I WAS invited by INCTV for their upcoming episode of “ATM: At The Museum” to talk about the INC Museum in Quezon City as embodiment of the concept of “mejoras.”
In a previous column (“Celebrating the NEU-CPS 5th Anniversary,” TMT, May 13, 2026) about my participation in the initial activities of the New Era University Center for Philippine Studies (NEU-CPS) as speaker in several webinars and as a contributor in the maiden volume of the Kaningningan journal, I expressed my admiration for the Iglesia Ni Cristo’s (INC) sense of “mejora” or “improvements.”
Apparently, that column was well-received among the INC members such that I was asked by INCTV to talk about mejora even more. I explained that my introduction to the concept of mejora was through my Ilonggo father who was born in 1942. As Florentino Rodao insisted in 1997, “... the Spanish language was relatively [still] well maintained [in the Philippines] during the first four decades after the Philippine Revolution.” Many older Ilonggos still spoke the Spanish language during the youth of my father.
As I personally knew very little about mejora, I turned to the internet for help. Initially, I discovered that mejora was frequently mentioned in early 20th-century litigation related to property issues, which eventually led me to the Spanish Codigo Civil (Civil Code) promulgated on July 24, 1889.
Digging even further, I unearthed Ruben Balane’s erudite article entitled “The Spanish Antecedents of the Philippine Civil Code,” from a lecture he delivered in 1979 before the University of the Philippines College of Law. From Balane, I learned that the roots of Spanish Codigo Civil was the customary law of Spain’s Visigothic forebears. I also deduced that the impetus to hurriedly codify Spanish civil law in the city of Toro in 1505 — i.e., the “Leyes de Toro” (Laws of Toro) — was the Spanish monarchy’s transition from the rule of the native Trastamara dynasty to the alien Hapsburg dynasty, beginning with the reign of Charles I, who became king during the same year. Charles was the son of Queen Juana (“La Loca” because of her mental health issues), daughter of Fernando of Aragon and Isabel/a of Castilla, whose marriage in 1492 in turn unified the Spanish kingdom under the Trastamara dynasty. Juana was married to Philip the Handsome, a Hapsburg.
Balane summarized the Leyes de Toro’s provisions on property, specifically on mejora, thus:
“Mejoras could be given either by will or by contract — in addition to this, several other rules governing mejoras were laid down.”
From Leyes de Toro, mejora had always been associated with property all the way to the Codigo Civil of 1889.
In the 1880s, there was a sizable group of Filipino expatriates based in Spain, mostly students in the Spanish universities, who organized themselves in pursuit of reforms for the Philippines under the aegis of Spanish colonial rule, earning for themselves the title “Reform Movement.” Figuring prominently in this group were Graciano Lopez-Jaena, Jose Rizal, Mariano Ponce, Antonio Luna and later, Marcelo H. del Pilar, among others. An important part of the movement’s reform agenda was the campaign for the application of Spanish law in the Philippines, particularly — but not limited to — the Codigo Civil of 1889 and the Codigo Penal (Penal Code) of 1870. Ironically, Rizal was later charged in 1896, in the formulation of fiscal Enrique de Alcocer, with rebellion as defined by Article 230 in relation with Article 229 paragraph I of the Codigo Penal, and of illegal association as defined in Article 119 paragraph 2 of the same code.
Curiously, Gregorio Sancianco, the “Tsinoy” author of “El progreso de Filipinas” published in 1881, mentioned mejoras in his work about economic reforms under Spanish colonial rule:
“... que esperan inmediatas mejoras en su vida material y moral... (... [the people] expect immediate improvements in their material and moral lives...”).
Sancianco was probably not the first Filipino to use the Spanish verb mejorar but it is worth noting that his sense of mejoras as “improvements” was applied to “the material and moral lives” of people rather than relating to property matters as it had typically been in the past.
Furthermore, notions of “improvement” and “development” — though not always expressly mentioned — are key ideas in the writings of Rizal. As a student at the Universidad de Santo Tomas, Rizal wrote the prize-winning piece “A la juventud Filipina” (To the Filipino Youth, 1879), which exhorts the Filipino youth to gain an education for the betterment of the nation. This is essentially the same message in his earlier poem at the Ateneo Municipal, “Por la educacion recibe lustre la patria” (Education gives luster to the motherland, 1876). “Noli Me Tangere” (1887) itself is a novel devoted to the hindrances to national development in the Philippines.
Andres Bonifacio’s polemical “Ang dapat mabatid ng mga Tagalog” is essentially a justification for the 1896 revolution, saying that Filipinos originally embraced Spanish colonial rule because of the promise of material and moral improvement/development:
“Sa mabuti nilang hikayat na di umano, tayo ay aakayin sa lalong kagalingan at lalong imumulat ang ating kaisipan, ang nasabing nagsisipamahala (i.e., ancient Filipinos) ay nangyaring nalamuyot sa tamis ng kanilang dila sa paghibo.”
Moreover, it is the failure of the Spaniards to deliver on their promise as well as their violent repression of Filipino material and moral development aspirations that drove the Filipinos to rebel:
“Ano ang nakikita nating pagtupad sa kanilang kapangakuan na siyang naging dahilan ng ating paggugugol! Wala kung di pawang kataksilan... sa kanilang ipinangakong tayo ay lalong gigisingin sa kagalingan ay bagkus tayong binulag, inihawa tayo sa kanilang hamak na asal, pinilit na sinira ang mahal at magandang ugali ng ating Bayan; Iminulat tayo sa isang maling pagsampalataya at isinadlak sa lubak ng kasamaan ang kapurihan ng ating Bayan; at kung tayo ay mangahas humingi ng kahit gabahid na lingap, ang nagiging kasagutan ay ang tayo ay itapon at ilayo sa piling ng ating minamahal na anak, asawa at matandang magulang. Ang bawat isang himutok na pumulas sa ating dibdib ay itinuturing na isang malaking pagkakasala at karakarakang nilalapatan ng sa hayop na kabangisan.”
To be continued
