The Philippines, circa 1765 (Bellin)

Who Discovered the Philippines?

PerryScope
Perry Diaz, Global Balita

Philippine history books have been saying that Ferdinand Magellan discovered the Philippines. But was he really the one who discovered the Philippines?

Long before Magellan landed in the Philippine archipelago, visitors and colonizers from other lands had come to our shores.  The earliest evidence of the existence of modern man — homo sapiens sapiens — in the archipelago was discovered in 1962 when a National Museum team led by Dr. Robert Fox uncovered the remains of a 22,000-year old man in the Tabon Caves of Palawan.  The team determined that the Tabon Caves were about 500,000 years old and had been inhabited for about 50,000 years.

In the late 1990s, Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography at UCLA and winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, and Peter Bellwood, Professor of Archaeology at the Australian National University, postulated that the Austronesians had their roots in Southern China.  Diamond said that they migrated to Taiwan around 3,500 B.C.  However, Bellwood believed that the Austronesian expansion started as early as 6,000 B.C.  Around 3,000 B.C., the Malayo-Polynesians — a subfamily of the Austronesians — began their migration out of Taiwan.  The first stop was northern Luzon.  Over a span of 2,000 years, the Malayo-Polynesian expansion spread southward to the rest of the Philippine archipelago and crossed the ocean to Celebes, Borneo, Timor, Java, Sumatra, Malay Peninsula, and Vietnam; westward in the Indian Ocean to Madagascar; and eastward in the Pacific Ocean to New Guinea, New Zealand, Samoa, Fiji, Marquesas, Cook, Pitcairn, Easter, and Hawaii.  Today, the Malayo-Polynesian speaking people have populated a vast area that covers a distance of about 11,000 miles from Madagascar to Hawaii, almost half the circumference of the world.

In 2002, Bellwood and Dr. Eusebio Dizon of the Archaeology Division of the National Museum of the Philippines led a team that conducted an archaeological excavation in the Batanes Islands, which lie between Taiwan and Northern Luzon.  The three-year archaeological project, financed by National Geographic, was done to prove — or disprove — the “Out of Taiwan” hypothesis for the Austronesian dispersal.  The archaeological evidence that they gathered proved that the migration from Taiwan to Batanes and Luzon started about 4,000 years ago.  For the next 500 years after the arrival of the Malayo-Polynesians in Batanes and Northern Luzon, native settlements flourished throughout the archipelago.

The Philippine islands’ proximity to the Malay Archipelago, which includes the coveted Moluccas islands — known as the “Spice Islands” — had attracted Arab traders who had virtual monopoly of the Spice Trade until 1511.  By the 9th century, Muslim traders from Malacca, Borneo, and Sumatra started coming to Sulu and Mindanao. In 1210 AD, Islam was introduced in Sulu.  An Arab known as Tuan Mashaika founded the first Muslim community in Sulu.   In 1450 AD, Shari’ful Hashem Syed Abu Bakr, a Jahore-born Arab, arrived in Sulu from Malacca.  He married the daughter of the local chieftain and established the Sultanate of Sulu.

In the early 16th century, Sharif Muhammad Kabungsuan, a Muslim preacher from Malacca arrived in Malabang in what is now Lanao del Sur and introduced Islam to the natives.  In 1515 he married a local princess and founded the Sultanate of Maguindanao with Cotabato as its capital.  By the end of the 18th century, more than 30 sultanates were established and flourished in Mindanao.  The Sultanates of Maguindanao and Sulu were the most powerful in the region.  Neither of them capitulated to Spanish dominion.

Chinese traders — who were also involved in the Spice Trade — started coming to the Philippine archipelago in the 11th century.  They went as far as Butuan and Sulu.  However, most of their trade activities were in Luzon.

In 1405, during the reign of the Ming Dynasty in China, Emperor Yung Lo claimed the island of Luzon and placed it under his empire. The Chinese called the island “Lusong” from the Chinese characters Lui Sung.  The biggest settlement of Chinese was in Lingayen in Pangasinan.  Lingayen also became the seat of the Chinese colonial government in Luzon. When Yung Lo died in 1424, the new Emperor Hongxi, Yung Lo’s son, lost interest in the colony and the colonial government was dissolved.  However, the Chinese settlers in Lingayen — known as “sangleys” — remained and prospered.  Our national hero Dr. Jose P. Rizal descended from the sangleys.

The lucrative Spice Trade attracted the European powers.  In 1511 a Portuguese armada led by Alfonso d’Albuquerque attacked Malacca and deposed the sultanate. Malacca’s strategic location made it the hub of the Spice Trade; and whoever controlled Malacca controlled the Spice Trade.  At that time, Malacca had a population of 50,000 and 84 languages were spoken.

