POST 0008

Huwebes, Hulyo 15, 2010
7:15am Manila Time

ISANG PAGBASA SA KASAYSAYAN NG SANIPILIP NG ISANG MANUNULAT NA HINDI ISANG AKADEMIKONG HISTORYADOR

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THE TAGALOG - KAPAMPANGAN ALLIANCE
BY NICK JOAQUIN

The following excerpts are lifted from The Wicked Accomplices, the first chapter of the best-selling book, The Aquinos Of Tarlac by national artist, Nick Joaquin, and first published in 1972 by Solar Publishing Corporation in Mandaluyong, Metro Manila in the Philippines. The webmaster is highly recommending the book to everyone.

The Americans quickly....had grasped a fact the Spaniards had long been aware of: that the Tagalog-Pampangan area, comprehended between Batangas in the south and Tarlac in the north, formed the vital core of the country; was HEARTLAND, was the metropolitan area; in relation to which the other centers of culture in the islands
(e.g. Vigan and Cebu) were outposts. The reason this heartland became the ground of history may be that, in the 16th century, it was the only region of some size where the native tribes had achieved a measure of unity. Older and richer might be the kingdoms of Cebu and Jolo, but these were small city-states isolated by hostility. The king of Cebu, for instance had for enemy the tiny isle of Mactan, which was just across his bay. In contrast, the neighboring kingdoms on the Pasig - Manila and Tondo - were allies, and evidently belonged to a confederacy loosely binding the realms all over the Tagalog-Pampangan region. Not divide and conquer, but unite and rule, was the policy made possible by this domain. The Spaniards were quick to see how smoother an avenue was afforded by the coherence of this region, and their conquest of it was to make official what unity they found there. Here they concentrated their colonizing efforts, with the result that the Tagalog and Pampango were to become the most "politicized" of Filipinos, accounting for the arrogance they have traditionally been accused of. In fact, one friar, Gaspar de San Agustin, has described the Pampangans as "the Castilians among these Indios". Nevertheless the idea of national unity was to begin as this unity of the Tagalog and Pampangan country, from which the Spaniards created a Seat of State (the city of Manila and the province of Pampanga were the basic foundations) and a Seat of the Church (the Archbishop of Manila, which embraces Pampango ground, is the primal See of the country) thus fusing into a unit the old Tagalog and Pampangan realms. From this unit came the necessary consent to government as well as its support forces, so that a counter capital to Manila always had to be within the Tagalog-Pampangan terrain - like Arayat, as proposed by Gov.-Gen. Basco; or Bacolor, to which Simon de Anda removed the government during the British Occupation; or Kawit, Malolos, San Fernando, San Isidro and Tarlac, the successive capitals of the Aguinaldo government. But when the Spaniards, after the fall of Manila in 1898, transferred the government to Iloilo - that is, outside the Tagalog-Pampangan ground - it automatically meant the end of Spanish rule.

Similarly, the Revolution, a Tagalog-Pampangan enterprise, chiefly happened on Tagalog-Pampangan ground, and the Americans foresaw that it could not survive beyond its frontier in Tarlac. The unity of faith and action was, at that moment of our history, still bound up with the particular ethnic and geographical unit that, for almost four centuries, had stood for "law", for "government", for "civilization". When that symbol of Victorian progress, the railroad, was brought to the Philippines, the first line was, of course, laid along, and further bound together, the Tagalog-Pampangan country, connecting it with the outposts in the north. And when the Revolution broke out, the Spaniards, though fighting was confined in Cavite, correctly declared a state of war in the entire Tagalog-Pampangan domain, knowing it only too well as a unit where fire in any part could set the whole ablaze. But the whole had now become something greater than this unit, for a nation had sprung from there. The role of this region can be read in our flag, where each ray of the sun stands for either a Tagalog or Pampangan province. But even the stars in the flag proclaim this role, being three in number because the Tagalog and Pampangan fought to keep them at least three. For good or evil, it was these two tribes, these wicked accomplices, that determined not only the shape of our history but even of our geography. The form now called the Philippines has maintained through almost four centuries of steady assault from within and without only because Spain (which, through those centuries, never had more than 5,000 Spanish troops in the islands) could rely on the Tagalog-Pampangan alliance to keep the form (now called the Philippines) from disintegrating.

