Archipel

The Chinese Mestizos and the Formation of the Filipino Nationality

Antonio S. Tan

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Tan Antonio S. The Chinese Mestizos and the Formation of the Filipino Nationality. In: Archipel, volume 32, 1986. pp. 141-162.
doi : 10.3406/arch.1986.2316
http://www.persee.fr/doc/arch_0044-8613_1986_num_32_1_2316
Document gnr le 22/09/2015

Antonio S. TAN*

The Chinese Mestizos and the Formation

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Filipinos with Chinese blood in their veins have occupied important
positions in the highest levels of the government. During the first half of the
20th century, one of the dominant national political figures, later the VicePresident of the Philippine Commonwealth, was Sergio Osmena who was
a Chinese mestizo. During the American regime, the roster of the
Philippine National Assembly was a veritable list of Chinese mestizos. A
number of Chinese mestizos have become president : Jose P. Laurel, Elpidio
Quirino, Ramon Magsaysay, and Ferdinand E. Marcos. Others in public
service recently or today include Prime Minister Cesar Virata, Ministers
Carlos P. Romulo, Roberto Ongpin, Arturo Tanco, National Food and Grains
Administrator Jesus Tanchanco, Director of the National Library, Dr. Serafin Quiason and Supreme Court Justice Claudio Teehankee.
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142
Other prominent figures in our history in various fields of human
endeavour were of Chinese-Filipino descent or partly so, either on the paternal
or maternal side. A few of them can be cited. In religion, mother Ignacia
de Espiritu Santo (founder of the first Filipino congregation for Filipino
women, Fr. Lorenzo Ruiz (candidate for sainthood), and Jaime Cardinal
Sin. In the judiciary, Justice Ramon Avancenaand Supreme Court Justice
Jose Abad Santos. In education, Vidal A. Tan (UP President), Teodoro M.
Kalaw (educator and historian), Manuel Lim (Secretary of Education). In
politics, Eulogio Rodriguez Sr. (NP senator) and Arsenio H. Lacson (mayor
of Manila). In business and philanthropy, Teodoro Yangco. In the military
profession, General Vicente Lim and Cesar Fernando Basa, both heroes
of world war II. In art, Tomas Pinpin, the first Filipino printer.
Even these few examples should suffice to make it evident that, through
different periods, the Chinese mestizos have exerted a tremendous influence
on our history. Yet, paradoxically, the role the Chinese mestizos have played
in the making of the Filipino nation has received little attention from our
scholars. Only within the last two decades or so have such men like Edgar
Wickberg, Fr. Jesus Merino and John Schumacher delved into the
contributions of the Chinese mestizos to our society W.
The Chinese mestizo played an important part in the creation and
evolution of what is now called the Filipino nation. According to Fr. Jesus
Merino, O.P. : The Filipino nationality, no matter how Malayan it may be
in its main ethnic stock, no matter how Spanish and Christian it may be
in its inspiration, civilization and religion, no matter how American it may
be in its politics, trade and aspiration, has been historically and practically
shaped, not by the Chinese immigrant, but by the Chinese mestizo (2\
Underscoring the positive contributions of the Chinese mestizo to the
larger society, Juan Fernando grudgingly acknowledged the fact that the
only beneficial effect of the Chinese immigrants was the industrious race
of Chinese mestizo (3).
Of the two main types of mestizos identified in colonial Philippines, the
Spanish mestizo and the Chinese mestizo, the latter proved to be a more
significant element in Philippine society for three reasons : first, the
Chinese mestizo was more numerous as there was a greater infusion of
Chinese blood than any other blood in the Filipino. In the mid-19th century,
there was 240,000 Chinese mestizos, but only about 7,000 to 10,000
Spanish mestizos. Secondly, the Chinese mestizos were readily assimilated into
the fabric of the native society. Thirdly, more than the Spanish mestizo,
they were to assume important roles in the economic, social, and political
life of the nation. By the second half of the 19th century, they had become
so numerous and their influence so great, that the term mestizo, as
commonly used by the Spaniards in the Philippines, usually referred to them.

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The evolution of the Chinese mestizo
Although the Chinese who settled in the islands before the Spanish
colonization had intermarried with native women, the emergence of the
Chinese mestizo as a legally distinct class began only with the Spanish
colonial regime. Soon after the Spaniards founded the city of Manila in 1571,
a large Chinese colony evolved. Performing multiple services as traders,
artisans and domestic servants, the Chinese became indispensable to the
needs of the capital. Encouraged to come and settle, the Chinese
population increased by leaps and bounds. But the Spaniards could only see in
this rapid increase a potential threat to their own rule. They feared that
the Chinese, being an ethnic group with roots in China, would be far less
loyal to the Spanish regime than the Christianized natives whom the
Spaniards called Indios throughout their colonial rule (4).
Thus the Spaniards faced a dilemna : they wanted the Chinese for their
indispensable services in the economy and yet were suspicious and wary
of their growing number. This dilemna, however, was resolved through the
policy of converting the Chinese and encouraging marriages between
Catholic Chinese and Catholic Indios. The missionaries contributed to the
achievement of this goal. The friars pursued their calling among the Chinese
and worked hard to convert them. This provided the rationale behind the
creation of special communities of Chinese, the most important of which
was the Binondo Community founded in 1594 (5).
The Dominicans became active in converting the place into a
community of married Catholics, which by 1600 numbered more than 500 (6). When
the Gremio de Chino (Chinese Guild) was set up in 1687, the mestizo
descendants as well as the Chinese residents were enrolled in the same
Gremio. In 1738 there were about 5,000 Chinese mestizos living in Binondo C7).
Elsewhere, similar Chinese mestizo communities developed. The Jesuits
had established a community of Catholic Chinese in the district of Santa
Cruz, which in turn produced its own mestizo communtity (8). In Tondo
village the Chinese mestizos as well as the Indios came under the charge of
the calced religious of St. Augustine (9). In the early 17th century, there
were more than 100 Chinese married to native women in Iloilo (10). In the
wake of the Chinese massacre in Manila in 1603, many Chinese fled to Pampanga and intermarried with the local women t11). In the early 18th
century, the Parian of Cebu was a predominantly Chinese mestizo
community (12).
In northern Luzon, where marriages between Chinese and lowland
natives had already taken place, members of the Limahong expedition which
put up a short-lived colony along the Lingayen Gulf in 1574-1575,
intermarried with the upland women, the Igorots and Tinggians. The lighter
complexion and the graceful built of the Igorots have been ascribed by many

