Mindanao State University

College of Social Sciences and Humanities

Marawi City 9700, Philippines
HISTORY DEPARTMENT

GEC 105 – READINGS IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY

MODULE 1: AN OVERVIEW TO PHILIPPINE HISTORY

Learning Outcomes:
1. The student can chronologically recall the historical timeline in the History of the Philippines.
2. The student can break down the important historical events in the Philippines.
3. The student can share their ideas about the struggles and triumphs of the Filipino people throughout Philippine History.

Historical Context:

I. Pre-colonial Era
II. Spanish Era (1565-1898)
III. American Occupation (1913-1946)
IV. Japanese Occupation (1942-1945)
V. Post-War Period (1946-1972)
VI. Martial Law (1972-1986)
VII. Contemporary Period (1986-present)

Pre-colonial Era

Before the coming of the colonizers, the archipelago (which is now known as Philippines) was once part of the Malayan
archipelago.1 We were rich in culture and belief; free in trading, commerce, and had its own sovereignty. The natives believed in the
spirits whom they give reverence. Written accounts support that we had already engage in trading in Mainland China, and other
neighboring Southeast Asian countries (Borneo/Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, and even India). 2 Filipino had also
established the baranganic system where every barangay consists around 30-100 families. It is headed with the datu (chief), with its
subjects the maharlica (nobles), aliping namamahay (commoner), and aliping sa guiguilir (slaves).3 Every barangay is considered as an
independent state. A Sultanate System was also established upon the arrival of the Muslim missionaries around 13th century.4 5

Some of the Indigenous People and Moro Muslim groups found in the Philippines:

Indigenous/Lumad Group Traditional Homeland Moro Muslim Groups Area of Concentration

Manobo Agusan River Valley, Bukidnon Badjaw (Sama Dilaut) South Sulu
and Cotabato Provinces
Subanen Zamboanga Peninsula Samal (Sama) Sulu archipelago
B’laan Cotabato Provinces (Lake Jama Mapun Cagayan de Sulu
Buluan to Sarangani Islands) Tawi-tawi (Mapun Island)
T’Boli Cotabato Provinces (Lake Yakan Basilan Island
Buluan to Sarangani Gulf)
Mandaya Davao Provinces Tausug (Joloano) Sulu archipelago
Teduray (Tiruray) Cotabato Provinces Molbog Balabac Island and
Southern Palawan

1
Teodoro A. Agoncillo, “History of the Filipino People,” (Quezon City: Garotech Publishing, 1990), page 4.
2
James, Francis Warren, “The Sulu Zone 1768-1898 The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery, and Ethnicity in the
Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State,” (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1985), pages 3-9.
3
Juan de Plasencia, O.S.F. “Customs of the Tagalogs,” 1589, pages 221-222.
4
Flaudette May Datuin, Roberto Paulino, Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez, and Louise Marcelino, “Contemporary Philippine Arts from
the Regions,” (Quezon City: REX Printing Company, Inc., 2016), page 19.
5
The Islamization of the Southern Philippines occurred along with the Islamization of Borneo Sulawesi, Celebes, and the
Moluccas. The scholars had speculated the introduction of Islam in Sulu around 1311 A.D.
 Higaonon Davao Provinces Palawani (Muslim Pinalawan Southern Palawan
or Panimusan)
Bagobo Davao (Foothills East and West Magindanawn Cotabato region
of Mt. Apo)
Bukidnon Bukidnon Iranun (Ilanun) Buldon to Parang, along the
shores of Ilana Bay
Mamanwa Agusan and Surigao Provinces M’ranaw Lanao Region
(Lake Mainit)
Talaandig/Tigkalasan Bukidnon Kalibugan (Kolibugan) Zamboanga Peninsula
Tagakaolo Davao (Cape of San Agustin) Kalagan (Ka’agan) Davao Provinces
Dibabawon Sangil (Sangir) Sarangani Island
Mangguwangan Davao (North of Davao Gulf)
Banwaon
Mansaka
Tagabili
Matigsalog Bukidnon
And others

Philippines was already rich in belief and culture before the coming of the colonizers in the Philippines. Thus, its claim that they
were the one who civilize the Philippines is a fallacious claim.

