Manila – Whenever I see Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao fighting a Mexican boxer, I look at it in a historical context, as if I am witnessing a struggle between one of the Visayan warriors named by Spanish chroniclers as “Pintados” and a modern-day Aztec soldier from the New World. After spending ten months in Mexico for research, I found out that the Philippines and Mexico have numerous things in common. Though Filipinos and Mexicans were rivals in boxing, they treated me as a compatriot because of our shared history. The Mexican government even sent an air force combat squadron to help us liberate from the Japanese in 1944. A monument in Mexico City still stands to honor the fallen members of this heroic team called “Esquadron 201.
This year marks two historical events in Philippine colonial history under Spain that can be considered as major turning points. First, 2015 marks the 450th year since the first group of Spaniards led by Miguel López de Legazpi reached the Philippine Islands in 1565. The discovery of the return route to the New World by Fray Andres de Urdaneta paved the way for the gradual colonization of this archipelago. A few years later, Manila was declared the capital city, and the Philippine Islands became a part of the overseas Spanish empire for the next three centuries” (Fish, 2011, pp. 60–61). Second, this year is also the 200th anniversary of the sailing of the last galleon “Magallanes” from Acapulco to Manila in 1815. This lucrative maritime trade was ultimately abolished owing to the Mexican War of Independence against Spain. In fact, the port of Acapulco was occupied by the Mexican revolutionaries who stopped the coming of the Manila galleons, popularly known as “la nao de China” (Fish, 2011, pp. 483–484) As a result, this link between the Philippines and Mexico was broken for good.
Of course, these events will once more highlight the ties that bind the Philippines and its former colonizer. These important dates in history are expected to add luster to the annual celebration of the Philippine–Spanish Friendship Day enacted into law by former Senator Edgardo J. Angara in 2002. However, one must be reminded that Mexico played a much bigger role in this transpacific connection.
Galleon Trade
For more than two centuries, the Philippines and Mexico were both under the Spanish rule. To govern her colonies effectively, Spain put up viceroyalties, such as New Spain (Mexico) and Peru. Under New Spain, the Philippines was administered by a governor who directly reports to the Viceroy in Mexico City. Usually selected periodically, the appointed governor of the Philippines was either an aristocrat or a skilled military officer, and also addressed as captain general (Fish, 2011, p. 41). People, letters, ideas, and products from Europe first reached America before they arrived in Asia, whereas their counterparts from Asia passed the Americas first before they were brought to Europe. The bond between Mexicans and Filipinos was quite possibly stronger than that between Spaniards and Filipinos. In the words of Rodrigo Rivero Lake, this political arrangement “was the first and only instance in history in which a colony colonized and governed another colony, including it in its system and government for 250 years and covering a large distance being separated by the Pacific Ocean” (Ocampo, 2010, p. 107).
In fact, Mexico subsidized the Philippines, which remained a Spanish colony and survived the early attempt of abandonment by the Spaniards. Originally, the income of the Spanish colonial government in Manila was derived from tributes or taxes paid by the Filipinos and Chinese living in the capital or residing in the different islands of the archipelago. The Chinese residents and merchants in the city may have paid their taxes in silver, whereas the natives were paying in kind. The taxes received were used for the salaries of civil servants in the government, military officers and soldiers, and religious individuals in the church, as well as for the expenditures of different institutions, such as hospitals, schools, and other civic projects. However, the sources would have never been able to support all the government’s annual expenses. This was because of rampant corruption committed by government officials in the bureaucracy and the so-called conquistadores in a land distribution system known as “encomienda.” As a result, the government depended on the yearly subsidy known as “Real Situado” provided to the colony by the viceroyalty in Mexico City (Fish, 2011, pp. 83–84; Bauzon, 1970, pp. 4–5).