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writers to this Chinese infusion (13). It is interesting to note that Lingayen,
a town in Pangasinan where Limahong had founded a short-lived kingdom,
had the most Chinese mestizos. In 1787, they numbered 2,793, out of a
native population of 6,490 (14). The continued intermarriage of many
Chinese with Indio women resulted in an increasing class of Chinese mestizos.
As the Chinese mestizo population increased, the question of their legal
status arose. From the beginning of the Spanish occupation to about 1740,
the inhabitants of the Philippines were classified into 3 classes : Spaniards,
Indios and Chinese. The legal status of the Chinese mestizo were
ultimately resolved in 1741 when the whole population was reclassifed for
purposes of tribute or tax payment into four classes : Spaniards and Spanish
mestizos who were exempted from the tribute; Indios, Chinese mestizos,
and Chinese who were all tribute-paying classes although each class was
assessed a different amount. In the 19th century the tribute or head tax
paid by the Indio was equal to P 1.50; that of the Chinese mestizo was P
3.00; and that of the Chinese was P 6.00. With the classification of the
mestizos as a legally distinct class, they were entitled to form their own Gremio de mestizos Sangleyes (Guild of Chinese Mestizos) (15\ and listed apart
from the records of the natives under their own gobemadorcillo. In
villages where the mestizo tribute payers numbered from 25 to 30, they
formed their own barangay, otherwise they belonged to the nearest barangay of the natives (16).
By 1810, there were 121,621 Chinese mestizos in an Indio population
of 2,395,676. In 1850 the Chinese mestizo population increased to about
240,000, while that of the Indios to more than 4,000,000 <17). In half a dozen
provinces the Chinese mestizos made up one-third or more of the
population, and in another half-dozen they accounted for 5 percent to 16 percent
of the local inhabitants (18). By this time the infusion of Chinese blood was
evident in all the towns. By the end of the 19th century there were about
half a million Chinese mestizos, with some 46,000 living in Manila (19).
Any person born of a Chinese father and an Indio mother was
classified a Chinese mestizo. Subsequent descendants were listed as Chinese
mestizo. A mestiza who married a Chinese or mestizo, as well as their children,
was registered as a mestizo. But a Chinese mestiza who married an Indio
was listed, together with her children, as Indio (2).
It is interesting to note the ways by which Chinese mestizos acquired
their names. This has been explained by Edgar Wickberg <21), but is
elaborated on here.
Sometimes, a mestizo retained the name of his Chinese father, making
such transliterated names from the Chinese ideograph as Co, Tan, Lim,
Yap, Ong, Uy, Filipino surnames. Another way was to create a Filipino
name by combining parts of the full name of the Chinese father. Thus when

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the full name of the Chinese father was Tee Han-kee, the mestizo children
might decide to create a new name, Teehankee. The same also explains
the proliferation of names once Chinese and later romanized into forms
like Yuzon, Limkao, Limcauco, Leongson; if a Chinese name like Yap Tinchay had been popularly known as Yap-tinco, using the Hokkien (the
dialect of Fukien were most of the Philippine Chinese came from) polite
suffix Ko (meaning elder brother) with the personal name, the new name
might be Yaptinco. This explains why there are today numerous Filipino
names that end in co, names like Sychangco, Angangco, Tantoco, Tanchanco, Tantuico, Tanlayco, Cojuangco, Syjuco, Ongsiako, Soliongco,
Yupangco, Tanco, Yangco, etc. Although the names cited above were
reminiscent of the mestizo children's ancestry, Catholic Chinese also acquired
a Spanish name upon baptism. Fr. Jesus Merino examined some of the 17th
century baptismal records of the Church of Three Kings in the Parian and
came up with this interesting discovery. An entry in the baptismal registry
of 21 December 1632 showed that a 36-year old Chinese born in China of
Chinese parents was baptized Don Pedro de Mendiola, after his godfather
Sergeant Major Don Pedro de Mendiola (22). An entry on 14 May 1627
showed that a three-week-old daughter of Mateo Giang San and Ynes Lamanis was baptized Joanna Joanio, after her godmother, Maria Joanio (23). .
Sometimes a child of Chinese-Filipina parents was given the name of the
Filipino mother. An entry in the Binondo Church in 1700 noted that a nineday old boy was baptized Hilario Camacho, a legitimate child of Juan Ten
Say and Maria Camacho <24).
It was not unusual for the mestizo descendant to drop the Chinese part
of the name and use only the Spanish part. The descendant of Jose Castro
Ongchengco may simply be known by the name Castro, or the Chinese
father himself after acquiring a new name might be called by just that new
name. Thus Mariano Velasco Chua Chengco, a wealthy merchant in the
late 19th century, was popularly known as Mariano Velasco (25). Another
example was that of Antonio Osorio, father of Francisco Osorio, one of the
13 martyrs of Cavit, whose original name was Tan Kim Ko. Juan de Vera,
printer of the book, Doctrina Christiana, was originally Keng Yong <26).
The naming of baptized Chinese mestizos after their godparents, as
noted previously, had been very common during the Spanish regime. In
the late nineteenth century several Chinese adapted the not too common
Spanish surname Palanca. Among the first to assume the name was Tan
Quien Sien who was gobernadorcillo of the Gremio de Chino in the last
quarter of the 19th century. He acquired the name of his godfather, Colonel
Carlos Palanca y Gutierrez, of the Spanish colonial army, and became
Carlos Palanca. The latter in turn might have acted as godfather to Tan Guinglay, a wealthy distiller from the late 1890s to the late 1940s, who also acqui-

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red the name Don Carlos Palanca. The well-known Palanca clan today might
have descended from him.
That Spanish or Filipino names are not guarantee of Castillan or
Filipino descent is obvious. The list of Chinese mestizo names under the Gremio de Mestizos Sangleyes (Guild of Chinese Mestizos) in 1882 for several
towns in Cavit for instance, showed that such names were hardly
distinguishable from those of the natives. The following surnames were listed
as mestizo de Sangleyes (26bis) : Tagle, Sabali, Sapica, Dairet, Sanquilayan,,
Bautista, de Guzman, Villanueva, Camarce, Marimbao, Mayasa, Sarinas,
Camua, Mateo, Carino, Aransasu, Tarim, Gianco, Topacio, Calocada, de
Castro, Cuevas, Camerino, Tirona, Ylano, Marquez, Sarmiento, Sarreal,
Sayoc, Samson, Madlansacay, Virata, Monzon, Malbal, Espiritu, Herrera,
Alejandro, Yubienco, Bustamante, Poblete, Vasquez, Aguinaldo, Encarnacion, Legaspi, Jimenez (27).
Such names as San Agustin, Basa, Feleteo, Jose, Fernandez, Ballesteros, de Cuenca, Lazaro, Miranda, Pagtachan, Narvaez, Javier, Estandante,
Lumanog, Alis, Madlansacay, Espeneli, Mojica, Pareja, Loyola, Villacarlos, Malimban, Alvarez, Salud, Poblete, Bustamante, Nazareno, were also
names of Chinese mestizos who served either as cabeza or gobemadorcillo
in various towns of Cavit from 1830 to the 1890s (28).
Students from Camarines and Albay in the seminary of Nueva Caceres in 1796, listed as Chinese mestizos, had such filipinized or hispanized
names as Vicente Tagle, Narciso Cecillo, Bernardo de la Cruz, Vicente
Racios, Juan Nepomuceno, Eulogio Modesto, Pablo de Santa Ana, Fabian
de Vera, and Jose Rodriguez (29).
In Bacolod, an 1852 barangay record (n. 54) listed as Chinese
mestizos the following hispanized or filipinized names : Cayetano, Villanueva,
Balayos, Fereon, Segobia, Bringas, Lanes, Tomas, Rodrigazo, Arcenas,
Medel, Gonzaga, Torello, Salmeo, Sta. Rita, Rodriguez, Guanzon, Puntuan,
Suanson, Sianson, Togly, Asaola, Felicia, Picson, de la Pena, Brujola,
Singco, Jocsing, Villamena, Quijano (30).
In the list of gobernadorcillos de mestizo in Bacolor, Pampanga from
1746 to 1826, one finds such hispanized names as de Ocampo, Basillo,
Mesina, de los Reyes and de los Angeles (31). In Mabalacat and Mexico, the
list of gobernadorcillos reveals the list of hispanized Chinese mestizos like
Pinping, Lusing, Tuazon, etc. In Angeles, there were such mestizo names
like Henson, Dizon, and Quiason (32).
In Negros and Iloilo, families with names such as Lacson, Conlu, Locsin, Jocson, Tionko, Yunpue, Tinsay, Jison, Yulo, Cuaycong, Montilla,
Yusay, Lopez, Gonzaga, Yanzon, Guanco, Montelibano, Araneta, Ditching,
Limsiaco, Magalona, de la Rama, Ledesma, Valderrama, Consing,
Guanzon, de la Pena, and others represented the Chinese mestizo class in the

