VISAYAN Class Structure in the Sixteenth Century Philippines

Philippine Studies 28 ( 1980): 142-75
Filipino Class Structure in the Sixteenth Century
WILLIAM HENRY SCOTT

This paper offers summary results of a study of sixteenth century Filipino class structure insofar as it can be reconstructed from the data preserved in contemporary Spanish sources. The major accounts on which it is based have been available in English since the publication of the Blair and Robertson translations early in the 20th century, and have recently been made accessible to the general Filipino reading public by F. Landa Jocano in a convenient and inexpensive volume entitled The Philippines at the Spanish Contact. At least four of these accounts were written for the specific purpose of analyzing Filipino society so that colonial administrators could make use of indigenous institutions to govern their new subjects. Yet any history teacher who has tried to use them to extract even such simple details as the rights and duties of each social class, for purposes of his own understanding and his students’ edification, know how frustrating the exercise can be.

The problems are many. The accounts were not, of course, written by social scientists and are therefore understandably disorderly, imprecise, and even contradictory. They do not, for example, distinguish legislative, judicial, and executive functions in native governments, nor do they even indicate whether datu is a social class or a political office. On one page they tell us that a ruling chief has life-and-death authority over his subjects, but on the next, that these subjects wander off to join some other chief if they feel like it. They describe a second social class as “freemen – neither rich nor poor” as if liberty were an economic attribute, while one account calls them “plebeians” and another “gentlemen and cavaliers.”  The maharlika, whom the modern Filipino knows as “noblemen,” show up as oarsmen rowing their masters boats or field-hands harvesting his crops. And a third category called “slaves” everybody agrees are not slaves at all; yet they may be captured in raids, bought and sold in domestic and foreign markets, or sacrificed alive at their master’s funeral. Moreover, if the data as recorded in the original documents are confusing, they are made even more so by the need to translate sixteenth century Spanish terms which have no equivalent in modern English. Thus pechero becomes “commoner” and loses its significance as somebody who renders feudal dues.

It was a decade of frustrating attempts to resolve such contradictions that inspired the present study. Basic documents used for the study were:

• Miguel de Loar­ca’s Relacion de las Islas Filipinas (1582);
• Juan de Plasencia’s Relacion de las costumbres que los indios se han tener en estas islas and Instrucción de las costumbres que antiguamente tenian los naturales de la Pampanga en sus Pleitos (1589);
• Pedro Chiri­no’s Relacion de las Islas Filipinas (1604);
• chapter eight of Anto­nio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas;
• the anonymous late sixteenth century Boxer manuscript;
• and the unpublished Historia de las Islas e Indios de las Bisayas (1688) of Francisco Alcina.

The goal of this study was to discover a distinct, non-contradictory, and functional meaning for each Filipino term used in the Spanish accounts.

VISAYAS

Both Loarca and the author of the Boxer manuscript record a Visayan cosmogony which divides mankind  into five types or spe­cies:  datus,  timawas, oripun,  negroes,  and  overseas aliens.  The myth presents them all as offspring of a divine primordial pair who flee  or  hide  from  their  father’s  wrath.  According  to  the  Boxer version:

They scattered where best they could, many going out of their father’s house; and others stayed in the main sala, and others hid in the walls of the house itself, and others went into the kitchen and hid among the pots and stove. So, these Visayans say, from these who went into  the inner rooms of the house come the lords and chiefs they have among them now, who give them orders and whom they respect and obey and who among them are like our titled lords in Spain; they call them datos in their lan­guage. From those who remained in the main sala of the house come the knights and hidalgos among them, inasmuch as these are free and do not pay anything at all; these they call timaguas in their language. From those who got behind the walls of the house, they say, come those considered slaves, whom they  call oripes  in  their language. Those who went into the  kitchen  and hid in the stove and among the pots they say are the negroes, claiming that all the negroes there are in the hills of the Philippine Islands of the West come from them. And from the other tribes there are in the world, saying that these were many and that they went to many and diverse places.

