Saturday, June 23, 2012

Chapter III. The Leasehold System at the Hacienda de Calamba

The Hacienda de Calamba during the Philippine Revolution

            A hacienda (Spanish: estate, ranch or farm), in its Hispanic signification, is a landed estate organized to supply a small-scale market by means of scarce capital. It is operated by a dominant landowner called haciendado who employs a dependent labor force. The laborers were theoretically free wage earners. In practice, however, their employers somehow kept them in an indebted state, and thus, were bound to the land. The factors of production are employed to accumulate capital and to support the status aspirations of the owner.
            In the Philippines, the term hacienda is used rather loosely. By emphasizing internal social relations rather than the area of lands, every Philippine landowner who held few sharecroppers is considered as a haciendado, known in the Philippines as haciendero.[1]
            The Corporacion de Padres Dominicos de Filipinas (henceforth, the Dominicans), the owner of the Hacienda de Calamba, belongs to the mendicant orders. Thus, like the Franciscans, they were barred by their rules and vows of poverty to own earthly possessions. These friars were expected to live a life of utmost personal poverty and simplicity. Their temporal possessions should only be minimum—no lands, no funded property, no fixed sources of income.[2]
            Maintaining this ideal, however, proved to be unworkable in practice. As early as 1640, the Dominican order in the Philippines mitigated the rigidity of this regulation in the following justification:

The haciendas will be cultivated and improved in order to transport religious from Spain to the Philippines … These haciendas will be under the custody of the Rector of our College of Santo Tomas who will have the book of receipts of these funds. The Provincial will expend the money only for the purpose of transporting religious from Spain, and for no other purpose, because this is the only instance in which our province is permitted to have temporal possessions and incomes. He will not use any of the surplus for anything else, regardless of the benefits to the province, because we do not wish to have properties, but only to assist the Crown in transporting members of our order.[3]

Thereafter, the Dominicans acquired, among others, the ranches[4] of Tunasancilla in Tondo (1643), Biñan in Laguna (1644), Tabuco in Laguna (1660), Indan in Cavite (1761), Santa Cruz in Cavite (1761), Naic in Cavite (1831), Calamba Nueva in Laguna (1833), Calamba Vieja in Laguna (1883) and Los Baños in Laguna (1833).[5] Through the income derived from the lands, the Dominicans supported their missions in the Philippines as well as the University of Santo Tomas.[6]    
The Hacienda de Calamba
            One of the haciendas acquired by the Dominicans in 1833 was the Calamba Nueva in Laguna which was subsequently included Calamba Vieja in 1883. The two haciendas were collectively called the Hacienda de Calamba. The territorial extent hacienda de Calamba at the time of its acquisition was 16,424 hectares. In 1888, the gobernadorcillo and the principales of the town of Calamba delineated what was publicly known as the scope of the hacienda:
On the north, the part of the lake until the Island of Calamba; on the south, until the Bigo Bridge, Olango, Santol and Mount Sungay; on the east, until Los Baños in Bacong, comprising almost one half of Mount Maquiling; on the west, until Cabuyao and Santa Rosa, having an area of at least 700 quiñones of clean cleared land.[7]

