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• PRECOLONIAL PHILIPPINES
• In his annotations of Antonio De Morga‘s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas (1609), Jose Rizal expounded that, far from the general belief that the early Philippine society was uncivilized and barbaric,
• ―indigenous civilization flourished in the archipelago before the arrival of the Spaniards…‖. What these remarks of Rizal amounted to was the fact that a level of civilization have already engulfed the archipelago, and this could be seen in the level of social organizations and political institutions established by natives through their customs.
• early thinkers and colonizers who have looked under the prism of western political and economic paragon of development dismissed these institutions unqualified for the standard of civilization.
• community of pre-colonial Philippines was politically undeveloped, due primarily to the non-existence of dichotomy between public and private interest, but it does not mean that it was uncivilized and barbaric
• to understand the growth of social forces, and institutions of the early Philippine society, one should look at the early river-based settlements of the natives for it largely shaped not only their way of life, but also the kind of political system they have established
• Oliver Wolters (1999) from Abinales and Amoroso‗s book, State and Society in the Philippines (2018): Every Center was a center in its own right as far as its inhabitants were concerned, and it was surrounded by its own groups of neighbors
• As an archipelago, the settlements at river mouth, such as that of Manila, were particularly strategic. These locations gave early settlers the opportunity to control the entry of the upcoming goods, thereby monopolizing the wealth indispensable to sustain a community.
• protection of the settlement requires a sophisticated level of social organization mobilized through kinship ties
• The people capable of giving such protection were the so-called big man in anthropological studies, or called as ―Datu‖ or also referred to as ―rajah‖.
• The legitimacy of a chief rested secondarily on customs, and primarily on his capacity to preserve the community, and win wars against other chiefs.
• Weberian scholarship, the authority of a datu rested, other than on inheritance, but more on his charisma.
• early European kingdoms, dynasties were difficult to establish in this period, because power could be claimed by anyone with merits and talent
• The state-government was referred to as the ―barangay‖.
• The chief datu, or rajah was maker and implementer of laws, the chief‗s power was also emphasized on the realm of military, and decided on the fields of commerce, politics, religion, and judiciary.
• since each settlement was a center in its own right as far as its inhabitants were concerned; the power of a chief varies from each settlement
• SPANISH COLONIAL PERIOD
• arrival of ―conquistador‖ and first Governor General Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, the Philippines became a crown colony of Spain, through Mexico, from 1565 to 1821, under the administration of the Council of Indies headed by the Viceroy of Mexico.
• During this period, Las Leyes de Indias were the laws that were implemented in the Philippines.
• When Mexico declared its independence in 1821, Spain started to directly rule the Philippines, and continued on until 1898
• In 1834, the Philippines was opened by Spain to world trade.
• The Cavite Mutiny of 1872, which implicated the three secular priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora (Gomburza) to the allegation of rebellion, and which eventually led to their execution, has pushed forward the Propaganda Movement.
• The Propaganda was a reform movement for the Philippines that was initiated by the Filipino enlightened middle class, called as ―Ilustrados‖ in Europe
• Jose Rizal, its greatest propagandist and leader, wrote the novel Noli Me Tangere which would be instrumental in the launching of the Philippine Revolution.
• Rizal established in the Philippines upon his arrival in 1892 the civic association, Liga Filipina. Upon the arrest and exile of Rizal, the Liga Filipina was dissolved.
• Its end saw the founding and rise of the Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng Mga Anak ng Bayan, or commonly known as Katipunan. In August of 1896, its leader, Supremo Andres Bonifacio started the Philippine revolution, the call for the separation of the Philippines from Spain
• CONSTITUTION OF BIAK-NA-BATO (1897)
• The Katipunan revolution led to the Tejeros Convention where, at San Francisco de Malabón, Cavite, on 22 March 1897, the first presidential and vice-presidential elections in Philippine history were held—although only the Katipuneros (members of the Katipunan) were able to take part, and not the general populace.
• On 1 November 1897 at Biak-na-Bato in the town of San Miguel de Mayumo in Bulacán, as the tide of war and negotiation ongoing, Aguinaldo declared the Biak-na-Bato republic.
• The republic‗s constitution was draffted by Isabelo Artacho and Felix Ferrer.
• The new established republic was to have a constitution mainly borrowed from Cuba, supreme council and centralized government, but instead, the revolutionary leadership departed from these aims, and consented a truce and exile in Hong Kong
• The spectrum of historians are polarized, nationalist historiography interpreted the acceptance in congruence to the latter, or in a tone that the middle class betrayed the revolution, especially that the leaders and mediator came from the ambivalent class of principalia, and ilustrado
• The revolutionary leadership and the mediator of the Pact of Biak-na-Bato became main target, and threw their historical relevance in an equivocal, if not insignificant, position.
• Resil Mojares (2006), quipped in his introduction to Pedro Paternos: the mediator of the pact—life, "History has not been kind to Pedro Paterno…Paterno has sunk to insignificance has to do in part with his politics. Nationalist historiography has cast him as symbol of the class that betrayed the Philippine Revolution. Reduce to a convenient sign (Traitor to the Revolution or, kindly, Peacemaker, Father of the Malolos constitution)…"
• Nick Joaquin (1977) deviated from the narrative of nationalist historiography, and interpreted the signing of the pact more on the psychological depths of Aguinaldo, and his innate awareness to his educational deficiency
• Emilio Aguinaldo - President

  Mariano Trias - Vice-President

  Antonio Montenegro - Secretary of Foreign Affair

  Isabelo Artacho - Secretary of the Interior

  Emiliano Riego de Dios - Secretary of War

  Baldomero Aguinaldo - Secretary of the Treasury
• THE MALOLOS CONSTITUTION (1898)
• February 15, 1898 the Philippines was involved in the war between the United States and Spain.
• Americans employed trickery and deceit, because a divided victory in Manila was impermissible
• In his prosaic biographical account of Emilio Aguinaldo, Nick Joaquin (1977) criticized him for his failure to act as a good and clever political leader at one of the most pivotal ages in the history of the Philippines, failing to navigate geopolitically between the two states, and putting too much faith and trust in the words of an American