From The Skylands

HUMOR FOR THE HOLIDAYS as I mark my tenth year of service in the agency. And Sara's SAT score, out of a perfect 1600, on her first attempt a couple of weeks ago. Happy holidays to all!

Maspeth couch

Through The Years

I USED TO WORRY sick about Sara tackling the subway by herself some years ago, but I guess changes just happen, like the rapid growth of the oak and plane trees I planted in front of the house in Maspeth when we first moved in, and those sure to come (good or bad) when big resident Amazon  moves into the Queens neighborhood beginning early next year.

THE LOCATION OF AMAZON’S NEW HEADQUARTERS IN NYC. COURTESY OF AMAZON

A President's Message

MI HIJA, MI PATRIA. In one of his "fireside chats", periodic public affairs radio broadcasts from Malacañang through which he updated Filipinos on the activities of the republic, former Philippine President Elpidio Quirino spoke about fatherly pride and the country's affection for Spain, a powerful message for the Día de la Hispanidad, its purity unblemished by the annoying background noise. Still a grieving widower when he ascended to presidency in 1948 (his wife Alicia and three children Armando, Norma and Fe Angela were killed by the Japanese during the Battle of Manila), Quirino also faced the challenges of postwar reconstruction and the Hukbalahap insurrectos. His only surviving daughter Victoria became the youngest official hostess of Malacañang at 16, performing the functions traditionally ascribed to a First Lady, this time having returned with a medal from an official trip to Spain. 

Staying Alive

DÍA DE LA HISPANIDAD (October 12) is observed on the same week as Columbus Day. Spanish is the most widely-spoken foreign language in the city, and as a filispanophile trying to learn it late in life, I find memory trainer Anthony Metivier's book interesting, what with the Philippine flag on its cover, and am delighted to see and hear Pinoys speak the language. The use of Spanish in the Philippines started its rapid decline after the Second World War when American pop culture flooded the country (The New York Times' effect on man?) and got another nail in the coffin when the new constitution removed it as one of the country's three official languages in 1987. Its comatose state got some jolt when Spanish-speaking presidenta Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed a directive in 2007 requiring the Philippine school system to resume including Spanish in its curriculum, for which she deserves some credit. And thanks to the (dwindling) number of Spanish-speakers in the country (and maybe to the creole Chavacanos), we maintain memberships in the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española and the Unión Latina. 

Also thanks to programs of the Instituto Cervantes de Manila, partnerships with the Spanish and Chilean governments which offer scholarships and teacher-training programs to Pinoy students and educators, and other filispanophiles like Pepe Alas of San Pedro, Laguna (his blog went belly-up in 2016; ¡Alas, que lástima!), the Spanish language torch in the Philippines is still alive, barely. Whatever. But this Chavacana girl's love song, applauded by viewers from as far away as Spain and Mexico, is haunting. TV Patrol Chavacano is equally interesting, although I cringe every time I hear the improper use of simple articles--el calle, el universidad--in every other sentence. Also check out these hour-long broadcasts of the radio program Filipinas, Ahora Mismo before it also folded up in 2009 when the Spanish government discontinued funding as it faced its own economic recession. (More ¡que lástima! Any wealthy sponsors out there?) Finally, let's move to madre España and watch the performance of "Yo Te Diré" by filispañola Alexandra Masangkay, star of the movie 1898, Los Ultimos de Filipinas, if only to see just how pretty she is. And this not-so-HD file of the anti-war movie (shot in the Canary Islands and Equatorial Guinea) without subtitles for exercise and look for the controversial Pinoy sex in public scene.

I think we Pinoys have the natural gift of learning a language, given the multitude of dialects in the country many of us know how to speak, and that we are losing out on opportunities in the Latin world, job-wise and otherwise, by skipping on this endeavor to learn a not-so-new language. I believe we Pinoys will be better served, and will discover a whole new horizon, if we learn and know how to read, write and speak Spanish the way we do English.