Spanish Era

It was during the age of exploration when Ferdinand de Magallanes (Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese) proposed to the king of
the Portugal to the spice islands (Moluccas and Malacca, in Malaysia) in a West-ward route. The king of Portugal refused the proposal
for he believed that the World is flat (however, some scholars believed that the king of Portugal and Magellan’s family had a feud,
that is why he did not approve his proposal). Thus, Ferdinand Magellan seek help from their political enemy—Spain. The king of Spain
agreed the proposal thinking the profit of the exploration. He sent Magellan with five ships and 235 men.
He arrived in the Philippines on March 16, 1521, in Homonhon island in Leyte. Due to storm, he was forced to sail south, along
the northeast tip of Mindanao to seek shelter from the typhoon. Magellan and his company were able to meet the local king of
Masaua, Rajah Colambu. The local king welcomed Magellan and a blood compact was conducted to seal their friendship. 6 Conducted
the First Mass on March 31, 1521, on Masaua shore.
Magellan landed in Cebu on April 7, 1521, and on the same day he made a blood compact with Humabon. At that time Cebu was
already an entrepot of Oriental trade. Magellan met there a Siamese trader. On Sunday, April 14, 1521, a Mass was held on the shore
of Cebu. Raha Humabon and his warriors were highly impressed by the sublime ceremony. Rajah Humabon of Cebu and other
chieftains welcomed the Spaniards. Only one native leader defied the white men, and he was Cilapu-lapu (Lapu-lapu, chief of Mactan)
and his companion chief Cebu (a chief in Mactan).
At dawn of April 27, 1521, Magellan invaded Mactan with an assault army of 60 steel-clad Spaniards in three vessels and 1,000
Cebuano warriors in 30 boats. With his Spanish soldiers, he waded ashore and attacked the Mactan defenders. The battle was furiously
fought. Magellan found out too late that he had underestimated the fighting prowess and fierce courage of Lapu-lapu and his men.
The Spaniards invaders were beaten and forced back to their boats. Magellan was wounded by a poisoned arrow in his right leg; twice
his iron helmet was knocked off, and a Mactan bamboo spear struck him in the face. One Mactan warrior slashed his left leg, he fell
his face downward, and Lapu-lapu and his fighters pounced and killed him.
Only one ship, in fact the smallest of them, the Victoria, completed the voyage back to Spain in 1522, arriving in Seville, led by
Juan Sebastian del Cano (some referred him as Juan Sebastian Elcano). A mere eighteen Europeans and four Malays survived, thus
leaving 170 of “the original expedition lost on the way.” Other survivors were retrieved later by subsequent expeditions.
Magellan did not live to see the final completion of the “first-known voyage in history to circumnavigate the globe.” It was
through this trip that the Europeans first learned of the existence of the archipelago (Philippines). It also proved that the earth was
round; it established the vastness of the Pacific Ocean; it proved that the East Indies could be reached by crossing the Pacific; and
finally, it showed that the Americans was really a land mass entirely separated from Asia.
Three Spanish expeditions followed Magellan’s, this time sailing from Mexico, which had become Spanish colony—the Saavedra
(1527-29), the Villalobos (1541-46), and the most successful of all, the Legazpi expedition (1564).
It was very easy, indeed, for Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, who was granted by the King Philip II, the peerless and single title of
“Adelantado de Filipinas” to accomplish an almost “bloodless” conquest of the Philippines considering its physical and human

6
Dr. Sonia M. Zaide and Dr. Gregorio F. Zaide, “The Philippines: A Unique Nation,” (Manila: All-Nations Publishing Co., Inc,
1994) page 80.
geography. There existed on the eve of the coming of the Spaniards fragmented units of islands and islets of various sizes separated
by numberless bodies of water, as well as multiple ethnolinguistic groups, mostly animistic, and in the south Islamized. Thus, with
Filipino society split into numerous disunified barangay units, it was impossible to put up an effective armed resistance against the
well-equipped and prepared conquestadores. Not only did the Sword help in the pacification of the indios, but above all, the Cross,
represented by the different regular missions that came from 1565 to 1606, also helped to mold the natives in the Hispanic image.
“En cada fraile tenia el re yen Filipinas un capitan general y un ejercito entero” (In each friar in the Philippines, they had a captain and
a whole army), as one Mexican Viceroy put it. Thus, with the permanent colonization by Legazpi, the indios lost the freedom they
earlier enjoyed.

