The following excerpts are lifted from The Wicked
Accomplices, the first chapter of the best-selling
book, The Aquinos Of Tarlac by national artist,
Nick Joaquin, and first published in 1972 by Solar
Publishing Corporation in Mandaluyong, Metro Manila
in the Philippines. The webmaster is highly
recommending the book to everyone.
 
The Americans quickly....had grasped a fact the Spaniards
had long been aware of: that the Tagalog-Pampangan area,
comprehended between Batangas in the south and Tarlac
in the north, formed the vital core of the country;
was HEARTLAND, was the metropolitan area; in relation
to which the other centers of culture in the islands
(e.g. Vigan and Cebu) were outposts.
The reason this heartland became the ground of
history may be that, in the 16th century, it was
the only region of some size where the native
tribes had achieved a measure of unity. Older and
richer might be the kingdoms of Cebu and Jolo, but
these were small city-states isolated by hostility.
The king of Cebu, for instance had for enemy the
tiny isle of Mactan, which was just across his bay.
In contrast, the neighboring kingdoms on the Pasig
- Manila and Tondo - were allies, and evidently
belonged to a confederacy loosely binding the realms
all over the Tagalog-Pampangan region. Not divide
and conquer, but unite and rule, was the policy
made possible by this domain.
The Spaniards were quick to see how smoother
an avenue was afforded by the coherence of this
region, and their conquest of it was to make
official what unity they found there. Here they
concentrated their colonizing efforts, with the
result that the Tagalog and Pampango were to
become the most "politicized" of Filipinos,
accounting for the arrogance they have traditionally
been accused of. In fact, one friar, Gaspar de
San Agustin, has described the Pampangans as "the
Castilians among these Indios".
Nevertheless the idea of national unity was
to begin as this unity of the Tagalog and
Pampangan country, from which the Spaniards
created a Seat of State (the city of Manila and
the province of Pampanga were the basic
foundations) and a Seat of the Church (the
Archbishop of Manila, which embraces Pampango
ground, is the primal See of the country) thus
fusing into a unit the old Tagalog and Pampangan
realms.
From this unit came the necessary consent to
government as well as its support forces, so that
a counter capital to Manila always had to be within
the Tagalog-Pampangan terrain - like Arayat, as
proposed by Gov.-Gen. Basco; or Bacolor, to which
Simon de Anda removed the government during the
British Occupation; or Kawit, Malolos, San Fernando,
San Isidro and Tarlac, the successive capitals of the
Aguinaldo government. But when the Spaniards,
after the fall of Manila in 1898, transferred the
government to Iloilo - that is, outside the Tagalog-
Pampangan ground - it automatically meant the
end of Spanish rule. Similarly, the Revolution,
a Tagalog-Pampangan enterprise, chiefly happened
on Tagalog-Pampangan ground, and the Americans
foresaw that it could not survive beyond its frontier
in Tarlac. The unity of faith and action was, at that
moment of our history, still bound up with the
particular ethnic and geographical unit that, for
almost four centuries, had stood for "law", for
"government", for "civilization". When that symbol
of Victorian progress, the railroad, was brought to
the Philippines, the first line was, of course, laid
along, and further bound together, the Tagalog-
Pampangan country, connecting it with the outposts
in the north. And when the Revolution broke out,
the Spaniards, though fighting was confined in
Cavite, correctly declared a state of war in the
entire Tagalog-Pampangan domain, knowing it
only too well as a unit where fire in any part could
set the whole ablaze. But the whole had now become
something greater than this unit, for a nation had
sprung from there.
The role of this region can be read in our flag,
where each ray of the sun stands for either a
Tagalog or Pampangan province. But even the
stars in the flag proclaim this role, being three in
number because the Tagalog and Pampangan
fought to keep them at least three. For good or
evil, it was these two tribes, these wicked
accomplices, that determined not only the shape
of our history but even of our geography. The form
now called the Philippines has maintained through
almost four centuries of steady assault from within
and without only because Spain (which, through
those centuries, never had more than 5,000 Spanish
troops in the islands) could rely on the Tagalog-
Pampangan alliance to keep the form (now called
the Philippines) from disintegrating. The alliance even
antedated the coming of Tagalogs and Pampangans
to these shores. One scholar theorizes
that the two tribes emigrated from neighboring
regions in Java (or Sumatra ?) and continued in
the new country their association in the old - a
theory backed by the tradition that the Prince
Balagtas who founded a dynasty in Pampanga was,
even before his coming to Luzon (sometime perhaps
between 1335 and 1380), already a Tagalog-
Pampangan mestizo, his mother being of the
royal house of the Kingdom of Sapa (now Manila's
Sta. Ana district) before she was given in marriage
to a sovereign of the Madjapahit Empire in Java.