The details of the myth  are revealing of Filipino views of their  own  social hierarchy:  class distinctions  are presented as being of the same order as racial differences.  The  ruling class is secluded and  protected  in the inner security  of the house (“lo mas escon­ dido de las casa”), Loarca says, with their privileged timawa retinue standing  between  them  and  the  world  in  the  front  sala (“mas afuera”),  and  their  more  timid  oripun  supporters  occupying the very  walls of  the  house.  And,  completely  beyond  the  pale  of Philippine  society,  are the  soot-colored  negroes of  the hills, and such literally  outlandish  races as the  Spaniards  themselves, des­cendants  of those who “left  by the same door through which their father  had entered,  and went  toward  the sea.” Equally significant is something  the myth  does not say: it fails to distinguish the rice­ and  cotton-producing Filipinos of the uplands from those along the coast who supply them with salt, fish, and imported trade por­celains.

Sixteenth  century  Visayans therefore  saw themselves as divided into  three  divinely sanctioned  orders:  datu.  timawa, and oripun. The word datu  is used as both  a social class and a political  title: the class is a birthright aristocracy or royalty careful to preserve its pedigree, and the office is the captaincy  of a band of warrior sup­porters  bound  by voluntary  oath  of allegiance and entitled  to de­fense and revenge at their captain’s personal risk. These supporters are timawa,  and  they  are  not only their datu’s  comrades-at-arms and personal bodyguards,  testing his wine for poison before he or any other datu  drinks it,  but usually his own relatives or even his natural  sons. Everybody else is oripun. They support  timawa and datu alike with obligatory agricultural and industrial labor, or its equivalence in rice. When the Spaniards reached Cebu, they found the subordination of the oripun to the other two orders so obvious and  the distinction  between  datu  and timawa so slight, that  they did  not  at  first  recognize  the  existence of three orders. Legazpi, after  three  busy years of conquering,  cajoling and coopting them, thought  there  were only  two orders of Pintados: rulers and ruled. And  a half century  later, old Samarefios recalled the timawa as a lower order of datus,  and even an extinct  class in between called tumao.

 

THE  FIRST  ORDER

Members of the datu class enjoy ascribed right to respect, obedience, and support  from their oripun followers and acquired right to the same advantages from their legal timawa. In theory at least, they can dispose of their followers’ persons, houses, and property, and  do in fact take possession of them at their death.  Land use and  disposition  are  not  mentioned  in  any of the accounts,  pre­sumably  because Visayan sustenance comes exclusively from swid­dens, forests, or the sea. Since the sons of a ruling datu have equal claim to succession, competition is keen among them, and official datu wives practice abortion to limit such divisive possibilities to only two or three  offspring.  Significantly,  a myth  recorded  by Loarca  attributes the  invention of  weapons   and  introduction  of warfare  to a quarrel  over  inheritance. In  fact,  it  is normal  for a datu’s brother to separate  from him and form another settlement with  a following of his own.  To  maintain  the  purity  of their line, datus   marry only among their  kind, often seeking  high-ranking brides in other  communities, abducting them,  or contracting bride prices  running   to  five or  six hundred   pesos in gold,  slaves, and  jewelry.  Meanwhile  they  keep  their  own  marriageable daugh­ters  secluded as binokot. literally,  “wrapped up.” Social  distance is  maintained  by  such  deference   as addressing  them  in  the  third person, keeping off the noisy bamboo-slatted floor while they are sleeping,  or  the  strict  observance  of their  mourning taboos  by the whole community. Furthermore,  competition   from   bold   and wealthy   kin  is discouraged   by such  protocol  sanctions as restricting the size and ostentation of their houses.

Datus of pure  descent  (for  example,  potli nga datu or tubas nga datu.  or the four-generation lubus nga datu)  also recognize another lineage  of lesser  nobility  called tumao.  Literally,  tumao  means “to be a man,” that  is,  without  taint  of slavery, servitude, or  witch­craft.  These  are  the  descendants of  other or former  datus,  or of an immigrating datu’s original comrades, or the kin of a prominent local ruler  (“señor y  dueño  del  pueblo”). From  this  tumao  rank come  a ruling datu’s personal  officers,  such as his Atobang  sa Datu (Prime  Minister),  and  from  their  sons  come  a corps  of Sandig  sa Datu   (“Supporters  of   the   Datu”),  though   after   fifty   years  of Spanish   occupation  both   the  titles  and  offices  had  disappeared. Datus  also maintain  sandil concubines, some of them binokot (“princesses”) of high rank captured in raids, who bear them  illegitimate  offspring   with  no  inheritance rights beyond  their  father’s favors while  alive,  but  who  are  usually  set  free  upon  his  death. These  are  the  timawa,  whom  the  origin  myth  considers  a separate order  of  men,  but  whose  descendants were fondly  respected  as a third  grade  of  the  first  order  long after  colonial  rule had rendered all such  distinctions meaningless.  Those  timawa  who  are released on  their  father’s death   – slaves freed  from  above, so to  speak  – are called  by the special  title, ginoo.  By Alcina’s  day, however,  the term  timawa  alone  survived  as a designation  for the ordinary Visa­yan  tribute-payer  who  was  neither  chief  nor  slave,  while ginoo took on  the  general   Tagalog   significance of  “sir” because  of Manila’s new prestige as the colonial  capital.

