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10. Wealth and Poverty
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in El Filibusterismo, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonialism and Identity
Violence vs. Nonviolence
Education and Freedom
Hypocrisy and Colonial Oppression
Summary
Analysis
The captain-general finds little success on his hunting expedition, and the local dignitaries worry they will be punished for it. Luckily for them, the captain-general, wanting to save face, declares that he isn’t interested in hunting anyway. Then the captain-general returns to Los Baños, a lakeside resort, and plays cards with Fathers Irene, Sibyla, and Camorra. Don Custodio, Simoun, Ben Zayb, the chief of staff, and a quieter priest named Father Fernández are also present. Camorra is enraged by the other priests deliberately throwing the game to please the captain-general, not catching on to their flattery. Simoun half-jokingly suggests they bet with governmental favors, including executions. Before arriving in Los Baños, Simoun was abducted, but he was able to get away by giving the bandits his other pistols. Simoun pokes fun at the company, calling them worse thieves than the bandits—himself included.
The captain-general’s failed hunting trip is a perfect example of the dishonesty that characterizes the colonial regime, as everyone involved is concerned with saving face above all else. This dissemblance continues at Los Baños, where the priests let the captain-general win because of his position of authority, though this is almost foiled by Father Camorra’s lack of social intuition. Because the colonial elites are so used to speaking in half-truths, Simoun is able to directly accuse them of the actual crimes they have committed—exploiting the country, wielding their power arbitrarily, and using their positions for personal gain—as long as he couches his criticisms in jokes. Simoun also tells them that he was captured by Cabesang Tales’s bandits but bartered his guns for his freedom, but whether this is the full truth or not is still unclear.
Themes
The captain-general’s secretary brings him several agenda items, which he decides on flippantly and dismissively. The priests encourage the captain-general’s worst impulses, as he rejects a petition for a new school to be built because the teacher who submitted it is a “heretic.” Don Custodio seizes the opportunity to present his own brilliant idea: using cockpits as schools during the work week.
The captain-general’s treatment of his agenda is a particularly extreme example of the cruel and capricious nature of colonial rule, a system which constantly cuts corners and punishes those that speak out. Even Custodio’s great idea is little more than a cheap parlor trick, as he proposes using the pits using for cockfights, a popular gambling attraction in the Philippines, as schools to skimp on actual money for education.
Themes
Finally, they turn to the students’ petition for a Spanish-language academy. The chief of staff and Father Irene are in favor, while Fathers Sibyla and Camorra are strongly opposed, arguing that the academy will inspire resistance from the indios and hurt the prestige of the religious schools. Simoun joins Sibyla’s side. Father Fernández argues in favor of the academy too, but he upsets Sibyla by favorably referencing the Jesuit schools, and the uproar prevents them from coming to a decision. Finally, as lunch is served, the captain-general hears one last petition from Julí and, on Camorra’s advice, grants it, releasing Tandang Selo, who was jailed in his son’s place.
The issue of the Spanish-language academy clarifies the real political disagreements among the government leaders. The chief of staff is committed to an efficient and functioning government administration and sees the school as a way to peacefully include the students and prevent them from radicalizing; Father Irene tentatively agrees. Sibyla and Camorra, on the other hand, are too afraid of losing control over education to see how suppressing the students will only intensify the political crisis. Eventually the debate becomes entirely subsumed by factional squabbling as Sibyla, a Dominican friar like the others, becomes enraged by Fernández’s offhand comment referring favorably to their rival religious order, the Jesuits. Camorra’s reasons for intervening on Julí’s behalf for now remain mysterious, but this is something to keep in mind going forward.
Themes
