Little Change

Among Filipinos, there seems to be a hostile image of a conqueror. This cannot be helped especially with how Filipinos learn about their colonizers as the villains in history. Philippine history classes teach of the country’s time under Spanish rule, often portraying the colonizers in a negative light in which they are abusive and violent. However, it seems, as though compared to the Spanish era, there has been little change in the country.

In Scott’s “The Conquerors as Seen by the Conquered”, a Filipino chieftain, Panpanga, goes to Manila with persuasions from his brother to convert to Christianity. However, the former declines after seeing the evils happening in Manila. Panpanga claims that there is little peace among the Spaniards and that they do not live out what is asked of them by their God. Eventually, he converts after an encounter with a friar who has shown him goodness.

The harsh Spanish conqueror seen by the conquered Panpanga is not unsual to most. On the contrary, Filipinos will find it surprising that in some cases such as this, the friars are on the side of good and that they show such love and compassion towards the Filipinos. This is unexpected for the Filipino, who studies Jose Rizal’s works where the friars are known to be seemingly cunning, selfish and all together the opposite of what a servant of goodness should be. This is an indication that the generalization of the “evil” conquerors might be somewhat an overstatement. Though relatively not that evident, there were surely Spanish colonizers and friars who showed kindness towards the Filipino Indians. However, it probably cannot be ignored that the majority or at least the most prominent were those who abused their power, seeking to merely reap benefits f...

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... expected to live with doing good works. After all, faith, though it may be personal, is something that is public and flows out to a person’s life. However, the situation has become that there are “few good deeds but many good words with bad deeds.” (66-67) While a great majority is Christian, there are some who act like the Spaniards, doing the opposite of what God orders.

In retrospect, the Spanish goal of Christianizing the Philippines was a success considering majority of the country’s population is Catholic. However, as the friar states in the text, the Spanish did damage with their “bad example and evil living”. (69) Unfortunately, the naïve Filipinos have been greatly influenced by the Spanish who were bad examples and the “evil living” has perpetuated till our present society. We may be free from conquerors and colonial rule, still, not much has changed.