The C in Rizal

The Chinese Ancestry of Jose Rizal

How did the Chinese reach the Philippine shores? Perhaps a more interesting question would be — is it possible that Filipinos have gone to China even before the Chinese reached the archipelago? According to William Scott (1983, 1), Chinese records say that China wasn’t aware of the existence of any piece of land between Taiwan and Java before the tenth century. Scott also wrote, “The farther reaches of the South China Sea were considered the end of the world.” 

UP Asian Center Associate Professor Aileen Baviera (2021, 10) said that as early as 982, Ma-yi traders, those who came from Mindoro, were able to step onto the Chinese coast in Guangzhou. The Ma-yi traders were part of the foreign exotica trade that had a significant impact on China’s economy. Because of this and as supported by Chinese records, Dagdag (2015) wrote that long before the Chinese reached the archipelago, Filipino traders from Luzon had already sojourned to China. 

In 1001, China received its first tribute mission from the Philippines, specifically coming from Butuan. More contacts with Ma-yi and the Chinese arose because of the King of Butuan’s request — to grant the kingdom equal status with Vietnam or then Champa (Dagdag 2015, 32). According to Scott (1983, 4), tribute missions are China’s way to flaunt its grandeur. The tributary states’ purpose, on the other hand, is to seize “their proper niche in the Chinese cosmic order of things.” Furthermore, it is important to note that this system makes foreign trading formal in Chinese polity. Tributes can be pearls, frankincense, myrrh — exotica. 

After the Visayan raids of 1172 and 1173, where China’s Fukien coast was attacked by the Pi-she-ya (Visayan), China finally had a grasp of the existence of the Philippines (Scott 1983, 5). By 1206, Mindoro, Palawan, the islands between these two, and Basilan were known to China. After nearly two decades, China might have probably known about the Babuyanes, Lingayen, Luzon, Lubang Island, and even Manila.

One remarkable visit of a Filipino to Beijing, China happened in 1417 when Paduka Batara, the East King of Sulu, set foot in the country (Baviera 2021, 11). The Sultan fell sick, eventually died, and was buried in Tehchow, Shantung or Dezhou, Shandong province. According to Teresita Ang See (2017), the sons of Paduka Batara married Chinese locals, which resulted in 3,700 descendants of the Sultan across 21 generations. 

In the book “A History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos,” Francia (2014) wrote that by the tenth century, “Chinese traders were regular visitors” to the Philippine islands, referencing Ma-yi once again. He also listed the following years as years of contact with the archipelago: 985, 1372, 1406, and 1410. Baviera (2021, 11) notes that archaeological findings argue that, at the time, Chinese traders might have visited islands that were later known to be part of the Philippines before the tenth century. Dagdag (2015, 32) also cited how “Chinese colonies were founded in the coastal towns” of the country during the Sung dynasty, which began in 960 and ended in 1279. 

These varying accounts of whether the Philippines or China first made contact with the other nation or visited each other’s country at the same time period point to the fact that historical records sometimes forward a certain narrative that can influence how people perceive what happened in the past. Regardless of whether our Filipino ancestors first traveled to China or not, one thing is certain — the influx of Chinese immigrants in the Philippines started when the Spaniards colonized us (Francia 2014). 

According to Francia (2014), the Spanish occupation called for the skills and services of Chinese artisans, which in turn gave them access to “sought-after Mexican silver,” as well as other products. Most of these artisans and traders that flocked to the country came from the southern coastal provinces of China, such as Fujian, Amoy, and Guangdong. Obviously, the growth of established Chinese resident communities in the country took place. 

This brings us to the central topic of this section, which is the Chinese ancestry of Jose Rizal, the National Hero of the Philippines. According to the National Historical Commission of the Philippines or NHCP (2012), Fujian, Southern China plays a significant role in studying Rizal’s paternal ancestry. Lam-co, Rizal’s 2nd great grandfather, was a native of Chinchew district in Fujian, specifically in Siongque Village (Craig 2005). In the late 1600s, Lam-co settled in the Philippines from China, leaving his country possibly due to the Chinchew famine, the plague, or political troubles. By June 1697, he was baptized in the Parian Church of San Gabriel, taking the name Domingo. According to Craig (2005), Domingo Lam-co’s baptismal records are still kept by the Church of San Gabriel. 

