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Declamation Speech Land of Bondage TP Rizal Life and Works

The document is a speech given by a Filipino farmer known as a tao indicting the oppressive system that has kept him and his people in bondage for 300 years. He accuses the Spanish colonizers of imposing impossible taxes and debts. While the tao and his people are blamed for issues like not supporting their families or being ignorant and indolent, the tao argues this is a result of the oppressive system that profits from their subjugation and denies them freedom and hope. He makes an ultimate demand to be granted land to own freely so he and his children do not starve, and warns that if this is not granted, the oppressed people will rise up against their oppressors.

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Lagumen Alexandra
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217 views1 page

Declamation Speech Land of Bondage TP Rizal Life and Works

The document is a speech given by a Filipino farmer known as a tao indicting the oppressive system that has kept him and his people in bondage for 300 years. He accuses the Spanish colonizers of imposing impossible taxes and debts. While the tao and his people are blamed for issues like not supporting their families or being ignorant and indolent, the tao argues this is a result of the oppressive system that profits from their subjugation and denies them freedom and hope. He makes an ultimate demand to be granted land to own freely so he and his children do not starve, and warns that if this is not granted, the oppressed people will rise up against their oppressors.

Uploaded by

Lagumen Alexandra
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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No wonder then,/ that the tao,/ being a slave,/ has acquired the habits of a

slave.// No wonder that after three centuries in chains,/ without freedom,/ without
hope,/ he should lose the erect and fearless posture of the freeman/ and become the
bent, misshapen,/ indolent/ vicious,/ pitiful thing that he is!// Who dares accuse
him,/ who dares rise up in judgment against this man,/ reduced to this subhuman
level by three centuries of oppression?// The tao does not come here tonight to be
judged-// but to judge!// Hear then/ his accusation and his sentence.//
I indict the Spanish encomendero// for inventing taxes impossible to bear:// I
indict the usurer for saddling me with debts impossible to pay.//

I indict the irresponsible radical leaders/ who undermine with insidious eloquence/
the confidence of my kind in our government.//

You accuse me of not supporting my family.// Free me from bondage/ and I shall
prove you false.//

You accuse me of ignorance.// But I am ignorant because my master finds it


profitable to keep me ignorant.// Free me from bondage / and I shall prove you
false.//

You accuse me of indolence.// But I am indolent/ not because I have no will,./ but
because I have no hope.// Why should I labor/ if all the fruits of my labor/ go to
pay an unpayable debt?// Free me from bondage/ and I shall prove you false.//

Give me land.// Land to own.// Land ‘unbeholden to any tyrant.// Land that will be
free.// Give me land for I am starving.// Give me land that my children may not
die.// Sell it to me,/ sell it to me at a fair price./ as one freeman sells to
another/ and not as a usurer sells to a slave./// I am poor, / but I will pay it!//
I will work,/ work/ until I fall from weariness for my privileges,/ for my
inalienable right to be free.//

BUT IF YOU WILL NOT GRANT ME THIS… // If you will not grant me this last request,/
this ultimate demand,// then build a wall around your home//… build it // place a
sentry on every parapet!… for I who have been silent these three hundred years/
will come in the night when you are feasting,/ with my cry, and my bolo at your
door.// And may God/ have mercy on your soul.

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