It is interesting to note that in 1515, Tome Pires — the apothecary of Portuguese Prince Alfonso and author of Suma Oriental (Eastern Account) — during his travel to Malacca, wrote: “The [Luzones] are almost one people, and in Malacca, there is no division between them…They were already building many houses and shops. They are a useful people; they are hardworking… In Minjam, near Malacca, there must be five hundred Luzoes, some of them important men.”  It would seem to me that those 500 Luzoes (Luzones) were the first recorded Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).

One of the officers under d’Albuquerque was Ferdinand Magellan.  Magellan stayed in Malacca for a few years and spent some time reconnoitering the surrounding areas.  He had an idea.  He returned to Portugal to convince the Portuguese king to subsidize an expedition to find a westward route to the Spice Islands.  The Portuguese king rejected his proposal and he went to Spain to get support from the Spanish king.  He succeeded in convincing the Spanish king.

In 1519, Magellan sailed westward from Seville in search of the Spice Islands.  On March 16, 1521 — on the Feast of St. Lazarus — he landed in the Philippine archipelago.  He named the archipelago “Islas de San Lazaro” and claimed it for the King of Spain.

What Magellan found in the Philippines were a peaceful people with all the trappings of a civilized society.  When he arrived in Cebu, the Cebuanos welcomed him and his party, and lavished them with hospitality.  The Cebuanos were easily converted to Christianity and they pledged allegiance — without bloodshed — to the king of Spain.  However, Lapu-Lapu, the chief of the neighboring Mactan island refused to pledge allegiance to the Spanish king.

On April 27, 1521, irked by Lapu-Lapu’s rejection, Magellan attacked Mactan.  Lapu-Lapu and his warriors met them on the shores of Mactan.  Magellan was killed in battle; thus, ending his dream of reaching the Spice Islands by way of a westward route. History has been kind by crediting him for the “discovery” of the Philippines… or rather it should it be the re-discovery of the Philippines.

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NOTE: I originally published this article on April 13, 2007. With the reenactment of the Balanghai expedition, there is growing interest in pre-Hispanic Philippine history. Like someone one said, “Know history, know self.”

Baybayin

Baybayin is a pre-Spanish Philippine writing system. It is a member of the Brahmic family and is recorded as being in use in the 16th century. It continued to be used during the Spanish colonization of the Philippines up until the late 19th Century.

The term Baybay literally means “to spell” in Tagalog. Baybayin was extensively documented by the Spanish. Some have attributed it the name Alibata, but this name is incorrect. (The term “Alibata” was coined by Paul Rodriguez Verzosa after the arrangement of letters of the Arabic alphabet  alif, ba, ta (alibata), “f” having been eliminated for euphony’s sake.” ) Versoza’s reasoning for creating this word was unfounded because no evidence of the baybayin was ever found in that part of the Philippines and it has absolutely no relationship to the Arabic language. Furthermore, no ancient script native to Southeast Asia followed the Arabic arrangement of letters, and regardless of Versoza’s connection to the word alibata, its absence from all historical records indicates that it is a totally modern creation. The present author does not use this word in reference to any ancient Philippine script.

Modern scripts in the Philippines, descended from Baybayin, are Hanunó’o, Buhid, Tagbanwa, the Kapampangan script and the Bisaya script.
Baybayin is one of a dozen or so individual writing systems used in Southeast Asia, nearly all of which are abugidas where any consonant is pronounced with the inherent vowel a following it— diacritical marks being used to express other vowels (this vowel occurs with greatest frequency in Sanskrit, and also probably in all Philippine languages).

The term Baybay literally means “to spell” in Tagalog. Baybayin was extensively documented by the Spanish. Some have attributed it the name Alibata, but this name is incorrect. (The term “Alibata” was coined by Paul Rodriguez Verzosa after the arrangement of letters of the Arabic alphabet  alif, ba, ta (alibata), “f” having been eliminated for euphony’s sake.” ) Versoza’s reasoning for creating this word was unfounded because no evidence of the baybayin was ever found in that part of the Philippines and it has absolutely no relationship to the Arabic language. Furthermore, no ancient script native to Southeast Asia followed the Arabic arrangement of letters, and regardless of Versoza’s connection to the word alibata, its absence from all historical records indicates that it is a totally modern creation. The present author does not use this word in reference to any ancient Philippine script.

Modern scripts in the Philippines, descended from Baybayin, are Hanunó’o, Buhid, Tagbanwa, the Kapampangan script and the Bisaya script.
Baybayin is one of a dozen or so individual writing systems used in Southeast Asia, nearly all of which are abugidas where any consonant is pronounced with the inherent vowel a following it— diacritical marks being used to express other vowels (this vowel occurs with greatest frequency in Sanskrit, and also probably in all Philippine languages).

Origins

Baybayin was noted by the Spanish priest Pedro Chirino in 1604 and Antonio de Morga in 1609 to be known by most, and was generally used for personal writings, poetry, etc. According to William Henry Scott, there were some datus from the 1590s who could not sign affidavits or oaths, and witnesses who could not sign land deeds in the 1620s. There is no data on when this level of literacy was first achieved, and no history of the writing system itself. There are at least six theories about the origins of Baybayin.

