The Evolution of Philippine

Society and Culture

Pre-Colonial Culture, was it

Indigenious Culture or
Civilization?

Webster
Defines civilization as the
advanced state of human
society in which a high level
of

Jocano
The Vision of our Future must be rooted
in our Image of the Past, however,
strongly
contends
that:
Filipinos
possessed an elaborate civilization in the
past. This achievement did not become
part of Filipino consciousness, even
today, because of the advent of
colonization during which a systematic
distortion of our perspectives about
ourselves was carried out.

Egyptian Pyramid

Great Wall of China

Cambodian Angkor Wat

Origin of
the
Philippines

Earlier accepted theories

about the origin of the
Philippines

The Filipino
Race

H. Otley Beyer (eminent anthropologist

of the American period
The racial mixture of the Filipinos is as
follows:
Malay (40%)
Indonesian (30%)
Negrito (10%)
Chinese (10%)
Indian (8%)
American (3%)
Arab (2%)

The Earliest People

 Dr. H.O. Beyers migration

theory
arranged
the
peopling of the Philippines
with the coming of the
Dawn Man, the prehistoric
cousin of the Java man and
Peking man of 250,000
years ago.

Asian Migrations

 According to Prof. Beyer,

three Asian peoples are:
Negritos
Indonesians
Malays

Negritos

Indonesians

The Malays
Came in three waves;
First: brought their mining and smelting
technology, and their agricultural system.
They were headhunters who chiefly
depended on hunting, fishing, and fruit
gathering. They developed terrace
agriculture with elaborate irrigation
systems.

 Second wave: brought their syllable

system of writing. They were known as
the alphabet-using Malays.
Third wave: the Muslim Malays
introduced Islam in the Philippines.
More advanced culturally and economically
than the Indonesians.
Their culture belonged to the Iron and
Porcelain periods.
Lived in organized communities and had
domestic and foreign barter trade, wet
agriculture, and industries.

Malays

The First Filipino

Tabon Man (22,000-30,000 years
ago) who lived in Palawan.
The skull cap of this Stone Age human
was discovered by Dr. Robert Fox inside
Tabon Cave in 1962.
Medium height, and had a high eyebrow
and sloping forehead,.
Depend on forest fruits, roots and edible
plant, and by hunting wild animals.

First Filipino Communities

Barangays
Units of social organization with broader
political, economic, and religious features than
the family (Jocano 1975).
30-100 families had distinct culture of their own.
As political organization, it was a consultative
monarchy and was considered the barangays
carried on trade and commerce not only among
themselves, but also with other foreign entities.
They concluded treaty of friendship and alliance
with each other through ritual sanduguan (blood
compact).

Social Classes
Traditional history divided pre-Spanish
cosiety into three classes:
The nobles or upper class
The chiefs (Datu or Rajah), their families and relatives

The freemen or middle class

Free-born or freed slaves constituted the majority of
the social classes

The dependents or alipins

Aliping namamahay owned house and properties
Aliping sagigilid had no right, could be sold anytime
by his master, generally they were captives of war

Spanish Colonial Society

Ferdinand Magellan
The first European to reach the Philippines
A Portuguese explorer commissioned by the
Spanish ruler to search for the Spice Islands.

Villalobos
Named the islands La Felipinas in honor of
Prince Philip, who later became the King of
Spain.

Legazpi (1565)
Successfully established the first Spanish
settlement in Cebu.

Roy Lopez de Villalobos

Encomienda System
Established a feudalistic society
which was characterized by a
master-slave relationship between
the conquistadores and the Indios
(natives).

Doctrine of Limpieza de Sangre

(purity of blood)
Creating a social ranking among
various groups.

Peninsulares

Insulares

Indio

Frailocracy (QuasiTheocratic Society)

Frailocracia rule of the
friars

American Colonial Society

Education
The main vehicle of peaceful pacification
through education was the establishment
of the Public School System by the
American-controlled Second Philippine
Commission under Taft.
The Commissions Act No. 74 provided
initially for free primary education with
English as the medium of instructions.

 Pensionado system or the scholarship

grant to the United States
Another subtle device created by the
Americans to project better their
benevolence.
It was recorded that by 1912 more than
200 of this pensionados or
Americanization trainees had obtained
their university degrees in the United
States.

Politics
Introduction of democracy
Cooper Act
Jones Law
Tydings-McDuffie Law
Bill of Rights

Economic Relations
Free trade relations with the United
States made the Philippines
economically dependent on the
United States.

Miseducation and Colonial

Consciousness
Colonial or Stateside mentality

Literature-Agent of
Deculturization
Literature during this period was divided
into two schools of thought:
reactionary school whose clientele
were the collaborators or
Americanistas
progressive school whose proponents