Datu’s  Duties  and  Functions. The following which a datu rules is his sakop,  haop,  or dolohan  – what is elsewhere called a barrio or  barangay,  and  what  Alcina  translates  as “gathering” or “kin” (i.e.,  junta,  congregación,  or  parentela  ). The office or estate  of datuship   is  therefore   a  ginaopan  or  gindolohanan.  The  visible house  cluster  of  such  a group is commonly  called a gamoro, but like two other  terms for village or settlement,  lonsor  and bongto, the word originally referred  to a collection of people, not houses. The Boxer manuscript  states  that such followers obey  their datus because “most  of them are their slaves, and those in the settlement who are not are the relatives of the datus.” In the event of a datu’s capture  in war, these relatives contribute  to his ransom in propor­tion to the closeness of their kinship. Some datus can raise fighting forces of between 500 and 1 ,000 men-at-arms, either through  con­federation  with other datus, or by actual overlordship (senorto ). Si Dumager of  Langigey, Bantayan,  for example, imposed a 20 per­cent inheritance  tax on slaves and other property after such a con­quest,  a form of servitude (esclavonia)  which, Loarca reports,  “is still  being  introduced   among  all  the  Filipinos  along  the  coast, though  not  the  uplanders.”  If any of these super-baranganic chief­tains were ever dignified with the title of hadi (king), none of the accounts  record it. Quite  the opposite. Alcina comments scornful­ly of a legendary Visayan hero named Bohato:  “he  conquered  so many ‘kings,’ as they are wont to call them around here, who were nothing  more than some gang leaders not even deserving the name of captain.”

A ruling datu  has the duty  to execute judicial decisions handed down  by experts  in custom  law, which execution among his peers is likely  to  institute  a family  feud.  All crimes are punishable by fines, even murder, adultery,  and insubordination  to datus, though these  latter   three  are  technically  capital  offenses commuted  on appeal  to  enslavement  or servitude  which is both  negotiable and transferable  to  kin  and offspring. Petty  larceny (reckoned  at less than ₱20) and other  civil offenses are not transferable except that children  born during the  period of bondage become the  property of  the  creditor.  Grand larceny, however, is a capital offense,  and datus  themselves are liable to  prosecution  – though,  of  course, they  can afford  the  fines or wergeld necessary to avoid slavery in any  case. Where a datu’s  own honor  or interests  are involved, he acts both  as judge and executioner, and may abuse this position to procure additional indentured  or slave labor by outright  perversion of justice.

The datu’s  main function  is to lead in war. Warfare – mangu­bat in general, mangayaw by sea, and magahat by land – appears as  endemic  in  all  the  accounts.  It takes  the  form  of  raiding, trading, or a combination  of both,  and is terminated  or interrupt­ed  by  blood  compacts  between  individuals or  whole  gamoros. Slaving is so common  everybody knows the proper behavior pat­terns. A captured  datu is treated  with respect and his ransom underwritten by  some benefactor  who will realize a 100  percent profit  on  the  investment.  Men who surrender  may not  be killed, and  the  weak and  effeminate  are handled  gently; a timawa who kills a captive already seized must reimburse his datu. A command­ing datu  rewards his crewmen at his own discretion, but otherwise has full rights  to  profit  and  booty.  In the  event of a combined fleet,  the  datu  who provides the  predeparture sacrifices to ances­tral  spirits  and  war deities  receives half the  total  take.  Visayan men-of-war are highly refined specimens of marine architecture which call for considerable capital investment to construct,  outfit, and operate,  and are launched over the bodies of slave victims. If a silent  partner  invests in such a venture, he receives half the profits but  no interest  on his capital. And, in recognition of the risks in­volved, he must ransom his active partner in the event of capture, without  claim to  reimbursement  or  return  on his original investment.