Miembros de la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (ASALE)

Me Gusta

ESTE FRASCO DE BALSA, una especie de calabaza gigante para almacenar la tuba de Colima. The beverage became so popular in Western Mexico (it still is) that a decree by viceroy Luis de Velasco in 1610 prohibited the production of tuba because it had become the beverage of choice for the local Mexican population in the provinces of Colima and Zacatula and the sales of Castilian grape wine had dropped, costing Spain a large amount of tax revenue. Taverns and even churches replaced the Castilian spirit with the tuba, which prompted its prohibition and the deportation of Filipinos who produced it. "It can be averted, provided all the Indian natives of the said Filipinas Islands are shipped and returned to them, that the palm groves and vessels with which the wine is made be burnt, the palm trees felled, and severe penalties imposed on whomever remains or returns to making that wine.” Geographer Henry J. Bruman traced the Pinoy roots of Mexican palm toddy and its distillation in The Hispanic American Historical Review and Geographical Review. ¡Compuesta, y conquista al revés, señores! Here's to harvest season.

One For Captain Kid

BEFORE SAYING GOODBYE to serious history posts and getting down to work, I want to share this kid-friendly picture story, complete with music and sound effects, of a Manila galleon's voyage (based on Gemelli Careri's 17th century narrative) by columnist Adolfo Arranz and infographic designer Marco Hernandez in last May's blog issue of South China Morning Post. This is only one chapter in a series of posts; read the rest by clicking the other tabs at the bottom of the screen. Also Dutch resident Kees Koonstra's cool project for the town of Puerto Galera, on whose beaches still wash up grains of black, petrified rice from galleons that once sought shelter in its safe harbor, loading supplies before heading out the treacherous salida at the Embocadero. Aye aye, captain Kees! says SpongeBob SquarePants.

                                                     Such is the legend. Hear this truth:
                                                     Over the trackless past, somewhere,
                                                     Lie the lost days of our tropic youth,
                                                     Only regained by faith and prayer...
                                                             --Bret Harte, "The Lost Galleon"       

Homage to Puerto Galera's history

Kees Koonstra and Puerto Galera mayor Rockey Ilagan with the miniature replica of a Manila galleon

End Of A Deadly Passage

AFTER THE TE DEUM and the magnificent trade fair in Acapulco, flocked to by merchants and wealthy buyers from as far away as Peru, many questions still remain. Did Isagani Timbulan, one of four survivors of the Concepción who made their way back to Manila in 1639 ten months after the disaster, ever get to see once again his beloved Yanihan, who was on board the almiranta San Ambrosio that successfully made it to Nueva España? What about those rafts of coconuts and sacks of discarded mango seeds, used as toilet wipes in the meantime to extend their usefulness on the sea-tossed galleon? Who among the wretched and maltreated Pinoy crewmen jumped ship with nothing but rags and galleon trash on their backs to seek new lives in the New World? Art by Robert McGinnis of the James Bond posters fame.

Franciscan missions were later established in California (once thought to be an island) to provide life-saving citrus to the Manila galleons

The Acapulco trade fair

Love In The Time Of Corcuera

SEBASTIÁN HURTADO DE CORCUERA'S autocratic governorship is demonstrated by his early conflict (three years before the Concepción tragedy) with the Augustinian Archbishop of Manila Fray Hernando Guerrero, precipitated by the execution of fugitive Spanish artilleryman Francisco de Nava on the grounds of San Agustín Church where had sought refuge after he had murdered a female slave he had fallen in love with, but was captured by Corcuera's determined police after they ransacked the church. Offended by the governor's blatant disrespect of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the archbishop refused to lift, even on such a festive day being the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (this day in 1635), Corcuera's previous interdict suspending all religious functions of the church, but was forced to relent and render church services when the Jesuits took the side of the governor.  Fray Casimiro Diaz, from material collected earlier by Fray Gaspar de San Agustín, wrote: "There did not fail to result certain charges against the governor, such as his having ordered the secular priests to be detained in the guard-house; his declaration that he could not be excommunicated by anyone except the pope; and if an order were given to him to arrest the pontiff, he would arrest him, and even drag him along by one foot (which he was proved to have said by several persons)." Rodrigo Duterte's hero? Read on: "The governor freed himself from all these charges by excuses in a manifesto which he published; but as it is not a part of my duty to examine their adequacy, I shall not do so...for there is no liberty in Filipinas to enable anyone to complain, or to speak his mind against what the government manipulates." In May of 1636, the governor ordered the exile of the archbishop to Mariveles Island, and the cabildo of Manila cathedral took over the administration of the archdiocese. Within a month he was allowed to return to the city, albeit under humiliating conditions. 