147
area (33). In Cebu, the Velezes, Osmenas, and Climacos came from Chinese
mestizo families <34). In the Bicol region some of the most important
families of the 20th century descended from 19th century immigrants of TagalogChinese mestizos (Samson) and Ilongo-Chinese mestizos (Locsin) (35).
If there are many Filipinos today who descended from mixed FilipinoChinese parentage and do not carry Chinese names, it is because Filipino
and Chinese mestizo names were hispanized by the 1849 decree which
required every family head to choose a new surname from a catalogue of
Spanish names.
The Chinese Mestizos as Middle Class
The development of the Chinese mestizo as an entrepreneur from the
1750s to the 1850s paved the way for the emergence of the Philippine middle
class. Inheriting the economic dynamism of their Chinese ancestors, they
were described by John Bowring as more active and enterprising, more
prudent and pioneering, more oriented to trade and commerce than the
Indios (36).
The expulsion of many Chinese in the late 1760s for their cooperation
with the British who occupied Manila in 1762-1764, and the prohibition of
those who remained in Manila from going to the provinces, enabled the
energetic and enterprising Chinese mestizos to penetrate markets which had
been the preserve of the Chinese.
In the absence of much of the Chinese traders, the Chinese mestizos
became the provisioners of the colonial authorities, the foreign firms and
residents of Manila. In the capital, the Chinese mestizos shared economic
power with the Chinese as exporters-importers, wholesalers, retail traders
and owners of majority of the artisan shops. In the provinces around Manila,
they practically took over from the Chinese as retailers.
By the early 1800s, Chinese mestizos south of Manila, particularly in
Laguna and Pasay, were engaged in landholding and wholesaling. North
of Manila, the Chinese mestizos of Tondo, Malabon, Polo, Obando, Meycauayan and Bocaue were involved in rice growing as lessees of estates
and as middlemen trading between Manila and the Pampanga-Bulacan area
which produced rice and salt. East of Manila, Chinese mestizos in Pasig
were specializing in wholesale and retail trade between Manila and
Laguna (37).
In the Visayas, Chinese mestizos handled wholesale trading between
the islands <38). The opening of the port of Manila in the 1830s followed
by those of Sual, Iloilo and Cebu stimulated coastline trade among the
various islands in Manila. The opening of the country to foreign traders
facilitated growth of export in tropical products - indigo, sugar, coffee,
coconut, tobacco and hemp for the world market (39).

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Manila carried a lucrative interisland trade with Cebu and Molo and
Jaro in Iloilo. From Cebu the mestizo merchants sailed to Leyte, Samar,
Caraga, Misamis, Negros and Panay to gather local products like tobacco,
sea slugs, mother of pearl, cocoa, coconut oil, coffee, gold, wax, and rice.
These goods were shipped to Manila where they were sold to Chinese and
European merchants returned with manufactured goods for distribution
throughout the Visayas (40).
Chinese mestizos in Molo and Jaro collected similar items in the Visayas
for export to Manila and bought European goods for resale to Molo, Jaro
and other towns. Molo and Jaro mestizos were also engaged in pina clothmaking for export. It was this thriving coastwise trade which made Cebu
and Iloilo wealthy (41).
Chinese mestizo merchants bought tobacco in Nueva Ecija and Cagayan,
and transported the product to Manila (42).
The demand for sugar and other tropical products encouraged many
of the Chinese mestizo and Indio merchants to clear and cultivate
increasing amounts of land. In Pampanga, Bulacan, Bataan, Batangas, Laguna,
Cebu, Negros and Iloilo the Chinese mestizos were involved in the
production and marketing of sugar (43).
In the 1840s, with the opening of the port of Manila, the Spanish
colonial authorities encouraged the Chinese to return to the Philippines to
accelerate the development of the economy. Chinese immigration quickened,
increasing from 6,000 in 1847 to 18,000 in 1865, 30,000 in 1876 and 100,000
in the 1880s (44\ These new arrivals who fanned out to the provinces began
displacing the Chinese mestizos as wholesalers and retailers. A great many
of the displaced mestizos shifted to the cultivation of export crops and
became landowners. Others shifted to the professions as doctors, lawyers,
writers or journalists and still others to various occupations (45).
The transformation of Philippine agriculture from subsistence to export
production in mid-19th century witnessed the rise of the Chinese mestizos
as an economically independent middle class, both in Manila and the
provinces (46). Thus even though the Chinese mestizos were eased out of the
retail trade, they did not lose all their sources of economic income, or their
social prestige.
This opulent merchant class so visible in Manila, Iloilo, Cebu and many
other towns caught the attention of foreign observers of the Philippine
scene. In 1842, Sinibaldo de Mas referred to the Chinese mestizos who
inherited the industry and speculative spirit of their ancestors, as
constituting the middle class of the Philippines (47). In late 1850s while
travelling in the islands John Bowring described the Chinese mestizos as a great
improvement upon the pure Malay or Indio breed, and the most
industrious, prudent, and economical element in the Philippine population (48).

