University of San Carlos Publications

Notes on Piracy and Slaving in Philippine History

Author(s): Joseph Baumgartner
Source: Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, Vol. 5, No. 4 (DECEMBER 1977), pp.
270-272
Published by: University of San Carlos Publications
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29791568
Accessed: 09-06-2016 19:37 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

University of San Carlos Publications is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society

This content downloaded from 128.143.23.241 on Thu, 09 Jun 2016 19:37:55 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 270 PHILIPPINE QUARTERLY OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY
than, e.g., Latin when it was the lingua franca of
the educated in Europe. But if English should
be considered unacceptable to a majority of
Filipinos, then there is another candidate for a
lingua franca which belongs to this part of the
globe and is spoken by millions of our racial
cousins, the Indonesians and Malays. I am, of
course, referring to Bahasa Indonesia. While not
having the worldwide advantages of English,
it would probably prove more congenial to
Filipinos. Amongst its advantages one may
mention that it has the requisite vocabulary,
and a grammar and semantic structure of great
simplicity, which makes it much easier to learn
than Tagalog. The adoption of Bahasa would
open to our publications a much wider market
than those written in Pilipino can ever hope to
have and would give us access to the scientific
and scholarly work done in those countries.
Furthermore, being "neutral" as to the different
linguistic areas of the Philippines, it would at
one stroke remove the odium that still seems to
cling to Pilipino ? an odium which the yet-to
be-created Filipino is supposed to remove ? of
favoring one ethnic group, the Tagalogs, over the
rest of the country.
The linguistic policy here recommended
would, in my opinion, give us the best of both
worlds: national languages (not just one) that
will permit us to express the very depths of our
perceptions, ideas and sentiments in a wealth of
competing Philippine literatures - but this would
be a friendly competition ? and an effective way
of national and international communication,
either with the whole world (through English)
or at least with a sizable portion of it (through
Bahasa). And what is best about it: we would
attain these ends without sacrificing either our
identity or our ability to communicate with the
rest of the world.
REFERENCES CITED
Anonymous
1978 "College students not ready for Pilipino as
class medium?" Philippines Daily Express,
March 4:6.
This content downloaded from 128.143.23.241 on Thu, 09 Jun 2016 19:37:55 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Chanco, Jesus B.
1978 "A profile of the Filipino as bilingual."
Philippines Daily Express, February 3:4.
De la Torre, Visitacion R.
1976 Review of Ricardo Demetillo, The Heart
of Emptiness is Black. Philippine Studies
24:366-68.
Gonzalez, Andrew, F.S.C. 'The 1973 Constitution and
1974 the Bilingual Education Policy of the
Department of Education and Culture."
Philippine Studies 22:325-37.
Uamzon Teodoro, S.J.
1973 "The Integrative Function of Language.
Do we need a language to unite us?"
Philippine Studies 21:259-67.
Zapanta-Manlapaz, Edna.
1977 "PAEF 1976 Seminar: Trends in Philip?
pine Literary Scholarship." Philippine
Studies 25:259-67.
Notes on Piracy and Slaving in Philippine
History
Joseph Baumgartner, S VD
One of the standing accusations against the
Moslem groups of Mindanao and the Sulu Archi?
pelago is their historical record as pirates and
slave-hunters. It seems to crop up every time
somebody (like Peter G. Gowing, this issue)
undertakes to speak in their defense. The recent
"troubles" in Moroland have inevitably also done
their part in reviving the once very common
sentiment expressed in the saying "The only
good Moro is a dead Moro."
It needs hardly to be stressed that as long as
such sentiments prevail among the Christian
Filipinos, little progress in the mutual reconcilia?
tion of the antagonists in the old quarrel can be
expected. It may thus not be superfluous, nay,
it may even be necessary to call attention to
certain facts that have long been known but are
often forgotten. These facts might help both
sides view the matter of "Moro" piracy and slave
raiding in its true perspective and thus to deprive
it of its power to poison present and future
relations between the two sides.
