Ben Ongoco
Ferdinand Magellan discovered the islands for the Spanish crown on March 16, 1521 and named it the Archipelago of San Lazar(Lazarus on Lent), erected a Roman cross and claimed the islands for Spain during the Hapsburg-Bourbon dynasties. But it did not become a Spanish colony until 1565 when Philip II appointed Miguel Lopez de Lagazpi as first governor general. It was named De Las Islas Filipinas by Roy Villalobos.
Magellan made friend with Rajah Humabon in Zebu and even agreed on christening his wife Juana as the first Christian but was killed by Lapulapu of Mactan when he landed there because the two chieftains were at odds, a culture or trait of Filipino leaders until today. His assistant Sebastian del Cano continued the voyage and circumnavigated the Globe.
Legazpi chose Manila as the colony's capital due to its rich supply of resources after a victorious battle by his nephew Capitan Juan de Salcedo at Bangkusay against Lakandula. At Muslim conclave, Raja Matanda became friend of the Adelantado(Legazpi). It was then called Maynilad( with seagrass).
Salcedo continued his pacification campaign until up north to Villa Fernandina(Vigan) and south to the Bicol peninsula and later, the Visayas and Mindanao. In Bohol, Legazpi signed with Sikatuna a blood compact of friendship. The Moros of Mindanao and Sulu were barely touched, although Spain had a problem with Moors in Granada and Valencia.
The religious orders Dominicans, Jesuits, Benedictines, Franciscans and others Christianized the natives into Catholic faith as wanted by Isabela Catolica, the Queen, for them to be converted from Islam and paganism and introduced western culture and traditions. They built churches and schools with local labor and farm the encomiendas out of Royal grants.
They christened the babies according to the "calendar of saints" with first names but it took Governor General Narciso Claveria later on to give the last names out of the birth registries of Cadiz, Barcelona, Madrid and other places in Spain because of confusion. That is why brown Filipinos have Spanish last names. And Spanish colonization lasted for 333 years from 1565 to 1898. Can you imagine the Filipinos not imbibing Spanish traits and culture in 333 years? By the way, they were not called Filipinos but "Indios" because the word Filipinos were intended for the Spaniards born in the archipelago to distinguish from those born in the Iberian peninsula or "peninsulares". Did discrimination start from here?
During the pre-Spanish period, the archipelago had been there and traders from China, Indochina, Arabia, Malaya and Taiwan were in contact with the natives by way of barter. Chou Jou Qua, a Chinese chronicler wrote that the Filipinos were honest because the traders would leave their merchandize on the beach and the next day the barter equivalent would be found. With the microcosm of cultures that confluenced into the Filipino mind, we are trying to forensically trace the roots of graft and corruption nowadays. Even the "Filipino time" stigma, may be traced to the manana habit of the Spaniards and status symbol of being late in masses or events as reflected in the persona of Don TTiagoand Dona Consolacion in Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo novels of Dr. Rizal, the national hero.
Too, there was already diplomacy during that time. The first foreign treaty was between the Sultan of Sulu and the Emperor of China in 1287. In 1380 Islam also came to the Philippines when Shariff Kabungsuan propagated it in Mindanao, as well as Manila. Whether Islam or Catholic or other sects, the Filipinos are passionate in their religion bordering on fanaticism and missionary zeal. So it is better to be a guest there and not to talk about politics and religion.
The Malay trait in the Filipino was said to be the resultant working together spirit or bayanihan, although it could also be Chinese because of the extended family system and looking for one another as in helping fellow Chinese in succeeding in his business. Due to intermarriages, the Chinese sired most of the Filipinos and their being helpful and hospitable as traits may have been acquired.
