Filipino Star - November 2010 Issue

8
MAHARLIKA and the ancient class system
Compiled by Budz Sarmiento (with
permission from the author Paul Morrow,
www.pilipino-express.com)
We don’t hear the word
MAHARLIKA very much anymore. Its origin
goes all the way back to the ancient
language of India called Sanskrit, from the
word, maharddhika, meaning, "a man of
wealth, knowledge or ability." Today it is
generally accepted to mean "nobility or
aristocracy." The venerable Tagalog
dictionary of Leo James English gives us
this example: Ang mga harì at prinsipe ay
kabilang sa mga maharlikâ. [Kings and
princes belong to the nobility.]
That’s the modern definition, but
back in the days when there really was a
maharlika class in the Philippines, it was
actually a lower class of nobility that served
the datus, or chiefs, in times of war. The
maharlikas belonged to the “kings and
princes” and not the other way around.
MARCOS’ MAHARLIKA
We can thank former dictator
Ferdinand Marcos, mainly, for our
misunderstanding of this word today.
“Maharlika culture” was his propaganda
tool for promoting nationalism during the
days of the “New Society.” The word
became very fashionable and was used in
naming streets, buildings, banquet halls,
villages and cult0ural groups. Marcos
named a highway, a broadcast company
and the reception area of Malacañang
Palace, Maharlika. He even toyed with the
idea of renaming the whole country as
Maharlika.
Marcos’ fascination with the term
apparently began in World War II when he
claimed to have commanded a guerrilla
force of over 8000 men that he called the
Maharlika unit. His claims were proved
false in 1985.
It’s ironic that Marcos’ first use of
the word maharlika was quite appropriate
because he only used it to name a group of
soldiers (albeit fictitious soldiers) rather
than an entire aristocracy or country.
The maharlikas were just one rank
in the ancient class system of the Tagalogs,
which was a little more convoluted than our
Western idea of aristocrats and
commoners. This class system was the
norm in other parts of the Philippines, too,
though the names of the classes varied
slightly.
MAGINOO – During the precolonial
era, the maginoo class was the top
of Tagalog society. Men and women of this
class were generally referred to with the
respectful title of Ginoo. Individually, the
terms, Gat, meaning Lord, or Dayang,
meaning Lady, preceded names as in, Gat
Buka (now a town in Bulakan) and Dayang
Angkatan who was mentioned in the
Laguna Copperplate Inscription.
A PANGINOON was an especially
wealthy maginoo who owned much
property and valuable land. A panginoon
was addressed with the shortened
honorific, poon, which could be translated
into English as milord or milady. Aba poon
meant, “Greetings, milord/milady” and Oo,
poon meant, “Yes, sir/ma’am.” Poon
survives to this day as the term of respect,
po.
A DATU, or CHIEF, was a maginoo
who had followers and who ruled beyond
his immediate household, over whole
communities. This term was used in the
Visayas as well as Luzon. A datu with
power over a large area held the title
LAKAN or RAJAH, a Hindu word brought
from Malaysia. When the Spaniards arrived
in the Manila area in 1570, there was a
Banaw Lakan Dula in Tondo and an Ache
Rajah (Ladyang) Matanda in Manila.
TIMAWA – The timawa class were
free commoners of Luzon and the Visayas
who could own their own land and who did
not have to pay a regular tribute to a
maginoo, though they would, from time to
time, be obliged to work on a datu’s land
and help in community projects and
events. They were free to change their
allegiance to another datu if they married
into another community or if they decided
to move.
MAHARLIKA – Members of the
Tagalog warrior class known as maharlika
had the same rights and responsibilities as
the timawa, but in times of war they were
bound to serve their datu in battle. They
had to arm themselves at their own
expense, but they did get to keep the loot
they won – or stole, depending on which
side of the transaction you want to look at.
Although they were partly related to the
nobility, the maharlikas were technically
less free than the timawas because they
could not leave a datu’s service without first
hosting a large public feast and paying the
datu between 6 and 18 pesos in gold – a
large sum in those days.