Equally telling is the account of Corcuera's own Filipino slaves among the hundreds of men, women and children captured during the Moro Wars of 1638 in Tatiana Seijas' Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico (the Portuguese began the African slave trade across the Atlantic in 1526), and how Corcuera justified them to the court as "legal slaves because they had been captured in a just war against Muslims, and the enslavement of women and children in a just war was fully allowed under Spanish jurisprudence." And beginning November of 1639, four months after the four survivors of the Concepción reached Manila, and up to February the following year, nearly 25,000 Chinese were killed in the second Chinese massacre in the Philippines. The slaughter was precipitated by the murder of Don Luis Arias de Mora, a "heartless and extortionate" Spanish alcalde-mayor and overseer of public land around the lake towns of Biñan-Calamba, by his angry Chinese rice-farming settlers. Desperate and oppressed beyond what they could bear, they set out, 300 strong and armed with bolos, bamboo poles and farm tools, for Manila. But "this was hardly an anti-Spanish uprising, much less anti-Filipino. It was a bid for survival by cornered men." What followed was an epidemic slaughter of the Chinese, including loyal servants in households, upon Corcuera's order and out of paranoia. The governor later boasted to the King that he and his men had killed about 25,000 Chinese (close to the current count of Duterte's EJK casualties) and thus suppressed an armed rebellion, when in reality it was no more than a weaponless, stormy protest group. It makes sense that national hero Dr. Jose Rizal, champion of the fight for freedom and against oppression, would trace his roots more than two centuries later to those Chinoys of Biñan-Calamba (which may have encompassed the town of San Pedro, where my family presently owns a house in a subdivision). Blair and Robertson's account of the entire episode in Volume 29 of The Philippine Islands is a lengthy read, but Jesuit Charles J. McCarthy's summary in Philippine Studies grasps its essence. My wife being also of Chinese ancestry, I wonder how her forebears survived those pestilential years.

Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera, Governor of the Philippines, 1635-1644

San Agustin Church. Pen and ink drawing by Noel Bueza

Like Egyptians building a pyramid, Pinoy slaves labor on a Manila galleon. "Sometimes as many as 600 laborers were forced to work at building galleons and other ships. Some of them plane, some saw, some nail the timber, but the greatest number fell trees on the mountains, and these must be many and large, to keep out the tempestuous seas the galleons are to cross," wrote 17th century traveler Gemelli Careri. "Obtaining the lumber was the hardest work. Thousands of men serving under a labor draft sweated out grueling workdays that ran from dawn to sundown. They felled, rough cut, and transported the logwood that was shaped into the galleons at Cavite." Painting by Noel Escultura

Lading a Manila galleon at the port of Cavite. Art by Roger Morris

Weekend Reading

THE LONG LABOR DAY WEEKEND should give me time to read up this hoard of resources about Mangyans and Manila galleons, less tedious with marine archaeologist William M. Mathers' coffee table book Treasure of the Concepción which I got earlier this year, signed and loaded with stupendous photographs of the recovered cargo. Also glad to find Bruce Cruikshank's chronology of all Manila galleons from 1565-1815, Blair and Robertson's brief mention of the Concepción tragedy, and Catherine Lugar's detailed report on the ill-fated galleon and the corrupt governorship of Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera, compiled from three years of research in seven countries by historians Peter Earle of the London School of Economics and David Webb of the University of London. From Lugar's article: "There were also more inundane trade goods, like 1,500 cakes of beeswax he was sending to Mexico." Inundane? What does does that word mean? Ora et labora! reverberates my Pinamalayan high school battlecry.

More gold from the Concepción: necklaces, a rosary cross and a figa amulet

Photographs too large to scan also appeared in the September 1990 issue of National Geographic 

The author holds one of 156 jars found intact which once held water, wine, oil and other vital supplies

A steersman in San Bernardino Strait struggles to survive a skirmish with a squall

Suitcase Delights

TESS GOT FOR ME on her recent trip to Mindoro (through a nephew studying in Calapan) this rare copy of Antoon Postma's monumental book Annotated Mangyan Bibliography, 1570-1988 for less than the price of a bagful of Pinamalayan banana chips as reading companion. And a score of other Pinoy expatriate collector's books, mostly from New Day Publishers, for less than $40. Thanks for these awesome pasalubongs, Mom!