The alliance even antedated the coming of Tagalogs and Pampangans to these shores. One scholar theorizes that the two tribes emigrated from neighboring regions in Java (or Sumatra?) and continued in the new country their association in the old - a theory backed by the tradition that the Prince Balagtas who founded a dynasty in Pampanga was, even before his coming to Luzon (sometime perhaps between 1335 and 1380), already a Tagalog-Pampangan mestizo, his mother being of the royal house of the Kingdom of Sapa (now Manila's Sta. Ana district) before she was given in marriage to a sovereign of the Madjapahit Empire in Java. The coming of Prince Balagtas and his entourage apparently capped a series of waves of Pampangan
emigration to Luzon and had a definite intent: to consolidate into a kingdom all these Pampangan colonies believed to be already occupying an area that extended from Manila Bay to the wilds of Cagayan. A true consolidation was never effected, nor did a kingdom arise, but from Prince Balagtas, according to tradition, descended the native principalia, or nobility, that included such families as the Soliman, the Lakandula, the Gatbonton, the Gatchalian, the Gatmaitan, the Gatdula, the Malang, the Puno, and the Kapulong -- families in veins ran a mixed Tagalog-Pampangan blood, and in the knots of whose marryings the two tribes became so intertwined as to form a single growth. Geography was to compound the knots, for the Rio Grande de Pampanga empties into Manila Bay, where also ends the Tagalog's Rio Pasig; and in the region between the two deltas was common ground for confederacy. After Manila (a city ruled by a Tagalog-Pampangan house) was seized by the Spaniards, the ousted heir, Soliman III (Tarik Soliman or Bambalito? - O.S.) presently reappeared, on Manila Bay, with a Tagalog-Pampangan fleet (from Macabebe and Hagonoy - O.S.) which the Spaniards routed in the Battle of Bangkusay. That was in 1571, the year Manila was established as the capital city, the seat of power, and Pampanga was organized into a province, the premier local government of the land, under Spain. Although the Tagalog and Pampangan were to unite later in several revolts, the Battle of Bangkusay can be said to have been their last joint engagement under the old alliance. Only three years later, in 1574, the Tagalogs and Pampangans are being inducted into the army they battled in Bangkusay, and a new alliance has begun. To this alliance they were to become so indispensable, not only as military but as economic arms, that from the start the empire of Spain in the Philippines could not have survived save with the consent of these two tribes. "The colony indeed survived," observes Father Horacio dela Costa, "but what was the price of survival? Obviously, the price which had to be paid for ships; for building them, keeping them afloat and sending them out to fight. This price was paid, most of it, by ... the forced-labor contingents drafted year after year from the provinces near Manila that felled the timber, built the ships, sailed them and manned the guns. It was....these same provinces that fed, clothed and armed the crews....What aggravated the burdens laid on the Tagalogs and Pampangans was the fact that the government was not in a financial position to pay a just wage to the laborers it drafted or a just price for the goods it bought."

