IT'S XIAOTIME!

By Michael Charleston “Xiao” Chua

September 5, 2020

THE Americans seemed to have fulfilled the verbal promise they made to Emilio Aguinaldo in Hong Kong and Singapore in early 1898 to help his country gain freedom from the Spaniards. The United States was at war with Spain over the USS Maine incident. On May 1, Admiral George Dewey wiped out the Spanish armada in Cavite in what was known as the Battle of Manila Bay. But at this point, the Americans did not have ground troops. The Americans told Aguinaldo that just as they did after freeing Cuba, they would assure the independence of the Philippines. As the symbol of US Independence was the Liberty Bell, it seems they would ring the bell of freedom in the islands after being a bajo de las campanas under Spanish rule.

Aguinaldo came home as the leader of the Philippine Revolution. In many parts of the country, people were reinvigorated to continue the fight against the Spaniards and were driving the Spaniards away one town at a time. In a dramatic ceremony on June 12, Aguinaldo proclaimed Philippine Independence. He introduced our national symbols: the music of our National Anthem and the National Flag. A flag, which according to the text of the proclamation, was patterned in the colors of the flag of the United States as a sign of gratitude for the help they extended in driving away the Spaniards. We are a kind and grateful people anyway. But the point is, we won the revolution!

But the Spanish colonial government, protected by the walls of Intramuros, did not want to surrender to their colonial subjects for 333 years, so they talked to our friends, the Americans. They agreed to surrender to the Americans, in their eyes a more formidable enemy, after a fake battle which commenced on August 13, known as the Mock Battle for Manila, for honor, and honor’s sake.

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But Intramuros was free! And the Filipino revolutionaries, with their great trust in the friendly American nation, started their march to Intramuros and to finally realizing their dream of self-governance and nationhood. But they were stopped by the Americans.

This prompted Aguinaldo to begin doubting America’s intentions. He transferred his capital to a place between two rivers — Malolos, Bulacan — where, in the nearby church of Barasoain, he convened the Congreso Filipino to create a republican constitution. At the same time, Spanish and American diplomats negotiated in Paris for the fate of Spain’s colonial holdings. The doors to the meetings were shut to Filipino representatives. By December, the two powers agreed that the Philippine islands would be handed over to the Americans. Spain would receive $20 million not as payment, but as reimbursement for the “development” they provided to the Filipinos. But the Treaty of Paris needed the US Congress’ approval.

In America, a debate was raging between the pro-imperialists and anti-imperialists. Those who were anti-imperialists, like the quintessential American writer Mark Twain, believed that America should have no business being an imperialist and should truly ring the bells of freedom by setting the Filipinos free. Pro-imperialists were sold on the idea that it was the “manifest destiny” of the white people, their “burden,” to civilize and “Christianize” (ergo Protestantism) their “Little Brown Brothers.” Since the American nation experienced being colonized by the British, they did not just want to be imperialists, they wanted to be the best imperialists. Some refer to this as “sentimental imperialism”: to be able to truly ring the bells of freedom in the islands, they must first teach these ignoramuses to ring them properly. The US Congress was divided over the matter.

The Malolos Congress finished its task and on Jan. 23, 1899, Aguinaldo inaugurated the First Constitutional Democratic Republic in Asia. But in less than two weeks, on February 4, an American serviceman shot a Filipino soldier somewhere in Sta. Mesa, Manila, which started a number of hostilities in what is now known as Metro Manila. The day after, it was a full-blown war between two republics. Fake news was spread that it was the Filipinos who started the war and the undecideds in the US Congress shifted to the pro-imperialists. The Treaty of Paris was ratified.

While the leaders of the new Philippine Republic were divided between the patriots who wanted to reject US sovereignty and the politicians who wanted to negotiate peace in exchange for “home rule,” the Filipino people gave up their lives resisting the enemy. “Benevolent assimilation” was brutal, violent, and took many lives, civilians and otherwise. When the townspeople of Balangiga, Samar successfully attacked the American detachment there, the Americans retaliated by burning their houses, crops and animals, and in the process, killing and displacing the people of the whole province. The bells of Balangiga, which signaled the Filipinos’ attack, were taken away as a war trophy by the Americans.

Although Aguinaldo was captured in 1901, the Filipinos continued resisting until 1913.

November 16, 2019

MICHAEL CHARLESTON “XIAO” CHUA

LAST week, we defined the use of the term “bayan” throughout our history. But there’s another one that we left: “bayan” as in the majority of our people as against the elites.

To understand this, we have to go back to the economic changes that happened in the early part of the 19th century. The end of the Galleon Trade monopoly because of the Mexican Revolution compelled the Spaniards to open the ports throughout the archipelago to foreign trade. When traders like the French, British and German got the indios and the Chinese mestizos as their middlemen, the latter started to have money and began sending their kids to school.

This began the division of the colonial indios from the elites who were Westernized by the educational system against the ones that remained part of the bayan, who, although colonized, retained much of the consciousness and wisdom of their ancestors. Zeus Salazar calls it “Dambuhalang Pagkakahating Pangkamalayan,” or The Great Cultural Divide, a concept that, although it betrays the Marxist influence on Salazar, is original because it not only reads the division of society as the struggle of the haves and have-nots, but also a clash of cultures.

