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A HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE PHILIPPINES
By: Olivia C. Caoili
Introduction
The need to develop a country’s science and technology has generally been recognized as one of the
imperatives of socioeconomic progress in the contemporary world. This has become a widespread concern
of governments especially since the post-world war II years.
Among Third World countries, an important dimension of this concern is the problem of dependence in
science and technology as this is closely tied up with the integrity of their political sovereignty and economic
self-reliance. There exists a continuing imbalance between scientific and technological development
among contemporary states with 98 per cent of all research and development facilities located in
developed countries and almost wholly concerned with the latter’s problems. Dependence or autonomy in
science and technology has been a salient issue in conferences sponsored by the United Nations.
It is within the above context that this paper attempts to examine the history of science and
technology in the Philippines. Rather than focusing simply on a straight chronology of events, it seeks to
interpret and analyze the interdependent effects of geography, colonial trade, economic and educational
policies and socio-cultural factors in shaping the evolution of present Philippine science and technology.
As used in this paper, science is concerned with the systematic understanding and explanation of
the laws of nature. Scientific activity centers on research, the end result of which is the discovery or
production of new knowledge. This new knowledge may or may not have any direct or immediate
application.
In comparison, technology has often been understood as the “systematic knowledge of the industrial
arts.” As this knowledge was implemented by means of techniques, technology has become commonly
taken to mean both the knowledge and the means of its utilization, that is, “a body, of knowledge about
techniques.” Modern technology also involves systematic research but its outcome is more concrete than
science, i.e. the production of “a thing, a chemical, a process, something to be bought and sold.”
In the past, science and technology developed separately, with the latter being largely a product of
trial and error in response to a particular human need. In modern times, however, the progresses of science
and technology have become intimately linked together. Many scientific discoveries have been facilitated
by the development of new technology. New scientific knowledge in turn has often led to further refinement
of existing technology or the invention of entirely new ones.
Precolonial Science and Technology
There is a very little reliable written information about Philippine society, culture and technology before
the arrival of the Spaniards in 1521. As such, one has to reconstruct a picture of this past using
contemporary archaeological findings, accounts by early traders and foreign travelers, and the narratives
about conditions in the archipelago which were written by the first Spanish missionaries and colonial
officials. According to these sources, there were numerous, scattered, thriving, relatively self-sufficient and
autonomous communities long before the Spaniards arrived. The early Filipinos had attained a generally
simple level of technological development, compared with those of the Chinese and Japanese, but this
was sufficient for their needs at that period of time.
Archaeological findings indicate that modern men (homo sapiens) from the Asian mainland first
came over-land and across narrow channels to live in Palawan and Batangas around 50,000 years ago.
For about 40,000 years, they made simple tools or weapons of stone flakes but eventually developed
techniques for sawing, drilling and polishing hard stones. These Stone Age inhabitants, subsequently
formed settlements in the major Philippine islands such as Sulu, Mindanao (Zamboanga, and Davao),
Negros, Samar, Luzon (Batangas, Laguna, Rizal, Bulacan and the Cagayan region). By about 3,000 B.C.,
they were producing adzes ornaments of seashells and pottery of various designs. The manufacture of
pottery subsequently became well developed and flourished for about 2,000 years until it came into
competition with imported Chinese porcelain. Thus over time pottery making declined. What has survived
of this ancient technology is the lowest level, i.e., the present manufacture of the ordinary cooking pot
among several local communities.
Gradually, the early Filipinos learned to make metal tools and implements — copper, gold, bronze and,
later, iron. The Iron Age is considered to have lasted from the second or third century B.C. to the tenth
century A.D. Excavations of Philippine graves and work sites have yielded iron slags. These suggest that
Filipinos during this period engaged in the actual extraction of iron from ore, smelting and refining. But it
appears that the iron industry, like the manufacture of pottery, did not survive the competition with imported
cast iron from Sarawak and much later, from China.
By the first century A.D., Filipinos were weaving cotton, smelting iron, making pottery and glass
ornaments and were also engaged in agriculture. Lowland rice was cultivated in diked fields and in the
interior mountain regions as in the Cordillera, in terraced fields which utilized spring water.
Filipinos had also learned to build boats for the coastal trade. By the tenth century A.D., this had
become a highly developed technology. In fact, the early Spanish chroniclers took note of the refined plank-
built warship called caracoa. These boats were well suited for inter-island trade raids. The Spaniards later
utilized Filipino expertise in boat-building and seamanship to fight the raiding Dutch, Portuguese, Muslims
and the Chinese pirate Limahong as well as to build and man the galleons that sailed to Mexico.