And yet, after the period of the Conquista, this region on which the heaviest burdens were laid was nevertheless the least mutinous in the country, as though it regarded itself, however exploited, as not alien to the new government but allied to it. A continuity in fealty justified the view, for the old-time tribal chiefs, the datus, had been incorporated into the new government and in most places were the only visible form of government. "At the time of the conquest," says John Larkin (author of the book, The Pampangans - O.S.) "the Spaniards were severely undermanned and needed someone to maintain order and collect the needed supplies. They accepted the authority of willing local leaders rather than upset the existing system at a time when military concerns were paramount. Both parties were served by this arrangement; the Spaniards received the necessary goods, and the datus retained their position in the village." From these datus would develop the principalia that, from earliest Spanish times, were exempt from taxes, enjoyed the title of Don, and controlled local governments in "elective" positions that were actually hereditary. Because an organic relationship still existed between the principalia and the peasantry, services required by the Dons was not regarded as exploitation by their liegemen, who knew from experience that, whenever abuses grew rampant, the Dons hastened to be their spokesmen, not fearing to appeal to the king of Spain himself. Thus, in the 1670s, did the principalia of Pampanga complain to Carlos II about the quota of rice exacted from every farmer in Pampanga and the Spanish king could not but order "the total extirpation of the abuse and injustice" committed against a region of which he had heard it said that it "has made important contributions to the defense of the entire colony, having raised several companies of troops to serve in the wars against the Dutch who infest those waters, the Moros of Ternate and other hostile nations; that it provided and still provides whole units of regular infantry to garrison that royal capital, its fortress of Santiago, the forts of Cavite, Cebu, Oton, Cagayan, Caraga and the other strong points of these islands"; and that "the Pampango nation has on all occasions shown great fidelity in my service." Indeed a popular saying then was that one Spaniard and three Pampangans are the equal of four Spaniards," a boast that grew from the battlegrounds of the 16th century. Pampangans were with Dasmarinas in the taking of Nueva Vizcaya in 1591; were with Figueroa in the conquest of Mindanao in 1596; were with the "pacification" troops that brought under one flag the regions of Cagayan, Negros, Leyte, etc.; and were with the various expeditionary forces to the Moluccas in the days when our geography was still in the making and it seemed for a while that the Philippines might include the Spice Islands, Borneo, Formosa, the Malay Peninsula and the coasts of Indochina. When the Koxinga invasion impended (1662) and the Chinese in Manila rose in revolt, it was the Pampangan militia under Francisco Laxamana that defeated the rebels in pitched battle, killing a thousand of them and capturing the ringleaders. Because of this victory Laxamana, the Pampangan, was entrusted with the walls of Manila for 24 hours -- a startling symbolic gesture by which the empire confessed its dependence on the heartland.

If the Tagalog-Pampangan troops of those times now seem to us mercenaries, in their own eyes they were not, since they were fighting for a government they regarded as their own, especially as represented by their datus, now the powerful principalia. Theirs, too, was the army: "well-organized troops under the command of their own general officers (Laxamana was a master-of-camp), majors and captains, posts that they greatly esteem as a reward of merit, each of them striving for promotion so as to bequeath this honor to their descendants." Strictly speaking, therefore, theirs was a feudal rather than a mercenary army, since they were led by their own liege lords, to whom they owed fealty; and in fighting outside their tribal ground, in fighting for regions to which, then, they did not feel native (Cagayan, Leyte, Negros, Mindanao, etc.) they were already a national army in the making, creating a sense of country by their willingness to defend certain boundaries from invasion and the government within from usurpers. As long as that government had the consent of the Tagalog and Pampangan, it could stand firm, though the rest of the tribes revolt; but when that consent was withdrawn, the empire tottered. From Limahong in 1574 to William Draper in 1762, the fate of Spain in the Philippines rested on whether the Tagalog and Pampangan chose to side with the Spaniard or with the invader.

