LESSON 4
The Case of Hacienda de Calamba: In Focus
Learning Objectives
At the end of this lesson the student should be able to:
• Analyze the developments in the issue of the Hacienda de Calamba as part of the wider
social turmoil in the developments in the nineteenth century.
• Examine the Hacienda de Calamba issue as an example of agrarian conflicts in
the country.
• Connect what transpired in the Hacienda de Calamba and its effect on the life of Jose
Rizal.
Course Material
Jose Rizal wrote an emphatic petition in January 1888 in compliance to the colonial
government’s demand of a report on the income and production of the lands due to the reason
that they suspected that the Dominican Friar Orders were evading payment of taxes. Rizal’s
petition included a list of grievances against the Dominican Friar Orders who presumably owns
the Hacienda de Calamba.
Rizal was deeply affected by the results of the Issue of the Hacienda de Calamba. The
case was appealed in the Real Audiencia in Manila but was dismissed. They placed another
appeal in the Tribunal Supremo in Madrid but was again dismissed. On August 1890, together
with the other tenants Rizal’s family was evicted from the lands.
Instruction: Read the Petition written by Jose Rizal in January 1888, and then answer the
questions that follow.
Petition of the Town of Calamba written by Jose Rizal in January 1888
On 30 December an order from the government of this province was received in
this tribunal whose content is as follows:
Gobernadorcillo of Calamba: - As soon as you receive this order, jointly with various principales
of that town you will inform this office if the Estate owned by the Dominican fathers situated in
that locality has increased its products or lands during the last three years in compliance with
the wishes of the Central Administration of Direct Taxes communicated in an official letter of the
th
24 instant. – Santa Cruz. 31 December 18887 – Emilio Bravo.
After thorough investigation, the following report was drawn up signed by more than fifty
residents, among them tenants and principales.
Mr. Administrator: - The undersigned Gobernadorcillo and principales of the town in compliance
with the preceding order have the honor to submit to you the following information:
The Estate of the reverend Father Dominicans is not situated in this locality but in fact
constitutes the whole town, the Reverend Fathers believing that the boundaries set up by them
these last years should be the limits of the Estate: On the north, the part of the lake until the
Island of Calamba; on the south, until the Bigo Bridge, Olango, Santol, Mount Sungay; on the
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east, until Los Banos in Bacong, comprising almost one half of Mount Maquiling; on the west,
until Cabuyao and Santa Rosa, having an area of at least 700 quinones (a quinon is 2.8
hectares) of clean cleared lands.
1. From the declaration of the tenants interviewed, it turns out that the products of the Estate – if
by products are to be understood everything that the land produces - have increased for
the Estate sand diminished remarkably for the tenants, not only in former years but also
recently, in the last three, as the enclosed account proves. Such a statement needs to
the explained.
The products increase to the benefit of the Estate:
1. Because the wild forests which are given to the tenants for a low rent at the beginning,
according as the tenants clear and clean them, invest large capital in them, according as
the fortune of the farmer becomes involved in them, the contract is arbitrarily altered by
the Estate, the rent rises enormously, there being a case when 45 pesos became 900 in
a few years through an annual forces imposition.
2. Because some lands pay twice for two harvests of rice, where some bamboo groves are
found, the farmer pays for the land and for each bamboo grove besides, regardless of
whether it is useless or it has been felled. In the lands where huts have been erected for
the workers, one has to pay for the lots and the huts besides.
3. Because the rent of the town lots where houses or warehouses are erected increases
every time an official or servant of the Estate measures them. There seems to exist
either a supernatural power that invisibly extends the land or a natural power that
shortens the measure of the official, who after all is neither an expert nor a surveyor,
though he is very venal indeed. Without this trick, the rent is also raised when the tenant
makes improvement in the lot as when he replaces the bamboo fence with a stone one,
or builds a wooden house, for comfort and public embellishment; therefore, many do not
improve their dwelling even if they have the means to do so. Even lots where public
buildings are erected do not escape this honor: The cockpit for which the most well-to-do
tenant is held responsible. The rent is raised by 16 duros (duro is a silver dollar) that was
formerly 100, though it had not been enlarged nor has any improvement been made in it.
4. Because rice fields that are planted with only 5 or 4 cavanes (a cavan is equal to 75 liters) of
seed, pay as if they have a capacity for 9.5 and 14 cavanes, on pain of being declared
vacant and given to others. The Estate, not spending anything for the town’s welfare, not
contributing either to festivals or to schools, or to the development of agriculture, or to public
improvements, has no other expense except a few cavanes of rice given to the workers
during a locust invasion, a few thousand pesos invested in badly planned dikes and
constructed under the direction of a lay-friar of the Estate, and some losses, like the debts of
some unfortunate tenants who are unable to pay the enormous rentals.
