Barangay State

In early Philippine history, ''barangay'' is the term historically used by scholars to describe the complex sociopolitical units that were the dominant organizational pattern among the various peoples of the Philippine archipelago , . in the period immediately before the arrival of European colonizers. Academics refer to these settlements using the technical term "polity", but they are usually simply called "barangays".

Some barangays were well-organized independent villages, consisting of thirty to a hundred households. Other barangays — most notably those in Maynila, Tondo, Panay, Pangasinan, Caboloan, Cebu, Bohol, Butuan, Cotabato, and Sulu — were large cosmopolitan polities.

The term originally referred to both a house on land and a boat on water, containing families, friends and dependents.

Anthropologist F. Landa Jocano defines this period of the barangay states' dominance — approximately the 14th to the 16th centuries — as the "Barangic Phase" of early Philippine history. The Barangic Phase of Philippine history can be noted for its highly mobile nature, with barangays transforming from being settlements and turning into fleets and vice versa, with the wood constantly re-purposed according to the situation.

Some scholars such as Damon Woods, however, have recently challenged the use of the term ''barangay'' to describe the Philippines' various indigenous polities, citing a lack of linguistic evidence and the fact that all of the primary references suggesting that use of the term can be traced to just a single source - Juan de Plascencia's 1589 report ''Las costumbres de los indios Tagalos de Filipinas''. Instead, Woods argues that this use of the term ''barangay'' reflected what was merely an attempt by the Spanish to reconstructing pre-conquest Tagalog society.

The term has since been adapted as the name of the basic political unit of the Philippines. So historical barangays should not be confused with present-day Philippine barrios, which were officially renamed ''barangays'' by the Philippine Local Government Code of 1991 as a reference to historical barangays.

Origins and etymology

Theories, as well as local oral traditions, say that the original "barangays" were coastal settlements formed as a result of the migration of Austronesian people, who came to the archipelago by boat from Taiwan initially, and stayed in the archipelago to create a thalassocratic and highly sea dependent civilization based on outrigger boats, catamarans and stilt houses. This became the mainstays of the Austronesian speaking populations through the expansion from Maritime Southeast Asia out into the Pacific.

Noting the mobile and maritime nature of Austronesian culture, these ancient barangays were coastal or riverine in nature. This was because most of the people relied on fishing for their supply of protein and livelihoods. They also travelled mostly by water up and down rivers, and along the coasts.

Trails always followed river systems, which were also a major source of water for bathing, washing, and drinking. Early chroniclers record that the name evolved from the term ''balangay'', which refers to a plank boat widely used by various cultures of the Philippine archipelago prior to the arrival of European colonizers; in essence a barangay is a ship or a fleet of ships and also a house or a settlement.

Description

Historically, the first barangays started as relatively small communities of around 30 to 100 families, with a population that varies from one hundred to five hundred persons. When the Spaniards came, they found communities with only twenty to thirty people, as well as large and prestigious principalities.

The coastal villages were more accessible to trade with foreigners. These were ideal places for economic activity to develop. Business with traders from other Countries also meant contact with other cultures and civilizations, such as those of Japan, Han Chinese, Indian people, and Arabs.

In time, these coastal communities acquired more advanced cultures, with developed social structures (sovereign principalities), ruled by established royalties and nobilities.

Smaller barangay settlements

The smallest barangays were communities of around 30 to 100 households, led by a Datu, or a leader with an equivalent title. This was the typical size of inland settlements by the time the Spanish colonizers arrived in the late 1500s, whereas larger, more cosmopolitan polities dominated the coasts, particularly river deltas.

Barangays as apex city states

When barangays grew larger, as was the case in Ma-i, Maynila, Tondo, Madja-as of Panay, Pangasinan, Caboloan, Cebu, Bohol, Butuan, Sanmalan, Cotabato, Sulu, and Lanao, among others, they took on a more complex social organization. Several barangays, consisting of households loyal to a datu, Rajah or Sultan banded together to form larger cosmopolitan polities as an apex city states. The rulers of these barangays would then select the most senior or most respected among them to serve as a paramount datu. These polities sometimes had other names (such as bayan in the Tagalog regions) but since the terminology varies from case to case, scholars such as Jocano and Scott simply refer to them as "larger" barangays.