Datu’s  Commercial  Interests.  The Loarca account is full of in­direct testimony  to a datu’s  commercial interests. Coastal Visayans barter cotton  from uplanders for marine products and Chinese porcelains, and datus let out  the cotton  in the boll to the wives of their oripun  to return  as spun thread.  It will be recalled that  me­dieval  Chinese  accounts   list  cotton   and  porcelain  as  exchange goods  in  their  Philippine trade,  which was conducted  from deep­ draft, sea-going junks and anchored off shores whose natives handled local collection  and distribution. It may also be recalled that when Magellan opened  a store in Cebu, his customers paid for their pur­chases with gold weighed out  in scales carried for the purpose, as Igorots  in  the  Baguio mine fields were still doing three  centuries later.  Many social customs  appear to  favor the pursuit of business too. Although betrayal of visitors from allied communities is a just cause for war, outstanding  debts can be collected by force in such settlements  without  danger of war simply by seizing the sum from any  of  the debtor’s townmates,  who will then be entitled  to  col­lect twice the amount from the debtor himself. And in contrast  to loans of palay, which carry an interest  rate of  100 percent  com­pounded  annually, cash (i.e., gold) is loaned out  with no interest; rather,  it is an investment from which the lender gets a percentage of the  profits it earns. Indeed, it is just possible that Loarca gives a hint  of a new form of usury which arose in direct response to his own encomendero  presence: “Nowadays, some loafers who do not feel like looking around  for their tribute  to pay, ask to borrow it and return a bit more.”

 

THE  SECOND ORDER

The  timawa  are  personal vassals of a datu  to whom they  bind themselves as seafaring warriors;  they  pay no tribute,  render  no agricultural  labor, and have a portion  of datu blood in their veins.· Thus  the  Boxer  manuscript  calls  them  “knights  and  hidalgos,” Loarca,  “free  men,  neither  chiefs  nor  slaves,” and  Alcina,  “the third   rank  of  nobility” (nobleza).   Although  a  first-generation timawa   is  literally   the   half-slave  of  some  datu  sire,  once   he achieves ginoo status  through  liberation,  he is free to move to any settlement  whose lord is willing to enter into feudal relations with him. Such contracts  call for the timawa to outfit  himself for  war at his own expense, row and fight his datu’s warship, attend  all his feasts, and act as his wine-taster; and for the datu,  to defend  and avenge the timawa wherever he may have need, risking his person, family, and fortune  to do so, even to the extent of taking action against his own  kin. The  timawa  are his comrades-at-arms in his forays and share the same risks under fire, but they are clearly his subordinates: they  have no  right to booty  beyond  what  he gives them,  and they  are chided for  battle damage to his vessel but not held liable. But  as his comrades-at-arms, they share in the  public accolade  of  a society  which esteems  military  prowess so highly that  women  are courted  with  lyrics like, “You  plunder  and cap­ture  with  your  eyes; with  a mere glance, you  lay hold  on more than mangayaw-raiders do with their fleets.”

The  timawas’  relations  with  their  datus  are  highly  personal. When they attend  his feasts and act as wine-tasters, they are there as his retinue  and familiars – “out  front  in the main sala,” as the creation  myth  puts it. If they are not  their datus’ actual relatives, they  behave  like  relatives:  they  are sent  as emissaries when  he opens marriage negotiations  for his son, and they  enjoy the same legal rights in prosecuting adultery.  They are men of consequence in  the  community  and  may be appointed  stewards over a datu’s interests.  At  the  time  of  his death,  the  most  prominent  among them acts as major domo  to enforce his funeral taboos, and three of  their  most renowned  warriors accompany his grieving women­ folk  on  a ritual  voyage during  which they  row in time to dirges which boast of their  personal conquests and feats of bravery. But they are not  men of substance. Although they may lend and bor­row money or even make business partnerships, their children, like everybody  else  in  the  community,   inherit  only  at  their  datu’s pleasure. As Loarca  says in speaking of  weddings, “the  timawas do not perform these ceremonies because they have no estate (hacienda).”