The coming of Prince Balagtas and his entourage
apparently capped a series of waves of Pampangan
emigration to Luzon and had a definite intent: to
consolidate into a kingdom all these Pampangan
colonies believed to be already occupying an area
that extended from Manila Bay to the wilds of
Cagayan. A true consolidation was never effected,
nor did a kingdom arise, but from Prince Balagtas,
according to tradition, descended the native
principalia, or nobility, that included such families
as the Soliman, the Lakandula, the Gatbonton,
the Gatchalian, the Gatmaitan, the Gatdula, the
Malang, the Puno, and the Kapulong -- families
in veins ran a mixed Tagalog-Pampangan blood,
and in the knots of whose marryings the two tribes
became so intertwined as to form a single growth.
Geography was to compound the knots, for the
Rio Grande de Pampanga empties into Manila Bay,
where also ends the Tagalog's Rio Pasig; and in
the region between the two deltas was common
ground for confederacy. After Manila (a city ruled
by a Tagalog-Pampangan house) was seized by
the Spaniards, the ousted heir, Soliman III
(Tarik Soliman or Bambalito? - O.S.) presently
reappeared, on Manila Bay, with a Tagalog-Pampangan
fleet (from Macabebe and Hagonoy - O.S.) which
the Spaniards routed in the Battle of Bangkusay.
That was in 1571, the year Manila was established
as the capital city, the seat of power, and Pampanga
was organized into a province, the premier local
government of the land, under Spain. Although the
Tagalog and Pampangan were to unite later in
several revolts, the Battle of Bangkusay can be
said to have been their last joint engagement
under the old alliance. Only three years later, in
1574, the Tagalogs and Pampangans are being
inducted into the army they battled in Bangkusay,
and a new alliance has begun.
To this alliance they were to become so indispensable,
not only as military but as economic arms, that
from the start the empire of Spain in the Philippines
could not have survived save with the consent of
these two tribes. "The colony indeed survived,"
observes Father Horacio dela Costa, "but what was
the price of survival? Obviously, the price which
had to be paid for ships; for building them, keeping
them afloat and sending them out to fight. This price
was paid, most of it, by ... the forced-labor
contingents drafted year after year from the provinces
near Manila that felled the timber, built the ships,
sailed them and manned the guns. It was....these
same provinces that fed, clothed and armed the
crews....What aggravated the burdens laid on the
Tagalogs and Pampangans was the fact that the
government was not in a financial position to pay a
just wage to the laborers it drafted or a just price
for the goods it bought."
And yet, after the period of the Conquista, this
region on which the heaviest burdens were laid
was nevertheless the least mutinous in the country,
as though it regarded itself, however exploited, as
not alien to the new government but allied to it. A
continuity in fealty justified the view, for the old-time
tribal chiefs, the datus, had been incorporated into
the new government and in most places were the
only visible form of government.
"At the time of the conquest," says John Larkin
(author of the book, The Pampangans - O.S.) "the
Spaniards were severely undermanned and needed
someone to maintain order and collect the needed
supplies. They accepted the authority of willing
local leaders rather than upset the existing system
at a time when military concerns were paramount.
Both parties were served by this arrangement; the
Spaniards received the necessary goods, and the
datus retained their position in the village." From
these datus would develop the principalia that,
from earliest Spanish times, were exempt from
taxes, enjoyed the title of Don, and controlled
local governments in "elective" positions that were
actually hereditary. Because an organic relationship
still existed between the principalia and the
peasantry, services required by the Dons was not
regarded as exploitation by their liegemen, who knew
from experience that, whenever abuses grew
rampant, the Dons hastened to be their spokesmen,
not fearing to appeal to the king of Spain himself.
