Elusive Peasant, Weak State

 Prior to the Spanish colonization, the people in this island (now called Philippines) were
grouped in settlements called barangay that was headed by a Datu whom people believe
to have a magical power and their mediator to the spirits.
 Group membership is a requisite for individual survival.
 The barangay is the protectorate of the Datu.
 Datus’ service is a gift to people. It is their culture to “pay” the Datu’s gift through
obeisance, labor service, and crop sharing. For example, during sowing season, they help
the Datu in sowing his farm without asking anything in return such as wage. Another
reason why they revere the Datu is because they were also afraid of his “magical power”.
But mostly because of his being fatherly and friend.
 They valued personal ownership. They call the tiller the “master” and he is socially
recognized.
 Stealing within the settlement is the most serious offense.
 There is actually no communalism, but what exists is “bayanihan”. For example, during
the celebration of “End of Farm Work”, they brought food and drinks to enjoy by
everyone.
 Then the “masters” give tribute to the Datu (so that the latter being a mediator would ask
the spirits to give them again a bountiful harvest next time).
 When they borrow (for instance a capital for sowing season), they return it twice as a
token of gratitude.

 The situation eventually changed during the Spanish colonization. The Datu’s magic
disappeared upon the arrival of the friar power.
 Every “End of Farm Work”, it is the elite (master) who provide food and drinks to the
laborers.
 The demands of Datu which they obeyed as a token of gratitude, now they see it as
excessive or oppressive.
 Previously, they consider it as a token of gratitude when they pay their debts double, now
it is called usury and avarice. The tribute, now they called it tax.
 Native elite had claims on lands. They buy it and they got land titles.
 Peasant Autonomy was born.
 In 1640, there was a Spanish Law prohibiting loans in excess of 5 Spanish Pesos. If you
borrow and the amount you’re going to pay exceed in 5 Spanish Pesos, you will be
imprisoned.
 Peasants observed that if they are cooperative in the practice of Catholicism like
attending mass and some rituals (i.e. processions), the Friar power is controlled.

 Because the magic of the Datu was no longer effective, to ensure that the harvest will be
bountiful, the peasants use Palm Sunday leaves (palaspas) or pieces of scraped off saintly
 statues, and other Catholic artifacts obtained during procession or some ritual. Priests are
not needed in performing the offering because the activity is individualized and a
personal secret.
 In Visayas, sacrifices are offered to the Diwata for good fortune or harvest.
 Some use anting-anting in their belief of attracting good fortune.

 Social, Culture, Political, and Economic affairs was a metaphor of the cockfight. A
gamble introduced by Spaniards which attracted the natives.
 Sugal – tagalog term from jugal, a Spanish word means play or gamble.
 Tahur – Spanish word means cheating as well as gambling.
 It changed the natives’ outlook about destiny, fortune, and success.

 Guhit ng Palad – destiny was written, but this can be changed depending on the
person. Previously, they perform sibit (slicing the part of the palm with the “bad
luck” lines so that it’s direction will change).
 In 1701, the Spanish Alcalde Mayores (Provincial Governor) were charged with
penalizing gamblers. Some friars denounced it as “the very ones who secretly
give full license and permission for gambling in consideration for money which
they receive every month”.
 Children with Special Disabilities (CSNs) formerly are considered as bad luck. (There are
no CSNs in the Philippines because they were being killed during infancy, according to
some studies). So, to discourage infanticide and because it is against Catholicism, the
Iberian colonizers who value physical features convinced the natives that CSNs are good
luck.
 Therefore, those which previously considered as bad luck has now converted into good
luck. In the same way, subjugation could be put to advantage depending on how well one
played the social game.
 Negotiation in spirit-world was also attainable by “selling one’s soul to the devil”, which
people deduced from wealth accumulated from export agriculture.
 Transacting with the spirits could also be conducted through harmless practices such as:
 Sweeping dirt out of one’s house.
 Removing of ant’s hill (nuno sa punso)
 The number of steps in staircase are counted in sets of three: oro, plata, mata
(gold, silver, death), to ensure that the last step does not end in Mata.
 The central part played by coins in gambling has lent coinage the quality of
mediumship for negotiating with spirit-world.
 Catholic icons, Santo Niño are garbed in finery and “given money” to
bring good luck to the idol’s owner.
 During house construction, coins are buried at corner posts and beneath
the main entrance to appease unseen spirits who, because of the offering,
are expected to bestow luck to the homeowner.
  Sharing one’s luck augments future chances of victory (like balato).
 The willingness to bet repeatedly and part with money can be a sign of trust in one’s
friendly relations with certain preternatural beings who are expected to reciprocate in the
form of financial windfalls.
 Fatalism, with its unchangeable givens, nonetheless makes room for human cunning and
manipulation in order to avoid the snares of fate.