And who are really the natives of the Philippines? If you start from estimated 50,000 years, they should be the Aetas, Atis and other ethnics that may have originated from Papua or Australia by landbridges and look similar to their aborigines there. King Marikudo(dark) exchanged Panay island for a golden salukot(hat) for his wife Manawantiwan. It also believed that those who settled in the north and Cordillera mountain came from China and Taiwan and instilled with them traits of industry or frugality. Ten datus escaped from what is now Indonesia to be free from a tyrannicalll sultan and settled in various parts of the archipelago, like Panay and even the settlement along the Pasig river(Maynilad)
With 7,200 islands, the Filipino is a myth not to be a seafarer. In 1573 up to 1811, a Galleon Trade was plying from Manila to Acapulco in Mexico. By 1587, Luzonians set foot on Moro Bay(now San Luis Obispo) in California. In 1781, Antonio Miranda Rodriguez was a member of a group of settlers that established the City of Los Angeles. The first service of Filipinos under the American flag was during the War of 1812 against Britain and Canada when Manilamen's Village joined the command of Jean Lafitte in the Battle of New Orleans. The first Filipino American organization was the Sociedad de Beneficencia delos Hispanos Filipinos, founded in 1870. So the Filipino is already already conduiting with the American or Hispanic ways ever since.
In 1888, Dr. Rizal visited the United States on his way to Europe and planned to have an office in New York for the La Liga Filipina and could not go ashore in San Francisco Bay because of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Finally, he landed and stayed in San Francisco prior to stage coach trip with a side tripp to Utah because of his curiosity in Mormons having more wives(Rodil Rodis wrote). He passed Colorado, the midwest and Chicago and instead of New York, he established it in Toronto, Canada because he saw how the Negroes were treated(Galicano Apacible, in his book). There are some speculations that if Rizal did what current Filipino TNTs(Tago Ng Tago) did, Rizal might have preceeded Martin Luther King. A trait of being freedom loving people can be gleaned from the example of Rizal. Also, the fractious expatriates saw Rizal gelling them together via the La Liga with Graciano Lopez Jaena from the Visayas(Iloilo), Juan and Antonio Luna(Ilocos Norte), Marcelo H. del Pilar, Jose Panganiban(Bicol), Maximo Viola, Pio Valenzuela, Mariano Ponce among others as representing the archipelago.
Rizal angering the Spanish clerics and civil servants because of his writings and advocacy tried mockingly by a military court and was executed by musketry at Bagumbayan(now Rizal Park) on December 30, 1896 and an angry nation revolted with the Katipunan led by Andres Bonifacio from Balintawak to Montalban caves and Emilio Aguinaldo in Cavite culminating in the declaration of the first republic in Asia on June 12, 1898 in Kawit, Cavite. The rivalry between Bonifacio and Aguinaldo resulted also in the execution of Andres and Procopio Bonifacio in Mt. Buntis in Cavite--a sequel to the Lapulapu vs. Humabon rivalry in 1521.
The Spanish-American War was already eroding the mighty Spanish empire with the defeats in Cuba and Puerto Rico and the declaration of independence by Central and South American countries led by Simon Bolivar and thus, most battles were won by generals under Aguinaldo and Admiral George Dewey's fleet defeated a lackluster fight over the Spanish Armada of Admiral Alfredo Montejo that started the occupation by the Americans. Actually, the Americans helped Aguinaldo while exiled in Hong Kong but the "honeymoon" lasted only shortly when the U.S. sentry opened fire to the Filipino soldiers at a bridge in Pinaglabanan, San Juan City. Actually, the Treaty of Paris was signed between Spain and the United States in December 10, 1898 paying the former $20 million. Was not this six months after the first Republic's Congress was convened in Barasoain, Malolos, Bulacan? They say: "There is no permanent friendship, only permanent interest." President William McKinley wanted a base in Asia for the overflow of products out of the industrial revolution and to evangelize the natives into his Methodist faith.(A congressman from Wisconsin recited the My Last Farewell poem of Rizal in Congress and disproved the assumption that Filipinos were uncivilized. *How could it be when University of Sto. Tomas and Ateneo were already centers of knowledge and Harvard University site was still a swampland?)
President Aguinaldo was captured on March 31, 1899 after Gen. Antonio Luna who attended military school in Europe was assassinated in Cabanatuan and then the pacification campaign by the Americans and the establishment of civil government in 1902. William Howard Taft was governor general who later became U.S. president. That year, the first batch of pensionados were sent to attend colleges and universities in the United States. Elementary education was also introduced, not done by Spain for 333 years, may be similar to other former colonies. Education is our gift of legacy from the Americans. Immigration also started in 1906, first in the sugar plantations of Hawaii and then the grape picking valleys of California. In 2006, Hawaii was the center of the 100th year anniversary.
