The Filipino State (Another way of looking at Philippine history): Part 3
3. What was the status of the Filipino State in 1571?
Its status was that of a Province of Spain administered through the vice-kingdom of New Spain which is Mexico today.
At the beginning, the Filipino State was treated as a missionary and military outpost by its creators. The Spanish military was there to guard and protect the missionaries and the scant Spanish civil population that came to settle in the Islands.
But this situation does not affect the other fact that the constituents of the newly formed Filipino State were primarily the Spanish Conquistadores followed by the indigenous (mostly Tagalog, Pampango and Visayan) and Chinese population that accepted the King of Spain as their sovereign.
Naturally, by accepting the Spanish King as theirs, all those mentioned became Spanish citizens in fact. And as Spanish citizens they shared in whatever attributes of sovereignty that Spain had at that time.
This is the reason why Spain was referred to as their State’s Mother Country. And this also may explain why Filipinos stood with Spain, for almost four hundred years, against all the several invasions of their islands launched by the Dutch, Limahong and the British.
We may add that under the United States of America, the Filipinos stood by her against Japan because they lived with the thought of sharing with Americans their country’s attribute of sovereignty even if General MacArthur, unlike Sim�n de Anda, chosed to flee from the Philippines leaving Filipinos to themselves with the phrase ‘I shall return’.
The tragedy of the Filipino war veterans waiting for American compensations in the form of a grant of U.S. citizenship with all its benefits, is a drama that we are witnessing up to now and well into the new millennium. But this fact is merely noted as a footnote to the relative “attribute of sovereignty” due the existing Filipino State.
Going back to the establishment of the Filipino State in 1571, we moreover note that when the reigning King of Spain became Felipe II, the name Felipeno acquired a more pragmatic connotation. It meant ‘one who paid tribute, or taxes’, to Felipe. Thus Felipenos were also the Indios who rendered service in his name and the Chinos Cristianos that paid the necessary licencia (a form of tax) to him for doing business in the Islas Felipenas. The other Felipenos were, or course, the Spanish Conquistadores and Frailes that served Felipe II.
(As a linguistic note, we remind our co-Filipinos that the two letters “E” in Felipeno were eventually replaced with the letter “I” because the indigenous Al�bata did not have neither an “E” nor an “O” in its composition. Being influenced by Arabic it only had three vowels or phonemes, —-namely A, I, U).
Other articles by Guillermo Gomez Rivera
- A national language lesson from Puerto Rico - December 10, 2008
- Ang Pinanggalingan ng 'Tatarin' - April 18, 2008
- The Thomasites, Before and After - April 18, 2008
- The Filipino State (Another way of looking at Philippine history): Part 7 of 7 Parts - April 18, 2008
- The Filipino State (Another way of looking at Philippine history): Part 6 - April 18, 2008
- The Filipino State (Another way of looking at Philippine history): Part 5 - April 18, 2008
- The Filipino State (Another way of looking at Philippine history): Part 4 - April 18, 2008
- The Filipino State (Another way of looking at Philippine history): Parts 1-2 - April 18, 2008
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