            Many Calambeños believed that the above territorial delineations cover more area than what the land titles held by the Dominicans described. Thus, in many instances, the Calambeños asked for the presentation of the said titles,[8] which the Dominicans refused to do on the reason that the Pope prohibited the church from submitting to the jurisdiction of the temporal authorities. Religious orders did not and cannot commit any usurpation of lands.[9]
            In 1905, as a step towards solving the Friar Lands Question, the Bureau of Lands (under the American colonial rule) surveyed the hacienda and found that its total land area was 18,501.8694 hectares. In other words, the hacienda accumulated 2,077.8694 hectares in the course of time. These accumulated areas became the subject of dispute for which the Dominicans which challenged to present their titles and which they strongly opposed.
The Administration of the Hacienda
            The Hacienda de Calamba was administered by a Dominican lay brother administrator (hermano administrador) who was appointed by the Provincial Superior of the Dominican Order in the Philippines. The lay brother administrator managed the day-to-day operations of the hacienda subject to rules and regulations laid down by the Dominicans. The hacienda was audited annually by the visitador who was also appointed by the Provincial Superior.
To the Dominican landowners, the lay brother administrator was a loyal, trustworthy and efficient servant. His advice was given weight in the formulation of policies for the administration of the estate. Indeed, the success of haciendas in the Philippines can be credited to the lay brother administrators who managed them as if they were the owners.[10] But to the tenants, he is venal and ignorant, mindful only of flattering his masters.[11]
            Though the administrator was under the direct authority of the provincial of the order, he was given a great deal of freedom and most decisions were left at his discretion being the most well-informed person in the affairs of the hacienda. He had no authority to eject or replace tenants as this power was bestowed upon the visitador, however, in practice it was him who actually made the decisions ejecting tenants.[12]
            Eighteenth-century Spanish officials found him to be a local tyrant.  He treated his tenants as slaves, published his own decrees, ran his own jails, harbored bandits, and illegally hid some natives in the estate from government tax officials so that the hacenderos could pocket the tribute payments.[13]
            Besides the visitador and hermano administrador, the parish priest (cura parroco) also played an important role in the management of the hacienda. The parish priest complemented the administrator. This was especially true when the religious order which owned the hacienda also held the parish located nearby or within the hacienda. In extreme cases, the parish priest disciplined recalcitrant tenants by excommunication.
            The Civil Guard (guardia civil), a civil-military police force, took up the task of maintaining peace and order. Soon, the guardia civil together with the hermano administrador, became instrumental in subjecting the tenants of the hacienda to abuses and tyranny.[14] The guardia civil became an oppressive force in the rural areas.
            The Lands and their Rents
In all Dominican hacienda documents, it appeared that the owners employed two accounting methods. On the official registries, the tenants were listed and the lands they held described in terms of quiñones (5.76 hectares per quiñon) and balitas (one-tenth of a quiñon). However, rents were determined by the area of land which could be planted with a given portion of seedlings. Thus, it is difficult to evaluate whether or not the rents of the lands of the Hacienda de Calamba were reasonable.[15]
            The lands in Hacienda de Calamba were customarily classified into into three: Tierras Palayeras, Tierras Cañadulzales and Tierras Catijanes for purposes of determining the rents. Tierras Palayeras, lands suited for rice farming, were further classified into regadio and secano. Based on the productivity of the lands, the regadio and secano lands were classified as either first class, second class and third class lands. The third class being considered the least productive type. In 1886, Mariano Herbosa reported that irrigated rice land, even if it has no water (secano), were required to pay a tax of fifty (50) cavanes of palay (unhusked rice) and land with six cavanes of seed pay five (5) pesos in cash. [16]
However, the tenants and subtenants complained that though the agreed rent was thirty (30) pesos for lands with six cavanes of seed, if the harvests were good, the administrators unilaterally increased the rents. But if the harvests were poor, the administrators don’t decrease the rents.[17] If poor harvests or bad prices of crops caused the tenants’ default of payments of the annual rents, they had to pay double the following year. This took place in Calamba in the years 1886 and 1887.[18]
Tierras Cañadulzales (sugar lands) were dry lands suited for sugar cane, maize and upland rice cultivation. Rents of sugar lands were generally less than those for rice paddies. However, the rents increased from fifteen pesos for a quiñon of first class land in the 1840s, to twenty-five (25) pesos and finally thirty (30) pesos. In 1886, Mariano Herbosa reported that according to custom, lands classified as second and third-class were taxed at twenty-five (25) pesos or twenty (20) pesos.
While Tierras Catijanes were higher shore land which dried up during low tide. Tierras Catijanes included pesquerias or fishing grounds and tomana or garden plots. Various amounts were likewise levied on the plants in the fields far from the town. The tax on the palay is separate from that on maize, mongo, or garlic.
“The country”, sighed Paciano in 1883, is “a country most burdened with taxes.”[19] “This year,” he added in 1886, “if things turn out well for me, I shall try to have my own land, giving Pansol either to Silvestre or to anybody else or return it to the Estate, because it is not possible for a farmer to support himself in these lands which are overloaded with rent, considering the bad price of sugar.”[20]
The Collection of Rents
When the visitador arrived, all the tenants were summoned to appear before him. He began to call the roll and as they were called, the tenants approached the visitador to pay their cannons. Those who settled their accounts will be marked “paid,” [21] while those who weren’t able to pay were given ten-day grace period after which, the land will be declared “vacant.” Still, though rarely, there were those who pleaded for extension of time to pay the cannon. These were granted.[22]
One peculiar complaint was the failure of the visitador to issue receipts for the taxes collected every time the Calambeños pay. In 1883, Paciano Rizal wrote:
This is the time to pay land rent at the Hacienda and contrary to the general customs they accept the money without issuing any receipt to any one. Has this any relation to the important reforms of the general or it is nothing more than one of the arbitrary nets of the administrator? I’m more inclined to the latter one, though I would like it to be the first one…[23]

