Our ancestors as victorious warriors

ALTHOUGH we are a peaceful and compassionate people, as we showed our pakikipagkapwa and kapatiran to Ferdinand Magellan and his armada when they arrived, we have also shown that we know how to fight for our interests, freedom and kaginhawaan.

True, in 1521 what would be known as the Philippine Islands was not a united territory but several different kingdoms, bayan, banua or ili, which were connected by our common waters and commonalities in culture. The Laguna Copperplate Inscription tells us of the kingdoms of Tondo, Laguna, Butuan and Dewata, Indonesia paying off debts in gold as early as the 10th century. Taken as a whole, it can be said that we can consider our maritime civilization as a thalassocracy, a naval power in a military and commercial sense.