Through Friar Francisco Marquez and Friar Juan Caballero, well-known Dominicans at the time, Domingo was able to settle in a Dominican estate in Biñan, Laguna. Before he settled there and started working on the Tubigan Barrio, he married Ines Dela Rosa, who came from an entrepreneurial family in Binondo. Ines’ family also came from Chinchew (Craig 2015). Their story proves that age doesn’t matter because the priest who officiated their marriage was also the same priest who baptized Domingo over thirty years ago. 

Their marriage brought two lives to the world. Unfortunately, their daughter, Josepha Didnio, died at a very young age, leaving them with their son, Francisco Mercado. Francisco was born in 1731 and named accordingly, such that he would “set out in life with a surname that would free him from the prejudice that followed those with Chinese names, and yet would remind him of his Chinese ancestry” (Craig 2015). 

Biñan church records show that Francisco owned the largest herd of carabaos in the town. Craig (2015) described him as “good-natured, liberal and popular,” such that he became an alcalde and a godfather to numerous baptisms and weddings. Francisco married Bernarda Monicha, a Chinese mestiza who came from the hacienda of San Pedro Tunasan, in 1771. They had two offspring, namely Juan and Clemente.

According to NHCP (2012), Chinese immigrants and natives of Chinese descent were antagonized in this period, given they fought with the British against the Spaniards during the 1762 Battle of Manila. Francisco and his family went back to Biñan from the hacienda of San Juan Bautista in Kalamba because of this belligerence. 

Juan Mercado, the grandfather of Jose Rizal, lived a busy life. In 1808, 1813, and 1823, Juan served as Biñan’s chief officer or the capitan del pueblo, which was why his townmates called him “Capitan Juan” (Craig 2015). As a public servant, he was described as generous, just, and honest. He married Cirila Alejandra, the daughter of a Chinese garment businessman who has a good social standing in China. They had 13 children.

He changed his family’s identification from “Chinese Mestizos” to “Indians” — a term for people who inhabit overseas possessions of Spain. It is worth noting that Juan’s family was already the fourth generation of Chinese in the Philippines, and most probably for him, the time has come for them to be called Filipinos. 

From the 13 children came Francisco Engracio, the father of Jose Rizal. He was born in 1818 and was only eight years old when Juan died. He married Teodora Alonzo, who also has a Chinese lineage. Teodora’s father, Lorenzo Alberto, has “very Chinese” physical attributes. This description is supported by the information that Lorenzo’s mother, Maria Florentina, came from a well-known Chinese mestizo family in Baliwag, Bulacan. Teodora’s mother, Brigida de Quintos, married Lorenzo after having a relationship with him that blossomed from a simple romance. Brigida’s parents are Manuel de Quintos and Regina Ochoa. According to Craig (2015), Regina has a Spanish, Chinese and Tagalog lineage. 

Francisco Engracio and Teodora married in Kalamba, Laguna, on June 8, 1848. They had 11 children. One of those is José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda, born on June 19, 1861, the National Hero of the Philippines. 

Looking at the apparent and documented Chinese ancestry of the “First Filipino,” one might not expect that Jose would utterly deny his Chinese lineage. But he did. According to Alfonso Ang, in his review of the book “Rizal and China” (2005, 5), Philippine biographies explicitly share how Rizal strongly denies it. This denial speaks about how he looks at China, hinting at whether there was a relationship between him and the country where his forefathers came from all along. 

In Leon Maria Guerrero’s “The First Filipino,” Rizal expressly rebutted Guerrero’s statement about him being of Chinese descent, saying that “I do not agree. This is unjust! Here it says that I am a half-breed, and it isn’t true! I am a pure Filipino!” (Ang 2005, 4). In Austin Coates’ Rizal: Philippine Nationalist and Martyr, it was revealed how Rizal, until the time of his signing the notification of his execution, despised and denied his Chinese ancestry. Rizal was said to point out that he was “incorrectly described as a Chinese Mestizo.” He asserted that he was Indio Puro (Ang 2005, 4).