Grace Odal-Devora traces the etymology of the term bayan to the word ''bahayan'', meaning a "community", or literally "a place with many households (''bahay'')." The majority of these early "bayan" were economically complex communities situated river deltas where rivers exit out into the ocean, and featured a compact community layout which distinguished them from inland communities, thus the name.

Odal-Devors notes that bayan's root word, ''Ba-y'' or ''Ba-i'', is linguistically related to other Philippine words for shoreline and perimeter (both ''baybay''), woman (''babai'' or the Visayan term ''ba-i'' "great lady"), friend (the Visayan term ''bay''), and writing (''baybayin''). She also notes that these terms are the basis for many place-names in the Philippines, such as Bay, Laguna and Laguna de Bay, and Baybay.

The earliest documentation of the term "Bayan" was done by early Spanish missionaries who came up with local language dictionaries to facilitate the conversion of the peoples of the Philippine archipelago to Roman Catholicism. Among the most significant of these dictionaries was the '' Vocabulario de la lengua tagala'' by the Augustinian missionary Fray Pedro de San Buenaventura, who described it as a large town with four to ten datu lived with their followers, called dulohan or barangay.

After the various polities of the Philippine archipelago were united into a single political entity during colonial times, the term gradually lost its original specific meaning, and took on more generic, descriptive denotations: population center (''poblacion'') or capital (''cabisera''); municipality; or in the broadest sense, "country".Another word, ''bansa'' or ''bangsa'', is translated "nation". Among the most prominent of these bayan entities were those in Maynila, Tondo, Pangasinan, Caboloan, Cebu, Bohol, Butuan, Cotabato, and Sulu.

Although popular portrayals and early nationalist historical texts sometimes depict Philippine paramount rulers as having broad sovereign powers and holding vast territories, critical historiographers such as Jocano, Scott, and Junker explain that historical sources clearly show paramount leaders exercised only a limited degree of influence, which did not include claims over the barangays and territories of less-senior datus. For example, F. Landa Jocano, in his seminal work ''Filipino Prehistory: Rediscovering Precolonial Heritage'', notes:

Keifer compares this situation to similarly-structured African polities where "component units of the political structure consist of functionally and structurally equivalent segments integrated only loosely by a centralized authority dependent on the consensual delegation of power ''upwards'' (sic) through the system." Junker, expounding further on Keifer's work, notes:

This explanation of the limited powers of a paramount leader in cultures throughout the Philippine archipelago explains the confusion experienced by Martin de Goiti during the first Spanish forays into Bulacan and Pampanga in late 1571. Until that point, Spanish chroniclers continued to use the terms "king" and "kingdom" to describe the polities of Tondo and Maynila, but Goiti was surprised when Lakandula explained there was "no single king over these lands", and that the leadership of Tondo and Maynila over the Kapampangan polities did not include either territorial claim or absolute command. Antonio de Morga, in his work ''Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas'', expounds:

Titles of rulers

Because the peoples of the Philippine archipelago had different languages, the highest ranking political authorities in the largest historical barangay polities went by different titles. The titles of the paramount datu also changed from case to case, including: Sultan in the most Islamized areas of Mindanao; lakan among the Tagalogs; Thimuay Labi among the Subanen; rajah in polities which traded extensively with Indonesia and Malaysia; or simply Datu in some areas of Mindanao and the Visayas.

In communities which historically had strong political or trade connections with Indianized polities in Indonesia and Malaysia, the Paramount Ruler was called a ''rajah''. Among the Subanon people of the Zamboanga Peninsula, a settlement's datus answer to a ''thimuay'', and some thimuays are sometimes additionally referred to as ''thimuay labi'', or as ''sulotan'' in more Islamized Subanon communities. In some other portions of the Visayas and Mindanao, there was no separate name for the most senior ruler, so the Paramount ruler was simply called a datu, although one datu was identifiable as the most senior.

Alliance groups among paramount rulers

Often, these paramount datus, rajahs and sultans formed ritual alliances with the leaders of nearby polities, and these "alliance groups" spread their political influence (but ''not'' their territorial claims) across an even larger geographic area. One prominent example was the case of the paramount rulers of Maynila and Tondo, who were said to have political sway among the peoples of Bulacan and Pampanga before the arrival of the Spanish.

