| Byline: Ambeth R. Ocampo
"ONE of the earliest European maps that shows a part of what is now the Philippines is preserved in the British Museum in London. It is basically a sketch by Francisco Rodrigues drawn in Malacca sometime in 1513, that is, eight years before the Magellan expedition. How come this was never taught to me in school? Why does textbook history seem to begin with Magellan? Rodrigues based his sketch on the accounts of both Malay and Chinese traders who visited the Philippines and docked in Malacca. The drawing may not resemble the size and shape of the present Philippine archipelago but looking at it makes me imagine how the Philippines and its inhabitants were described, how stories were embroidered to make this uncharted area a place of wonder and curiosity.
Modern Filipinos will be amused to learn that there was a belief that the Garden of Eden, or the fabled land of Ophir was to be found in the Far East. Thus, when Jose Rizal refers to the Philippines as Nuestro Perdido Eden (Our Paradise Lost), he is not entirely off the mark. The Philippines was one of the candidates for the Garden of Eden, and the yellow, luscious and sweet Philippine mango was the forbidden fruit on the Tree of Good and Evil. Imagine Adam and Eve tempted with a mango instead of an apple. Now that is iconographically radical as renaming what we know as the "California Maki" served in Japanese restaurants as the "Manila Maki." Gene Gonzalez notes that the California Maki is a Japanese roll with pickled rice, kani (fish made to look and taste like crab) and avocado. The Filipinos substituted the avocado with our ripe mango, but still called it a "California Maki." It is a "Manila Maki." As you can see, revision is not just for historians but also for chefs and cooks. My brief meeting in Manila with the ambassador of Portugal and a delegation of historians led by Ivo Carniero de Sousa of the Portuguese Center for the Study of Southeast Asia (Cepesa) opened my eyes to another unexplored angle in our pre-Hispanic history. Portugal figures not only in our cartographic history but also in economic history through the Manila-Macau Trade. Then there is a Portuguese footnote in our religious history. While many Filipinos are familiar with the Virgin of Fatima and the story of the Marian apparitions before three shepherd children in Portugal in 1917, few know that an older image of Our Lady venerated in the Ermita Church might be of Portuguese origin.
Textbook history states that when Miguel Lopez de Legazpi came to the Philippines in 1565 he found in Cebu an image of the Sto. Nino being venerated by the people in a hut. This image of Flemish-make has been thought to be the same image Magellan gave the wife of Humabon in 1521. This is proof of the Spanish claim to the archipelago. Later, when Legazpi reached Luzon in 1571, he found an image of the Virgin Mary being worshipped in an area that is now Ermita. Contrary to popular belief, this ancient image of the Virgin Mary is not a pre-colonial anito or likha. While much has been written about the miracles of the Virgin of Ermita not much is being done to validate the suggestion that this wooden image of European make was brought by unknown Portuguese missionaries. If the Virgin of Ermita antedated Legazpi's arrival, and it is indeed Portuguese, then we do have to revise the chronology of our contact with Europeans. The 16th century Spanish claim over the Philippines is not as firm as we previously thought.
Tome Pires in his Suma Oriental (1513) wrote that: "The Lucoes are about ten days sail beyond Borneo. They are nearly all heathen; they have no king, but are ruled by groups of elders. They are a robust people, little thought of in Malacca. They have two or three junks, at the most. They take the merchandise to Borneo and from there they come to Malacca.
"The Borneans go to the lands of the Lucoes to buy gold, and foodstuffs as well, and the gold which they bring to Malacca is from the Lucoes and from the surrounding islands which are countless; and they all have more or less trade with one another. And the gold of those islands where they trade is of a low quality-indeed very low quality.
"The Lucoes have in their country plenty of foodstuffs, and wax and honey; and they take the same merchandise from here as the Borneans take. They are almost one people...they are a useful people; they are hardworking..."
It has been suggested that the Lucoes is actually Luzon. Pires never visited the Philippines so how could he know? The great Marco Polo (not the Chinese restaurant in Manila) in his narrative, mentions an archipelago of 7,488 islands in the general area of the Philippines. How could Marco Polo provide an exact count of the islands when even the modern Filipino cannot give a round figure without asking whether you want the number of islands during high tide or low tide? "
A look into our early history through travel accounts provides a fascinating mix of truth and fiction. My favorite being the account of Ibn Battuta who allegedly visited the Philippines around 1345 and visited the Kingdom of Princess Urduja somewhere north of Java. In 1889, Rizal remarked that Urduja's realm was in the Philippines thus, spinning a curious yarn that led to the Amazon princess being from Pangasinan. There is so much material, so much to read and little time.
Comments are welcome at [email protected] | |
