During the Spanish regime, all male Filipinos from 18 to 60 years of age were required to give their free labor, called polo, to the government. This labor was for 40 days a year, renovación de residencia aplicación de ciudadanía reduced to 15 days in 1884. It was in various forms, such as building roads and bridges, constructing public buildings and churches, cutting timber in the forest, working in shipyards, and serving the Spanish military expeditions. One who rendered forced labor was called a polista.
The members of the principalia (town aristocracy) were exempt from the polo. Rich Filipinos annually paid the falla, a sum amounting to seven pesos, in order to be exempt from forced labor. The local officials (former and incumbent gobernadorcillos, cabezas de barangay, etc.) and schoolteachers were also exempted by law from the polio because of their services to the state.
Evidently, only the poor Filipinos who had no social or political standing in the community were made to give forced labor. This practice greatly contributed to the widespread Filipino aversion to physical labor, which has only recently been overcome by attractive wages overseas.
The conditions for forced labor were (1) that it should be used only for necessary public works and constructions intended to improve the community; (2) that the workers were to be paid in full for their work; (3) that the alcaldes mayor should consider the physical condition of each laborer, that is, the weak should not be overworked; (4) that the laborers should not be sent to work in distant lands; (5) that the giving of service should be timed so as not to interfere with the planting or harvest seasons.
All this was good only on paper, however; the laws of forced labor were often violated. Laborers were seldom paid their wages. They were separated from their families by being made to work in distant areas. They were not given food, as required by law; they had to provide their own food instead. Moreover, they were shamefully overworked, and thousands of Filipino laborers died at the worksites as a result.
The Filipino Tribute to the Colonial Government
In order to get enough money to pay for the administration of the country and the construction of churches, government buildings, roads and bridges, and improvements in transportation and communication, the Filipinos were compelled to pay tribute called tributo, to the colonial government. The tributo was imposed as a sign of the Filipinos' loyalty to the king of Spain. Those who paid tribute were individuals above sixteen years old and below sixty. At the start, a tribute amounting to eight reales was collected. The tribute increased in 1598 and a small part of it, called sanctorum, went to the church. Because of the widespread opposition to the tribute and to the abuses in its collection, the king abolished it in 1884. The cedula personal, the equivalent of which is the present residence certificate, was introduced in its place.
Aside from the tribute, the Filipinos also paid other taxes. There were the diezmos prediales, the donativo de Zamboanga, and the vinta. The diezmos prediales was a tax consisting of one-tenth of the produce of one's land. The donativo de Zamboanga, introduced in 1635, was taxed specifically used for the conquest of Jolo. The vinta was tax paid by people in the provinces along the coast of Western Luzon to defend the area against Muslim pirates common at the time, as can still be seen from the surviving towers of stone (where bells were rung to warn the locality when Muslim pirates arrived).
In the quiet of the arctic night--
In its deep northern skies,
Dim are the lights, in its cold
Evening frost...!
Even the stars of the arctic
Seem silently stone frozen!
Here, here is where you find
Peace and the beast within--!
Remote, no ears or words
To clutter the mind
To entrench the throat;
Here, here is where you die...
(for a moment).
Here, the sky has eternal eyes
Eyes with cosmic tides
Tides that never rest: they war
With the Universe--
Likened to a dark deep abyss;
Endless and never resting...
Here my eyes seek and search
In countless hours, ebbing and
Sweeping the heavens above
Numbing, changeless--
Are the cosmos, the heavens?
Here resides a strange peace...
Here, resides a strange peace
With an army of stars to defeat
Shinning, silently in the dark
The ebbing, eldritch dark;
Time has no relevance here,
Here, resides a strange, peace...
Cold and oddly numb are my feet,
As I look up, upon the many bridges
One star bridging the next--as if,
If Kings and Queens were
Guarding them--the Hosts--
O--Yes! A strange, strange peace...
Ah! Praise, praise be to thee, to thee
Flaming, blazing firmaments--ye,
Ye, remind me not, of the wars I left,
Of the foes, divine immortals...
The enemies that never rest
Ah! Praise, praise be to thee, to thee
I hear music, harmony from afar (there)
There are storms hidden in a storehouse,
For tomorrow--war beyond, beyond
Orion's dust...perpetual dust;
There, there the sun is dim to bleak.