Social organization and stratification

The barangays in some coastal places in Panay, Manila, Cebu, Jolo, and Butuan, with cosmopolitan cultures and trade relations with other countries in Asia, were already established Principalities before the coming of the Spaniards. In these regions, even though the majority of these ''barangays'' were not large settlements, yet they had organized societies dominated by the same type of recognized aristocracy (with birthright claim to allegiance from followers), as those found in established principalities.

The aristocratic group in these pre-colonial societies was called the datu class. Its members were presumably the descendants of the first settlers on the land or, in the case of later arrivals, of those who were datus at the time of migration or conquest. Some of these principalities have remained, even until the present, in unhispanized and mostly Islamized parts of the Philippines, in Mindanao.

Babaylan were highly respected members of the community, on par with the Maginoo. In the absence of the datu (head of the community), the Babaylan takes in the role of interim head of the community. Babaylans were powerful ritual specialists who were believed to have influence over the weather and tap various spirits in the natural and spiritual realms. Babaylans were held in such high regard as they were believed to possess powers that can block the dark magic of an evil datu or spirit and heal the sick or wounded. Among other powers of the babaylan were to ensure a safe pregnancy and child birth.

As a spiritual medium, babaylans also lead rituals with offerings to the various divinities or deities. As an expert in divine and herb lore, incantations, and concoctions of remedies, antidotes, and a variety of potions from various roots, leaves, and seeds, the babaylans were also regarded as allies of certain datus in subjugating an enemy, hence, the babaylans were also known for their specialization in medical and divine combat.

According to William Henry Scott a Katalonan could be of either sex, or male transvestites (bayoguin), but were usually women from prominent families who were wealthy in their own right. According to Luciano P. R. Santiago (To Love and to Suffer) as remuneration for their services they received a good part of the offerings of food, wine, clothing, and gold, the quality and quantity of which depended on the social status of the supplicant. Thus, the catalonas filled a very prestigious as well as lucrative role in society.

Variation in social stratification

Because of the difficulty of accessing and accurately interpreting the various available sources, relatively few integrative studies of pre-colonial social structures have been done – most studies focus on the specific context of a single settlement or ethnic group. There are only a handful of historiographers and anthropologists who have done integrative studies to examine the commonalities and differences between these polities. In the contemporary era of critical scholarly analysis, the more prominent such works include the studies of anthropologist F. Landa Jocano and historian-historiographer William Henry Scott. More recently, anthropologist Laura Lee Junker conducted an updated comparative review of the social organization of early polities throughout the archipelago, alongside her study of inter and intra-regional trade among Philippine coastal polities.

In the middle of the seventeenth century, the Jesuit missionary Francisco Colin made an attempt to give an approximate comparison of the social stratification in Tagalog culture with that in the Visayan culture. While social mobility was possible in the former, in the Visayas, the ''Datu'' (if had the personality and economic means) could retain and restrain competing peers, relatives, and offspring from moving up the social ladder.Cf. William Henry Scott, Cracks in the Parchment Curtain, Quezon City: 1998, p. 125.

The term ''Timawa'' came into use in the Tagalog social structure within just twenty years after the coming of the Spaniards. The term, however, was being applied to former '' Alipin'' (Third Class) who have escaped bondage by payment, favor, or flight. The Tagalog ''Timawas'' did not have the military prominence of the Visayan ''Timawa''. The warrior class in the Tagalog society was present only in Laguna, and they were called the '' Maharlika'' Class. At the early part of the Spanish regime, the number of their members who were coming to rent land from their Datus was increasing.

Unlike the Visayan Datus, the Lakans and Apos of Luzon could call all non-''Maginoo'' subjects to work in the ''Datu’s'' fields or do all sorts of other personal labor. In the Visayas, only the ''Oripuns'' were obliged to do that, and to pay tribute besides. The Tagalog who works in the ''Datu’s'' field did not pay him tribute, and could transfer their allegiance to another ''Datu''.

The Visayan ''Timawa'' neither paid tribute nor performed agricultural labor. In this sense, they were truly aristocrats. The Tagalog ''Maharlika'' did not only work in his ''Datu’s'' field, but could also be required to pay his own rent. Thus, all non-''Maginoo'' in Luzon formed a common economic class in some sense, though this class had no designation.