Rizal’s Anti-Chinese sentiment

Rizal sent his mother, his best friend, Ferdinand Blumentritt, and Mariano Ponce letters that contain negative sentiments toward the Chinese. 

In the letter he sent to Blumentritt while in exile in Dapitan in 1894, he called the Chinese “Mongols.” This was not a confusion with the ethnic group “Mongol” but a derogatory statement or an insult toward the Chinese. It was meant to say they were “idiots” (Ang 2005, 21). Included in the letter was his desire for the locals to be less exploited by them. He said, “Here I have become half physician, half businessman” (Figueroa 2012), such that he opened a “small sari-sari store” to rival the Chinese, asking the locals to avoid buying from their shops. 

In 1895, still in Dapitan, he sent his mother a letter, saying, “I had a lawsuit with the Chinese and I vowed not to buy any more from them, so that sometimes I find myself very hard up. Now we have almost neither dishes nor tumblers” (Craig 2015, 10). In Nick Joaquin’s “Rizal in Saga: A Life for Student Fans,” he wrote that Rizal established a “pioneer in economic nationalism” — the Cooperative Association of Dapitan Farmers. Joaquin furthered that through this deed, Rizal championed Filipinism (Ang 2005, 10). Historian Ambeth Ocampo also believes that Rizal harbored anti-Chinese sentiments because of their exploitation.

In his letter to Mariano Ponce in 1888, one might conclude that Rizal didn’t care about Chinese discrimination. The letter spoke about how they were quarantined for around 13 days with eight hundred Chinese people as they arrived in San Francisco (Ang 2005, 14). He then furthered, “The hatred of Chinese has resulted in other Asian foreigners, like the Japanese, being confused with the Chinese by ignorant people and being likewise seen in a bad light.” Rizal didn’t have any interest in the plight of the Chinese, as clearly exhibited by his indifference toward issues surrounding Chinese immigration (Ang 2005, 16). 

Aside from his letters, his anti-Chinese sentiment is apparent in his writings. One fitting example of the negative portrayal of Chinese in his works is the character of Quiroga in El Filibusterismo. 

El Filibusterismo’s Chapter 16, entitled “Tribulations of a Chinaman’ stars Quiroga — “Artificial in manner, hypocritical, cunning, a bootlicker of government officials, engaging in business speculations, intent on nothing but profit.” Ang (2005, 5) argues that Quiroga represents the leader of the Chinese community at the time, Carlos Palanca, whose businesses raise eyebrows of disapproval. 

In the second chapter of El Fili, “On the Lower Deck,” Rizal described the Chinese merchants unpleasantly, depicting them as people one should avoid. In Chapter 14, Rizal’s moral stance can be questioned, for he didn’t budge even if someone, a Chinese vendor, was already being hurt and humiliated by children. He tolerated malicious fun inflicted on the vendor, which tells about how Rizal can be unjustly biased. In Chapter 22, Rizal yet again used a loathsome and mocking depiction of Chinese immigrants when he wrote about the banquet — like that of convicts — where the servers are shirtless Chinamen. Rizal didn’t stop here. He also criticized the Chinese posture. For him, it seemed as though everything about being Chinese was worthy of ridicule. 

Before El Filibusterismo, Rizal already expressed his anti-Chinese sentiments in his first novel “Noli Mi Tangere.” Chapter 13, “Signs of Storm” (kapitbisig.com n.d.), narrates how Crisostomo Ibarra went to his father’s grave only to find that the corpse wasn’t there anymore. He was angered when he found out that the gravedigger tried to transfer his father’s corpse to the Chinese cemetery. The gravedigger then revealed that instead of burying the corpse, he threw it into the water, thinking that it was better to drown than to be laid to rest with the Chinese. 

During the Spanish occupation, the Chinese were viewed as economic contributors and political risks (Masucol, Jap, and Liu 2022). Chinese assimilation was pushed to solve these contrasting descriptions. Conversion to Catholicism and intermarriages happened, which led to the establishment of Binondo district, where the Catholic Chinese and the Chinese mestizo community resided (Dagdag 2015, 36). 

