Readings in Philippine History

CHAPTER 2 NARRATIVE ACCOUNTS FROM SELECTED PRIMARY SOURCES

Learning Outcomes:
a. Evaluate the merits of the selected narrative accounts from primary sources;
b. Discuss the criticisms on the historical issues;
c. Cite the historical importance of the selected text.

In this module, we are going to look into at a number of primary sources from different
historical periods and evaluate these documents content in terms of historical value,
and examine the context of their production. The primary sources that were are going
to examine are Antonio Pigafetta’s “First Voyage around the World”, Emilio Jacinto-the
1898 Declaration of Philippine Independence, Emilio Aguinaldo -“Memoirs”, Declaration
of Philippine Independence, pres. Aquino’s speech before the US Congress.
These primary sources range from chronicles, official documents, speeches, and
cartoons to visual arts. These types of sources require different kinds of analysis and
contain different levels of importance.

Antonio Pigafetta's First Voyage Around the World by Antonio Pigafetta

About the author Antonio Lombardo Pigafetta was a Venetian scholar and explorer. He
traveled with Portuguese explorer. Ferdinand Magellan and his crew under the order of
king Charles I of Spain on their voyage around the world. He served as Magellan’s
assistant and kept an accurate journal, which became the source of information on
Magellan’s voyage. He was one of the 18 men who returned to Spain in 1522 out of the
approximate 240 men who set out three years earlier. Pigafetta’s voyage completed the
first circumnavigation of the world. His journal, however, centers on the events in the
Mariana Islands and the Philippines.

Saturday, the 16th of March, 1521, we arrived at day break in sight of a high island,
three hundred leagues distant from the before-mentioned Thieves’ island. This isle is
named Zamal. The next day the captain-general wished to land at another inhabitant
island near the first, to be in greater security and to take water, also to repose there a
few days. He set up these two tents on shore for the sick, and had a sow killed for them.
Monday, the 18th of March, after dinner, we saw a boat come towards us with nine men
in it: upon which the captain-general ordered that no one should move or speak without
his permission. When these people had come into this island towards us, immediately
the principal one amongst them went towards the captain-general with demonstrations
of being joyous at our arrival. Five of the showiest of them remained with us, the others
who remained with the boat went to call some men who were fishing, and afterwards all
of them came together. The captain seeing that these people were reasonable, ordered
food and drink to be given them, and he gave them some red caps, looking glasses,
combs, bells, ivory and other things. When these people saw the politeness of the
captain, they presented some fish, and a vessel of palm wine, which they call in their
language Uraca, figs more than a foot long, and others smaller and of better savour, and
two cochos. At that time they had nothing to give him, and they made signs to us with
their hands that in four days they would bring us Umai, which is rice, cocos, and may
other victuals.

To explain the kind of fruits above- named it must be known that the one which they
call cochi, is the fruit which the palm trees bear. And as we have bread, wine, oil, and
vinegar, proceedings from different kinds, so these people have those things proceeding
from these palm trees only. It must be said that the wine proceeds from the said palm
in the following manner. They make a hole at the summit of the tree as far its heart,
which named palmito.

These people became very familiar and friendly with us, and explained many things to
us in their language, and told us the names of some islands which we saw with our eyes
before us.
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Friday, the 22nd of March, the above-mentioned people, who had promised us to return,
came about midday, with two boats laden with the said fruit cochi, sweet oranges, a
vessel of palm wine, and a cock, to give us to understand that they had poultry in their
country, so that we brought all that they brought. The lord of these people was old, and
has his face painted, and had a gold rings suspended to his ears, which they name
Schione.

