Note 114 — San Agustin’s Letter on the Filipinos

50. They are revengeful to an excessive degree—so much so that they are vile and cowardly, and the ministers have great trouble in reconciling them with their enemies; and although they do it through fear, it is never with the whole heart, for this passion has great influence over them. And since they need magnanimity and manliness to overcome it, and these virtues are foreign to them,114 hate generally forces its roots into them so deeply that it is impossible to eradicate it in a whole lifetime.115