Spain ceded sovereignty over the Philippines to the United States in the Treaty of Paris. With this, American policies started to govern the political life in the country. Anti-Chinese legislation was being pushed by supporters, arguing that letting Chinese people in the country would lower the cultural and moral standards of American society (Office of the Historian n.d.). 

The handling of a heterogeneous population and the thousands of Chinese residing in the country pushed the implementation of the Chinese exclusion in the Philippines, prescribed by Major-General Ellwell Otis in September 1898 (Chu 2016, 183). Sent by the US government in 1899, the Schurman Commission arrived in the country with the goal of collecting information about the Chinese people. They found out that those in favor of the exclusion in the Philippines see the Chinese as labor competitors in the sense that “Chinese labor competed with native labor” (Chu 2016, 183). Moreover, it was argued that if Chinese immigrants were permitted to just enter the country at their will, then they would dominate the population and would eventually “spill over” into the US.

It was also said that the undesirableness of Chinese laborers stems from their unidentifiable nature, such that they easily turn into something else once money lands on their hands. Another argument says that these Chinese laborers just want to hoard money in the Philippines and then return to China. The intermarriage between local women and Chinese immigrants led people to push for the Chinese Exclusion Act, such that this only created the “worst class” of Philippine society — the Chinese Mestizo (Chu 2016, 185). The Schurman Commission, however, concluded that labor competition is the “chief reason for the prevailing and pronounced antipathy to the Chinese.” 

If this was the case, why did Rizal generalize his descriptions of the Chinese, not minding if his actions were already causing harm to another person? In El Filibusterismo’s first Chinese translation, Rizal Yuyitung wrote in the introduction,

We can understand his dislike for the “overseas Chinese community leader” Quiroga, but when he pokes fun at small-time vendors and Chinese restaurants, we certainly have to take exception. We cannot believe that he was not able to find a single good Chinese immigrant or person of Chinese descent to serve as a symbol of Chinese contribution to Philippine agriculture, arts and crafts, and commerce. (Ang 2005, 6)

Perhaps, for Rizal, it was something more than labor competition, the proliferation of Chinese mestizos in the country, the way Chinese people value material wealth, or the disreputable businesses they engage in. One could argue that who would want to associate himself with a nation called the “Sick Men of East Asia” at the time? Who would want to be despised by the world? None. Not Rizal. However, there should be a deeper reason behind his hatred towards the Chinese. 

Rizal is an ilustrado — educated and well-dressed. The class he belongs to would not want to mingle with “menial laborers.”  It was forwarded that had these Chinese worn decent clothes and smelled fragrant, he might’ve had a good impression of them. The way he portrayed the Chinese in his writings would’ve been different had they not reeked of opium. Furthermore, it was said that parochial nationalism was evident at that time (Ang 2005, 8). This kind of nationalism counters the true essence of what it means to be nationalistic. It forwards a narrow view, only promoting local interests and not accepting outside groups that could actually offer help to the country's economy. 

Established in 1800, the Gremio de Chino in Manila required the Chinese to work for the Spanish armies. Filipinos were ready to die for their country in the revolution and more ready to make the blood of the Spaniards spill on their motherland. Chinese blood was no exception, for they sided with the Spaniards. One can only concur when Ang (2005, 9) wrote that Rizal's "antagonism towards the Chinese was largely a product of the cultural and political situation of his time.”

Revisiting the Chinese ancestry of Rizal, one should remember how Juan Mercado, Jose’s grandfather, changed his family’s identification to “Indian” in the pursuit of veering away from being called Chinese mestizos. He wanted to be called Filipino. Francisco Engracio’s family went from being a “mestizo” to becoming a “natural” when he changed their legal status (Ang 2005, 9). These clear manifestations of disassociating with the Chinese should somehow explain why Rizal harbored anti-Chinese sentiments. It flows in the family. 

According to Caroline Hau, Rizal’s “background, his class, his education, and the mores and racial attitudes of the time” shaped his sentiments that, based on the statements of Teresita Ang See, were “general anti-foreign sentiment” and not sinophobic remarks (Figueroa 2012). Whatever reason there is to explain Rizal’s writings about and actions toward the Chinese, one should bear in mind that in whatever aspect of life, social class plays a crucial role.

