KINAADMAN XIX (1997)

Regional Variation of Native Resistance

Against Spanish Colonialism
Ma. Elizabeth Olavides-Soriano

This paper is an attempt to examine the geographic

distribution of revolts with the hope of rectifying some oversights by
some Filipino historians.
John L. Phelan decries the works of Filipino historians for
enshrining leaders of early revolts in the pantheon of modern
Philippine nationalism as precursors of independence. (For example,
Zaide’s Francisco Dagohoy: Champion of Philippine freedom.) Anti-
Rizal historians even propose Lapu-lapu as an alternative national
hero for his first act of defense of the “motherand”.
The fact is that none of the leaders of early revolts were
guided by any outlook of national freedom. The revolts were local
uprisings executed in protest against local grievances. However,
there were regional differences in these revolts.
The scope of our study is limited to Luzon region
(particularly the Ilocos, Bulacan, Pampanga, nad Pangasinan) and the
Visayan region (particularly Bohol, Leyte, Samar, and Panay) during
the first two centuries of Spanish rule in the Philippines.
The native responses to Spanish Colonialism varied in these
different regions because of geographical particularism, the nature
of Spanish colonial rule, and the impact of Catholic missionaries on
precolonial Filipino society.
The natives of these islands were not passive recipients of the
cultural stimulus created by the Spanish conquest. Their responses
varied all the way from acceptance to indifference and rejection.
Acceptance came in the form of conversion and tribute-paying.
Indifference or rejection oftentimes presented itself in the form

121
122 NAT KINAADMAN XIX (1997)

either of active resistance (outright revolt) or passive resistance as

in the conspiracy of silence similar to the Sicilian model of the La
Cosa Nostra (Brinton, p.6).

Active Resistance

Active resistance to intrusion was evident during the first

Spanish expedition to the islands. Magellan fought with Lapu-lapu in
Mactan and died. Martin de Goiti of the Legazpi expedition quelled
an uprising by the Lakandula and Sulayman in 1574 which was
ignited again by their descendants, Martin Panga, Agustin de Legazpi,
nad Magat Salamat of Tondo, in a conspiracy to overthrow Spanish
sovereignty in 1587. In 1585, the Pampangos resorted to a revolt
after experiencing a famine caused by the imposition of the polo
system.
Royal officials reported to the Spanish King on 28 May
1595:

From the day we arrived to this moment, we have

found no ally within this archipelago . . . in no part
would they receive us as friends or credit anything that
we wished to discuss with them. (Pedro Torres y
Lanzas. Catálogo de los Documentos relativos a las Islas
Filipinas existentes en el Archivo de indias de Sevilla as
quoted by Anderson, p.7).

In 1660, another Pampango-Ilocos-Pangasinan revolt broke

out taking on a more decidedly anti-Spanish character. Fransisco
Maniago led Pampangos in a revolt because of forced timber cutting.
Andres Malong of Pangasinan followed suit and proclaimed himself
King of Pangasinan (as related by Diaz in his Conquistas, Blair and
Robertson Vol. 3, p. 165). Pedro Almazan continued the pattern and
NATIVE RESISTANCE/Soriano 123

hailed himself King of Ilocos (Agoncillo, p. 108). In 1643, an indio

from Malolos, Bulacan, Don Pedro Ladia who called himself King of
the Tagalogs, plotted a revolt among other natives with the aid of
wine which was the chief counselor in matters of policy and war.
Fray Cristobal Enriquez informed the Spanish authorities of the
activities of the “King of the Tagalogs” leading to the latter’s arrest
and death. And the revolt was entirely quieted (Diaz’s Conquistas,
Blair and Robertson, loc. cit.)
In the Visayan region the missions were divided along
linguistic and geographical lines between the Augustinians and the
Jesuits (Phelan, p. 50). Many recorded revolts broke out in the Jesuit
sphere of influence.
In December 1621 almost all of the Jesuit missionaries in
Bohol went to Cebu for the celebration of the beatification of St.
Francis Xavier. In their absence, a native babaylan named Tamblot
mobilized four settlements of Bohol into a rebellion (de la Costa, p.
315). Two thousand of the tallest, strongest and bravest Indios
fought “’like crazed dogs”. (Agustinian Diaz, Conquistas, Blair and
Robertson, Vol. 38). The city of Sntisimo Nombre de Jesus (now
Cebu) had been warned of this revolt earlier by some priests but the
Alcalde-mayor, Don Juan de Alcarazo, did not immediately act on it
for lack of directive from the governor, Don Diego de Fajardo.
Eventually Alcarazo was persuaded to act. He went to Bohol with
fifty Spanish and one thousand five hundred Visayan troops and on 6
January 1622 a pitched battle between Alcarazo’s forces against
some one thousand five hundred rebels took place. It took the
Spaniards two weeks to capture the enemy base.
The Bohol revolt kindled another revolt in Leyte. Natives of
Carigara in the island of Leyte became impatient and revolted
without waiting for the result of the rebellion in Bohol. This revolt
was incited by the chief of Limasawa, Bancao, who had received
Legazpi in 1565. Together with his son and another man, Pagali, who
124 KINAADMAN XIX (1997)

