EXILIUM REX

Chapter 11

From the pages of The Chronicles of the War of Names in the Suyo Islands of Palawan (part 2):

Datu Sumaclob promised them 2,000 mercenary warriors from Suyo islands and, as was the custom then, they prepared a feast to celebrate the merger. Antonio Surabao, one of the wealthy highlander chiefs of the Amianan tribe of the Suyo islands, despised the Spaniards, but he despised Datu Sumaclob more because of his warm welcome to the European blue-blooded outsiders and of eventually making them honorary Amianan chiefs with the promise of giving them territory in exchange for whatever riches the Europeans have to offer to Datu Sumaclob and company.

It was because of this deep hatred and envy of the outsiders that drove Antonio Surabao to play the role of traitor in this plot by the Tagalog nobles against the colonists. Acting as a guide to Magat Salamat and the other Tagalog nobles, Antonio Surabao made sure they feasted with Datu Sumaclob and company well into the week when both the Amianan and Suba tribes were celebrating the Lai Mabinta-Nong. It was the perfect time, since most of the marauders south of the Sea of Light would be preparing for their next incursion. It would be the perfect cover. The other freemen as well as their dedengs (a term used by natives of the Suyo islands which similarly meant “personal assistants”) would all be away well into the week’s cessation of the Lai Mabinta-Nong, the feast of the Goddess of the Forest.

In the midst of the week-long celebration, Antonio Surabao met with a Spanish encomendero, Pedro Sarmiento, who promised the traitor hectares of land in the Suyo islands in exchange of the valuable information he had given. Pedro Sarmiento traveled to Manila to personally hand to then Governor General Santiago de Vera the details of the plot to overthrow the Spanish rule of the Philippine islands. By that time, more than a year of plotting from the Tagalog nobility had already passed and Governor General de Vera wasted no time in executing the arrests of all those involved.

The Spanish regime swiftly swooped down on the conspirators who had convened themselves in the islands of Suyo, and brought back to Manila in cuffs the leaders of the conspiracy. To set an example against any and all future plotters against Spain, the colonists hanged in such brutal fashion the two Tagalog leaders, Agustin de Legazpi and Martin Pangan. After being hanged, the heads of the two were chopped off and were exhibited in iron cages for all to witness. Meanwhile, all the real estate properties of the two were confiscated and the soil of their land were sown with salt in order to keep the land barren. The said Japanese Christian interpreter, Dionisio Fernandez, who played a minor role in the so-called revolt suffered the same brutal and inhumane fate. While three other Tagalog coup plotters were executed in a less brutal fashion: Magat Salamat, Geronimo Basi, and Esteban Taes.

The other remaining Tagalog nobles were then ordered exiled to the country of Mexico (called as the New Spain at that time). These include the following: Pedro Balinguit, who was sentenced to six years in exile and payment of a certain amount of tael of orejas gold; Felipe Salonga was sentenced to eight years in exile; and others with an average of five years in exile. Except for Pitonggatan, the prince of Tondo, who was charged with only two years in exile.

On their way to Mexico at sea, however, Pitonggatan, the prince of Tondo, through bribery of some of the Spanish authorities, escaped the galleon and boarded a pirate ship by the mercenary warriors of the Suyo islands. The mercenary warriors returned to the Suyo islands and declared Pitonggatan as their one and true chief.

Pitonggatan knew, however, that his stay in the Suyo islands should remain a closely guarded secret. With the help of the mercenary warriors, they returned incognito to Manila to re-take the seized gold and other valuable properties of the prince of Tondo. With this horde of wealth, Pitonggatan and his crew returned to the Suyo islands and offered his riches to the chiefs of the lowland Suba tribe in exchange of him and his loyal warriors being granted sanctuary from any enemies who would want him dead, whether these enemies come from within or outside the islands.

The Suba tribe of the Suyo islands who were more traders than warriors agreed to Pitonggatan’s desire for safe haven. During the first months of his sanctuary, Pitonggatan lived in relative peace and quiet. Until came the time when it was alleged that he fell in love with an unnamed Subanon native. Pitonggatan bore a child. In order to protect his child, the estranged Tagalog noble entrusted his newborn to the babaylan of the Suyo islands. For the babaylan was well-respected by and acted as counsel to both the Amianan and Suba tribes, in times of peace and in times of war.

In the late 1500s, the child of Pitonggatan, a son, grew up and also became a babaylan. Well-aware of his blood-father’s guarded secret, the son of Pitonggatan started the rituals for the Lai Mabinta-Nong by the Amianan tribe, the buetec as well as the pangabas. The lowlanders of the tribe of Suba no longer actively participated in such rituals for the Lai Mabinta-Nong; since, being native Suyonons who possessed mixed Chinese and Vishayan Malay blood in their veins, they were more busy maintaining the Suyo islands the center of Palawan Barter trade, starting back from the 1300s.

Thus, the feast of the Lai Mabinta-Nong became more known as an Amianan feast, and the rituals, particularly the penultimate ceremonial rite of the pangabas at dusk, incorporated the oft-used symbolism of the seven fistfuls of grain wherein they were carefully stored to seven large jars in a granary. This as a secret tribute by each and every generation of Suyonon babaylans ever since the late 1500s to Pitonggatan, the estranged Tagalog noble, the Prince of Tondo. 

[Fiscal Baylon’s brief interjection in his reading, “Though, up to this point of my revelation, no evidence whatsoever was ever yet brought to light with regards to this direct link of the bloodline of the Prince of Tondo and the babaylans of the Suyo islands of Palawan.”]

At the turn of the 16th century, however, particularly in 1594, King Philip II of Spain, in a gesture of magnanimity to the crown and its Philippine colony, sought for datus of the islands of pre-Hispanic kingdoms to retain their rights to govern their territory under the Spanish Empire. Whether this was a direct or indirect offshoot of the so-called Conspiracy of the Maharlikas, only time, history – and The Chronicles of the War of Names in the Suyo Islands of Palawan – in the end, shall reveal.