Filipino-Chinese relation through the years

The Spaniards made pro-Chinese policies when the Galleon trade ended because they had to find an alternative to it. One of these policies was the encouragement of Chinese immigration into the country. Because of these policies, China became the top source of Philippine imports and the country’s principal export market (Dagdag 2015, 37). This implies that the Chinese had already settled in the Philippines and can be seen in almost every area of social, political, and, most especially, economic life in the country. Despite this fact, one should never forget how “for more than 400 years, Philippine authorities displayed an ambivalent and often suspicious attitude towards China and the Chinese” (Dagdag 2015, 34). 

Philippine government officials after World War II adopted anti-communist policies that were ultimately anti-China. According to Dagdag (2015, 34), from 1949 to 1975, the Philippine government perceived China as a security threat stemming from the country being a communist state. Because of this, the 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty that allowed the United States to set up military bases in the Philippines took place. Anti-Chinese policies were also evident even in the Philippine Commonwealth government, such that at the time, Chinese people were not allowed to practice their profession inside the country.

The increase in the number of Chinese immigrants during the American colonial period despite the Exclusion Act didn’t only bring a threat to the control of the economy; it formed a bond between the Chinese and the Filipinos. 

When the Philippines was battling Japan during WWII, the Chinese people living in the country extended help and supported the Filipinos. The war can be seen as a catalyst in forging the connection between the countries, all the while trying to defeat a common enemy, which was Japan. It is worth mentioning that, even though the war ultimately had an impact on Filipino-Chinese relations, the daily interactions of the Chinese merchandise or retail stores in villages in the country already set the tone of what kind of relationship there would be between the people of these two countries (Dagdag 2015, 41). Today, these merchandise stores are still alive, often selling wholesale products. 

This blossoming friendship was still on the rocks, given the continuous implementation of anti-China policies. In 1975, the Philippines rekindled its relationship with China for several reasons, which resulted in good trade and investment relations. As mentioned by Dagdag (2015, 54), the “Framework of Bilateral Cooperation in the Twenty-first Century” that the two countries adopted on May 16, 2000 is a significant declaration of the budding friendship between the two countries. The document states that the two countries vow to “establish a long-term and stable relationship on the basis of good neighborliness, cooperation, and mutual trust and benefit” (Dagdag 2015, 54).

Two years later, during the Philippine-China Friendship Day on June 19, 2002, the book entitled “Rizal and China” was brought out to the public. In this book, Rizal was hailed as the “paragon of ‘Philippine-Chinese friendship’” (Ang 2005, 24). It was a contentious move as it was clear from the writings of Rizal that he didn’t show any amount of desire to build friendships with the Chinese of his time. His anti-Chinese sentiments cited in this paper do not only prove that he’s not fit to be the representative of Philippine-Chinese friendship but also the lack of critical thinking and willful ignorance on the part of the authors of the aforementioned book for choosing Rizal as that emblem. History is always open for interpretation, for it is subjective. But history will always side with the truth. In this case, Rizal denied his Chinese lineage and expressed anti-Chinese sentiments. 

At present, one can see how Chinese culture flourishes in the country — from food businesses to media products like Chinese dramas. The year 2024 has just begun, and surely, there were round fruits and prosperity bowls on Filipino families’ tables. Godparents give their godchildren money inserted inside a red envelope called “Ang Pao,” which symbolizes material wealth and success (Villa 2022). Chinese New Year traditions are so embedded in Filipino culture that it has become a normal practice. 

In the study conducted by Masucol, Jap, and Liu (2022), they asserted that despite current territorial disputes happening between the Philippines and China, including historical and other contemporary troubles, “attitudes toward Chinese Filipinos remain largely positive.” They cited how the former regime of Rodrigo Duterte prioritized augmenting “economic opportunities by softening territorial conflicts,” thereby framing China as a nation not to worry about. The researchers argued that the Philippines chooses to brush away or turn a blind eye to the weak points of its relationship with China. Instead, it highlights the strong points of their ties, which renders anti-Chinese sentiments today “dormant.”

