Amain Namin: The Propagandist Depictions of Spanish Friars in the Late 19th-Century Philippines
Kas 195 Research Paper
Abstract
The image of a typical Spanish friar — glutton, abusive, racist, hypocritical, lustful, power-hungry, and greedy — will forever be etched in the Filipino consciousness, thanks to the long-lasting legacy of anti-friar campaigns by Filipino propagandists. The popular caricatures, for instance, of characters like Rizal’s Padre Dámaso and Lopez-Jaena’s Fray Botod, not to mention the humorous anti-friar slanders of Del Pilar, all had significant contributions to the legacy of Spanish friars being tarnished in Philippine history. However, this brings us to the question of why the Filipino propagandists felt the need to conduct these character assassinations and what underlying historical factors led to it. This paper aims to examine the characterization of friars in selected anti-friar literature written by Filipino propagandists and utilize other primary and secondary sources to corroborate their claims.
Keywords: Friars, Religious Orders, Frailocracy, Propaganda Movement, Liberalism
The Monastic Supremacy Begins
The missionaries of religious orders worked alongside the conquistadors to establish and maintain the overseas colonies of the Spanish Empire, including the Philippines. Sponsored by the King of Spain through the patronato real (royal patronage) bestowed by the Pope, the friars made it their ultimate mission to convert the soul of every native to the Catholic faith. They viewed their mission as a “spiritual conquest of the minds and hearts of the natives” which was “a supplement to, and the ultimate justification for, the military conquest,” as John Leddy Phelan phrased it.
At the arrival of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi in 1565, the missionaries from the Augustinian order started the conversion campaigns in the archipelago. Through the years, other religious orders followed with the arrival of the Franciscans in 1578, the Jesuits in 1581, the Dominicans in 1587, and the Augustinian Recollects in 1606.
The primary job of the regular clergymen was the baptism of new converts while maintaining the parishes and conducting church services was primarily supposed to lie on the secular clergy, who do not belong to any religious order. At least that was the norm in much of the Spanish Empire, but not however in the Philippines. The shortage of secular priests in the islands left the friars no choice but also to become the cura paroccos of each church in the provinces. There were only around 60 secular priests present in the Philippines by 1655, compared to regular clergy which had 254. So the Pope had to temporarily exempt the friars in the Philippines from their monastic vows to properly carry out their parochial duties, only for the meantime until sufficient secular priests become available to take them over.
The responsibility of the friars inside the pueblos extended beyond the confines of their parishes. They also had to collect taxes, educate the natives, manage hospitals and charities, and preside over government and civil positions. They also select the members of the police force and approve the selection of the next gobernadorcillos and cabezas de barangay, making sure that only those who were loyal to the parish friars would be put in office. Considering the shortage of Spanish presence in the archipelago, it was worth noting that in most Philippine rural areas and pueblos, the parish friars were the only Spaniards present, which explains why they had to accomplish tasks beyond their pastoral duties. However, carrying this much responsibility also meant wielding great power among the inhabitants of the islands.
In his letter to King Philip IV of Spain in 1621, Governor-General Alonso Fajardo de Tenza described how the friars made the indios perceive them as their protectors and “powerful lords in both spiritual and temporal matters.” Aside from the fact that they had a monopoly on the educational and spiritual fates of the natives, benefits under the mandate of the patronato real including land grants and legal immunities were received by the regular clergy which won their favor to the King of Spain. King Felipe II utilized his royal patronage status to the Church to divide the archipelago into ecclesiastical territories, with Augustinians acquiring lands in most of Luzon, Panay, and Cebu, Franciscans the Laguna-Camarines area, Jesuits in Cavite, Mindanao, and some Visayan islands, and Dominicans the Northwestern Luzon area in Bataan, Pangasinan, and Zambales. As soon as they started to have the ability to acquire lands, the friars became the most powerful landlords in the Philippines.
The privileges that they enjoyed and the versatile roles that they played in their parishes and local governments made them essential and irreplaceable to the point that the Philippines without the presence of the friars would have been impossible and unthinkable, and the friars were well aware of this. José Labo, a Spanish Dominican friar, once remarked that the friars were the foundation of Spanish sovereignty and that if removed, the whole empire would be toppled. Therefore it wasn’t a surprise that some members of the regular clergy exploited the system for the sake of enriching themselves, violating their sacred monastic vows of poverty.