Institutional Impact of Spanish Rule

Taxation without Representation
Income-generating mechanisms were introduced by the Spanish colonial government in the
Philippines consisting of direct (personal tribute and income tax) and indirect (customs duties
and the bandala) taxes, monopolies (rentas estancadas) of special crops and items as
spirituous liquors (1712-1864), betel nut (1764), tobacco (1782-1882), explosives (1805-1864),
and opium (1847).

Polo y Servicio Personal or
Prestacion Personal
By 1884, the tribute was replaced by the cedula personal or personal identity paper, equivalent
to the present resident tax. Everyone, whether Filipino or other nationalities, over eighteen
years of age required to pay the cedula personal.
Polo actually is a corruption of the Tagalog pulong, originally meaning “meeting of persons and
things” or “community labor.” Drafted laborers (politas) were either Filipino or Chinese male
mestizos ranging from 16 to 60 years old, who were obligated to give personal service to
community projects, like construction and repair of infrastructure, church construction, or
cutting logs in forests, for forty days until 1884, when labor was reduced to fifteen days.
However, one could be exempted by paying the falla (corruption of the Spanish falta,
“absence,” corrupted into the contemporary palya, “absence from work,”) which the polista
paid daily at 1 ½ real during the 40-day period he was expected to work. The polo system was
patterned after the Mexican repartimiento or selection for forced labor.

Some of the negative effects of the polo on the Filipino included the upsetting of the village
economy because labor drafts usually coincided with the planting and harvesting seasons;
forced separation from the family and relocation to different places, sometimes outside the
Philippines; and decimation of the male population as they were compelled at times, to escape
the mountains instead of working in the labor pool.
The Manila-Acapulco Galleon Running the only regular fleet service in the huge stretch of the Pacific Ocean for two hundred
Trade (1565-1815) fifty years was the Acapulco galleon (known as galleon de Manila or nao de China) with two
vessels making the journey yearly—one outgoing, the other incoming—between Manila and
Acapulco de Juarez, reaching as far as Callao in Peru. The trip lasted approximately two
hundred days, the return voyage alone taking seventy days. Through the Manila galleons, the
Amerasians worlds were linked by untold luxuries and wealth: spices and silk for the Americans
and the Mexican and Peruvians dos mundos (pillar dollars or “pieces of eight) for the Asians.

The galleon trade benefitted only a very small coterie of privileged Spaniards—the Spanish
governor, members of the consulado (merchants with consular duries and rights) usually
insulares, and Spanish residents in Manila. The few Spaniards who relied heavily on the trade
became affluent, but when the trade declined in the eighteenth century, an economic
depression resulted which arrested the normal population growth.

Tempted by the lucrative trade Chinese immigrants converged at the Parian or Alcaiceria of
Manila in Binondo as early as 1637. By 1687, a community of Christian Chinese and mestizos
was already formally based in Binondo. Retail and small credit business came under the control
of Chinese mestizos.

