Indolence of Filipino People

I. La Indolencia de los Filipinos by Jose Rizal

Who is Rizal?

To generalize that Filipinos are indolent, I thought, this is truly an arrogant man, this Rizal. However, I cannot let this prejudice pass without basis so I continued to read the essay. He alleged that Filipinos of his time are indolent, but indolence, as he described, is not laziness, rather not enough love or even the non-existence of love for one’s work. He pursued by saying that this very same indolence is not brought about by Filipinos themselves. In fact, he argued that it was the fault of the Spaniards. The establishment of the Galleon trade that cut off ties with other countries, that lead to the death of many small handicraft businesses, the implementation of forced labor, the crooked system of education that taught prayers instead of livelihood practices and agriculture, the rampant gambling and corruption, and the big tax that ate the Filipinos’ wages, these were the causes of indolence among Filipinos, these practices that were brought about by the conquerors’ race.

Rizal grounded this claim into different evidence and new claims that I would have to agree with. To be honest, I cannot say for sure, since I wasn’t there to witness this “so-called indolence”. Nevertheless, these conditions would surely kill all love for one’s work. However, I would never claim that Filipinos are lazy, not now, not ever. It’s highly improbable if not impossible.

II. Climate as a factor of Indolence by Jose Rizal

Interestingly enough, Rizal mentioned climate as a factor that contributed to the folks’ laziness. He stated that being in a tropical country ate up most of our energy, unlike in temperate climate where it’s not so exhausting to work. He even made a comparison that a day’s work in Europe would be considered as just an hour’s work in the Philippines. This assertion reminded me of  the theory of suicide which stated that more people commit suicide in colder countries, but that’s another story. Anyway, I...