As a Spanish colony, Benito Legarda Jr. described the Philippines as follows:
“…The Philippines was ruled from Mexico and could not be cut off from it administratively. Furthermore, it was the most remote of Spain’s colonial outposts, being separated from the court of Madrid by the whole width of the Atlantic, the North American continent, and the Pacific. It was difficult to send out administrators, officials, soldiers and colonists; and the profits from the galleon trade, in which the entire Spanish community in the Philippines could participate, was the only lure which could induce a sufficient number of Spaniards to go to the distant archipelago and help to carry out the policies of the Crown” (Legarda, 1955, p. 355).
Interestingly, the said subsidy, usually amounting to 250,000 Mexican pesos, did not come from the Royal Treasury based in Mexico City but consisted of custom taxes imposed on products brought by the galleons in Acapulco. After these were collected, the subsidies were sent to Manila by the returning galleon. Therefore, the Spanish viceroyalty was not preoccupied by appropriating funds for the Philippines, because the Mexican buyers were indirectly paying for the financial support of the said colony (Fish, 2011, pp. 84–85). In addition, the value of the “Real Situado” was not standard; although it was fixed at 140,000 pesos in 1700, the actual amount depended on the needs of the moment (Legarda, 1955, p. 357).
The connection between Mexico and the Philippines was made possible thanks to the existence of a transpacific trade traversed by the galleons, which lasted for two and a half centuries. The period is a major historical theme for historians interested in the Spanish colonial experience shared by these two former colonies. When maritime trade connected these two countries geographically separated by the Pacific Ocean, more than a hundred galleon ships succeeded in arriving to their destinations, while some did not make it because of typhoons, piracy, and other reasons. Compared with the infamous “tornaviaje” (return voyage), the trip from Mexico to the Philippines was always faster and less dangerous. The former took five to six months, whereas the latter only took two to three months. In fact, the maiden voyage of the Legazpi expedition only lasted for a little less than three months. They embarked from the Puerto de Navidad on November 21, 1564 and arrived in Samar on February 13, 1565 (Fish, 2011, p. 63).
Mestizaje
The complexity of mixed-race populations in Latin America became more sophisticated as migrant Filipinos first came in during the early years of the Galleon Trade. These migrants were mostly indentured laborers in the galleons who were forced to abandon their families and suffered tremendous hardships and maltreatment aboard aside from meager salaries and provisions. Upon reaching Acapulco, some were enslaved and sold to Mexico and other parts of the New World to replenish the native population decimated by Spanish disease. Others, however, chose desertion and intermarriage with the native women. These Filipinos found freedom in a new environment and started new lives with the local population (Guevarra, 2011, pp. 391–393).
Recent studies show that more Filipinos migrated to Mexico than Mexicans who permanently settled in the Philippines. A scholar named Edward Slack Jr. estimated that approximately 75,000 Filipinos settled in Acapulco, San Blas, Costa Grande, and other parts of Mexico during the galleon era. From the port of Acapulco, they transferred to Oaxaca, Pueblo, Michoacán, Jalisco, Puerto Vallarta, Guanajuato, Vera Cruz, and Mexico City. Others went to Baja and Alta California. Another scholar named Ricardo Pinzon estimates that around 200,000 descendants of these Filipinos currently reside in Mexico. Given the length of time that they have been in Mexico, these Filipino descendants have been absorbed into the general population and now culturally identify themselves as Mexicans (Guevarra, 2011, pp. 399–400).
Historian Jaime Veneracion (1998, pp. 21–22) found that some Filipinos participated during the Mexican War of Independence against Spain. First was Ramon Fabie, a Filipino who served as lieutenant under Fr. Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla when he proclaimed Mexican independence on September 16, 1810. Later, Fabie was hanged with several others for his role in the rebellion. Second were the two Filipino brigade commanders under General Jose Maria Morelos whose army came from the state of Guerrero. They were Francisco Mongoy and Isidoro Montes de Oca, who were regarded as folk heroes in Mexico. Under Morelos, roughly 200 Filipino-Mexicans joined their revolutionary struggle and later served under General Vicente Guerrero.