The damaging effects e.g., the neglect of native extracted industries like agriculture and arrest
population growth of the Manila-Acapulco Trade, far outbalanced the advantages. The only
active Filipino involvement was in the construction of galleons—in the cutting of massive and
heavy Philippine hard woods, hauling and transporting them usually to the far-off shipyards of

Filipino Nationalism Accelerators:
The Philippines in World
Commerce (1834-1898)
The Rise of the Middle Class
European Liberalism and Carlos
Maria de la Torre
Racial Discrimination
Regular and Secular Conflicts
Cavite Mutiny, 1872
Cavite, Mindoro, Marinduque or Masbate. Toponyms in Mindoro remind us of the travails of
Filipino forced labor: Naujan, where the naos (galleons) were built; Calapan, where the
overburdened Filipino carpenters cut the huge and heavy logs into prepared wooden planks;
and of the course, Puerto Galera where the completed galleys were safely moored. Filipinos
were forcibly ordered by the alcaldes mayores to plant coconuts and abaca under the guise of
“support of the Indians.” Failure to comply with the needed supplies of cococnut oil and abaca
fibers were heavily fined. Coconut furnished the oil, wine, and coir for rigging and caulking for
the galleons and other sea vessels. Abaca was transformed into rigging materials in Cavite.
Ropes were also made from sugar (kaong) and sago (cabo negro) palm fibers, and iron-headed
ship pikes from hardwoods. Sails were fashioned out of the Iloko-woven blankets exacted as
tribute payment.
In theory, galleon construction was not meant to conflict with the planting and harvesting
schedules but in practice this was not the case. Thus, the growth of the Philippine agriculture
was further retarded, so that as early as 1600s, many of the significant Filipino cottage
industries such as weaving and extractive industries were being ruined ad disregarded along
with agriculture, as money and grains were channeled to the galleon trade. Forced labor
ignited the Sumodoy revolt (1649) when the Visayans were drafted to haul timber to Cavite,
and the Pampanga Revolt (1660), when the overburden and overtaxed Kapampangans were
inflamed by the forcible cutting and hauling of the heavy logs.
Manila proper and the suburban areas developed by leaps and bounds with the official and
permanent opening of the her port to international trade in 1834, resulting in tremendous
socio-economic changes for the Filipino. Indeed, the nineteenth century brought a great
transformation from the preceding centuries of economic stagnation created by the
monopolistic policy of Spain.
As a result of the great economic transformation in the life of the Filipino, a middle class (clase
media) of Asian and Eurasian mestizos emerged in the Philippine social pyramid. The clase
media emerged from the economic boom derived from expanded agriculture and commerce
embarked on by the rising native entrepreneurs. They formed the town principalia (middle
class), and elite group composed of former gobernadorcillos and minor native bureaucrats
owning at least P50.00 in land taxes, decorated personnel, and school-masters.
We can not discount that not only men, but also ideas filtered to the Philippines with the
opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Thus, the travel between Spain and the islands was made
shorter, safer, and speedier. It not only “dispelled to some extend the atmosphere of the
middle ages” in which the Filipinos “were wrapped,” according to Pardo de Tavera, but
“modern ideas of liberty began to penetrate the minds of the natives.” We may add that the
Filipino migration abroad, the arrival of Spaniards in Manila whose point-of-view had been
changed by the teachings of the French Revolution of “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity” and
the democratic influences which emanated from the United States, all contributed to erase
from the minds of certain Filipinos “the pernicious and false ideas regarding human rights
which up to that time had dominated most of those educated in the old methods.”
There is an abundance of documentary proof on racism in the Philippines during the Spanish
period. “Although the laws recognized no difference between the various races,” commented
Pardo de Tavera, “nevertheless from the beginning of the nineteenth century the Spaniards
claimed superiority over the Filipinos, and so taught their children.”
Secularization of the parishes was nothing more than the transfer of ministries established or
run by the regular clergy to the seculars. By the midst of the nineteenth century, secularization
was transmuted into a political and separatist movement which exploded in the Filipinization
of the church, and culminated in the separation of the church from Rome during the Philippine
Revolution.
The Cavite Mutiny broke out during the tenure of Rafael who had dramatically, said upon his
arrival, “I shall govern with a cross on one hand a sword in the other.” Galvanized by discontent
against the Spaniards, some 200 Filipino soldiers, joined in by some workers in the arsenal of
the artillery corps led by Sgt. La Madri, guard at Fort San Felipe, mutinied in the night of January
1872. In the ensuing melee, La Madrid himself was “blinded and badly burned” when a sack of
 gunpowder exploded, killing him instantaneously while trapped inside the fort. The fort
commander was also killed, and his wife wounded.

