Legend has it that Lapu-Lapu and his men simply fought with arrows and bamboo spears; but they fought with great heroism. Their sense of nationalistic pride, love for freedom, had put the foreign invaders to rout. Thus, the battle ended with the Spaniards fleeing back to their boats, leaving their beloved captain — their “light, mirror, and comfort”— to die on the rocky shore.
This resistance was to be reaffirmed many times over when the Spaniards returned in force to colonize the archipelago, especially in Muslim fiefdoms.
Prelude to colonization
As it was, Filipinos of 1521 were not yet Filipinos but indios, Moors or heathens. When the Spanish fleet, led by the heavily bearded Portuguese dreamer and explorer Ferdinand Magellan, reached Samar (and later Cebu), the Philippines then was just an archipelagic cluster of tribes. The notion of state, or region, or common worship or civilization was alien to the natives. Armed to the teeth, each wary of the other, the natives were seemingly preoccupied with sailing the short seas for livelihood, and also to fight.
The excellent chronicler Antonio Pigafetta, who accompanied Ferdinand Magellan’s 1521 expedition in Las Yslas Filipinas, describes the islanders (Samarenos) thusly:
“They have holes in their ears so large that they can pass their arms through them. Those people are caphri, that is to say heathen. They go naked, with a cloth woven from the bark of a tree about their privies, except some of the chiefs who wear the cotton cloth embroidered with silk at the ends by means of a needle. They are dark, fat and painted. They anoint themselves with coconut and beneseed oil for protection against the sun and wind. They have very black hair that falls to the waist, and use daggers, knives and spears ornamented with gold, large shields, fascines, javelins and fishing nets that resemble rizali and their boat are like ours.”
Like politicians of today, the conquistadors too encouraged ignorance. With a country splintered into 7000 islands, the Spaniards must have thought that they could easily rule and exploit the entire archipelago in no time. To make sure that they could lay down their colonial intentions smoothly, the Spaniards saw to it that any kind of unity among the natives was to be avoided at all cost. Necessarily, any effort at coming together was to be discouraged.
In search of paradise
After Magellan’s fateful expedition, the strident wind of colonization began to sweep the country. It was certain that the invaders would return, but the natives were clueless what their real intentions were. And so the Spaniards were back but with a different twist.
Under the common of Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, the Spanish fleet landed in Cebu around 1564. The Spaniards, despite being outnumbered, wasted no time to begin the process of colonization. Using the banner of Catholicism as a tool for subjugation, the colonizers launched a massive military campaign. Worse atrocities were committed to these malleable natives as part of the Spanish Crown’s colonial efforts. The burning of houses, the wholesale looting, and the desecration of the dead in search of gold, were methods used by the Spaniards, not only to force submission from the natives, but also as means to survive in a desolated island. Some of the natives fled, leaving their villages in ruins while others stood their ground only to surrender their freedoms out of fear later. With the disappearance of the old barangays, the Spaniards formed the first Hispanic settlements in Cebu. For three years or so, the Spaniards maintained a main base there while desperately awaiting reinforcements from Spain.
As days dragged into months, and months into years, the Spaniards grew restive, quiescent in a way. With nothing left to plunder and to support them, the restless invaders decided to jettison Cebu. Soon they figured a nearby island that was reported to have abundant food supplies, mainly rice. And so off they sailed to Panay.
Like the natives of Cebu, the Pintados of Panay fiercely resisted the conquistadors, but the colonizers once again prevailed by applying the same level of violence towards the people. Wherever the Spaniards went, villages were looted and burned to ashes. For even with a small military contingent, some of these jingoistic Spanish soldiers were in fact veterans of the Spanish wars. Obviously, these colonial incursions had certainly spurred a “culture shock” among the local population. For the first time, natives would face Castilians as aggressors, puissant and armed, which completely kept them off guard even before the battle began.
Although only a few barangays were virtually conquered, half of Panay’s population perished during these incursions.
The northward expansion
After establishing a new base in Panay, another island far north lured them. This time, the Spanish conquistadors vowed to conquer Manila, a place reported to have large settlements of Bornean Muslims. Quickly, the conquistadors consolidated its forces by putting up a coalition of Visayan allies, mostly fighting men from Cebu and Panay. Recruitment of mercenary soldiers was easy. Spaniards knew for a fact that Visayans were hostile to Manilans because they thought of them as incorrigible barbarians— “Muslims.” This was to have a profound impact on the Christian-Muslim relationship in the future.
With the aid of 1,500 Visayan auxiliaries, the small band of Spaniards decided to move to Manila. The year was 1570.
The northward expansion was, in fact, a vital strategy to complete the process of “possession” and “conquest.” Indeed, if Manila could be taken over by Spaniards, the next logical step would be the “conquest” of Luzon and much of the archipelago. Owing to Manila’s large settlements, soon to follow was the establishment of a unique Spanish colonial institution— the encomienda; a complex political structure employed by the regime to exact tributes and labor services from the indios.
Part III will tackle the beginning of the Moro Wars; the Spaniards versus the Borneans and beyond.
Sources:
O.D. Corpus, The Roots of the Filipino Nation, Vol. I, Quezon City: UP Press, 2010
Abraham “Abet” Iribani, Give Peace A Chance: The Story of the GRP-MNLF Peace Talks, Magbasa Kita Foundation, 2006
Teodoro C. Benigno, “A Dip into the Deep Past,” Here’s the Score, Philippines Today Inc., 1990
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