Philippine History

Lecture 2
By
Restituto R. Ramos, M.A.
 Beginnings of the Philippines as a
nation
• Unlike some of the other nations in the Southeast
Asian region, which have national histories far older
than the Philippines, such as Burma (now Myanmar),
Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam,
• the Philippines was not yet a single nation-state like
today when the Portuguese navigator in the service of
Spain, Ferdinand Magellan (Fernando de Magallanes in
Spanish, Fernão de Magalhaes in Portuguese)
accidentally stumbled upon these group of islands
located in the Western Pacific Ocean on March 16,
1521 (actually March 17, 1521 due to his crossing of
the International Date Line westward across the Pacific
Ocean from the Americas).
• Instead, there were different groups of people
speaking different languages with no national entity
governing the entire archipelago.
• The country is composed of about 7,107 islands (with
many being only uninhabited islets with no names)
with Luzon in the north, being the largest and most
populous island has the capital and largest city of
Manila (known collectively with its component cities
and suburbs as Metro Manila) near its center along
with some important offshore islands such as Mindoro,
Catanduanes, Marinduque, Masbate and Romblon.
Political Map of the Philippines
• Luzon has a vast and fertile plain in its central section,
a mountainous region in its northern part and a long
hilly peninsula juts out to the southeast. To the south
is the second largest island of Mindanao, with the Sulu
Archipelago to its west.
• In between is the Visayan island group, composed of
smaller islands along with some big ones such as Cebu
(with its capital of Cebu City as the country’s second
largest city and Cradle of Christianity), Bohol, Negros,
Panay, Leyte and Samar.
• Due west of the Visayas is the long island of
Palawan and its surrounding islands, with its low
population and relatively still-unspoiled natural
wonders, with many areas still classified as
wilderness.
• Being an island nation, the Philippines share this
characteristic with Japan to the north and
Indonesia to the south. The total land area is
184,000 square kilometers (115,000 square
miles), making it slightly bigger than the United
Kingdom and a bit smaller than Japan.
El Nido, Palawan
• The climate is typically tropical, with warm
temperatures and high humidity throughout the year,
but with a pronounced dry season, popularly known as
the “Summer Season,” with the highest annual
temperatures comparable to midsummer in the United
States averaging about 36 degrees Celsius (96 degrees
Fahrenheit) in Manila, and high humidity from March
to May,
• and a wet season from June to October when typhoons
(storms comparable to the West Indian hurricanes)
strike successively, causing floods and considerable
destruction.
• The intervening season, which is very pleasant, is not too dry and
not too wet from November to February, when it often gets pretty
cold in January, with temperatures averaging about 20 degrees
Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) in Manila, when a light jacket is
often needed in the cool early mornings.
• Filipinos seek relief from the high temperatures of the dry season
by going to the perpetual spring of Baguio City in the Northern
Luzon highlands, about 1,200 meters (4,500 feet) above sea level,
with average temperatures about 10 degrees below that of Manila,
which serves as the nation’s summer capital, developed precisely
for this purpose by the American colonial administrators during the
early 20th century and was described by an American writer as
resembling a resort town in the Adriondacks
• They also go to the beach areas of Pagudpud and San Fabian, also in
Northern Luzon, or the world-famous Boracay and Panglao in the
Visayas.
Mines View Park, Baguio City
The World–Famous White Sand Beach
of Boracay
• The total population of the Philippines is about 110
million, making it the 12th most populous nation in the
World, with a large element composed of young
people in their late 20s and even lower due to its still-
relatively high birthrate despite a marked decrease in
the last three decades.
• In fact, many foreign visitors, especially Westerners,
would not fail to notice the large numbers of children
and teenagers, which could be seen everywhere as well
as the twenty-somethings.
A Filipino Family with Four Children
• By race and ethnicity, most Filipinos belong to the
Austronesian or Southern Mongoloid race like the
aboriginal peoples of nearby Taiwan to the north, and the
Malay peoples of Malaysia and Indonesia to the south and
southwest. Their features are generally characterized by
brown skin, medium height, with straight and jet-black hair.
• The Austronesian peoples used to be called “Malays” by
earlier Anthropologists and are related to the Polynesian
peoples of the islands of the North and South Pacific, such
as the U.S. State of Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, New Caledonia
and the Maoris of New Zealand, and the Malagasy of
Madagascar, off the southeastern coast of Africa.
• The term “Malay” is currently also used as an
ethnic and legal term for the Austronesian
inhabitants of Malaysia and Singapore, in order to
distinguish them from the ethnic Chinese and
Indians.
• Other indigenous peoples are the so-called
Negrito (little black), term first used by the
Spaniards to describe the African-like black
people with dark skin, kinky hair and short
