source:http://www.los-indios-bravos.com/english/eng_proj_06. html
Mexicans as a whole regard the Philippines not as a former colony of Spain, but of Mexico -- not legally, of course, but in every other way.
The fact that Ferdinand Magellan and Miguel Lpez de Legzpi took possession of the islands in the name of the King of Spain cannot be contested. Neither can it be denied that the governor generals were appointed by the Spanish kings, a clear attribute of sovereignty. But from 1565 to 1815, a period of 250 years coinciding with the commercial intercourse between Manila and Acapulco, the links between the two countries bordering the Pacific Ocean were so close that they have given rise to the claim that the Philippines was indeed a former colony of Mexico.
Magellan and Loaisa sailed to the Pacific Ocean via the straits at the southernmost tip of South America aboard vessels made in Spain. But starting with Alvaro de Savedra in 1527, the ships that sailed for the archipelago were constructed on the western coast of Mexico. Hernn Corts, the conqueror of Mexico, built three small ships near the mouth of the Zacatula River (now Rio Balsas) for his relative Alvaro. Ruy Lpez de Villalobos sailed aboard six vessels made in Jalisco in 1524.
When Legzpi left the port of Navidad, also in the province of Jalisco, his four ships had been built in that small sea town. Although Legzpi was a Basque from the northern region of the Spanish peninsula, he had spent 20 years of his life in Mexico City, while his grandsons, Felipe and Juan de Salcedo, were born and bred in Mexico. The latter -- known as the last of the conquistadors, after subduing the native groups in Luzon and thwarting the corsair Limahong, or Lin Feng, from capturing Manila -- died of a malignant fever in his encomienda in Vigan on March 11, 1576. Probably half of Legzpi's crew was composed of Mexicans: creoles like the Salcedos, mestizos and Aztec indios.
The majority of the military reinforcements and married colonists sent to the Philippines during the first two centuries after Legzpi were Mexicans. The first group of 300 that reached Cebu in 1567 was commanded by Felipe de Salcedo. The second group of 200 reached Panay in 1570, just before Martin de Goiti sailed for the conquest of Manila. Another military group that reached Manila in 1575 was composed of 140 Spaniards and 38 Mexicans, all recruited in Mexico. Much later, prisoners from Mexico were sent to the islands in exile. The total number of Mexicans that emigrated to the Philippines has not been fixed, but in the two centuries and a half of contact we can safely assume that this figure reached several thousands.
Toms de Comyn, general manager of the Compaia Real de Filipinas, in 1810 estimated that out of a total population of 2,515,406, "the European Spaniards, and Spanish creoles and mestizos do not exceed 4,000 persons of both sexes and all ages, and the distinct castes or modifications known in America under the name of mulatto, quarteroons, etc., although found in the Philippine Islands, are generally confounded in the three classes of pure Indians, Chinese mestizos and Chinese." In other words, the Mexicans who had arrived in the previous century had so intermingled with the local population that distinctions of origin had been forgotten by the 19th century. The Mexicans who came with Legzpi and aboard succeeding vessels had blended with the local residents so well that their country of origin had been erased from memory.
Nevertheless, these Mexicans left behind them their linguistic heritage: there are scores of words of Nahuatl origin in the Tagalog language. To mention a few: achuete, atole, avocado, balsa, banqueta, cacahuete, cacao, caimito, calabaza, camachile, camote, calachuche, chico, chocolate, coyote, nana(y), tata(y), tiangui, tocayo, zacate, and zapote. Of course, many more words of Spanish origin had been adopted by the Tagalog and other native groups into their language. A town in the province of Pampanga, originally named masicu, for a place where the fruit chico abounded, was undoubtedly renamed Mexico by the emigrants from the New World who settled there early in the 17th century.
