FRAY BOTOD

“Fray Botod” is one of Graciano Lopez-Jaena’s satire work and was published in 1874. It’s all about a bloated, boastful and hypocrite priest who used the religion to abuse others for his satisfactions in food, money and lustful desire. The name of the priest is Ano but the people in his town called him as Fray Botod which means big bellied-friar.

The story started with a conversation of a Filipino and his friend, a liberal Español. They talked about the bad attitudes of the priest in different situations like doing gambling, dishonesty, greediness for power, greediness for foods, taking a long sleep in the afternoon and abusing his workers in church. Fray Botod was actually not a Filipino priest, his parents where unknown and he just founded by a good man near the steps of Our Lady of the Pillar Church. The good man educated Fray Botod the best way he could but at the age of 14 he ran away from his adopted father and went to the convent of the Augustinain fathers. When he reached 20 years old, he was sent to the Philippines.  In his stay in the Philippines for many years, he used his power to abuse other people especially the poor and women. He also uses his power to manipulate the futures of the young women by promising for their poor family that he will give an education to those young women but instead of doing his promises, he will just use the children in the future for his lustful desires.  Aside form those women, he also threatening and punishing some students from the University of Manila, neglecting his duties as a parish priest in favour of gambling, conducting his business unfairly, and barbarously punishing an Indio labourer who failed to work at his estate for three days because of his sick wife.

The title itself refers and describes Fray Ano as a priest in the town. Graciano Lopez-Jaena uses symbolic events that shows how the Spaniards treat us Filipino in that time. The text is clear to understand because it uses figurative and descriptive languages that creats an imagery and imagination to the mind of the readers.

Females in this text were being discriminated for their strengths because they are just women. They were just used as slaves of Fray Botod for his lustful desires. Fray Botod did not respect the women the way that they should be. Even those female children, Fray Botod did not treat them as women and children but a material thing that he can use for his desires.

The poor family of those children were also have been discriminated by the priest because they cannot afford to send their children to school. The Indio labourer who failed to work for Fray Botod was punished. It shows that Fray Botod looks for the social class of a person and abuses them because he has a power and he has a control to destroy the lives of Filipino.

This text symbolizes how the Spaniards treat us Filipino. It shows how they abuse their power to manipulate the minds and state of every Filipino in our own country. Just like Fray Botod, the Spaniards also used the religion as an excuse to colonize us, theymade promises that they will protect and give education to every Filipino, but instead of fulfulling their promises, they abused Filipinos and degraded our own country and treat us the way like a slaves who's waiting for the freedom that they can give.