stature who lived a hunting and gathering
lifestyle on the edges of the forests.
• Considerable foreign blood has also mixed with the
Filipinos since the Spanish period, such as Chinese, Spanish,
Arab, American and other nationalities, especially with the
increase of the Filipino diaspora when large numbers of
Filipinos began working and living abroad in recent years
and intermarrying with foreigners has enriched the
bloodlines of Filipinos with the result of producing women
with very beautiful features.
• In fact, the two recent Filipino winners of the Miss
Universe Beauty Pageant and the first Filipino winner of the
Miss World Pageant have German, Australian and American
fathers respectively. This is an indication that the Filipino
nation-state is fast becoming a multinational state.
Pia Wurztbach, Miss Universe 2015
Catriona Gray, Miss Universe 2017
Megan Young, Miss World 2013
• The People of the Philippines is also made up of several
ethno-linguistic groups speaking their respective
languages and have their respective temperament and
character.
• Northern Luzon is dominated by the Ilocanos or
Samtoy, who are thrifty and hardworking, and do not
hesitate to leave home seeking either better economic
opportunities or simply their place in the sun, which
explains why many of the pioneering Filipino workers
and immigrants in the U.S. states of Hawaii, California
and Alaska are Ilocanos.
• The Bicolanos are found in the peninsula at the
southeastern portion of Luzon and are noted for
their fondness for pepper in their cuisine, and
their resiliency to the storms which frequently
strike their region.
• An added characteristic is that if the Bicolano
does not want to enjoy life in the world, he is
contemplating it in a church or seminary, and
accordingly, many Filipino priests have come from
the Bicol region.
Msgr. Jorge Barlin, First Native Filipino
Bishop and a Bicolano
• In the capital city of Manila and adjacent
provinces are the home-loving Tagalogs, who
spearheaded the Revolution against Spain and
the notion of one single nation encompassing
the entire Philippines.
Manila City Hall
• In between the Tagalogs and Ilocanos are the
Kapampangans, who inhabit the Central Luzon
provinces of Pampanga, Tarlac, and parts of
Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija and Zambales
who are noted for their delicious cuisine,
probably the best in the country and their
unique and difficult language and their fine
taste for clothes.
Cathedral of San Fernando City,
Pampanga
• In the Visayas are found several ethno-
linguistic groups, such as the Warays of Samar
and part of Leyte, the Ilonggos who live in the
Western Visayan islands of Panay and parts of
Negros, and the Cebuanos, who are found not
only in Cebu island and Negros but also in
Bohol, parts of Leyte and most of Mindanao,
especially its Christian population.
Magellan’s Cross, Cebu City
Actual Cross of Magellan (its remains
enclosed in wood casing)
• The Muslim population of Mindanao have the
Maranaos of the Lake Lanao region, the
Tausugs of the Sulu Archipelago, and the
Yakans of Basilan island. Other groups of
people are found, such as the different
aboriginal tribes in the mountains of Northern
Luzon, known collectively as the Igorots, and
the Lumads of Mindanao.
Grand Muslim Mosque in Marawi City
• All of these ethnic groups are regionalistic to one
degree or another, being proud of their own
group.
• But in contrast, the Tagalogs seem to be the least
regionalistic, due to the fact that the capital city
of Manila is in their region and this led to the
eventual selection of their language, Tagalog as
the basis for the national language, which is
Filipino, and this gave them the tendency to be
more national in their outlook than the other
Filipinos.
• Thus, many of the pioneering leaders and
heroes of Philippine nationhood were
Tagalogs, such as Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio,
Emilio Aguinaldo and Manuel L. Quezon.
• As a result of Spanish rule, Spanish was propagated and
used as the official and intellectual language during the
Spanish period, but it gradually gave way to English
during the subsequent American regime.
• By the late American and Commonwealth period, the
mainly-Tagalog based national language, known as
Filipino, began to be propagated and its use spread
rapidly throughout the country after World War II and
independence, its dissemination assisted by its use by
the educational system, the media, and the
entertainment industry especially with the advent of
radio and television.
• In the current Constitution ratified in 1987, the official
languages would be Filipino and English, and the
regional languages would be used as auxiliary means of
communication in their respective borders,
• while Spanish, along with Arabic would be promoted
“on a voluntary and optional basis,” which would be
the legal basis for the eventual abolition of Spanish as
an official language and required subject in the
schools, which used to be the case in the college and
university level from 1946 until 1987.
• The ancestors of the Filipinos had extensive relations
with their Asian neighbors and received cultural
influences from them long before the coming of the
Spaniards.
• The Chinese traded with the peoples of what is now
the Philippine archipelago since the Soong dynasty,
exchanging Chinese goods like porcelain and silk with
native products such as rattan and bird’s nests (for
making the Chinese delicacy, nido soup), along with