Aztec Garden
A good number of fruits, medicinal plants and flowering plants were exchanged between Mexico and the Philippines. Besides corn (maiz in both countries), tobacco -- an American plant -- was introduced in the Philippines probably via the Portuguese in Malacca before the arrival of the Spaniards. It grew to be so popular in the islands that the government made a monopoly out of it in 1782 as a revenue-raising measure. The avocado, maguey and cacao came from Mexico. Although pepper was probably indigenous to the Philippines, the word sili undoubtedly was derived from the Mexican Chile, while the piquant local sauce called tabasko got its name from the Mexican province of Tabasco. In return, Mexico got its mango from the islands, and with so high a regard did the Mexicans hold this Oriental fruit that to the present day, beautiful young maidens still elicit the exclamation of "que manga es."
Among the fruits, vegetables and plants brought into the islands from Mexico and South America were pineapple, arrowroot, peanut, lima and yam beans, balimbing, cassava, chico, papaya, zapote, tomato and squash. Among the ornamental and medicinal plants: tuberose, spider lily, canna, Mexican poppy, camachile for its tanbark, ipil-ipil as a hedge plant, the sensitive mimosa, indigo and achuete for dye, madre de cacao, periwinkle, campanella cactus, lantana, and some kinds of peppers. The sweet potato, or camote, was already grown locally by the time Magellan landed, but other species probably came from Mexico. These items were brought mainly by friars who settled in the archipelago after staying for a year or two in Mexico.
Although presentday Filipinos are not aware of it, a number of their dances and musical compositions did not originate from Spain but from Mexico. "La Paloma" and "Sandunga Mia," for example, were composed and first heard in the New World. The barong Tagalog might have been copied from a province of Mexico. An investigation into this aspect of Filipino culture will reveal more ties between the two countries.
Even in religious matters, the Philippines came under the early jurisdiction of Mexico. In 1578, Pope Gregory XIII created the bishopric of Manila, and made it a suffragan to the archbishopric of Mexico. The first bishop, Domingo de Salazar, brought with him 30 Dominicans, four Jesuits and six seculars; we can presume that a minority of them were Spanish creoles from Mexico. Salazar had been in the New World converting and instructing the indios for a quarter of a century prior to his appointment, and was a supporter of the policies of Fray Bartolome de las Casas and Fray Francisco de Vitoria for a more humane treatment of the natives. He came into acrimonious conflict with the civil authorities in the islands because he protected the natives against slavery, exploitation and the tyranny of the encomenderos. He returned to Spain in 1590 to advocate the restoration of the Royal Audiencia, which could check the abuses of the colonizers. He also urged the creation of a Philippine Ecclesiastical Province independent of Mexico, subdividing the archipelago into three bishoprics in Luzon and one in the Bisayas. The aged prelate was successful in his pleas before the king and the Council of the Indies: a royal decree of November 26, 1595, reestablished the Audiencia, while a royal decree of July 17, 1595, raised the See of Manila to the category of a metropolitan, with three suffragan bishoprics under it. The aged prelate, however, never saw the fruition of his labors, for he died in Spain on December 4, 1594.
Mexicans of Spanish parentage occupied numerous posts in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Philippines. Of the Spanish peninsular clergy sent to the islands, the majority often spent many years of missionary service in Mexico. The third bishop of Nueva Caceres, in the Bicol region, Baltazar de Cobarrubias, was a Mexican-born and -educated friar who had received his holy orders at the Augustinian convent in Mexico City. He became bishop elect in 1603, but in a Secrel consistory held in the Vatican two years later he was transferred to the bishopric of Antequera (Oaxaca in Mexico), and moved to the See of Michoacan in 1608.
Unholy War
Another Augustinian from Mexico, Francisco Zamudio, was consecrated the eighth bishop of Nueva Caceres in 1630. Because of his Mexican background, his tenure of office in Naga (the native name for Nueva Caceres) was filled with disputes, not only with his friar brethren but with his archbishop as well. The rivalry and subsequent bitter conflict in the Philippines between the friar orders -- known as the regulars -- and the seculars, most probably started with Bishop Zamudio and culminated in the martyrdom of Fathers Burgos, Gomes, and Zamora some 250 years later.
