THE PHILIPPINES A CENTURY HENCE

The Philippines a Century Hence is a series of four political essays first published in the Madrid Filipino reformist newspaper La Solidaridad between 1889 and 1890 by José Rizal (1861-1896), the Filipino physician, novelist, and national hero of the Philippines. Rizal wrote the essays during his European years and used them to set out his diagnosis of the political condition of the Spanish Philippines and his prediction of the likely course of the next hundred years under Spanish rule. He argued that the continued denial of basic political rights and the persistence of friar dominance would eventually force a revolutionary break with Spain, and considered the possibility that American expansionism might draw the Philippines into the United States orbit. Rizal was put to death by Spanish authorities in Manila in December 1896, and the prediction was largely borne out by the events of 1898 and after.