The Philippine Islands / A Political, Geographical, Ethnographical, Social and Commercial History of the Philippine Archipelago, Embracing the Whole Period of Spanish Rule

by F.R.G.S. John Foreman

There is good reason to surmise that, at some remote period, these Islands and the Islands of Formosa and Borneo were united, and possibly also they conjointly formed a part of the Asiatic mainland. Many of the islets are mere coral reefs, and some of the larger islands are so distinctly of coral formation that, regarded together with the numerous volcanic evidences, one is induced to believe that the Philippine Archipelago is the result of a stupendous upheaval by volcanic action.[1] At least it seems apparent that no autochthonous population existed on these lands in their island form. The first settlers were probably the Aetas, called also Negritos and Balugas, who may have drifted northwards from New Guinea and have been carried by the strong currents through the San Bernadino Straits and round Punta Santiago until they reached the still waters in the neighbourhood of Corregidor Island, whilst others were carried westwards to the tranquil Sulu Sea, and travelling thence northwards would have settled on the Island of Negros. It is a fact that for over a century after the Spanish conquest, Negros Island had no other inhabitants but these mountaineers and escaped criminals from other islands.

The sturdy races inhabiting the Central Luzon highlands, decidedly superior in physique and mental capacity to the Aetas, may be of Japanese origin, for shortly after the conquest by Legaspi a Spanish galley cruising off the north coast of Luzon fell in with Japanese, who probably penetrated to the interior of that island up the Rio Grande de Cagayán. Tradition tells us how the Japanese used to sail down the east coast of Luzon as far as the neighbourhood of Lamon Bay, where they landed and, descending the little rivers which flowed into the Lake of Bay, settled in that region which was called by the first Spanish conquerors Pagsanján Province, and which included the Laguna Province of to-day, with a portion of the modern Tayabas Province.

A Visayan Girl

Either the Japanese extended their sphere from the Lake of Bay shore, or, as some assert (probably erroneously), shipwrecked Japanese went up the Pansipít River to the Bómbon Lake: the fact remains that Taal, with the Bómbon Lake shore, was a Japanese settlement, and even up to now the Taaleños have characteristics differing from those of the pure Malay immigrant descendants. The Philippine patriot, Dr. José Rizal, was a good Japanese-Malay type.

A Tagálog Girl

The Tagálogs, who occupy a small portion of Luzon Island, chiefly the provinces of Batangas, Laguna, Rizal, and Bulacan, are believed to be the cross-breed descendants of these Japanese immigrants. At the period of the Spanish conquest the Tao ílog, that is to say, “the man who came by the river,” afterwards corrupted into the more euphonious name of Tagálog, occupied only the lands from the south shore of Laguna de Bay southwards. Some traded with the Malay settlers at Maynila (as the city on the Pasig River was then called) and, little by little, radicated themselves in the Manila suburbs of Quiapo, Sampáloc, and Santa Cruz.[2]

From the West, long before the Spanish conquest, there was a great influx of Malays, who settled on the shores and the lowlands and drove the first settlers (Aetas) to the mountains. Central Luzon and the Lake environs being already occupied, they spread all over the vacant lands and adjacent islands south of Luzon. These expeditions from Malesia were probably accompanied by Mahometan propagandists, who had imparted to the Malays some notions, more or less crude, of their religion and culture, for at the time of Legaspiʼs arrival in Manila we find he had to deal with two chiefs, or petty kings, both assuming the Indian title of Rajah, whilst one of them had the Mahometan Arabic name of Soliman. Hitherto the Tao ílog, or Tagálog, had not descended the Pasig River so far as Manila, and the religious rites of the Tondo-Manila people must have appeared to Legaspi similar to the Mahometan rites,[3] for in several of his despatches to his royal master he speaks of these people as Moros. All the dialects spoken by the Filipinos of Malay and Japanese descent have their root in the pure Malay language. After the expulsion of all the adult male Japanese Lake settlers in the 17th century, it is feasible to suppose that the language of the males who took their place in the Lake district and intermarried there, should prevail over the idiom of the primitive settlers, and possibly this amalgamation of speech accounts for the difference between the Tagálog dialect and others of these islands peopled by Malays.

The Malay immigration must have taken place several generations prior to the coming of the Spaniards, for at that period the lowland occupants were already divided into peoples speaking different dialects and distinguishing themselves by groups whose names seem to be associated with the districts they inhabited, such as Pampanga, Iloco, and Cagayán; these denominations are probably derived from some natural condition, such as Pámpang, meaning a river embankment, Ilog, a river, Cauáyan, a bamboo, etc.