The Philippines and the Seven Years’ War: An Indirect Colony in a Global Conflict
By Karl Garcia
The Seven Years’ War is often described as the first true world war, fought across Europe, North America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. Major powers such as Britain, France, Spain, and Prussia battled for territory, trade, and influence. At first glance, the Philippines seems far removed from this conflict. The archipelago had no large army, no independent government, and no major role in European diplomacy. Yet the war reached the islands in a surprising way.
The Philippines did not choose to participate in the war, but it became involved because it was part of the Spanish Empire — and more specifically, part of a trans-Pacific empire tied to Mexico. Its indirect role during the war reveals how deeply global politics affected even distant colonies.
A War That Began in Europe but Spread Across the World
The Seven Years’ War began in Europe in 1756 as a struggle between major powers over territory and influence. Britain and Prussia fought against France, Austria, and their allies. At first, Spain stayed out of the conflict, but later joined on the side of France because both kingdoms were ruled by the Bourbon dynasty.
When Spain entered the war in 1762, its colonies automatically became targets for British attacks. Britain wanted to weaken Spain by striking at its overseas possessions, especially those involved in trade.
The Philippines became important not because of its wealth, but because of its connection to the Manila–Acapulco Galleon Trade, which linked Asia to the Americas. Manila was a key port where Chinese goods were exchanged for Mexican silver. Disrupting this trade would damage Spain’s global economy.
Thus, even though the war started in Europe, the Philippines became a strategic target.
Why Britain Attacked Manila
By the 1760s, Britain had become the strongest naval power in the world. It controlled large parts of North America and India, and it wanted to expand its influence in Asia. When Spain joined the war, Britain decided to strike Spanish colonies wherever possible.
Manila was vulnerable. The Spanish garrison in the Philippines was small, and the colony depended heavily on reinforcements from Mexico, which were far away. The islands had no large standing army and little fortification compared to European strongholds.
In 1762, British forces sailed from India and attacked Manila. After a short siege, the city fell. This event, known as the British occupation of Manila, was one of the few times a European power captured the capital of the Philippines before the modern era.
The British occupation showed how exposed the colony was. Because it was governed from Mexico and far from Spain, help could not arrive quickly.
The Philippines Was Not Fully Conquered
Although the British captured Manila, they did not control the entire archipelago. Outside the capital, Spanish officials and local leaders continued to resist.
One of the most important figures during this period was Simón de Anda y Salazar, who refused to recognize the British occupation. He moved the colonial government to Pampanga and organized resistance with the help of local Filipinos.
Many native communities supported the Spanish authorities, not because of loyalty to Spain, but because British rule was uncertain and unfamiliar. Local elites, missionaries, and soldiers helped maintain control of most of Luzon and other islands.
This shows the indirect role of Filipinos in the war. They were not fighting as an independent nation, but their actions helped prevent the complete loss of the colony.
The War Was Decided in Europe, Not in the Philippines
The fate of the Philippines was not decided in Manila but in Europe. The Seven Years’ War ended with the Treaty of Paris, which forced Spain to make concessions to Britain but allowed it to keep the Philippines.
Britain returned Manila to Spain in 1764, even though it had successfully captured the city. The reason was strategic. Britain preferred to keep territories in North America and India rather than hold a distant colony that would be difficult to defend.
This outcome shows the reality of colonial politics. The Philippines was not important enough for Britain to keep, but it was valuable enough for Spain to recover.
The decision was made thousands of kilometers away, without the people of the islands having any say.
What the War Revealed About the Philippine Colony
The British occupation exposed several weaknesses in the Spanish colonial system.
First, the Philippines depended heavily on Mexico. When war disrupted the Pacific route, the colony struggled to defend itself.
Second, the islands had little military protection. Spain focused its resources on the Americas and Europe, leaving the Philippines vulnerable.
Third, local society had to defend itself when imperial support was slow or absent. Filipino soldiers, militia, and local leaders played an important role in resisting the British, even though they were not independent.
The war showed that the Philippines was a distant outpost, not a central part of the empire.
Why This War Matters in Philippine History
The Seven Years’ War is often ignored in Philippine history, but it had lasting effects.
- It showed that Spain could lose the islands.
- It revealed the importance of the Manila–Acapulco trade.
- It proved that global wars could reach the Philippines.
- It demonstrated the role of local Filipinos in defending the colony.
After the war, Spain strengthened the administration of the Philippines and became more cautious about foreign threats. The experience also reminded colonial authorities that the islands could not rely entirely on distant support.
In a sense, the war made the Philippines more aware of its position in the world — a colony caught between empires.
