500th anniversary of freedom from invaders

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IN March, 2021, the Philippines will be celebrating the 500th year of our freedom from foreign invaders. The Philippines, Spain, and Portugal will also be celebrating the same occasion as the time Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the globe.

Rotary Club of Manila President Jimmy Policarpio invited three speakers to shed light on our history with Spain.

And also, how we eventually became a part of the global community of traders, sailors, and adventurers.

One of the speakers, Antonio Pecho Alviso, Jr., a proponent of the Filipinas Quincentenario Project, spoke on “Quincentennial Symposium of the Discovery of the Philippines and the Circumnavigation of the World.”

The other speakers were Dr. Gil R. Ramos, an economist, business analyst, and management consultant, and Emmanuel Sto. Domingo Lopez, corporate secretary, Philippine Quincentenario Center, Inc.

According to Ramos, before the Spaniards came, the Philippines was part of the Sri Vijaya Empire. The seat of power of this thalassocracy (which means a government for a country composed of thousands of islands) was on the island of Java.

The Sri Vijaya Empire included the Indonesian archipelago, Borneo, Java, and the Philippines up to Northern Visayas. Luzon then was part of China’s Song Dynasty, hence the name, Lu Song, Lu meaning province in China.

Ramos said the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade began when Spanish navigators Alfonso de Arellano and Andres de Urdaneta discovered the eastward return route in 1565.

“Reasoning that the trade winds of the Pacific move in a gyre as the Atlantic winds did, they had to sail north [from Manila] to the 38th parallel north, off the east coast of Japan, to catch the eastward-blowing westerly wind that would take them back across the Pacific.”

“On reaching the west coast of the North American continent, Urdaneta’s ship, the San Pedro, sailed south to Acapulco, arriving there on October 8, 1565.

By the 18th century, it was understood that a less northerly track was sufficient and galleon navigators steered clear of the rocky and foggy California coast. It made the trip shorter and less hazardous.

The Manila trade was so lucrative that Seville merchants petitioned King Philip II of Spain.