Soft Hispanic

LVN stars Lourdes Medel & Bernard Bonnin

The biggest reason why ordinary Pinoys held back in claiming a Hispanic gene somewhere in their ancestry was their not quite aristocratic economic status. They were afraid to be mocked why they were hobnobbing with the hoi-polloi instead of rubbing elbows with the country's elite. But the world has so evolved that the big majority of contemporary hybrids were already born among the working classes, particularly the OFW's. That has freed the majority of Filipinos in many parts of the archipelago who hesitated for long to claim the bloodline that even after a few generations was giving them the unique Asian-Hispanic sex appeal. Not a fake mestisong bangus after all. It's the real thing.

 In a previous article I mentioned a book by French anthropologists Jagor, Fëdor, et al. (1870). "The Former Philippines Through Foreign Eyes",Blackwood’s magazine for August, 1818, It has an account of conditions in Manila and the Philippines from data given by an English merchant who left the Islands in 1798 after twenty years’ residence in which he accumulated a fortune.

 “Your first question, with respect to the Spanish population, must refer to native Spaniards only; as their numerous descendants, through all the variety of half-castes, would include one third at least of the whole population of Luconia (i.e., Luzon–A. C.)

 “The castes bearing a mixture of the Spanish blood are in Luconia alone at least 200,000. The Sangleys, or Chinese descendants, are upwards of 20,000, and Indians, who call themselves the original Tagalas, about 340,000, making a total population in that island of about 600,000 souls. What may be the respective numbers in the other Philippine Islands I never had any opportunity of learning.”

If 1/3 of Luzon were mestizos even then (in 1798), where are those genes now? Remember: only 2 centuries have passed by in 1798, they still had a century to improve their score before they left in 1898. If in the 1800's (200 years after they arrived), there were already 30% of the population of Luzon who were hybrids, how much more when the Spaniards left 100 years later?

The truth was, there was widespread hybridization: the mechanics was simple really. In Iberian (Portuguese & Spanish) colonial societies, cross-breeding among the races was the norm, unlike the British colonial societies where the British hybrid was treated as belonging to a lesser hierarchial caste (just read James Clavell's novel, Taipan). Cross-breeding in Spanish Philippines was not accidental, it was encouraged. Actually, it was an unstated colonial policy. Ultimately, they realized blood was thicker than water if they wanted to retain the loyalty of the natives.

This is the reason for the leyenda negra propaganda which was used to wean the Filipinos away from its supposed Hispanic mooring as the Philippines was pulled towards the Anglo-Saxon orbit by successive colonizations. Maneuvers which I think were useless because it was enough to  infuse  newer layers to the Pinoy culture without having to denigrate previous ones (our enforced indifference to our Hispanic past led us to neglect treasures like the Intramuros so tourists are now complaining there is nothing cultural to see in Manila, unlike our Asian neighbors who nurture the totality of their heritage. Unless you consider squatters in Intramuros as cultural spots, that is).

We often read there were only few Spaniards who came here. Why, do we really need many to infuse new blood in a population? Ok, let's look at the practical mechanics of Iberian hybridization:

Consider the case of a Manuel Medel who came to the Philippines from Spain in 1912 (Spanish immigration to the Philippines didn't stop with the American regime). Manuel founded a copra plantation in present-day Jose Abad Santos (Trinidad then), Davao Occidental where he had an estimated 200 legitimate & illegitimate children, one of the legitimates was the famous LVN actress Lourdes Medel. That was in the provinces you say? Well, in the cities, how about Lou Salvador who arrived from Spain in the 1930's & sired more than 50 children, many of whom became some of our sexier stars (now we  know why Maja Salvador  is sexy like her aunt Alona Alegre). Out of the East-West bloodline of Pinoys  was forged a querida system which is  still a badge of honor among the well-off classes despite the supposed to be famous religiosity of the population (notwithstanding even the  trendy political correctness pretensions of a few, I must say). In fact, a querida was not even needed all the time. Once, a mestizo governor had to sleep over in a barrio & one day the wife of the owner of the hut became pregnant. A mestizo boy was born and he became a Philippine senator,

They were not the exception, the ones who came here when it was still a colony of Spain must have been more gung-ho. In the 1800's, there were only 600,000 people in Luzon. It appears now, 200,000 hybrids might even be a conservative estimate. Theoretically, a mere 1,000 Spanish Guardia civil personnel could have produced that in a generation, but we are made to believe now that it took  6 generations to produce 200,000 hybrids out of a 600,000 population. How about the civil servants & migrants, they were only praying the Rosary? If for example there were 20,000 of them in 300 years, they could have theoretically produced 4,000,000 in a generation. Even if they were half lazy, they could still have theoretically hybridized the colony many times over (the limiting factor was probably the availability of beautiful girls: the ugly ones remained untouched while the beautiful ones were beautified further, and those are now most likely the forebears of our present beauty queens).

 Next time when you go to a barrio in a town with a crumbling Spanish church, don't wonder why an old farmer woman had Latin silhouettes despite being burned by the sun (which is normal because the Philippines is located in the equatorial latitudes). She is not pure Malay & her deep kayumanggi can be easily cleared by skin peeling and sunblock. I can identify many like her in my frequent out of town trips. I can identify one selling vegetables somewhere.

 Their grandma had a secret which was not a secret anymore.


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