The  Timawa’s  Distinct  Role.  Since both  datu  and timawa are what would be called non-productive  members of society in Marx­ist  terms,  they  form  a single class in the economic sense, just as Legazpi thought  they  did.  But  in  the  Visayan body  politic,  the timawa serve a separate  and distinct  function:  they are the means by  which  the  datus  consolidate  their authority  and expand  their power.   By  limiting  their   own  birthrate,  monopolizing  advan­tageous marriages, and controlling  inheritance,  they preserve their authority; and  by  producing  a brood  of warrior dependents  tied to  them  by both  moral and economic  bonds, they provide them­selves with a military support  whose loyalty can be expected,  thus suppressing competition  to a considerable extent. Such social spe­cialization  would serve a trade-raiding society  well, and may have been doing so for centuries  before the Spaniards arrived. Medieval Chinese merchantmen  avoided Visayan waters because of the no­toriety  of their slavers, and Chinese records indicate  that Visayan raids  were  not  unknown  on  the  coasts  of China itself.  But  the timawa  role was destined  not  to  survive serious modification  of this economy.  Datus  with  control  of cotton-spinning  underlings, or  irrigated  rice  lands  to  apportion   their  followers,  would  have less need  for  such Viking services. And whatever needs remained would quickly be disoriented, deflected, and destroyed  by occupa­tion by a superior military power. The history of the word timawa suggests that  just such changes took place in the Philippines in the sixteenth  century.

When the Spaniards first met the timawas in the Visayas, they were the hidalgo-like warriors Loarca describes. But in fertile wet­ rice lands  around  Laguna de Bay and the Candaba swamps, they were  found  to  be  “plebeians” and  “common   people,”  farming rather   than   fighting.  As  Plasencia says  of  them  in  Pampanga, “every  chief who holds a barangay orders the people to plant, and has them come together  for sowing and harvesting.” Their former military  functions   were now  being performed  by  another  order with the elegant name of Maharlika (“great, noble”)  who were probably  the genetic overflow of the aristocracy which occupied, or  arose  in,  the  Laguna  lake district  earlier in  the  century.   By 1580,  however, many  of these “noblemen” found  themselves re­duced  to leasing land from  their datus. By the end of the century, any  claim  to   Filipino   royalty,   nobility,   or  hidalguia  had  dis­appeared  into  a homogenized  principalia,  and  the  word  timawa had  become  the  standard  term  to  distinguish all other  Filipinos from slaves. Thus did the King himself use it in his instructions to Governor  Gomez  Perez Dasmarifias in 1589, as well as the Arch­bishop  of  Manila in promulgating  a graduated scale of stole fees in 1626.  And in Panay, meanwhile, regardless of whatever changes had  already  affected   the  timawa calling, Loarca was helping  to make it completely  dysfunctional  by the exercise of foreign mili­tary  power.  As former  warriors had to seek their living by other means,  he  found  it  necessary  to  describe  their  order not simply as  timawa  but  as  “true” timawa  or “recognized” timawa,  as if there were counterfeit  versions around.  If there were, they would have been victims of the inflation which led to the term’s final debasement in the modern Visayan word, which means “poor, destitute.”

 

THE  THIRD  ORDER

Oripun  are commoners  in the technical sense of the word, that is, they  cannot  marry people of royal blood (datus) and are under obligation to serve and support  the aristocracy  of the First Order and the privileged retainers of the Second. They are under this obligation  not because they are in debt,  but  because it is the nor­mal order of society  for  them to be so; it is the way mankind was created.  Their  usual service is agricultural labor,  and a distinctive characteristic  of the upper  two orders of society is that datus and timawas do not  perform  agricultural labor. Within this limitation, however,  members  of  the  Third Order  vary in economic  status and social standing,  from men of consequence (who may actually win datu  status  through  repute  in battle),  to chattel  slaves born into  their condition  in their master’s house generation after generation.  And at the very bottom  of the social scale, the oripun technically include – if for no other  reason than  that  there is no place  else  to  assign them  – those  non-persons destined  to  join some deceased warlord in the grave, along with Chinese porcelains and gold ornaments.

