MANILA, MELAKA, MALUKU:

REMEMBERING THE TRIANGULAR WORLD OF

SOUTHEAST ASIA
By: Eric Casio
(From Philippine Daily Inquirer, August 12 & 16,
2001)
(Source:
http://hanbadilles.blogspot.com/2013/07/manilamelakamaluku-
remembering_10.html)

The recent visit of President Gloria Macapagal to Malaysia and the

forthcoming visit of Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri
to the Philippines is a rare historic occasion to reflect on how
Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, are historically and
geographically articulated. The three, together with Brunei, share
deep ethnic and cultural relationships worth re-discovering and
remembering.

From a regional, Southeast Asian perspective, the Philippines is

not a single linear chain of island consisting of Luzon, Visayas and
Mindanao. Rather, the archipelago has a bifurcate structure, like a
letter A with two legs pointing to aligned centers farther south in
Borneo, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The left or western Luzon,
Mindoro and Palawan, is aligned with the ancient kingdoms of
Brunei and Malacca (Melaka). The right or eastern leg facing the
Pacific, which includes eastern Luzon, Bicol, Visayas and
Mindanao, is aligned with Ternate in the Moluccas (Maluku). And
Melaka and Maluku have been aligned in trade and commerce in
pre-colonial times. The resulting pattern is thus a triangular
matrix whose corners Manila, Melaka, Maluku provide three
key points of reference or reflecting on regional history,
anthropology and geography.

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The interconnections among these reference points in nusantara
were facilitated by sea-lanes used for two-way maritime
commerce, travel and migration. The Melaka-Maluku alignment
may be called the southern trading corridor, the Melaka-Manila
connection the western trading corridor and the Maluku-Manila
linkage the eastern trading corridor. The southern, western and
eastern trade routes facilitated maritime trade, travel and
transmigration over centuries before and during the early colonial
periods.

The connecting bar of the Philippines A is the Sulu chain

strung between Mindanao and Borneo. The historically critical
position of Sulu lies in being equidistant between the western and
eastern legs passed through Mindanao and Borneo respectively.
The Tausugs linguistically are affiliated with Visayan speakers
from the Butuan-Surigao of Northeastern Mindanao. Yet the Sulu
Sultanate shared strong Islamic traditions with the Brunei
Sultanate, and historically exercised hegemony over North
Borneo.

The Matrix and Moorings

The geo-historical moorings of the Philippines thus rest in this

triangular matrix linked by relations of trade, travel, migration,
intermarriage and political alliances in pre-colonial and early
colonial periods. Unfortunately ethnic affinities, cultural linkage
and commercial relations and political alliances that used to
characterize this region have been lost from the racial memory of
many Filipinos, Indonesians and Malaysians. Filipinos have instead
tended to look across the Pacific towards Spanish-Mexico and
Anglo-America just as Indonesian elites have oriented themselves
towards The Netherlands and Malaysian intellectuals towards
Great Britain, for much of their colonial social history. It is time

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these moorings be rediscovered, and these forgotten affinities
and linkage reestablished.

The Philippine archipelago with more than 7,000 islands is better

seen in conjunction with the Indonesian archipelago with more
than 13,000 islands, and with the Malaysian Peninsular and island
territories containing several hundreds more. This massive
explosion of over 20,000 islands is the largest in the world,
spreading out for thousands of miles between continental Asia
and Australia. The island galaxy is covered by a rich pattern of
sea lanes, straits, bays, gulfs, rivers, mangrove swamps and all
sorts of maritime and riverine nooks and crannies. For some good
reason some Indonesian political visionaries referred to these
massive universe of islands as nusa antara or nusantara the
island galaxy in between (i.e. between Asia and Australia; and
between Pacific and the Indian Ocean).

Although the geophysical diversity of nusantara is great, the

languages and ethnicity of its inhabitants show a marked
homogeneity. That is to say, the people were neither Indians nor
Chinese; and their languages were descended neither from
Sanskrit nor Chinese. The people on nusantara spoke varieties of
a language popularly known as Malay. This led some cultural
historians to coin the term Malayo-Polynesian to describe the
language family spoken by the Southeast Asian and those Pacific
islanders who have migrated out of nusantara into Polynesia and
Micronesia.

The effort to achieve a more holistic grasp of the regions

linguistic, cultural and ethnic similarities has been rendered
particularly difficult because of conflicting nomenclature and
identity labels developed by European scholars and perpetuated
by their nationalist successors. Language historians have largely
abandoned Malay-Polynesian in favor of the term Austronesian

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to refer to the family languages that includes Malay, Javanese,
Tagalog, Visayan, Hawaiian, Tahitian, Maori and the language of
Madagascar, among many others.