Kawi

Kawi originated in Java, and was used across much of Maritime Southeast Asia.
Laguna Copperplate Inscription.

The Laguna Copperplate Inscription is the earliest known written document found in the Philippines.
Butuan Ivory Seal

It is a legal document, and has inscribed on it a date of Saka era 822, corresponding to April 21, 900 AD Laguna Copperplate Inscription#cite note-bibingka-1. It was written in the Kawi script in a variety of Old Malay containing numerous loanwords from Sanskrit and a few non-Malay vocabulary elements whose origin is ambiguous between Old Javanese and Old Tagalog. One hypothesis therefore reasons that, since Kawi is the earliest attestation of writing on the Philippines, then Baybayin may be descended from Kawi.

A second example of Kawi script can be seen on the Butuan Ivory Seal, though it has not been dated.

An earthenware burial jar, called the “Calatagan Pot,” found in Batangas is inscribed with characters strikingly similar to Baybayin, and is claimed to have been inscribed ca. 1300 AD. However, its authenticity has not yet been proven.

Old Sumatran “Malay” scripts

Another hypothesis states that a script or script used to write one of the Malay languages was adopted and became Baybayin. In particular, the Pallava script from Sumatra is attested to the 7th century.

Sulawesi

The Liboginese and/or Makassarese scripts of Sulawesi could have been introduced or borrowed and adapted into Baybayin.

Old Assamese

Assamese is a variant of Eastern Nagari script, a precursor to Devanagari. This hypothesis states that a version of this script was introduced to the Philippines via Bengal, which evolved into Baybayin.

Cham

Finally, an early Cham script from Champa—in what is now southern Vietnam and southeastern Cambodia—could have been introduced or borrowed and adapted into Baybayin.

Characteristics

The writing system is an abugida system using consonant-vowel combinations. Each character, written in its basic form, is a consonant ending with the vowel “A”. To produce consonants ending with the other vowel sounds, a mark is placed either above the consonant (to produce an “E” or “I” sound) or below the consonant (to produce an “O” or “U” sound). The mark is called a kudlit. The kudlit does not apply to stand-alone vowels. Vowels themselves have their own glyphs. There is only one symbol for D or R as they were allophones in most languages of the Philippines, where D occurred in initial, final, pre-consonantal or post-consonantal positions and R in intervocalic positions. The grammatical rule has survived in modern Filipino, so that when a d is between two vowels, it becomes an r, as in the words dangál (honour) and marangál (honourable), or dunong (knowledge) and marunong (knowledgeable), and even raw for daw (he said, she said, they said, it was said, allegedly, reportedly, supposedly) and rin for din (also, too) after vowels. This variant of the script is not used for Ilokano, Pangasinan, Bikolano, and other Philippine languages to name a few, as these languages have separate symbols for D and R.

Two styles of writing

Pre-Spanish “style”
In the original form of the Baybayin script, a stand-alone consonant (consonants not ending with any vowel sound) cannot be indicated unambiguously; therefore, such consonants were simply not written, and the reader would fill in the missing consonants through context. For example, the letters n and k in a word like bundók (mountain) were omitted, so that it was spelled bu-do.
Virama Kudlit “style”

The original writing method was particularly difficult for the Spanish priests who were translating books into the native language. Because of this, Francisco López introduced his own kudlit in 1620 that cancelled the implicit a vowel sound. The kudlit was in the form of a “+” sign, in reference to Christianity. This cross-shaped kudlit functions exactly the same as the virama in the Devanagari script of India. In fact, Unicode calls this kudlit the Tagalog Sign Virama. See sample above in Characteristics Section.

“Nga” character

A single character represented “nga”. The current version of the Filipino alphabet still retains “ng” as a digraph, viz, a single letter composed of two characters.

Punctuation

Words written in baybayin were written in a continuous flow, and the only form of punctuation was a single vertical line, or more often, a pair of vertical lines (||). These vertical lines fulfill the function of a comma, period, or unpredictably separate sets of words.

Usage

Baybayin historically was used in Tagalog and to a lesser extent Kapampangan speaking areas. Its use spread to Ilokanos when the Spanish promoted its use with the printing of Bibles. Related scripts, such as Hanunóo, Buhid, and Tagbanwa are still used today, along with Kapampangan script. Currently, Baybayin itself is experiencing an artistic revival of sorts, used to convey a Pre-Hispanic feeling as well as a symbol of Filipino identity. Most activist groups used Baybayin as part of their logo using the script for the acronyms (such as the Baybayin K for Anakbayan) alongside the use of a baybayin-inspired latin script. Baybayin tattoos and brush calligraphy are growing in popularity. It is also used in the Latest Philippine Banknotes Issued Last Quarter of 2010. The word used in the bills was “Pilipino” and is used not only as artistic design but a security feature.

From Wikipedia