In other parts of the Archipelago, even though the majority of these barangays were not large settlements, yet they had organized societies dominated by the same type of recognized aristocracy and Lordships (with birthright claim to allegiance from followers), as those found in more established, richer and more developed Principalities.

Barangays in the Visayas

In more developed barangays in Visayas (e.g. Cebu, Bohol, and Panay) which were never conquered by Spain but were subjugated as vassals by means of pacts, peace treaties, and reciprocal alliances, the ''datu'' was at the top of the social order in a ''sakop'' or ''haop'' (elsewhere referred to as ''barangay'').William Henry Scott, ''Cracks in the Parchment Curtain'', Quezon City: 1998, pp. 102 and 112

This social order was divided into three classes. The members of the ''tumao'' class (which includes the ''datu'') were the nobility of pure royal descent, compared by the Boxer Codex to the titled Spanish lords (''señores de titulo''). Below the ''tumao'' were the vassal warrior class known as the ''timawa'', characterized by the Jesuit priest Francisco Ignatio Alcina as "the third rank of nobility" and by the conquistador Miguel de Loarca as "free men, neither chiefs nor slaves". These were people of lower nobility who were required to render military service to the ''datu'' in hunts, land wars ('' Mangubat'' or ''Managayau''), or sea raids (''Mangahat'' or ''Magahat'').

Aside from this, the ''timawa'' also paid taxes and tribute (''buwis'' or ''handug'') and were sometimes called upon for agricultural labor to the ''datu'', though the personal vassals of the ''datu'' may be exempt from such obligations (the latter were characterized by the Boxer Codex as "knights and hidalgos). Below the ''timawa'' were the '' oripun'' class (commoners and slaves), who rendered services to the ''tumao'' and ''timawa'' for debts or favors.

To maintain purity of bloodline, the ''tumao'' usually marry only among their kind, often seeking high ranking brides in other ''barangay'', abducting them, or contracting brideprices in gold, slaves and jewelry. Meanwhile, the ''datu'' keep their marriageable daughters secluded for protection and prestige. These well-guarded and protected highborn women were called ''binokot'' (literally "veiled" or "swaddled"), and the ''datu'' of pure descent (at least for four generations) were called ''potli nga datu'' or ''lubus nga datu''.

Barangays in the Tagalog Region

The different type of culture prevalent in Luzon gave a less stable and more complex social structure to the pre-colonial Tagalog barangays of Manila, Pampanga and Laguna. Taking part in a more extensive commerce than those in Visayas, having the influence of Bornean political contacts, and engaging in farming wet rice for a living, the Tagalogs were described by the Spanish Augustinian friar Martin de Rada as more traders than warriors, and possessed distinct religious practices concerning anitos and dambanas.

The more complex social structure of the Tagalogs was less stable during the arrival of the Spaniards because it was still in a process of differentiating. A Jesuit priest Francisco Colin made an attempt to give an approximate comparison of it with the Visayan social structure in the middle of the 17th century. The term ''datu'' or ''lakan'', or ''apo'' refers to the chief, but the noble class to which the ''datu'' belonged to was known as the ''maginoo'' class. Any male member of the ''maginoo'' class can become a ''datu'' by personal achievement.Cf. William Henry Scott, Cracks in the Parchment Curtain, Quezon City: 1998, p. 125.

The term ''timawa'' referring to freemen came into use in the social structure of the Tagalogs within just twenty years after the coming of the Spaniards. The term, however, was being incorrectly applied to former '' alipin'' (commoner and slave class) who have escaped bondage by payment, favor, or flight. Moreover, the Tagalog ''timawa'' did not have the military prominence of the Visayan ''timawa''. The equivalent warrior class in the Tagalog society was present only in Laguna, and they were known as the '' maharlika'' class.

At the bottom of the social hierarchy are the members of the ''alipin'' class. There are two main subclasses of the ''alipin'' class. The '' aliping namamahay'' who owned their own houses and served their masters by paying tribute or working on their fields were the commoners and serfs, while the '' aliping sa gigilid'' who lived in their masters' houses were the servants and slaves.