Reports of friar abuses in the Philippines were written by some Spanish officials who bitterly denounced the constant meddling of the religious orders in government affairs. As early as 1598, Spanish oidor and chronicler Antonio de Morga wrote his “Report on the Condition in the Philippines,” where he accused the friars of being an “evil example” to the natives “through their vices, indecent behavior, gambling, banquets, and festivities,” as well as usurping royal jurisdiction, employing natives more than needed through forced labor, demanding excess fees for baptisms, weddings, and funerals, requiring the natives to donate a third of their wealth to the monasteries, and treating them cruelly “just as if they were slaves or dogs.”
Reports of power-tripping by the members of religious orders were not uncommon among other Spanish officials even in the 18th century. Spanish fiscal Francisco Leandro de Viana recounted to King Charles III in a letter on May 1, 1767, how among the indios “the father ministers possess an absolute power and dominion, which compels them to endure or perform whatever the fathers command them,” and how “the entire secular government of these provinces remains at the disposal and pleasure of the curas of doctrinas.” Another charge that he said was about the friars doing everything in their power to prevent the natives from learning Spanish to keep them ignorant and thus evading investigations from law enforcement and continue their despotism among indios.
On the other hand, former Governor-General Simon de Anda–a known anti-friar–wrote a memorial in 1768, detailing an extensive report on the abuses committed by Spaniards in power in the Philippines, most of which were accusations against the friars. Aside from the unwillingness of the friars to turn over their parishes to the secular clergy, Anda noted that:
“…el mayor ascenso que logra un clérigo suelto en Filipinas es ser criado, ó teniente de los Padres, de que se sigue abundar estos en tantas riquezas en comun y particular, y aquel padecer de necesidad…” […the greatest promotion which an unemployed secular obtains in the Philippines is to be the servant or deputy of the fathers. Thence it results that the latter abound in so great wealth, collectively and singly, and the former suffer from necessity…] (emphasis added)
He also claimed that there was an alliance of corruption between the oidors of Real Audencia and the friars. This was further corroborated by the 1790 memorial of Governor-General Felix Berenguer de Marquina, saying that during his administration, the clergy and the Audencia worked side by side on ruling the islands with the latter using violence and the former using superstition, both to instill fear among the natives. But not all the time the government and the church were in unison when it came to committing corruption and abuses, as whenever colonial officials tried to clash against the friars, it was the latter who often emerged victorious in their power struggle.
Some measures from the Spanish crown were made in an attempt to remedy the abuses and scandals of the friars throughout the empire. For instance, in Law 28 found in Volume 1 Book 1 Title 14 of the Recopilacion de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias, King Philip III made the following ordinance of expelling corrupt friars:
“Ordenamos á Gobernador y Capitan General de las Islas Filipinas, que habiendo en ellas algunos Religiosos, que vivan con mucho escándalo, y no conforme á su Instituto, Habito y Profesion, y otros expulsos de sus Religiones, que los Provinciales no puedan echar de aquella Provincia por la dificultad embarcarlos á México, acuda al remedio de esto, siendo necesario, y como mas convenga al servicio de Dios nuestro Señor, de manera que no queden semejantes Religiosos en aquellas partes.” [We order our governor and captain-general of the Philippine Islands that if there are any religious there who live in great scandal, and not according to their rules, habit, and profession, and others who have been expelled from their orders, whom the provincials cannot drive from that province because of the difficulty of embarking them for México, that he hasten to remedy this, as is necessary and as is most fitting to the service of God, our Lord, so that such religious may not remain in those parts.] (emphasis added)
But these laws were not followed in the Philippines most of the time, as some governors-general tolerated friar abuses and interference to the government, and those who attempted to subvert their power experienced tragic fates. Two great examples of this were the cases of Governors-General Diego Salcedo and Fernando Bustamente. Salcedo was overthrown in a coup and sent in chains to Mexico through the Inquisition after investigating the corruption of friars and merchants in Manila. On the other hand, Bustamante’s political clash with Archbishop Francisco dela Cuesta caused the latter to order his excommunication and eventually led to his assassination at the hands of the archbishop’s supporters in 1719, who were furious for arresting Dela Cuesta for protecting wanted corrupt officials inside the Manila Cathedral. Though most likely not the mastermind behind the governor’s murder, Dela Cuesta greatly benefited from his assassination. The archbishop later took over Bustamante’s position as the acting governor, making him the first clergyman to hold the highest office in the Philippines.