A thriving Pinamalayan enterprise

Monkeys and Morals

FLASH FORWARD TO more than two centuries later with Dean Worcester's visits to Mindoro between 1887-1893, where he perceived Mangyans as monkeys upon initial contact: "Here were the dreaded head-hunters and cannibals, of whom we had heard such alarming reports. We kept a sharp eye on them at first, but our concerns were entirely needless. They were as harmless as children. They were far more afraid of us than we were with them, but after we had won their confidence, they furnished us endless amusement. It proved a simple matter to entertain them. We extemporized rattles for the women, by putting a few shot in some of our old metal cap-boxes. They would play with them by the hour, shaking them and laughing as contentedly as so many babies. We gave one of the men a hand-mirror. He did not recognize his own reflection, but acted precisely as I have seen the Philippine monkeys do under similar cirscumstances."  And on one of his last visits, Worcester made this expiatory comment about Mangyan morals, criticizing the church and the influences of civilization on the Filipino soul (which, ironically, he advocated for as the reason why the US imperial government should stay in the Philippines when he became part of its machinery in 1899): "One might imagine that morality would be at a low ebb among a people whose women are almost without modesty, and where all alike agree that there is no future life, nor any sure retribution for evil deeds in this. Nothing could be further from the truth. Such a thing as a faithless wife is almost unknown. Again and again we left, wholly unprotected, enough property to make a dozen of them very wealthy according to their standards, yet they never stole a penny's worth from us. On the whole, after making somewhat extensive observations among the Philippine natives, I am inclined to formulate the law that their morals improve as the square of the distance from churches and other so-called 'civilizing influences.'" There you go, Mr. Worcester. Not a single banana was stolen by your monkeys. How about your people and civilization?

Worcester's camp on the Baco River with a carabao skull trophy on a corner of the roof, 1891

A Mangyan woman photographed by Adolf Bernhard Meyer in 1904

A Mt. Worcester in Mindoro?

The Beeswax Wreck

AND SPEAKING OF BEESWAX, the summer 2018 special issue of the Oregon Historical Quarterly entitled “Oregon's Manila Galleon” features the research done on the mysterious "Beeswax Wreck."  Thought to be that of Manila galleon Santo Cristo de Burgos which left Manila in 1693, the wreck carried a large load of beeswax (used by churches in the Spanish colonies to make candles) much of which washed ashore and contained wings of bees native to the Philippines. I am sure that some, if not most, of those beeswax were gathered by Mangyans from the mountains of Mindoro. And if some Pinoy crewmembers survived the shipwreck as the video suggests, then they would be the second oldest group of Filipinos in the US, after those that arrived in Morro Bay in 1587. 

To order a copy, contact Andrew VanDerZanden, Oregon Historical Society, 1200 SW Park Avenue, Portland, OR 97205, phone (503) 306-5230, email Andrew.VanDerZanden@ohs.org.

Missions And Mentions

THANKS TO FR. RANDY FLORES, SVD of Divine Word Seminary, Tagaytay for sharing this special issue of Diwa: Studies in Philosophy and Theology, devoted to Antoon Postma's research "Mangyan Encounters: East and West (1570-1985)". I was looking for Mangyan responses to Jesuit and Augustinian Recollect reduccíon during the 17th century to finish writing the story of Yanihan in "The Giant Clam of Sibale Reef", and given the dearth of information available within these parameters, I was glad to find valuable snippets of accounts in Postma's research. To begin with, the earliest mentions of Mangyans were those by Hernando Riquel (1570), the official scribe of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi's voyage to Luzon from Cebu in search of the prosperous trading settlement of Manila, who heard about a group of people that lived in the interior of Mindoro he referred to as "Chichimecos" (after a nomadic Aztec tribe in Mexico), and by Fray Martin de Rada (1577) who was first to mention the term "Manguianes" in a letter.  Fray Juan de Medina (1630) wrote about a group of indios who lived in the mountains that were "whiter than the Tagalos" and who collected an abundant amount of beeswax. "Especially do these Mangyans fear the sea. They don't pay tributo. They are afraid that the Spaniards force them to man their ships." In 1632, the Litterae Annuale (Annual Report of the Jesuits) of the Residentia Nauhana noted the Mangyan attitude that "Money made from gold or silver is looked upon as useless, but they consider it a fortune when they possess knives and pots for cooking their food."