some Chinese cultural influences, which explains why
Chinese porcelain was already being used by the
Filipinos when the Spaniards arrived in the 16th
century.
• The early Filipinos also had trade with the Indianized
empires of the Sri Vijhaya and Majapahit, which held
sway in which is now Java Island in Indonesia from the
8th to the 14th centuries and through them, Indian
cultural influences filtered to the Philippines through
trading.
• With the advent of Islam through the Islamized Malays
during the 15th century, Arab cultural influences began
to be felt. But it must be explained that all these
influences and contacts the early Filipinos had with the
other Asian peoples never had any lasting influences
comparable to Spanish rule.
 - It is true, paper and printing were invented by
the Chinese, but these inventions never reached
the Filipinos during their early contacts with the
Chinese despite their proximity with China,
• but these eventually reached distant Europe
during the late Middle Ages, and it took a
European nation, Spain to introduce these
technologies to the Philippines during their rule.
• The early Filipinos also had their own writing
system, known as baybayin, a phonetic script
but it produced no extensive body of literature
comparable to those of its Asian neighbors,
which may have been developed from earlier
scripts introduced through contact with other
Asian traders, such as Indians.
Baybayin Script
• The Spanish Dominican missionaries even published a
book for the teaching of Catholic doctrine, titled
Doctrina Christiana which was written in Spanish,
Chinese and Tagalog,
• with the Tagalog text in the baybayin, indicating that
the missionaries did not prohibit the use of the ancient
alphabet but in fact, utilized it in their evangelical
efforts. It may have simply fallen gradually into disuse
when the indigenous peoples began using the Roman
alphabet in writing in their native tongues. This is
considered one of the first books printed in the
Philippines.
Doctrina Christiana
First Page of Doctrina Christiana in
Classical Chinese
A page of Doctrina Christiana written
in Baybayin
Laguna Copper Plate Inscription
• The so-called “Laguna Copperplate” is an
example of a written document before the
Spanish Conquest, discovered in the town of
Nagcarlan, Laguna in the 1970s and deciphered
by Dutch anthropologist Antoon Poostma.
• In January 1990, the Laguna Copperplate
Inscription, then just a thin sheet of crumpled
and blackened metal, was bought and acquired
by the National Museum of the Philippines after
previous efforts to sell it as an antique had been
unsuccessful.
• It measures around 20 cm by 30 cm and is inscribed
with ten lines of writing on one side. The text was
mostly written in Old Malay with influences of Sanskrit,
Old Javanese and Old Tagalog using the Kawi script.
• Dutch anthropologist Antoon Postma deciphered the
text and found that it identified the date of its
inscription in the "Year of Saka 822, month
of Vaisakha." This corresponds with months April-May
in the year 900 AD of the Gregorian calendar, about six
centuries before Magellan’s arrival.
 Decipherment and Contents
• The document states the acquittal of all the descendants of a
certain honourable Namwaran from a debt of 1 kati and 8 suwarna,
which is equivalent to 926.4 grams of gold granted by the Military
Commander of Tundun (Tondo) and witnessed by the leaders
of Pailah, Binwangan and Puliran, which are places likely to be also
located in Luzon.
• The reference to the contemporaneous Medang Kingdom in
modern-day Indonesia imply political connections with territories
elsewhere in the Maritime Southeast Asia.
• This document is the earliest record of a Philippine language and
the presence of writing in the islands. Its contents also suggest the
existence of political dominion and long-distance trade in the
Philippine archipelago in as early as the 9th century.
 Writing Systems
• Brahmic scripts were introduced in Maritime
Southeast Asia through Indian influence. This led
to the creation and use of the Kawi script and
several native writing systems in the Philippine
archipelago.
• Kawi script
• The Laguna Copperplate Inscription was written
using the Kawi script which originated in Java and
was used across Maritime Southeast Asia.
• By the 13th or 14th century, as inicated earlier,
the Baybayin script was in use for the Tagalog
language. It is known to have spread to Luzon,
Mindoro, Palawan, Panay and Leyte, but there is
no proof that it was used in Mindanao.
• There were at least three varieties of the
Baybayin script in the late 16th century. These are
comparable to the different variations of the
Latin script in Europe which use slightly different
sets of letters and spelling systems.
• In 1521, the chronicler Antonio Pigafetta from the
expedition of Ferdinand Magellan noted that the people
that they met in Visayas were not literate.
• However, in the next few decades the Baybayin script
seemed to have been introduced to them. In 1567 Miguel
López de Legaspi reported that "they [the Visayans] have
their letters and characters like those of the Malays, from
whom they learned them; they write them on bamboo
bark and palm leaves with a pointed tool, but never is any
ancient writing found among them nor word of their origin
and arrival in these islands, their customs and rites being
preserved by traditions handed down from father to son
without any other record."
 Religion of the Early Filipinos