All of the examples of friar abuse abovementioned demonstrate that the same grievances of the Filipino propagandists against the regular clergymen already manifested from the multiple testimonies of various Spanish officials ever since the first two centuries of Spanish colonization, though not meant to deny the abuses of Spanish colonial officials to the indios and the measures other benevolent friars made to protect the natives from these abuses. What Marcelo H. Del Pilar described as the soberanía monacal or monastic supremacy was about to take a new shape in the 19th-century Philippines further exacerbated by the issue of Secularization and the rise of liberal and masonic thought. These eventually became one of the primary motivators of the proponents of the Propaganda Movement that led them to conduct their character assassinations against the Spanish friars.
Crafting the Evil Friar’s Image
The friar was the most feared and respected figure by almost everyone in the archipelago, Spaniards, Creoles, and natives alike. After all, they were the ultimate arbiters of everybody’s fate in the afterlife and the moral compasses of the whole Philippine society under Spanish colonial control. This level of utmost reverence was where the clergy mainly derived their almost omnipresent grip on the most vital institutions. As a result, almost nobody–except some higher Spanish officials–dared to openly speak up against their excesses, making the whole ecclesiastical institution virtually immune to criticism and accountability.
Governor-General Marquina once predicted in his letter to King Charles IV in 1790 that the power of the clergy “will continue as it is until the coming of another class of Europeans who will bring other ideas and will not permit . . . . the continuance of the practices of the church. The development of the natives, coming in contact with outside ideas, will do much to cause the overthrow of the superstition.” He later turned out to be correct.
Though the gradual resentment of some natives towards their friar landlords was already present through numerous small-scale rebellions, no one, however, had permanently damaged the reputation of the friars quite like the Filipino propagandists and their liberal allies in the late 19th century. For the first two centuries of Spanish rule, documents of anti-friar grievances only came from the high colonial officials writing reports and letters addressed to the King and the Council of Indies, requesting help to remedy the situation. However such exposition of the extent of monastic dominance to the public wasn’t done until the rise of the Propaganda Movement in the 1880s.
One of the first documented cases of protests done against the friars occurred inside the University of Santo Tomas in October 1869. Anonymous leaflets inside classrooms criticize the lack of respect of their Dominican friar professors as well as demand academic freedom and racial equality between Filipinos and Spaniards. Its suspected author, a known openly political student and member of Juventud Escolar Liberal Felipe Buencamino was arrested by the authorities for suspicions of inciting rebellion.
But these leaflets, though containing criticisms against the friars, weren’t openly anti-friar by nature. The first Filipino native who conducted a definitive character assassination against the Spanish friars was the Ilonggo-born propagandist Graciano Lopez-Jaena through his satirical work Fray Botod. Lopez-Jaena had supposedly written this pamphlet anonymously as early as 1874 when he was 18 years old. It was not published at that time but nevertheless circulated among the people of his town in Jaro, Iloilo that the friars and government officials tried to hunt down its author but failed. However, Lopez-Jaena included Fray Botod in the publication of his Discursos y Artículos Varios in Barcelona in 1891.
“Botod” is a Hiligaynon word that means “big-bellied,” making the name meant to be a pejorative term against the friars who, in the eyes of Lopez-Jaena, were always hungry literally and figuratively. As for the customs of Fray Botod, he described the particular friar as:
“Comilón más que Heliogábalo; usurero, peor que un prestamista judío; mujeriego con sultanescas hazañas. Por remate: tiene todo lo que quiere, goza hasta la bestialidad. En resumen: si el insigne Zolá le describiera, diría de él poco más o menos: Fr. Botod es un cerdo bien cebado, que come, bebe, duerme, y no piensa en nada más que en satisfacer sus apetitos carnales en sus varias manifestaciones.” [A glutton more than Heliogabalus; a usurer, worse than a Jewish moneylender; a womanizer with exploits like a sultan. Most of all: he has everything that he wants, he enjoys it to the point of bestiality. In conclusion: if the great Zolá would describe him, he would say about him more or less: Fr. Botod is a well-fattened pig, that eats, drinks, sleeps, and does not think of anything more than to satisfy his carnal appetites in their various manifestations.] (emphasis added)
This becomes a common recurring theme among how the propagandists characterized friars: greedy, gluttonous, prideful, envious, lustful, wrathful, and slothful — completing the Seven Deadly Sins while simultaneously preaching to the crowd against it. By the time Lopez-Jaena arrived in Madrid, he continued writing anti-friar tracts, case in point, was an article that he wrote in 1884 about the grip of the regular clergymen in local government institutions:
“…vive cual un verdadero señor feudal: ni reconoce otra autoridad anterior y superior a la suya, ni allí manda el gobernadorcillo, ni cualquier otro munícipe más que él; y así como despótica y tiránicamente impera, bárbara y cruelmente castiga, si no se sus mandatos…” […he lives like a true feudal lord: he recognizes no other authority above or below him, nor does the gobernadorcillo give orders there, nor any other municipal authority except himself; and as he commands despotically and tyrannically, so he punishes cruelly and barbarously if his commands are not executed…] (emphasis added)
But Lopez-Jaena’s fellow propagandist in Madrid, José Rizal, took a different approach to expressing his grievances against the friars through his 1887 novel Noli Me Tangere, aiming to display the current socio-political situation of the Philippines during his time where the fates of the people were dependent on the whims of the clergymen. It was his depiction of the antagonists Padre Dámaso Verdolagas and Padre Bernardo Salvi and the character of Filosofo Tasio spouting anti-Catholic and heretical opinions that got the ire of some friars in Manila, namely Fr. Salvador Font and Fr. José Rodriguez. Not only did Fr. Font attempt to censor the novel, but he also published a pamphlet detailing all of the attacks that Rizal had made against Spanish institutions, especially the church.