149
Feodor Jagor who was in the country in the 1880s called the Chinese
mestizo the richest and most enterprising portion of the entire
population (49). It is to this vigorous mestizo class to which many contemporary
Filipino entrepreneurs trace their origin. Incidentally, wanting to increase
the industrious Chinese mestizo population, the Spaniards granted them
the privilege to marry at the age of 16 without parental consent, a
privilege not granted to the Indios (5).
The Rise of the Middle Class to Social Prestige
The Chinese mestizos' economic wealth had a great effect in
increasing their standards of living and their social prestige. Unwilling to accept
the limits of the past, the members of this middle class would express
themselves in novel artistic terms. By the mid-19th century elegance was
replacing mere comfort in the houses of the rich. The new middle class, often
graceful and cultivated, following the model of Hispanic-European culture,
was getting itself firmly entrenched in many pueblos or towns. The
graceful structure and delicately carved furniture of the house of the mestizo
revealed his familiarity with European ways. In towns around Manila,
Bowring noted, almost every pueblo have some dwellings larger and
better than the rest, occupied mainly by a mixed race of Chinese descent. (51).
The wealth they acquired and the manner they spent it, according to Wickberg, made them the arbiter of fashion, customs, and style of living (52).
John Bowring in 1850 wrote :Many of them adopt the European costume,
but where they retain the native dress it is finer in quality, gayer in color,
and richer in ornament. Like the natives, they wear their skirts over the
trousers but the shirts are of pina or sinamay fastened with button of
valuable chains, and a gold chain is seldom wanting, suspended around the neck.
The men commonly wear European hats and stockings, and the sexes
exhibited no small amount of dandyism and coquetry <53).
A decade earlier, Mas expressed this kind of opinion :They (the
Chinese mestizos) are luxuriantly dressed and more elegant and handsome than
the Indians. Some of their women are decidedly beautiful. But they
preserve most of the habits of the Indian, whom they excel in attention to
religious duties because they are superior in intelligence (54).
The mestizo traders provided the pueblos with much more than
finished goods. They changed the life of a community that had been isolated for
lack of outside influences, a community that had changed little over the
years for lack of external stimuli. Now the traders brought excitement and
novel items. Observing the same phenomena in Iloilo, the British Vice
Consul Nicholas Loney, wrote in the late 1850s :During the last few years a
very remarkable change had taken place in the dress and general external
appearance of the inhabitants of the larger pueblos, owing in great mea-

150
sure to the comparative facility with which they obtained articles, which
were formerly either not imported, or the price of which then beyond their
reach. In the interior of the houses the same change was observable in their
furnitures and other arrangements, and the evident wish to add ornament
to the same articles of household use (55).
The rise of the middle class to economic importance had another great
effect. The acquisition of a certain amount of wealth made it easier for some
mestizo families to provide education for their children. By the late 1860s,
as a result of the educational decree of 1863 which gave the Indios and
mestizos access to higher education, a few people, mostly wealthy natives and
Chinese mestizos, had the opportunity of getting some college education
from institutions like Letran, San Jose and Santo Tomas. In the 1870s more
families were able to send their children not only to Manila but also to Spain,
and later to progressive European countries like France, England,
Austria and Germany (56).
During the colonial period, as higher education remained the privilege
of wealthy families, the economic and political leadership constituted the
intellectual elite as well. Numerically, the middle class of Chinese mestizos
seemed almost inconsequential, but the educational attainment of these
mestizos, combined with their economic wealth and social prestige, enabled them
to dominate public opinion. In 1876, W.G. Palgrave commented
^Intellectually they are generally superior to the unmixed around them. Their
members, taken in comparison with that of the entire population is not great;
but their wealth and influence go far to make up for this deficiency (57).
Regardless of their ethnic, social and economic origin, the Chinese
mestizos tended to dominate not only the economic and social but also the
political leadership of the local communities. By the turn of the 19th century,
the frequent occurrence of names of Chinese mestizos in the cabeza of gobernadordllo lists for the provinces reflected considerable assimilation of the
ranks of native elite by the Chinese mestizos (58).
In 1861 the British vice-consul in a report to the British foreign office
stated :The Iloilo mestizos, especially those of Chinese origin, are a
remarkable commercial, industrial and speculative race, increasing yearly in social
and political importance, and though not so fully pronounced as the
Chinese of the persevering and commercial qualities necessary for a continued
success under the pressure of great competition, are not without prevision,
energy and enterprise sufficient to warrant expectation of a considerable
development of cultivation from their operations (59).
Referring to the prestige and rising influence of Cebu's upper elite in
the 1890s, made up of the 30 to 40 Chinese mestizo families descended from
the principales of the old Parian, a Cebu journalist wrote with lavish
praise :I ... take delight in bringing to mind the days when the Velezes,

151
the Osmenas, the Climacos, and others like them brightened the Cebuano
sky like stars of the first magnitude, they stand out more by the height
through which their wealth had ranked them, and as such, they were
honored with respect and admiration by their own and by foreigners (6).
The Chinese Mestizo in the Formation of the Filipino Identity
In looking at the Chinese mestizos' contribution to the formation of
the Filipino nationality and in the making of the nation, we must turn to
the latter half of the 19th century.
Paradoxically enough, in the process of getting wealthy, the middle class
of Chinese mestizos was also ceasing to be a compliant subject of Spain.
They were becoming too wealthy and consequently too independent-minded.
The Chinese mestizo in some communities were becoming sizeable enough
to be able to form their own Gremio Mestizo de Sangley and thus evolve
into a legally distinct class. This led Padre Murillo Velarde in 1741 to
complain that now we have a querrulous group of mestizos who could cause
discord in society (61). Time was to prove the correctness of this prediction.
By the 1800s, the emergent middle class of Chinese mestizos in the
provinces began to set the tone of public opinion. As early as 1827, Manuel
Bernaldez Pizarro already observed that the Indio and mestizo clerics had
dangerous tendencies to revolution (62). The Spaniards felt little or no
affinity at all with the Indios, and saw themselves threatened by the very
existence of the Chinese mestizos, who were described as having no
sympathy for Spain and would be difficult to subdue (63). In the words
of Wickberg, the Spaniards were now haunted by the fear of an Indio
revolution led by mestizos f64). There was reason for this concern. In 1841, Sinibaldo de Mas, in a secret report to the Madrid government, suspected the
Chinese mestizos as a potential nucleus around which the Indio
insurrection might be organized, and predicted that the Chinese mestizos would
in time dominate public opinion. He then recommended that should Spain
decide to keep the Philippines as a colony, race hatred between the
Chinese mestizos and natives must be developed, and the two classes must
be separated and at sword's point, in order that the native class which
was strong through its number and the mestizo class through its
intelligence, activity and wealth, may never form a common mass or public
spirit (65).
Under the idea that their union would imperil the entrenched power
of Spain, Madrid authorities tried various means to sow discord between
different races and classes in their colonial possessions <66). One approach
Mas suggested to promote rivalry and jealousy between the two classes
was to declare the rank of gobemadorcillo for the Indio superior to that
meant for the mestizo. Other measures recommended to foment antago-