On September 8, 1522, the crew of the Victoria cast anchor in the waters off of Seville,
Spain, having just completed the first circumnavigation of the world. On board was
Antonio Pigafetta, a young Italian nobleman who had joined the expedition three years
before, and served as an assistant to Ferdinand Magellan en route to the Molucca
Islands. Magellan was dead. The rest of the fleet was gone: the Santiago shipwrecked,
the San Antonio overtaken, the Concepcion burned and the Trinidad abandoned. Of the
237 sailors who departed from Seville, eighteen returned on the Victoria. Pigafetta had
managed to survive, along with his journal—notes that detailed the discovery of the
western route to the Moluccas. And along the way, new land, new peoples: on the far
side of the Pacific, the fleet had stumbled across the Marianas archipelago, and some
three hundred leagues further west, the Philippines.
Pigafetta’s journal became the basis for his 1525 travelogue, The First Voyage Around
the World. According to scholar Theodore Cachey Jr., the travelogue represented “the
literary epitome of its genre” and achieved an international reputation (Cachey, xii-xiii).
One of Pigafetta’s patrons, Francesco Chiericati, called the journal “a divine thing” (xl),
and Shakespeare himself seems to have been inspired by work: Setebos, a deity invoked
in Pigafetta’s text by men of Patagonia, makes an appearance in The Tempest (x-xi).
First Voyage, Cachey points out, is intent on marveling at what it encounters—and
therein lies much of its appeal. It is a work that is intent on wonder. On astonishment.
In travel writing, one often must recreate the first moment of newness, that fresh sense
of awe, on the page for the reader; Pigafetta does it again and again, by reveling in odd
and odder bits of detail. We watch Pigafetta wonder at trees in Borneo whose leaves
appear to walk around once shed, leaves that "have no blood, but if one touches them
they run away. I kept one of them for nine days in a box. When I opened the box, that
leaf went round and round it. I believe those leaves live on nothing but air.” (Pigafetta,
76). We marvel, in the Philippines, at sea snails capable of felling whales, by feeding on
their hearts once ingested (48). On a stop in Brazil, we see an infinite number of parrots,
monkeys that look like lions, and "swine that have their navels on their backs, and large
birds with beaks like spoons and no tongues" (10).

And yet, the very newness that can give travel writing so much of its power creates
problems of its own. For the travel writer there is, on the one hand, the authority of his
or her observational eye, and on the other, the call for humility in confronting the
unknown. Pigafetta, encountering a new people, tries to earn his authority through a
barrage of detail. He attempts to reconstruct their world for us--what they look like,
where they live, what they eat, what they say--he gives us pages and pages of words,
from Patagonia, from Cebu, from Tidore. But there is little humility, and one can hardly
expect there to be so, not early in sixteenth century, a few decades after the Pope had
divided the unchartered world between Spain and Portugal,and certainly not on this
expedition, where Magellan and his partners have been promised, in a contract
agreement with the Spanish monarchy, the titles of Lieutenants and Governors over the
lands they discover, for themselves and their heirs, in perpetuity. And cash sums. And
1/20th of the profits from those lands.
In First Voyage is great gulf between what Pigafetta sees and what Pigafetta knows. I
grew up, in the Marianas, hearing about this gulf. It is part of why travel writing can be
so fraught for me now. On reaching the Marianas after nearly four months at sea with
no new provisions,” The captain-general wished to stop at the large island and get some
fresh food, but he was unable to do so because the inhabitants of that island entered
the ships and stole whatever they could lay their hands on, in such a manner that we
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could not defend ourselves.". The sailors did not understand that this was custom, that
for the islanders, property was communal and visitors were expected to share what they
had.

So in that first moment of contact, Magellan and his starving crew retaliated. They went
ashore and burned, by Pigafetta's account, forty to fifty houses. They killed seven men.
Mutual astonishment at the new and the wondrous took a dark turn:

“When we wounded any of those people with our crossbow shafts, which passed
completely through their loins from one side to the other, they, looking at it, pulled on
the shaft now on this and now on that side, and then drew it out, with great
astonishment, and so died; others who were wounded in the breast did the same, which
moved us to great compassion. [...] We saw some women in their boats who were crying
out and tearing their hair, for love, I believe, of their dead.”

Magellan named the archipelago Islas de los Ladrones, the Islands of Thieves. The name
would stick for the next three hundred years, long after the islands were absorbed into
the Spanish empire. The name, the bold, condemnatory stroke of it, has long been
anchored to my past, to those old history lessons. There is no feeling in it but rage. So
I was surprised to see, in Pigafetta's text, the sailors moved to compassion. They seem
to understand, in that moment of astonishment, that the islanders are defenseless
against the unknown.

From the Marianas, the fleet moved on to the Philippines. They linger there, exploring
the land, exchanging gifts with the chiefs, observing the people. And I know what's
coming for the people; I know that we're seeing, through Pigafetta, the hush of a world
just before it changes, wholly and entirely. And there is Pigafetta, marveling, at the
coconuts and the bananas and the naked, beautiful people. It's happening even now in
the text, as the Filipino pilots are captured to direct the way to the Moluccas, the way
to the spices. There is Pigafetta, roaming and cataloging and recording, caught up in
the first flush of a new world, and as I read I can start to hear my father describing his
country, wondering at it, my father traveling as a young man up and down Luzon, across
the sea to the Visayas, across the sea to Mindanao. I can hear the ardor and the sadness
and the terror and the delight. I can hear the wonder. I can feel the pulse to move.