Meanwhile, a more popular pamphlet against Rizal’s Noli called Caiñgat Cayo sa Mañga Masasamang Libro,t Casulatan was published in 1888 by the Augustinian friar Fr. Rodriguez, detailing guidelines that dictated what kind of books were permitted or prohibited to be read by the public, and violation of his declaration meant excommunication, or worse, eternal damnation. Its main highlight however was its vicious attack against Rizal for publishing his novel, calling him a fool and traitor to Spain and the Catholic Church:
Bucod pa sa siya,i, [Rizal] tampalasan, ay hañgal pa naman sa madlang bagay; sapagca,t, cun siyasatin ang pagcagaua nang nasabing libro,i, isip ninyong hindi ang camay nang may bait na tauo, cundi ang paa nang isang mangmang ang isinulat noon; at halos sa lahat nang fojas ay mapagmamalas na ang gumaua,i, hang̃al na hang̃al sa paghahanay nang masanghayang pananalita, lalong lalo na sa uicang castila; ang totoong tang̃ing matatanghal doon ang sino man ay ang isang sucab at tacsil na pagcapoot niya sa ating santa Religión at sa España.
Rizal wrote short anti-friar tracts as a rebuttal to both Fr. Font and Fr. Rodriguez in 1889. In his La Visión de Fray Rodriguez, St. Augustine scolded the friar after the saint’s name was tarnished among the hosts of heaven because of Rodriguez’s foolish writings, and God himself renounced him for using His name in vain. In the end, the Augustinian friar was condemned to continue creating nonsensical writing so that he would become the world’s laughingstock. The other one, Por Teléfono, was about a telephone call between Madrid and Manila where the main character Salvadorcito Tont–a deliberate play on words to Fr. Salvador Font’s name and the Spanish word tonto meaning fool–was berated by his superior for accepting a hacienda for the Augustinians, violating their monastic vows against wealth and pride.
However, among all of the Filipino propagandists, it was Marcelo H. Del Pilar who was the most active in the campaign to destroy the prestige of the friars, primarily focusing in his hometown in Bulacan. Well aware of the power of rhetoric and satire to catch the attention of the natives, Del Pilar cleverly parodied common Catholic prayers as his method of exposing religious hypocrisy among the friars in his pamphlet Dasalan at Tocsohan which he distributed among the people of Malolos outside the churches. One of the parodies there was Amain Namin which was clearly inspired by the Lord’s Prayer:
Amain námin, sumasaconvento ka, sumpain ang ngalan mo, malayó sa amin ang kasakiman mo, quitlin ang liíg mo dito sa lupa para nang sa langit. Saulan mo cami ngayon nang aming kaning iyong inarao-arao at patauanin mo kami sa iyong pag-ungal para nang pag taua mo kung kami nacucualtahan; at huag mo kaming ipahintulot sa iyong manunukso at iadya mo kami sa masama mong dilá. Siya naua.
Dasalan at Tocsohan paints a full caricature of the friar that was further highlighted in the parodied version of the Ten Commandments, where the friar commands everyone to love him above all things, to not dare to defraud him of his fees, to not covet the friar’s woman, to let him fornicate with one’s wife, to not deny him one’s purse, among other commandments. For Del Pilar, the regular clergymen were the embodiment of evil in the Philippines who used the name of God and Jesus for the sake of enriching themselves, even to the point of cursing them in one of his poems Pasiong Dapat Ipag-alab nang Puso nang Tauong Babasa:
Fraile iyong matatamó
hirap, sákit sa infierno,
hunghang, masakim na tauo,
sa apoy mo ibobontó
pagdaya kay Jesucristo.
