Paladin, where do you roam?

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‘Since the National Historical Commission of the Philippines also encourages all government agencies, institutions of learning, and other organizations to organize activities in line with History Month, it is good that the Philippine Public Safety Academy included a Philippine history course for its cadets.’

THE Day of the Awakening is upon us soon. Meanwhile, let us observe History Month in the Philippines: “Kasaysayan, Kamalayan, Kaunlaran” (History, Consciousness, Development). According to the NHCP, this “theme invites the Filipino people to look at history as a means of achieving social and economic development by learning its lessons.” Here we go then:

  1. Muslim absolutist invited infidel imperialists to partake. The Raja Muda Amir al-Umara Muhammad Azimuddin Kibad Shahrial and his father Fakymolano (the former sultan of Maguindanao Fakih Maulana Muhammad Amiruddin) wrote to King George III of Great Britain on 05 Rabiulakhir 1189 (05 June 1775) “offering an alliance, offensive and defensive, and promising facilities for British trade in his country.” [William Foster, “The archives of the Honourable East India Company,” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, January 1924, 4: 106-113] The European monarch ignored the missive and “the East India Company made no further overtures to Maguindanao.” [https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/2014/06/royal-malay-letters-from-mindanao.html]
  2. Muslim gun-running. “There is an apparent correlation between intensified Maguindanao/Iranun raiding in the Philippine archipelago and the munitions traffic that was conducted at Jolo by the factors of the East India Company and private country traders from Bengal.” [James Francis Warren, “Balambangan and the Rise of the Sulu Sultanate, 1772-1775,” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 50.1 (1977): 81]
  3. Raids = Piracy = Trade Wars. “Maritime raiding in the Philippines predated the first Spanish incursions in the region in the 16th century… The surge in slave raiding was associated with the increase in the China trade from the 18th century… products from the southern Philippines and eastern Indonesia included pearls, mother-of-pearl, sea cucumber, wax, bird’s nests, shark fins and tortoise shells, all of which were exported in exchange for textiles, opium and firearms… Jolo emerged toward the end of the 18th century as an important market for both slaves and natural products and other commodities. The main sponsors and beneficiaries of the slave raids were the datus (chiefs or headmen) of the Sulu Sultanate, who used part of the income from the burgeoning trade to equip ever larger and well-armed raiding expeditions… The increase in Sulu raiding coincided with greater commercial interest in the region, not only on the part of the Spanish, but also of the British and Dutch, all of whom saw the raids as a serious impediment to their commercial and territorial interests… Sulu Sultanate was identified as a pirate state and the major sponsor of the raids.” [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/pirates-of-empire/sulu-sea/F532960AFF94E3D63209FA2A970F0696]
  4. Organized Chinese crime. Cantonese and Fookien “illegal systems and smuggling activities had branches and extensions in the Philippines. The Manila galleons, officially under control of the Spanish empire, was in fact the main channel of unofficial institutions, families, and trade networks from diverse origins, mainly French, Armenian, Macanese, Cantonese, Fujianese, and southeast Asia communities, and other European social actors.” [Manuel Perez-Garcia. Global History with Chinese Characteristics: Autocratic States along the Silk Road in the Decline of the Spanish and Qing Empires 1680—1796. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021, p. 12]
  5. Spanish Manila had a complex slave market. Some slaves ‘were from the demarcation of Castile’ (i.e., from the Spanish Philippines). Others were Muslims from nearby islands, such as Jolo, Mindanao, Borneo, and Ternate, which were ruled by Muslim kings (reyes moros mahometanos). In addition, Portuguese traders brought slaves from ‘Cochin, Makassar, Timor, and many other (places).’ These foreign slaves also included ‘raisin blacks (negros de paza), some of them Muslims and children, from Guinea, Mozambique, (and) Cabo Verde’; the ‘other black slaves had long hair, like Bengalis and from Malabar.’ The judges maintained, however, that most slaves, in fact, were blacks, ‘commonly called cafres.’” [Tatiana Seijas. Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico: From Chinos to Indians. NY: Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 243-244]
  6. Philippines as a hub of world trade. “The Acapulco-Manila galleons navigated the waters of the Pacific Ocean for about 250 years… Wars, shipwrecks–more than 30 galleons were lost at sea–and a variety of other misfortunes frequently disrupted the line. The British captured four ships, thousands of people died crossing the oceans, and property losses were considerable. However, the large vessels kept sailing, supported by Filipino labor and resources, the work of miners in Peru and New Spain, and the ongoing exchange of American silver for Asian textiles… These galleons originated the first planetary economy, the intercontinental market from which emerges the globalized world in which we live.” [Arturo Giraldez. The Age of Trade: The Manila Galleons and the Dawn of the Global Economy. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015, pp. 191-192]

Since the National Historical Commission of the Philippines also encourages all government agencies, institutions of learning, and other organizations to organize activities in line with History Month, it is good that the Philippine Public Safety Academy included a Philippine history course for its cadets. These future fire chiefs and jail wardens can perhaps see the roots of current Islamist terrorism in Mindanao piracy of centuries past. [Dawlah Islamiya member slain, another captured in Maguindanao; https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1180737] [ISIS spox for East Asia killed in Maguindanao military op; https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1176032]

“History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower, First Inaugural Address, 20 January 1953

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