1. The first point that needs stressing is that
piracy and slave-raiding are not an Islamic import.
 Notes and Comments 271
As Valdepeflas and Bautista have recently stated
(1974:296), "before the fourteenth century or
even before any Arab trader or preacher even
touched her shores, Sulu was like any typical
community in the archipelago at the time, except
that her primary occupation was piracy or slave
raiding." For them and for other searoving groups
of Southeast Asia, piracy was just another form
of trade, which they resorted to whenever
valuable loot, including people that could be sold
as slaves, was to be had for the taking. The Sulus,
Magindanaos, and other groups engaged in this
sort of trade thus simply continued their age-old
practices after their conversion to Islam - such
as it was. They were pirates not because of their
having become Moslems, but in spite of it.
2. The historical events that brought the
Spaniards to these shores were bound to pit
them and their Christian allies, the Christian
Filipinos, against the Moros. This added a new
dimension to the familiar practice of piracy.
Not that it really justified what the Moros were
doing, but it undoubtedly did much to justify
it in their own eyes. Since the Spaniards and
their Filipino allies were evidently out to make
them their subjects and in the process to impose
Christianity on them, those groups could claim
the right to strike back. That they did so by
raiding undefended or lightly defended settle?
ments and concentrated on pillage and slave
hunts rather than on attacking the Spanish fleets
and strongpoints, makes their kind of warfare
abhorrent to us today. But then we will do well
to remember that slaving was a widely practiced
sort of thing at that time and that Christians did
much the same elsewhere and occasionally also
in the Philippines.
It should be noted, however, that slave
making never became an established Spanish
practice and their occasional slave-taking was
incidental to their punitive expeditions and
never its prime purpose. See the remarks of
Schumacher on this and the attempts of
certain Moslem apologists to defend Moro
practices as legitimate warfare in his review
of CA. Majul, Muslims in the Philippines
(1973:483).
This content downloaded from 128.143.23.241 on Thu, 09 Jun 2016 19:37:55 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
3. Not all the piratical raids on the Visayas
and Luzon, including Mindoro, were the work of
the Sulus and Magindanaos. They had competi?
tion, notably from another ethnic group, called
"Camucones" in the Spanish reports of the
time (17th century). While some of them were
Moslems of sorts, many were still heathen. Their
modus operandi also differed considerably from
that of the "real" Moros. While the latter gener?
ally distinguished themselves by bravery and a
relative lack of cruelty, the former are uniformly
described as both cowardly and cruel. They never
attacked armed ships and generally steered clear
of fortified settlements. Instead they used to
watch the Moro fleets from their bases in Brunei
and Palawan, and then, knowing the defenders to
be engaged elsewhere, do their own hunting (de
la Costa 1961:321).
Another widely feared piratical group were
the Illanun of Mindanao "who appear in recorded
history as the most feared pirates in greater
Malaysia. Alone, or in combination with the
Samal and Magindanao, fleets of Illanun boats
rowed by slaves and armed with brass canon
raided islands and shipping from Sumatra to New
Guinea. There were also raids in the Central
Philippines. Spanish efforts at retaliation resulted
in the inland areas, particularly around Lake
Lanao, becoming both a sanctuary and a base for
operations" (LeBar 1975:35). What is noteworthy
here are two things: first, that the raiders did not
concentrate just on Spanish-held territories but
attacked with fine impartiality people of all kinds
and persuasions, including Moslems. Second, at
least some of the raids that ravaged the unfortu?
nate islands in the Central Philippines, including
the island of Mindoro, were the work of the
Camucones and Illanuns, who were at best only
nominally Moslems.
According to Andrew P. Vayda, the Illanun,
whom he calls "notorious pirates", taught
their nefarious "trade" to the Ibans who, in
their turn, became widely feared raiders. But
unlike their masters, they were not out to get
slaves but heads! It was the "White Rajahs"
of Sarawak who eventually put an end to
their headhunting and raiding (Vayda 1975:
111-138).