Conclusion: A War We Did Not Start, But Could Not Avoid
During the Seven Years’ War, the Philippines had no independent voice. It did not declare war, choose allies, or decide its own fate. Yet it became part of a global conflict because it belonged to a worldwide empire.
The British attack on Manila happened not because of local events, but because of decisions made in Europe and the Americas. The defense of the colony depended on local resistance, while the final outcome depended on treaties signed far away.
This indirect role reflects the reality of Philippine history in the Spanish period.
The islands stood at the crossroads of global trade, yet had little control over the forces that shaped their destiny.
In the first world war of the modern age, the Philippines was not a main battlefield —
but it was still part of the struggle, because empires reached even the farthest shores.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
I asked Claude for an account of how Son Tua helped Spain during the British invasion, with prompts to filter out urban legends that are common in Philippine history – and got this:
I asked also for a summary of what drove Diego and Gabriela Silang as well as their alliance with Britain:
Accounts of the Silangs are remarkably thin compared to the “status” in the pantheon of heroes; IIRC there was even a navy ship named after Silang. The Silang story gaining sudden prominence outside of Ilocos in 1978 when the Golden Age narrative was already stating to break down might have just been another example of Marcos Sr. propaganda myth-making. Just like Silang’s exploits which cannot be proven, Marcos Sr. also had supposed exploits that created his public legend which also could not be proven. In any case, the famous depiction of Silang warriors wielding bolos and kalasag to defeat near-modern weapons does not seem plausible unless the Spanish were lightly garrisoned and overwhelmed. It’s remarkable how much Marcos era propaganda survives until now, and what was even institutionalized. It leads one to wonder how many other former eras relied on myth-making rather than physically-building.
though the story of them being allied with the British is likely and would fit a very old Filipino pattern of “fluid allegiance”.
Raja Soliman switched from allegiance to his wife’s relatives in Brunei – and Islam – to Catholicism and allegiance to Spain very easily.
The speed with which some Filipino politicians went from grinning at Yamashita to welcoming McArthur back was phenomenal.
I used to joke that the foundation for Ilokanos liking English language and later going to Hawaii or California started with Diego Silang.
The sheer number of Filipinos of Ilokano descent who joined the USAF made for the running joke that GI means genuine Ilokano even until the 1980s.
Loyalty as well as utang na loob are very much measured by the “ginhawa” or well-being a barangay can get from a datu or a datu from someone higher.
Even Congressional supermajorities in the Philippines work on that principle.
yes anting-anting stuff and all..
one of my findings (from academic papers linked there) when I wrote below article (it is also stated there) was that pre-19th century Spanish troops in the Philippines were often forced conscripts or even convicts from Mexico, so who knows.
one of the biggest failures of 1986/1987 was to build a NEW and compelling narrative.
Yuval Noah Harari wrote that a lot of what holds groups of people together are beliefs and stories.
The success of post-WW2 West Germany was a new liberal-democratic idea of being German with a real “success story”.
which is why I prompted Claude to be a historian skeptical of the urban legends of Philippine history.
I know why I wrote a certain article just before the start of the 2022 election season.
fortunately at least some Filipinos now know – for instance – that Tagalog and Cebuano are NOT dialects but languages.
Or that the Code of Kalantiaw was not true at all, or that the Maragtas was a legend with a possible real core.
Certainly nobody believes that Lam-Ang really was able to defeat the Cordillerans when he was one month old.
I found it funny when I read that each Maori “canoe” (tribal group also based on a boat metaphor) claims in oral histories its chiefs came to NZ first.
https://tiwialbay.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-legacy-of-sr-don-higino-templado.html I also take the stories of the 19th century abaca boom mayor of Tiwi, Albay with a grain of salt, especially as it was written partly by his descendants who still sometime become mayors. Even if some are distant cousins of mine, I heard..
BTW I found the HORSE as a common theme between the myths around the Silangs and the Tuasons interesting. Probably that imported animal simply fascinated.
now the woman on that white horse with White Castle Whiskey is NOT my cousin, but I have a cousin who was a model for that ad campaign in the 1970s.
The making of modern nations is, at its core, an exercise in selective memory — a process by which movements choose their martyrs, curate their founding myths, and paper over the contradictions that would otherwise unravel a still-forming people. The Philippine and Chinese republican projects have intriguing parallels: two movements emerging from anti-colonial sentiment that drew from both the Enlightenment and wounded civilizational pride, some of whose leaders knew one another personally, and whose fates diverged in ways that continue to have a modern effect long after the revolutionary moment faded into history.