Hispanization

Upon the arrival of the Spanish, smaller ancient barangays were combined to form towns in a resettlement process known as ''Reducción''. The policy coerced inhabitants of several far-flung and scattered barangays to move into a centralized ''cabecera'' (town) where a newly built church was situated. This allowed the Spanish government to control the movement of the indigenous population, to easily facilitate Christianization, to conduct population counts, and to collect tributes. Every barangay within a town was headed by the ''cabeza de barangay'' (barangay chief), who formed part of the ''Principalía'' - the elite ruling class of the municipalities of the Spanish Philippines. This position was inherited from the ''datu'', and came to be known as such during the Spanish regime. The Spanish Monarch ruled each barangay through the ''cabeza'', who also collected taxes (called tribute) from the residents for the Spanish Crown.

Difference from the modern barangay

The word barangay in modern use refers to the smallest administrative division in the Philippines, also known by its former Spanish adopted name, the barrio. This modern context for the use of the term ''barangay'' was adopted during the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos when he ordered the replacement of the old barrios and municipal councils. This act was eventually codified under the 1991 Local Government Code.

There are a number of distinctions between the modern Barangay or Barrio, and the city-states and independent principalities encountered by the Spanish when they first arrived in 1521 and established relatively permanent settlements beginning in 1565. The most glaring difference would be that the modern entity represents a geographical entity, the pre-colonial barangays represented loyalty to a particular head (datu).

Even during the early days of Spanish rule, it was not unusual for people living beside each other to actually belong to different barangays. They owed their loyalty to different datus. Also, while the modern barangay represents only the smallest administrative unit of government, the barangay of precolonial times was either independent, or belonged to what was only a loose confederation of several barangays, over which the rulers picked among themselves who would be foremost - known as the ''Pangulo'' or Rajah.

In most cases, his function was to make decisions which would involve multiple barangays, such as disputes between members of two different barangays. Internally, each datu retained his jurisdiction.

Related concepts

Feudalism

The organization of pre-colonial Philippine states has often been described as or compared to feudalism (see non-Western feudalism), particularly in light of Marxist socioeconomic analysis. Specifically, political scientists note that political patterns of the modern Republic of the Philippines, supposedly a liberal democracy, can more accurately be described using the term " Cacique Democracy"

Cacique democracy

Present-day political scientists studying the Philippines have noted that the reciprocal social obligations that characterized the pre-colonial bayan and barangay system are still in place today, albeit using the external trappings of modern liberal democracy. The term "cacique democracy" has been used to describe the feudal political system of the Philippines where in many parts of the country local leaders remain very strong, with almost warlord-type powers.

The term was originally coined by Benedict Anderson from the Taíno word ''Cacique'' and its modern derivative "caciquismo" (sometimes translated as "Bossism"), which refers to a political boss or leader who exercises significant power in a political system.

Mandala

In the late 20th century, European historians who believed that historical Southeast Asian polities did not conform to classical Chinese or European views of political geography began adapting the Sanskrit word "Mandala" ("circle") as a model for describing the patterns of diffuse political power distributed among Mueang or Kedatuan (principalities) in early Southeast Asian history. They emphasized that these polities were defined by their centre rather than their boundaries, and it could be composed of numerous other tributary polities without undergoing administrative integration.

This model has been applied to the historical polities of Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia which traded extensively with various Bayan polities in the Philippines. However, Southeast Asian historians such as Jocano, Scott, and Osbourne are careful to note that the Philippines and Vietnam were outside of the geographical scope of direct Indian influence, and that the Philippines instead received an indirect Indian cultural influence through their relations with the Majapahit empire.

Philippine historiographers thus do not apply the term "Mandala" to describe early Philippine polities because doing so overemphasizes the scale of Indian influence on Philippine culture, obscuring the indigenous Austronesian cultural connections to the peoples of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.

See also

* Kedatuan, another term for the system of independent and semi-independent city-states in Maritime Southeast Asia
* Mueang, similar concept in mainland Southeast Asia, especially in Thailand and Laos
* Mandala, political model in ancient Southeast Asia
* Christianization
* Indian cultural influences in early Philippine polities
* Paramount rulers in early Philippine history
* Lakan
* Thimuay
* Datu
* Maynila
* Tondo
* Balangay

Notes

References

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Barangays of the Philippines