecame ' the
;o~da_ !conoffilca de Amigos del Pais, along with Rodriguez Varela which pine pre-history. But when the Revolution broke out he opted to remain
s o m cate the trend of the canon's thought. ' fa ithful to Spain - though he was faithful only in his fashion. First he joined
On the death of the archbish O f M nil p the Spanish army; then he joined Malol-.>s; then he joined the Americans -
tical vicar and th h Id . · op a a, elaez was elected ecclesias· until finally he seems to have been on nobody's side at all.
u~ e episcopal powers during the first years of the 1860s. He
came out openly m favor of secul ·. . As for the Regidors, they showed even less staying power. The family
clergy To push th p anzaaon a nd became the idol of the native
· e cause, e1aez comp d th D was founded by Cristobal Regidor, who, in i808, introduced smallpox vacci-
friars ' right to occupy P • h Th · ose e_ ocumenlos, a brief against the nation in the Philippines. Two of lfis descendants, Manuel and Antonio Maria,
ans es. e extent of hi f d da
movement in the 1860 b · s ame an of the propagan figure in the propaganda movement. Manuel Regidor, frankly a radical, founded
s may e gauged b th fi
lished in Madrid at the f Y e act that Documenlos was pub- the Como de Espana (1868-70) to advocate the secularization of the Church in
' expense o the ca , cit .
church law, the friars were occupyin Ph;n s a rur_ers. Pelaez argued that, by the Philippines. During a liberal moment in Spain he was appointed to the
had transferred the struggle t g ppme panshes i/kgal!y, and since he Consultative Committee for Reforms in the Philippines, where he proposed
0 1ega1ground and h d
of the Council of Trent behind him h .' a canon law and the decrees "audacious radicalisms." He sought to defend the 1872 exiles to the Marianas,
' e ought have won that battle-fighting as was elected to the Cortes (for a Puerto Rican seat) but saw the Cortes dissolved
 MARCELO H. DEL PILAR
WHENCE CAME TiiE PROPAGANDA?
32 33

0
before he could propose more radicalisms. When we next hear ~ him he's fact. It was this easy self-confidence that made Fili'p;ft · S • ,:
. . u,OS 1n pain pre1er, as
still in Spain, lobbying against a Hong Kong bank with a branch m N.lanila. leader, the unself-consaous
, h . Del Pilar to the preachy,, rath ·
er puntaru·ca1 Riz. al .
The other Regidor, Antonio Maria, was a lawyer, a member of the Audiencia, D el Pi\. ar s egira to Spain in 1888 . marks a rurrun · · th p
g point: c ropa-
fiscal of an army court, councilman of Manila, and inspector of municipal gan da has shifted battlefield, from Manila to Madrid·, and th cs hifit1sana · d-
schools. (Ibis should give an idea of the government positions the Creoles vance. The earlier movement was local. But as the age of affluence unrolled the
did no t want wrested from them by the Peninsulars.) Accused in the Cavite Filipino got _the ncrv~ to appeal to higher and higher authority. The local friar
revolt, Antonio Maria Regidor was exiled to Guam, escaped from there on lost ".21~e as lnt~ediary. Why _g o to him when one could appeal directly to the
an American whaling ship. When the Revolution bro ke out he was all for it provmcial of his order in Manila? Or why appeal to the provincial when one
But when he returned to his native land in 1907 he was all for American could go straight to the archbishop? Or why bother with the clerics at all when
dominion, and public opinion turned savagely agains t him. Broken-h earted, one could see the Governor-General? For the new rich wielded enough power
he fled to Europe. to unlock the higher doors. The Peninsulars could not but notice that wealthy
Even in the literary fidd the Creole rtcord is depressing, The wtting hacendcros who came to Manila were received with respect and treated with
group of the 1790s had seemed to herald the birth of a literature; but the final ho nor by the heads of the great British and American commercial houses in the
flower of thaJ movement, a century bter, ts Manuel Lorenzo D ' Ayot, whom city. In 1887, Binondo gobemadorcillos smarting from a social slight marched
Spaniards found "atavistic," because he wrote moro- moros, which were never to the Palace and got the Governor-General to reaffirm their right, at public
staged He, too. left the Philippines in a huff, swearing never to return. functions, to be seated in the place of honor.
1:he _primal dram11 of the Propaganda nuy thus be divided into three Del Pilar, after spurring the principalia of Bulacan to petition the
acu: an 1rutial phllK dominated by Rodriguez Varela; 11 second phase repre- Governor- General to oust the friars, tops the enormity by sending a similar
sented by ~ather Pebez; and a third culmination in Burgos, which should petition to the Q ueen-Regent henelfl And the career of the Propllglflda fo.>m
have ended Ill armed revolt, but for the Creole's hamletian qualms. There's an 1888 on is a lobbying in Madrid to force action by Court, Cabinet, and Cortes.
interlude
· of uncuy
Wh q~t ' during which Rizal an d th e o th er h eroes of '96 arc H ow effective was the lobbying?
growing up. Del Pilar seems to have turned pessimistic toward the end and to have
from the l>hiJi m the Propaganda
S . we
Im
ow appears, the scene has shifted
leaned toward the more radical idelll of the Klltipunan. But the pessimism is
ppincs
Indio. Yet this · to • paJn • and the Icading roIc h II passed fro m C reole to
II not quuc accuntc. For Ill Muccio H dcl Pi! th . explicable as despair not over the value of the Propaganda but over the means
have become one. · ar e two s traJJlS to keep it going. He argued that LA So/idaridad should not be discontinued ~en
if a revolution bro ke out, since the Philippines would then have all tbe more
need for a voice in Madrid In other words, he saw revolution oot as a rupture
.. . To Plaridcl with Spain but as a sort of club with which to make Madrid list.en a11d act.
But bow successful was tbe Propaganda? Could it have achieved its
aims by campaigning - with the Word alone, not the Sword? Wu the Revolu-
In Del Pilar there's a confluence of the two streams o f the Propa· tion WUlCCCllaty?
ganda, as the very name of his newspaper. SoidaridaJ, attesta. There can now be Rizal cert2inly thought 10 : he called the Revolution "•~surd and
no talk of Creole and Indio, only of Filipinos; and in his own person Del Pilar inopportune." Mabini and his group certainly thought 10: they ttJCCte~ the
carries the synthesis. A Spanish lw#,a m-ruda dccontcs a man in whose veins Katipunan and act up the Cuerpo de Comprornisarios, which ·wu comrrutted
runs the bJood of the old Tagalog nobility. Bom into the gentry, he moves IS to rauing funds to "',,1;,,11, the Propaganda. Would they have done so if they
confidently in the cockpit He alone of the Propagandists possesses both Tag2- thought the Propaganda futile?
log and Spanish, far •urpusing Rizal in his mastery of both tongues. Rizal is siill But what Justified their faith? th · M drid ·
,!..e very rone tn a 11
The fact that the Propaganda h• d
- L-1
rcac;.m;u t"
aq;uing ahour the Filipino '• compctencc; Del Pilar has already accepted that as
 IVU"'-1'-'-&..'-- 1 I, VLL t'ILAr:t
34 WHENCE CAME THE PROPAGANDA?
3S