Sometimes I wonder “what if” José Rizal was not betrayed and the Ilustrado reformist faction had survived, rather than the reform vs revolution narrative being seized by the radical Katipunan.
I am fascinated by the connection between Chinese Filipinos and the penultimate anti-Qing (or rather, anti-Manchu) movements that led Chinese Republicans to go from whisper networks to a string of uprisings culminating in the Wuchang Uprising then the fullblown 1911 Xinhai Revolution. Sun Yat-sen himself noted the importance of the huaqiao (华侨 — “Overseas Chinese,” or Chinese diaspora), specifically acknowledging the Philippine Chinese community as not only an important source of funds and support, but as a base and shelter from Qing and foreign concession forces. A concession force which Rizal himself experienced during his self-imposed exile in British Hong Kong. Mariano Ponce personally knew Sun Yat-sen, which led some Filipinos to preposterously claim from 1911 until now that the (revolutionarily defeated) Philippines inspired the Xinhai Revolution (which is categorically untrue as the Xinhai Revolution was the internal reaction to the Opium Wars over 60 years prior).
The parallels are quite interesting as Rizal, the spiritual leader of Philippine republicanism (and independence), as well as Sun, the spiritual leader of Chinese republicanism, both died before their work within their respective movements were completed. Rizal was raised into a static martyred hero by the Katipunan, the Spanish essayist Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo describing Rizal as “the Tagalog Christ.” Likewise Sun was created an unchanging figurehead of the revolution in his death, the Methodist Christian Sun worshipped by some fellow revolutionaries as a literal Taoist god — a xian.
What’s more interesting is the path of deviation from a shared origin: the two Katipunan factions and the two Chinese United Front republican factions. One faction ostensibly being close to the people while the other seemingly led by elites. The Magdiwang of Andrés Bonifacio and the Magdalo of Emilio Aguinaldo. The Kuomintang of Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Communist Party of (Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao and later) Mao Zedong.
A lot of these early narratives in the Early Modern Period (1789 French Revolution to 1945 conclusion of World War II) where modern nation-states were still finding their identities consisted of a lot of what I call Making Shit Up™ (MSU) in their myth-making discourse to create a cohesive narrative to hold together a still incohesive forming nation-state. A lot of the MSU is due to having a “chip on the shoulder” from having a vague idea of one being “great before” and trying to justify why one should be great now. For example, what is now China had a long history across dozens of dynasties and ethnic overlords of having a great state, which Chinese revanchists to this day misunderstand and misuse to justify what new things they want to do now. What’s curious is the Philippines, through the Katipunan, somehow caught this MSU bug — despite never having been a unified state in terms of territorial control, ethnicity, or cultural influence prior to the Spanish colonial government started stiching together the various islands in the Philippine achipelago outside of Luzon and Cebu. I later concluded that the subconciously apparent rituals of gahum may have been present, but the unease and “can’t quite place my finger on it” feeling ended up having contemporary ideas grafted on top.
Fast forward to post-EDSA: It seems to me that Philippine small-l liberalism still struggles with MSU and incompletely formed identities. Those who may most strongly identify with liberalism seem to me to be stuck on trying to copy-paste what they see abroad without regard to how fellow Filipinos feel about it (or if they even understand it). Sometimes it seems like Philippine small-l liberals don’t even put out effort, hoping that by the pure goodness of their platforms others will become supporters. Well, the LGU heads who literally descended from the original datus of that area understand their identity. Local dynasts work quite hard in maintaining power, even if the “work” might not be “good” in the eyes of liberals.
Clearly the Duterte Bloc understands this and while the Dutertes may be using datu-logic, not challenging that primitive cultural logic means one simply loses by default. Ultimately building institutions that respect, and are inspired by, the underlying culture may be what makes those institutions last — by updating the operating logic, the cultural operating system. Myths that teach moral lessons that bring about success are the hardest to defeat.
Here’s what Claude had to say in summary from what I blabbed above:
well, I have been writing about so many variants of nations and regions finding their OWN way of doing things based on their culture, and I am already asking myself WHAT AM I NOT SAYING CLEARLY ENOUGH?
a) how Bavaria managed to find its way into modernity inspite of being scorned within Germany as hopelessly backward in times when the Weberian idea of the Protestant ethic dominated as well as the idea of Prussian superiority – by honoring its agricultural and familistic roots yet finding a way to become industrial and modern, at times also utilizing its resourcefulness when history forced it to – during Metternich and after WW2.
b) how the Swiss managed to build their nation from the ground up, at first within the Habsburg realm as an insignificant-looking alliance of three valleys in 1291, based on common law written into a simple Constitution, upgrading from the original Confederacy to a more central state in the mid-19th century and totally modernizing their Constitution several times until the latest “release” in the 1990s. Consensus was always part of that culture from the start.