By the tenth century A.D., the inhabitants of Butuan were trading with Champa (Vietnam); those of
Ma-i (Mindoro) with China. Chinese records which have now been translated contain a lot of references to
the Philippines. These indicate that regular trade relations between the two countries had been well
established during the tenth to the fifteenth centuries. Archaeological findings (in various parts of the
archipelago) of Chinese porcelains made during this period support this contention. From the Sung
(960-1278) and Yuan (1260-1368) Dynasties, there are descriptions of trade with the Philippines, and from
the Sung and Ming (1360-1644) Dynasties there are notices of Filipino missions to Peking.
The most frequently cited Chinese account in Philippine history textbooks is that of Chao Ju-Kua in
1225. He described the communities and trading activities in the islands of Ma-i (Mindoro) and San-hsu
(literally three islands which present-day historians think refer to the group of Palawan and Calamian
Islands). The people of Ma-i and San-hsu traded beeswax, cotton, true pearls, tortoise shell, medicinal
betelnuts, yu-ta cloth (probably jute or ramie?) and coconut heart mats for Chinese porcelain, iron pots,lead fishnet sinkers, colored glass beads, iron needles and tin. These were practically the same
commodities of trade between the islands and China which the first Spanish colonial officials recorded
when they came to the Philippines more than two centuries later.
The Filipinos in Mindanao and Sulu traded with Borneo, Malacca and parts of the Malay Peninsula.
This trade seems to have antedated those with the Chinese. By the time the Spaniards reached the
archipelago, these trade relations had been firmly established such that the alliance between the rulers of
Manila and Brunei had become strengthened by marriage. It was through these contacts that Hindu-
Buddhist, Malay-Sanskrit and Arab-Muslim Cultural and technological influences spread to the Philippines.
There have also been some references (by early travelers during the precolonial period) to trade relations
between Japan and the Philippines. To date however, Philippine historians have not found any prehispanic
references to the Philippines in Japanese literature of the period.
By the time the Spaniards came to colonies the Philippines in 1565; they found many scattered,
autonomous village communities (called barangays) all over the archipelago. These were kinship groups or
social units rather than political units. They were essentially subsistence economies producing mainly what
they needed.
These communities exhibited uneven technological development. Settlements along the coastal
areas which had been exposed to foreign trade and cultural contacts such as Manila, Mindoro, Cebu,
Southern Mindanao and Sulu, seem to have attained a more sophisticated technology. In 1570, for
example, the Spaniards found the town of Mindoro “fortified by a stone wall over fourteen feet
thick,” and defended by armed Moros — “bowmen, lancers, and some gunners, linstocks in hand.” There
were a “large number of culverins” all along the hillside of the town. They found Manila similarly defended
by a palisade along its front with pieces of artillery at its gate. The house of Raja Soliman (which was
burned down by Spaniards) reportedly contained valuable articles of trade — “money, copper, iron, porcelain,
blankets, wax, cotton and wooden vats full of brandy.” Next to his house was a storehouse which contained:
much iron and copper; as well as culverins and cannons which had melted. Some small and large cannon
had just begun. There were the clay and wax moulds, the largest of which was for a cannon seventeen feet
long, resembling a culverin…
These reports indicate that the Filipinos in Manila had learned to make and use modern artillery.
The Spanish colonizers noted that all over the islands, Filipinos were growing rice, vegetables and
cotton; raising swine, goats and fowls; making wine, vinegar and salt; weaving cloth and producing
beeswax and honey. The Filipinos were also mining gold in such places as Panay, Mindoro and Bicol.
They wore colorful clothes, made their own gold jewelry and even filled their teeth with gold. Their houses
were made of wood or bamboo and nipa. They had their own system of writing and weights and measures.
Some communities had become renowned for their plank-built boats. They had no calendar but counted
the years by moons and from one harvest to another.
In the interior and mountain settlements, many Filipinos were still living as hunters. They gathered
forest products to trade with the lowland and coastal settlements. But they also made “Iron lance-points,
daggers and certain small tools used in transplanting.”