Exchange and Acculturation
Once Filipinos were integrated with the multiethnic communities, they were also able to introduce their own practices and habits from their own homeland. One of these is the knowledge of making tuba wine from the coconuts. Referred to as “tuba fresca” or “vino de cocos,” its fame became so widespread in various parts of Mexico that it became the common beverage of the natives, especially in Colima and Zacatula. When it threatened the sale of Castilian wine imported from Spain, the colonial government decreed its ban, threatening the deportation of the Filipinos. Up to now, it is still called “tuba” by the Mexicans (Guevarra, 2011, pp. 394–395).
Along with coconuts and nipa huts, the Filipinos introduced the mango de Manila, tamarind, rice, and various medicinal plants. Moreover, they taught Mexicans how to make kilawin, known as “ceviche,” carabao (known by 1737 in Mexico), and the spectacle of cockfighting (Agoncillo, 1990, pp. 86–87).
Conversely, Filipinos borrowed many agricultural products and seeds from Mexico. These included maize (corn), avocado, guava, maguey, tobacco, cacao bean, pineapple, arrowroot, peanut, lima beans, yams, balimbing, cassava, chico, papaya, zapote, tomato, and squash. Medicinal plants included tuberose, spider lily, canna, Mexican poppy, camachile, ipil-ipil, various peppers, lantana, cactus, madre de cacao, periwinkle, campanella, and an assortment of dye plants, including mimosa, indigo, and achuete (Guevarra, 2011, p. 395).
Moreover, Mexicans and the Filipinos exchanged words. Mexican words or “Mexicanismos” coming from the Aztec Nahuatl language, entered many Philippine languages. These included achuete, atole, avocado, cahuete, cacao, caimito, calabaza, camachile, camote, calachuche, chico, chocolate, coyote, nana(y), tata(y), tinagui, tocayo, zacate, and zapote, among others. Words that were originally Nahuatl that became Filipino terms include xicama-tl (singkamas), tianquiztli (tiyangge), cachuatl (kawkaw, or chocolate), xoco-atl (tsokolate), tamalli (tamales), chayohtli (sayote), tocaitl (tocayo), and chilli (sili), among others. From the Philippines, Mexico got tuba (tuba fresca), ilang-ilang (hilanhilan), and Parian (Agoncillo, 1990, p. 87).
Religious and Other Cultural Practices
Owing to Spanish colonialism, Catholicism was strongly introduced and propagated by the missionaries in Latin America and the Philippines. In addition, Mexico sent many of its clergy from various religious orders to convert the people of the Philippines. It resulted to the rapid spread of the Catholic faith, which also led to the popularization of devotion to the Virgin Mary. In fact, many religious images from Mexico came to the Philippines that can still be found in Filipino Catholic churches. These include the very popular La Virgen de Guadalaupe, La Virgen de la Salud from Patzcuaro, La Virgen de San Juan de Dos Lagos from Zapopan, La Virgen de Antipolo, and the Cristo Negro from Guiyapo, among others (Guevarra, 2011, p. 397).
Mexicans also introduced “serenata,” which is equivalent to the Filipino “harana.” Both countries celebrate Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) every first of November, Los Posadas (Simbang Gabi) every December, and the practice of “quinceañera” (debut) for young women (Guevarra, 2011, p. 397).
Conclusion
The bond between the Philippines and Mexico is not limited to boxing. We Filipinos share a deeper connection with our brothers and sisters on the other side of the hemisphere that can be seen in our shared history, culture, religion, and blood. By looking back to our past, we can indeed discover a lot, including the link between Filipinos and Mexicans that spans half a millennium.
Finally, let us be reminded of these words:
“…The cultural exchanges of food, agricultural products, language, and other influences that took place between Filipino and Mexican indios and mestizos established the foundation for their continued interrelationships. Though Spain colonized both Mexico and the Philippines, it was Mexican and Filipino interaction on an intimate, local levels that initiated the transpacific cultural and human exchange as it exists today, which has influenced both countries tremendously” (Guevarra, 2011, pp. 393–394).
Viva Mexico! Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!
*The writer is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of the Philippines Diliman. He was one of the annotators of the book Galleon Sources from Mexican Archives (2013) published by National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP).
