Christianity Not Only Brought To The Philippines Culture – Also Agriculture!
So now I will argue to the contrary: “Yes, We Should
Celebrate 500 Years Of Christianity In Our Country!” I do not know which school
NFJ graduated from, but I am an alumnus of UP Los Baños and, for God’s sake, I
got a perfect grade of 1 (Excellent)
from our UP Diliman professor in Western Thought, Mr Bituin. Now, NFJ gets from me a grade of 5 (Failed) on
his essay. To justify the 5, since I am an agriculturist, I will concentrate on
what the Spaniards did for PH Agriculture.
In the “History Of The Philippines[2],” Wikipedia says:
Outside the tertiary
institutions, the efforts of missionaries were in no way limited to religious
instruction but also geared towards promoting social and economic advancement
of the islands… They also introduced advances in rice agriculture, brought from
America maize and cocoa and developed the farming of indigo, coffee and sugar
cane.
Now
then, where would NFJ get his cup after cup of coffee if we Filipinos did not
welcome Christianity brought by the Spaniards to this country?!
One of Spain's
objectives in (colonizing) the Philippines was the conversion of the local
population to Roman Catholicism. The work of conversion was facilitated by the
disunity and insignificance of other organized religions, except for Islam,
which was still predominant in the southwest. The pageantry of the church had a
wide appeal, reinforced by the incorporation of indigenous social customs into
religious observances.
Before the Spaniards came to the Philippines, our peoples
were disunited (a polite term). There
were religions, plural – and nationally insignificant because of their quantity
and quality. Roman Catholicism unified the warring tribes and civilized them,
while using indigenous customs.
What I dislike was this:
Among the most
significant changes under Spanish rule was that the indigenous idea of communal
use and ownership of land was replaced with the concept of private ownership
and the conferring of titles on members of the principalía.
Objecting to communal
ownership of lands, the Spanish conquerors introduced private ownership. With private land ownership came titles of the
upper class (principalía). I must say here I prefer the communal ownership of
lands, because with modern technologies and systems, such ownership is
necessary to bring about economic & social efficiencies.
Of course, the family of our National Hero Jose Rizal
suffered from heavy taxes exacted by the Spanish clergy who owned or controlled
lands in Calamba and Los Baños, but this was not the dictate of Christianity
but rather the dictate of greed, despite the admonition of God in his Ten
Commandments: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.”
Isn’t
it amazing that Secretary of Agriculture William Dar has been advocating farm
clustering or consolidation as a methodological solution to individual and
inefficient operations of farmlands?!@517
[1]https://www.rappler.com/voices/imho/opinion-no-we-should-not-celebrate-500-years-christianity-our-country?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR16lzlOO2zJJj3RPd5quwcAZs1UYxSwcn6QaQTmi9y_HaVwl8IIDpM6WOU#Echobox=1615877113
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines
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