As the first show of loyalty to Americans, Filipino soldiers volunteered in 1916 to fight during World War I in Europe. At that year too, Jones Law was passed which is also known as the Philippine Autonomy Act.
The thirst for freedom was the reason for the Filipino nationalists to be agitated by the harsh rule of the Americans, especially during the time of Gov. Gen. Leonard Wood, espoused by President Manuel Quezon, Vice President Sergio Osmena, Senators Manuel A. Roxas, Claro M. Recto, Quintin Paredes, Camilo Osias and Benigno Aquino, Sr. and Jose P. Laurel for the quest for independence and in 1932, the Hare Hawes Cutting Law concerning 12 years of self-governing and in 1936, the Tydings-MacDuffie Law was passed promising independence after 10 years. There was elected the Philippine Assembly(lower house) and the U.S. appointed Philippine Commission(upper house) as a bicameral legislature. The ilustrados formed the Federalista Party, but their statehood platform had limited appeal. In 1905, the party was renamed National Progressive Party and took up a platform of independence. The Nacionalista Party was formed in 1907 and dominated Philippine politics until after WWII. Its leaders were not ilustrados. The Democrata party became the opposition.
But despite the immediate independence platform of the NP, the party leaders participated in a collaborative leadership with the Americans. A major development emerged in the post WWI era and that the resistance to the control of the land by the elite, by tenant farmers who were supported by the Socialist Party and the Communist Party of the Philippines. Tenant strikes and occasional violence occurred as the Great Depression caused the cash crop prices collapsed.( This tenancy problem was partly solved by the declaration of land reform not until 1963 by President Diosdado Macapagal.) The United States continued the rule in the country from 1935 to 1946--characterized by the establishment of the Commonwealth of the Philippines and the occupation by Japan during WWII(1942-1945). The country's first Constitution was framed in 1934 and overwhelmingly approved by plebiscite in 1935 and Manuel L. Quezon was elected president of the Commonwealth. Quezon later died in Saranac Lake, New York while heading the exile government in 1944 and succeeded by Vice President Sergio Osmena, Sr.
That is after Japan attacked the Philippines on December 8, 1941 and occupied Manila on January 2, 1942. Tokyo set up an ostensibly independent republic led by President Jose P. Laurel, Sr. which was opposed by the underground and guerilla activity that eventually reached large scale proportions. Allied Forces liberated the Philippines on October 20, 1944 by landing in Palo, Leyte and Gen. Douglas MacArthur made good of his promise "I Shall Return".Japan surrendered in September 2, 1945. World War II was demoralizing for the Philippines and the islands suffered from rampant inflation and shortages of food and other goods. Some one million Filipinos died during WWII.
President Osmena came back and all pre-war officials were reinstated. He was defeated in an election by Liberal Party candidate Manuel A. Roxas in 1946 but died not even two years in office and succeeded by Vice President Elpidio Quirino who ruled amidst scandals and communist insurgency led by Huk Supremo Luis Taruc. President Ramon Magsaysay won the elections of 1953 over him and instituted programs for the masses and curbed dishonesty in government until his plane bumped against Mt. Manungal in Cebu and Vice President Carlos P. Garcia took over in about two years and who won his election to the presidency over Jose Yulo and Claro M. Recto and espoused "Filipino First" policy, also plagued by scandals. Vice President Diosdado Macapagal beat him later and stayed for one term until Ferdinand E. Marcos opposed him and lost in 1965. Marcos reigned from 1965 to 1986 when EDSA I or People Power bloodless revolution erupted. He ruled by Martial Law from 1972 to 1981.
Corazon C. Aquino, wife of slain Benigno Aquino, Jr., won a snap election in 1986 but under massive fraud that triggered off that People Power revolt. Her administration was saddled by several coup d'etats by the military because of political ambitions and the release of Communist Party chief Jose Ma. Sison who is still in self-exile in Utrecht, Netherlands. Her six year term ended and backed General Fidel Ramos, the first Protestant(Methodist), with electric power failures and peso devaluation, and scandals too, only to be succeeded by Vice President Joseph Estrada, a movie idol and won large votes, especially among women. He was convicted of plunder or enriching himself and his mistresses that made EDSA II people power revolt by the masses led by priests, nuns and students, like EDSA I. The Catholics are a political force too to be reckoned with. Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was sworn in as President known as PGMA. She won her own term plagued by alleged cheatings.The elections of 1910 saw President Benigno S. Aquino III victorious over candidates on graft and corruption that plagued the Arroyo rule. Still single, many are hoping for the better for the Philippines with PNoy or President Noynoy.
