Module 2

Readings in Philippine History

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Lesson 3: Relacion de las Costumbres de los Tagalogs By Juan de Plasencia

(Customs of the Tagalogs)

Learning Outcomes:

At the end of the lesson, the students must be able to:

1. Examine the context and perspective of the document

2. Explain the relationship among the members of a barangay
3. Discuss the religious and spiritual practices and beliefs of early Filipinos
4. Determine the significance of the document to Philippine History

Activate
1. List down at least three (3) Customs or traditions that your household still follows up today.
a. _______________________
b. _______________________
c. _______________________
2. What these customs or traditions implicates you as a student? Why?
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Acquire
Historical Context

During the first century of Spanish rule, the colonial government had difficulty in running local politics
because of the limited number of Spaniards who wanted to live outside of Intramuros. This situation forced Spanish
officials to allow Filipinos to hold the position of gobernadorcillo. To ensure that the gobernadorcillos would
remain loyal to the Crown, the friars assigned in the parishes were instructed to supervise and monitor the activities
of the former. Hence, the friars ended up performing the administrative duties that colonial officials should have
been doing at the local level. They supervised the election of the local executives, helped in the collection of taxes,
were directly involve in educating the youth, and performed other civic duties. Consequently, the friars became the
most knowledgeable and influential figure in the pueblo.

The friars who were assigned in mission territories were required periodically to inform their superiors of
what was happening in their respective areas. They prepared reports on the number of natives they converted, the
people’s way of life, their socio-economic situation, and the problems they encountered. Some of them submitted
short letters while others who were keen observers and gifted writers wrote long dispatches. On top of the regular
reports they submitted, they also shared their personal observations and experiences. Plasencia’s Relacion de las
Costumbres de los Tagalogs (Customs of the Tagalogs, 1589) is an example of this kind of work. It contains
numerous information that historians could use in reconstructing the political and socio-cultural history of the
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Tagalog region. His work is a primary source because he personally witnessed the events and his account contained
his observations.

There were other friars and colonial officials who also wrote about the Filipinos which could further enrich
our knowledge of Philippine history during the early part of the Spanish period. For example, Miguel de Loarca, an
encomendero of Panay wrote his Relacion de las Islas Filipinas (1582) and described the Filipinos’ way of life in the
Western Visayas area. Most of what we know about history during the first century of the Spanish period were
derived from the accounts of the Spanish friars.

Background of the Author

● Born during the early 16th century as Joan de Portocarrero (real name) in Plasencia, Extremadura, Spain.

● One of the seven children of Portocarrero, a captain of a Spanish schooner.

● Fray Juan de Plasencia came together with the first batch of Franciscan missionaries in the Philippines.

● Arrived in the Port of Cavite, few kilometers south of manila on the 2nd of July 1578.

● With Fray Diego de Oropesa, they preached around Laguna de Bay and Tayabas, Quezon, where they
founded several towns.
● They are also credited to have founded large towns in Bulacan, Laguna, and Rizal (e.g. Meycauayan,
Lucban, and Antipolo).
● He is the author of what is believed to be the first book printed in the Philippines, the Doctrina Christiana.

Purpose: Relacion de las Costumbres and Instruccion

● To put an end to some injustices being committed against the natives by certain government officials.

Historical Background of the Document

● Provided the first form of Civil Code used by the Spaniards in the Philippines

● The works that helped understand and preserve many of the traditional ways of the pre-Spanish Filipinos

Content presentation

● Nature of Barangay
- “tribal gathering”
- a family of parents and children,
relations and slaves
- did not settle far from one another

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 - not subject to one another, except in friendship and relationship

● Social Structure/Class

Chieftain
(Dato)

Nobles (Maharlika)

Commoners
(Aliping namamahay)

Slaves (Aliping saguiguilir)

1. Dato

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 - Chief of the barangay whom governed, obeyed, and reverenced
- “Corresponded to our knights”
- The subject who committed any offense against them, or spoke but a word to their wives and
children, was severely punished.