While the term Austronesian has been quickly accepted as a

linguistic descriptor, no comparable general term, other than
Southern Asia has been universally accepted for the race of the
people inhabiting island Southeast Asia. The closest general term
is generalized Malay a practice that allowed Jose Rizal to be
classified as belonging to the Malay race. Unfortunately Malay
has acquired a restricted meaning in the context of the Malaysian
nationalist discourse vis--vis Indian and Chinese citizens.
Similarly, the terms Indonesian and Filipino likewise are
generally restricted to national communities. Thus the need for a
region-wide descriptor that could override the more restricted,
localistic labels remained unmet among scholars and the regional
general public.

One recently suggested region-wide descriptor is nusantao

(from nusa, island and tao, people). Originally proposed by
prehistorian Solheim, nusantao attempts to serve as a general
term for people to nusantara, allowing the term Austronesian to
continue as a general descriptor only of the language family. For
lack of a better term, we will use the name nusantao for
discussing the triangular demographic, cultural and commercial
alignment of Manila to Melaka, Melaka to Maluku and Maluku to
Manila.

Over the centuries the regular movement of goods and people

throughout nusantara resulted in the spread of a broadly common
culture complex, a pattern of similarities in languages,
technologies and cultural ideas and practices, especially among
communities in the trading ports and in the hinterland
communities surrounding these ports. This nusantaran culture

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complex thus provides the infrastructure of base of the
Indonesians, Malaysians, Filipinos and Borneans.

A major feature of this base culture is the distribution of the

nusantaran population along the lowland-highland continuum, i.e.
some were coastal dwellers, others inhabited the interior and the
highlands. Early European scholars called the coastal dwellers
coastal Malays a term later translated as pasisir peoples.
Notwithstanding the divergent terminology, a clear summary of
this lowland-highland cultural pattern was given by the Spanish
Loarca sometime in 1582.

There are two kinds of people in this land, who

although of the same (nusantaran) race differ somewhat in their
customs and are almost always on mutually unfriendly terms. One
class includes those who live along the coast, the other class,
those who live in the mountains; and if peace seems to reign
among them, it is because they depend upon each other for the
necessities of life.

Another Spanish report written around 1663 added that the

lowlanders and coastal peoples in the Philippines were the
civilized nation who came from Sumatra, the Javas, Borney,
Macazar and other islands in Southeast Asia. This remark is the
strongest suggestion that population movement was going on all
over nusantara, facilitated no doubt by maritime trade routes.
THE SOUTHERN TRADING CORRIDOR Melaka, Java,
Makasar, Maluku

The most famous corridor is the southern one linking Melaka to

Maluku via the Java Sea lane and touching trade ports in Java and
Makasar. Prior to its capture in 1511 by the Portuguese, Melaka
was a major port principality, an international entrepot, serving
traders from China, India and other surrounding countries in

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Southeast Asia. The Portuguese historian Pires estimated about
100 large ships and 30-40 smaller ones in the port of Malacca
each year the harbor was so big that some 2,000 large and
small ships could lie together.

Enterprising traders, like those from Makasar and Java, yearly

sailed to Maluku to barter textile for spices, which were then sold
internationally at great profit. One historian described the trading
activities along the Melaka-Maluku corridor:

From Melaka, the traders would sail to the Moluccas by way of

java, Sumbawa, Banda and Ambon, doing much valuable trade on
the way, selling their Indian textiles at Gresik and Panarukan in
exchange for caxas (Chinese copper coins) with which they
purchased rice and cotton cloth for inferior quality at Bima in
Sumbawa. The cloves were bought in Banda or the Moluccas
chiefly in exchange for this rice, inferior cotton and also Chinese
caxas and porcelain the cloves sometimes fetched in Melaka
thirty times their cost in the Moluccas, and in India one hundred
times, while in Lisbon during periods of scarcity they were sold for
as much as 240 times their original price.

Because of its long exposure to influential Muslim traders from

India and the Middle East, Melaka converted to Islam and its
Muslim rulers then became advocates and facilitators for the
spread of Islam to other parts of the nusantaran world. The pagan
ruler of the Ternate in the Moluccas is known to have travelled to
Melaka and on his return via Java he married a Javanese princess.
The first Ternatan Muslim ruler, Sultan Zainal Abidin (1486-1500)
thus became Muslim due to Melakas influence and example.

Intermarriages and commercial alliances were commonly

practiced among the traders and the common people surrounding
these ports. One Dutch report in 1609 mentioned some 1500

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Javanese in the Banda Islands in Maluku, among an indigenous
population of less than 15,000. Multi-ethnic visiting traders
Arabs, Chinese, Javanese and Malays stayed for months at a
time in the Maluku Island and took wives from local women, their
mestizo children look fair-skinned and straight-haired compared to
the darker, frizzy-haired neighbors in the other less frequented
islands.