Considering all of this anti-friar literature, this brings up the question as to what their main objective was in writing all of them. Why was there a need to destroy the reputation of the regular clergymen to their audiences both in Spain and the Philippines?
Unveiling the Propaganda
Simply put, the propagandists perceived the friars as the main hindrance to the socio-political reforms in the Philippines that they long requested from the Spanish government, thus making them the ideal target for their smearing campaigns. For them, the friars were the face of medieval backwardness and everything wrong in Filipino society, as they fought tooth and nail with any attempts to introduce liberal reforms in the colony, as well as enforcing censorship against anti-friar writings. This was because the history of late 18th century Europe demonstrates that they have everything to worry about in these kinds of subversive literature.
Before the French Revolution, anticlerical works of Enlightenment philosophers like Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Diderot proliferated in France, criticizing and mocking the excesses of the friars in the court of Louis XVI. The liberals in 19th century Spain during the Carlist Wars displayed their anticlerical sentiments by destroying church properties and murdering clergymen. Since the propagandists were surely inspired by these European political developments, the friars in the Philippines feared that they would be the next primary target of an impending revolution, explaining their vitriolic reaction to Filipino liberalism.
Perhaps the biggest example of the friars resisting progress in the Philippines was the issue of secularization, which was the permanent transfer of the parishes from the religious orders to the secular clergy. For its advocates like Fr. Pedro Pelaez and his protégé Fr. José Burgos, the friars’ issue with secularizing parishes wasn’t limited to perceiving the secular clergymen–who were mostly composed of Filipino natives–as ill-trained and incapable of parochial management, but because they could not tolerate the thought of “inferior races” taking them over. After all, as previously mentioned, most of these secular priests were reduced to being mere personal servants and auxiliaries of the friars. The friars’ vehement opposition to secularization only goes to show their unwillingness to let go of something that produces immense privilege for them.
Other manifestations of anti-progress stances of the regular clergy were seen in the propagandists’ complaints on the state of education in the islands. Specifically, they claimed that the friars were causing the natives to be intellectually stagnant and submissive by preaching about blind obedience to the Church as a moral virtue and declaring critical thinking as heretical and subversive. In Rizal’s 1889 letter to the young women of Malolos, he praised the efforts of these women to build their own school despite friar opposition and reminded them the importance of thinking for oneself rather than blindly following the whims of the clergymen who were acting like gods:
Napagkilala din ninyo na dí kabaitan ang pagkamasunurin sa ano mang pita at hiling ñg nagdidiosdiosan, kundi ang pagsunod sa katampata’t matuid, sapagka’t ang bulag na pagsunod ay siyang pinagmumulan ñg likong paguutos, at sa bagay na ito’y pawang nagkakasala. Dí masasabi ñg punó ó parí na sila lamang ang mananagot ñg maling utos; binigyan ñg Dios ang bawat isa ñg sariling isip at sariling loob, upang ding mapagkilala ang likó at tapat; paraparang inianak ñg walang tanikalá, kundí malayá, at sa loob at kalulua’y walang makasusupil, bakit kayá ipaaalipin mo sa iba ang marañgal at malayang pagiisip? (emphasis added)
Perceiving the ultra-conservative friars as antithetical to the Propaganda Movement’s advocacy of spreading rational thought through education and reforming government policies that promote equal rights to every Filipino, there was only one answer for the propagandists on what should be done to the clergy who stand in their way of demanding socio-political reforms to Spain: their expulsion from the Philippines. One manifestation of the desire of Filipinos to expel the friars happened on March 1, 1888. Led by Doroteo Cortés and allegedly supported by Del Pilar and José A. Ramos in secret, a group of gobernadorcillos in Manila and other nearby provinces supposedly conducted a signature campaign for an anti-friar petition and gathered together to protest the expulsion of Manila Archbishop Pedro Payo and all of the friars in the archipelago. But the propagandists’ aspiration of stripping the religious orders of their power didn’t come until the arrival of the Americans when they were left with no choice but to sell most of their friar lands to the newly formed American insular government and Filipino elites.