ALIPIN – Today, the word alipin (or
oripun in the Visayas) means slave and
that’s how the Spaniards translated it, too,
but the alipins were not really slaves in the
Western sense of the word. They were not
bought and sold in markets with chains
around their necks. A better description
would be to call them debtors. They could
be born alipins, inheriting their parents’
debt, and their obligations could be
transferred from one master to another.
However, it was also possible for them to
buy their own freedom. A person in
extreme poverty might even want to
become an alipin voluntarily – preferably to
relatives who saw this as a form of
assistance rather than punishment.
There were two kinds of alipins:
ALIPING NAMAMAHAY – or a
house-holding alipin, could hardly be
called a slave at all. He was more like what
we call a serf in English. A namamahay was
usually an alipin who had received a piece
of land from his maginoo master. In return,
he was required to hand over a portion of
what the land produced as a tribute and to
occasionally work on his master’s land.
ALIPIN SA GIGILID – The people
near the bottom of society were known by
the scornful term, alipin sa gigilid. In precolonial
times the gilid was the area behind
and below the house where the toilet was
located. These alipins were single men and
women who worked in their master’s
homes, tending the gilid, among other
chores. They were completely dependent
for food and shelter, but if they could make
some money on the side, they were
allowed to keep some of it, and if they
managed to save enough, they could buy
their way up to namamahay or even timawa
status. If a man wanted to get married, his
master would usually set him up as an
aliping namamahay with his own home and
a patch of land, though this was rarely
done for women.
The people who bore the greatest
stigma in society were the alipins who were
indebted to other alipins. A sa gigilid of an
aliping namamahay was called a BULISIK,
which meant vile and contemptible. Even
lower was the bulislis who was a sa gigilid
indebted to another sa gigilid. The vulgar
name meant that these alipins were so
vulnerable that it was like their genitals
were exposed. In modern terms we might
say they “had their pants down,” though
bulislis really means, “lifted skirt.”
The only people lower than the
bulislis were slaves who were brought from
other communities or who were captured in
war. They were considered non-persons
until they were accepted into the
community. Once accepted, they had the
same rights as other alipins.
The North American Filipino Star
www.filipinostar.org
5257 Queen Mary Road Suite 1
Montreal, QC H3W 1Y3
nOVEMBER 2010
Philippines plans to lift rice
import restrictions
The government is considering
reducing the tariff and removing the
volume restrictions on imported rice
as it moves away from granting
subsidies to the grain through the
National Food Authority, Budget
Secretary Florencio Abad said
Tuesday.
“There is a recommendation to
remove the quota system and
replace this with just the usual tariff,
but I don’t know what level [the tariff
will be],” he told reporters.
The Philippines has increasingly
been importing rice from neighbors
such as Thailand and Vietnam over
the years to plug its production
shortfalls.
The NFA imports the bulk of the
rice that it sells at lower prices to
make it affordable to Filipinos, but
the Aquino administration has said it
wants to stop subsidizing those
imports.
The administration’s first move
away from subsidies came when it
cut the NFA’s budget for buying rice.
It then sent the money to the Social
Welfare Department for a straight
dole to the poor.
Abad said lowering the tariff on
rice would encourage private
companies to import the grain and
then sell it at lower prices.
Government
approved
Instructor
with 22 years
of experience.
The high tariff on the commodity
and the restrictions on how much of
it may be imported are the reasons
private importers are not buying
much of it.
But a source from the National
Economic and Development
Authority says the administration is
considering lowering the rice tariff to
30 percent from 40 to 50, since the
government would still gain from it.
Another reason for dropping the
quotas on rice imports is the
government’s commitment to the
World Trade Organization to remove
the barriers to trade in farm goods.
Under a deal it negotiated with
nine WTO countries, the Philippines
granted other trade concessions to
extend its quotas on rice, considered
a political commodity, to 2012.
The Philippines, the world’s
biggest rice importer, bought a
record 2.45 million metric tons this
year following a decline in its firstquarter
production on drier-thannormal
weather.
The country usually imports
about a 10th of its annual rice
requirements. It starts buying the
grain during the last quarter of the
year to fill its needs for the following
year. a
Snowdon Metro
Guaranteed Result in 1st
Road Test or 20% money back
New RSE Program
Available - $649
Pick up Service
Call Islam - 438-877-6284
Bureau - 514-564-5512