I. STEAMSHIP TABO VS.

GOVERNMENT
1. Like the ship, the government is divided into two:
• Upper Deck– Spaniards, the rich, friars
• Lower Deck– natives, Chinese, mestizos
2. Slow but proud and threatening
3. Rather dirty in spite of its pretensions to whiteness (a new coat of paint).
4. Uses machines and bamboo poles
• Machines – the civil government
• Bamboo Pole (Tikin)- friars
II. EL FILIBUSTERISMO – THE SEPARATIST NOVEL
1. Asking for the parity of rights and the Spanish way of life is like asking for death.
• This will lead to the destruction of national identity
• Everything will be borrowed – even the Spaniard’s defects
This will only lead to a poor imitation of the Spanish culture. The people should AIM HIGHER.
2. Spanish will never be the national language.
• Spanish cannot express the people’s ideas and emotion.
• Speaking Spanish is like subjecting one’s thoughts to other minds.
• As long as a people keeps its own language, it keeps a pledge of liberty.
Cultivate your own language and make it more widely known.
3. It is useless to ask for representation in the Spanish government because the representative ‘s
voice will be “drowned among so many voices”.

4. Do not aspire to be a mere province, ASPIRE TO BE A NATION.

NOTES: When Jose Rizal heard of the persecution of his family and friends, his novel became more
radical. Apart from this, Rizal’s undertakings in Madrid were futile. He expressed his hopelessness in the
character “Simoun”. He had to kill Simoun because the Filipinos were not yet united. It was not yet time.

(Source: Palma 1949, Pride of the Malay Race)

III. CABESANG TALES
1. Tales’ land was robbed from him (similar to what happened to Rizal’s family)→ Bandits (tulisan)
capture Tales
IV. PLACIDO PENITENTE, HIS PROBLEMS AND THE ACADEMY OF THE TEACHING OF THE SPANISH
LANGUAGE
1. The class is too big (200+ students)
2. The teacher is incompetent and mistreats his students.
3. There are too many holidays.
4. The students are told to memorize topics the teacher does not explain.
5. “The natives should not be allowed to know [Spanish] because afterwards, when they do, they
start arguing with us, and the natives have no business arguing. All they do is pay and obey.” -
Padre Camorra
V. THE FRIAR AND THE FILIPINO
1. Why the Friars are Not Doing Their Duties
a. They restrain the pursuit of knowledge.
b. They undermine the students’ self respect.
c. They instill outdated ideas, discredited theories and false principles incompatible with
progress.
2. The Friar’s Excuses
 a. The government is the one who dictates the rules regarding education and the friars are
only following it.
b. Education can only be given to men who are worth it – men of good character and
morality.
c. The natives are “poor material” for sculpting – no matter how skilled the sculptor, they
cannot be turned into something beautiful.
d. The Filipinos need not study. There is work to be done in the fields.
e. The Dominicans cannot favor the freedom of education. This is like committing suicide.
∙ If everyone acquires the knowledge to teach, then the friars will be robbed of
their jobs.
∙ Fear of a revolution.
VI. THE HIGH OFFICIAL
1. Good Spaniards → Like Teniente Guevarra and Kap. Heneral in Noli
2. The Kap. Heneral did not develop concern for the Philippines because he only stayed in the
country for a short while.
VII. SIMOUN’S PRESENT: THE LANTERN
1. Mane ThecelPhares
Juan Crisostomo Ibarra
∙ MANE -God has numbered your kingdom, and has finished it.
∙ THECEL- you are weighed in the balance, and are found wanting.
∙ PHARES - your kingdom is divided
-Daniel 5: 25-28
2. “The race must be regenerated. Cowards can only breed slaves”
-Simoun
“The End Justifies the Means”
(Machiavelli)
VIII. THE LAST CHAPTER
A. Why Simoun’s Plans Failed
SIMOUN: Why has He forsaken me?
PADRE FLORENTINO: Because you chose a means of which He could not approve.
SIMOUN: But because I was wrong, was this God of yours to deny freedom to a whole people
and spare others much more evil than I was?
B. The More Evil People
1. Cap. General
2. Priests
3. Government Officials
4. Useless people
• Paulita Gomez
• Donya Victorina
• Ginoong Pasta
• Don Custodio
• Juanito Pelaez
IX. Rizal’s Views on Revolution
1. The country must rise up on its own (without being told to do so).
A rebellion which is not fueled with the people’s inert desire to fight and die for the country will
only result in failure.
2. Violence is not needed in order to achieve freedom.
 “We must win our freedom by deserving it, by improving the mind and enhancing the
dignity of the individual, loving what is just, what is good, what is great, to the point of dying for
it. When people reach these heights, God will provide a weapon…”
3. Before gaining independence, the country must be first aware of the present situation and must
have principles.
“With or without Spain, we would be the same, perhaps worse. What is the use of
independence if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow. And no doubt they will,
because whoever submits to tyranny, loves it.”
4. Independence will surely be granted when the country is prepared for it.
“If Spain were to see us less tolerant of tyranny and readier to fight for our rights, Spain
would be the first to give us freedom because, when the fruit of conception reaches the time of
birth, woe to the mother that tries to strangle it!”
X. REACTIONS TO THE NOVEL
1. Noli is a romantic novel – “a work of the heart”
El Fili is a political novel – “a book of thought”.
2. Some, like M.H. Del Pilar, Retana and Rizal himself preferred the Noli over El Fili. However, there
were others, like Blumentritt, Graciano Lopez Jaena and Dr. R. Palma, who believed El Fili to be superior.
3. “We, the Catholic Philippine Hierarchy maintain that these novels do contain teachings contrary to
our faith and so, We are opposed to the proposed compulsory reading in their entirety of such books in
any school in the Philippines where Catholic students may be affected. ”
-Statement of the Philippine Hierarchy
on the Novels of Dr. Jose Rizal
(1956)
4. IBONG MANDARAGIT
by Amado V. Hernandez
• set in the Second World War
• the protagonist Mando Plaridel was tested by Tata Matyas, an old revolutionary, on his
knowledge about Rizal and Rizal's novels
• tackled the lead character's search for Simoun's treasure, showing it as a continuation of Rizal's
El Filibusterismo.