c) how Germany managed to find a modern and democratic version of itself – which I believe will survive even as it is facing its biggest threat now. One of the advantages of the present constitution is that it unwittingly or not emulates features of the Holy Roman Empire that Voltaire mocked instead of trying to be a highly centralized Latin state like France. Länder that respect sub-ethnicities as well as Kommunen whose local traditions go back to medieval times.
d) how Turkey managed to modernize a very traditional and familistic culture into its own variant of democracy – even if I don’t know where they are at as of now. Atatürk was different from Quezon in that he was able to instill a certain lived tradition into the institutions of Türkiye.
e) how Romanians managed to direct their form of resilience (also from being underdogs) into building institutions that work and not just constant workarounds.
Well, maybe everybody thinks I am being that simplistic and saying the Philippines should follow those solutions verbatim – of course not.
i) I have written to a large extent about Ma’am Leni’s bayanihan approach. Xiao Chua has called her late husband a “good datu”. Joey your proposal to build the mayors for good goverment into a de facto confederation of “good datus” (to use Xiao Chua’s term) might be one way to go for Filipino liberals. I am attaching it once more for those interested.
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/f6070512-52d5-45ad-b9fb-911c8fcac4ec
ii) what might be developing – de facto – is a slight liberalization of the Marcosian model. The Marcos Sr. model was described as a “Javanese concept of power” by some Filipino intellectuals. Marcos Jr. is a supreme datu who delegates a lot to technocrats (the Vince Dizons) like his father did, thus staying above the fray by never having to acknowledge mistakes that would destroy his nimbus. Yet he respects the rule of law or rules in general more than the Dutertes ever will.
iii) there is someone like Tulfo who is a bit more populist than the Marcoses yet more oriented towards competence than the Dutertes. His response is usually to delegate things – not officially like Marcos but by calling up the agency involved on TV. What is interesting is that there are liberals willing to field him as the winnable candidate in 2028.
I wonder how strategically all the three groups I mentioned manage to get their act together so Inday Sara doesn’t win by plurality in 2028. I will not necessarily be affected. Haven’t given up but I am also budgeting my energy. As you have seen, Joey, the interest in the car industry plan wasn’t that high. I sometimes joked with LCPL_X that we might have to wait until the Philippines invents the “Warp Drive” before “First Contact” – to use a Star Trek analogy.
Just an update on how many people have downloaded what documents from the car industry plan until now:
and again the link to the article where these links are contained:
so it doesn’t look totally hopeless even if some things may yet take a while.
P.S. 10 clicks on Dropbox and 6 clicks on the Claude artifact in the same period (since April 1st)
Well I guess the harsh but simplest way to explain why Filipinos in general seem to have a hard time discovering their own way of doing things based on culture is that Philippine culture is, despite what Filipino small-l liberals and far left want to believe, is fundamentally a culture of a few leaders followed by the many.
All the cultures you listed above from a-e follow the Enlightenment mold. Yes, even Atatürk’s reforms after the Turkish Revolution (Atatürk was profoundly influenced by the philosophy of La Laïcité — French Secularism).
In the Philippines, there is instead a tendency to pick-and-choose what looks good, like at a boodle fight or kamayan, with little thought about what goes into the “sausage making process.”.
And to be clear: the observation is not a criticism of the thought process of the masa. Insofar as criticism should be weighted, those who hold more agency deserve far greater criticism — in this case the educated liberals and progressives who want to copy-paste what they envy in other cultures abroad with no thought to the work needed to build what is desired.
The envy-based goals of Philippine liberals might be called “aspirational” by Philippine commenters, but an aspiration unpaired with actionable goals has a blunter description: fantasy. When goals are nebulous and undefined to begin with, I shudder to think “what if the Philippines actually achieves the ‘goals?'”
Without defining goals with a “why?” and making actionable plans accordingly, one risks falling into misguided expectations, feelings of fleeting joy upon “achievement,” a general malaise of hollowness: an arrival fallacy. Nothing would ever be good enough and energy toward future endeavor is depressed. How many instances in the late modern to contemporary period of Philippine history can be described this way?
Maybe the Philippines could’ve been a liberal republic along the lines of Enlightenment values like European and North American countries, but that aspiration was probably severed early on when the Katipunan strand took over from the Ilustrado mindset. Just randomly one can likely identify dozens of instances where Philippine liberals still insisted on pushing out liberal republic since Rizal’s death, with a distinction that modern liberals do not put out the effort the Ilustrados did. Besides, such a movement would need to educate and show the masa the benefits of changing, of building.
