How the Philippines is governed

How the Philippines is governed appeared in the newspaper La Solidaridad, edited by José Rizal in Barcelona in the late nineteenth century. His reflection on the founding principles of colonialism and on the opposing forces in the processes of social emancipation in the Philippines is enormously relevant today.
It is valid, in turn, to understand how the national consciousnesses of the Spanish colonies of America and Asia were formed and the role played in these movements by the clergy and the liberal bourgeoisie.
The text of How the Philippines is Governed is , by itself, a nation-building project. Rizal analyzes

• shortcomings,
• Imperfections and abuses of his homeland
• and refers to reforms which, in his opinion, would make it possible to get out of such a state of affairs.

For some years now, the future of those islands worries not only their inhabitants who are the most interested, but also many Spaniards who until very recently were perhaps ignorant of their geographical situation and the race that inhabits them, ethnographically speaking.
Everyone sees, everyone feels, everyone is convinced that this is wrong, that something there leaves much to be desired; Some attribute it to one thing, others to another. The same supporters of the government prevailing there agree that there are necessary evils, without suspecting that they fall into great ridiculousness or a regrettable backwardness of ideas. To tell a sick person that his illness is necessary and that he should not try to fight it is to return to the primitive times of medicine, it is to confess oneself powerless; The doctor who says such a thing to his patient, should advise him to consult other lights.
The same friars who benefit and govern the country, the same ones who are most interested in making believe that everything is going wonderfully there; those who should maintain that there everything is perfect, unbeatable, heavenly, so that no one would disturb them in the productive nirvana they established there; These same friars agree that there are deficiencies, imperfections, abuses, and that reforms are necessary and are imposed, only that they would like a homeopathic treatment, very slow, like the doctors who, lacking clients, wish to lull and rock a chronic disease, in order to charge and eat at the expense of the sick and his suffering. And this they have proven and demonstrated in their writings.

Fragment of the work