On the whole, the pre-colonial Filipinos were still highly superstitious. The Spaniards found no
temples or places of worship. Although the Filipinos knew how to read and write in their own system, this
was mainly used for messages and letters. They seem not to have developed a written literary tradition at that time.(20) This would have led to a more systematic accumulation and dissemination of knowledge, a
condition that is necessary for the development of science and technology. Because of the abundance of
natural resources, a benign environment and generally sparse population, there seemed to have been
little pressure for invention and innovation among the early Filipinos. As governor Francisco de Sande
observed in 1575, the Filipinos do not understand any kind of work, unless it be to do something actually
necessary — such as to build their houses, which are made of stakes after their fashion; to fish, according
to their method; to row, and perform the duties of sailors; and to cultivate the land…
Developments in Science and Technology
During the Spanish Regime
The beginnings of modern science and technology in the Philippines can be traced to the
Spanish regime. The Spaniards established schools, hospitals and started scientific research and these had
important consequences for the rise of the country’s professions. But the direction and pace of development
of science and technology were greatly shaped by the role of the religious orders in the conquest and
colonization of the archipelago and by economic and trade adopted by the colonial government.
The interaction of these forces and the resulting socio-economic and political changes must,
therefore, be analyzed in presenting a history of science and technology in the Philippines.
Spanish conquest and the colonization of the archipelago were greatly facilitated by the adoption of
an essentially religious strategy which had earlier been successfully used in Latin America. Known as
reduccion, it required the consolidation of the far-flung, scattered barangay communities into fewer, larger
and more compact settlements within the hearing distance of the church bells. This was a necessary
response to the initial shortage of Spanish missionaries in the Philippines. This policy was carried out by a
combination of religious conversion and military force.
The net result of reduccion was the creation of towns and the foundation of the present system of
local government. The precolonial ruling class, the datus and their hereditary successors, were adopted
by the Spanish colonial government into this new system to serve as the heads of the lowest level of
local government; i.e. as cabezas de barangay. The colonial authorities found the new set-up expeditious
for establishing centralized political control over the archipelago — for the imposition and collection of the
tribute tax, enforcement of compulsory labor services among the native Filipinos, and implementation of
the compulsory sale of local products to the government.
The Filipinos naturally resisted reduccion as it took them away from their rice fields, the streams
and the forests which were their traditional sources of livelihood and also subjected them to the onerous
economic exactions by the colonial government. Thus the first century of Spanish rule brought about
serious socio-economic dislocation and a decline kin agricultural production and traditional crafts
in many places. In the region surrounding the walled city of Manila, Filipinos migrated from their
barangays to the city in order to serve in the convents and thus avoid the compulsory labor services in the
shipyards and forests. Over the centuries, this population movement would greatly contribute to the
congestion of Manila and its suburbs.
The religious orders likewise played a major role in the establishment of the colonial educational
system in the Philippines. They also influenced the development of technology and promotion of scientific
research. Hence, these roles must next be examined.
Various decrees were issued in Spain calling for the establishment of a school system in the colony
but these were not effectively carried out. Primary instruction during the Spanish regime was generally
taken care of by the missionaries and parish priests in the villages and towns. Owing to the dearth of
qualified teachers, textbooks and other instructional materials, primary instruction was mainly religious
education. Higher education was provided by schools set up by the different religious orders
in the urban centers, most of them in Manila. For example, the Jesuits founded in Cebu City the Colegio
de San Ildefonso (1595) and in Manila, the Colegio de San Ignacio (1595), the Colegio de San Jose (1601)
and the Ateneo de Manila (1859). The Dominicans had the Colegio de San Juan de Letran (1640) in Manila.
Access to these schools was, however, limited to the elite of the colonial society — the European-born
and local Spaniards, the mestizos and a few native Filipinos. Courses leading to the B.A. degree,
Bachiller en Artes, were given which by the nineteenth century included science subjects such as physics,
chemistry, natural history and mathematics.
On the whole, however, higher education was pursued for the priesthood or for clerical positions
in the colonial administration. It was only during the latter part of the nineteenth century that technical/
vocational schools were established by the Spaniards.(26)
Throughout the Spanish regime, the royal and pontifical University of Santo Tomas remained as the
highest institution of learning. Run by the Dominicans, it was established as a college in 1611 by Fray
Miguel de Benavides. It initially granted degrees in theology, philosophy and humanities. During the
eighteenth century, the faculty of jurisprudence and canonical law was established. In 1871, the schools of
medicine and pharmacy were opened. From 1871 to 1886, the University of Santo Tomas granted the
degree of Licenciado en Medicina to 62 graduates. For the doctorate degree in medicine, at least an
additonal year of study was required at the Universidad Central de Madrid in Spain.