152
nism between the two groups included separate theaters for each, by which
they could attack and ridicule each other, a proposal that land taxes be
imposed on the Chinese mestizos, and a distinctive dress for them (67).
Actually, it was becoming increasingly difficult to separate the two
groups as the Chinese mestizos were inclined to identify themselves with
the Indios culturally and socially. Also, they were starting to gravitate
towards each other politically due to common grievances. The Chinese
mestizos were independent-minded, vociferous, and liberal to the point of being
radical. They were gifted and wealthy enough to make their opinion felt.
While the natives of the islands had been, for over two centuries,
resisting colonial domination and abuses in the form of pocket and regional
revolts against unjust taxes and forced labor (as witness the uprisings of
Tapar, Tamblot, Bankaw, Dagohoy, and many others), it was the emergent
middle class of Chinese mestizos who rekindled and intensified the growing
national opposition to colonial abuses, and who demanded sweeping social
reforms. As Dr. Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera noted : Already the 'brutes
loaded with gold' [i.e., wealthy natives and Chinese mestizos] dared to
discuss with their curate, complain against the alcalde, defend their rights
against such misconduct of the lieutenant or sergeant of the police force,
emancipate themselves insensibly as a consequence of their economic
independence... they were actually becoming insolent according to the
expression of the dominators : in reality, they were beginning to defend their
rights (63).
The foregoing commentary reveals a transformation of the people's
habit of deference to the master of the land, a spontaneous and unthinking
acquiescence to the order of things, into a growing disposition to talk back
and ask why.
In the 1860s Father Jose Burgos (of mixed Spanish, French and
Chinese-native descent) (69) and Father Mariano Gomez (both his parents
were of mixed Filipino-Chinese blood) (7) and Father Jacinto Zamora (also
a Chinese mestizo) (71), asserted the capacity, intelligence, and achievement
of the native clergy and demanded the appointment of native secular priests.
Executed for alleged conspiracy in the Cavit Mutiny in 1872, in which both
Indios and Chinese mestizos participated, the three martyrs' brilliant
defense of the clergy of our race aroused a certain degree of national
or racial consciousness as secularization defined the issue between the ruler
and the ruled.
The deportation to Guam and punishment of prominent Indios, Chinese
mestizos and Spanish mestizos for complicity in the Cavit mutiny
compelled middle and upper class families to send their sons to Europe to
study (72). These students met some of the Guam deportees who managed
to escape and flee to Spain where, as exiles, they could most conveniently

153
conduct their propaganda work without harassment and with the
advantages found in cosmopolitan cities. For the first time closer social ties and
relations between Chinese mestizos and Indios coming from different
regions in the islands would be formed. Now provided with formal
education and influenced by the liberal ideas prevalent in Europe, these growing
intellectuals (Ilustrados) from the middle class of Chinese mestizos and
Indios who became politically conscious and began to think in terms of
national instead of provincial or even sectoral concerns, would evolve a
philosophy of Filipinism (73). The unusually severe punishments meted out to
the Indios and Chinese mestizos bridged the gulf that had separated these
two groups. Unlike the Creoles and many of the Spanish mestizos who were
predisposed to identify themselves with the peninsular Spanish, the
Chinese mestizo identified himself with the native Filipino as Indio (74). The
last quarter of the 19th century was to see the rise of the Chinese mestizo
and Indio as Filipino. Until then, only the Creoles, or Spaniards born in
the Philippines from Spanish parents were called Filipinos.
The most obvious manifestation of this budding sense of Filipino
nationality appeared in the late 1870s in the writings of Pedro Paterno and Gregorio Sancianco, both Chinese mestizos. As students in Spain before 1880,
they were, according to Jesuit historian Fr. John Schumacher, the trailblazers in formulating the nascent idea of a Filipino identity (75\
Pedro Paterno was the first to project a Filipino personality or to
define the Filipino character in his writings. His collection of poems, Sampaguita (1880), and his novel Ninay (1885) were attempts at defining the
Filipino national feeling (76).
These first glimmerings of a Filipino national sentiment were
expressed more cogently by Gregorio Sancianco in his book El Progreso de Filipinas (Progress of the Philippines), written in 1881. While the book dealt
with the economic and political problems and the potentialities for
development of the islands in both spheres, it also vehemently condemned the
tribute or tax payment which exempted the Spaniards and Spanish
mestizos but classified the inhabitants of the islands into Indios and Chinese
mestizos as legally distinct, with each class paying different taxes. Such a policy
not only smacked of racial discrimination but also tended to foment class
division. To put an end to such patent racial discrimination and ethnic divisiveness, he suggested the assimilation of the Philippines into Spain, so that
all its inhabitants could be declared citizens of Spain, be given the same
rights and privileges as Spaniards, and be subject to a uniform tax
system (77).
Sancianco's more significant contribution in his writings was his defense
of the dignity of the Filipinos. He was the first to explain that the
indolence of the Filipinos was not something inherent in the people but

154
was the reaction of the common tao to centuries of exploitation. To make
the Philippines progressive, and in the process to make the people
enterprising, he suggested the introduction of industrialization, public education,
good roads, and the liberation of the common people from burdensome
taxation (78). His book anticipated and enunciated all the themes that Jose Rizal,
Graciano Lopez Jaena, Marcelo H. del Pilar and others would later
elaborate (79).
The birth of Filipino consciousness was already indicated in the
writings of Paterno and Sancianco; nurtured by the powerful mind of Jose
Rizal, it would bloom. Rizal, known as the pride of the Malay race, was
a Chinese mestizo, having been descended from a pure Chinese ancestor
and a long line of Chinese mestizos and Chinese mestizas (80).
As a student in Spain in the 1880s, Rizal helped stoke the smoldering
fire of nationalism. Finding the group of brilliant young Indio and mestizo
students still groping and lacking in effective leadership, he was able to
transform their unformed sentiments into the nationalist fervor of the
years to come (81>.
His first article in the Diariong Tagalog, entitled El Amor Patrio (Love
of Country), advised his compatriots who has been disappointed with the
Philippine state of affairs to love their country, for to do so was the
greatest, the most heroic, and the most unselfish deed (82).
Rizal's two novels completed in the 1880s, Noli Me Tangere and El Flibusterismo, gave a profoundly touching picture of the oppression and
suffering experienced by his countrymen, but they were more than an
indictment of the existing colonial system. The Noli Me Tangere was a
proclamation of the creed of Filipino nationalism; ElFlibusterismo, on the other
hand, was a clarion call to awaken the people's sense of nationhood (83).
His essay, Indolence of the Filipinos, stripped away the myth
propagated by the Spanish writers that the Filipinos were by nature lazy, without
individual initiative and wanting in civilization. To prove his point, Rizal
annotated Morga's Sucesos de las Filipinas. Like a social scientist
marshalling facts, he showed that the Filipinos were not ignorant Indios and
that in fact they had a rich past, their own civilization, and were
hardworking before the Spanish conquest of the islands (84>. Throughout almost
three centuries and a half, the Indios were denied all active participation
in the affairs of the state. They were deprived of the fruits of their labour.
Incentives were non-existent and all avenues to advancement were closed
to them. Under these circumstances, the native yielded to the
excruciating conditions of his environment, preferring the lazy joys of indolence
rather than labour for the benefit of his oppressor (85). Much of the blame
for the alleged indolence of the people and the backwardness of the country
he laid at the door of the colonial regime. Through this work Rizal sought