And in 1886, Mariano Herbosa wrote:

I’m looking for a receipt to send you but I cannot find any, because we don’t get a receipt every time we pay. Any way it is valueless, as it does not state the amount paid; it only says that the tax for that year has been paid, without stating whether it is five centavos, twenty-five centavos, one hundred, or one thousand pesos. The residents here who ask or get the said receipt accepts it with closed eyes. The receipt has no signature in the place where the amount paid ought to be, though it bears their name. Until now I cannot comprehend why some are signed and others are not. This is more or less what is happening here in the payment of land tax and it has been so for many years, since I can remember.[24]



                [1]In the Philippines the dominant landowner is called haciendero rather than haciendado. See Dennis Morrow Roth, The Friar Estates of the Philippines, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977), 6.
                [2] “mendicant,” Encyclopædia Britannica, (Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2009).
                [3]Dennis Morrow Roth, The Friar Estates of the Philippines, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977), 44.
                [4]Spanish land grants were frequently referred to as estancias.   
                [5]Archivo de la Provincia de Santisimo Rosario, Haciendas, Tomo 12, folio 136. See also Dennis Morrow Roth, The Friar Estates of the Philippines, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977), 41.
                [6] Archivo de la Provincia de Santisimo Rosario, Cronicas, Tomo 3, folio 178. See also Jose S. Arcilla, “Documents Concerning the Calamba Deportation of 1891,” Philippine Studies, Vol. 18, (July 1970), 615.
                [7] “Del Pueblo de Calamba,” in MH. Plaridel, La Soberania Monacal En Filipinas, Encarnacion Alzona (trans.), (Quezon City: Philippine Historical Association, Inc., 1958), 88.
[8]Paciano Rizal to Jose Rizal, no place, May 27, 1890, Letters Between Rizal and Family Members (Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1964), 295 - 298.
[9]Archivo de la Universidad de Santo Tomas, Libros, Tomo 5, folio 5.
                [10] NLAC, document 246, Observaciones sobre el estdao politico y economico de las Islas Filipinas, folio 12. See Roth, 56. 
                [11] “Del Pueblo de Calamba,” in MH. Plaridel, La Soberania Monacal En Filipinas, Encarnacion Alzona (trans.), (Quezon City: Philippine Historical Association, Inc., 1958), 88-89.
                [12]AUST, Folletos, tomo 120, folio 147. See Roth 56.
                [13]AUST, Folletos, tomo 74, folio 120. See Roth 55. 
[14]Lucia Rizal to Jose Rizal, Calamba, May 30, 1890, Letters Between Rizal and Family Members (Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1964), 301-302.
[15] Dennis Morrow Roth, The Friar Estates of the Philippines, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977), 138-139.
[16]Mariano Herbosa to Jose Rizal, Calamba, August 29, 1886, Letters Between Rizal and Family Members (Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1964), 239-241.
[17]Mariano Herbosa to Jose Rizal, Calamba, August 29, 1886, Letters Between Rizal and Family Members (Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1964), 239-241.
[18] Dennis Morrow Roth, The Friar Estates of the Philippines, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977), 142-143.
[19]Paciano Rizal to Jose Rizal, Calamba, May 26, 1883, Letters Between Rizal and Family Members (Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1964), 96-99.
[20]Paciano Rizal to Jose Rizal, Calamba, May 26, 1886, Letters Between Rizal and Family Members (Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1964), 96-99.
                [21]Jose S. Arcilla, “Documents Concerning the Calamba Deportation of 1891,” Philippine Studies, Vol. 18, (July 1970), 591.
                [22]Jose S. Arcilla, “Documents Concerning the Calamba Deportation of 1891,” Philippine Studies, Vol. 18, (July 1970), 597.
[23]Paciano Rizal to Jose Rizal, Calamba, May 26, 1883, Letters Between Rizal and Family Members (Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1964), 96-99.
[24] Mariano Herbosa to Jose Rizal, Calamba, August 29, 1886, Letters Between Rizal and Family Members (Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1964), 239-241.

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