I suppose this is what great travel writing gives us: a way to wholly enter a moment, a
feeling, a body. A way to be changed. I can be my father, marveling at his country, our
country, transformed by its vast expanse. I can be Pigafetta, on the deck of the Trinidad,
moved to write from shock and wonder. And I can be the woman on a boat in the
Marianas, crying out of love for the dead.

CUSTOMS OF THE TAGALOGS

About the author

Juan de Plasencia, a Spanish priest of the Franciscan order, spent most of his
missionary life in the Philippines, where he founded numerous towns in Luzon and
wrote several religious and linguistic books.

Plasencia is reported to have arrived in the Philippines in 1578 and joined forces with
another missionary, Fray Diego de Orpesa. They both started preaching around Laguna
de Bay and Tayabas, Quezon where he founded several towns. The following years, they
also put up a large number of towns in the provinces of Bulacan, Laguna and Rizal
including Caliraya, Majayjay, Nagcarlan, Lilio, Pila, Santa Cruz, Lumban, Pangil,
Siniloan, Morong, Antipolo, Taytay and Meycauayan.

He wrote a number of books intended to promote the understanding of both the Spanish
language among the natives and the local languages among the missionaries, to
facilitate the task of spreading Christianity.
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Plasencia is believed to have authored the first book printed in the Philippines, the
Doctrina Cristiana, which was not only printed in Spanish but also in Tagalog, on both
Latin script, and the commonly used by Baybayin script of the natives of the time, and
it even had a version in Chinese.

After receiving your Lordship’s letter, I wished to reply immediately but I postponed my
answer in order that I might first thoroughly inform myself in regard to your request,
and to avoid discussing the conflicting reports of the Indians, who are wont to tell what
suits their purpose. Therefore, this is the end, I collected Indians from different districts-
old men, and those of most capacity, all known to me; and from them, I have obtained
the simple truth, after weeding out much foolishness in regard to their government
administration of justice, inheritances, slaves, dowries.
GOVERNING SYSTEM LEAD BY DATOS
Governs only few people between 30- 100
This tribal gathering is called barangay
They don’t settle far from others.
They are not subject to one another, except friendship and relationship.
The chief (datu) help one another in war

THE CASTE

 Commoners
 Slaves
 If maharlika marries a slave, the first child goes to the father and so on.
 The children will inherit the status of the parent it belonged.

SLAVES

1. Namamahay - Can’t be sold and can’t be transferred to other barangay unless by

inheritance provided they stay in the same village.

2. Saguguilid- Can be sold

MAHARLIKA- no moving from one village to another without complying the following:

 Fine and gold ( depend from the barangay to barangay)

 A banquet to the entire barangay
 If they marry from other barangay the children will be divided
 Sentences are passed by the datu.
 They condemn a man at low caste who disrespect his daughter or wife of datu.
 The children of the accomplices are turned to slave.

WITCHES-as for the witches, they killed them and their children and accomplices
became slaves of the chief after he had made some recompense to the injured person.
Other offences are punished by the fines in gold which not paid with promptness,
exposed the culprit to serve until the payment should be made, person aggrieved to
whom the money was to be paid.

PUNISHMENTS WERE DONE IN THE FOLLOWING WAY

 Half the cultivated lands and all their products belonged to the master. The
master will provide the culprit with food and clothing thus enslaving him and his
children.
 The master will have the possession of the children if ever the payment could not
be met by the father.
 Aliping Saguiguilid- service within the house; serve the master to whom the
judgement applied.
 Aliping Namamahay- living independently, served the person who lent them
wherewith to pass.
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LOANS- the same way goes to a debtor concerning loans and profits until the debt has
been paid or else he’s condemned to a life of toil and became slave. After the father’s
death the children will continue to pay the debt or the payment will be doubled.

INHERITANCES- legitimate children of a father and mother will be inherited equally not
unless the father and mother showed a slight partially by gifts such as ft to 3 taels or a
jewel.

DOWRY- should be greater than the sum given to the other sons.

TWO OR MORE LEGITIMATE WIVES- if one had children by two or more legitimate
wives, each child will receive the inheritance and the mother’s dowry with its increase
and the share of his father’s estate.

SLAVE WOMAN – if a man had a son from one of his slaves as well as legitimate children,
the former will have no share in the inheritance. If he had a child with a slave woman,
that child will also receive some of his share.

UNMARRIED WOMAN(ISAANAVA)- If ever he had a child by an unmarried woman, she

will still receive a dowry but is not considered as a rea wife and her children are said to
be natural children. If the father has a legitimate wife but did not have a son but had
children to the unmarried wife called Inaasava, the latter will inherit all.
FREE MARRIED WOMAN- in case of a child free woman which was born while she was
married, if the husband punished the adulterer this was considered a dowry; and the
child entered with the others into partition in the inheritance. His share equaled the
part left by his father, nothing more.