The study of pharmacy consisted of a preparatory course with subjects in natural history and general
chemistry and five years of studies in subjects such as pharmaceutical operations at the school of pharmacy.
At the end of this period of the degree of Bachiller en Farmacia was granted. The degree of licentiate in
pharmacy, which was equivalent to a master’s degree, was granted after two years of practice in a
pharmacy, one lof which could be taken simultaneously with the academic courses after the second year
course of study. In 1876, the university granted the bachelor’s degree in pharmacy to its first six graduates
in the school of pharmacy. Among them was Leon Ma. Guerrero, who is usually referred to as the “Father of
Philippine Pharmacy” becuase of his extensive work on the medicinal plants of the Philippines and their
uses. The total number of graduates in pharmacy during the Spanish period was 164.
There were no schools offering engineering at that time. The few who studied engineering had to go to
Europe. There was a Nautical School created on 1 January 1820 which offered a four-year course of
study (for the profession of pilot of merchant marine) that included subjects as arithmetic, algebra,
geometry, trigonometry, physics, hydrography, meteorology, navigation and pilotage. A School of
Commercial Accounting and a School of French and English Languages were established in 1839.
In 1887, the Manila School of Agriculture was created by royal decree but it was able to open only
in July 1889. The School was designed to provide theoretical and practical education of skilled farmers and overseers and to promote agricultural development in the Philippines by means of observation,
experiment and investigation. Agricultural stations were also established in Isabela, Ilocos, Albay, Cebu,
Iloilo, Leyte and parts of Mindanao. The professors in the School were agricultural engineers. The School
was financed by the government but it appears that its direction was also left to the priests. The certificates
of completion of the course were awarded by the University of Santo Tomas or the Ateneo Municipal. It
seems that the School was not successful as Filipinos did not show much inclination for industrial pursuits.
In 1863, the colonial authorities issued a royal decree designed to reform the existing educational
system in the country. It provided for the establishment of a system of elementary, secondary and
collegiate schools, teacher-training schools, and called for government supervision of these schools.
The full implementation of this decree, however, was interrupted by the coming of the Americans in 1898.
Higher education during the Spanish regime was generally viewed with suspicion and feared by
the colonial authorities as encouraging conspiracy and rebellion among the native Filipinos. For this
reason, only the more daring and persevering students were able to undertake advantaged studies. The
attitude of the Spanish friars towards the study of the sciences and medicine was even more discouraging.
As one Rector of the University of Santo Tomas in the 1960s said: “Medicine and the natural sciences are
materialistic and impious studies.” It was not surprising, therefore, that few Filipinos ventured to study these
disciplines. Those who did were poorly trained when compared with those who had gone to European
universities. Science courses at the University of Santo Tomas were taught by the lecture/recitation method.
Laboratory equipment was limited and only displayed for visitors to see. There was little or no training in
scientific research. Sir John Bowring, the British Governor of Hongkong who made an official visit to the
Philippines in the 1850s wrote:
Public instruction is in an unsatisfactory state in the Philippines–the provisions are little changed
from those of the monkish ages.
In the University of Santo Tomas… no attention is given to the natural sciences… nor have any of
the educational reforms which have penetrated most of the colleges of Europe and America found their
way to the Philippines.
In spite of the small number of Filipino graduates from the UST in medicine and the sciences they
still faced the problem of unemployment. This was because the colonial government preferred to appoint
Spanish and other European-trained professionals to
At the start of the American regime, a German physician of Manila submitted a report to the
authorities on the conditions at UST’s medical college. The report mentions, among others, its lack of
library facilities, the use of outdated textbooks (some published in 1845), that no female cadaver had ever
been dissected and the anatomy course was a “farce”, that most graduates “never had attended even
one case of confinement or seen a case of laparotomy” and that bacteriology had been introduced
only since the American occupation and “was still taught without microscopes!” Many of these
graduates later joined the revolutionary movement against Spain.
With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the consequent ease in travel and communications
that it brought about, the liberal ideas and scientific knowledge of the West also reached the Philippines.
The prosperity that resulted from increased commerce between the Philippines and the rest of the world
enabled Filipino students to go to Europe for professional advanced studies. These included Jose Rizal who was able to pursue studies in Medicine and specialize in ophthalmology in Spain and Germany; Graciano
Apacible who studied medicine in Madrid; Antonio Luna who obtained his Ph.D. in pharmacy in Madrid and
later worked with renowned scientists in Ghent and Paris; Jose Alejandrino who took up engineering in
Belgium, and others. It was this group of students which set up the Propaganda Movement in Europe that
eventually led to the Philippine revolution against Spain.