Here, here our sacred books are on fire...
Aw! Ye, our sacred books are all on fire;
With the hostile holy firmaments...!
Nobodies listening--to the tidings
Tiding from heaven--.
The night is my peace, my saga
But even the firmaments reject this...
I see the flames; crimson flames;
Whence I cry: when will this night die?
The sun will rise, it always has--
And the mindless will play some more?
We've put it all into human hands, now
My peace, stillness, our hours...
Off in the darkness, somewhere...!
I see no sign of tears, no tears;
A blood-red moon stirs the floor of the
Sea; with fainting breath, silently--;
Thus, void of death, they both protest.
I do not want to see the annuals--,
The annuals of warfare anymore,
The devils seed, wherein, He stirs
...stirs the cosmos: with His spectral.
I just want quiet, stillness--peace;
Strange as it may seem, it is all I seek...
Eh! yes! Oh yes, the midnight sky has eyes
Has a barbaric eye, deep barbaric eyes.
My night will soon divide, expire:
Hence, soon to recur the inviolate
The inviolate flames of humankind--;
This is my testimony to the night!...
Notes by the author: "...this is a deep, and restless poem with many images; the secret of the poem (to me) is the sun, as it has always rose, so it shall again, tomorrow, and again another tomorrow, and so shall peace not exist, as long as it is in the hands of mankind." The author has spent time in the Arctic, l996. 7/7/05 #752
This is part one of three parts; part two, to this poem is called: "House of the Goblin"...
∆
Spanish Version
Testimonio a la Noche
Translated by Nancy Peñaloza
Edited by Rosa Peñaloza
En la quietud de la noche Ártica-
En sus cielos profundos del norte,
¡Débiles son las luces, en sus frías
Noches heladas!....
Aún las estrellas del Ártico
¡Parecen silenciosamente congeladas!.....
¡Aquí, aquí es donde Ud. encuentra
La Paz y la bestia dentro!-
Distante ni oídos o palabras
Para confundir la mente
Para atrincherar la garganta;
Aquí, aquí es donde Ud. muere---
Aquí, el cielo tiene ojos eternos
Ojos con mareas cósmicas
Mareas que nunca descansan: ellos guerrean
Con el universo-
Comparado a un profundo abismo oscuro;
Infinito y jamás dormido-
Aquí mis ojos investigan y buscan
En horas incontables, bajando y
Barriendo bajo los cielos
Insensible, invariable-
¿Son los cosmos, el paraíso?
Aquí reside, una extraña paz...
Aquí, reside una paz extraña
Con un ejército de estrellas para derrotar
Brillando, silenciosamente en la oscuridad
El descenso, macabro oscuro;
El tiempo no tiene importancia aquí,
Aquí, reside, una extraña paz--
Frío y entumecido de una manera extraña están mis pies,
Mientras miro alto, sobre muchos puentes
Una estrella acorta el siguiente, como si,
Si reyes y reinas estuvieran
Guardándolos-los anfitriones-
¡OH, si! Una extraña paz...
¡AH! Alabanza, alabanza sea para ti, a ti
Firmamentos que queman y arden- ¿verdad?
Recordándome las guerras que deje, por favor
Los adversarios e inmortales divinos
Los enemigos que no quieren la paz
¡Ah! Alabanza, alabanza sea para ti, a ti
Oigo la música armoniosa, desde lejos (allí)
Hay bombardeo oculto en un almacén,
Para la guerra del mañana- más lejana, incontrolable
El polvo de Orión. Polvo perpetuo;
Allí, allí el sol es silenciosamente negro.
Allí, allí, el sol nacerà mañana...
¡Aw! Nuestros libros sagrados están todos sobre el fuego;
¡Hostil santo firmamento!...
Nadie escuchando. A las noticias
Noticias desde el cielo-
La noche es mi paz, mi epopeya
Pero aun los cielos desechan esto...
Veo, las llamas sobre los caminos de batalla
En donde yo grito: ¿Cuándo se acabará esta noche?
El sol saldrá, siempre lo hace-
¿Y la estupidez jugara