2. Nobles or Maharlika

- Free-born
- Do not pay tax or tribute to the dato, but must accompany him
in war,
at their own expense
- After marriage, they could not move from one barangay to
another without
paying a certain fine in gold

3. Commoners or Aliping namamahay

- Can marry
- Serve their master, whether he be a dato or not, with half of
their cultivated lands
- They accompany their master whenever he went beyond the
island, and rowed for him
- They live in their own houses, and are lords of their property
and gold
- Their children can inherit their parents’ properties
- Their children can enjoy the rank of their fathers, and they
cannot be made slaves (sa guiguilir) nor can either parents or
children be sold

4. Aliping sa guiguilir
- Slaves
- They serve their master on his house and on his cultivated lands
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- May be sold by their master
- Can ransom himself and become a namamahay through payment of at least five taels of gold

Interclass Marriage

● If a Maharlica marries a slave, whether namamahay or sa guiguilir, the children were divided: the first,
third, fifth, and so on, whether male or females, belongs to the father; the second, fourth, sixth, and so on,
belongs to the mother.
● If the parent is a free-born, all those who belonged to him/her are free; if he/she is a slave, then the
children are also slave.
● Those who became slaves fell under the category of servitude which was their parent’s, either
namamahay or sa guiguilir.

● Sentence and Punishment

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- Investigations made and sentences passed by the dato must take place in the presence of those of his
barangay.
- An arbiter can be invited from another barangay if any of the litigants felt aggrieved.
- There is a death penalty imposed for those who insult the child of a dato.
- They condemned no one to slavery, unless he merited the death penalty.
- All other offenses were punished by fines in gold, which, if not paid with promptness, exposed the culprit to
serve, until the payment should be made, the person aggrieved.

● Dowry and Inheritance

- The legitimate children inherited equally, except in the case where the father
and mother showed a slight partiality by such gifts as two or three gold taels,
or perhaps a jewel.
- Adopted children inherit the double of what was paid for their adoption.
- Dowries are given by the men to women’s parents.
- If the wife has no parents or grandparents, she enjoys her dowry.
- Unmarried women can own no property, in land or dowry, for the result of
their labors accrues to their parents.
- In the case of a divorce before birth of children, if the wife left the husband
and marry another man, all her dowry fell to the husband.
- If the woman left but did not marry, the dowry was returned.
- When the husband left his wife, he lost half of the dowry and the other half was returned to him.
- If he possessed children at the time of his divorce, the whole dowry and the fine went to the children.
- Upon the death of the wife in a year’s time they had no children, the parents returned one-half of the dowry
to the husband.
- Upon the death of the husband, one-half of the dowry was returned to the relatives of the husband.

● Worship of the Tagalogs

A. Place of worship
▪ No temples consecrated to the performing of sacrifices or adoration of idols.

▪ The simbahan, which means a temple or place of adoration, is being constructed for the
purpose of sheltering the assembled people during a feast

B. Idol-worship

* Bathala – “all powerful” or “maker of all things”

* Dianmasalanta – patron of lovers and of generation

* Lacapati & Idianale – patrons of the cultivated

lands and of husbandry

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* They also worshipped the sun, the moon, and the stars.

* They possessed many idols called lic-ha, which were images of different
shapes.
* They also adore some dead men who were brave in war and endowed with
special faculties.
* They paid reverence to buaya (crocodile) from fear of being harmed by them

C. Auguries and Superstitions

● Belief in good and bad omens brought by particular animals

(e.g. serpent, rat, birds, etc.)
● Practice of divination to see whether weapons
were to be useful or lucky for their possessor

D. Rituals and Sacrifice

● Practice of rituals and sacrifices led by a catolonan to heal
sick person, prosperous voyage, good harvest, victorious
wars, etc.
● “devil-worshipping”

E. “Priests of the devil”

● There is a distinction among the “priests of the devil”

1. Catolonan
* Either a man or a woman

* An honorable position held by people of rank.

2. Mangagauay
* Witches who deceived by pretending to heal the sick.

* They induced maladies by their charms which can cause death.

3. Manyisalat

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 * Same as mangagauay

* They had the power of applying remedies to lovers that they would abandon and despise their own
wives.

4. Mancocolam
* Emits fire that cannot be extinguished from himself at night, once or oftener each month.

5. Hocloban
* Another kind of witch of greater efficacy than the mangagauay.

* Without the use of medicine, they can kill or heal whom they chose.

6. Silagan
* They kill anyone clothed in white by tearing out and eating the liver of the victim.

7. Magtatanggal
* His purpose was to show himself at night to many persons, without his head or entrails.

8. Osuang
* Equivalent to “sorcerer”

* They fly, murder men and eat their flesh.

