Two faces of Maharlika

From my secondary education History class, I learned that there were three strata in the Philippines’ pre-Hispanic society, the king (also datu or rajah), the Maharlika, and the alipin. In that social structure, the Maharlika referred to as freeman, was a class higher than the slaves but lower than the ruling class. It could be equated to the modern day “middle class”. We were taught that while the caste system was recognized, there were no disparaging discriminations between and among the classes. We did not question our teacher’s ascribing the Maharlika as noble.

Years after high school, however, I heard the term Maharlika again but I do not now recall exactly where and under what circumstance. What filtered through my memory was that it was on a painting of the late president Ferdinand Edralin Marcos and his first lady where the term Maharlika was inscribed. What? The president and his wife are Maharlikas? From such blurred memory, the meaning of the term somehow changed from what our high school teacher told us to what was projected on the painting. The Maharlika face tweaked from that of being just a freeman to that of ruler. But, what kind of a ruler was the late president? Primitivo Mijares answered by using the painting in the cover of his magnum opus called Conjugal Dictatorship! I then began to recognize this face of Maharlika as something of consequence such that if our history maestro was correct, then someone tried to change history. By the way, let me hasten to ask, is it true that there is a mad effort to change the historical data of the Philippine dark ages during the martial law regime of the late president Marcos into the Philippine golden age?

The term surfaced recently. A bill in Congress (signed into a law few days ago) was whimsically called a Maharlika Fund. Following the report that such legislative measure was filed, criticisms from extreme ends of our society --the acknowledged intellectuals and the morons amongst us, raised the debate into the level of a proverbial hell. Oh, a loud and noisy debate raged. It seemed to me though that there were more ordinary mortals who opposed the bill but their number failed to convince the senators and congressmen to relegate it to the waste basket where it deserved to be. To my utter disappointment, the Maharlika bill was supported by the rulers. Indeed, the face of Maharlika, once noble, has, for me, become unsalutary.

There is a use of the word Maharlika by the administration of Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes that somehow restores both the dignity of the term and its original noble place in the social order. This is the second face of Maharlika that I believe Mandauehanons are also proud to see. Without attendant fanfare, Mayor Cortes has launched a project that will find a six-story medium-rise housing facility in Sitio Maharlika (of all places) in Barangay Tipolo, for the city’s informal settlers. Mayor Cortes’ choice of the place must be providential. This site was devastated by a calamitous fire not very long ago. Mandauehanons must be proud that its leadership has appropriated a huge amount of ?100 million to rehabilitate the lives of Maharlikans.

The two faces of Maharlika are the Maharlika Fund of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr and the Mandaue City housing project for its informal settlers in Sitio Maharlika of Mayor Jonas. In my biased opinion, the Marcos Maharlika Fund can possibly end in a financial disaster akin to the multi-billion-dollar scandal of the Commonwealth Fund of Malaysia as reportedly corrupted by its former leader, Najib Razak. On the other hand, the fund appropriated by the Mandaue City administration of Mayor Cortes for Sitio Maharlika serves the best interest of Mandauehanons!