They raped my mother

I was once working in a small media company who does infomercials, TVC’s and independent films. They entered the business of shooting TV commercials, infomercials and film making to sustain the company’s income and to make the owner-directors hobby in the world of making movies a reality. Having a fond interest in photography, I find it exciting to be included in the crew to shoot the new products of Alaska to be launched at their upcoming event. It was just a one day experience yet I love to discover how the making should be. I learned a few tricks, terms and a cool experience to hear my director said “Cut! Scene 1 Take 5, good take.”

I don’t know if it will be a disadvantage to say that I considered myself as Jane-of-all-trades but master of none. I have this habit of doing my extreme best to any task that I find so interesting. Well, be it interesting or not, I still tried to perform anything to the best of my abilities. Sometimes, I gave up and sometimes I got bored with it. But the experience that I have always stays with me as long as my memory bank can hold.

So again, I was among the crew who will shoot a stage play in Intramuros. The show will start at 8:00 PM so we were already there getting everything ready. We are to shoot the play about how the Spaniards came to the Philippine Islands, how the native Filipinos (Indios) accepted them, and how was the relationship of these natives towards the foreigners that inhabit in the island, particularly in Maynilad or the known city of Manila inside the famous walled fortress of Intramuros.

I do not have a profound knowledge about the motivational cause on why these Spaniards came to the islands about 5 centuries ago, but I have a hint that they are after about something. Something that most of the leading colonial countries such as the Dutch, Portugese, French, Italians, Greek, English and Spanish were drastically competing against to who will get hold of it first. At first, most of the foreigners befriended the locals and when they found out that the islands have something worthy of interest, they flocked like hungry vultures ready to devour anything that they think is valuable back to their homeland. 

This is a Chinese vendor peddling large buns of bread and was one of the noisiest peddlers who annoyed the early marketplace with their inarticulately high-pitched voice. (This guy is Gary Lim and he is a real actor as I have often seen him in the local widescreen.)

 Copious gold, precious pearls,  various valuable spices, rare minerals, friendly locals and beautiful women served as easy lures to attract these ruthless looters in the open palms of the land. Who would blame them? Local islanders are born with great virtue of friendliness and whoever steps ashore its land held any of the two sides of the coin—either to take advantage of the clandestine and tempting treasure or trick the locales to make them offer it freely. Thus the loathsome rape started and left my country bare of its naturally rich resources. How embarassing, how detestably wicked, how grudgingly nauseaus that my country suffered such fate. Now, I am truly proud of the dead heroes that sacrificed their noble blood to liberate the people from the great oppression that caused them to cry their hearts out.

Another chinese fellow in white silken shirt who offers shining shoes among those Insulares and Peninsulares. Chinese people interacted well with the natives unlike the meztizo and meztiza on the left side who stood aristocratically high and away from other local citizens.

Oh! Before I got carried away, I was just curious why the Chinese didn’t try to do what the other colonists did. I understand that Moros inhabit the southern islands but they didn’t try to take control as well. Looks like only the Europeans took interests in invading countries, sucked up all the rich resources  and left with all the treasure aboard their mighty ships. Almost every rival colonist are ready to wage war to those who would try to contest their interests. At some times, they end up reinforcing their reputation for strength and power to dominate lesser rivals. Perhaps, their principles of war proved the reason why there is inveterate war instead of lasting peace.

History is thick with gallantries, heroism and bravery but I guess there is no glory without the banality of humanly flaws that makes the point of conflict rise to its bad name today. I wonder how it was like to tread and experience the past, live the moment of the time of colonial expansion and witness the real and frightening drama of the people at that time. My poor imagination has limited idea of what it was like to live through such times and the picture depicted from this play has enlightened me to visualize the events and see through their eyes how the horrendous rape of my mother land took place and catapulted the Philippine archipelago in the pages of history.