So yes, a confederation of “good datus” might reestablish a modern version of the node-based trade network antecedent of pre-Spanish past. Each city helmed by good governments becomes a node in the network. A network which must expand southward to the Visayas, Mindanao and Bangsamoro. A network which will attract population towards itself, building political power in the current system that depends on residents while “training” more Filipinos into a new national habit.
Without building some kind of organizational structure, which in politics would be called a machine, parties remain weak and parties hang onto singular saviors. Without organization building a movement can only depend on vibes which may quickly turn into ningas cogon; yes, we must face the facts that even PNoy who we respect here, was pushed into power on a wave of vibes. Without building an organization, new people cannot become converts and a movement cannot be expanded.
I nearly always find the ordinary Filipino who is of the D and E class to be pragmatic and open to learning beneficial new things if someone were to take the time to explain it to them on a base of mutual respect. It’s quite strange that most Class AB who tend to be highly educated are oftentimes highly closeminded as well… If Philippine liberal thought leaders and social media tastemakers truly want a better Philippines, perhaps it is time they start opening their minds a bit.
Going back to the opening of this reply: there are too many followers who claim to be leaders. Just like pilosopo might exist to mask deeper insecurities, the constant ultracrepidarian need for some to opine on everything is another odd trait there. But that’s okay, eventually there may be leaders who emerge who the masa will follow. Sure, there will still be pilosopos as there will still be ultracrepidarians who will grumble and needle from the sidelines without bothering to lift a finger to help; they are best ignored.
I see the problem as a lack of confidence at the moment. As confidence is not something that can be given, so confidence should be built. I don’t have all the answers of course, but perhaps the elements of a possible confederation of different pillars of Philippine society and politics would be a start in building that confidence.
what haven’t I written about yet when it comes to the Philippines?
The “Reluctant Activist” I quoted is at far more aware than probably most people in my Pisay Batch – whether they call themselves liberal or DDS or leftist.
There are a few truly broad-minded people among my UP Elementary classmates, but they got the better part of UP Diliman. That place can also be doctrinaire.
what Karl and I have not written about, Joe has:
re first honor, there is this Naga conflict about who was truly valedictorian and ugly accusations towards the Robredos. Contreras is a pretty nasty type..
I asked Giancarlo in the group chat with Karl whether the Filipino ITIL experts he knows have really internalized the principle of root cause analysis instead of the typical Pinoy culture of fault-finding.. his answer seemed to be yes. Karl has mentioned kaizen mentality. I wonder if the Philippines can learn that.
Perhaps the fundamental misunderstanding in all the attempts to understand the Filipino psyche above is that each is still working from a Western framework then trying to force that onto the Philippine context rather than ascertaining what exactly it means to “be Filipino” before borrowing useful cultural technology from abroad where it helps the Philippines advance.
I think Prof. Virgilio Enriquez’s Sikolohiyang Pilipino is a good first attempt in re-centering the conversation about the Philippines around Filipnos (even if I also think Prof. Enriquez’s work is muddied by latent nationalism).
I guess it’s hard to explain so I’ll use the example of Prof. William Henry Scott: Foreigners who take interest in the Philippines often end up understanding the Philippines more than Filipino scholars do precisely because the foreign scholar is trying to search out the true “roots,” as Prof. Scott did, without any burden of trying to “prove themselves.” Whereas Filipnio scholarship often spends a lot of time trying to make narratives align, especially nationalistic narratives.
Trying to make stuff fit where it doesn’t fit can create silly, incongruent messes which become detrimental when accepted wholesale. My most amusing example is the origin of the Chinese Filipino word “pancit”:
Here we have the late Prof. E. Arsenio Manuel, the UP Diliman Dean of Filipino Anthropology and the “Father of Philippine Folklore” (who has contributed many good works) simply MSU™ by claiming the etymological origin of “pancit” is something it is not. Likewise, Prof. Gloria Chan-Yap (A Chinese Filipina) who later transferred to Australian National University repeated Prof. Manuel’s assertion decades later.
One can simply ask a Hokkien and know that pán-si̍t means “wonton” as in Chinese “jiaozi,” which can be cross-checked in Bahasa (Melayu):
Indonesians are known for being a bit OA themselves, but on these things the Indonesian government conducts serious study of such subjects. In the case of “pangsit” the word’s etymology is correctly defined in the Indonesian government published standard Bahasa dictionary Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language) by the Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia.
as someone fascinated by Constitutions, I found our discussions on why the German 1949 Constitution had certain things in it – in German senior high – extremely interesting. Also a weekly bulletin by Süddeutsche editor Heribert Prantl in 2018 about the drafting process in 1948 and the discussions within it.
what little I heard about the 1987 Constitution discussions annoyed me. For instance that they spent a long time debating whether the national language should be Pilipino or Filipino. YES, SERIOUSLY.