Between 1665-1666, Jesuit Diego Luis de San Vitores (known for his work and martyrdom with Pinoy saint Pedro Calungsod in Guam) led a fairly successful mission in Naujan where he baptized a hundred and twenty or so Mangyans before heading for the Mariana Islands in 1668.  In 1679, seven years after San Vitores' terrific death in the hands of Chamorro leader Matapang, Fray Martin Diaz wrote about the loyalty of the Mangyan converts the priest left behind in Naujan: "I know for a fact that they maintain the chapels of straw that they had built at the initiative of the venerable Father Diego Luis de San Vitores. They repair these chapels, take care of them, clean them, and say that they are waiting for him. When they are told that this priest had died already, they say: "nevertheless, some others, like him, are going to come." None of the accounts about Mangyans, however, is more powerful than these remarks from the 1633 Annual Report of the Residencia de Nauhan, which describe the credibility of Mangyan morals that baffled even the Christians: "They told me that they want to be sure that their children will not end up becoming slaves once they have become Christians. One thing that has given us much consolation, admiration towards these pagans because notwithstanding (the negative aspects), they are a people who are very trustworthy. The Mangyans will never tell a lie. That is why, if you tell the Christians, 'that is what the Mangyan says,' they will answer, even if it is not in their favor, 'well, then it must be the truth.'"

Joris van Spilbergen map of Mindoro (ca. 1619) depicting a Mangyan woman in typical rattan waistwear

Simbahang Bato in Bancuro, Naujan, Oriental Mindoro built by Augustinian Recollects in 1680

Overgrown Fuerte de Bongabong or Kuta Fort built by Augustinian Recollects in the 17th century as defense against Moro raids, Anilao, Bongabong, Oriental Mindoro

Fray Diego Luis de San Vitores, evangelist to the Mangyans, 1665-1666

Missing The Point

REMEMBER THE SEVENTIES when aspiring Pinoy high school seniors had to tackle the NCEE to apply for college admission? As Sara prepares for the SAT, I exhumed this score report sent from the archives of the registrar of Ateneo de Manila University, where I spent my first two years of college before transferring to UP College Manila and eventually Diliman. I am sure that the test score helped me get that "for-needy-but-deserving-students" Ateneo Scholarship Foundation free tuition and residence at Cervini Hall (answering phone calls on some nights and weekends and relaying messages to dorm residents via intercom), until I had to leave the university as I suffered my promdi soul-searching in my junior year (See "One Hundred Years of Universitihood"). The NCEE was abolished in 1994 by, surprisingly, former president Fidel Ramos, who signed Republic Act 7731 to repeal an earlier presidential order that created it, prohibiting colleges and universities from denying admission to high school graduates who failed the nationwide test. Recently (and I think sensibly) however, there have been discussions to re-administer the NCEE, "to control the influx of undeserving students who flock to state-subsidized universities and colleges". Mona Valisno, who had rendered respectable service as Department of Education secretary in previous administrations, noted that re-implementing the NCEE would allow higher education institutions to accommodate more poor but deserving students, and observed that during her term, students who came from the "poorest of the poor” obtained 98 percent and above in the NCEE. I agree. And I think needy and gifted Pinoy students are inherently and independently studious, requiring no classes (unlike in the US) to prepare for these tests. Maybe the NCEE's return will have busy, hard-working Pinoy parents of talented children worrying less about college applications, as this credential will help their kids fend for themselves as they tackle academic frontiers beyond high school. Bringing the NCEE back, however, will require approval of the Congress as it has already been abolished by law.