In this sense, the ilustrados, although trying to imagine Filipino identity and concept of the nation, were articulating it based on a Western reading, which they learned in the Spanish and European schools. While the “bayan” may have a different understanding of how the nation should be.

In Wika ng Himagsikan: Lengguwahe ng Rebolusyon, Salazar demonstrated the difference between the ilustrado concept of nationhood to the one by the bayan as articulated by Andres Bonifacio and Emilio Jacinto in the Katipunan.

The ilustrados called their concept “nación” as they had learned from Western liberalism. We should aspire to be a Republic where citizens have rights guaranteed under a written constitution and a declaration of independence. The emphasis was on political rights and freedom. There were also those who defined nación in the Spanish sense, which meant having a distinct separate identity like the Basques, Catalans and Castillans, but under one Mother Spain.

The Katipunan, however, essayed a more indigenous concept of the “Inang Bayan.” As the old bayan was founded on “sandugo” and “kapatiran,” we are all brothers and sisters and, therefore, “mga Anak ng Bayan” (sons and daughters of the people) coming from one mother — the Inang Bayan. Beyond political freedom, kapatiran means that people treat and love each other as brethren with mabuting kalooban (goodness), which leads to everybody’s kaginhawaan (well-being) and, therefore, kalayaan (freedom). This means, one may have political freedoms like suffrage, but if they don’t eat three times a day, are they really free? Can they enjoy their freedom? Bonifacio also articulated an indigenous concept of democracy called the “Haring Bayan” (sovereign nation), which means that power belonged to the bayan (people) and not just to one person.

But when the Katipunan was already establishing the revolutionary government, they were dismissed by the elites, which eventually grabbed power from Bonifacio. They never believed Bonifacio’s concept was at par with the way nations were defined by the West.

Eventually, the colonial education implemented by the Americans in English further divided the people, where most people are left out by those that had education from the business of economy and government.

This shouldn’t be construed as a clear-cut dichotomy. That the elites are all bad and the bayan are always correct. And that there are complications or in between. But even in recent history, the struggle between EDSA Dos (2) or EDSA Tres (3), or even how intellectuals, who by education had become elites albeit not in a financial sense, but in culture and consciousness, sneeringly call Duterte voters “bobotante.” Irineo Salazar also shows the complication when the elite infiltrates the bayan through rhetoric for their own gain (so it doesn’t mean that if one speaks like bayan, they are bayan).

The goal, according to Salazar, is to build the “talastasang bayan,” or national discourse, where people talk about things that have “saysay” to them, but this can only be done if we use the same language and concepts. This is why to reach the bayan, we should develop Filipino as an intellectual language and the language of government and economy since this, by default and historical processes, is the language that most Filipinos understand, while also developing local languages.

And hopefully, in time, we will reduce the gap and just maybe, bridge the gap between the elite and the bayan to form a truly united Filipino nation, isang sambayanang Pilipino.

November 9, 2019

MICHAEL CHARLESTON “XIAO” CHUA

WHAT is the bayan? Beauty queen Malka Shaver recently asked me this very important question.

For many years we thought that before the coming of the Spaniards, the barangay was the basic political unit of society, headed by the datu and named after our ancient boat. This was reinforced by William Henry Scott who entitled his classic, singular volume on the ancient Filipinos as barangay.

Even before Damon Woods said the barangay as a political unit was a Spanish invention since it was absent in the original accounts of the Spaniards about our ancestors (but the word was used by the translators of Blair and Robertson, in one such account by Father Alcina), Filipino historians Zeus Salazar, the father of the Pantayong Pananaw school of thought and the New Filipino Historiography, and Mary Jane Rodriguez-Tatel already questioned this. They said that the barangay was only a clan or a family unit, and was basically an economic one, not political. For more than two decades now they have been pointing out to us that the “bayan,” “banua” or “ili” (Ilocano) was the basic political unit of the ancient Filipinos, not the “barangay.”

So, what is the bayan?

Sociologist Clemen Aquino synthesized the writings of the Pantayong Pananaw scholars in defining the bayan in her famous essay “Mula sa Kinaroroonan: Kapwa, Kapatiran, at Bayan sa Agham Panlipunan.” Aquino demonstrated how Salazar pointed to our Austronesian origins from 5,000 years ago to say that people in this archipelago had more or less the same concept of the political unit, looking at the various words used to represent it, which Rodriguez-Tatel listed in her master’s thesis: Bayan, banua or ili. In sum, Salazar said the concept had to do with having permanent settlements or “pamahayan,” but for the Tagalog, it also meant the people living in it, similar to “balei” in Panggasinense and “balen” in Pampanga (which according to Kapampangan-Tarlac scholar Rodrigo Sicat came from “balayen”—balay, bahay, bahayan—place of houses — bayan).