The products for the tenants have decreased considerably, in spite of continuous labor;
not only before but also these last three years as proven by the large number of ruined farmers,
indebted and dispossessed of their property.
1) By the discouragement of the farmers on seeing that the lands they have so laboriously
cultivated and cleared are taken away arbitrarily for futile reasons or without reason, on
seeing that they cannot trust the Estate itself. At times what the lay-friar manager orders,
such as, making the farmer buy machinery, make improvements, and compelling him to
make excessive expenditures, are later destroyed by his successor, who make the
farmer pay for the expenses of demolition.
2) The absence of good faith on the part of the Estate discourages not a little. The land is
looked after and appraised by the servant of the Estate, ignorant like the rest, mindful
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only of flattering his masters. At times he imposes rental without measuring the land and
when the farmer can no longer draw back, because he has invested in it his capital, a
ghost of a measurement is done and excessive conditions are imposed. If this is settle d,
the rental will be raised again the following year, on pain of losing all the land, the toil,
and the capital.
On the other hand, the desperate ones who wish to return a parcel of land that is
unproductive will not be allowed to do so and the face ruin as they will be threatened of
being despoiled of all their other parcels. It arouses suspicion that they do not want to
write in the receipts the amount paid as rental and the total absence of any record,
especially in these last years
3) For the public calamities, like locusts and the fall in the price of sugar. Many, being
unable to pay the rental, were promised a reduction of 15% or a little less, a promise
which was fulfilled in some cases but not in many. On the contrary, the rental of others
was raised exorbitantly, or their sugar crop was confiscated by force and afterwards
sold, according to them, at a price lower than the prevailing one.
4) For the responsibility of the well-to-do tenants to pay the rental lots of the indigents and
for the flood – the waters do not guarantee them against such an obligation. 5) For the
increasing shortage of capital, for the people are exhausted, the land that is opened every
year is not all planted and if it is planted it yields no profit. In these last years, a much less
enthusiasm and less activity than ten years ago are noticeable.
In view of this, we avail ourselves of this opportunity to state the following for the
government’s consideration:
”The town of Calamba has given proofs of having been and is one of the most
industrious and farming towns of the province. Proof of this is the cleared forests; the
land on the mountain sloped cleaned in a few years, the machinery and the mills turned
by animals and its extensive rice-fields.
“If, despite all this, agriculture declines, the people is impoverished, the capitalist is
ruined, and education is backward (before there were more than 20 men students and
three girls, now there are no more than three of the first and one of the latter); should we
look for the cause only in the fall of the price of sugar when other sugar towns do not
experience the poverty in which we are found? Several farmers abandon the Estate and
go elsewhere and if they are not followed by all, it is because the others lack capital or
they are indebted and have unvested much in the lands of the Estate. An imminent evil
threatens this poor town, if the government does not stop it. The people who place their
cause in its hands hope either for a serious, formal contract between the Estate and the
former, or the sale of these lands to those who have made them tillable under
government auspices and according to a standard that may be fixed; for all the
pretensions and titles the Estate can claim cannot be more valid before the tribunal of
the nation than the remonstrances of an entire people, always submissive indeed, but
already tired of so many injustices. – Calamba, 8 January 1888.”
As the report was done in the Tribunal and was signed besides by three officials of the
Estate itself, it reached the ears if the lay-friar manager of the Reverend Dominican Fathers. He
took it ill and he threatened several tenants with raising their rentals, if, because of this report,
the Administration of Taxes should collect from the Estate the ten percent real estate taxes
corresponding to the number of tributes. He said to the others that he would like to make the
gobernadorcillo responsible for any pillage or theft that the Estate might henceforth suffer, when
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in this sense he cannot in any way complain against the people in the least. Estate officials
proclaim that for having told the truth in this report, the people would drag chains because the
corporation is rich and proposes to spend ten thousand pesos to win the suit. In short, they have
shown a copy of a letter of the Treasury which threatened the tenants who have testified
according to facts and not according to the wish of the Estate. Such threats, inexplicable and
suspicious though they might appear, have not disturbed the peace of this town, being confident
in the justice of its cause and the rectitude of the government that has provoked the conflict
upon asking them to tell the truth.
But, lately it seems that they want to carry out these threats, for they have tried to
deprive some tenants of their lands, to suspend their work through force and the like.
In the face of these unreasonable pretensions, alarmed, the people appeal to the
Government asking for its prompt and direct intervention in order to prevent incalculable evils.