The class of oripun  is common  to all the Visayan accounts, but the  particular  subclasses  which  reflect  the  socioeconomic  varia­tions within it differ considerably. The differences are not merely in  terminology,  as would  be expected  from Samar to Mindanao, but in actual specifications. In the most favored condition,  for example, are Loarca’s tumataban and tumaranpok, the Boxer manuscript’s  horo-hanes, and Alcina’s gintobo or mamahay, all of whom can commute  their agricultural duties into other forms of service such  as  rowing  or  fighting  or  actual  payments  in  kind. Loarca’s  ayuey  (“the   most  enslaved of all”)  only  serve in  their master’s  house  three  days  out  of  four,  and in  the  Boxer manu­script (which spells it hayoheyes)  they move into their own house upon  marriage and become tuheyes  who do not even continue fur­ther  service if they  produce enough offspring. Plasencia’s “whole slaves,”  however,   for   example   the   four-generation  lubus  nga oripun,  hand over the whole fruits of their labor. This is a stricture which may be the result of social breakdown under colonial domination,  since a characteristic  of Philippine slavery, otherwise universally reported,  is the theoretical  possibility of manumission through self-improvement. These variations no doubt illustrate dif­ferent   economic   conditions,   crops,  markets,  and  demands  for labor, as well as individual datus’  responses to them. They also illustrate  a  social  mobility  which  ultimately  embraces  all three social orders.

Condition  of Higher Subclasses. Oripun are born into the Third Order  just  as datus and timawa are born into  the other  two. But their  position within the order depends upon inherited or acquired debt,  commuted  criminal sentences, or victimization  by the more powerful   – in   which   latter   case  they  are  said  to  be  lopot, “marked,  creased,”   or,  as  Alcina  puts  it,  “unjustly   enslaved.” Those  in  serious  need  may  mortgage  themselves  to  some  datu for  a loan,  becoming kabalangay (“boat-mates”?), or may attach themselves  to  a  kinsman  as  bondsman,  but  debts  can  also  be underwritten by  anybody  able and willing to do so. The tumata­ ban,  for  example,  whom Loarca calls “the  most respected”  com­moners,  can be  bonded  for  six pesos, their  creditor  then  enjoy­ing five days of their labor per month. The status of tumaranpok, on  the  other  hand,  is reckoned  at  twelve pesos, for  which four days’ labor out  of seven is rendered.  Both of these oripun occupy their own houses and maintain  their own families, but their wives are also obligated to perform services if they already have children, namely,  spinning and weaving cotton  which their master supplies in the boll, one skein a month in the case of the tumataban, and a half month’s labor in the case of the tumaranpok.  Either can com­ mute  these obligations  to payment  in palay: fifteen cavans a year for  the  former,  thirty  for  the  latter.  Thus a tumataban’s release from  field labor is calculated  at five gantas a day and a tumaran­ pok’s  at  three  and  a half. So, too,  the creditor  who underwrites a ₱12 tumaranpok  debt  receives 208 days of labor a year, but one who invests in a ₱6 tumataban, only 72. Since Loarca states  that rice is produced  in the hills in exchange for coastal products,  such commutation  enables  an  uplander   to  discharge his  obligations without  coming down  to  till his master’s  fields. A coast dweller, on  the  other  hand,  has  to  be a man  of considerable  means  to assume such a tribute-paying pechero role.

Another  oripun  condition  is that of horo-han (probably uluhan, “at  the  head”).  These  perform  lower-echelon military  service in lieu of field labor, acting as mangayaw oarsmen or magahat (“foot­ soldiers”)  and their children take their place upon their death (but have no obligation  prior to it). They are part of the public enter­tained  and  feasted  during  a datu’s  ceremonial  functions,  where their  presence moved the author  of the Boxer manuscript to com­ment  with  tourist-like  wonder, “they  are taken into  their houses when they give some feast or drunken revel to be received just like guests.” The oripun called gintobo, mamahay, or johai also partici­pate  in raids, though  they receive a smaller portion  of the  booty than timawas, and if they  distinguish themselves regularly enough by  bravery  in  action,  they  may  attract  a following of their  own and actually  become datus. They are also obliged to come at their datus’  summons  for  such  communal  work as house-building,  but do not perform field labor; instead they pay reconocimiento (a recognition-of-vassalage fee)  in  rice,  textiles,  or  other  products. But, like  the  timawa  above them  and indentured  bondsmen  and slaves below,  they  cannot  bequeath  their property  to their  heirs: their  datu  shares it with them at his own pleasure. This arbitrary inheritance  tax enables a ruling datu to reward and ingratiate his favorites, and leave others under threat of the sort of economic reversal which sets downward  social mobility  in motion.  A ₱12 debt can plunge a man into the depths of ayuey household slavery, with  the  high probability  of  transmitting  that  status  to  his off­spring  since  any  children  born  during his bondage  will become the property  of his master.