The religious orders provided most of the teaching force and institutions of learning in the colony. This
was similar to the situation that had earlier prevailed in Europe (where they had come from) during the
medieval ages. Inevitably, members of the religious orders also took the lead in technological innovation
and scientific research. This involvement invariably arose from their need to provide for basic necessities
as they went around the archipelago to perform their missionary work of propagating the Catholic faith
and to finance the colleges, hospitals and orphanages that they had established.
The Spaniards introduced the technology of town planning and building with stones, brick and tiles. In
many places, religious (such as Bishop Salazar in Manila) personally led in these undertakings. Because of
the lack of skilled Filipinos in these occupations, the Spaniards had to import Chinese master builders,
artisans and masons. The native Filipinos were drafted, through the institution of compulsory labor services,
to work on these projects. In this manner, the construction of the walls of Manila, its churches, convents,
hospitals, schools and public buildings were completed by the seventeenth century.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the religious orders had established several charity hospitals
in the archipelago and in fact provided the bulk of this public service. These hospitals became the setting
for rudimentary scientific work during the Spanish regime long before the establishment of the University
of Santo Tomas (UST) college of medicine. Research in these institutions were confined to pharmacy and
medicine and concentrated on the problems of infectious diseases, their causes and possible remedies.
Several Spanish missionaries observed, catalogued and wrote about Philippine plants, particularly those
with medicinal properties. The most notable of these was Father Fernando de Sta. Maria’s Manual de
Medicinas Caseras published in 1763 which was so in demand that it had undergone several editions by
1885.
By the second half of the nineteenth century, studies of infectious diseases such as smallpox,
cholera, bubonic plague, dysentery, leprosy and malaria were intensified with the participation of graduates
of medicine and pharmacy from UST.(45) At this time, native Filipinos began to participate in scientific
research. In 1887, the Laboratorio Municipal de Ciudad de Manila was created by decree. Its main
functions were to conduct biochemical analyses for public health and to undertake specimen examinations
for clinical and medico-legal cases. It had a publication called Cronica de Ciencias Medicas de Filipinas
showing scientific studies being done during that time.
There was very little development in Philippine agriculture and industry during the first two centuries of
Spanish rule. This was largely due to the dependence of the Spanish colonizers on the profits from the
Galleon or Manila-Acapulco trade, which lasted from 1565 to 1813. It was actually based on the trade with
China which antedated Spanish rule. The galleons brought to Latin America Chinese goods — silk and other
cloths, porcelain and the like — and brought back to Manila Mexican silver. When the Spanish and
Portuguese thrones were united from 1581 to 1640, goods brought to Manila by ships from Japan and
Portuguese ships from Siam, India, Malacca, Borneo and Cambodia were also carried by the galleons to
Mexico. During the time, Manila prospered as the entrepot of the Orient. The Filipinos hardly benefited from the Galleon trade. Direct participation in the trade was limited to
Spanish inhabitants of Manila who were given shares of lading space in the galleons. Many of them simply
speculated on these trading rights and lived off on their profits. It was the Chinese who profited most from
the trade. They acted as the trade’s packers, middlemen, retailers and also provided services and other
skills which the Spanish community in Intramuros needed.
Spanish preoccupation with the Manila Galleon eventually led to the neglect of agriculture and mining
and the decline of native handicrafts and industries in the Philippines. The deleterious effects of the trade on
the archipelago’s domestic economy had been pointed out by some Spanish officials as early as 1592. But
this seems to have been largely ignored by colonial policy-makers. Only the local shipbuilding industry
continued to prosper because of necessity — to build the galleons and other ships required for internal
commerce and the defense of the archipelago. This had become quite well developed according to a
French visitor in the nineteenth century. He observed:
In many provinces shipbuilding is entirely in the hands of the natives. The excellence of their work
is proof that they are perfectly capable of undertaking the study of abstruse sciences and that mathematical
equations are by no means beyond their comprehension….
Agricultural development was left to the resident Chinese and the Spanish friars. The latter saw in
the cultivation of their large estates around Manila a steady source of financial support for their churches,
colleges, hospitals and orphanages in Intramuros. The friar estates profited from the expanding domestic
food market as a result of the population growth of Manila and its suburbs. But the friars contribution in the
development of existing agricultural technology was more of quantitative than qualitative in nature. The
profitability of their estates was largely derived from the intensive exploitation of native technology and their
free compulsory personal services.
