According to the earliest known written document found in the Philippines, the Laguna Copperplate - a legal document written in "Kawi," the former region of Tondo has already existed in the year 900 AD; hence, it is over eleven hundred years old. This document now at the National Museum of the Philippines claims that Tondo was ruled by a man called "Jayadeva" who holds the Sanskrit title "Senapati" or admiral.
Tondo was a rich region that in 1500 AD, the Kingdom of Brunei attacked the place and established a city called "Maynilad" on the opposite bank of the Pasig River. The traditional Lakandulas ruler of Tondo retained their titles and property, but the real political power was the River Lord Rajah Sulayman, the Rajahs of Maynilad dominating river traffic and exacting tolls from traders as they came and went. To show his power, Rajah Sulayman built a palisades of his “Kuta” the same spot where Intramuros is located.
When the Spaniards conquered Luzon in 1571, Tondo was part of the Province of Pampanga which at that time was the first colonial province. According to a census that was made by Miguel de Loarca in 1583, the people of Tondo reportedly spoke the same dialect as that spoken by the Kapampangans. The dividing line between Kapampangan (ka pampang) and Tagalog (taga-ilog) was the Pasig River, Pasig - an old Malayan word pertaining to the coast or strand. Tondo became a separate province in the later half of the Spanish colonial era and today's Tondo exists as the first district of the City of Manila.
The first provinces to rebel against Spain in 1896 was Tondo, about three hundred years earlier than Gat Andres Bonifacio and Gat Emilio Jacinto's KATIPUNAN, a prominent Filipinos conspired to overthrow the Spanish rule, though it was a failed attempt. It was mastermind by AGUSTIN DE LEGAZPI, nephew of Lakan Dula, son-in-law of the Sultan of Brunei and the grandson of conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, with his first cousin MARTIN PANGAN, who was then the Gobernadorcillo of Tondo. It was to be known as the Tondo Conspiracy of 1587-1588 or "The Conspiracy of The Maharlikas." It was a 19th-century Spanish civil servant, colonial administrator, biographer and a Filipiniana collector Wenceslao Retana relates in his, "La primera Conjuracion Separatista" in the country. The other conspirators were MAGAT SALAMAT - son of Lakan Dula and Chief of Tondo; JUAN BANAL - another Tondo chief and Salamat’s brother-in-law; GERONIMO BASI and GABRIEL TUAMBACAR - brothers of Agustin de Legazpi; PEDRO BALINGUIT - chief of Pandacan; FELIPE SALONGA - chief of Polo; DIONISIO CAPOLO (Kapulong) - chief of Candaba and brother of Felipe Salonga; JUAN BASI - chief of Taguig; ESTEBAN TAES (Tasi) - chief of Bulacan; FELIPE SALALILA - chief of Misil; AGUSTIN MANUGUIT - son of Felipe Salalila; LUIS AMANICALOA - chief of Tondo; FELIPE AMARLANGAGUI - chief of Caranglan; OMAGHICON - chief of Navotas and PITONGATAN - chief of Tondo.
The cause of conspiracy was the injustice committed by the Spanish Encomendieros against the people of the kingdom and their lack of respect to treaty obligations with the local aristocracy which reserved them the right to still exercise nominal suzerainty over the kingdom, being vassal kings of the king of Spain but still the Generals of Conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legaspi refused to listen. These Maharlika chieftains in their environs who willed to give up their land property for the noble purpose.
In 1857, Augustin de Legazpi enlisted the help and had made contact with a Japanese sea captain Juan Gayo, through a Japanese Christian and interpreter, Dionisio Fernandez who had also joined the conspiracy in the house of Legazpi in Tondo. A secret agreement was concluded in which Captain Gayo would supply arms and recruited soldiers from Japan to help the Filipino rebellion and recognize Augustin de Legazpi as king of the Philippine kingdom. In reciprocity, Captain Gayo and the Japanese samurais would receive one-half of the tribute to be collected from the natives after they have defeated the Spaniards. They all swore solemnly according to licentiate Ayala in a letter to Philip II, "according to their custom to keep and fulfill the agreement." Choosing after the "Sandugo - a King, captains and officers at war." Before Goyo's departure, he gave several weapons to Legazpi to be distributed to his men.
Later, a secret meeting that lasted for three days was called in Tambobong (now Malabon) by Magat Salamat. Those who attended where chiefs of Pandacan, Tondo, Candaba, Polo, Catangalan, Navotas with "other Indian timagwas, servants and slaves." The final plan of the uprising was to become completely enforceable. First - a secret delegation would travel to Borneo to secure combat troops and ships from the Sultan of Borneo. Second - obtain the support and participation of the natives of Laguna and Komintang (now Batangas) in this struggle for freedom. Once a full commitment was received from Borneo, Komintang and Laguna, the armed rebellion would begin upon the arrival at the Manila Bay of the Sultan of Borneo’s warships with warriors on board. The conspirators and their armed warriors would then launch a ferocious attack to completely annihilate the Spaniards and then set the city on fire.
