"Viva Mexico!"

At the first hour of September 16, 2010, Mexico president Felipe Calderon delivered the opening salvo of the bicentennial celebrations all over the country at a fiesta multicolor in the capital city. 

He delivered the traditional "el grito de Dolores"--"Viva Mexico"--thrice, which recalled the cry of the people of Dolores two hundred years ago on September 16, 1810 when the Roman Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla tolled the church bells and led them to rise against Spain. For the next ten years, the Mexicans were at war for their independence; they got it in 1821.

Pictures of the opening ceremonies--a brilla espectaculo, said one paper-- were spread out in the front page of Mexican newspapers on bicentennial day itself. 

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The next day, the print media had a different focus:  the country's military might displayed during the bicentennial parade.  If it was a consolation to a nation in party mood nationwide, there was no major encounter between the military and the drug cartel on that day.

This bicentenario reminds of ties that continue to bind Mexico and the Philippines, which most of the now generation are not even aware of, all because of Spain.

The history of Spain in these countries began in 1521.  Ferdinand Magellan landed in Mactan (was slain by Lapu-Lapu) but the colonization of las yslas Filipinas of more than three centuries would not start until Miguel Lopez de Legazpi arrived in 1564; and Hernan Cortez landed in Mexico, which became its colony Nueva España for 300 years following the fall of the Aztec empire and an almost complete obliteration of the indigenous people with sword, slavery, hunger and the unknown, untreatable diseases the conquerors brought with them.  

It's the Manila-Acapulco trade or the Galleon Trade from 1570 to 1815, using galleons made of hardwood cut and hauled down from Philippine forests by indios, and built by indio master shipbuilders, that left behind those binding ties.  More than 200 galleons sailed from Cavite with the last one, the Magallanes arriving in Acapulco in the midst of war. These were laden with products from the Philippines and Asia on their way to European markets, and manned by Tagalog-speaking indio seamen.

After a lay period of three months, the galleons returned with silver ingots from Mexican mines, which the Chinese liked as payment for their goods, and had Spanish-Mexicans and Mexican indians (like those who settled in Macabebe, Pampanga) on passage to serve the colonial government in Manila.  The crew were Mexicans--criollos, Spanish-Mexicans, Nahuatl Indians--and thus spoke Spanish and Nahuatl.   These Nahuatl Indians contributed words to Philippine vocabulary like tianggi, palenque, zacate, zapote. 

The galleons brought the "potato, maize, peanut, cacao, cashew nut, avocado, tomato, coffee, tobacco, indigo, maguey, papaya, pineapple, eggplant, cassava, decorative, medicinal, and flowering plants, shrubs, and trees" into the Philippine landscape, food table and herbal medicine bag. 

The long lay-over allowed the indio seamen to travel to other towns, to fall in love with local girls and start a Filipino-Mexican family.  And that explains why guinatang (fried fish cooked with coconut milk), tuba, ceviche (kilawin), ylang-ylang, mangga, among others are part of the Mexican cultural landscape.  It's also reported that houses in some areas of the Pacific coast have the basic bahay kubo design.

In the state of Guerrero where Acapulco is located, scholars have found around 300 Filipino family names.   It's no wonder then why Filipinos or Filipino-Mexicans were involved during the ten-year war of independence.

When the war broke out, a Filipino student from Manila, Ramon Fabie, was one of those arrested and executed.   General Vicente Guerrero, Mexico's first black president for a very short term, after whom the state was named, had "mostly colored" soldiers--chinos, Filipino-Mexicans, Filipinos newly arrived from Manila--in his army.  It's said that he had two Filipino aides when he surrendered in 1830. 

P.S.  The el grito sounds like the "Cry of Pugad Lawin" of August 23, 1896 although Andres Bonifacio did not shout "Viva Las Yslas Filipinas" or "Mabuhay ang Pilipinas" to launch the Philippine revolution. That armed struggle against Spain would not reach a decade, and this would be replaced by a new war, military and parliamentary, within and beyond the "age of imperialism" (1870-1920, according to the UMichigan) of the United States of America in the Philippines and it's other territories.

Front Page of California & Texas newspapers.

Sources:

1.   Agoncillo, Teodoro A. (1990). History of the Filipino People. 8th Edition. Quezon City: Garotech Publishing.

2.   "Mexican Independence Day, Mexico Bicentennial: The History of Mexico." Retrieved September 17, 2010 from News Provider: http://www.providingnews.com/mexico-bicentennial-the-history-of-mexico.html

3.   "RP, Mexico linked 250 years by galleon trade." Manila Bulletin. Manila Bulletin Publishing Corp. 2004. Retrieved from HighBeam Research: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-114372296.html

4.   "The Galleon Trade (1565-1815).(Opinion & Editorial)." Manila Bulletin. Manila Bulletin Publishing Corp. 2007. Retrieved from HighBeam Research: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-168637965.html

5.   Mercene, Floro L. (2004). "Filipinos in Mexico's fight for independence; Merry-Go-Round.(Opinion & Editorial)." Manila Bulletin. Manila Bulletin Publishing Corp. Retrieved from HighBeam Research: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-126595908.html 

6.  "The galleon trade.(Opinion)." Manila Bulletin. Manila Bulletin Publishing Corp. 2009. Retrieved September 17, 2010 from HighBeam Research: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-197502045.html