Responses of Filipinos to Spanish Colonial Rule

Muslim resistance against Spanish colonization has always been a subject less tackled and much overlooked by educational curriculum and many historians in general. It has not helped that most of the prominent or most impacting historians who've churned out publications about our country's history were from the northern and central islands of our country, the parts that were the stronghold of Spanish domination for three and one third centuries. Philippine history has most often been told from the Tagalog point of view, in effect relating the life of the Filipino who was most receptive and exposed to Spanish rule. This, together with Spanish resentment, combined to obscure the resistance movements continually waged by the Muslims and Igorots against Spanish domination.

Negative reception of Muslim culture is not a rare occurrence for most of our countrymen. The image of Muslims as a brutal, savage, violent people has not been helped by the frequent reporting of skirmishes between rebel groups like the MILF and the Abu Sayyaf against the Philippine military even in contemporary times. History, from the Tagalog and the colonizers' point of view, would also paint a war-like, pillaging people out of the Moros, as they were called by the Spaniards. These accounts would often tell of how war-mongering the Moros were, sacking and looting one Christian town after the other, massacring innocent civilians, and waging in illegal piracy along the infested waters of our coast. Such treatment has traditionally bred an attitude of resentment against the Moros, which is evident till today. Only a study in historiography and a careful, objective reinterpretation of their role in Philippines history will be able to shed light on the Moro as a misunderstood people who put up gallant resistance in defense of a way of life that was threatened by the coming of foreign conquerors.

The case of the Igorot resistance has, in retrospect, taken an even more detached place in Philippine history, sinking into much irrelevance even. This may be attributed to the lack of as much a wealth of documents as has been the case with those chronicling the Moro resistance. More has been recorded of the proceedings of the Spanish campaign of the Moro, although some documents do chronicle the Spanish thrust into the Cordillera; just not much attention has been paid to them. Consequently, most historians would simply dismiss the advantage of the Igorot resistance as owing to the fortuitous natural fortress offered them by their rugged, mountainous habitat. True enough, Spanish missionaries and expeditions had a more difficult time reaching these geographically isolated areas, but it was not impossible. Many historians fail to tackle the other side of the argument, as there were many Christianized settlements in geographically cordoned areas.

The primary lure of the Igorots and the Cordilleras was their famed gold mines. How could visions of gold not knock upon the hearts of greedy, predatory men? The legend of the mines was a well-kept secret of the Igorots, though, and we must give credit to the prudent tactics they employed in guarding their most precious resources. Contrary to what most of us believe, the Igorots were not a savage tribe cordoned off by the cliffs and rugged landscape of the Cordilleras. In fact, they had economic ties with the people of the lowlands, even until the time of Spanish colonization. They often traded resources and they had diplomatic skills enough to allow them to complete their trading activities. Looking more closely into their activities, one can conclude that it was not merely geographical isolation that buoyed the Igorot resistance against the Spaniards. Instead, these people actively resisted the Spanish authorities all along. Like the Muslims, they were a fiercely bonded community where treason commands a dear price, and they were strongly bent on preserving a way of living and the unfettered liberty to do so. On many, many occasions they refused to pay tribute to the Spanish crown, and after having been razed and weakened by epidemic by the conquerors, they still kept up their resistance. Only in extreme conditions of Spanish-inflicted catastrophe were they finally forced to move further into the heartland or down to the lowlands. The Igorots actively resisted the Spaniards, and they paid a dear price for their stubborn resistance. In fact, their population dwindled severely on account of this-a painful path they chose over surrender to the foreigners.

After scrupulous reading and researching, we can trace back the initial Muslim resistance to the arrival of Magellan. While the latter was not able to subdue the Moros, Legaspi would later on be able to successfully establish Spanish rule over Manila, displacing the Moro chieftains who had sovereignty over the area. The capture of Luzon and Visayas proved to be the end of the ease of Spanish conquest, though, and the battle for Mindanao would continually wage on throughout the colonial era, and would never be completely won by the Spaniards.

True enough, the Spaniards presented the duty of Christianizing the world as a fundamental part of their agenda. Coupled with this though, was an inherent hatred for the Muslims, after having struggled themselves for independence against six centuries of Moorish occupation of their country. It was more of this hatred, rather than the drive to evangelize, that fueled the Spanish conquest of a predominantly Muslim pre-colonial Philippines.