 272 PHILIPPINE QUARTERLY OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY
4. This brings me to a last point: Islam is
often said to be a "militant faith", and the
increadible speed with which it spread over the
Near and Middle East, North Africa, and Spain is
often cited as proof that it made its spiritual
conquests "with fire and sword". This is at best a
gross exaggeration and distortion of the facts. The
Christian and Jews in Moslem lands ? "people of
the book" (i.e. the Holy Bible) ? were allowed to
practice their faith without let or hindrance.
Nevertheless, there is a kernel of truth in that
view: Although the Qur'an teaches mercy towards
the weak, Islam lacks the powerful motivation
found in the Christian belief in Jesus Christ as
God-made-man who gave himself for man's
salvation to gentle the fierce warrior-instincts
of some of its converts. And the concept of
Jihad, "holy war" for the sake of the true faith,
undoubtedly did its share to reinforce warlike
inclinations with its promise of paradise for
Moslem warriors killed in battle. Contrast with
this the Christian belief in martyrdom, which
means an unresisting, passive acceptance of death
for the sake of faith!
To be fair, it must be added that as a result of
the crusades and especially the wars of the
"reconquista" on the Iberian Peninsula,
something very much akin to the idea of
"holy war" had developed amongst the
Spaniards. Killing "Moros", i.e., Moslems,
was in their eyes a meritorious work pleasing
to God. The missionaries had a hard time
restraining the misguided zeal of their country?
men who time and again spoiled their attempts
to win the Moros by gentle persuasion.
What may need stressing in this context is
that the kind of Islam practiced by those Moslem
groups seems not to have gone beyond certain ex?
ternal observations and practices. What Casimiro
Diaz, O.S.A., wrote in his Conquistas. . . (in BR
41:321) about the Lutaos (Badjaos) could
perhaps, with some modifications, also have
been said about the other Moslem groups of
Mindanao: "Never is a Lutao found who has not
been circumcised or who eats pork, and it is this
which constitutes their Mahometanism as well as
having many wives and being enemies of the
Christians; for in other respects they are atheists
This content downloaded from 128.143.23.241 on Thu, 09 Jun 2016 19:37:55 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
and do not know what the Koran is or what it
contains."
These short notes have dwelled exclusively
on the matter of piracy and slave-raiding and
thus dealt only with the misdeeds of the Moros.
It should be clearly understood that this is only
one facet of the unhappy story of Moslem
Christian relations in this country. Christian
Filipinos have undoubtedly contributed their
share of wrongs and injustices to that story.
They have thus reason to be mindful of Christ's
words to the Pharisees: "Let him who is without
sin cast the first stone." The spiritual renewal
now taking place among the Moslems in this
country (see Gowing's article in this issue), if
it were matched by a similar renewal on the
Christian side could lead to a growing realization
on both sides that what the Moslem and the
Christian faith have in common might serve as
a common ground on which the two sides can
meet as brothers who are finally ready to bury
the unhappy past and build a better and stronger
Philippines, in which both will feel at home.
REFERENCES CITED
De la Costa, Horacio, S. J.
1961 The Jesuits in the Philippines, 1581-1768.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Diaz, Casimiro, O.S.A., comp.
1718 Conquistas de las Isias Filipinas. Parte
Segunda, in Blair and Robertson, The
Philippine Islands, v. 41:317-24
LeBar, Frank
1974 Ethnic Groups of Insular Southeast Asia,
vol. 2. New Haven: HRAF Press
Schumacher, John N.
1973 Review of Cesar Adib Majul. Muslims in
the Philippines (Quezon City: University
of the Philippines Press), Philippine
Studies 22:482-86
Valdepenas, Vicente, Jr. and Germelino M. Bautista
1974 "Philippine Prehistoric Economy". Phil?
ippine Studies 22:280-96
Vayda, Andrew P.
1975 "Headhunting near and far. Antecedents
and effects of coastal raiding by Iban in
the 19th century." Sarawak Museum
Journal 23, No. 44 (N.S.): 111-38