By 1588, no word yet received from Japanese Goyo, But when the Maharlikas heard the news of the capture Spanish galleon Santa Ana in February, they again prepared for battle. This time aiming to attack swiftly the moment the Spanish guns in Maynilad were turned toward the sea, waiting to fire at the arrival of the English privateer Cavendish, that never came. Few days later, the chiefs of Bulacan, Esteban Taes and Martin Pangan agreed to call another meeting. Taes was to call all the Maharlikas from Tondo to Bulacan, rally the men of Laguna and Komintang. All the conspirators agreed to send Magat Salamat to the Calamianes (islands north of Palawan) to invite the Sultan of Brunei to send a fleet that would join the Sulus and launch an attack against Maynilad from the sea in conjunction with the Filipino chiefs' assault on land. It would have been a good plan climaxed by an epic battle had it not been for a turncoat who betrayed the conspiracy and reported it to the Spanish authorities.
"The plan was that when the Spanish enemy fleet Burney reached the port of Cavite and the Spaniards trustfully called the Maharlikas to their aid, they would all immediately enter the houses of the Spaniards with their men, fortify themselves in them and thus take possession of them one by one. If the Spaniards took refuge in the fortress, Indian soldiers would follow them and being two to one, they would surely kill the Spaniards."
By November 1588, on the way to meet with the Sultan of Brunei, Magat Salamat, Juan Banal and Augustin Manuguit stopped at Cuyo, Calamianes, to meet with its native chief Sumaclob. The chief was swayed to join the conspiracy and pledge to contribute 2,000 of his men for the cause. However, Magat Salamat made an error in judgment by soliciting the participation of another Cuyo native Antonio Surabao, chief of the encomienda of the Spanish captain Pedro Sarmiento. Upon learning of the secret plan, Surabao rushed to expose it to his master Captain Sarmiento, the Spanish encomendero of Calamianes. Magat Salamat, Banal and Manuguit were apprehended, Captain Sarmiento hastily traveled to Manila and informed Governor Santiago de Vera on October 26, 1588 of a brewing conspiracy against Spanish rule. The governor immediately ordered the arrest of all persons implicated in the revolutionary plot. Everyone was thoroughly investigated, tried in court, and made to suffer cruel punishments. To the Spanish authorities, the conspirators were nothing more than traitors, but to the Filipino people, they were brave liberators, martyrs of a lost cause.
Augustin de Legazpi and Martin Pangan were brutally hanged, their heads cut off and exposed on the gibbet in iron cages; their properties, assets were seized by the Spanish authorities and the sites of their homes plowed and sown with salt so that they would remain barren. Magat Salamat was also hanged, his goods were to be employed for the erection of the new fortress of Maynilad. Before he was hanged, Salamat appeled to the Royal Audiencia, but his case was remitted to the governor in order that justice might be done - except that the goods were to be set aside for the treasury. The sentence was executed.
The Japanese Christian interpreter, Dionisio Fernandez was also hanged and his property confiscated. Dionisio Capolo (Kapulong), chief of Candaba (Pampanga) was sentenced to exile from his town and made to pay a heavy fine. Governor Santiago de Vera pardoned him. Later he served as a guide and interpreter for two Spanish expeditions to the Igorot country in 1591 and 1594. The other five leading members of the Tondo Conspiracy were exiled to Mexico - Pedro Balinguit (chief of Pandacan), Pitongatan (chief of Tondo), Felipe Salonga (chief of Polo), Calao (chief of Tondo), and Agustin Manuguit (chief of Tondo). They were the very first Filipinos to reside in Mexico.
And so the first rebels from Tondo died, it wasn’t until during the late nineteenth-century when their martyrdom be duplicated. However, unlike the Maharlika Conspiracy of 1587-1588, this time it was the members of Manila’s working class and not the heads of prominent families who were mainly the mind and force behind it. Three of their district-mates Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto and Macario Sakay followed their footsteps.
The significance of the Tondo Conspiracy, aside from its purely political motivation, lay in the fact that it was not just the conspiracy of Tondo, but practically all the Datus, Lakans and Rajahs in the Tagalog region from Batangas, Cavite, Laguna and Bulacan, besides the Pampangos, who were involved owing to the participation of Dionisio Capolong of Candaba. In 1587-1588 therefore, the old lines of contact of "ka pampang" and "taga ilog" Maharlikas by Pasig River Valley which had made the ethnic state of Manila possible, were still unbroken, were in fact extended down to Sulus and Brunei. It was evidently only in moment of crisis of this nature that the Spaniards became aware of the extent of the political inter-connection.
ka tony
the 13th of January, 2012
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