The Spanish were well aware that it was they who were dependent on the alliance with the Tagalog and Pampangan , and not vice-versa -- which would have been the case had the native troops been nothing more than mercenaries. So, a Tagalog-Pampangan revolt was feared most of all -- as in 1660 when one such revolt (led by Francisco Maniago - O.S.) was decried as "all the worse because these people had been trained in the military art in our own schools....their valor was well-known, and therefore it was said that one Spaniard and three Pampangos are equal to four Spaniards....(and the) people of the other provinces were on the watch for its outcome, in order to declare themselves rebels ....There is no worse enemy than an alienated friend!" (no hay peor cuna que de la misma madera) Here, from a Spanish mouth, is the admission that the Tagalog and Pampangan were not mercenaries but allies and friends who must not be alienated, being of the same timber as the Spaniard -- and there's "no worse wedge than that of the same wood." The Tagalog and Pampangan were likewise aware that it was on them that the empire rested and through them that destiny was at work, as they proclaimed in the classic feast of Philippine history, the feast in which the Tagalog and Pampangan celebrated the alliance that was to beget a nation. It has been said, quite incorrectly, that the Limahong invasion was the crucial moment in our history, the event that decided if there was to be such a nation as the Philippines or merely an outer province of China. But that moment, was not as decisive as the Dutch wars of the 17th century, which were, by far, the greater threat, the more crucial event. Limahong was not backed by his government (he was just a pirate - O.S.) and did not have the resources for a real invasion; his was purely a one-shot attempt. But the Dutch invaders had the official backing, the resources and the will to sustain what was clearly not just a feint, since their attempt at invasion was pressed for more than 50 years (the first half of the 17th century) with annual battles on a front that stretched from Aparri to Jolo. This was the Great War in our history, for it was the war that decided if we were to be the Philippines --or a part of the Dutch East Indies then, a province of Indonesia today (with Bahasa Indonesia as our national language -- O.S.). The war ended in victory for the idea of nation. That the Tagalog and Pampangan regarded it as their war and their victory can be gathered from the feast that is exclusively a Tagalog-Pampangan tradition: the feast known as La Naval de Manila, once the principal fiesta of Manila, the capital of the land of the Tagalogs, and also the great fiesta of Bacolor, the ancient capital of the Pampangans. When the Pampangans pushed their frontier beyond San Fernando, they thought this tradition important enough to carry with them in their movement northward -- to Angeles, the prime pioneer foundation and take-off point for the new frontier. And in Angeles to this day, the principal celebration is the fiesta called La Naval. The significance may be lost to us now, yet a feeling of pride still inheres to the cult, even with the celebrants not knowing what they feel so proud about, for the inherited emotion may have transcended
the occasion for the feast and perhaps, now refers not merely to the victory in the Dutch Wars, but to all the other feats of an ancient alliance. More than the moment's safety was involved in what we now dismiss as colonial wars not a part of our history.

But for the winning of those wars, we might have had no history. After the Dutch Wars, the next --and last major -- engagement of the alliance is the British Invasion; and here the staging is even more explicit: the capital is moved from Manila to Bacolor; Tagalog and Pampangan rally around the "legitimate" government; while beyond the Tagalog-Pampangan frontier, the Ilocanos seize the chance to break away from achieved form, under the leadership of Diego Silang. "He soon realized, however," says Fr. de la Costa, "that his untried and undisciplined forces, unprovided with firearms and artillery, would be no match to the seasoned and well-armed troops Anda was collecting in Pampanga to send against him. (These battles begot a fearless hero named Manalastas. - O.S.) We shall never know what
might have happened if the Ilocanos and the British had succeeded in combining forces. Whatever dreams Silang had conceived of an Ilocano nation under British protection were shattered forever by an assassin's bullet." This another ambiguous moment in our history; whom are we to cheer? The Ilocano rebels who would break away and set up their own nation; or the Tagalog-Pampangan troops who were for keeping the Ilocos as an integral part of the form? (I am for the latter, because with a British occupation in the Philippines, the U.S. would not have come to our shores in 1898. - O.S.) At any rate, the Tagalog and Pampangan then, as in other tribal attempts to secede that they prevented, were fighting, however unknowingly, for the integrity of a nation. Not so unconscious is their role in the next great struggle in our history: the revolt of the Creole - though this revolt was to confuse the old Tagalog-Pampangan loyalties, unfixing the line between law and outlaw. Did the Creole, even in rebellion, represent "legitimate" government, or was he an usurper? Did he stand for the integrity of the form so long defended, or had he become another disruptor to be stopped? The confusion was inevitable, the Creole having been for so long the Establishment he would now topple.

Stay tuned for the dramatic conclusion of this brilliant
episode on page 2, by clicking:
http://maxpages.com/tarlac/tarlac2
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For the article, Lucio F. Turla - Revolucionario, click:
http://maxpages.com/revolucionario

Thanks and acknowledgement are hereby given to the author, NICK JOAQUIN, and the publisher, SOLAR PUBLISHING CORPORATION in Manila, Philippines.

Thanks to my friend, Ernie Turla for letting me build this webpage.
Oscar Soriano, webmaster
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Nosi Bayasi (NB):
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Joaquin here presents the essential introduction to what he considers to be a "Creole" (meaning: mestizo or half-breed) revolt or rebellion. He is referring to the Katipunan initiated 1896 Philippine Revolution. This is an important, because different, interpretation of a historic(al) event. Potentially controversial.