was a babaylan (de la Costa identified Pagali as Bancao’s son, p. 315),

Bancao induced six villages to rebel against the Spaniards. To
remove fear of the Spaniards, Bancao told the men, women and
children that they could mobilize the Spaniards by repeating the wod
“bato” or by flinging earth upon them. Father Melchor de Vera went
to Cebu to warn the colonial officials. Captain Juan de Alcarazo sent
an armada of forty vessels and wiped out the rebels but spared the
women, clad in white, and the many children who picked up bits of
earth and scattered them on the wind. (Murillo Velarde, Hist. de
Philipinas and Diaz’s Conquistas, Blair and Robertson, Vol. 38). De la
Costa, however, pointedly presents a more grotesque picture.
Alcarazo pursued the rebels to a pocket in the hills and put them to
the sword, men, women and children to set a ‘salutary example in
stopping the spirit of dissidence from spreading any further. Bancao
was found among the dead,his head was cut off and publicly exposed
on a pike (de la Costa, p. 315).
In 1663, in the visita of Malonor, Negros (Occidental),
another babaylan in a woman’s garb who liuved in a forest, obtained
great influence among the natives with impostures and frauds which
resembled miracles.he declared himself as Eternal Father; named
someone else as God the Son; and another as the Holy Ghost; and a
prostitute was called Maria Santisima. Ha also appointed apostles,
popes and bishops. Father Francisco de Mesa warned Alcalde Mayor
Admiral Perdo Duran de M onfort of this heretical movement
which was gaining ground as it spread to the villages of Jaro and
Pasig of Panay. But before the Spanish forces and native mercenaries
arrived, Father Francisco de Mesa was attacked by the native
follwers of Tapar and was put to death. The priest died embracing a
cross which stood in a cemetery next to the church (Diaz, Conquistas
in Blairand Robertson, Vol. 38).
In 1649 another revolt broke out in the town of Palapag on
the northern coast of Samar, led by Juan Ponce Sumuroy who had
NATIVE RESISTANCE /Soriano 125

been a trusted aide of the Jesuits. Sumuroy was chosen by the latter
to command a garrison of local militia which held a small fort
created as defense against Muslim raiders. He was described as
daring, intelligent and dependable. But he had a roving eye. He left
his wife and took up another woman. Father Miguel Ponce
admonished him to terminate this adulterous union and eventually
had the woman taken away from him. This incident spurred
Sumuroy to take advantage of the deep popular resentment against
the polo system and aroused the natives to rise up in arms. the
situation provided Sumuroy an opportunity to settle his score
against Father Ponce (de la Costa, p. 411). This personal and very
human angle of the story has been overlooked by historians in their
textbooks. Agoncillo classified the Sumuroy revolt as purely a protest
against Spanish impositions (p. 107).
Diego Fajardo, then governor, was warned of an imminent
rebellion but he did not heed the Jesuits’ warning since he
considered them as enemies in the service of the King. (Francisco
Combés, Hist. de Mindanao, Blair and Robertson). De la Costa,
however, puts this detail in doubt by stating that the Jesuit fathers
were told that Sumuroy was up to something but they did not think
it could be anything serious (p. 412).
As described by Combés and Diaz, the Sumuroy revolt was
protracted, in contrast with the spontaneity described by de la Costa.
In the accounts compiled by Blair and Robertson, on
Tuesday, 1 June 1649, Sumuroy went to the mission house carrying
spear. Upon seeing Father Miguel Ponce, Sumuroy plunged the spear
through the priest’s heart and killed him. Two days after that
incident, other priests stayed in the house and wondered why the
killing incident had happened. Then Sumuroy, along with other
rebels who were under the influence of liquor claimed responsibility
for the death of Father Ponce. (Combés, Hist. de Mindanao, in Blair
and Robertson).
126 KINAADMAN (1997)