155
to instill in the people a national feeling and racial pride to erase once and
for all any sense of servility toward the ruling master.
The growing conviction that the natives were entitled to human dignity
and that the Indios and the Chinese mestizos were only one people, ran
through the polemics of the reformist writers of the late 1880s and
mid-1890s : Jose Rizal, Graciano Lopez Jaena, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Pedro
Paterno, Antonio Luna, Mariano Ponce, Jose Panganiban, Eduardo de Lete,
and many others. In the end, as the mestizos and Indios became more
radicalized, and as their articulation of grievances as colonial subjects was
shaping up into a powerful Filipinist cause, some of the croles and Spanish
mestizo students and writers who had been collaborating with the
reformist movement eventually withdrew from the circle, with the lines
largely drawn, as Shumacher puts it, between the croles and Spanish
mestizos on one side, and the Chinese mestizos and Indios on the other (86).
Unlike the crole and the Spanish mestizo who were inclined to identify
with the peninsular Spanish, the Chinese mestizo identified himself with
the Indio.
In 1892, Rizal, returning to the Philippines, founded the Liga Filipino,
in the house of a Chinese mestizo, Doroteo Ongjungco. The League was
a movement aimed at forging a united Philippines into one compact and
homogenous body. Rizal wanted to create a feeling of national unity that
would transcend class distinctions ans parochialism. In this sense, he was
the first who sought to unite the whole archipelago and who preached that
the Indio could be something else, Filipinos who were members of a
Filipino nation (87).
Meanwhile, the ethnically determined gremios for the Indios and
Chinese mestizos in existence since 1741 had steadily declined under the impact
of the Chinese mestizos demand for the abolition of the tribute of tax
payment based on ethnic considerations, and its replacement by a tax applied
uniformly to all to erase the legal distinction between the two (88\ In 1878,
the tribute was modified by the industrial tax which in turn was replaced
by the cedula, made uniformly applicable in 1894. The cedula broke down
the legal distinction between the Indios and Chinese mestizos as the latter
were now classified as Indios (89\
Possibly in allusion to the Chinese mestizo's agitation which signalled
increasing political dissidence, Manual Scheidnagel, writing in the 1880s,
observed :... Indeed, the enourmous inconvenience for us and to the
archipelago where it is found is the intermixture of the natives with the
Chinese that results into the most possible wickedness ... known as the
Chinese mestizo (90). On March 1, 1888, a petition signed by 810 natives and
mestizos demanded the ouster from the islands of the Spanish friars from
the various religious orders as well as the archbishop, the secularization

156
of the Benefices, and the confiscation of the estates of both Augustinians
and Dominicans (91).
The critical posture of the Chinese mestizos caught the attention of
another writer, Rafael Guerrero who, in 1890, commented somewhat
bitterly :... today, in all towns of the Philippines, there is a number of
persons, almost all mestizos, who agitate and provoke the surge of opinion.
They attempt to set the people into a critical thinking of the meaning of
individual rights and freedom (92).
A Friar Memorial of April 28, 1888 voicing the protest of all religious
orders against the prevalence of free thought lamented that only after the
masses had been imbued with revolutionary free thought of free masons
have the islands been disturbed <93).
Although the middle class was Hispanic-Christian in culture, they were
nationalistic in politics. The trade ties which drew Chinese mestizos
together earlier, the regular postal service and the road building which
facilitated communications among them, the numerous vessels that plied the
coastal areas, their widening contact with the people in the capital, the
increasing appearance of propaganda materials and reformist newspapers, and
the influx of liberal ideas from Europe following the opening of Manila to
the world, created the environment for the Chinese mestizos to intensify
their campaign for reforms. The Chinese mestizos and Indios returning from
Europe to Manila or to their respective towns brought with them
subversive ideas later decried as Filibusterismo by the Spaniards who
branded those who were in favor of reform and progress as Filibusterers. Such
ideas, in time, infected their compatriots (94).
Another Spanish writer in the late 1880s, Enrique Polo de Lara, wrote
of the mestizos in the same vein :The Filipino mestizo is a breed of all
components; he is the herald of restlessness, the adviser of disturbances, and
the adversary in obeying colonial laws. All officials must keep guard of them
very specially so that with everybody's watchfulness, they will not mix with
the ordinary masses (95\
These comments by the Spaniards were confirmed by the American
official reports which described the Chinese mestizo as intelligent but
restless and difficult to subdue <96). An American school
superintendent wrote :The Chinese mestizo is an exceedingly difficult fellow to
manage. He combines the keenness and stolidity of the Chinamen with the
smoothness and secretiveness of the natives. The combination is not
particularly a pleasant one. The greater portion of the trouble that Americans
have experienced in the provinces (the Ilocos) has been caused by this
class (97).
Although the reformists and propagandists who now called themselves
Filipinos were still assimilationists, they had already assumed the task of

157
contending for their nation's right to exist, even to the extent of
promulgating the idea of developing loyalty to the Philippines as a united and
distinct nation. These Filipinos, loving the Philippines and being loyal to it
as their country, not just a cluster of islands they happened to inhabit,
were nationalists (98). Why did they think the Filipinos were different from
other people, and what made them identify themselves as one nation? These
sentiments could only be rooted in their Filipinistic concepts, in their
common sufferings and grievances, and in their aspirations as a people.
Pedro Paterno, Gregorio Sancianco, and Jose Rizal were, to a certain
extent, responsible for instilling in their countrymen an incipient sense of
nationality and national self-esteem. These writers, each in his own way,
to quote Fr. Schumacher, articulated the growing consciousness of a
national self, of an identity as a distinct people (") with a destiny of their own.
They and the other Filipino intellectuals of the reform movement
expressed, in the words of the eminent historian, professor Teodoro A. Agoncillo,
the submerged feelings of the masses, and they unconsciously pointed
the way to revolution (10).
The contradiction between the Spaniards and the Filipinos having a
destiny of their own would be translated by the Katipuneros under Andres
Bonifacio into political action -the Philippine Revolution. The Filipinos were
no longer vassals of Spain, but a separate and distinct people capable of
making their own history. The revolution was a test of the Filipino people
as a nation. Growing economic, social, and political identification with the
Indios as Filipinos would put the Chinese mestizo on the side of the
revolution.
When the Revolution broke out, Chinese mestizos were participants
not necessarily as mestizos, but as Filipinos. General Emilio Aguinaldo
who took over leadership from Andres Bonifacio and founded the first
Philippine Republic was of Filipino-Chinese descent. Even his able chief
adviser, Apolinario Mabini was a Tagalog with perhaps some Chinese blood.
Many Chinese mestizos participated prominently in the Revolution in many
ways. Some were militarily involved like Generals Flaviano Yenko,
Francisco Makabulos, Manuel Tinio, Teodoro Sandiko, Severino Taino, Maximino Hizon. Others were financial contributors like Roman Ongpin, Mariano
Limjap, Telesforo Chuidian, and Luis R. Yangco (101). In the provinces, the
Chinese mestizos constituted a great portion of the local revolutionary
leaders and the rank and file (102) . According to an observer, the Chinese
mestizos formed so large a part of the rebels that the high-class natives
hesitated so long about joining the insurgents (103).
The overall involvement of the Chinese mestizo in the Revolution was
discussed by Captain John Taylor in The Philippines Insurrection Against
the United States :... Natives who have led during the past few years of