FEAST

 Their manner of offering sacrifice.

 They offer to devil what they had to eat.
 Done in front of the idol.
 CATOLONAN- the officiating priest.
 Devil sometimes liable to enter the body of Catolonan.
 Objects of the sacrifice were goat, fowls and swine.
THE REASON FOR OFFERING THIS SACR

 The recovery of sick person

 The prosperous voyage
 Propitious result in war
 Good harvest
 Successful deliver of childbirth
 Happy outcome in married life
DISTINCTION OF DEVILS ACCORDING TO THE PRIEST

 CATOLONAN- this office was an honorable one among the natives.

 MANGAGAUAY- wishes who deceived by pretending to heal the sick.
MANNER OF BURYING
The deceased was buried beside his house, and if they were a chief, he was placed
beneath a little house of porch which they constructed for his purpose. Before entering
him, they mourned him for four days, and afterwards, placed him in a boat which served
as a coffin or bier. In place of rowers, various animals were place at the oar by twos-
male and female. It was the slaves’ care to see if they were fed.
If the deceased is a warrior, a living slave was tied beneath his body until it is wretched
way he died. And for many days the family of the dead man bewailed him, until finally
they wearied of it.
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DECLARATION OF PHILIPPINES INDEPENDENCE

(PROCLAMATION)
From national Historical Institute
In town of Cavite- Viejo, province of Cavite, this 12th day of June 1898: BEFORE ME,
Ambrosia Rianzares Bautista, War Counsellor and Special Delegate designated to
proclaim and solemnize this Declaration of Independence by the Dictatorial
Government of the Philippines, pursuant to and by virtue of a Decree issued by the
Egregious Dictator Don Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy,

The undersigned assemblage of military chiefs and others of the army who could not
attend, as well as the representatives of the various towns,

Taking into account the fact that the people of this country are already tired of bearing
the ominous joke of Spanish domination.

Because of arbitrary arrests and abuses of the Civil Guards who cause deaths in
connivance with and even under the express orders of their superior officers who at
times would order the shooting of those placed under arrest under the pretext that they
attempted to escape in violation of known Rules and Regulations, which abuses were
left unpunished and because of unjust deportations of illustrious Filipinos, especially
those decreed by General Blanco at the instigation of the Archbishop and the friars
interested in keeping them in ignorance for egoistic and selfish ends, which deportations
were carried out through processes more execrable than those of the Inquisition which
every civilized nation repudiates as a trial without hearing.

Had resolved to start a revolution in August 1896 in order to regain the independence
and sovereignty of which the people had been deprived by Spain through Governor
Miguel Lopez de Legazpi who, continuing the course followed by his predecessor
Ferdinand Magellan who landed on the shore of Cebu and occupied said Island by
means of a Pact of Friendship with Chief Tupas, although he was killed in battle that
took place in said shore to which battle he was provoked by Chief Kalipulako ( now
known as Lapu-Lapu) of Mactan who suspected his evil designs, landed on the island
of Bohol by entering also into a Blood Compact with its Chief Sikatuna, with the purpose
of later taking by force the Island of Cebu, and because his successor Tupas did not
allow him to occupy it, he went to Manila, the capital, winning likewise the friendship
of its Chiefs Soliman and Lakandula, later taking possession of the city and the whole
Archipelago in the name of Spain by virtue of an order of King Philip II, and with these
historical precedents and because in internal law the prescription established by law to
legalize the vicious acquisition of private property is not recognized the legitimacy of
such revolution cannot be put in doubt which was calmed but not completely stifled by
the pacification proposed by Don Pedro A.Paterno with Don Emilio Aguinaldo as
President of the Republic established in Biak-na –bato and accepted by Governor-
General Don Fernando Primom de Rivera under terms, both written and oral, among
them being a general amnesty for all deported and convicted persons; that by reason of
the non- fulfillment of some of the terms, after the destruction of the Spanish Squadron
by the North American Navy, and borbardment of the Plaza of Cavite, Don Emilio
Aguinaldo returned in order to initiate a new revolution and no sooner had he given the
order to rise on the 31st of last month when several towns anticipating the revolution,
rose in revolt on the 28th, such that a Spanish contingent of 178 men, between Imus
and Cavite-Viejo, under the command of a major of the Marine Infantry capitulated in
the revolutionary movement spreading like wild fire to other towns of Cavite and the
other provinces of Bataan, Pampanga, Batangas, Bulacan, Laguna, and Morong some
of them with seaports and such was the success of the victory of our arms, truly
marvelous and without equal in the history of colonial revolutions that in the first
mentioned province only the detachments in Naic and Indang remained to surrender;in
the second, all detachments had been wiped out; in the third, the resistance of the
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Spanish forces was localized in the town of San Fernando where the greater part of them
are concentrated the remainder in Macabebe, Sexmoan, and Guagua; in the fouth, in
the town, in the town of Lipa; in the fifth, in the capital and in Calumpit; and in the last
two remaining provinces, only in their respective capitals, and the city of Manila will
soon be besieged by our forces as well as the provinces of Nueva Ecija, Tarlac,
Pangasinan, La Union, Zambales, and some others in the Visayas where the revolution
at the time of the pacification and others even before, so that the independence of our
country and the revindication of our sovereignty is assured.
And having as witness to the rectitude of our intentions the supreme Judge of the
Universe, and under the protection of the powerful and Humanitarian Nation, the United
States of America, we do hereby proclaim and declare solemnly in the name and by
authority of the people of these Philippine Islands,