And of course if things are there only because they look nice, they may not be too stable.
For example the Commonwealth had divorce – abolished by NP and LP in unison in 1950. Either Quezon and his core group were very much alone – unlike Atatürk who managed to educate an entire country in his idea of a state – OR Quezon was just performative about modernity.
Manolo Quezon did say that the Commonwealth was modernity with a nod to tradition, while 1972 was tradition with a nod to modernity – while 2016 was the periphery taking over. If one reads the Philippines Free Press and Teodoro Locsin, one does get the feeling they meant the liberal project – or were they just good with words? Or did their ideas reach only a small crowd – and a middle class that migrated from 1965 onwards?
By contrast, the equality of men and women was NOT originally in the draft of the German 1949 Constitution. Two women delegates pushed it, and there were true contentions. But in a culture that is truly able to stand contradictions and find consensus out of them, the consensus that is written tends to last better.
A culture that just performs gives one the uneasy feeling that nothing is really meant. Here today and gone tomorrow.
So are Filipino liberals really what Duterte said they are, hypocrites? Well, there was someone who wrote that Duterte can’t be a hypocrite because he never had morals in the first place. I am actually quite happy to live in an country of the Enlightenment.
I guess the main fault of prior attempts at republicanism in the Philippines was that fundamentally those were elites building elite enclaves for themselves with internal colonization outside of the enclave.
One of the goals of the Enlightenment was to bring reason, learning, liberty, and secularism to improve the human condition. Well for most of Philippine history it seems like the faction of elites who professed such ideals did not really believe in those ideals themselves if it meant their service workers and comfort were to be taken away. The geng-gengs in BGC aren’t an exact analogy (what is?), but Philippine elites sometimse strike me as being high-minded in theory, but not in practice.
Still, not even all Western(ized) countries were affected by the Enlightenment the same way. The most successful examples took bits and pieces of the Enlightenment then adapted those new ideas to the local cultural context. Something the Philippine leaders still haven’t figured out how to do… because to do so means widespread access to the most critical aspects of the Enlightenment: reason and learning. In Philippine public schools, the highest performing students are often the ones who teach themselves while the rest of the class languish… it’s not great.
not too far from Jefferson having slaves. I think every society has its blind spots. The times when German municipalities had flourishing democracies only for those within their walls – intra muros in Latin – isn’t too long ago. The old Jewish quarter of Munich was outside the walls. The Haidhausen district which is now a very gentrified place across the river was where day laborers lived who didn’t have enough money to be citizens of old Munich.
The US also went through a long process of learning to accept new groups of people from a theoretical idea of equality. Irish coming during the American civil war who were conscripted straight into it didn’t have the same status as Anglos, and Gangs of New York the movie shows that dynamic, dramatized a bit. Being Catholic in a USA often defined as having a WASP – White Anglo-Saxon Protestant – elite wasn’t easy, whether Italian or Irish, and Kennedy was a milestone.
Though in the USA and Germany the trend was to accomodate more and more people intra muros, within the walls real or imagined. The Philippines tends to go by the game of groups of people wanting to take over Intramuros – not literally of course. There were articles in Duterte time I read about a group of PNP people who took care of tokhang based in QC but imported from Davao, speaking only Visayan. Marcos Sr. allegedly stuffed the AFP with Ilokano officers. SMNI took over the ABS-CBN frequencies and had Quiboloy blasting his version of the truth until he got into ehem.. trouble. Duterte initially tried to run the Philippines from Davao until he found out that the powers in Manila wouldn’t budge so he finally he did govern more from Manila.
exactly. one reason I tend to harp about different Western blueprints – and recently about the Indonesian blueprint as Western might be seen as “not applicable to da Pilipino” but “Indonesians are SEAblings” – is to show that there is not just one way to adapt useful ideas.
The old Filipino generation was about copying the USA, mine tended to admire Japan, then attention shifted to Kore and some now adore China but don’t look at what adaptations would fit.
German economic liberalism for instance does NOT allow everybody to just take a hammer and be a carpenter. Pinoys who call us Communists due to that can go home. Filipinos who can’t adapt to our stores being closed on Sundays shall be forced to hike mountains every Sunday haha.
Well yes, the public school system of the Third Republic still was good but was allowed to rot..