158
revolt have probably been almost all partly Chinese... Chinese mestizos,
the descendants of Chinese, in many cases educated in Spain and other parts
of Europe, are the leaders in the islands in wealth and intelligence. They
are the men who were chiefly instrumental in overthrowing the power of
Spain, and they are the men who, with the loudest voices, arrogate to
themselves the right of speaking for the people of the archipelgo. It is not always
easy to identify them; they... prefer to call themselves Filipinos... but out
of the 164 men who were sufficiently important to require separate index
cards in classifying the papers of the insurrection in the Philippines against
the United States, 27 seem undoubtedly to be of Chinese descent, and
probably a more careful investigation will increase the number. Aguinaldo is
one of the 27, and so are 2 of the members of his cabinet, 9 of his generals
(one of them a pureblooded Chinese), 1 of 2 heads of his cabinet or council
of government, and his principal financial agents (104).
The role of the Chinese mestizo in the making of the nation did not
end in 1898. During the Filipino- American war, a great many of the
mestizo families were among the insurrectors (105).
On the eve of the Revolution, it was clear that a new nationality held
together the people of the islands. The Chinese mestizos' involvement in
the Revolution was part of the accelerating political trend toward common
action with the Indios -as Filipinos. Earlier, the term Filipinos refered
to the Creoles, the Spaniards born in the Islands. In 1898, the term was
consistently applied to- the natives. Thus, the distinct nationality of the
Indios came to be fully recognized.
The Philippine Revolution of 1896 was the final act of determination
on the part of the true Filipinos - Indios and Chinese mestizos alike to claim for themselves and for future generations the incomparable
birthright of nationhood. And the accomplishment of this historic mission was
due, to a significant extent, to the patriotic awakening of the Chinese
mestizos and their complete absorption into the social, cultural and economic
fabric of the emerging Filipino nation-state.

NOTES
1.

2.

Edgar Wickberg, The Chinese Mestizo in Philippine History, Journal of Southeast Asian
History, Vol. 5, (March, 1964), pp. 62-100; Jesus Merino, O.P., Chinese Mestizo :
General Considerations, in Felix Alfonso, ed. The Chinese in the Philippines (Manila : Solidaridad Publishing House, 1969); John Schumacher, S.J., The Propaganda Movement,
1880-1895, (Manila : Solidaridad Publishing House, 1973).
Merino, op. cit., p. 45.

159
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

11.

12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.

Quoted in Soledad M. Borromeo, El Cadiz Filipino^ : Colonial Cavit, 1571-1896.

Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, n.d., p. 106.
Wickberg, op.cit, p. 67.
Ibid..
Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands, H.93-1898, (Cleveland : Arthur Clark Co.,
1903), Vol. 20, p. 232; Vol. 48, p. 143; Vol. 54, p. 92.
Wickberg, op. cit., p. 70.
Blair and Robertson, op. cit.. Vol. 48, p. 143; Vol. 36, p. 54, 92.
Blair and Robetson, op. cit., Vol. 54, p. 92; Census of the Philippine Islands, 1903, Bureau
of Census, 1905, Vol. 1, p. 483.
Alfred McCoy, A Queen Dies Slowly : The Rise and Decline of Iloilo City, in Alfred
McCoy and Edilberto de Jesus, eds. Philippine Social History (Quezon City : Ateneo de
Manila University Press, 1982), p. 301; Demy M. Sonza, Sugar is Sweet : The Story of
Nicholas Loney, (Manila : National Historical Institute, 1977), p. 27.
John Larkin, The Pampangans : Colonial Society in a Philippine Setting. (Quezon City :
Phoenix Press, 1975), p. 49, The Evolution ofPampanga Society :A Case Study ofSocial
and Economic Change in the Philippines. Ph. D. dissertation. (New York : University of
Columbia, 1966), p. 57.
Michael Culianne, The Changing Nature of the Cebu Urban Elite in the 19th Century,
in McCoy and de Jesus, op. cit., p. 257.
Marion Wilcox, ed. Harper's History of War in the Philippines (New YHork, 1900), p.
179; William Henry Scott, The Discovery ofthelgorots (Manila, Creative Printing
Corporation, revised d., 1977), p. 179.
Rosario M. Cortez, Pangasinan, 1572-1800 (Quezon Cityh : University of the Philippines
Press, 1974), p. 61.
Wickberg, op. cit., pp. 62-65; Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. 51, p. 119.
Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. 12, p. 22, 324; Vol. 52, p. 58.
Wickberg, op. cit., p. 79.
Edgar Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine Life, 1880-1898, (New Haven : Yale
University Press, 1965), p. 134.
Report of the Philippine Commission to the President (Washington, Governement
Printing Office, 1901). Vol. 3, p. 341; Vol. 4, p. 86.
Wickberg, The Chinese Mestizo in Philippine History, op. cit., p. 65; Census of the
Philippine Islands, 1903, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 431 note.
Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine Life, pp. 31-32.
Merino, op. cit., p. 56.
Ibid., p. 55.
Ibid., p. 64.
Wickberg, Ibid..
Carmen G. Nakpil, A Question of Identity (Manila : Vessels Books, 1973), p. 72.
Borromeo, op. cit., pp. 111-112.
Ibid., pp. 113-114.
Ferdinand E. Marcos, Tadhana : The History of the Filipino People (1979), Vol. 2 Part
3, p. 120.
Modesto P. Sa-onoy, The Chinese inNegros (Bacolod : Ace Printer, Inc., 1980), pp. 34-38.
Larkin, The Pampangans, op. cit., p. 54.