Thus, in the 1670s, did the principalia of Pampanga
complain to Carlos II about the quota of rice exacted
from every farmer in Pampanga and the Spanish
king could not but order "the total extirpation of the
abuse and injustice" committed against a region
of which he had heard it said that it "has made
important contributions to the defense of the
entire colony, having raised several companies
of troops to serve in the wars against the Dutch
who infest those waters, the Moros of Ternate and
other hostile nations; that it provided and still
provides whole units of regular infantry to garrison
that royal capital, its fortress of Santiago, the
forts of Cavite, Cebu, Oton, Cagayan, Caraga and
the other strong points of these islands"; and that
"the Pampango nation has on all occasions shown
great fidelity in my service."
Indeed a popular saying then was that one
Spaniard and three Pampangans are the equal of
four Spaniards," a boast that grew from the
battlegrounds of the 16th century. Pampangans
were with Dasmarinas in the taking of Nueva Vizcaya
in 1591; were with Figueroa in the conquest of
Mindanao in 1596; were with the "pacification"
troops that brought under one flag the regions of
Cagayan, Negros, Leyte, etc.; and were with the
various expeditionary forces to the Moluccas in
the days when our geography was still in the making
and it seemed for a while that the Philippines
might include the Spice Islands, Borneo, Formosa,
the Malay Peninsula and the coasts of Indochina.
When the Koxinga invasion impended (1662) and
the Chinese in Manila rose in revolt, it was the
Pampangan militia under Francisco Laxamana
that defeated the rebels in pitched battle, killing a
thousand of them and capturing the ringleaders.
Because of this victory Laxamana, the Pampangan,
was entrusted with the walls of Manila for 24 hours
-- a startling symbolic gesture by which the empire
confessed its dependence on the heartland.
If the Tagalog-Pampangan troops of those times
now seem to us mercenaries, in their own eyes
they were not, since they were fighting for a
government they regarded as their own, especially
as represented by their datus, now the powerful
principalia. Theirs, too, was the army: "well-
organized troops under the command of their own
general officers (Laxamana was a master-of-camp),
majors and captains, posts that they greatly
esteem as a reward of merit, each of them striving
for promotion so as to bequeath this honor to their
descendants." Strictly speaking, therefore, theirs
was a feudal rather than a mercenary army, since
they were led by their own liege lords, to whom
they owed fealty; and in fighting outside their
tribal ground, in fighting for regions to which, then,
they did not feel native (Cagayan, Leyte, Negros,
Mindanao, etc.) they were already a national army
in the making, creating a sense of country by their
willingness to defend certain boundaries from i
invasion and the government within from usurpers.
As long as that government had the consent of the
Tagalog and Pampangan, it could stand firm, though
the rest of the tribes revolt; but when that consent
was withdrawn, the empire tottered. From Limahong
in 1574 to William Draper in 1762, the fate of Spain
in the Philippines rested on whether the Tagalog
and Pampangan chose to side with the Spaniard
or with the invader.
The Spanish were well aware that it was they
who were dependent on the alliance with the
Tagalog and Pampangan , and not vice-versa --
which would have been the case had the native
troops been nothing more than mercenaries. So,
a Tagalog-Pampangan revolt was feared most of
all -- as in 1660 when one such revolt (led by
Francisco Maniago - O.S.) was decried as "all the
worse because these people had been trained in
the military art in our own schools....their valor was
well-known, and therefore it was said that one
Spaniard and three Pampangos are equal to four
Spaniards....(and the) people of the other provinces
were on the watch for its outcome, in order to
declare themselves rebels ....There is no worse
enemy than an alienated friend!" (no hay peor cuna
que de la misma madera) Here, from a Spanish
mouth, is the admission that the Tagalog and
Pampangan were not mercenaries but allies and
friends who must not be alienated, being of the
same timber as the Spaniard -- and there's "no
worse wedge than that of the same wood."
The Tagalog and Pampangan were likewise
aware that it was on them that the empire rested
and through them that destiny was at work, as
they proclaimed in the classic feast of Philippine
history, the feast in which the Tagalog and Pampangan
celebrated the alliance that was to beget a nation.