Fray Zamudio insisted on his diocesan rights of examination and visitation over the discalced Franciscans see. In Mexico, the right of the church hierarchy over the regulars had been upheld, but in the Philippines, the latter had resisted vigorously against what they considered as an encroachment of their monastic privileges. The provisors of Manila and Cebu upheld Zamudio, but Archbishop Hernando Guerrero sided with the regulars and annulled the bishop's actions. When the archbishop and Governor General Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera had a bitter altercation over jurisdiction, Zamudio sided with the latter, with the subsequent result that Guerrero was exiled to the village of Mariveles at the entrance to Manila Bay. Because of the vacancy in the metropolitan see, Zamudio was named Provisor General in May 1636 by the cabildo, or cathedral chapter composed wholly of seculars. He immediately absolved every one that had been excommunicated by the exiled prelate. Since Guerrero had named a Dominican for the post prior to his departure, the Catholic Church in the Philippines almost disintegrated into a schism because followers of both sides acrimoniously supported their respective points of view.
The underlying reason for this public dissension was racial. The rivalry between Spaniards born in the peninsula and those born in the colonies, the creoles or americanos, affected not only the clergy but also the lay population. The Augustinians, and the Hospitaller Orders of San Juan de Ojos, San Hipolito and Guadalupe, whose members were creoles, were opposed by the Carmelites and the apostolic colleges in that country. "While legally they (both factions} were on complete equality," writes Dr. Domingo Abella, Philippine ecclesiastical historian, "class distinctions were apparently encouraged as much as possible by the Spanish colonial policy, because the principle of divide et impera of every aristocratic system was the leading idea for the permanent subjection of the colonies."
The rivalry reached such an extent that in 1627 the Dominican Order in Mexico refused to admit creoles into its ranks, an act which the Spanish king disapproved. In the Philippines the situation had not openly reached that extreme. The insular hierarchy managed to keep the number of creoles, mestizos and indios who were embracing the religious life down to a minimum. But the racial discrimination rankled among those born in the colonies. Archbishop Guerrero and Bishop Zamudio were both Augustinians, but the former was a peninsular, while the latter was a creole, and this was probably the reason for their taking opposite sides.
The controversy was resolved by elevating the matter to the Council of the Indies in Madrid, although it could have been referred to the Viceroy of Mexico, because administratively the islands were under the jurisdiction of Mexico, but then the peninsulars feared that the viceroy would side with the creoles. A royal decree in 1639 finally solved the conflict. Zamudio was rebuked for meddling in affairs outside his jurisdiction, and ordered to return to his diocese. But the bishop never learned of his reversal, for he died several months before the decree was issued, and was entombed in the Augustinian convent in Intramuros.
Zamudio's successor in the Bicol provinces was also another Augustinian born in Mexico, Nicols de Zaldivar. He was a resident of Madrid. After he was sworn into office in 1639, he sailed for Mexico, where he tarried for about three years. He was denounced to the Council of the Indies as "living in the city of Mexico with great scandal in all respects: he operates a gaming table in his house, where cards are played continuously." The king therefore peremptorily ordered him to leave for Manila, and instructed the viceroy to see to it that the orders were obeyed. By the end of 1642, he was performing his duties in Naga. He prudently did not continue the controversial policies of his predecessor. Shortly before his death, in 1646, he played an important role in the defense of Manila when the Dutch fleet attacked and tried to capture Cavite, where the naval arsenal and port were located.
