Note 3 — II. Industries at the Time of Discovery and Conquest

“The Filipinos, like the inhabitants of the Marianas, who are no less skilful and dexterous in navigation, far from progressing, have retrograded; since, although boats are now built in the islands, we might assert that they are all after European models. The boats that held one hundred rowers to a side and thirty soldiers have disappeared. The country that once, with primitive methods, built ships of about 2,000 toneladas, today (1890) has to go to foreign ports, as Hongkong, to give the gold wrenched from the poor, in exchange for unserviceable cruisers. The rivers are blocked up, and navigation in the interior of the islands is perishing, thanks to the obstacles created by a timid and mistrusting system of government; and there scarcely remains in the memory anything but the name of all that naval architecture. It has vanished, without modern improvements having come to replace it in such proportion as during the past centuries has occurred in adjacent countries.” (Rizal’s note to Morga.—Bl. and Rb., Vol. 16, p. 84.)