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It started when Juan de Salcedo,
Legaspi's Mexican nephew, rescued some
Chinese traders that were held by the
Taal Tagalogs as unwelcomed intruders.
The Spanish Manila Government gave these
rescued traders all the facilities to
return home to China.
After a short time, these rescued
Chinese traders gratefully returned to
Manila with ships filled with silk,
tassels, porcelain, jade, sandal wood
furniture, piedras de China, preserved
food and many other Chinese products
that amazed the Conquistadores headed by
Miguel Lopez de Legaspi.
It did not take long for the Spaniards
to understand that the growth of their
newly organized Filipino State could
only survive with the help of Chinese
traders. The Spanish Missionaries
quickly learned Chinese and forcefully
worked to convert the Chinese traders in
Catholicism. In the 1950's, the first
bi-lingual Spanish Chinese books
published in Asia appeared in Binondo.
These were “Shilu” or the Apologia for
Christianity and the “Doctrina
Christiana” of xilographic and
typographic Chino Cristiano printers,
Juan De Vera Kenyong and Tomas Pinpin,
who are also our first writers in
Spanish… Both books were published in
Chinese characters and in Spanish
letters. The great fusion of Spanish
and Chinese culture began in Binondo, an
ancient center of Catholic Christianity
next to Intramuros.
Since only male Chinese were allowed by
China to come to these Islands,
previously known to them as “land of
snakes and savages”, the Spanish Friar
Missionaries got busy in marrying them
with already Christianized Indio-Tagala
women, thus creating a new Christian and
Hispanic Asian race that was classified
as Mestizo for social identity and
cedula purposes.
Up to the 1980's, the “Diccionario de
Filipinismos” of Wenceslao Retana
defines “Mestizo” as individuals who are
descendants of Chinos Christianos and
their indigenous or Indio wives.
Binondo society was classified into
three Gremios or trade unions. There
was the Gremio de Chinos Cristianos, the
Gremo de Mestizos (composed, as we said,
of the descendants of Sino-Tagalog
marriages) and the Gremio de Naturales
or Indios (i.e. Indigenous Tagalog)
Because of trade and the Dominican
Universidad de Santo Tomas and the
Binondo parochial schools, those that
belonged to both the Gremio de Chinos
Cristianos and the Gremio de Mestizos
became predominantly Spanish speaking.
These two Spanish speaking Gremios
literally made Spanish the Official
Language of the newly-born Filipino
State in the centuries to come. Since
the members of this two Gremios were
taxpayers of King Philippe (Felipe II)
of Spain, they were also called
“Felipenos” or followers and supporters
of Felipe. But the phoneme “E” is
inexistent in old Tagalog and this led
to the oral replacement of “E” for “I”
eventually turning “Felipeno” into
“Filipino” of “Pilipino”
In time, Spanish Peninsulares (from the
Iberian Peninsula) and Insulares
(Islanders), called Criollos,
intermarried with Chino-Christiano and
Mestizo folk from the mentioned Gremios
or Sectores thus creating a more
numerous new Mestizaje group called
Mestizo Terciado, ---- a beautiful mix
of native, Chinese and Spanish stock.
Present day examples of this Mestizo
Terciado ancestry are the descendants of
the Ongpin-Domingo marriage. The Roces,
the Tuason, the Delgado, and even the
Zobel-Roxas families, are also Mestizos
Terciados not to mention Manuel Luiz
Quezon, Jose Rizal, Padre Jose Burgos
and Marcelo H. del Pilar.
With this historical and socio-cultural
backdrop, it is then easier to
understand why the Santa Cruz de
Hiloñgos, then miraculously found in the
center of Binundok, has been always
venerated, with joysticks, candles and
sampaguita garlands, by all Binondeños
both in the old Binondo church and at
the altar in a corner near Ongpin (San
Jacinto) and Nueva streets.
The La Naval procession of Nuestra
Señora del Santisimo Rosario, the
Patroness of the old Chino Cristiano and
Mestizo Gremios, becomes as Binondeño as
the Paypay dance, the mariposa Bella or
Paruparung bukid, the playful El Pipit
as well as the super-festive Jota
Sevillana that displays the main product
of the galleon trade: the silk-tasseled
and exquisitely embroidered Manton de
Manila.
ISLA DE BINONDO is a native Filipino
ballet of World class proportions made
possible by the Choreographic genius of
Bong Jose, the very skillful musical
direction of Lito Vale Cruz and the
energetic performance of the wonderful
Bayanihan dancers. With this obra, the
Bayanihan Dance Company goes beyond
folk-dance to become an amazingly
spectacular cultural history teller
through dance, music and effects that
are purely Filipino.
Viva, Ole and Mabuhay!!! |