• With the exception of those in the island of

Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago who were
converted to Islam during the 15th century just
before the Spaniards came, the early Filipinos
were pagans, professing an animistic religion
similar to the other Austronesian peoples.
• Among the Tagalogs of Luzon, the supreme god
was Bathala who was believed to dwell high in
the sky in a way, comparable to the Greek god,
Zeus.
• Other gods below him was the sun-god araw, and the
rain god, ulan. Incidentally, these words are used in
the modern Tagalog language as the words for sun and
rain respectively.
• Among the Visayans, the supreme god was Laon.
Religious rituals were performed by priestesses, known
as Babaylan among the Tagalogs, and Catalonan
among the Visayans, with these rituals held in
makeshift temples known as Sambahan,
(corresponding to the modern Tagalog word for church,
which is Simbahan), which could often be under old
trees or inside caves.
• Some of these pre-Christian beliefs and practices
have survived into the present, often blending
into the folk Catholicism of many Filipinos,
especially in the rural areas.
• In fact, some of the rituals of these Pre-Hispanic
priestesses are still known and practiced today
by the so-called herbolarios or herb healers, who
perform these rituals to ward off misfortune or
heal illnesses like what witch doctors do in other
cultures.
• Unlike In the case of Hinduism, there was no
formidable barrier to overcome when
evangelization began in earnest with the coming
of the Spaniards
• and the Philippines soon became the only
Christian nation in Asia and held that distinction
for centuries until joined by East Timor (Timor
Leste) when it became independent of Indonesia
in 2002, which was evangelized by Spain’s fellow
Iberian and Latin nation, Portugal.
• There was also no unified government for the
whole archipelago as today. Instead, the early
Filipinos were formed into groups of 30 to 100
families known as Barangay or village, ruled by a
datu, or chief, a sort of monarchy.
• In some big and prestigious barangays, the datu
is often called rajah or lakan. In similar Islamized
barangays, the ruler often used the Muslim term,
Sultan, as in the Sultanate of Sulu.
• The datu was the Barangay’s chief executive, legislator
and judge. The datu is also the commander-in-chief of
his Barangay’s warriors in wartime. In his legislative
role, the datu is assisted by a council of leaders and the
new laws announced by a town crier known as
Umalahokan.
• The so-called Code of Kalantiao was for many years,
hailed as an outstanding example of a Pre-Hispanic
legal code, until it was debunked as a hoax and forgery
by William Henry Scott, an American historian who
spent most of his career and ended his days in the
Philippines.
• The social classes during Pre-Hispanic times
were the Maginoo, or nobility to which the
datus and their families belong.
• Below them were the Maharlika among the
Tagalogs or Timawa with the Visayans, a sort
of middle class, where the farmers, fishermen
and merchants or other artisans belonged.
• . At the bottom of the social scale are the Alipin or
slaves, divided into two kinds. The first is the Aliping
Namamahay, more of serfs than slaves, who had their
own houses and only served their masters during
definite work hours and cannot be sold by them.
• The second, the Aliping Saguiguilid, are the real slaves,
who lived and their masters’ houses and are wholly
owned by them and could be sold at will by them. The
slaves are often people captured in war and sold in
slave-markets, or those who are deep in debt to their
masters.
• But unlike in the Hindu Caste System of India,
social movement among classes is not
restricted.
• A maharlika could become a member of the
nobility by marriage or if he is declared a datu
by the people of the Barangay, or a slave could
become a maharlika once he is voluntarily
freed by his owners, buys his freedom or gets
married to a maharika.
Depiction of a noble Visayan couple in
the 16th century (Boxer Codex)
 Other polity systems by ethnic group

