Publications

Between 1837 and 1882, the Spanish colonial government in the Philippines deported “undesirable” Chinese—vagrants, drunkards, unemployed, idlers, pickpockets, undocumented, and the “suspicious”—to various parts of the archipelago. Deportation, in this context, refers to the transportation or banishment of individuals deemed “dangerous” by the state to different far-flung areas of the islands or outside the colony but still within the Spanish empire. Deportation primarily served as a form of punishment and a means to rehabilitate and improve the wayward lives of “criminals.” This paper examines the deportation of “undesirable” Chinese in the nineteenth-century Philippines. Using underutilized primary materials from various archives in Manila and Madrid, it interrogates the actors, institutions and processes involved in banishing such individuals. It argues that while deportation served its punitive and reformative functions, Spanish authorities also used it to advance their colonial project in the islands. Chinese deportees formed part of the labor supply the state used to populate the colony’s frontier areas and strengthen its control over its newly-acquired territories.

During the Holy Week in Gasan, Marinduque, women observe an important tradition: the pagsusunong ng pupuwa (bearing of pupuwa). Along with other Christian believers performing their own prayers and acts of mourning, the women devotees carry on their heads a crown of pupuwa leaves while wearing loose black robes and walking barefooted as they partake in the Good Friday procession. This tradition can be connected to the two religious institutions where it has been practiced, the Roman Catholic Church and the Philippine Independent Church; two interrelated Christian institutions that found unity in the said tradition. Through interviews, one may extract some concepts embedded within the said devotion, such as the duality of repentance and wishing, individualistic devotion, and the passing of the tradition to the next generation. The bearing of pupuwa can be located within the traditions and meanings that root back to the precolonial period. Moreover, one may find in the botanical studies and dictionaries the documentation, function, and benefits of the pupuwa plant (Polyscias fruticosus (L.) Harms) to communities such as Gasan. Overall, the bearing of pupuwa by the Gaseña women significantly contributes to the rich culture and identity of Gasan.

This paper examines the lives and circumstances of Chinese fugitives who were arrested and imprisoned for violating certain policies related to registration, taxation, and migration in nineteenth- century Philippines. Using previously unutilized archival source materials, this work explores the dynamic interactions between these outlaws and the Spanish colonial state set against the evolving colonial bureaucratic apparatus of the period as well as the increasing number and physical mobility of the Chinese within the islands. On the one hand, the paper probes the government’s view on flight and its punitive actions against fugitives, the factors within the state apparatus that enabled escapes to occur, and the actors and processes involved in capturing runaways. On the other hand, it deals with the fugitives themselves by describing and analyzing their profiles, motivations, and the subtle means they used, including the geo-spatial factors and the socioeconomic networks within and beyond the Chinese community, which the authorities suspected to have aided their escape. An investigation into these themes highlights how Chinese offenders responded to the government’s various forms of social control by fleeing from the authorities. This work argues that while the state considered fugitives as economic saboteurs, the fugitives themselves employed flight as a necessary and pragmatic means to evade the state’s restrictive and exploitative policies.

This article examines José María Panganiban’s “La Universidad de Manila” columns in La Solidaridad and discusses their five salient points of criticism of the state of higher education at the Universidad de Santo Tomás in the late nineteenth century. In view of the existing historiography, it argues that Panganiban’s critique of the university, although born out of propaganda, finds empirical grounding in his years of study at Santo Tomás from 1882 to 1888. Lastly, it illustrates that Panganiban’s columns represented a wider, liberal campaign for reforms in Philippine higher education that took place in Madrid and Barcelona from 1888 to 1891.

“Undesirable” Chinese – vagrants, undocumented migrants, pickpockets, beggars, drunkards, idlers and the “suspicious” – were considered “dangerous” by the Spanish colonial government because they posed a threat to the financial and political security of the Philippines. Mostly belonging to the laboring classes, these unemployed and marginally employed individuals were arrested, prosecuted and punished for violating policies relating to registration, taxation and migration. While other forms of discipline and punishment were meted out to these “minor” offenders, the state deemed it necessary to expel them from the colony.