The  Ayuey  Condition.  These  ayuey  are at  the  bottom  of the oripun social scale. They  are, literally, domestics who live in their master’s  house and receive their food  and clothing from him, and who  are  real  chattel.  As Loarca says, “those  whom  the  natives have sold  to  the  Spaniards  are ayuey  for  the  most  part.” They either  have no property  of their own or only what they can accu­mulate  by working for themselves one day out of four. They  are generally field hands with the same manumission price as the tumaranpok,  namely,   12, and   their  wives work  as domestic servants in their master’s  house. They are usually single, however, but  are  given a  separate  house  when  they  marry  and  become tuhey,   working only  two days out  of five. Their wives, however, continue  to  serve  until  they  have  children;  then,  if  they  have many,  they  and  their  husbands  may  be absolved of  all further ayuey  servitude.  Their  children,  needless to  say, do not inherit.

First-generation  ayuey are debtors, purchases, captives, or pover­ty-stricken  volunteers  seeking security. Those who are enslaved in lieu of payment  of fines are called sirot, which means “fine,” and those seized for debts,  or imputed  debts, are lupig, “inferior, out­-classed.” Creditors  are responsible  for  their  debtors’  obligations; so another route by which commoners are reduced to ayuey status is for  their  creditors  to cover some fine they have incurred. Pur­chases may be outright, for example, adults or children in abject penury,  or  by  buying  off  somebody’s   debt,  in  which case the debtor  becomes gintubus,  “redeemed.” Actual captives are bihag, whether slave or not  at  the time of capture,  and are sharply to be distinguished  from  all  other  ayuey  because of  their  liability  to serve as offerings in some human sacrifice. (Loarca  notes approv­ingly, “they always see that  this slave is an alien and not a native, for they really are not cruel at all.”) It is not impossible that Span­ish disruption  of traditional  slaving patterns  produced  an increase in domestic  oppression  on the part of those datus who were called principales.  At  least  Alcina comments, “they  oppressed  the poor and  helpless and  those  who did  not  resist, even to  the point  of making  them  and  their  children  slaves, [but] those who showed them  their  fangs and claws and resisted were let go with as much as they  wished to  take  because  they  were afraid of them.”  But, in  any  event  and  whatever  their  origin,  first-generation  ayuey all have one thing in common:  they are the parents of the second­ generation “true” slaves.

The  “true” slaves, as distinguished  from  those  commoners  of varying degrees of servitude who are slaves in name only (nomine tenus,   as  Alcina  says)  are  those  born  in  their  master’s  house. The  children  of  purchased  or hereditary  slaves are called haishai. If both  their parents are houseborn  slaves like themselves, or pur­chased,  they  are  ginlubus   (from  lubus,   “all  one  color,  unvarie­gated”),  and if they are the fourth  generation of their kind, lubus nga oripun.   But if only one of their parents is an ayuey of their status,  they  are “half  slaves” (bulan  or  pikas) and if three of their grandparents  were  non-slave commoners,   they  are “one-quarter slaves” (tilor  or  sagipat).  “Whole  slaves” may also be known  as bug-us (“given  totally”) or tuman  (“utmost, extreme”). But some of them are cherished and raised like their master’s own children, often  being permitted  to  reside in  their  own houses and usually being set  free on their master’s  death;  these are the silin or gino­ gatan.  Thus  there  is no  given word for “slave,” but  only a grad­uated  series  of  terms  running  from  the  totally  chattel  bihag  to the horo-han  commoner  (“at  the head”)  in the upper level of the oripun  order. And the initial step  up this social ladder is the nor­mal expectation of the houseborn  ayuey at the bottom, for when his master marries him off to another  houseborn  ayuey, he is set up in his house where he and his wife serve both masters. When his children are born,  they  become slaves to both  masters too, but as soon  as  they  grow  up,  he  himself  assumes  tumaranpok   status. Thus  as  Visayan  house  slaves move upward  into  the  dignity  of vassalage, they  leave enough  of  their  offspring  behind  to supply their masters’ needs.