Lowland Filippinos in Luzon and VIsayas quickly buckled under the Spanish crown. The Muslims of Maguindanao and Sulu, however, were obstinate in their resistance. The Spaniards were seen as foreign threats to their way of life, for to the Moros, religion was equivalent to a sacred way of life that has been upheld byy their ancestors for generations. Therefore, they refused to accept Spanish authority lest they be forced to accept Christianity as a new way of life. They could not abandon the only lives they grew up knowing, and most of all, Spanish rule meant compromising the authority of their chieftains, which they were not prepared to surrender. While the British and Indonesians who conquered Malaysia and Indonesia used the local political organization to their advantage, by implementing a system of "indirect rule" that allowed the chieftains to preserve some degree of prestige and power, the Spaniards opted for a more direct strategy of deposing the local leaders, stripping them of any political power and subjugating their sultanates to the Spanish crown. This was a more drastic strategy, and one that would earn the ire of the Moros. A big advantage to the Muslim resistance was the presence of foreign aid from nearby Muslim sultanates in Indonesia and Malaysia. This network allowed them to come to each other's aid in the event of external threats, especially from European powers.

Moro wars continued throughout the more than three centuries of Spanish rule. As means of fighting back, they razed Christian towns and killed many fellow Filipinos who were loyal subjects of Spain. While they have gained much notoriety from this, we must keep in mind that this is no different from the way Ilocanos fought with fellow Ilocanos, or how one tribe in Mindoro would declare a skirmish with a neighboring tribe. These conflicts are part and parcel of sovereignty and the existence of communities in precolononial Philippines; the Moros only had the misfortune of having been vilified by the Spaniards.

While it is true that Muslims and Igorots have not experienced as fast a pace of technological development as their countrymen who embraced Spanish colonial rule, this is only an effect of their refusal to compromise their way of living and to be subjugated by a foreign power that was making audacious and invalid claims of authority over their civilizations that have existed peacefully and independently for generations. It is not a reflection of backwardness and stubbornness towards development and progress, as Spaniards would like to put it. Even Americans, who would later on operate with their "benevolent" spirit of "white man's burden", in Mindanao, would later come to realize that indeed, the technological backwardness of these people was not a reflection of a lack of capacity to adapt; instead, it was the by-product of the stiff resistance these people have put up to preserve an unadulterated culture and way of life. It was a reflection of how much value these people put into preserving a sacred tradition.

While Spanish objectives later on shifted from Christianization to mere security of Sulu and the outlying islands as protectorates, to fend off the threat of other European powers like Britain and the Dutch within the area, the Muslims also paid dearly for their valor. Their towns were also pillaged and burned to the ground, and they were forced out of their homes to flee into the heartlands of Mindanao. They suffered greatly in the hands of the Spanish authorities who doled away their ancestral lands to Spaniards and Filipino migrants from the Christianized north. When the Americans arrived, they were initially too wearied from the centuries of desultory fighting that they allowed the Americans to enter. When they noticed that the Americans were growing in number, they once again felt threatened and again, showed no favorable reception to the new colonizers. Again, they exhausted themselves with the entreaties of war, which forced the Americans to wage a "pacification" program. While the American goal was to incorporate Muslim participation in the formation of a Philippine government, the Muslims found themselves in the center of the biggest mockery of their unending fight for freedom. While they were never truly defeated by the Spaniards, the Castillan colonizers nevertheless appropriated their lands and their dominion under the buckle of the Spanish empire. And while they were never consciously part of Spanish territory, they found themselves having been sold off to another colonizer, the Americans. All in all, this train of events seemed to make a mockery of centuries of Muslim bloodshed in the fight for independence.

Apart from the Moros and the infieles (such as the Igorots), the largest sector of the Philippine population that was subjugated by the Spanish crown were the indios. They comprised most of the people in Luzon and Visayas and some settlements in Mindanao like Zamboanga. While Spanish activity generally presided over the lives of these people and pervaded the Filipino society, the most dominating figure and by far the most relevant and influential authority in the lives of ordinary Filipinos was the friar. For most Filipinos, especially those from the remote barangays and barrios, the friar was the only Spaniard they ever got to see in their lives and he became a ruling symbol of Spanish authority in domestic life. As such, the friar wielded such power that the government then was much more of a praylocracia, as learned men of the time would call it. The friar pervaded and controlled every aspect of the Filipino's life: political, economic, social, religious, and cultural.