160
32. Ibid., p. 56.
33. Sa-onoy, op. cit., p. 81; Demy Sonza, op. cit., p. 81; Fe Hernaez Romero, Negros
Occidental Between Two Foreign Powers, 1888-1909. Negros Occidental Historical Commission,
1974, p. 31.
34. Michael Culliano, in McCoy and de Jesus, op. cit., p. 206.
35. Norman Owen, Abaca in Kabikolan, Prosperity without Progress in McCoy and de Jesus,
eds. op. cit., p. 206.
36. John Bowring, A visit to the Philippine Islands in 1858 (Manila : Filipiniana Book Guild,
1963), p. 70.
37. Wickberg, The Chinese Mestizo in Philippine History, op. cit., pp. 80-81.
38. Owen, op. cit., p. 196; Bruce Cruikshank, Continuity and Change in the Economic and
Administrative History of the 19th Century Sources, in McCoy and de Jesus, eds., op.cit.,
p. 225.
39. Wickberg, op. cit., p. 82.
40. Ibid., Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. 51, p. 234.
41. Wickberg, op. cit., p. 82, Souza, op. cit., pp. 26-27, 29.
42. Vicente P. Valdepenas and Gemilino Bautista, The Emergence of the Philippine Economy,
(Manila : Depyrus Press, 1977), p. 62.
43. Ibid..
44. Ibid., p. 102.
45. Ibid., p. 106, Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine Life, p. 142; The Chinese Mestizo
in Philippine History, op. cit. p. 37.
46. Valdepenas, op. cit., p. 106.
47. Cited in John Bowring, op. cit., p. 69 and in Wickberg, The Chinese Mestizo in
Philippine History, p. 80.
48. John Bowring, op. cif.,pp. 69-70.
49. Jagor, Feodor, Travels in the Philippines, (London : Chapman and Hall, 1875), p. 33.
50. Report of the Philippine Commission to the President, 1900 (Washington : Government
Printing Office, 1900), Vol.1, p. 138.
51. Quoted in Wickberg, The Chinese Mestizo in Philippine History, op. cit., pp. 81-82.
52. Ibid., p. 86; The Chinese in Philippine Life, p. 136.
53. Bowring, op. cit., p. 70.
54. Quoted in ibid., p. 69.
55. Quoted in Zoilo Galang, Encyclopedia of the Philippines (Manila, 1950), Vol. V, pp. 66-67.
56. Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. 52, p. 129.
57. W. Gifford Palgroal, Ulysses in Science and Studies in Maryland, (London : Mcmillan,
1887), p. 144.
58. Borromeo, op. cit., p. 113; Larkin, The Pampangans, op. cit., pp. 71, 73, 84; Michael Culliane, The Changing Nature of the Cebu Urban Elites in the 19th Century, in McCoy
and de Jesus, eds., op. cit., pp. 277-282.
59. Loney to Farren, Manila, 10 July 1861, PRO. F.T. 721927 in H. de la Costa, S.J.
Readings in Philippine History (Manila : Bookmark 1965), p. 187.
60. Quoted in Culliane, op. cit., p. 276.
61. Quoted in Wickberg, The Chinese Mestizo in Philippine History, p. 71.
62. Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. 51, p. 17.
63. Ibid, Vol. 52, pp. 64-65.

161
64. Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine Life, p. 144; The Chinese Mestizo in Philippine
History, p. 88.
65. Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. 52, pp. 64-65.
66. Jagor, op. cit., p. 24.
67. Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. 52, pp. 64-65.
68. Galang, op. cit., Vol. 5, p. 189.
69. Arsenio Manuel, Dictionary of Philippine Biography (Manila : Benipayo Press, 1955),
Vol. 2, p. 62.
70. Gregorio F. Zaide, Great Filipinos in History, 1970, p. 192.
71. Manuel, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 489; Filipino Heritage (Manila : Lahing Pilipino Publishing
Inc., 1978), Vol. 6, p. 672.
72. James Leroy, The Philippines, 1880-1898 : Some Comments and Bibliographical Notes,
in Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. 52, pp. 128-129. Schumacher, op. cit., pp. 17-18;
Domingo Abella, From Indio to Filipinos, 1979, p. 208.
73. Usha Mahajani, Philippine Nationalism : External Challenge and Filipino Response,
1566-1U6. (University of Queensland Press, 1971), p. 36.
74. Schumacher, op. cit., p. 18.
75. Ibid., p. 21.
76. B.S. Medina, Jr., Confrontation Past and Present in Philippine Literature (Manila :
National Book Store, 1974), p. 93.
77. Schumacher, op. cit., pp. 18-23; See Gregorio Y. Gozon Sancianco, The Progress of the
Philippines, Alzona Encarnacion, trans. (Manila : National Historical Commission, 1975).
78. Schumacher, op. cit., p. 18-23; Sancianco, op. cit..
79. Schumacher, op. cit., p. 25; Nick Joaquin, A Question of Heroes : Essays in Criticism
on ten Figures of Philippine History (Makati : Ayala Museum, 1977), pp. 40-41.
80. Camilo Osias, Jose Rizal : His Life and Times (Oscol Educational Publication, Inc., 1946).
Esteban de Ocampo, Chinese Greatest Contribution to the Philippines - The Birth of
Dr. Jose Rizal, in Schubert Liao, Chinese Participation in Philippine Culture and
Economy (1964), pp. 89-95.
81. Schumacher, op. cit., p. 29.
82. Ibid., pp. 33-34.
83. Ibid., pp. 74-80, 235-243.
84. Ibid., pp. 24-25, 37, 201-202; Paz Policarpio Mendez, Adventure inRizaliana (Manila :
National Historical Institute, 1978), p. 79.
85. Ramon Lala Reyes, quoted in Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. 51, p. 103.
86. Schumacher, op. cit., p. 70.
87. Leon M. Guerrero, cited in Nick Joaquin, op. cit., p. 58.
88. Wickberg, The Chinese Mestizo in Philippine History, op. cit., p. 94.
89. Ibid., pp. 91, 94-95;' peter Stanley, A Nation in the Making (Boston : Harvard
University press, 1974), p. 39.
90. Quoted in Borromeo, op. cit., p. 116.
91. Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. 17. p. 310.
92. Quoted in Borromeo, op. cit., p. 117.
93. Blair and Robertson, op. cit., Vol. 52, pp. 23-24.
94. Pardo de Tavera, in Galang, op. cit., Vol. 5, p. 68.
95. Quoted in Borromeo, op. cit., p. 117.

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96. Report of the Philippine Commission to the President, June 31, 1900, op. cit. , Vol. 1, p. 154.
97.

Republic of the Philippines, Department of Education, Bureau of Public Schools, Annual

reports, 1901-1905, (Manila : Bureau of Printing, 1954), p. 74.

98.

Usha Mahajani, op. cit., p. 61.

99.

Schumacher, op. cit., p. 34.

100. Teodoro Agoncillo, Malolos : The Crisis of the Republic (Quezon City, 1960), pp. 649-650.
101. See Manuel, op. cit., Vol.1, pp. 131, 248-295, 483-485; and Vol. 2; Milagros Guerrero,
Provincial and Municipal Elites of Luzon During the Revolution, in McCoy and de Jesus,
eds., op. cit., p. 184. Gregorio F. Zaide, Great Filipinos in History, (Manila : Verde Book
Store, 1970); Carlos Quirino, Eminent Filipinos. Manila : National Historical
Commission publication Nl, 1965.
102. Report of the Philippine commission to the President, 1900. Vol. 2, p. 41; Borromeo, op.
cit., p. 116, Sa-onoy, op. cit., p. 43.
103. Ramon Lala Reyes, The Philippine Islands (New York; 1898), p. 94.
104. Published by the Eugenio Lopez Foundations (Pasay, 1971), pp. 31-32.
105. Report of the Philippine Commission to the President, 1900; op. cit.,, Vol. 2, p. 41.