 

CONCLUSION

The   sixteenth   century   Spanish  accounts   say   that   Filipino society is divided into three classes, to which they assign the Euro­pean feudal concepts of rulers, military supporters,  and everybody else.  This  having  been  said,  they  proceed  to  give information which indicates  that  this  three-class analysis is inadequate  for an understanding  of  the  society  being described.  On  the  one hand, in  economic  terms,  the  three  classes appear  to  be only  two.  In Loarca’s Visayas, for example,  the upper two classes live off food and  export  products  produced   by  the  third  class, while in  the Tagalog areas  reported   by  Morga and  Plasencia, the  lower  two classes work the fields of the upper. On the other  hand, in social terms,  the  indigenous  class designations  are  not  readily reduced to three,  and, worse yet, seem to shade off into one another confusingly. This confusion  probably  arises not so much from an inadequacy  in the Spanish descriptions  as from the basic fallacy of originally  expecting  to  find  three  – or  any  other  number  – of static  pan-Philippine  social classes. What might more logically be expected  would  be  the  description   of  a  society,  or  societies, observed  in  the  process  of  change,  that  is,  of  class structures caught  in  the  midst  of  ongoing  development  and decay,  so  to speak. Such an expectation  can be readily fulfilled by a reconsideration of the accounts.

 

VISAYAN    CULTURE

Of the two cultures  described, Visayan and Tagalog, the former appears to  be the more basic and stable – not stable in the sense of unchanging,  but in the sense of being flexible enough to absorb such changes as confront it. This flexibility is provided at both the top and bottom  of the social scale. At  the one end, a chief can retain  and  restrain  competing  peers, relatives, and offspring if he has the personality  and economic means for it; but if not,they  can migrate to other  communities  that can use their services, or found new ones  of  their  own.  At  the  other  end,  the owners of chattel slaves can demand  their and their children’s  services if they  have need of them, but are not obligated to do so. The political units of this society  are small – less than  1,000 persons at most – and are potentially   hostile  to  one  another  unless related by blood,  intermarriage, trading partnerships, or subjugation through conquest. Weaponry  is too  unsophisticated  to be monopolized  by  individ­uals, so political power is exercised through  client-patron  rela­tionships. The economy  is based on products  from swiddens, for­ests, and  the sea, and  their redistribution  a pattern  of trade-raids which make  public  protection   necessary. Chiefs fulfill this func­tion  by  means of specialized warships designed for speed, maneuverability,  and  operation  in shallow, reef-filled waters, but with  limited  cargo  capacity.  These are the  conditions  to  which Visayan social structure  is fitted,  as those of Mindanao and Luzon probably were in their day, too.

The  chief of a Visayan community is called a datu,  and the social class to which he belongs is called by the same term. A lesser aristocracy  descended  from former  or subordinate  datus  is called tumao and provides the datu’s officers, retinue, and bodyguard. Descendants of a datu’s  illegitimate  offspring are called  timawa and constitute a warrior class whose members may attach themselves to a datu  of their choice. These three social classes form an economic  upper  class supported   by  the  labor  of  a  lower  class called oripun  who are born, impressed, or sold into  their  class. A variety of statuses  or subclasses have been generated among them by a society’s  particular  needs for labor or crops, and differences of  personal  debt.  Most members  of  this class live at  such a low subsistence  level that  debt  is a normal condition  of their  lives: it arises from  outright  loans for sustenance or from inability to pay fines,  and  its  degree determines  individual  oripun  rank.  Among these subclasses are the following;

Ayu-ey:   a domestic slave or bondsman whose offspring are the property of his master.

Bihag: a captive.

Ginlubus:  the child of two domestic slaves, born in their master’s house.

Ginogatan:  a  cherished  household  slave favored  with  separate  quarters and usually liberated upon his master’s death.

Gintobo:  an  oripun  who  performs  military  service and  also pays a vassalage fee in kind.

Gintubus:  any oripun  whose debt has been underwritten  by another  man.

Haishai: the child of a purchased or hereditary slave.

Horo-han:  a high-status servitude of military service in lieu of field labor, but passed on to the next generation.

Lupig:  any oripun seized for debt.

Sirot:  any oripun whose status results from an unpaid fine.

Tu-ey:  a married  ayu-ey set  up in housekeeping by  his master;  he  normally  becomes a tumaranpok  when his children are old enough  to re­ place him.

Tumaranpok  and  tumataban:  two  grades of servitude requiring specified kinds  and periods of labor from both  man  and  wife; the  first is reckoned at twice the second in terms of debt or tribute if labor is commuted  to payment in kind.

 

ALSO READ: TAGALOGS Class Structure in the Sixteenth Century Philippines