Salazar said the “banua” of Bicol, Visayas and Mindanao is the most widespread of these concepts and is the original Austronesian word, that is why in Polynesia they have the “vanua” (as in Vanuatu). The Ilocano “ili” though was a settlement that was in the context of war, therefore it had to transfer from time to time; eventually, the high places to where the bayan had to evacuate in times of war and calamities were called “ilihan.”

Dr. Carlos Tatel, my first university instructor in history, illustrated to us in our class in 2001 that when the barangay (clan units) within an area (at the ilawud, or seashore, or the ilaya, near the mountains) wanted to create a stronger community, their respectve datu performed the ritual “sandugo” (from “isang dugo” or “one blood”) and formed the bayan and chose their leader, a lakan, sultan or a rajah. Therefore, the formation of the community was based on the idea of the kapatiran (we are brothers and sisters). In the Visayas, sandugo is translated as “pag-aanghod,” which literally means caring for your little brother, or “manghod,” which is more special.

Eventually, during the Spanish period, the pueblo would still be referred to as the bayan in general, but it would also mean the center of the pueblo (“Papunta kami sa bayan”).

Poet Francisco Balagtas, in his veiled criticism of the Spanish regime, “Sa loob at labas ng bayan kong sawi,” expanded the concept of bayan to refer to the whole archipelago under colonial Spain. That is why when Andres Bonifacio, the president of the First National Revolutionary Government, imagined the Filipino nation not just as a political nation-state as the ilustrados had learned from the West, but basically adopted the sandugo as a ritual in the Katipunan to go back to the concept of “kapatiran” — we are brothers and we have one mother, ang ating “Inang Bayan.” So, it was not enough to have the state, each part of the bayan must have kabutihang loob for treat each one as brothers and sisters. Only then can we have kaginhawaan, or the good life, and then real kalayaan.

In addition, Bonifacio referred to his government as “Haring Bayan,” which was misunderstood by Emilio Aguinaldo as Bonifacio making himself the King of the Nation when in fact, the “hari,” or powerful, was not one man but the bayan itself, therefore a democracy. Bonifacio’s concept of the nation was hijacked of course when the elites eliminated him and replaced it with an elite democracy. The second part of this column will discuss how Filipino society was divided and gave birth to another concept of the bayan as the non-Westernized non-elitist people in the country.

So, to summarize, the bayan transformed from a community of houses and the people in that community eventually to the nation and the people.

By Michael Charleston “Xiao” Chua

July 4, 2020

ILUSTRADOS are equated with elitism, even if the word is actually a term for a person who believes in the enlightenment philosophy — in equality and the advancement of science. We have a tendency to generalize elites as bad, and this is because we tend to look at society as a class struggle and because many ilustrados advocated for the return of peace in times when we should have been fighting.

But in a time when there was no concept of a unified Filipino “nation,” it was the ilustrados who actually imagined it. One such person was the young medical student named José Rizal, who saw in his travels in Europe beginning in 1882 that the liberal philosophy made possible the development of the continent. He advocated education and saw it as a way to “liberate” the people. He recognized that there were Two Spains, and wanted to bring progressive Spain to change the “backward” Spain in his motherland, even if that meant that at first we had to be Spaniards and then, little by little, ask for more civil rights until we could finally ask for our freedom.

Rizal and his friends in the La Propaganda dreamed about this in their writings. He endured the cold and homesickness in Europe to produce his novels Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo to tell the Spaniards the sad truth about those who implement their colonial policies in his land and showed it as a common problem of many Filipinos. He researched our past and annotated an old historical work, Morga’s Sucesos de la Islas Filipinas, copying it by hand in the Library of the British Museum to show those who denied that we could have a “patria” (motherland), that we had a common identity that could be proven by history and that we were willing to fight for it.

When Mariano Ponce founded the La Solidaridad, Rizal and his friends like Marcelo del Pilar and Graciano Lopez Jaena imagined the “nación” in its pages. They were hopeful that Madre España would listen. But Rizal began to feel that it may not be the case and the internal politics in the group only solidified his decision to eventually return to the Philippines and face the Spaniards themselves.

Meanwhile, a warehouse man in an international trading company in Manila was devouring various books about the French Revolution and the American Presidents, Les Misérables by Hugo and the works of Dumas, and of course, Rizal’s novels. Although Andres Bonifacio did not finish school, he learned Spanish by himself and made himself aware of the situation of other nations. If others waged revolutions to create theirs, why can’t we? You might say he was a self-made ilustrado except that he was also different from them.

Although the American and French Revolutions inspired Bonifacio, he imagined not a “nación,” but an “Inang Bayan” (Mother Country). A bayan (country/people) that understands itself not only in terms of European liberalism, but in its own terms. Instead of liberal democracy, he used the term Haring Bayan (People Power). He did not only aim for political freedoms but “kalayaan” as we understand it, along with “kaginhawahan” and “mabuting kalooban.” He dreamed to call this multi-ethnic country Haring Bayang Katagalugan, Tagalog or river people as our Austronesian ancestors were. He, along with his friends, organized the Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan — Society of the Sons and Daughters of the People — and worked to convince people that reforms were useless, the only right thing to do was to separate from Spain.

