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Basilio
Don Custodio is an influential Manila politician of Spanish descent. Traveling to the Philippines as a young man, Custodio quickly found business success, which he then translated into political capital. Custodio sits on numerous committees, despite his near-total lack of policy expertise, and the captain-general relies upon his counsel to make difficult decisions. Custodio’s loyalty to the colonial power structure and paternalistic racism towards the indios severely limits his liberal inclinations, however. Indeed, he is hardly a true liberal at all, as a brief return to Spain for medical treatment impressed upon him how irrelevant and backward he is compared to metropolitan liberal politicians. Custodio is a close ally of the priests and continually rules in their favor, most notably when he resolves the question of the Spanish-language academy with a false compromise, returning control of education entirely to the religious orders.
Don Custodio Quotes in El Filibusterismo
The El Filibusterismo quotes below are all either spoken by Don Custodio or refer to Don Custodio. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
15. Señor Pasta
Quotes
“Well, confine yourself to learning how to apply plasters and leeches and don’t try to make your mates’ lot either better or worse. When you get your license, marry a rich, devout young woman, practice well, make money, fly from anything that has to do with the general state of the country, attend mass, go to confession and take communion when everybody else does [...] Always remember that charity begins at home. Man should not seek more than the highest form of his own happiness on this earth, as Bentham says. If you have to tilt at windmills, you will end up with no career, no marriage, nothing. Everyone will abandon you and the first ones to laugh at your naiveté will be those very peasants themselves. Believe me, when you have gray hair like mine—like this!—you’ll remember what I said and see I was right.”
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Explanation and Analysis:
20. The Arbitrator
Quotes
Once he was advised to return to Spain to be cured of a liver ailment and the newspapers spoke of him as if he were Antaeus needing to set foot in the mother county to renew his strength, though this Antaeus found himself small and insignificant at court. He was a nobody there and he missed his beloved adjectives. He had no relations with the first families, his lack of education afforded him no prominence in the scientific or academic communities, and his backwardness and friary politics came off simplistic in those circles. So, disgusted and put out, he took nothing from it except that there they kicked sand in your face and played rough. He missed the submissive houseman in Manila who suffered all his impertinence and who now seemed preferrable.
22. The Performance
Quotes
“The French language really doesn’t have the rich sonority or the varied and elegant cadences of the Castilian language. I cannot fathom, I cannot imagine, I cannot formulate an idea of French orators and I doubt they have ever existed, nor could they exist in the true sense of the word, in the strict sense of the idea.”
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Don Custodio Quotes in El Filibusterismo
The El Filibusterismo quotes below are all either spoken by Don Custodio or refer to Don Custodio. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
15. Señor Pasta
Quotes
“Well, confine yourself to learning how to apply plasters and leeches and don’t try to make your mates’ lot either better or worse. When you get your license, marry a rich, devout young woman, practice well, make money, fly from anything that has to do with the general state of the country, attend mass, go to confession and take communion when everybody else does [...] Always remember that charity begins at home. Man should not seek more than the highest form of his own happiness on this earth, as Bentham says. If you have to tilt at windmills, you will end up with no career, no marriage, nothing. Everyone will abandon you and the first ones to laugh at your naiveté will be those very peasants themselves. Believe me, when you have gray hair like mine—like this!—you’ll remember what I said and see I was right.”
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
20. The Arbitrator
Quotes
Once he was advised to return to Spain to be cured of a liver ailment and the newspapers spoke of him as if he were Antaeus needing to set foot in the mother county to renew his strength, though this Antaeus found himself small and insignificant at court. He was a nobody there and he missed his beloved adjectives. He had no relations with the first families, his lack of education afforded him no prominence in the scientific or academic communities, and his backwardness and friary politics came off simplistic in those circles. So, disgusted and put out, he took nothing from it except that there they kicked sand in your face and played rough. He missed the submissive houseman in Manila who suffered all his impertinence and who now seemed preferrable.
22. The Performance
Quotes
“The French language really doesn’t have the rich sonority or the varied and elegant cadences of the Castilian language. I cannot fathom, I cannot imagine, I cannot formulate an idea of French orators and I doubt they have ever existed, nor could they exist in the true sense of the word, in the strict sense of the idea.”
