La Indolencia de los Filipinos

Sobre la indolencia de los filipinos ("On the Indolence of the Filipinos" in Spanish) is a socio-political essay published in La solidaridad in Madrid in 1890. It was written by José Rizal as a response to the accusation of Indio or Malay indolence. He admits the existence of indolence among the Filipinos, but it could be attributed to a number of reasons. He traces its causes to factors such as the climate and social disorders. He defends the Filipinos by saying that they are by nature not indolent, because in fact, even before the arrival of Spaniards, Filipinos have been engaged in economic activities such as agriculture and trade. Indolence therefore has more deeply rooted causes such as abuse and discrimination, inaction of the government, rampant corruption and red tape, wrong doctrines of the church and wrong examples from some Spaniards who lead lives of indolence which ultimately led to the deterioration of Filipinos values. In the end, Rizal sums up the main causes of indolence to the limited training and education Filipino natives receive and to the lack of national sentiment and unity among them. Education and liberty, according to Rizal, would be the cure to Filipino indolence.

A similar work was written by Syed Hussein Alatas, entitled The Myth of the Lazy Native.

Rizal acknowledges the prior work of Gregorio Sancianco and admits that indolence does exist among the Filipinos, but it cannot be attributed to the troubles and backwardness of the country; rather it is the effect of the backwardness and troubles experienced by the country. Past writings on indolence revolve only on either denying or affirming, and never studying its causes in depth. One must study the causes of indolence, Rizal says, before curing it. He therefore enumerates the causes of indolence and elaborates on the circumstances that have led to it. The hot climate, he points out, is a reasonable predisposition for indolence. Filipinos cannot be compared to Europeans, who live in cold countries and who must exert much more effort at work. An hour's work under the Philippine sun, he says, is equivalent to a day's work in temperate regions.

Rizal says that an illness will worsen if the wrong treatment is given. The same applies to indolence. People, however, should not lose hope in fighting indolence. Even before the Spaniards arrived, Rizal argues, the early Filipinos were already carrying out trade within provinces and with other neighboring countries; they were also engaged in agriculture and mining; some natives even spoke Spanish. All this disproves the notion that Filipinos are by nature indolent. Rizal ends by asking what then would have caused Filipinos to forget their past.

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