already an indication of its success. It had enlisted the sympathies of prominent

1101 asymbolic picture of ~e Propaganda in 1896. The Propaganda did Ml die
Spanish politicians like Morayta, Azcarrag-a, and Rafael Maria de Labra. And it
then. Quezon and the resident commissioners were but continuing the Propa-
could claim credit for tangible tokens of reform - the Maura Law, for instance,
which reorganized municipal governments in the Philippines and laid down
regulations for elections; the various tariff reforms; and the introduction of the
ro da Movement. It had merely shifted battlefield again, this time from Madrid
Washington, but it was still lobbying for the Filipino.
If the Propaganda goes back beyond 1880 on the one hand, it contin-
Civil, Penal, Criminal and Commercial Codes to replace the Laws of the Indies on the other hand, beyond 1896; and the postw; r nationalist movement
under which the islands had been ruled for three centuries. Normal schools (the ~;s,the 1950s was its !ates~ phase - _with ~e battle being fought again where
present Assumption Convent began as one) were being opened to train native the Conde Filipino began It: on native soil.
teachers in Spanish - the reply to the propagandists' demand for assimilation,
hispanization, and popular education. (The graduates of these normal schools
were to become the first teachers in the Americans' public schools.) All these
changes augured an inevitable general reform. Even the most vexing problem
of all - secularization and the friars - could have had only one solution, for the
temper in Madrid was increasingly anti-clerical. Time and the times were on the
side of the Propaganda.
But if it was succeeding, why did it lack for funds?
. Its very success could explain this. As reforms began to trickle in, the
nch folk~ the P~ppines may have believed that the battle was already won
and lost interest 10 the campaign. Remember: the Propaganda was being
fmanced by the wealthy, and by the wealthy during a time of boom when the
usual feeling is: Don't rock the boat! '
A second reason is dishonesty: funds intended 1cor th p d
emb I . ' e ropagan a were
ezz ed, and ~s further dampened the desire to contribute.
th p But the third reason is the golden age itself· The gild ed soil w h encecame
e ropaganda suffered a slight blight toward the end of th B b
Conung· d e century y e-
a pro ucer and exporter th Phili •
and bee b' . ' e ppmes had entered the global economy
ome su Ject to its shocks. Our curr .
when the Am · b . ency, for Instance, was silver- and
encans egan working the N d '
the 1870s the value of silver dr
in a mild ~flation. Moreover, in oi~~is;s ~a a and Colorado silver mines in
did the value of_our money, resulting
earthquakes and plagues. The kada kadathere was a senes of great typhoons,
Batangas, coconuts in the T~~I ng- ng appeared, and ruined coffee in
cc "IS"'og region. These calamiti did .
auect the boom, but the 1890 es not unmediately
.. . s were not as prosperou
res ul t, Philippme capitalists faced by th . fir " s.as, say, the 1850s. As a
to anance patnotlc · • ' etr st depress10 " b
causes, like the Pro . n, ecame less eager
econ · ,_,_ · Paganda. Econonucs e lain · ·
onucs exp=s its crisis. And the di on xp s its nse and
1890s hastened the Revolution. P the economic graph during the
Nevertheless the picture of poor Del Pilar d . .
ymg of hunger 10 a garret is