Regarding the veracity of the anti-friar charges, the religious orders obviously dismissed them as mere disrespectful slanders. In a memorial written by the representatives of all religious orders to King Alfonso XIII in 1898, they asked “…where are those abuses, those excesses, those vices, those outrages, of which their [propagandists’ and revolutionaries’] mouths are so full, and which furnish them matter for their speeches of a demagogical club of the rabble?” The American Dominican friar Ambrose Coleman in 1899, on the other hand, addressed the charges made by Filipinos against the clergymen in the Philippines, saying that “grossest calumnies” and “the foulest lies were industriously circulated to lower their prestige and bring about a downfall of that spiritual power they had justly acquired and were exercising for the good of souls.”
To establish a nuanced common ground between the pro-friar and anti-friar accounts, some things must be straightened out. While it was true that the religious orders (except the Franciscans) owned tracts of land that were used as one of the sources of their wealth, it must be noted that most of the profit that they generated from the agricultural revenue of these lands was used for building schools and churches, as well as funding huge ecclesiastical activities. Contrary to propagandist claims of ubiquitous corruption and excesses committed by Spanish friars, American journalist Stephen Bonsal noted:
The management of the Monastic Orders was careful and in some respects thrifty. They had to be self-supporting or their missions would collapse. Rarely a penny reached them from Spain, and their tithes seem to have been paid largely in chickens and eggs. Their property all remained in the Philippines, only an incredibly small sum being sent annually to Spain to bear a part of the expense of the young friars who were being educated for the Philippine missions, and to support the invalided and superannuated brethren who had gone back to Spain. (emphasis added)
This doesn’t mean however that the claims of propagandists like Rizal, Del Pilar, and Lopez-Jaena were completely false or libelous since they were depicting situations in the Philippines under the friars, with some of those situations they experienced firsthand. But because their primary goal was to show the Spanish government how the Philippines was in dire need of socio-political reforms, forms of exaggerations to make the situation seem worse were made. It only goes to show that beyond perceiving the Spanish colonial period as being dominated by Padre Dámasos and Fray Botods, a reassessment of the friar’s legacy in Philippine history has to be made.
Conclusion
The friars’ failure to keep up with and come to terms with the ideological changes both in Europe and in the Philippines was what ultimately caused the Filipino propagandists and revolutionaries to oppose them. But the next question now would be if the anti-friar campaign of the Propaganda Movement became successful, and there is no definitive answer for that. On the aspect of weakening the influence of the friars on the colonial government, the propagandists’ efforts were proven to be futile. Because if anything, the anti-friar campaigns only strengthened the conviction of the government that the friars were necessary to preserve the sovereignty of Spain thus the need to preserve the prestige of the religious orders.
The church and the state may had a rough patch during the first two centuries of Spanish rule, but because of the influx of liberal ideas that caused the loss of their colonies in Latin America during the 19th century, Spanish conservatives felt the need to prevent it from happening in the Philippines–their remaining colony alongside Cuba, Guam, and Puerto Rico–and the friars’ powerful influence over people proved to help ensure the loyalty of the natives to Spain.
But on the aspect of damaging the reputation of the friars to the natives, it was somewhat of a qualified success. Identifying the friars as the enemy helped the Filipinos awaken their sense of unity. The trajectory of the Propaganda Movement itself was primarily influenced by its proponents’ vitriolic hatred toward the friars, so much so that it ultimately molded the development of Filipino nationalist consciousness, as Vicente Rafael points out. By the 1890s, anti-friar sentiments became ubiquitous among Filipino natives who were compelled to join the Masonry and Katipunan, and this anticlerical hatred became one of the drivers of the impending 1896 Philippine Revolution.
The legacy of the Spanish friars still lingers in Filipino society up to this day. Despite the existence of the concept of church-state separation, the Catholic Church remains a vital institution in Philippine politics, and it still plays a role in hindering progressive social reforms that for them contradict their religious teachings. But at the same time, the church still serves as the moral conscience of the nation, guiding Filipinos into a better path, despite the ecclesiastical institution still being flawed and in dire need of improvement.
Regardless of propagandists committing exaggerations in their depictions of friars in their satirical works — though they certainly did — the whole point of their anti-friar campaign was to topple the monastic supremacy that they perceived to be the root cause of the stagnation of 19th-century Philippine society. Their pamphlets, satires, parodies, novels, and journal articles were written to convey larger historical and societal truths: that the centuries-long exploitative colonial system of the Spanish crown and the monastic orders had resulted in the suffering of their fellow Filipinos and radical changes must be implemented. How we view the friars and their impactful role in Philippine colonial history reflects how we desire to view our past.
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Passed on January 10, 2024.