The Katipunan brought back the ritual of the Sandugo — they offered blood oaths and reminded themselves that they were of one blood, and since they were children of Inang Bayan, they were taught to love each other as brothers and sisters (kapatiran). Their primer, the Kartilya written by their young secretary Gen. Emilio Jacinto, states, “One of the foremost rules here is true love of the native land and genuine compassion for one another.” Bonifacio once wrote: “Believe with a fervent heart in the Creator. Reflect always that a sincere faith in Him involves love of one’s native land, because this shows true love for one’s fellows.” So, when the national revolution — himagsikan — finally broke out in 1896, the bayan faced the Spaniards with a great feeling of love. “Himagsikan” meant a burst of a great feeling from within. It was love that made them sacrifice their lives to see their dream of Inang Bayan being fulfilled. In the same year, 1896, Lopez Jaena and del Pilar died penniless in Spain; by the end of the year Rizal had been shot as a martyr. Bonifacio lost a bitter power struggle that led to his murder, not seeing the fulfillment of his dream. Yet the bayan defeated Spanish rule in 1898 after 300 years. We should never forget that.

By Michael Charleston “Xiao” Chua

June 27, 2020

PEOPLE dream because they love.

In 1807, disgruntled wine lovers in the north started a revolt when the Spanish colonizers monopolized the selling of their produce, the basi wine. They seized control of many towns but were crushed on their way to the Ilocandia capital, Vigan. Many of the rebels were killed, and their leaders publicly executed.

In 1811, freedom-loving Mexicans started their war of independence. This was to have an earth-shaking effect on colonial Philippines, which was being ruled by Spain from Mexico and was economically dependent on the Galleon Trade between the two colonies for 200 years. By1815, the last trading galleon made its last trip to Mexico, never to return.

In 1812, Spaniards, loving their “madre patria,” who were resisting a pro-Napoleon regime, established their own government and enacted what is known as the Cadiz Constitution, which limited the absolute rule of royals and guaranteed freedoms to citizens.

Although that government was short-lived, the ideas of that constitution resonated with the Spanish elites who were born in the Philippines called the “insulares,” also called “Filipinos.” Sure, it did not give citizenship to the natives of the colonies called “indios,” but the insulares also re-examined their own place in the colonial system and started to question why there were “Two Spains” — a liberal Spain in Spain and a backward and repressive colonial Spain in the Philippines. They probably started to feel love for the fellow who was not getting as much. Insular military officers like the Bayot brothers and Andres Novales mutinied against their own kind in the early 1820s and rich people like Domingo Roxas, who co-founded what is now known as the Ayala Corp., the country’s oldest conglomerate, were not only active in economic societies helping natives find livelihood, but were also being suspected by the colonial government of agitating for reform anonymously. These led to their imprisonment.

But the poor indios, except in those provinces that were loyal to the Spaniards like Pampanga, were perhaps unaware of these developments, and unaware that they could have a shot in life. That they could dream that their lives could be better.

In 1834, the King of Spain abolished the Royal Company of the Philippines, ending the Spanish monopoly that characterized the economy. The colonial government was forced to open the ports of the Philippines to world trade, which is, perhaps, one of the best and enlightened decisions it could have made, as it would impact not only the economy, but also, the ordinary people.

With the British, French and German traders coming to the islands, they got middlemen who were only too willing to work for them, not the Spaniards but the indios and the Chinese mestizos. The sugar from Iloilo, Negros and Laguna; the coffee from Batangas; and many of our products supplied the world market. As always in history, social changes start with economic changes.

Suddenly the indios and mestizos were having unprecedented financial power in the 1830s and 1840s. This event was a turning point because the native indios would be separated from each other not only in terms of class but also of culture, thus the Great Cultural Divide between the educated and those that remained in the bayan. The new elites would have children born to comfort, and for the first time many of them would be sent to the excellent Spanish schools in the country by the 1860s, 1870s and the 1880s. They would become products of secondary schools such as Ateneo Municipal de Manila and Colegio de San Juan de Letran, and they would continue their tertiary education at the University of Sto. Tomas (UST). In the midst of suppression and censorship by the colonial government, these schools actually taught the new elite to ask questions, to be aware of the inequalities in the country, and to dream for those who have nothing. In 1869, some UST students secretly distributed leaflets asking for change.

The poster boy of their dreams was Jose Burgos, a mestizo who became a priest and finished seven degrees, two of them doctorates, before he was 35 — the person that we all can be. But their dreams would be dashed when in 1872 the Spaniards executed Burgos along with two others who campaigned with him for secular priests to have more say in the running of parishes which for centuries had been dominated by Spanish priests from the religious orders.

The execution by hanging was public and humiliating. And it achieved the desired chilling effect. People mentioned the year 1872 in hushed tones.

But these young people would travel to study abroad, and they would see the discrepancy in the Two Spains. They would learn about the “Ilustracion,” or the Enlightenment philosophy that dreams of a more equal and scientific future far from what were in the colonies. They would dream of better treatment for their kababayan at home. The ilustrado had risen to demonstrate love.

