Maxine Joy C.

Juare BS Accountancy 1 G1
Reading in Philippine History

Lesson 3: THE PHILIPPINES: FACTS AND BACKGROUND

Self-Assessment:

1. Among the sectors aforementioned, which do you think is the

Philippines most competent for?
Answer:
I think the Philippines most competent sector is the Agriculture, forestry and
fishing because this sector is the major component of the Philippine
economy.

2. Discuss the sector and research about how such sector has improved
throughout the course of the Philippines History preferably before and
after the World War.
Answer:
Agriculture, forestry and fishing are the type of sector that Philippines can be
proud of. Having two seasons such as rainy seasons and dry seasons helps
our country rich in agriculture products for it can grow crops throughout the
year because of its rich and fertile soil. With a good environment, the country
was able to produce principal farm products such as sugarcane, rice,
coconuts, banana, corn (maize), and pineapples, various fibers, wide
varieties of vegetables and many more. These products contribute for about
8.82% gross domestic product (GDP) on the country. And since our country
is surrounded in sea, fishing has been one of the primary jobs of the country.
With involving around forty (40) percent Filipino workers and contributes for
about average of 20 percent of gross domestic product, we can certainly say
that this sector plays significant role in developing Philippine economy and
neglecting this sectors can worsened the poverty of rural places.

Agriculture, forestry and fishing before World war

Before 1521 (Pre-Spanish era)
 Blacksmithing and metalworking technologies, probably acquired from
Chinese traders, are used for making weapons, household metal wares, hand
tools and paraphernalia for fishing and rudimentary agriculture;
 Inhabitants thrive on hunting, fishing and little agriculture; natural resources
are abundant and more than enough for a small population of tribes sparsely
distributed throughout the archipelago;
 Ifugao rice terraces in the mountains of Luzon and cultivation techniques
have already been well-developed and sustained through the culture of the
Indigenous People since about 2,000 years ago

1521-1898 (Spanish colonial regime)

 Spaniards introduce single animal-drawn wooden plow with cast-iron
plowshare and moldboard, carabao (water buffalo)-drawn carts for
agricultural produce transport and horse-drawn calesas (carriage) for
personnel transport;
 Spaniards introduce processing technologies such as for making chocolate
tablets from cacao, concrete and wood construction technologies for
 structures such as churches and public buildings and blacksmithing such as
for horses a cart and carriage wheels, hand tools and plow accessories.

1902-1940 (American colonial regime)

 US military and investors first used three-wheel tractors in abaca (banana
fiber crop) plantations in Mindanao to produce cordage for maritime usage
and for export;
 US mechanization technologies transferred to Philippines such as the tractor-
powered stationary rice thresher - the "McCormick" thresher or "trilladora".

Agriculture, forestry and fishing after World war

1941-1945 (Japanese occupation, World War II

 Japan introduces household gadgets such as lamps, cooking appliances
 No technology transfer on agricultural mechanization as Japan also uses draft
animals in farm operations.

1950-1970
 President Elpidio. Quirino (1948-1953) pursues industrialization making
Philippine economy second only to Japan in Asia by early 1960s;
unfortunately, this pursuit was not sustained by the succeeding
administrations;
 Large grain silos for storage of paddy and corn are installed in Northern and
Central Luzon but turned out to be "white elephants" and later dismantled;
 Human and animal farm power sources are predominant; agricultural
mechanization and labor productivity levels are low;
 Small landholdings of up to 3 ha constitute 62.3 % of total farms in 1960;
 Four-wheel tractor sales are driven by credit programs and high sugar prices;
 IRRI is established in 1960 at the University of the Philippines College of
Agriculture campus, now UP Los Baños (UPLB); the green revolution starts;
IRRI develops IR8 or "miracle rice" in 1966;
 Hand tractors from Japan are introduced in early 1960s; Land-master tractor
from UK fits as workhorse for multiple cropping project by IRRI; •
 President Ferdinand Marcos (1965- 1986) builds infrastructures such as
roads, ports, dams for irrigation and power generation as foundation for
industrialization originally envisioned by President Quirino to support
agriculture.