• In Luzon
• In the Cagayan Valley, the head of the Ilongot city-states was called
a benganganat, while for the Gaddang it was called a mingal.
• The Ilocano people in northwestern Luzon were originally located in
modern-day Ilocos Sur and were led by a babacnang. Their polity
was called Samtoy which did not have a royal family but was
headed as a chieftaincy.
• The people of the Cordilleras, collectively known by the Spanish as
Igorot, were headed by an apo. These civilizations were highland
plutocracies with distinct cultures where most were headhunters.
According to literature, some Igorot people were always at war with
the lowland Ilocano people from the west.
Igorot Warriors Performing a Ritual
Dance during the American Period
• In Mindanao
• The Lumad people from inland Mindanao are
known to have been headed by a datu.
• The Subanon people in the Zamboanga Peninsula
were ruled by a timuay until they were overcame
by the Sultanate of Sulu in the 13th century.
• The Sama-Bajau people in Sulu who were not
Muslims nor affiliated with the Sultanate of Sulu
were ruled by a nakurah before the arrival of
Islam.
Manobo Tribe in Caraga Region,
Mindanao
• Trade
• The items much prized in the islands included
jars, which were a symbol of wealth
throughout South Asia, and later
metal, salt and tobacco. In exchange, the
people would trade feathers, rhino
horns, hornbill beaks, beeswax, bird's-
nests, resin, and rattan.
 Earliest documented Chinese contact

• The earliest date suggested for direct Chinese

contact with the Philippines was 982. At the time,
merchants from "Ma-i" (now thought to be
either Bay, Laguna on the shores of Laguna de
Bay or a site called "Mait" in Mindoro) brought
their wares to Guangzhou and Quanzhou.
• This was mentioned in the History of
Song and Wenxian Tongkao by Ma Duanlin which
were authored during the Yuan Dynasty.
Artist’s Illustration of Early Chinese
Contacts with the Filipinos
Depiction of female commoners at the
time of Spanish contact
 Arrival of Islam

• Beginnings
• Muslim traders introduced Islam to the then-Indianised
Malayan empires around the time that wars over
succession had ended in the Majapahit Empire in 1405.
• However, Makhdum Karim had already brought Islam to the
Philippine archipelago in 1380, establishing the Sheik
Karimal Makdum Mosque in Simunul, Tawi-Tawi, the oldest
mosque in the country. Subsequent visits
by Arab, Malay and Javanese missionaries helped spread
Islam further in the islands. The Sultanate of Sulu once
encompassed parts of modern-day Indonesia, Malaysia and
the Philippines. Its royal house also claims descent
from Muhammad.
 Bruneian attacks

• Early in the 16th century, the Bruneian

Empire under Sultan Bolkiah attacked
the Kingdom of Tondo. Thus until the arrival of
the Spanish, southern parts of Luzon and
some islands further south have been at least
nominally influenced by Islam.
• The timely arrival of Spain along with
Christianity effectively checked the further
spread of Islam in the Philippine archipelago.
• Women had a higher status in ancient Philippines as
compared to their sisters in the neighboring Asian
nations.
• They were not treated as second class citizens and are
practically equal to men, unlike in the case of
traditional Chinese culture under Confucian influence.
• They are treated as the queen of the home and could
engage in business and livelihood pursuits equal to
men. If they happen to be daughters of datus who
died without sons, they could take over the chieftaincy
and rule the barangays.
• This relatively high status of women was
further enhanced by Christianity and is now
one of the highest in the Asia-Pacific region.
Filipino women won the right to vote and hold
public office during the Commonwealth
Period just before World War II, the earliest
women in Asia to do so.
• Since then, two women had become presidents
of the Philippines, high-ranking government
officials and high-ranking executives in some of
the Philippines’ top business corporations.
• But Filipino working women who happen to be
mothers have the amazing ability to combine
their work and careers while being housewives
and mothers for their families, and foreign men
who got married to Filipinas have testified to the
loving and carrying nature of their spouses and
devotion to their families.
 Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, First
Woman President of the Philippines
• All these descriptions of the early Filipinos were done
by Spanish chroniclers such as the Dominican friar,
Diego Aduarte, the Franciscan Juan de Plasencia, and
the government official, Antonio de Morga, which
could be more described as accounts of the Filipinos at
Spanish contact, or the conditions of the natives of
these islands at the time of the Spanish arrival.
• In recent years, knowledge about the Filipinos Pre-
Spanish past was enhanced by such cognate disciplines
such as Archeology, Anthropology, even Linguistics.