Sensing the importance of the east-west trade along this southern

corridor, the Dutch commercial strategists established a central
control point at Batavia (now Jakarta) on the north coast of Java to
monitor and capitalize on the commercial traffic between Melaka
and Maluku.

THE WESTERN TRADING CORRIDOR Melaka, Brunei,

Manila

Much has been written about the Manila-Acapulco trade across

the Pacific. Often forgotten is the older and more significant trade
connection between Manila and Melaka. Melaka, because of its
strategic position between China and India, and a large multi-
ethnic population of resident and visiting merchants from China,
India, Arabia and Persia; as well as indigenous nusantaran traders
from the Philippines, Borneo and Indonesia. In the following
quotation, you may read Filipinos where it says Lucoes.

The Lucoes (Filipino from Manila and Luzon) are about 10

days sail beyond Borneo. They are nearly all heathen; they have
no king, but ruled by group of elders. They are a robust people,
little thought of in Malacca. They have two or three junks at the
most. They take the merchandise to Borneo and from there they
came to Malacca.

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 The Borneans go to the land of the Lucoes to buy gold and
foodstuffs as well, and the gold which they bring to Malacca is
from the Lucoes and from the surrounding islands (Sulu,
Mindanao, Visayas, Palawan) which are countless; and they all
have more or less trade with one another.

The Lucoes have their country plenty of foodstuffs, and wax

and honey, and they take the same merchandise from here as the
Borneans take. They are almost one people; and in Malacca there
is no division between them. They never used to be in Malacca as
they are now, but the Tumunguo whom the governor of India
appointed here was already beginning to gather many of them
together, and they were already building many houses and shops.
They are a useful people; they are hardworking in Minjan there
must be five hundred Lucoes, some of them important men and
good merchants, who want to come to Malacca.

Pires observation that the Borneans and the Lucoes were almost
one people is most intriguing and instructive. It provides a good
sociological background for the fact that Rajah Sulayman of
Maynila is known as the nephew of the Sultan of Brunei. And it
throws light on the spread of Islam from Melaka to Brunei, and
from Brunei to Manila and Sulu. The Brunei royal house, just like
Ternate in the Maluku sector, traces its origin from Islamic Melaka
via Johore. Thus the Islamic heritage of Pre-Spanish Manila,
through its Brunei connection, is ultimately derived from Melaka.

THE EASTERN TRADING CORRIDOR Maluku, Mindanao,

Visayas, Bicol, Manila

The commercial linkages along the eastern trading corridor is less

understood compared to the other two, and yet are as historically
significant for understanding the resulting fabric of similarities in
language, culture and ethnic characteristics. The people of Maluku

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had close links with those of Davao and South Cotabato. In fact,
they used to refer to Mindanao as Maluku Besar, the larger
Maluku. The islands between Mindanao and Maluku, that
includes Talaud and Sangihe, have contributed Sangil-speaking
population to Mindanao.

Visayan linguistics is part of the evidence for long-standing

linkage along the Maluku-Mindanao-Visayas-trade routes. Visayas
and Mindanao have languages that are closely related. Recent
archaeological findings also indicate that Butuan, Bohol and Cebu
had thriving trader communities in active commercial
communication with Maluku, the southern terminal of the Melaka-
Maluku trade corridor. The Islamization of the Maguindanao and
the Maranao peoples appear to have originated from Ternate
warriors who came to the aid of the Maguindanao people. Piratical
raids from Mindanao into the Visayas, though negative incidents,
still points to long standing familiarity with communities and ports
along eastern corridor between Maluku and Luzon.

The establishment of a Spanish naval station at the tip

Zamboanga opposite Basilan is a left-hand tribute to the
existence of commercial activities along the eastern corridor. For
the Zamboanga fort was designed not just to intercept Moro slave
raiders headed to the Visayas, but also to stop southbound
Chinese junks plying the eastern corridor along the Bicol-Visayas-
Mindanao-Maluku commercial connections.

Contemporary Implications

Currently there is much talk of developing the Maluku-Mindanao-

Sulu-Borneo are through economic cooperation programs under
BIMP-EAGA. This acronym stands for Borneo, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Philippines-East Asian Growth Area. These border areas happen to
be the farthest from Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Manila, which

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partly explains why they have lagged behind in development. One
cannot continue to blame the inward-looking Dutch in the
Indonesia, the British in Malaysia and the Spaniards and
Americans in the Philippines for dismembering the ancient
triangular matrix of nusantara. The real issue now is how to
remember and rebuild a new circle of reciprocity. This is the task
that the current and future generation of regional leaders and
citizens must face together. It is encouraging to see this task of
regional reconstruction being started by Macapagal of the
Philippines, Megawati of Indonesia, Mahathir of Malaysia, and the
Sultan of Brunei.

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