 Native elites sold off lands they had usurped (due to their surplus, and because of their
inability to take advantage of the commercial revolution) as well as uncultivated land
parcels belonging to the public domain which they had claimed as their personal
property.
 This were initially acquired by Spanish civilians, then subsequently resold to the religious
estates.
 To raise revenue for the religious coffers, the estates began to lease land in the 1590s to
sharecroppers (called inquilinos), initially ethnic Chinese who, later in the 17th century,
were replaced by indios as the Chinese moved on to trade.
 The monastic orders made sure they did not suffer from fluctuations in farm yield by
stipulating the rent in fixed monetary terms but paid for in kind, according to the price of
rice prevailing during harvest time.
Example: the fixed rental is P1,000.00 per cropping.
1st cropping – the price of one sack of palay is P250.00, the farmer will
give 4 sacks of palay.

2nd cropping – the price of one sack of palay is P200.00, the farmer will
give 5 sacks of palay.

 QUESTION: Why did some natives choose to work for the monastic estates when
they could have farmed on their own in other areas?
 For such indios, to be in the employ of Friar Power was to bask in the
magic and protection of the Hispanic shamans, as though the monastic
estates were a reincarnation of the barangay under the leadership of men
of prowess.
 To be within the penumbra of Spanish magical men also meant added
protection from colonial state exactions, because the religious shielded
their wards from tribute collection and had them exempted from the harsh
corvee labor of timber cutting, log hauling, and shipbuilding.
 Attachment to the monastic estates was also a source of pride and
privilege, as the clerics provided loans and cash advances and introduced
innovations in farm technology.
 There were natives, however, who could not endure conditions in the friar estates,
particularly the landless, who were supposed to have been hired and paid a nominal wage
 but were not. They rebelled by fleeing to the hinterland beyond the reach of the colonial
state, there to pursue their own distinctive anticolonial style of life. They were called
“vagamundos”.
 Outside the Tagalog region and its ecclesiastical estates, friar dominance and command
over local economies were felt in a different manner. The friars had taken over the
functions of both datu and babaylan.
 Natives began to doubt the legitimacy of clerical surplus extraction – especially as there
was hardly any tangible gift giving on the part of the friar.

 In 1740s, the Chinese mestizos dominated domestic trade. They supplied Manila with
foodstuffs and exportable products obtained from the provinces.
 Mestizos buy only in the years when they calculate that they must, make a profit from
their peripatetic capital despite the institutional difficulties in equilibrating supply and
demand in Manila market in 1820s.
 Visayas, particularly Panay Island, Molo and Jaro in Iloilo became site of vibrant native
textile industry thrived under mestizo traders.
 Land acquisition became an attractive form of investment and gamble.
 Monastic estates were leased to mestizos that exceed the average of 1.4 hectares which
was rented by the indios.
 In the 19th century they sustained their leaseholding activity despite the
cumbersome 3-year contracts from the 1840s-1890s.
 In turn, they subdivided the leased property and entered into share tenancy
(kasama) contracts with indio peasants.
 They took over the estates’ role of providing cash advances to tenants.
 Rice and sugarcane were planted on many such inquilino lands.
 They were able to pay the fixed annual rent to the religious landowners, provide
the tenant (kasama) the half-share of the net of the rent, and in the end still realize
a profit.
 However, a number of mestizo lessees could not recover from their mounting
debts and lost the gamble.
 To forestall failure, they sought to extract full advantage from the subletting
arrangement by requiring the tenant, treated as production partner, to provide
seedlings, the carabao, and working implements. If he had no work animals or
tools, the tenant was charged high fees for their use.
 Sanglang-bili (pacto de retroventa) – the indio cultivator who pawned his property for a
determinate time period, often to raise money for cockfighting and gambling.
 The indio cultivator was converted temporarily into a sharecropper.
 Due to his inability to redeem the land, the moneylender became full owner of the
property for a third or half its market value while the peasant became a full-
fledged contractual sharecropper.
  Sharecroppers remained on the land owned by mestizos, honoring their debts,
cultivating the land --- and acquiring more debts.
 Sharecropping is called in Ilonggo “agsa system”. In Hokien word it is
“acsa” which in English word is “shit”, with all its connotations.

 The prevalence of the kasamahan contract prompted Captain-General Jose Basco y