Keepers Of The Range

MUCH IS KNOWN and has been written about the Hanunuo Mangyans, thanks to the dedicated work of Dutch missionary Antoon Postma, but little about the group more kindred and familiar to this writer--the Taubuid Mangyans (sometimes known as Batangan Mangyans), the pipe-smoking group that calls the mountains of Sabang, and beyond, the cordillera of my town of Pinamalayan, Oriental Mindoro home. So I was glad to find studies done by American anthropologist F. Douglas Pennoyer, Dean of Cook School of Intercultural Studies at Biola University, who documented their fascinating lifestyle in Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society and Anthropos. My mother, a schoolteacher, supported a promising Taubuid kid named Celso Yayag from the village to the elementary school in town until he graduated, but was recalled thereafter by his parents to help with the farm work, and the last time we heard, he also became a teacher. Maybe one day he can also contribute to the knowledge about his people. For a pictorial tour of the present Taubuid Mangyans with their solar lamps and cell phones and their role in wildlife conservation, read World Wildlife Fund's article. The tamaraw skulls, I presume, came from specimens that died natural deaths, and are kept more as venerated relics than as trophies. To visit the Taubuid community in Pinamalayan, follow these MHC guidelines or contact Job Lusnawan, President, Tagfasadi Fagayu Taubuid, Barangay Safa, Sabang, Pinamalayan, Oriental Mindoro. But make sure to bear in mind Pennoyer's words, which I only know too well: "Fear is a pervasive force among the Taubuid and is greatly intensified during confrontation with strangers, spirits, and even members of the same hamlet. The biggest obstacle to an in-depth study of fear in interior Taubuid society is the fear itself, which virtually precludes prolonged contact with the outside world."

Pipe-smoking Taubuid Mangyan as ranger guarding Mts. Iglit-Baco against poachers. Photo by Gregg Yan

My mother's grade 6 class with Celso Yayag (last row, third from right)

The Reeds Speak

GRACIOUS PRESIDENT of Mangyan Heritage Center Lolita Delgado Fansler, on her recent trip to the US, asked me if I could promote the book Bamboo Whispers in this blog, and I am only happy to oblige as it has been the plan all along, and is long overdue. A collection of 100 Hanunuo ambahan poems originally written on bamboo reeds in surat Mangyan, a pre-Hispanic syllabic script which is also translated in Tagalog, English and Spanish, the book showcases the pristine sensibility of this forgotten group of indigenous people of Mindoro. The blurb supplied by Executive Director Emily Catapang, who led the publication of the revised version of A Primer to Mangyan Script, summarizes the essence of the book, which is available for purchase worldwide through the center's website. (They are planning launches at the Philippine Embassies in Washington, DC and New York City this year, hopefully with the help of The Asia Society.) For an introduction to ambahan, read the late Dutch missionary Antoon Postma's articles in Asian Studies and Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society. Which brings back a lot of memories. Growing up in Pinamalayan, Oriental Mindoro, my family had a 17-hectare or so farm on the hills of Barangay Safa, Sabang from where one of our Taubuid taos named Pani would come to town on Sundays to bring us red morado plantains and crayfish from Pula River (the aligi enormous beneath their carapaces), and dew-heavy fern fiddleheads wrapped in banana leaves, to report if they were doing sulib, dulok or pukan--mountain dialect that refers to various stages in the kaingin work. Ms. Fansler's haunting ambahan quote from the reeds beckons to the expatriate:

                                                 "You were once passing this way
                                                 It's not long since you've been here
                                                 Your footprints are still around..."

MHC President Lolita Delgado Fansler

SAT Progress Report

WE SPENT $3.6K of hard-earned bucks on SAT Summer Camp at Kweller Prep to help Sara prepare for college applications, and the investment is paying off very well. Her last practice test score is 90 points short of the 2018 perfect score of 1600, and she is determined to hit the mark when she takes her first actual test this fall, after a short trip with her cousins and Mom to Mindoro and Taiwan. Can't go; all summer vacations had been snapped up by coworkers with higher seniority.

Mount Defiance, 1891

THE FEARLESS MANGYAN DAUGHTER who was up front about how repulsed she was by the idea and dared to defy the malagti-skinned men's order to bare herself before the camera. And a not-so-lucky bull tamaraw that came a-charging in rage. Of the original Filipino soul. Photos from the Special Collections Research Center of the University of Michigan Library.

Dr. Frank Bourns, Pinoy tracker Fulgencio Aceveda and Dean Worcester in Mindoro, 1891