By Michael Charleston “Xiao” Chua

August 8, 2020

COLLECTING our ancestors together and making them submit to the reduccion policy to become part of the pueblos was not only about easier political control. Proposed by a friar, it was started in these islands but was adapted as a policy throughout the Spanish Empire, including Latin America, and became known as the “Leyes de las Indias” (Laws of the Indies) to bring our ancestors back to the bosom of the Holy Mother Church.

Indeed, there were civil authorities ruling the colony from among the Spanish-born peninsulares sent to the Philippines like the governor-general or the alcaldes mayores of the provinces for a term of a few years. But it was the parish priest who was supreme in his influence because he could stay in a town for decades. To be fair, not all of the friars were bad but when things turned bad, they became an easy target as the most hated symbol of the conquista, that later patriots like Marcelo H. del Pilar would write about the “Monastic Supremacy in the Philippines.” That some friars enjoyed absolute power and corrupted it absolutely did not help matters.

During most of the 333 years of Spanish colonization, the lowland indios who were colonized under the reduccion were subjected to some economic policies that made life harder for them. The “tributo” was a tax in cash or in kind demanded from people whose land just happened to be in a pueblo or one Spaniard’s “encomienda,” which was a land grab. “Polos y servicios” was mandatory labor on government projects or in the building of the galleon ships for 40 days in a year; it was said that although one was fed, he rarely got paid despite having a budget for it. “Bandala” was a quota of a certain produce imposed on a province that the farmers could only sell to the government, yet he did not get the payment in full, while other needs like food had to be bought from the government for a higher price. One example of such an arrangement was the tobacco monopoly in the northern Philippines. It became lucrative to the regime, but it brought down the livelihood of Ilocanos. Such hardships made them thrifty and created industries that were keen on preserving things, especially food.

What sustained the colony financially for two centuries was the Galleon Trade between Manila and Acapulco in Mexico, which was known as the Vice Royalty of New Spain, under whose jurisdiction the Philippines fell. With the products from Southeast Asia being shipped from Mexico to other parts of Latin America and to Seville, Spain — the Spanish Crown trade route became the longest trade route in the world and was a precursor to globalization. Yet, it was only the Spaniards and the Chinese middlemen who benefited financially from the trade. It was so bad that some indios who worked on the galleons escaped and jumped ship in America never to return. They were known as the “Manila Men.”

In reaction to these terrible economic impositions, there were about 100 revolts that broke out throughout the archipelago. Datus joined babaylanes in rejecting the Catholic faith and went back to the mountains such as in Leyte. At times, babaylanes, male and female, led the revolts themselves in Samar, Bohol and Panay, destroying churches and killing friars before going back to their old ways. In the Ilocos, Diego Silang and his wife Gabriela Silang, an Itneg, consolidated the lowlanders and the highlanders in rising up against the Spaniards, coinciding with the British Occupation of Manila from 1762 to 1764. Most of these revolts failed and their leaders were brutally and mercilessly executed. Some were fed to crocodiles, some hanged and shot; their bodies were also quartered and parts of them hung on bamboo stilts on street intersections. Yet, the revolts went on, with one revolt led by Dagohoy, which lasted for 85 years controlling some areas of Bohol.

Despite the socio-political and economic nature of these revolts, some of the expressions were cultural and religious, showing a yearning to go back to the old order and faith, demonstrating pakikipagkapwa, kapatiran and bayanihan. But historians pointed out that they failed because they demonstrated that these were limited only to their locality. Despite being in one territory under the conquista, imagining Filipinos as one nation still had to happen nearly three centuries after the conquista began. But that does not mean our ancestors slept.

Not all things were bad, some say. They point to the Spanish cultural legacies that are still with us today, such as the innovations in agriculture and transportation: the wheel, the plow, new kinds of crops and livestock, and food. Also, the factory, paper and printing, the Roman alphabet, the calendar and clock, the charting of the Philippine Shape, and the arts of painting and architecture. But I see it more as Filipinos appropriating these and making these our own. Despite the cultural confluence, colonialism will always be wrong and evil.

By Michael Charleston “Xiao” Chua

December 12, 2020

RECENTLY, Dr. José Mario Bautista Maximiano released the first volume of his book “MDXXI: 500 Years Roman Catholic,” covering the years 1521 to 1872 in anticipation of the quincentennial year 2021. Despite my being a Protestant Christian, he was kind enough to let me review the manuscript and gave me the honor to write its foreword. His book made me reflect on the impact of the Christian faith on our history and identity.

We always thought when the Spaniards came and brought Catholicism to the country 500 years ago, that the people of the Philippines, as if without an agency or a mind of their own, were forcefully transformed into Catholics. Although St. John Paul 2nd apologized and asked for forgiveness that the Church was once used for colonialism, this is just one part of the story.

