The Indolence of the Filipino | Page 4

the few
days of his variable summer, close his office--where the work is not
violent and amounts for many to talking and gesticulating in the shade
and beside a lunch-stand,--flee to watering places, sit in the cafés or
stroll about? What wonder then that the inhabitant of tropical countries,
worm out and with his blood thinned by the continuous and excessive
heat, is reduced to inaction? Who is the indolent one in the Manila
offices? Is it the poor clerk who comes in at eight in the morning and
leaves at, one in the afternoon with only his parasol, who copies and
writes and works for himself and for his chief, or is it the chief, who
comes in a carriage at ten o'clock, leaves before twelve, reads his

newspaper while smoking and with is feet cocked up on a chair or a
table, or gossiping about all his friends? Which is indolent, the native
coadjutor, poorly paid and badly treated, who has to visit all the
indigent sick living in the country, or the friar curate who gets
fabulously rich, goes about in a carriage, eats and drinks well, and does
not put himself to any trouble without collecting excessive fees? [3]
Without speaking further of the Europeans, in what violent labor does
the Chinaman engage in tropical countries, the industrious Chinaman,
who flees from his own country driven by hunger and want, and whose
whole ambition is to amass a small fortune? With the exception of
some porters, an occupation that the natives also follow, he nearly
always engages in trade, in commerce; so rarely does he take up
agriculture that we do not know of a single case. The Chinaman who in
other colonies cultivates the soil does so only for a certain number of
years and then retires. [4]
We find, then, the tendency to indolence very natural, and have to
admit and bless it, for we cannot alter natural laws, and without it the
race would have disappeared. Man is not a brute, he is not a, machine;
his object is not merely to produce, in spite of the pretensions of some
Christian whites who would make of the colored Christian a kind of
motive power somewhat more intelligent and less costly than steam.
Man's object is not to satisfy tile passions of another man, his object is
to seek happiness for himself and his kind by traveling along the road
of progress and perfection.
The evil is not that indolence exists more or less latently but that it is
fostered and magnified. Among men, as well as among nations, there
exist not only aptitudes but also tendencies toward good and evil. To
foster the good ones and aid them, as well as correct the evil and
repress them, would be the duty of society and governments, if less
noble thoughts did not occupy their attention. The evil is that the
indolence in the Philippines is a magnified indolence, an indolence of
the snowball type, if we may be permitted the expression, an evil that
increases in direct proportion to the square of the periods of time, an
effect of misgovernment and of backwardness, as we said, and not a

cause thereof. Others will hold the contrary opinion, especially those
who have a hand in the misgovernment, but we do not care; we have
made an assertion and are going to prove it.

II
When in consequence of a long chronic illness the condition of the
patient is examined, the question may arise whether the weakening of
the fibers and the debility of the organs are the cause of the malady's
continuing or the effect of the bad treatment that prolongs its action.
The attending physician attributes the entire failure of his skill to the
poor constitution of the patient, to the climate, to the surroundings, and
so on. On the other hand, the patient attributes the aggravation of the
evil to the system of treatment followed. Only the common crowd, the
inquisitive populace, shakes its head and cannot reach a decision.
Something like this happens in the case of the Philippines. Instead of
physician, read government, that is, friars, employees, etc. Instead of
patient, Philippines; instead of malady, indolence.
And, just as happens in similar cases then the patient gets worse,
everybody loses his head, each one dodges the responsibility to place it
upon somebody else, and instead of seeking the causes in order to
combat the evil in them, devotes himself at best to attacking the
symptoms: here a blood-letting, a tax; there a plaster, forced labor;
further on a sedative, a trifling reform. Every new arrival proposes a
new remedy: one, seasons of prayer, the relics of a saint, the viaticum,
the friars; another, a shower-bath; still another, with pretensions to
modern ideas,