The C in Rizal is not Chinese 

Having the time to go over accounts and writings that talk about how Filipinos set foot in China long before China visited ours, how Rizal perceived the Chinese of his time, the relationship between the Philippines and China over the years, and the current sentiment of present-day Filipinos toward Chinese Filipinos in the country taught me a lot. It made me realize how Rizal is certainly human; he can be biased and morally flawed. It revealed how Rizal’s character has different dimensions that certainly had taken me aback. 

The C in Rizal is not Chinese but callous. He really showed how insensitive he can be when he cruelly disregarded the Chinese vendor being harassed. The C in Rizal is carefree. He expressed clear indifference, passively talking about Chinese discrimination happening in front of his eyes. It’s indeed paradoxical when he’s an icon of people’s welfare but acts differently when it concerns someone out of his class. Certainly, the C in Rizal is cancellable. If he were alive today, he would be viral, with bashers throwing hurtful comments at him. The C in Rizal isn’t only about his faults. The C is also critical. He didn’t want his fellowmen to be exploited, so he found ways to free them from the Chinese. 

Ultimately, the C in Rizal is ceaseless — his legacy will live forever regardless of whether one believes he was anti-Chinese or not. 

References:

Ang, Alfonso. 2005. “Rizal’s Chinese Overcoat.” Translated in English by Daniel Ong. November 12, 2023. https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/16373816/rizals-chinese-overcoat-jose-rizal. 

Ang See, Teresita. 2017. “Commemorating 600 years of a royal voyage.” Philstar. Accessed January 1, 2024. https://www.philstar.com/other-sections/starweek-magazine/2017/09/23/1741989/commemorating-600-years-royal-voyage.

Baviera, Aileen. 2021. “Philippines-China Relations in the 20th Century: History Versus Strategy (2000).” In Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspectives in Asia 57, no. 1: 9-31. https://asj.upd.edu.ph/mediabox/archive/ASJ_57_1_2021/04 PhilippinesChina_Relations_20th_Century_History_Strategy.pdf.

Chu, Richard. 2016, “Transnationalizing the History of the Chinese in the Philippines during the American Colonial Period: The Case of the Chinese Exclusion Act.” In Filipino Studies: Palimpsests of Nation and Diaspora, 179-196. New York: New York University Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479829415.003.0012. 

Craig, Austin. 2005. “Lineage, Life and Labors of Jose Rizal: Philippine Patriot.” Accessed December 27, 2023. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6867/6867-h/6867-h.htm#d0e1257. 

Dagdag, Edgardo. 2015. “Philippine-China Connection From Pre-Colonial Period To Post-Cold War Era: An Assessment.” In Connecting and Distancing Southeast Asia and China, 31-61. Edited by Ho Khai Leong. Singapore: ISEASPublishing. https://www.cambridge.org/core/

books/abs/connecting-and-distancing/philippinechina-connection-from-precolonial-period-to-postcold-war-era-an-assessment.

Figueroa, Carlo. 2012. “National hero not a fan of China.” Vera Files. Accessed December 27, 2023. https://verafiles.org/articles/national-hero-not-a-fan-of-china#. 

Francia, Luis. 2014. A History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos. New York: The Overlook Press. 

Kapitbisig.com. n.d. “Chapter 13: Signs of Storm.” Accessed January 1, 2024. https://www.kapitbisig.com/philippines/noli-me-tangere-the-social-cancer.

Masucol, Ethan, Jangai Jap, and Amy Liu. 2022. “Islands Apart: Explaining the Chinese Experience in the Philippines.” In Frontiers in Political Science 4. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpos.2022.836561/full.

National Historical Commission of the Philippines. 2012. “Rizal’s Paternal Lineage.” Accessed January 1, 2024.

https://nhcp.gov.ph/rizals-paternal-lineage/.

Office of the Historian. n.d. “Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts.” History.State.Gov. Accessed January 1, 2024.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/chinese-immigration.

Scott, William Henry. 1983. “Filipinos in China before 1500.” In Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspectives in Asia 21: 1-19. https://www.asj.upd.edu.ph/mediabox/archive/ASJ-21-1983/scott.pdf. 

Villa, Roselynn. 2022. “What do those words in ang paos actually mean? And could you use any ang pao for any occasion?” Philstar. https://philstarlife.com/news-and-views/473454-what-do-those-words-in-ang-paos-mean?page=5.