1971-1980
 Agricultural Mechanization in Southeast Asia (now AMA) launches its maiden
issue -Spring 1971; IRRI Agricultural Engineering Department undertakes
the Small Farm Machinery Development Program under USAID grant; the
axial-flow thresher makes obsolete the traditional pedal drum and manual
threshing methods;
 President Marcos declares martial law; Masagana-99 rice program enables
export of rice; GO 47 strategy for corporate rice produc- tion fails; the
barangay as basic political unit is organized; Institution-building and
strengthening start: AMTEC in 1977; PhilRice in 1985; Philippines hosts the
Regional Network for Agricultural Machinery (RNAM) at UPLB with the
Agricultural Mechanization Development Program (AMDP) as country
counterpart, which advocates agricultural mechanization policy;
 First fuel crisis occurs in 1973 and a second one in 1979.
1981-1990
 IRRI-AED releases more designs of small farm machines and devices;
 UPLB-based RNAM actively conducts regional activities on agricultural
machinery and mechanization;
 SV Agro-industries in Iloilo develops floating power tiller; IRRI-AED modifies
it into hydrotiller; both designs are adopted by farmers;
 Delta Motor Corporation with technology backstopping of Toyota Motor
Corporation of Japan landmark manufactures 1,000 units of 10-hp diesel
engine, the first in Southeast Asia;
 People's Power Revolution in 1986 causes political turmoil and economic
downturn; cuts short the Marcos strategy of infrastructure development to
support industrialization which in turn was aimed at supporting agriculture.

1991-2000
 IRRI-AED releases design of the rice stripper-gatherer SG800 based on
stripper rotor technology developed by the UK Silsoe Research Institute;
 IRRI phases out design and development of rice production machinery and
focuses instead on postharvest technologies starting in late 1990s;
 PhilRice-Rice Engineering and Mechanization Division (REMD) and the Bureau
of Postharvest Research and Development (BPRE) sustain research,
development and extension (RDE) activities of rice production and
postharvest machinery;
 Functions of the Department of Agriculture and other government agencies
are devolved to local government units (LGUs)

2001-2016
 The Agriculture and Fisheries Mechanization (AFMech) Law is passed in 2013;
this landmark legislation now firms up the policy of modernizing Philippine
agriculture through agricultural mechanization;
 The Philippines starts deliberate shifting from labor-intensive and low labor-
productive farm operation methods to mechanized farming;
 PHilMech implements the Department of Agriculture's Rice Mechanization and
Postharvest Program (RMPP) for 2011-2016; promotes production and
postharvest machinery among Farmers' Associations on favourable
procurement terms;
 The Philippines imports some 200,000 single-cylinder gasoline and diesel
engines in 2013 alone (AMMDA, 2014) mostly from US, China, Thailand,
Indonesia and Vietnam;
 A new National Agro-fishery Mechanization Program (NAF-MP) is being
formulated by the Bureau of Agricultural and Fisheries Mechanization
Engineering (BAFE);
 Level of mechanization is still low with work animals still the predominant
power source for small landholdings, which have presently increased in
number, further reduced in size and been widely scattered because of
partitioning among heirs, inter-regional marriages, land reform and
sale/conversion for non-agricultural uses.
 Small landholdings of up to 3 ha constitute 88.4% of total farms in 2012
 Power tillers are gradually replacing the carabao through increasing
availability of custom hire services, but not as rapidly as desired because of
high prices of imported engines
 Imported four-wheel tractors, rice transplanters and combines start getting
popular
 Foreign exchange remittances by overseas Filipino workers and professionals
slowing down due to Middle East crisis, low fossil fuel prices and economic
growth rate slowdown - may affect importation of agricultural power and
machinery
 Killer typhoon Haiyan or Yolanda devastates Leyte, Samar and other
Northern Visayan provinces killing some 10,000 people (unofficial estimate)
in 2013 Beyond 2016 The following are some issues to consider in the
formulation of agricultural mechanization policies and strategies:
 Deliberate pursuit of national industrialization to support agriculture;
 National Agro-fisheries Mechanization Program (NAFMP) to continue
distributing power and machinery which are "Made not in the Philippines?"
 Local manufacture of engines; development of renewable and environment
friendly farming technologies;
 RDE on technologies for land levelling and precision agriculture, automation
and robotics but not to neglect the classic designs for transition from
traditional to high-tech agricultural mechanization;
 Overhaul of polices and laws for farmland inheritance, land forming and
terracing for soil and water conservation as well as for agricultural
mechanization;
 Building of infrastructures for irrigation and drainage, transport (roads,
railways, cableways and ports) for efficient agricultural mechanization; and
 Other issues that may crop up.

References:
 Plecher, H., (2020). Philippines: Share of economic sectors in the gross
domestic product (GDP) from 2009 to 2019. Retrieved from
https://www.statista.com/statistics/578787/share-of-economic-sectors-
in-the-gdp-in-philippines/

 [Agriculture]. (n.d). Retrieved from

http://www.fao.org/3/ae946e/ae946e03.htm

 Lantin, R.M., (2016). Agricultural mechanization in the Philippines, Part I:

Brief history. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305165185_Agricultural_mech
anization_in_the_Philippines_Part_I_Brief_history
3. Research an interesting fact/fun fact of our history.
Answer:

 The Philippines was the first country in Southeast Asia to gain independence
after World War II, in 1945.
 President Elpidio Quirino helped save the lives of almost 6,000 “White
Russians.”
 In 1942, almost 16 million pieces of silver coins were dumped near
Corregidor. Some of it remains unretrieved.
 A Belgian king almost bought the Philippines from Spain.
 During the Philippine-American War, an African Američan soldier named
David Fagen defected to the Filipino army and joined in their rebellion against
US colonial rule.
 Jesus Quevenco, a Ferdinand Marcos look-alike, doubled for the late
president
during many occasions.
 A statue in Mabalacat, Pampanga was built to honor the first Japanese
kamikaze pilots of World War II.
 The University of Santo Tomas is older than Harvard and calculus.
 Jaz Cola, a beverage produced by The Coca- Cola Company, was specifically
made for Filipinos in the Visayas.
 Aluling Bridge in llocos Sur took six Philippine presidents and almost four
decades to complete.
 The scientific name of the Sulu Gollumshark-Gollum suluensis—is named
after Gollum of the Lord of the Rings and Sulu, a sea in the southwestern
area of the Philippines.
 The first documented same-sex marriage in the Philippines happened in 2005
between two New People Army (NPA) guerrillas known as "Ka Jose" and "Ka
Andres."
 President Ramon Magsaysay was a WWII hero who helped free Zambales
from the Japanese invaders in 1945. He is NOT buried at the Libingan ng
mga Bayani.
 Batanes is the only region in the country with a "winter" season
 Long before Skype and FaceTime, there was the videophone" invented by a
Filipino engineer in the 1950s
 The Baclayon Church in Bohol was built using coral stones and egg white.
 Ramon Magsaysay was the first Philippine president in history to swear on
the bible and wear "Barong Tagalog" during inauguration.
 Girls, not boys, played the first basketball game in the Philippines.
 Pedro Gil LRT station was named after a Filipino physician, journalist, and
legislator who worked for the reduction of public utility rates (such as those
charged by Meralco) in Manila.
 There's an app that lets you send and receive text messages in "baybayin."
According to its developer, the "Baybayin SMS lets you send and receive SMS
text messages in baybayin
 The original "barrel man" was created by Ifugao woodcarvers as an indirect
protest against the American colonizers
 The silhouette on the PBA logo is the legendary Filipino basketball player,
Robert "The Big J" Jaworski.
 Baybayin, not alibata, is the correct term for our ancient writing script.
  A group of Filipino men who helped start the yoyo" craze in the US in the
1930s.
 Most people didn't smile in old pictures due to long exposure time and
because they considered portrait photography as a formal once-in-a-lifetime
event.
 Anacleto Enriquez was a Katipunero from Bulacan known for his codename
"Matanglawin" or "Hawkeye." Greatly admired by General Goyo, Enriquez
died in a battle at San Rafael church that was so gruesome the
 A Filipino dwarf became a famous figure in 19th-century Britain.
 Karaoke: popularised by a Filipino
 The Philippines are named after King Philip II of Spain.
 The Philippine, or monkey-eating, eagle is the largest of all eagles and was
declared the national bird of the Philippines in 1985.
 The rice terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras are a UNESCO World Heritage
Site. The terraces were built about 2,000 years ago and — thanks to the
rough terrain keeping settlers out — remain as they would have been in pre-
colonial times.
 The world’s largest Christmas lantern was illuminated in San Fernando,
Pampanga on Dec. 24, 2002. The structure was 26.8 meters in diameter and
cost five million Philippine pesos.
 Emilio Aguinaldo designed the Philippine flag
 Marcela Agoncillo sewed the first flag of the Philippines
 A worn out flag shall not be thrown away
 There were three other martyr priests aside from “Gomburza.”
 The first American hero of World War II was killed in combat in the
Philippines.
 Philippines’ leper colony had its own “Leper Money. “
 Before martial law, there was the Colgante Bridge Tragedy.
 The Philippines almost became a colony of Germany.
 In 1965, a nuclear bomb fell into the Philippine Sea. It’s still missing.
 Juan Luna, a Filipino painter renowned for his prize-winning work
"Spoliarium," killed his wife and mother-in-law in a fit of rage.
 Major Archibald Butt, a military captain in the Philippines during the American
colonial period, died in the sinking of Titanic.

Reference:

 [8 Amazing Facts From Philippine History You Never Learned in School].