* This was only among the Visayas Islands; among the Tagalogs these did not exist.

9. Mangagayoma
* Another class of witches that make charms for lovers out of herbs, stones, and wood, which would
infuse the heart with love.

10. Sonat
* Equivalent to “preacher”

* They help people to die, at which time they predict the salvation or condemnation of the soul.

* Held by people of high rank

11. Pangatahojan
* A soothsayer and predicts the future.

12. Bayoguin
* A “cotquean”, a man whose nature inclined toward that of a woman.

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 F. Burial practice
● The deceased are buried beside his house; and if he was a chief, he was placed beneath a little house
or porch which they constructed for this purpose.
● They lay the deceased on a boat which served as a coffin or bier, and guarded by a slave.

● Various animals, both male and female, were placed within the boat (e.g. two goats).

● If the deceased is a warrior, a living slave is tied beneath his body until the latter dies.

● For many days the relatives bewailed the dead, singing dirges, and praises of his good qualities.

● The mourning is accompanied by eating and drinking.

● For the Negrillos (Negritos), they dug a deep, perpendicular hole and placed the deceased within it,
leaving him upright with head or crown unburied, on top of which they put half a coconut which was
to serve him as a shield.
● They then kill another person in retribution for the one who died.

G. Life after death

● Maca

* paradise or village of rest

* Place of the just, the valiant, and those who lived good, or who possessed moral virtues

● Casanaan

* Place of punishment, grief, and affliction

* Place of the wicked and being dwelt by demons, called sitan

⮚ They believe that no one would go to heaven, where there dwelt only Bathala.

⮚ They also believe in vibit (ghosts) and tigbalaang (phantoms).

⮚ They also believe in patianac, that if any woman died in childbirth, she and the child suffered
punishment
Content Analysis

❖ Regional differences of pre-Spanish society and culture.

❖ The pre-Spanish Filipino society has a rich, vibrant, and enduring civilization.

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 ❖ Plasencia’s historical writings also disprove the claim of some Spaniards that when they arrived in the
Philippines, Filipinos were still uncivilized and lacking in culture. It is clear from Plasencia’s writings that at
the time he was assigned in the Tagalog region, Filipinos were already politically and economically
organized.
❖ Ethnocentric biases and subjectivity of the writer/historian are evidently present by:
› Demonizing pre-Spanish Filipino beliefs and practices
› Description of the natives as “infidels”, “heathens”, “Indians”
❖ From cyclical to linear view of the past imposed by foreign historical consciousness
› The pre-Spanish Filipinos believe in myths and legends about eternal recurrent events (e.g. life and
death, planting and harvesting, day and night, etc.) as part of their kasaysayan – “meaning and
relevance”
❖ Class structure is prominent in pre-Spanish history (Marxist historiography).

❖ Using gender lens, bayoquin or cotquean as a “priest of the devil” is gender-biased.

Contribution and Relevance of the Document to Philippine History

❖ Historical evidence of pre-Spanish Filipino culture and civilization.

❖ Colonial historiography of Philippine pre-Spanish history

Learning Experiences

❖ Understanding of colonial historiography and the need to write and interpret Philippine history from a
Filipino perspective.
❖ Appreciation of pre-Spanish Filipino culture and heritage, its continuity, and relevance to the present times

Application
Instructions: Identify two urban legends in your place and research about people’s stories related to them.
Afterwards, examine if these legends bear a resemblance to the supernatural beliefs documented by Fr. Plasencia.
How similar or different were they? Write down your findings in the space provided below.

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Assess
Answer the following questions:

1. How did Plasencia describe the society of the prehispanic Filipinos?

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2. What were the injustices in the classification of societal status?

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3. What does Fr. Plasencia’s account reveal about the religious and spiritual beliefs of the early Filipinos?
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4. Based on your critical analysis of the above description of Juan de Plasencia about the early inhabitants of
the Philippines, draw some points which you do not agree about the Filipino people before the Spanish
colonization. Provide evidence of your argument.
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References:

Torres, J. (2018). BATIS: Sources in Philippine History. Quezon City: C & E Publishing, Inc.

Martinez, R. M., et al. (2018). The Readings in Philippine History. Manila, Philippines: MINDSHAPERS CO., INC.

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