This paper explores why and how “undesirable” Chinese were expelled from the Philippines between 1883, when the first expulsion order was issued, and 1898, when Spanish rule ended. Set in the broader political and socio-economic context of the late nineteenth century, it examines the actors, institutions and processes involved in banishing these offenders to China. Using previously underutilized archival materials, it interrogates the relations that emerged among various entities such as the state, the leaders of the Chinese community in Manila, private businesspeople, and Chinese “criminals” in terms of the expulsion process.

Through primary and contemporary sources, this paper chronicles the emergence and later closure of a German-owned tobacco plantation in Jolo which operated from 1884 to 1889. It touches on the Spanish colonial government’s regulations on Chinese labor and immigration, specifically in relation to the September 1888 immigration decree, as well as to the plantation’s employment of Chinese coolies from Singapore. The article shows how the decree adversely affected the importation of Chinese laborers to the estate, incurring financial loss that later led to closure, which was also precipitated by horrible working conditions and cruel European administrators. By focusing on this relatively unknown episode in Philippine and Mindanao history, I contribute to the continuing interrogation of Manila-centric narratives, discuss an episode in the history of Europe-Philippines-Southeast Asia ties, and shed more light in the story of the Chinese in the Philippines.

This article examines colonial nature-making in twentieth century Philippines. It particularly looks into natural history investigations of the American-instituted Bureau of Science and the ways in which it created a discursive authority for understanding the Philippine natural environment. These biological investigations, the article argues, did not only structure the imperial construction of the colony's nature, but also provided a blueprint for imagining notions of national integration and identity. The article interrogates the link between colonial scientific projects and nation-building initiatives, emphasising the scripting of the archipelago's nature and the creation of a national science through biological spaces.

Although the history of the Chinese in the Philippines is generally well known, what has not been probed is the way working-class Chinese lived and conducted their trades amid restrictive colonial policies. Using previously unexplored archival materials, this article examines the lives and circumstances of Chinese cargadores (stevedores and transporters) within the urban and commercial milieus of Manila during the nineteenth century. Chinese cargadores were regarded as highly dependable workers, but were treated, because of their ethnicity and numerical strength, as both marginal and dangerous, needing to be strictly regulated and disciplined by the Spanish colonial state.

The existing historiography primarily discusses the early Philippine experience of Roman Catholic conversion in terms of (a) conversion’s success or failure, or (b) local resistance against colonial hegemony. This article, meanwhile, approaches the confrontation generated by conversion as a process of colonial knowledge production. The concept of “idolatry” was central to this confrontation. I ask: in what ways did indigenous agents help create this concept as it was used locally? This essay examines two late-seventeenth century missionary investigations into indigenous animism. They took place in and around Bolinao, Pangasinan and Santo Tomas, Batangas, both communities in the northern Philippine island of Luzon. Together, these investigations generated interviews with indigenous respondents, whose transcriptions are housed at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain. Initially, neither the missionaries nor the missionized had a clear idea of what local words, actions, and objects counted as “idolatrous.” Indigenous agents constructed generalizations about their religious beliefs to advance their own interests, to protect themselves from persecution, and to understand indigenous deities within their increasingly colonial reality. The indigenous were not passive gatherers of raw data for missionary ethnographers. They were, in their own right, producers of colonial knowledge.

The adoption of nineteenth-century European sporting practices was a component in the ilustrados’ creation of a national identity. By highlighting the ilustrados’ participation in modernizing individual sports (e.g., gymnastics, fencing, and pistol shooting), the article shows how the adoption of foreign sports promised these young men from the Spanish Philippines an opportunity to stand on equal footing with their supposed betters. The constant training of the body was treated as a tool to maintain health, a weapon against vices, and an avenue to achieve excellence in a modern cultural space associated with ideals of masculinity and civilization.