Pag-aangkin (assimilation) happened. Like most foreign influences that came to us, we made it Filipino and it became part of our identity. Like we did with siopao (meat buns), siomai (meat dumplings) or bahay na bato (stone houses), we made Catholicism as Filipino as it could be. We accepted it because it also reflected the faith that most Filipinos already had before the Spanish contact in 1521. We saw anito (spirits) in the saints. We saw anting-anting (amulets) in the rosaries and crosses. We saw our dead in the Santo Entierro and the Nazareno and wiped them down with our hankies to partake of their power to heal. We sing the Pasiong Mahal like we chant the old epics.

Yet the love of the Filipinos for the Lord is real. Historians have pointed out that the Gospel story of God sacrificing His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to spread light then suffer darkness and death and be resurrected in the light of glory once again was a narrative seen by our national heroes such as Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio in the story of our own people: We were once free and prosperous as an island; we suffered inequality and enslavement; and we shall rise up and regain our freedom.

Katipuneros held a meeting in a cave in Morong province on a Good Friday not only because it was a holiday, but because it reminded them that like the Lord, they should be ready to sacrifice their lives to save their people from bondage. Andres Bonifacio and Emilio Jacinto said to have true kalayaan (freedom) and kaginhawahan (relief), it was necessary to have “mabuting kalooban (good heart).” Bonifacio reminded us that to really love God, one has to love one’s “tinubuang lupa (motherland)” and one’s fellow man.

The narrative of darkness-light-darkness, of tragedy and redemption was the narrative that the Fathers and Mothers of this nation used to imagine and create the Nation; to hope for a better life for us, their future.

We also see connections in how religious fervor inspired events such as Hermano Puli’s resistance and the EDSA People Power Revolution. Here, revolutions are beyond the political; they are expressed in many ways. We manifest himagsikan (uprisings) through our faith.

The story of Christianity in the Philippines is not just the story of the Padre Damasos and Padre Salvis, but of people such as Bishop Domingo de Salazar OP, who exposed the abuses his fellow Spaniards committed; of people such as Fathers Pelaez, Gomez, Burgos and Zamora, who fought for the right of Filipinos to have a hand in directing their local church. We saw Catholic priests such Gregorio Aglipay, guiding Asia’s first constitutional democratic republic. We see the participation of both the religious and lay Catholics in the making of history.

“Look not on our sins but in the faith of our Church” is a phrase every Catholic utters in every mass. The Church’s sons and daughters may have erred, but the faith of Filipinos sustained the survival of both Christianity in this country and of our own nation. Our faith in God makes us survive every calamity and vicissitude, and while European Christian churches are closing down, Filipinos continue to flock to the churches to express their faith and gratitude here and abroad.

So, how can we not celebrate 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines when it has become part of our national experience and of who we are? How can we not celebrate it when this is the faith of a majority of Filipinos? Yes, it is a Church humble enough to admit that it is always in need of semper purificanda (purification) and of learning hard lessons from the past. But we should never deprive ourselves by not celebrating our triumphs.

Rizal said, “To foretell the destiny of the Nation, it is necessary to open the books that tell of its past.” I say, to celebrate 500 years of our faith in Jesus Christ, we should reflect on the gift it gave us to eventually be inspired in creating our own Nation and show our love for each other as Filipinos.

And anyway, Jesus Christ is the reason for the season. Merry Christmas!

By Michael Charleston “Xiao” Chua

July 25, 2020

EVEN after many attempts, the Spaniards would only get lucky 44 years after our ancestors’ victory over Ferdinand Magellan.

The new conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legazpi read his history well and knew better. A previous explorer already named the islands “Felipinas,” in honor of the prince of Spain, later King Philip 2nd. When Legazpi arrived here in 1565, he was more diplomatic. The King of Bohol, Sikatuna, welcomed him with the sandugo ritual. Many read this as the beginning of our colonization, for the Spaniards saw this act as agreeing to be subjugated when in fact, our ancestors were only affirming an act of goodwill and brotherhood that should have been reciprocated with faithfulness.

Joined by an able sailor and former soldier, the Spanish Augustinian friar Andres de Urdaneta, Legazpi settled in Cebu, and then in 1569 transferred his base to the town of Pan-ay. What was believed before that the Visayans were docile, that’s why thousands of them allowed the occupation of a few hundred Spaniards, is not true. They actually wanted to use the foreigners to get back at the people who plundered their lands. So, Legazpi launched an attack on the people of Mindoro in 1570 with thousands of Visayan warriors, and in the process, explored and eventually conquered the strategic Kingdom of Maynila and its environs after a year. The Spaniards employed the time-tested playbook of divide and rule. This started the long process of exploring, convincing and conquering of various areas in the islands — a process known as conquista.

It has to be clarified that Filipinos did not give up their sovereignty. There was still no Filipino nation yet at that time, so the local leaders who collaborated did so in the perceived interest of their peoples. These former datus were simply integrated into the new system as the local officials or the principalia, doubling as tax collectors. Yet they were only placed third as a social class along with the mestizos. Since race signifies your class, the Spaniards who were born in Spain, called peninsulares, placed first, and the Spaniards born in the colony, the insulares, placed second. Down the line, the former free people, the former timawa, were now given a derogatory appellation, “indio.”