That they are and have the right to be free and independent; that they have ceased to
have any allegiance to the crown of Spain; that all political ties between them are and
should be completely severed and annulled; and that, like other free and independent
States, they enjoy the full power to make war and peace, conclude commercial treaties,
enter into alliances, regulate commerce, and do all others acts and things which an
Independent State has a right to do.
And imbued with firm confidence in Divine Providence, we hereby mutually bind
ourselves to support this Declaration with our lives, our fortunes, and with our most
sacred possession, our Honor.

We recognize, approve, and ratify, with all the orders emanating from the same, the
Dictatorship established by Don Emilio whom we revere as the Supreme Head of this
Nation, which today begins to have a life of its own, in the conviction that he has been
the instrument chosen by God, inspite of his humble origin, to effectuate the redemption
of this unfortunate country as foretold by Dr. Don Jose Rizal in his magnificent verses
which he composed in his prison cell prior to his execution, liberating it from the Yoke
of Spanish domination,

And in punishment for the impunity with which the Government sanctioned the
commission of abuses by its officials, and for the unjust execution of Rizal and others
who were sacrificed in order to please the insatiable friars in their hydropical thirst for
vengeance against and extermination of all those who oppose their Machiavellian ends,
trampling upon the Penal Code of these Islands, and of those suspected persons
arrested by the Chiefs of Detachments at the instigation of the friars, without any form
nor semblance of trial and without any spiritual aid of our sacred Religion; and likewise,
and for the same ends, eminent Filipino priests, Doctor Don Jose Burgos, Don Mariano
Gomez, and Don Jacinto Zamora were hanged whose innocent blood was shed due to
the intrigues of these so called religious corporations which made the authorities to
believe that the military uprising at the fort of San Felipe in Cavite on the night of
January 21, 1872 was instigated by those Filipino Martyrs, thereby impeding the
execution of the decree-sentence issued by the council of State in the appeal in the
administrative case interposed by the secular clergy against the Royal Orders that
directed that parishes under them within the jurisdiction of this Bishopric be turned
over to the Recollects in exchange for those controlled by them in Mindanao which were
to be transferred to the Jesuits, thus revoking them completely and ordering the return
of those parishes, all of which they are sent last month of the last year for the issuance
of oppression, until the last drop from our chalice of suffering having been drained, the
first spark of revolution broke out in Caloocan, spread out to Santamesa and continued
its course to the adjoining regions of the province where the unequalled heroism of its
inhabitants fought a one-sided battle against superior forces of General Blanco and
General Polavieja for a period of three months, without proper arms nor ammunitions,
except bolos, pointed bamboos, and arrows.
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Moreover, we confer upon our famous Dictator Don Emilio Aguinaldo all the powers
necessary to enable him to discharge the duties of Government, including the
prerogatives of granting pardon and amnesty.

And lastly, it was resolved unanimously that this Nation, already free and independent
as of this day, must use the same flag which up to now is being used, whose design and
colors are found described in the attached drawing, the white triangle signifying the
distinctive emblem of the famous society of the “ Katipunan” which means of its blood
compact inspired the masses to rise in revolution; the three stars, signifying the three
principal Islands of this Archipelago –Luzon, Mindanao and Panay where this
revolutionary movement started; the sun representing the gigantic steps made by the
sons of the country along the path of Progress and Civilization; the eight rays signifying
the eight provinces-Manila,Cavite, Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Bataan, Laguna
and Batangas- which declared themselves in a state of war as soon as the first revolt
was initiated; and the colors Blue, Red and White commemorating the flag of the united
States of North America, as a manifestation of our profound gratitude towards this great
Nation for its disinterested protection which it lent us and continues lending us.