Successive shipwrecks of and piratical attacks on the galleons to Mexico led to declining profits
from the trade and triggered an economic depression in Manila during the latter part of the seventeenth
century. This situation was aggravated by increasing restrictions on the goods carried by the Manila Galleon
as a consequence of opposition coming from Andalusion merchants and mercantilists in Spain.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Bourbon dynasty ascended to the Spanish throne
and brought with it political and economic ideas of the French Enlightenment. This paved the way for
more government attention to the economic development of the Philippines. Enterprising Spaniards began
to exploit the mineral wealth of the islands, develop its agriculture, and establish industries. These efforts
were further encouraged by the need to promote economic recovery after the British Occupation of Manila
in 1762-1764.
Research in agriculture and industry was encouraged by the founding of the Real Sociedad
Economica de los Amigos del Pais de Filipinas (Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Philippines) by
Governador Jose Basco y Vargas under authority of a royal decree of 1780. Composed of private
individuals and government officials, the Society functioned somewhat like the European learned
societies during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and a modern National Research Council, It
undertook the promotion of the cultivation of indigo, cotton, cinnamon, and pepper and the
development of the silk industry. During the nineteenth century, it was endowed with funds which it used
to provide prizes for successful experiments and inventions for the improvement of agriculture and industry: to finance the publication of scientific and technical literature, trips of scientists from Spain to the
Philippines, professorships; and to provide scholarships to Filipinos.
In 1789, Manila was opened to Asian shipping. This inaugurated an era of increasing Philippine
exports of rice, hemp, sugar, tobacco, indigo and others and rising imports of manufactured goods. In
1814, Manila was officially opened to world trade and commerce; subsequently other Philippine ports were
opened.
Foreign capital was allowed to operate on an equal footing with Spanish merchants in 1829. By this
means agricultural production particularly of sugar and hemp, was accelerated and modernized. Local
industries flourished in Manila and its suburbs — weaving, embroidery, hatmaking, carriage
manufacture, rope-making, cigar and cigarettes-making. Much of the finished products of these
industries were exported. Yet although Philippine exports kept rising during the nineteenth century, imports
of manufactured goods also rose and foreign, particularly English capital dominated external trade and
commerce. This partly because of short-sighted Spanish colonial trade policies and the relative
inexperience and lack of capital of Spanish colonial trade policies and the relative inexperience and lack
of capital of Spanish and Filipino merchants.
The prosperity arising from expanded world trade and commerce in the nineteenth century led to
Manila’s rapid development as a cosmopolitan center. Modern amenities — a waterworks system, steam
tramways, electric lights, newspapers, a banking system — were introduced into the city by the latter half of
the nineteenth century. Undoubtedly, commercial needs led to the Spanish governments establishment of
a Nautical School, vocational schools and a School of Agriculture during the nineteenth century.
Various offices and commissions were also created by the Spanish government by the Spanish
government to undertake studies and regulations of mines, research on Philippine flora, agronomic
research and teaching, geological research and chemical analysis of mineral waters throughout the
country. However, little is known about the accomplishments of these scientific bodies.
Meteorological studies were promoted by Jesuits who founded the Manila Observatory in 1865. The
Observatory collected and made available typhoon and climatological observations. These observations
grew in number and importance so that by 1879, it became possible for Fr. Federico Faura to issue the first
public typhoon warning. The service was so highly appreciated by the business and scientific
communities that in April 1884, a royal decree made the Observatory an official institution run by the
Jesuits, and also established a network of meteorological stations under it. In 1901, the Observatory was
made a central station of the Philippine Weather Bureau which was set up by the American colonial
authorities. It remained under the Jesuit scientists and provided not only meteorological but also
seismological and astronomical studies.
The benefits of economic development during the nineteenth century were unevenly distributed in the
archipelago. While Manila prospered and rapidly modernized, much of the countryside remained
underdeveloped and poor. The expansion of agricultural production for export exacerbated existing socio-
economic inequality that had been cumulative consequence of the introduction of land as private property at
the beginning of Spanish rule. There was increasing concentration of wealth among the large landowners —
the Spaniards, especially the religious orders, the Spanish and Chinese mestizos, the native Principalia —
and poverty and landlessness among the masses. This inequality, coupled with abuses and injustices
committed by the Spanish friars and officials gave rise to Philippine nationalism and eventually the
Revolution of 1896.

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