De la Costa relates that after killing Father Ponce, Sumuroy

called out and all of a sudden the entire compound was full of
fighting men. The three other Jesuits in the house were spared and
were asked to leave town at once (p. 412).
From Luzon to Visayas, none of these uprisings posed even a
remote threat to Spanish hegemony. Each revolt was subdued by a
handful of Spanish soldiers assisted by the Filipino recruits. (Phelan,
p. 149).

Differences Between Luzon and Visayan Revolts

Revolts in Luzon were basically different from Visayan

revolts. The points of reference include the composition of the
rebellion, its leadership, and the language of resistance.
Visayan revolts included women and children. Arguing
revolts from silence, revolts in Luzon were led and fought by men.
The ascendant native elite (i.e. pre-Spanish datus) led revolts
in Luzon while babaylanes led or played important roles in shaping
the nature of Visayan revolts.
Leaders of Luzon revolts chose the political symbol of
Spanish authority by assuming kingship of their localities. While
Visayan revolts acquired a more pronounced religious character as
evidenced by babaylanes who proclaimed themselves as “God
Almighty” and imitated other Catholic practices, thereby attacking
another symbol of Spanish rule, the Catholic religion.
Why were there differences at all?
The pattern of Spanish rule produced a more highly
politically-organized structure in Luzon than in the Visayas where
rudimentary political machinery was introduced. Insulated village
populations learned little of Hispanic political processes. (Sturtevant,
p. 28).
NATIVE REISISTANCE /Soriano 127

Spanish political control over the Visayas was never as

penetrating as the dominion of the provinces of Luzon. Visayan
revolts had more nativist content because ecclesiastical
establishment in the central Philippines was even more understaffed
than in Luzon. (Phelan, p. 147).
Moreover, the Spanish colonial administration in Manila was
more tolerant with regard to the spiritual conversion of the natives
because of economic and political expediency. Manila, the capital and
the citadel of Spanish power, was adjacent to the “rice basket,” the
central plains of Luzon (Pampanga and Pangasinan). Spanish
authorities would not wish to endanger their food supply by
spurring more revolts. The Spaniards eventually began to distinguish
between the adoption of Catholicism and the acceptance of Spanish
political control; for that reason they were more tolerant of non-
Christian beliefs of natives in Luzon in order to win the political
allegiance of the newly-conquered, (Phelan, p. 144).

Conclusion

A revolt is always a social disturbance. Initial Filipino revolts

did not aim at Philippine independence nor were they inspired by
any dream of national freedom. These revolts may have posed no
serious challenge to Spanish sovereignty. But their disruptive
courses established the broad boundaries of opposition or resistance
against Spanish colonialism. While individual uprisings failed, the
discordant tradition could not be suppressed, as shown in the
recurrence of revolts after the initial phase of Spanish colonial rule.
The repetition of patterns of resistance in each region
indicates particular characteristics of such regions. The revots,
which later spread like bushfire, pointed to the existence of serious
cultural tensions. Despite their differences in magnitude, their
distance in terms of time and scope, these revolts were one and all,
128 KINAADMAN XIX (1997)

expressions of disillusionment, a manifestation of discontent of

Spanish colonialism. These revolts will always remain part of the
Filipino dissident heritage.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Agoncillo, Teodore A.
History of the Filipino People. R.P. Garcia Publishing Company.
Quezon City. 1997.
Anderson, Gerald H. (ed.)
Studies in the Philippine Church History. Cornell University
Press. 1969.
Blair, Emma H. and James A. Robertson
The Philippine Islands: 1493-1803. A.H. Clark Cleveland.
1903-09.
Brinton, Crane
The Anatomy of a Revolution. Phoenix Press.Quezon City.
1965.
De la Costa, Horacio
The Jesuits in the Philippines: 1581-16. Harvard University
Press. 1961.
Phelan, John Leddy
The Hispanization of the Philippines. University of Wisconsin
Press. 1959.
Sturtevant, David R.
Popular Uprisings in the Philippines: 1840-1940. Cornell
University Press. 1969.