Calamba
The Hacienda de Calamba case – Copy of the brief presented to the Supreme Tribunal – Long account of the ejection of the tenants – Cruelties and abuses – Scenes of desolation – Payment of rent as the only remedy – They spread the information that Blumentritt has been won by the friars – Rizal, defeated, was not allowed to appeal to the Supreme Court – Appointment of friar partisans to discourage the people and compel payment – Another 13 defendants – The same sword hangs over those of Sta. Cruz – Rizal’s father ejected from his house for questioning the payment of urban taxes.
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Calamba, 14 January 1891
MESSRS. JOSE RIZAL AND MARCELO H. DEL PILAR
DEAR SIRS,
We have received the copy of the brief and we are very grateful for your great interest in this trouble. We are letting you know what the Dominicans, and including the justice of the peace, are doing here.
On 14 August they carried out the order of eviction and we were ejected from our respective houses. They listed our sugar cane and machinery and other implements. They didn’t give us time to mill the cane, thus resulting in the loss of about one-half of the harvest. The entire crop should yield more than one thousand loaves of sugar but less than five hundred loaves were realized. The friar manager and the justice of the peace didn’t allow me to mill the cane, so that I was unable to recover the capital I invested in the purchase of the carabaos, the loans to the tenants, and other expenses. My rice field suffered the same fate. When it was being planted no officer of justice or of the Estate stopped the workers, but when harvests by order of the friar manager and were accused of stealing before the judge of the court of first instance. Even my three servants who harvested were accused by the friar of stealing four cavanes of palay. The entire harvest was sent to the estate and the tenants were not given their share, which made them cry. Then when the friars took a couple of Civil Guards there and confiscated all the palay, supervised the rest of the harvest, and collected as taxes seven cavances for each cavan of seed. Many of the workers didn’t harvest enough and they begged the friars telling them that the Civil Guards would take care of them. The poor workers couldn’t do anything but cry.
Our acting curate Father Domingo is going around the tenants urging them to pay their dues to the Estate and telling them that they can’t do anything with the Dominicans because they are the owners of the land and that Mr. Fernando Borromeo is already on the side of the friars and your Don Jose, whatever he can do, is already defeated, having been denied the right of appeal by the Supreme Court. Every Sunday he preaches that we should pay our dues to the Estate and that the town is our failure to give for masses or to light candles. Another threat is that we shall all die in exile, like the five who were reported to Mindoro who cannot come back to Calamba.
The justice of the peace assigned here is Mr. Vicente Roque, who is a teacher from Tanawan, chosen not by the town but by the Dominicans. Every case of eviction brought to him by the Dominicans, was decided against the tenant, even if the tenant is right, and he denies all petitions for appeal, saying that his decisions cannot be reversed by any court. This is because the Dominicans give him money, a rice field of twenty cavanes, and a piece of pasture land taken from the poor people. He tells the tenants that whoever is brought to him by the friars will loose. We should not go against the friars for we would be impoverished.
Our brothers and fellow townsmen are also regretting that the mayor appointed here is Mr. Lucas Quintero, who is favored by the Dominicans, because he promised that he would make the tenants pay their dues by force. He sends for the tenants and drives them to the Estate. He also promises that if he is asked for a report on this estate, he would testify that this land belongs to the Dominicans. He favors the Estate. When the ditch in San Cristobal River broke down – which should be repaired at the expense of the Dominicans – he ordered more than one hundred laborers working on the rice fields to do the work gratis, which took them about a month. He scolds all who complain against the Dominicans. What he wants is for all of them saying that they will fight knowing that nothing would come out of it.
And the Dominicans are now suing at the court of first instance in Sta. Cruz. Sued for eviction are thirteen tenants: Mr. Luis Havania, Mrs. Petrona Quintero, Mrs. Fernanda Casanias Petronila Alviar, Mrs. Isabel Habacon, Mr. Pascual Alcaras, Ponciano Alviar, Vicente Ruvio, Victor Albiar, Narciso Abacon, Dionisio Alasegui, Santos Alcaras. All of them are fighting the Dominicans for having been evicted from their land. The next batch will be thirty tenants also to be sued at Sta. Cruz. The Dominicans say that when all these cases are decided and our land is taken away from us, we shall be reduced to extreme poverty, and even if five hundred tenants are evicted, three thousand five hundred will be left. The fact is that four hundred workers on the land of the evicted tenants are now unemployed.
The house of your father has been confiscated. When the order was received here, your father was ordered to pay the urban tax but he questioned it and he was ejected by court order.
This is all. We are strengthening our spirit in our fight against the friars, come what may. Greet on our behalf our supporters there in this case and command us.
NICASIO EIGASANI
03-598 [Reformists]