Still, some resisted. Early during Legazpi’s arrival in Manila in 1571, a valiant nameless hero from Macabebe, Pampanga, north of Manila, went to Bangkusay, Tondo in Manila Bay to challenge the Spaniards. In the face of promises from the Spaniards, he told their emissaries brandishing his sword at them, “May the sun split my body in twain, and may I fall in disgrace before my women for them to hate me, if I ever became for a moment friend to the Castillans.”

He was one of the first to die in the battle, and the very first hero to die for freedom facing the Spaniards. Even the Spanish friar who recorded his story has nothing but admiration for him, calling him the bravest Filipino ever seen.

The Spaniards might have appeared formidable with their rapier swords and harquebuses but it might not have been the soldier who gained more lands and hearts in the islands for Spain. In some instances, it only took one man: the friar. For teaching the Catholic faith to the lowland Filipinos, especially to children, proved far more effective in making the indio accept colonialism than fear. This doesn’t mean though that the indio’s old faith was removed, for culture was actually very flexible and dynamic. It is as if our ancestors saw in Catholicism reminders of our own faith in the spirit of the anito, kaluluwa and the Bathala, and so we practiced it as our own, dancing and performing the old rituals of prayer and thanksgiving.

But the power of an idea to conquer the islands was established: Which is that the Spaniards gifted our ancestors the Catholic faith, hence we owe them our salvation and hope.

Since our ancestors lived near the rivers and seas, the Spaniards implemented the reduccion, placing them under the system of pueblos, to solidify their hold on power. In arranging how the houses were placed in between those squared Roman grid patterns of roads called the cuadricula, they also aimed to redesign the minds of the people to make the church and the government the center of their lives by placing their buildings at the center — the plaza. The powerful lived near the plaza, the indios farther in the nayon. The subjugated were placed within hearing distance of the church bells, a bajo de las campanas.

The sultanates of the Muslims in Mindanao resisted the conquista and remained free. Some also fled to the mountains where the sound of the bells didn’t reach them, and continued their culture and spirit of freedom. They are now the indigenous peoples of the Philippines.

By Michael Charleston “Xiao” Chua

July 18, 2020

ALTHOUGH we are a peaceful and compassionate people, as we showed our pakikipagkapwa and kapatiran to Ferdinand Magellan and his armada when they arrived, we have also shown that we know how to fight for our interests, freedom and kaginhawaan.

True, in 1521 what would be known as the Philippine Islands was not a united territory but several different kingdoms, bayan, banua or ili, which were connected by our common waters and commonalities in culture. The Laguna Copperplate Inscription tells us of the kingdoms of Tondo, Laguna, Butuan and Dewata, Indonesia paying off debts in gold as early as the 10th century. Taken as a whole, it can be said that we can consider our maritime civilization as a thalassocracy, a naval power in a military and commercial sense.

This was true, especially of the Visayans who were a warrior people. They went to war for what were considered to be valid reasons, such as unwarranted aggression from other banua and agreements that were not honored and, I assume, especially if it was done through the sandugo ritual. It was seen as a violation to the kapatiran and should be corrected.

Going to war was called pangangayaw or pangungubat, and its warriors hangaway or bagani. A similar term “bayani” is now the Filipino term for a hero. They were tattooed as a spiritual protection like an anting-anting and the designs reflected the belief in the Bathalang-araw and other mythical beings.

Their warships, the karakoa, brought them to their battles. With them, their expertise in sword fighting using the kampilan (which became the basis for the modern-day Filipino martial arts arnis or eskrima). Having achieved victory, they would behead the vanquished believing that the gahum, or power, of the dead could be transferred to them. As they returned home, they would have brought karangalan at kaginhawahan back to their bayan. It can be said that the modern-day OFW who wages battles abroad carries the spirit of the bagani as he brings dangal and ginhawa back to the Motherland.

Arriving in Cebu for much needed supplies, Magellan was asked by the ruler of Cebu, Raha Humabon, to pay certain taxes which is the usual case since they were considered an entrepot-city. But Magellan, having used up all his resources, took out his remaining diplomatic secret weapon: He told Humabon that he came as a representative of the most powerful ruler in the world, the Spanish King, and that the Cebuano leader can be made his representative in these islands, the ruler of all the other kings. That said, he was also promised that Magellan would defend Cebu against its enemies. To Magellan’s surprise, Humabon not only agreed but also had himself and his whole bayan agree to be baptized in the Catholic faith.

But the Visayan people were not without conflicts. At odds with Humabon was a certain leader in nearby Mactan Island called Lapulapu. It was said that if Magellan went to Lapulapu first, he would have been welcomed by Mactan. But Magellan not only went to Humabon, he expected every ruler in the area to bow to the Cebuano Raha. Lapulapu refused and this prompted Humabon to now ask Magellan to deliver what was promised in the sandugo: Fight my enemies.

Thinking perhaps that God was on his side, having delivered Cebu to Catholicism on a silver platter, Magellan told Humabon that he not only would oblige, but that whatever happens, no one should help them. When told to accept domination or wait until their lances wound them, Lapulapu replied: “If you have lances, we have lances of bamboo and stakes hardened with fire.” Arrogance, pride and failure to understand the culture proved fatal to Magellan.