It has been said, quite incorrectly, that the Limahong
invasion was the crucial moment in our history,
the event that decided if there was to be such a
nation as the Philippines or merely an outer province
of China. But that moment, was not as decisive as
the Dutch wars of the 17th century, which were, by
far, the greater threat, the more crucial event.
Limahong was not backed by his government
(he was just a pirate - O.S.) and did not have the
resources for a real invasion; his was purely a
one-shot attempt. But the Dutch invaders had the
official backing, the resources and the will to
sustain what was clearly not just a feint, since their
attempt at invasion was pressed for more than 50
years (the first half of the 17th century) with annual
battles on a front that stretched from Aparri to Jolo.
This was the Great War in our history, for it was
the war that decided if we were to be the Philippines
--or a part of the Dutch East Indies then, a province
of Indonesia today (with Bahasa Indonesia as our
national language -- O.S.). The war ended in victory
for the idea of nation. That the Tagalog and Pampangan
regarded it as their war and their victory can be
gathered from the feast that is exclusively a
Tagalog-Pampangan tradition: the feast known as
La Naval de Manila, once the principal fiesta of
Manila, the capital of the land of the Tagalogs, and
also the great fiesta of Bacolor, the ancient capital
of the Pampangans. When the Pampangans pushed
their frontier beyond San Fernando, they thought
this tradition important enough to carry with them
in their movement northward -- to Angeles, the
prime pioneer foundation and take-off point for the
new frontier. And in Angeles to this day, the principal
celebration is the fiesta called La Naval. The
significance may be lost to us now, yet a feeling
of pride still inheres to the cult, even with the
celebrants not knowing what they feel so proud
about, for the inherited emotion may have transcended
the occasion for the feast and perhaps, now refers
not merely to the victory in the Dutch Wars, but to
all the other feats of an ancient alliance. More than
the moment's safety was involved in what we now
dismiss as colonial wars not a part of our history.
But for the winning of those wars, we might have
had no history.
After the Dutch Wars, the next --and last major --
engagement of the alliance is the British Invasion;
and here the staging is even more explicit: the
capital is moved from Manila to Bacolor; Tagalog
and Pampangan rally around the "legitimate"
government; while beyond the Tagalog-Pampangan
frontier, the Ilocanos seize the chance to break
away from achieved form, under the leadership of
Diego Silang. "He soon realized, however," says
Fr. de la Costa, "that his untried and undisciplined
forces, unprovided with firearms and artillery,
would be no match to the seasoned and well-armed
troops Anda was collecting in Pampanga to send
against him. (These battles begot a fearless hero
named Manalastas. - O.S.) We shall never know what
might have happened if the Ilocanos and the British
had succeeded in combining forces. Whatever dreams
Silang had conceived of an Ilocano nation under
British protection were shattered forever by an
assassin's bullet." This another ambiguous
moment in our history; whom are we to cheer?
The Ilocano rebels who would break away and set
up their own nation; or the Tagalog-Pampangan
troops who were for keeping the Ilocos as an
integral part of the form? (I am for the latter,
because with a British occupation in the
Philippines, the U.S. would not have come to
our shores in 1898. - O.S.) At any rate, the
Tagalog and Pampangan then, as in other tribal
attempts to secede that they prevented, were
fighting, however unknowingly, for the integrity
of a nation.
Not so unconscious is their role in the next
great struggle in our history: the revolt of the
Creole - though this revolt was to confuse the
old Tagalog-Pampangan loyalties, unfixing the
line between law and outlaw. Did the Creole, even
in rebellion, represent "legitimate" government,
or was he an usurper? Did he stand for the
integrity of the form so long defended, or had he
become another disruptor to be stopped? The
confusion was inevitable, the Creole having been
for so long the Establishment he would now topple.
Stay tuned for the dramatic conclusion of this brilliant
episode on page 2, by clicking:
http://maxpages.com/tarlac/tarlac2
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For the article, Lucio F. Turla - Revolucionario, click:
http://maxpages.com/revolucionario
Thanks and acknowledgement are hereby given to the
author, NICK JOAQUIN, and the publisher, SOLAR
PUBLISHING CORPORATION in Manila, Philippines.
Thanks to my friend, Ernie Turla for letting me
build this webpage.
Oscar Soriano, webmaster
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