Another Mexican-born prelate, Miguel Poblete, occupied the archbishopric of Manila in 1653. Like Bishop Zamudio, he insisted on the right of subjecting the friars under the jurisdiction of bishops, in accordance with a bull of Pope Urban VIII. He announced the withholding of all stipends for curacies if disobeyed. The monastic orders retaliated by threatening to leave their parishes. Faced with the threat of vacancy, Poblete had to withdraw his order. When the archbishop refused to appoint Governor General Diego Salcedo's nominee as one of the canons of the cathedral, he was threatened with banishment to Mariveles. Poblete reluctantly acceded to the appointment but under protest. An irked governor thereupon suspended the archbishop's salary as well as those of his canons, forcing the prelate to borrow money for his personal support. These vexatious acts hastened the aged dignitary's death, for he passed away on December 8, 1667, mourned by the people "for his virtues and Christian charity."
Culture-Laden Galleons
The most enduring link between Mexico and the Philippines were the galleons that sailed almost annually between Acapulco and Manila. Starting in June of 1565 with the San Pedro, one of Legzpi's fleet, the ship returned to Mexico with Fray Andrs de Urdaneta delineating the return route across the vast Pacific. The San Pedro carried a small quantity of spices and gold gathered in Cebu and northern Mindanao, thus initiating the long history of trade between the two countries. The ship going east became known as the Nao de China -- to this day among Mexicans while those going west were termed Nao de Acapulco. The former brought the luxury items of the 0rient to the New World and Spain, such as porcelain wares of the Ming dynasty, brocades and silk from China, spices from the Moluccas, perfumes from Arabia, rugs from Persia, fine muslins from Madras, pearls from Sulu, and the famed manton de Manila, which, despite the name, were in reality silk shawls woven in the southeastern coasts of China. In exchange, the New World poured millions of its wealth into the Far East in the form of the silver coins known as "pieces-of-eight," turned out by the Mexican and Peruvian mints.
Of the 108 galleons that crossed the Pacific in two centuries and a half, the actual number built for that purpose probably totaled less than half -- that is, about 50 vessels in all. The majority of the 108 made more than one round-trip voyage, while a score foundered on their maiden voyage. Hence, of the approximately 50 galleons constructed for the Manila-Acapulco run, about 15 were built in Mexico, five were built in other countries, and the rest were made in Philippine shipyards. The provinces of Jalisco and Guerrero on the Pacific coast undoubtedly supplied most of the galleons built in Mexico, specially during the first 50 or 60 years of its history.
The influx of Mexicans to the Philippines was reciprocated to a smaller extent by the emigration of Filipinos to that country. The first of this group were the four followers of Magat Salamat, son of the Lakandula chieftain of Tondo exiled to Mexico by Governor Santiago de Vera in 1588 after the first abortive revolt against the Spanish regime. These were Gabriel Tuambacan, Francisco Aeta (a Negrito?), Luis and his son Calao, whose family names were not recorded. Hundreds of indio sailors deserted their ships upon arrival in Acapulco or later in San Blas. Up to this day there exists a small colony of Filipinos, descendants of those who had jumped ship, residing at San Blas.
As a corollary to the galleon trade, there developed the situado, or financial aid to the Philippines. The island colony had to pay its soldiers, the salaries of bureaucrats, hospitals, widows' pensions, and other expenditures of administration. The tributes and taxes raised in the islands were vastly insufficient to meet the expenses of government and the king left it to his viceroy in Mexico to solve this problem. What could be more logical than to levy import taxes on the goods coming from Manila aboard the galleons, and use these sums as a monetary aid to the island colony? The usage was confirmed by Philip III in his decree of 1606.
At first the situado was made up of the returns from the almojarifazgo, or customs tax, collected at Acapulco. Much later, when the galleon trade could not meet the amount either -- because the ships could not make the voyage because of typhoons, shipwrecks or capture by the English -- the Mexican treasury had to draw from its own funds to help the Philippines balance its budget. At that, the arrival of the situado in Manila did not take place regularly, and the archives in Spain, Mexico and Manila contain correspondence complaining of the resulting fund shortage.