On April 27, 1521, it was 49 Spaniards against 1,500 Mactan hangaway that faced off in the Battle of Mactan. To their credit, the Spaniards were able to make a stand of half an hour until Magellan was finished. But victory was Mactan’s.

It has been argued that Lapulapu was not really a hero because he fought not really for freedom but for Mactan’s interest. Magellan was a mere victim of an internal conflict. But one thing is clear to me: Lapulapu is a hero because he proved to the Europeans that we can fight foreigners when they meddle in our affairs, and that we can be victorious against a formidable enemy.

No wonder, Lapulapu was invoked by Jose Rizal, Mariano Ponce and Emilio Jacinto in their writings as they fought for more freedoms. The text of Emilio Aguinaldo’s Independence proclamation on June 12, 1898 mentioned victory in Mactan. The place name became synonymous with victory. Lapulapu’s spirit, which is that of the bagani, animated the revolutionaries and our war veterans when they faced our oppressors, and it continues to be reflected in our frontliners’ quest to fight one of the biggest threats to our freedoms: Covid-19. May the whole Philippines become Mactan.

By Michael Charleston “Xiao” Chua

July 11, 2020

ONE American historian, Kenneth Scott Latourette, wrote in a 1964 textbook we use in some colleges even today: “Before the coming of the Spaniards, as we have hinted, the Philippines were backward in civilization as compared with most of the rest of the Far East… The Filipinos were still but partly removed from the primitive stages of culture.”

Reading this made Filipinos believe that our ancestors were never great. That when the Europeans came here, they were all-powerful and were able to easily deceive our docile ancestors. But when explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived here, his companion and chronicler Antonio Pigafetta actually described a different story. They had been on the journey to attempt to circumnavigate the world for the very first time for about a year and a half, about 90 days in the open ocean without seeing land. A few days back, they reached the Marianas and even before they could dock, the Chamorros had robbed them. They lacked clean water, they were hungry, tired and believed they could die anytime, when they saw an island in this part of the world later known as The Philippines on March 16, 1521.

They reached and landed on Homonhon Island in Guiuan, Eastern Samar the next day. Contrary to our popular image, nobody welcomed them as they docked. They found a spring and finally got clean water, especially for the sick.

But on March 18, some locals from a nearby island spotted the three ships, approached them and saw the weary Europeans. In Europe, a foreigner in your territory can mean war. But our ancestors saw fellow human beings that needed help, even without understanding their language. They immediately gave the visitors food. After four days, the same people returned with two boats-load of food. And with that, the Europeans experienced what is known around the world as Filipino hospitality; we call it pakikipagkapwa and kabutihang-loob. It refueled the journey that became the achievement of science and humanity.

Magellan then reached the island that Pigafetta called “Mazaua.” One of their companions, Enrique of Malacca understood the language of the two brothers who welcomed them, the ruler of Mazaua Raha Siaui, and the ruler of Butuan Calagan Raha Colambu, most probably Malay.

Pigafetta admiringly described our ancestors’ culture, repeatedly mentioning the balangay and, well, the gold: “Pieces of gold, of the size of walnuts and eggs are found by sifting the earth… All the dishes of that king are of gold and also some portion of his house….”

He described Raha Colambu, “According to their customs he was very [tidy] and the finest looking man that we saw among those people. His hair was exceedingly black, and hung to his shoulders. He had a covering of silk on his head, and wore two large golden earrings fastened in his ears. He wore a cotton cloth all embroidered with silk, which covered him from the waist to the knees. At his side hung a dagger, the haft of which was somewhat long and all of gold, and its scabbard of carved wood. He had three spots of gold on every tooth, and his teeth appeared as if bound with gold. …He was tawny and [tattooed] all over.” He was not describing a ruler of a savage people but a fine gentleman, even to Pigafetta’s tastes.

What Pigafetta described was different from how we once imagined our ancestors to be — living in small communities that were independent from each other. The world of the Visayas was a confederacy where the kings had diplomatic relations. The presence of the balangay and of silk clothing, coupled with archaeological evidence of Ming jars only prove that we were once part of the Southeast Asian trade route to China. King Colambu even accompanied Magellan to Cebu so he could trade with its ruler, Raha Humabon. Cebu was an entrepot where products from different parts of Southeast Asia exchanged hands.

There, Magellan underwent a ritual, which was also the basis for the formation of the community. When small villages wanted to form a larger, stronger political unit called the Banua (or the Bayan), their datus would mix drops of their blood in wine and they would all drink it. It was not just a mere contract with blood, but a sandugo — the community becomes one blood, kapatiran — a promise to love everyone in the community as your own brethren. In trade terms, this also meant a commitment to fulfill agreements, or else face the circumstances of going to war — pangangayaw — to correct the wrong that was done.

In a way, in 1521, the Filipinos and Europeans “discovered” one another. We started out respecting each other and had the time of our lives. But Magellan was quickly dragged into our internal conflicts and faced the consequences of arrogance, pride and of failure to understand the culture of others.