Yes, certainly there was a start in industrialization in our country. Rizal wrote about this in his essay, “The [allleged] Indolence of the Filipino people.” Citing historians – to refute the colonial lie that Filipinos were poor because they were lazy – Rizal described the economy of the pre-Spanish Filipinos before they were colonized by the Spaniards as follows:
“At that time, that [Philippine] sea, where float these islands like a handful emeralds on a crystal sea, sailed in all directions,junks, paraus, balangays, vintas – craft light as shuttles and so large that they can hold 100 rowers on one side (Morga); that sea bore everywhere commerce, industry, and agriculture by the force of oars moving to the tune of war songs, ancestral songs and songs about the prowess of Filipino deities (Colin, book I, Chapter XV). xxx
“All the histories of those first years, in short, abound in long accounts of the industry and agriculture of the people – mines, gold placers, looms, cultivated farms, barter (trade), shipbuilding, poultry and stock-raising, silk and cotton-weaving, distilleries, manufacture of arms, pearl fisheries, the civet industry, horn and leather industry, etc. All these prove … that [in these Islands] there was life, there was activity, there was movement.”
So when did this movement of commerce and industry stall? When the Spaniards colonized our country and converted its inhabitants into colonial slaves who worked without compensation and their lands were taken from them and appropriated by the Spanish king and his soldiers, officials and Spanish citizens for 350 years. Then the Americans supplanted the Spaniards and converted into our country into a source of raw materials, cheap labor, and a monopoly market for their industrial products. Only by overthrowing this colonial legacy can we move on to genuine industrialization, full employment and general prosperity.
Public Interest PH 