..and UP Diliman in its criticism of elitists actually just meant the Atenean professors who earned twice as much I think, and I also think the Bonifacio good and Rizal bad debate at UP was them thinking they were Bonifacio and Ateneo was Rizal, not really about history and much less about the masses.
—–
P.S. re blind spots.. the Swiss canton of Bern became a small military power for a while and colonized what later became some of the French cantons of Switzerland. Some are more equal than others has always happened in human history. By the time Geneva joined Switzerland, the two other major Suisse Romand cantons were already fully free. The cantons of Jura and Bern.. it’s complicated. Or the internal civil wars between some German-speaking cantons..
P.P.S. what I said about new groups of Filipinos NOT wanting equality but THEIR TURN in power was something Rizal also realized when he had his novel character Padre Florentino say “what if the slaves of today become the tyrants of tomorrow”. One could also BTW see his work in Dapitan as proto-Angat Buhay.
come to think of it, certain patterns like:
– plenty of Ilocano officers in the AFP in Marcos Sr. times (allegedly)
– the likes of the notorious Jovie Espenido moved from town to town by Duterte
this is all just the same pattern as Aguinaldo’s Kawit Brigade. Of course you go by “huwag magpalamang” in a society with weak institutions
that cycle isn’t easy to break because who wants to be pushed to the edge which is the way things usually go over there. Heneral Luna believe in institutions..
that is strikingly similar to the way in which the original confederation of 3 valleys – Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden – that created a “Constitution” of sorts in 1291 that sufficed for the period, a printout would be a page or two, expanded across the mountainous regions of the Holy Roman Empire, even if the “newer cantons” in the industrial lowlands between Zurich and Bern are larger than valleys while the non-German cantons have complex histories.
BTW I have always like the Swiss Federal Council model of Presidency – it has 7 members, I think two are French-Swiss and one is Italian-Swiss – and they rotate at being President, one every year. They work on consensus, which of course makes that model extremely hard to get to work in the Philippines.
But why did I get obsessed with the Swiss? Because Rizal translated Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell into Tagalog.
Though Wilhelm Tell IS a legend and Schiller’s play is typical 19th century Romanticism, Rizal was unto something as the villain of the tale was bailiff Gessler. How many in the Filipino principalia WERE Gesslers and how many trapos of today ARE still Gesslers?
There is no need of course for Risa Hontiveros, Joy Belmonte, Bam Aquino, Kiko Pangilinan and Vico Sotto to put their hands together and swear a freedom oath. But the idea is basically the same, you specifically used the term confederacy. Replace the Gesslers. Even as the first tries at confederacy like Otso Diretso in 2019 and TROPA in 2022 failed. The Kiko-Bam, Education/Agriculture tandem already is a core that works and gets along with Senator Risa.
Going the way of something like the Swiss Confederation likely (probably) will run into Consitutional constraints. What I’m suggesting is more like a new type of coalition or alliance structure of political party(ies) and civil society which would form nodes.
The city nodes by the way, are inspired the pre-Spanish trade networks where certain polities were peripheral nodes connected to an outside hub like China, Champa, Vietnam, Japan, Srivijaya, Brunei and etc. But instead, this good governance network would be an internal trade network where likeminded leaders can pool resources and capability.
the early Swiss confederation was hardly more than the present good governance mayors initiative – the Swiss officially remained under the Holy Roman Empire from 1291 to 1648, but then again the IDEA of sovereignty exists only since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, and the Holy Roman Empire had less de facto power over its principalities and municipalities than the EU over its member states – so all the Swiss had to do is not ruffle Habsburg feathers too much.
But all comparisons are just that, as three of the politicians you mentioned in your proposal are senators and two are mayors. And de facto they your proposal doesn’t have them breaking any laws. The Makati sister cities alliance was also the Brunei to other cities model with Binay redistributing wealth for allies BTW, which shows how more strongly anchored the old ways are – just like Davao city thinks it is a sovereign state than can declare persona non grata.
But yes what you are suggesting can also be seen as a continuation of what Otso Diretso, TROPA and Kakampink tried to do but with the continuity of Angat Buhay. Build a real civic society, and especially one that is not centered only in some of the biggest cities. The Philippines is de facto polycentric and multi-ethnic – that is the structural similarity to Switzerland.
The Silang Question: Patriots, Pragmatists, or the First Geopolitical Realists?
Philippine history often prefers clean heroes and clean villains. Reality rarely cooperates.
Few historical figures illustrate this better than Diego Silang and Gabriela Silang — celebrated today as anti-colonial icons, yet historically entangled with one of the world’s great imperial powers: Britain.
