By Joel B. Belinan
For a change, I am going out of my usual comfort zone, sports and local issues. Instead this time I am going to dwell on our country’s name and the proposal to change it, or rather to return to its pre-colonial name, Maharlika. It’s not a very popular subject matter especially to the reactionary forces and, I presume, the biggest religious denomination in this country.
To start with, what most Pinoys like in President Duterte is his Anti- Drug War and his kanto boy lingo. But for me President Duterte’s most significant thing about his administration is the legitimization of the clamor to return to the pre-colonial name of our country, Maharlika. Let me make it clear that while I am neither an anthropologist or an historian, I am an avid student of history. I also happen to belong to a group that espouses the return to Maharlika as the name of our country and at least lessen the effects of the remaining colonial umbilical cord to the despised Spanish king that our country was named after.
Prior to the presidency of Duterte, our group the “Ang Katipunan ng mga Samahang Maharlika” (Ang Kasama) has been trying hard to advance the idea of the return to Maharlika as our country’s name but to no avail. The very few who noticed our advocacy, who thought they were highly educated but colonially minded, often ridiculed us. Nonetheless, we continued on this advocacy until this administration came to power and the President himself brought out the idea of changing Philippines to Maharlika. That statement alone even without any explanation or an anthropological or historical background may have raised some people’s awareness about the issue. And for us from the Ang Kasama, it is the long awaited shot on the arm or maybe on the butt we have been waiting for. It’s like fighting a long and losing battle that suddenly got reinforcement of war provisions and a cavalry regiment that doubled or even tripled our number.
This week, I saw a post relative to a joint effort of our Department of Foreign Affairs, the National Historical Commission and our embassy in Hanoi in cooperation with the Vietnamese government of the conduct of an exhibit of the various pre-colonial fabrics, arts, weaponry, clothing, among others, of our ancestors prior to the arrival of the Europeans (the Spaniards in particular). Vietnam is this year’s chair and host of the Association of South East Asian Nation (ASEAN) summit. Such exhibited items predates even the advent of the Muslim dominated Madjapahit Empire and even the much earlier Hindu Empire of Shrii Vijahaya. The Muslims’ Madjapahit Empire and the Hindus’ Shrii Vijayan Empire covered the whole of South East Asian nations long before the European colonial expansion to the east. According to the post on Facebook those exhibited items were actually those that were used by the actors and actresses in a local pre-colonial war-drama which incidentally Raymond Bagatsing, our Ang Kasama Ambassador of Goodwill, was one of the casts.
Interestingly, a not so popular cultural event as compared to the mainstream festivals like the Ati-Atihan or the Panagbenga was the Maharlika Sunrise Festival which used “Maharlika, Pre-Colonial Name” was its theme this year. The Maharlika Sunrise Festival was first staged in 2004 with a unique concept of being the first and only roving festival providing venue for aspiring alternative artists and writers to show case their talents. The festival spearheaded by the Maharlika Artists and Writers Federation (MAWF)-the artists and writers arm of the Ang Kasama which, as aforesaid, advocates for the return to Maharlika as the country’s name. Furthermore, instead of a festival at a certain venue, the the Sunrise Festival this year will be virtual or online with all presentations whether in concert, exhibits and other performances would be pre-recorded videos sent to be arranged and shown on the internet using various platforms on November 27, 28 and 29.
Why do we need to change the name Philippines to Maharlika? Let me repeat what has been said many times by those well-known advocates. Philippines was actually given by a Portuguese Navigator Ferdinand Magellan (who was in the service of the king of Spain) to this group of Islands when he accidentally saw Limasawa island in the Visayas and eventually landed in Cebu on March 16, 1521. It was in honor of the then Prince Philip of Austria who was the son of king Charles of Spain. Prince Philip eventually became the king of Spain and became King Philip II. Unfortunately, he was not a good ruler and was despised by his people. Allegedly, he had caused the execution of tens of thousands of Moors who were living within the territory of Spain. He was a well-known womanizer with no regards to who he wanted to bring to bed. As a result he contracted syphilis from whores or prostitutes at that time. He died because of that shameful disease. He allegedly did not spare even the Catholic Church as he raided the coffers of the Vatican. Despite all these, we as a country and people use his name. Changing it might at last free ourselves from the curse of the person we are named after. For in the first place, who among use, whether Christian or Muslim, would like to be named Satan or Demon?
On the opposite side, the name “Maharlika is actually a Sanskrit name which means Small but Great in Spirit” as defined by this century’s greatest philosopher, Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar. Why Sanskrit? Accordingly, Sanskit is the mother of all Languages in the world. Prior to the advent of the Hindu Empire of Shrivijaya, the Muslim Empire of Madjapahit and eventually the arrival of the Spaniards, Maharlika was widely used as the name of our group of Islands not only by the hundreds of independent tribes within but also by our neighbors like Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries nearby. Being called Maharlika with such a very positive meaning and vibration is surely better than being associated to a historically despised ruler.** More on this topic and countries that returned to their ancient names next week.