Prior to 1687 the annual situado was not fixed, and depended on the exact amount of the deficit in the islands for a given year and the availability of funds from the viceroyalty. During the last decade of the 17th century, the total annual sum of the situado was set at 250,000 pesos. The amount of the aid sent, however, varied from time to time.
In the second decade of the 18th century, Manila officials complained to the crown that the reduction by 100,000 pesos in the subsidy was unfair and causing hardship in insular administration. As governmental expenses increased with each decade, insular officials requested Madrid to increase the situado -- a demand which coincided with the request of merchants that the volume of the Manila-Acapulco trade be expanded. Bigger vessels were thus constructed, more merchandise was sent to Acapulco, and more silver dollars were shipped to Manila. By the end of the 18th century, the galleons were permitted to trade at six times their initial limit.
Starting in 1802, the trade with Acapulco began to wane. The galleons Casualidad, Montaes and Rey Carlos returned to Manila with unsold cargoes. The entry of American and European traders into the Mexican market plus the establishment of the Compaia Real de Filipinas in 1785 had encouraged direct shipping between the Iberian peninsula and the islands, cutting down on the monopolistic aspect of the galleon trade. To cap its termination, Mexico declared its independence in 1810, and in the following year the San Carlos could not land its cargo in Acapulco because the Spanish priest -- general Jos Mara Morelos had laid siege to that port. The galleon sailed instead to San Blas, where it disposed of its cargo at a big loss. Not knowing that a revolution had broken out in Mexico, authorities in Manila had dispatched in 1811 the Magallanes to Acapulco, where it became stranded in the harbor, and was able to return only four years later to become the last of the galleons to cross the Pacific. Frigates were sent from Manila by insular merchants, but no buyers could he found in Acapulco, which was in revolutionary flames, and not until 1821 did it gain its freedom. The famed galleon trade between Mexico and the Philippines had come to an end.
Nevertheless, the Mexican influence on the Philippines was to have an epilogue several years later in the brief hut bloody revolt of Captain Andrs Novales, a creole who might have been born and educated in Mexico.
"Officers in the army of the Philippines were almost totally composed of Americans," observed the Spanish historian Jos Montero y Vidal. "They received in great disgust the arrival of peninsular officers as reinforcements, partly because they supposed they would be shoved aside in the promotions and partly because of racial antagonisms."
Some months previously, in February 1823, a dozen of the leading suspects among the creoles who called themselves 'hijos del pais" were deported to Spain. Among them were Domingo Roxas, leading businessman and ancestor of the present-day opulent Ayala, Zobel, Roxas and Soriano families, Jos Ortega, general manager of the Royal Company, the barrister Jos Maria Jugo, Captain Jose Bayot and his two brothers, Luis Rodriguez Varela, former mayor of Tondo and self-styled count of the Philippines, Regino Mijares, sergeant-major of the king's regiment, and a dozen other suspects. Ordered to leave for Misamis Province, Novales instead convinced the brother officers and non-commissioned officers of the king's regiment to join him in a coup d'etat in June of that year. These "americanos,", composed mostly of Mexicans with a sprinkling of creoles and mestizos from Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica and other former colonies of Spain in South America, supported Novales. With about 800 native soldiers they seized early in the morning the royal palace, the city's cabildo and important government buildings in Intramuros, killed the lieutenant governor, Mariano Fernndez de Folgueras, but failed to seize Fort Santiago because his brother who commanded the citadel at the last minute refused to open its gates.
The loyalist troops, led by Spanish peninsulars, mustered a counterattack, and the timely arrival of a battalion of native soldiers from Pampanga Province spelled the end of the rebellion. Novales was arrested trying to escape from Intramuros, and his followers either caught or killed. A drumhead court martial was immediately convened, and by late afternoon of that same day Novales and his principal followers were executed by a firing squad.
From that time on, Spain took good care that the Mexican links with the Philippines were terminated, and in the seven decades that followed erased the Mexican influence from the minds and hearts of the Filipinos