For many Filipinos, this remains an uncomfortable detail. National mythology tends to flatten complexity into simple morality plays. Heroes resist. Colonizers oppress. Foreign intervention corrupts. But the Silang revolt forces a harder question:
What does a colonized people do when liberation appears possible only through another empire?
That question did not begin in the twentieth century. It was already confronting Filipinos in 1762.
During the Seven Years’ War, Britain seized Manila from Spain. The Spanish colonial structure, long dependent on fragile communications and localized authority, suddenly appeared vulnerable. Outside Manila, imperial control weakened. Local grievances intensified. Regional elites recalculated.
Into that vacuum stepped Diego Silang.
The conventional nationalist narrative presents him as an early freedom fighter. There is truth in that. Spanish abuses, tribute burdens, forced labor systems, and friar dominance generated legitimate resentment. Silang articulated real frustrations among Ilocanos and sought a break from colonial control.
But the story becomes more complicated when Britain enters the picture.
Silang accepted British recognition and support against Spain. British authorities, eager to destabilize Spanish rule beyond Manila, viewed him as a useful ally. Some historians even characterize the short-lived “Free Ilocos” as a de facto British-aligned protectorate.
This raises the question many avoid asking directly:
Was Diego Silang fighting for independence — or merely changing patrons?
The uncomfortable answer may be both.
Modern observers often impose contemporary nationalism onto eighteenth-century actors. But the idea of a unified Filipino nation-state barely existed at the time. Political identity was more regional, linguistic, religious, and local than national. Ilocano interests could supersede abstract notions of “Filipino” unity because such a unified identity had not yet fully formed.
Seen through that lens, Silang’s alliance with Britain becomes less contradictory and more strategically rational.
Small powers and oppressed peoples throughout history have repeatedly leveraged rival empires against dominant rulers. American revolutionaries relied on France against Britain. Vietnamese factions alternately aligned with Chinese, French, Soviet, and American interests across centuries. Afghan tribes navigated British, Russian, and later American and Soviet interventions. Survival often demands geopolitical flexibility rather than ideological purity.
Colonized societies rarely possess the luxury of perfect allies.
The deeper issue is whether tactical cooperation with one foreign power invalidates a liberation struggle against another. History suggests the answer is no — but neither does it absolve all consequences.
Britain’s interests in the Philippines were not altruistic. London was not financing anti-Spanish resistance out of concern for Filipino self-determination. The British Empire sought strategic advantage in a global war. Weakening Spain weakened a rival empire. Supporting local revolts was simply efficient imperial policy.
Had Britain retained the Philippines permanently, Filipinos would not have entered a utopia of liberty. They likely would have experienced another colonial hierarchy under different administrators, languages, and commercial systems.
Empires seldom liberate. They reposition.
Yet dismissing the Silangs as mere collaborators would also oversimplify history.
Gabriela Silang in particular demonstrated that the movement possessed genuine local conviction beyond foreign sponsorship. After Diego’s assassination, she continued resistance despite deteriorating conditions and declining British utility. Her execution by Spanish authorities reflected the seriousness of the threat they represented.
What the Silang revolt ultimately reveals is not simply patriotism or collaboration, but something more enduring: geopolitical realism.
The revolt exposed a truth that would echo repeatedly through Philippine history: small nations trapped between great powers often survive by maneuvering between them.
The pattern reappeared with:
Philippine history is not merely the story of resisting empires. It is also the story of navigating them.
This is why the Silang question remains relevant.
Modern discourse often frames geopolitics in simplistic binaries: sovereign versus puppet, patriot versus collaborator, independence versus subservience. But weaker states rarely operate within such clean categories. They maneuver within constraints imposed by stronger actors.
Diego and Gabriela Silang may therefore be remembered not only as revolutionaries, but as among the first Filipinos to confront the brutal strategic reality of living between empires.
And perhaps that is what makes them historically important — and historically uncomfortable.
Because their story reminds us that in the real world, the road toward autonomy is often negotiated not in ideal conditions, but in the dangerous space between competing powers.
Son Tua was an ancestor of Jose Miguel Arroyo, the husband of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Specifically:
The Tuason clan became enormously influential after aiding the Spanish colonial government during the British occupation of Manila (1762–1764). In return, the family received vast haciendas covering areas that later became parts of present-day Quezon City, Marikina, Sta. Mesa, and Diliman.
So the relationship chain is essentially:
**Son Tua / Don Antonio Tuason → Tuason clan descendants → Lourdes Zaragoza Tuason → Jose Miguel Arroyo → Gloria Macapagal Arroyo by marriage.**