In this impossibility of living henceforth in peace with the Estate, the people, placed in
the harsh alternative of lying to the Government in order not to die or to be deprived of their land
for complying worthily with their duty, in this very anomalous situation, they ask the separation
of its interests, selling to them or transferring these lands to them who have made them tillable
and have invested in them capital, labor, and toil. This measure is demanded not only by the
good name of the Government, the prestige and dignity of the rulers, and the good relations
between them and their subjects but also it is based on the following considerations:
1. The people, placed in the midst of apparently hostile interests, which are those of the
Estate and those of the Administration of Taxes will surely be morally corrupted if in
this struggle, initiated in the cause of truth demanded by the Government, they see
that, as a result of their truthfulness, they gather hunger, vexations, and misery. This
would not only hurt the people but also the Government, in the opinion of the people
who in their difficulty might make a thousand offensive and sad surmises.
2. The capricious procedure, the leonine contracts of the Estate, the insecurity of the
tenant do not permit the cultivation of other plants, more productive and with a future,
which are coffee, abaca, and others, because before they flourish, the Estate may
take the land away and give it to another.
3. The no less tyrannical conditions of the town lots smother the wellbeing of the people
with regard to the town’s embellishment and urbanization measure.
4. If it is said, and the Government can find out the truth, that the Estate paid real estate
tax only for its irrigated lands, it can be concluded that only these constitute legally its
estate. The dry land for which the people pay excessive rental by law does not
belong to it. In fact, Mr. Asanza, who, they say, ceded this estate to the corporation in
payment of his debt, could not be the owner of the whole town for not having bought
it from any one, nor clean or cleared it.
5. The residents of Calamba in these last years are the ones who, through their efforts,
money, and toil, have made these lands tillable and productive, the Estate having
contributed nothing except in ruining this or that farmer.
6. The people are eager to make improvements and beautify the lands they cultivate if
they had the assurance of being able to bequeath to their children the fruits of their
labor. The present state of things smothers this desire and kills farming in this town,
one of the most industrious of the province, because the Estate discourages and
impoverishes the capitalist and places thousands of obstacles on his path. There are
many considerations besides that the peoples leave to clear intelligence of their
rulers, accustomed to put themselves in the place of their subjects in order to
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understand better their needs. The people have suffered a long time, excessively,
without complaining, without raising their voice. Now, being impoverished,
exhausted, in al long and terrible crisis, and hearing that foreign governments favor
agriculture and commerce of their respective countries at the cost of enormous
sacrifices and heroic measures, appeal also to their own government, enlightened
and full of paternalistic intentions, to a government such as they have dreamed of
and desired in their misery. However, they appeal to it, not to ask either for subsidies
or privileges or sacrifices, but only for light, justice, and equity to which they have a
right as member of a nation known for its sense of justice and noble qualities.
Signed by more than 70 persons.
[Sourced from Monastic Supremacy in the Philippines by Marcelo H. Del Pilar, Appendix
X]
Assessment
Instruction: Discuss the following items thoroughly. Write the question before each answer.
Each answer should contain at least three (3) paragraphs of not less than four (4) sentences
each. You may write your answers in Filipino. Do not forget to write your full name in the upper
left corner of the paper and your course, year and section below it while the name of your
professors should be indicated in the upper right.
1. Who are the personages mentioned and what is their relationship with each other?
2. Why was this document written? Provide evidences from the document. 3. What
can you tell about life in the Hacienda de Calamba during the time the document was
written?
4. What are the complaints of the tenants? Enumerate at least three.
5. What was the reaction to the complaint?
6. What were the final demands of the petition?
Note: This Instructional Material is a property of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. Do
not write anything unnecessary. Use a clean sheet of bond paper in answering your
activity/assessment task either in a type-written or hand-written format (please see the
appendices for the sample template). When doing a hand-written work, make sure that your
penmanship is legible.
Reference
Del Pilar, Marcelo H. Monastic Supremacy in the Philippines. 1889. Trans. Encarnacion
Alzona 1958.
Rizal, Jose. (2007. Petition of the Town of Calamba. In Political and Historical
Writings. National Historical Institute. 1888.
Roth, Dennis M. ‘Church Lands in the Agrarian History of Tagalog Region’. In Philippine
Social History: global trade and local transformations, Alfred W. McCoy and Ed. De
Jesus (eds.), 131-153. 1982.
Fernando VI. ‘Usurpation of Indian Lands by Friars’ by The King. In Blair and Robertson
(eds.). The Philippine Islands, 1453-1898 Vol. XLVIII (1674-1683).
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