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By Go Bon Juan
Editor’s note: The Sixth Dr. Jose P. Rizal
Awards for Excellence awarding ceremony will be held at 7 p.m., June
14, 2008, at the Kaisa-Angelo King Heritage Center on Anda and
Cabildo streets, Intramuros, Manila.
Chinese mestizos, from Jose Rizal to Emilio
Aguinaldo, dot the course of Philippine history. Surprisingly I just
have discovered a few famous Filipinos in our history whose Chinese
ancestry is less known. I found the exciting information in an
article by the late historian Austin Craig, published in a special
edition of The Fookien Times commemorating its third anniversary on
January 1, 1929.
According to Craig’s “Six foremost Filipinos
have Fookien ancestry,” the top three who have Chinese ancestry
were Rajah Matanda, conqueror of Sulu and Manila; Miguel Lirio de
Espeleta, who was a governor-general of Spain; and Ventura de los
Reyes, the first Filipino deputy to the Spanish Cortes.
On Rajah Matanda’s Chinese ancestry, Craig
wrote, “And there was a prosperous Chinese colony there [Borneo]
and [in] about 1400, their leader had a beautiful daughter married
to Prince Ahmed and [she] became the mother of the successor to
Brunei’s first Mohammedan sultan. Her Chinese relatives built the
splendid capital which so impressed the survivors of Magellan’s
fleet who found refuge there after their disasters in Mactan and
Cebu.
“By this Chinese wife, Sultan Ahmed had a
daughter who married an Arab adventurer, Shariff Ali, who became his
successor as Sultan Berkal. Their grandson conquered Sulu and on his
second attempt, conquered Manila. This conqueror’s grandson, the
very great grandson of the Chinese lady of Kina Batangan [a Bornean]
was the old rajah, Rajah Matanda.”
Another illustrious mestizo in history is the
37th governor-general of the Philippines, Right Rev. Doctor Miguel
Lirio de Espeleta.
According to Craig, Espeleta, “[is] the only
Filipino ever to have held that exalted office, was also of Binondo
and a Chinese mestizo. He was Bishop of Cebu, acted as
governor-general from 1759 to 1761. Then because of his good record
during the British occupation in Manila [1762 to 1764], he was made
vice governor, under Anda, for the southern islands.”
Lastly, the first Filipino deputy to the Spanish
Cortes was yet another mestizo. Craig said: “The aged Binondo
merchant who was the first Filipino deputy in the Spanish Cortes and
one of the 18 signers of the Spanish constitution of Cadiz, Ventura
de los Reyes was also a Chinese mestizo. He had been an officer in
the Chinese mestizo’s regiment, whose head during the latter part
of the 18th century was Lt. Col. Antonio Tuason.” Craig wrote that
the surname Tuason was said to have been derived “originally from
the Chinese ‘Son-tua,’ in revised order.”
This newly uncovered, fascinating information is
yet another reminder that the Chinese heritage is deeply woven into
the fabric of Philippine life and history.
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