Reform Movement

The Great Reformists Contributions and Works

Graciano Lopez Jaena Fray Botod – this work deals with the ignorance, abuses, and immorality of a certain friar
named Botod, circulated in manuscript form.
Marcelo H. del Pilar Founder of the nationalistic newspaper Diariong Tagalog, 1882.

He wrote the parodied Ten Commandments intitled “Ten Commandments of the Friars.”
Jose Rizal Writer and author of the poem, A La Juventud Filipina. A novelist that wrote the novel intitled
Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.

1896 Philippine Revolution

The Philippine Revolution broke out around August 23, 1896 at Pugadlawin where they tore their cedula which become a
symbolic act that they no longer wanted to be under the govern of the Spanish colonizers.

December 30, 1896 – Jose Rizal was executed for an allegation of treason.

The Truce of Biyak-na-bato – Sometime in August, a mestizo, Pero Paterno, who had spent a part of his life in Spain, approached
Governor General Primo de Rivera and asked that he be made a mediator between the Filipinos and the Spaniards. He wanted, he
said, to stop the fatal conflict between the two peoples, for he loved Spain and the Philippines. The governor-general acceded to his
request. From August to December, Paterno negotiated with August and Primo de Rivera on the conditions that he thought would be
satisfactory to both. On November 18, the first document of what came to be known as the Truce of Biyak-na-bato was signed by
Paterno as representative of the revolutionists, and by Primo de Rivera fro the Spanish Government. Other matters were threshed out
by Paterno, and on December 14 the second document known as the “Programme” was signed by paterno nd Primo de Rivera. The
following day, December 15, the third and last document of the Truce was signed, also by Paterno and Primo de Rivera. The resulting
Truce provided, among other things:

(1) That Aguinaldo and his companions would go into voluntary exile abroad;
(2) That Primo de Rivera would pay the sum P800,000 to the rebels in three installments:
(a) P400,000 to Auguinaldo upon his departure from Biyak-na-Bato, (b) P200,000 when the arms surrendered by the
revolutionist exceeded 700, and (c) the remaining P200,000 when the Te Deum was sung and general amnesty
proclaimed by the governor;
(3) That Primo de Rivera would pay the additional sum of P900,000 to the families of the non-combatant Filipinos who
suffered during the armed conflict.

To make sure that the Spanish authorities were sincere, the revolutionists demanded that two Spanish generals were to
remain at Biyak-na-Bato as hostages and another, Colonel Miguel Primo de Rivera, the governor’s nephew, to accompany the exiles
to Hong Kong. Primo de Rivera agreed, and on December 23 the Spanish generals, Celestino Tejeiro and Ricardo Monet, arrived at
Biyak-na-bato and became hostages of the rebels. On the same day, Aguinaldo and his men, including Pedro and Maximo paterno,
boarded a launch and sailed for Kalumpit. They took the train for Dagupan, then the carromatas for the port of Sual, Pangasinan. The
group sailed for Hong Kong the same day, December 27, with Aguinaldo in possession of a check for P400,000.

SPANISH OCCUPATION
MIGUEL LOPEZ DE GAZPI
> frist governor general of the Philippines
Further Readings:

Agoncillo, Teodoro A. History of the Filipino People, Quezon City: Garotech Publishing, 1990.

Datuin, Flaudette May, Roberto Paulino, Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez, and Louise Marcelino, Contemporary Philippine Arts from the Regions,
Quezon City: REX Printing Company, Inc., 2016.

Plasencia, Juan de, Customs of the Tagalogs, 1589.

Warren, James Francis, The Sulu Zone 1768-1898 The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery, and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a
Southeast Asian Maritime State, Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1985.

Zaide, Sonia M., and Gregorio F. Zaide, The Philippines: A Unique Nation, Manila: All-Nations Publishing Co., Inc, 1994.