Annotation
Annotation
“All the histories written by the religious before and after Morga, up to
our days, abound with stories of devils, miracles, apparition, etc. These from
the bulk of the voluminous histories of the Philippines (Rizal 1890,311 n.1).
RIZAL THIRD CONSIDERATION FOR THE
CHOICE OF MORGA:
• Rizal annotations fall into two categories:
This fish that Morga mentions, that cannot be good until it begins to rot, is bagoong [salted
and fermented fish or shrimp paste used as a sauce in Filipino cuisine] and those who have
eaten it and tasted it know that it neither is nor should be rotten (Rizal 1890, 264).
Christianity was a weapon for facilitating the political and economic subjugation of the
native.
Rizal noticed all Morga’s mistakes Morga misspelled many native names of places, flora
and fauna, and other social classes which Rizal corrected.
Rizal emphasized that native women, unlike their European counterparts, never lost their
noble titles. It was the groom who gave dowry to the parents because they going to lost their
precious daughter.
• Rizal clarified that Morga must have meant sinamay. Which was woven from abaca
thread that comes from the banana trunks not from the leaves.
MORGA’S VIEW
• Their daily fare is composed of lice crushed in wooden pillars and when cooked is called
morisqueta (this is the staple throughout the land); cooked fish which they have in a bu nm pork,
venieon, mountain buffaloes which they call carabaos, beef and fish which they know is best when it
has started to mt and stink (Retana 1909,174).
• By the Christian religion, Dr. Morga appears to mean the Roman Catholic which by fire and sword
he would preserve in its purity in the Philippines. Nevertheless in other lands, notably in Flanders,
these means were ineffective to keep the church unchanged, or to maintain its supremacy, or even to
hold its subjects.
• In Morga’s time, the Philippines exported silk to japan whence now comes the best quality of that
merchandise.
• Morga’s remark that the Filipinos like fish better when it is commencing to turn bad is another of
those prejudices which Spaniards like all other nations have.
• Morga said that cotton was grown extensively in practically all the islands which the natives sold
as thread and woven fabrics to Chinese and other foreign merchants.