The history of the presidency is characterized by most elections cheating in many forms, graft and corruption and or charges and counter charges, a complete departure from the pre-Spanish times. Population growth with 92 million inside 114,000 square miles of landmass mirrored the Malthusian theory of population and the Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest. Corruption is rampant. Too quote Rizal "You can not expect a good government out of a rotten society."Generally Catholics, birth control is taboo and banned by the church.
After learning the history of the Filipinos, you can imagine now the microcosm of cultural influences. Culture, according to Prof. Tomas Andres of Ateneo de Manila University is the integrated pattern of learned behavior and traits shared and transmitted by a group of people and their characteristic lifestyle; their ways of thinking, believing, feeling and acting. They constitute models or goals of personal behavior in social interaction shared by the members of a given social group.
The predominant values in the Filipino family are: 1) Emotional closeness and security in the family and helping one another, especially among relatives; 2) Small group-centeredness: The Filipino tends to value this strongly. The family and his small group has to have the approval of that small group for his every action and decision. Thus, Filipinos tend to stay within the group that impedes creativity and encourages being sociostatic. And that sociostat will pull the Filipino down; 3) Authoritarianism: The Filipino is a very highly dependent person and he values power to the extent of courting it. Thus, when a man is in power, the Filipino tries to get his favor and when he is already in power himself, he begins to be very dominant too and 4) Personalism: The Filipino is always personal. He wants to do things in a personal basis and he wants his feelings of the things on personal leverage too. For him, there has to be personal contact before things can happen. Personalism dictates that emphasis be given to personal relations. For example, the imperatives of industrial organizations are rational while the emphases of Filipino culture are emotional and relational. The Filipino culture is governed by hiya(shame), bahala na attitude(carefree), awa(pity), amor propio(pride), lakad(to intercede), padrino(sponsor) and tulay(bridge).
The Filipino will not say straight "No" to his superior. Sometimes "Yes" means "No."
Living in the Philippines is a balancing act of simple life and low cost of living but you have to endure again the heat, snarled traffic, dust and everything rustic. If you have already saved a bundle and want it easy, your former abode is for you. There are some who went home for good. Labor is cheap. In retirement, care providers abound from among relatives. But when they became sick or suffered from any calamity, they will pawn to you their last "caldero" or frying pan. Because of rampant poverty, your good pair pants or shirt hanging on clothesline can be snapped by thieves or when you ride the fully packed buses, your wallet can be picked or your pants slashed.
Alfredo Roces in his book "Culture Shock", warned of expatriates to the Philippines about values of the Filipino, in terms of employment and temperament. The Filipino is sensitive but he will not show it. They may not even understand that "Tack and diplomacy to build a fire under people without making their blood boil." There are several norms and conduct in Filipino activities. In attending baptismal parties, note that the godparents are told by the priest to guide the godchild in his or her duties as a Catholic, not to be obligated to give gifts during Christmas or New Year. But that is now a rule rather than an exception. That is also happening in weddings. In some regions, the tradition of pinning money bills on the attires of the bride or the groom still persists. So, if you are part of the groom's entourage, and there is a ceremony like that, better be ready to fish out some bills from your wallet or you may be tagged as a tightfist or snobbish, if you do not participate. Everything materialistic now?
There, you can easily get a maid or household help. But be sure your small children should not be too closely related to the nanny or "yaya" or he, or she may adapt to the accent of the latter. There are also maids that can give the roadmap of the your house to burglars. Or in some instances, they will vanish with your valuables themselves. Sad to state, that the Filipino, because of poverty and the loss of moral values can do many things unimaginable.
Have a chaperon in going to the shops or public markets, not only you may be opened to pickpockets and holduppers, but you can even be kidnapped, especially if you speak English all the time. So it pays to learn Filipino or the native language. My sons when they went home alone some years ago were speaking English to the taxi driver and a distance of about a mile became 50 or so mileage and the taximeter kept on registering for the fare. In public markets, vendors can sell to you a dozen of mangoes with one or two rotten. That goes too with lanzones, atis or eggs.
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