What were Filipinos like before they were colonized

A column I wrote to Veronica Pedrosa who now lives in London had almost 3000 likes. It was about what Filipinos were like before they were colonized.

It was by way of reply on just who and what Filipinos were before the Spanish colonialists came. I have excerpted from a translation “Annotations on Antonio Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas” by Austin Craig of the introduction to the book.

Here are excerpts from Rizal’s annotations to inspire young Filipinos of today.

Here are items I have chosen from the annotations.

Morga shows that the ancient Filipinos had army and navy with artillery and other implements of warfare. Their prized krises and kampilans for their magnificent temper are worthy of admiration and some of them are richly damascened. Their coats of mail and helmets, of which there are specimens in various European museums, attest their great advancement in this industry.

Of the native Manila rulers at the coming of the Spaniards, Raja Soliman was called “Rahang mura,” or young king, in distinction from the old king, “Rahang matanda.” Historians have confused these personages.

The artillery cast for the new stone fort in Manila, says Morga, was by the hand of an ancient Filipino. That is, he knew how to cast cannon even before the coming of the Spaniards, hence he was distinguished as “ancient.” In this difficult art of ironworking, as in so many others, the modern or present-day Filipinos are not so far advanced as were their ancestors.

In Morga’s time, the Philippines exported silk to Japan whence now comes the best quality of that merchandise. Morga’s views upon the failure of Governor Pedro de Acuña’s ambitious expedition against the Moros unhappily still apply for the same conditions yet exist.

Filipinos had minstrels who had memorized songs telling their genealogies and of the deeds ascribed to their deities. These were chanted on voyages in cadence with the rowing, or at festivals, or funerals, or wherever there happened to be any considerable gatherings. It is regrettable that these chants have not been preserved as from them it would have been possible to learn much of the Filipinos’ past and possibly of the history of neighboring islands.”

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A long time French resident W-A Miailhe de Burgh  in the Philippines added memories of his own.

Having three editions of Pigafetta the earliest French edition ca 1800 (an original was sold a few years back for $50,000), what is interesting was the fact that the Philippines were on the wrong side of the line of Tordesillas (enclosed).

Carlos V, with the help of Father Urdaneta must have had doubts about it, and sold back the Moluccas to Portugal for 350,000 ducats.

As to the Burke Building, which you mentioned in your column a year ago, the family owned this piece of land since the mid 19th century, but we don’t have the exact date.

You mentioned a connection with the Materson Burke Relief Fund which is non existent.  It was an Irishman Dr. John Burke who came in 1860 and married an Anglo Spanish mestiza Maria Eustaquia Somes de Butler. Burke would not have come, had the family not been expropriated of the Western quarter of Ireland, the province of Connaught.

The family of Norman origin de Burgo or de Burgh had Ulster as well which was transmitted as dowry in the mid 14th century when the sole daughter of the Earl of Ulster married Lionel duke of Clarence, and brought Ulster as dowry.

This has been the main topic of discord with the EU. Last year the director of the Bank of England has warned that if no agreement was reached the pound might go down 20 percent, it is already down 15 percent – making the dowry a bit expensive.

Ulster still carries our family coat of arms and banner, which we owe to Baudoin du Bourg, 3rd King of Jerusalem, after his two Boulogne cousins Godefroy de Bouillon and brother Baldwin.

Heacock was our tenant not Berg.

The first Otis elevator was installed in our building.

I am virtually the head of the Burke clan, but prospect of a Galway meeting presided by Cardinal Burke has been temporarily set aside…

2019 marks our family’s bicentennial in the Philippines, but the earliest date is a letter of a family member dated Manila, 8 August 1628, possibly the earliest private document.