Because of this, friars and the Church in the Philippines enjoyed ridiculous amounts of wealth, possession of vast tracts of land and used their religious authority to wield influence over the minds and decisions of the government and the local citizenry. The friars evolved a system of skilled diplomacy that allowed them ascendancy over the entirety of Spanish dominion. To the government, monasticism was the vessel of enacting the policies of an unwanted government over the people; to the people, monasticism was their only refuge for grievances over a tyrannical government. Religion became the theatrical escape for many from the increasingly difficult economic and social conditions of the country, and as the Philippines descended into the even deeper depths of corruption and disparity, the Church served itself as the unifying symbol of society. Shabby government offices paled in comparison to its majestic basilicas, sacraments and indulgencia provided solace to majority of the population who were taught to hope against hope for comfort in the afterlife when they cannot find it in this, Church lands were rented out to local farmers for them to till and grow food to feed themselves, religious hymns and works of art became the outlet of expression for Filipinos. Most important of all, the friars took charge of education, the vehicle with which they molded the mindset of the youth and immortalized their hold on social and political ideologies. The friars saw to it that they did not Hispanize the Filipinos, lest they use their newfound knowledge in realizing the friars' worst fears: the discovery of their ulterior intentions and the overthrown of monastic supremacy. In every aspect of the Filipino's life, religion was noticeably pervasive.

Del Pilar's work Monastic Supremacy in the Philippines outlined specific instances and the various means by which friars gained an economic and political upper hand in Philippine society. Politically, monasticism was a potent institution than even that of the government, and no law could be implemented without the friar's prior approval and unyielding support. It was the friar that dominated domestic affairs, and he was virtually the unbridled dictator of his locale. The friar had power to send into exile anyone whom he felt was a threat to him, even if nothing unlawful was committed. He exercised his dictatorship on the pretext that he was only doing so for the preservation of national integrity. In the Philippines, monasticism was the de facto seat of power, and fear was the driving wheel behind the colonial stronghold.

While the government coffers were empty, Del Pilar could not but chide the opulence of the vow of poverty. The friars latently used religion to control the mindset of the populace and steer them into acquiescing to his wishes. People did not fear the government, but they trembled at the very thought of displeasing Jesus Christ and burning in the eternally damning fires of hell. Such was the strategy of these "holy men", the friars who could do no wrong. Upon them was vested the trust of the people, and they saw to it that religious life became a culture of fear that easily unlocked the meager savings of the populace to instantly enrich the ridiculously affluent parishes. People bought indulgences, paid fees to the Church to receive sacraments, purchased religious artifacts and "miraculous" objects at 1000 times their original worth, paid for unending spates of novenas, offerings and fiestas for patron saints. The friars saw to it that religion became a way of life for the people, and consequently, the most religious towns were also the most impoverished.

The curates also controlled the economic activities of the towns. The vast tracts of Church property were rented out to farmers and excessive land tithes and other taxes were charged. The archdiocese would pass laws regulating the collection of tithes, but the local curates simply ignored these laws and did as they pleased. What the curates did have in common, Del Pilar snidely remarks, was that they all always collected more than their due, at the expense of the townspeople, so that while people refused to pay for government taxes, the parishes found no problem spiriting away money from people's hard-earned savings to add to their opulent estates.

There was no counterbalance of power. Ironically, religion, which was offered to the masses as a refuge and a beacon of strength from the harsh realities of their existence become the single most potent tool of three and one third centuries of Spanish domination. Religion ensnared and enslaved the Filipino mind, serving as the vehicle for the ensuing ascendancy of monasticism in the country. Religion was a way of life, and the Spaniards taught the indios a new way of life that was foreign to our shores, and this enabled them to make us captive to their ideas, their philosophies and values. Religion, however, could also be a refuge and beacon of strength in a different way, a more positive light, as we saw with our Muslim brethren. Religion to them was also a way of life, and when it was threatened, they drew from it the strength to defend this way of life and thwart the designs of the colonizers. While the Filipinos in Luzon and Visayas suffered from the abuses of Spanish colonial authority, our Muslim and Igorot brethren, too, suffered greatly. They paid dearly for their unwavering resistance against the foreign power, and it's high time that their struggles during these times be integrated into the greater picture of the rise of Philippine nationalism. We should not see them as distant observers who did not suffer in the hands of the invaders. Knowing their stories, we see a legacy of courage and determination. They were part and parcel of the Philippine resistance, and they are shining beacons of strength who gave a good fight and held up our national spirit at a time when Philippine nationalism was still in the dark ages.