(2020). Retrieved from https://filipiknow.net/philippine-history-facts/

 [14 Fun Facts About The Philippines]. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.uniglobecarefreetravel.com/14-fun-facts-about-the-philippines

 Hananto, A., (2017). These 10 Facts About The Philippine Flag Might Surprise
You. Retrieved from https://seasia.co/2017/02/02/these-10-facts-about-the-
philippine-flag-might-surprise-you

 [70 Amazing Trivia and Facts About the Philippines that Will Blow Your Mind
(Part III)]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://filipiknow.net/amazing-pinoy-trivia-
part-iii/
 [70 Amazing Trivia and Facts About the Philippines that Will Blow Your
Mind]. (2019). https://filipiknow.net/amazing-pinoy-trivia/

 [70 Amazing Trivia and Facts About the Philippines that Will Blow Your Mind
(Part II)]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://filipiknow.net/amazing-pinoy-trivia-
part-ii/
 Lesson 4: THE PRE-COLONIAL PERIOD

Activity:

1. How does the past system of Government differ from our present
system?
Answer:
Past system government of the Philippines was composed by barangays and
under the leadership of a datu and accordind to Edleman, when the arrival of
Spaniards, barangays was retained however the hierarchy around
municipalities, cities, and provinces were created. This is controlled by
facilitated by a patron-client relationship between the Spanish and local
barangay headmen and local chiefs. Today, the barangay is the smallest unit
of government in the Philippines. Each barangay is headed by a barangay
captain and barangay assembly, each elected by the citizens of the
barangay. Consisting of nine members, the barangay assembly is composed
of seven council members plus the barangay captain and the chairperson of
the local barangay Youth Council.

In conclusion, our political system in the past was oligarchy government

where it based on power and wealth, if you are wealthy and powerful you
were able to control and rule people. However in today’s time we are
democratic where we conduct elections and the government officials were
base by the people’s vote.

2. Name/Research culture/traditions that is still being practiced today

despite the technology and the modernity that we have now.

Answer:

Despite of technology and modernity there are still many cultures and traditions in
the past that are still being practiced in today’s time and some of these are being
practiced by my family:

 Pagmamano
 Fiesta Celebrations
 Competitive karaoke
 Cockfighting
 Don’t go straight home after attending a wake
 Siblings should not marry within the same year
 Serve pancit (noodles) at celebrations, especially birthdays
 Pamamanhikan (Courtship)
 Be careful when showing fondness over babies
 The three-month Christmas
 Street parades
 The whole-neighborhood beach outing
 Family dinners at Jollibee
 Bayanihan
 Eating with Hands (Kamayn)
Reference:
 [6 Truly Unique Filipino Traditions]. (2017). Retrieved from
https://primer.com.ph/tips-guides/2019/07/07/6-truly-unique-filipino-
traditions/

 De La Cruz, E., (2017). 7 Traditions Only Filipinos Can Understand. Retrieved

from https://theculturetrip.com/asia/philippines/articles/7-traditions-only-
filipinos-can-understand/

 Escalona, K., (2018). 9 Superstitions Many Filipinos Still Believe. Retrieved

from https://theculturetrip.com/asia/philippines/articles/superstitions-and-
taboos-many-filipinos-still-believe-in/

3. Reflection:
A. Do you think it would be better for the country to have not been colonized at
all? Reasons.
Answer:
No, because without colonization then these beliefs and practices that we
have today would be gone. Yeah, colonization is not that great especially in
the Spanish era for many of our Filipino’s ancestors were being harassed and
belittled. But if the Spaniards, Americans, and any other countries did not
colonized us then I believed we would be left behind. Because these
colonizers introduced us in many different things such as religions, if
Spaniards did not introduced Roman Catholic to us then probably we Filipinos
would be Islam or Buddhist and I think if that happens then we would not be
called Filipinos at all because first of all Philippines was named after King
Philip II of Spain so if Spaniards did not colonized us then it would not be
called Philippines right? Also being Roman Catholic is what Filipinos are
known for. And with the help of colonization we Filipinos were introduced on
education system, imagine if we were not introduced and influence with the
education system from our Spaniards and US colonizers then we Filipinos will
not be able to compete globally and we will not be well known as English
Speaking nation on Asia. Colonizers had a profound effect in shaping the
Philippines you see today and help Filipinos become unique. With colonization
we have learned and adapt many cultures and beliefs from our different
colonizers. And these cultures and beliefs that we learned and are introduced
to us, help us Filipinos to be who we are right now.
B. Do you prefer the type of culture in the Pre-colonial Period than the mixed
culture we practice now? Reasons.
Answer:
No, I prefer the mixed cultured we practice now because first of all I enjoyed
it and I am used to it. Pre-colonial Period was way too peculiar and different
for me because as I know in pre-colonial period there were babaylan, and we
still believe on anito and anita, we worship stones and even trees! And luckily
Ferdinand Magellan introduced Christianity to us. Thankfully with him we
have known Jesus. I think with the mixed culture, the lives of Filipinos
changed for we have learned many culture and beliefs from different
countries and race which help us Filipinos shape us for being a well-known
hospitality people, a family-oriented people, a religious people and many
more traits that we can be proud off that we have able to acquire through
colonization. These mixed cultures have impacted our lives and because of
this mixed culture, adapting to one culture was not that hard for us Filipinos.