The Philippines and its Species-Rich Ecosystem - Part 1

FLORA

The Philippine offers nature lovers tremendous biodiversity. Its tropical rainforest is the most species-rich ecosystem on earth. Substantial parts of the archipelago remain unexplored, both on land and under water. The country is remarkable for its dwarf and pigmy species of many ecological families. Unfortunately, the natural environment is being destroyed at an alarming rate. Logging and mining, dynamiting of coral reefs, and enormous population pressures are having a devastating ecological effect. For the conservationist, a journey through the islands may be both exciting and depressing.

Fertile volcanic soil of the Philippines, abundant rain and sunshine, and the wide range of habitats and elevations give rise to an incredible variety of plant life in every category, from mosses and lichens (including 1,000 species of fern) to giant trees (about 3,000 species).

Plants are mainly of the type found in Indonesia and Malaysia, although Australian (e.g. eucalyptus) and Sino-Himalayan (e.g. rhododendron) types are also found. Over 10,000 species of plants have been recorded from the region and about 60% of the 10,000 plant species are grown only in the archipelago. The Philippines has 54 species of bamboo, a fast-growing woody grass, throughout the islands. It’s used for an incredible variety of purposes: houses, bridges, fences, furniture, fish traps, wall-matting, baskets, hats, flutes, and much more.

At sea level, bays and estuaries are fringed by dense mangrove. Nipa palms, commonly used in the construction of native huts, also thrive in brackish water.

Most of the forests of the region, tropical evergreen rainforests, yield many kinds of commercial hardwood timbers. In the higher forests grow pines, and on the lower slopes bamboos, coconut palms and banyan trees.

Coconut palms are generally found below 30 meters elevation, while at 300-1000 meters dense tropical rainforest contains vines, ferns, orchids, and huge trees with buttressed trunks. The dipterocarp hardwoods, known collectively as Philippine mahogany, predominate here. The molave group of hardwoods is also important. Above 1000 meters the trees change from tropical hardwoods to temperate species like the Benguet pine of northern Luzon. Above 5,800 meters trees become progressively stunted and finally give way to scrub and grassy upland on the highest slopes.

Coconut trees are almost everywhere, constant that you are in the tropics. Unquestionably the Philippines’ most important tree, it has many uses: coconut milk to drink, meat to eat, wine to imbibe, heart of coconut for salad and lumpia (egg roll), coconut oil for tanning and cooking, and cocowood for building.

The now scarce beautiful narra is the national tree and has bright yellow flowers, and its durable wood is much favored for furniture and flooring. Other plants used for building and furniture include nipa palms, (important for roofing); rattan (for furniture); mahogany (for building and carving) and bamboo (for housing and furniture).

The land also produces a bounty of delicious fruits. A visit to Manila’s markets will introduce you to the wealth of tropical fruits available: avocado, bananas, breadfruit, chico, duhat, guava, langka, lanzones, papaya, pineapples, mangoes, siniguelas and the hugely smelly durian.

Filipinos also use many different herbs for medicinal and culinary purposes. Mountains and lowlands that are not farmed often have a thick covering of cogon – a tough grass with razor sharp edges.

Flowering plants include gumamela (hibiscus), kalachuchi (frangipani), bougainvillea, water lilies, water hyacinth and over 1,000 species of orchid. Many of these are found nowhere in the world. Wild orchids grow in mountainside rain forests, especially in Mindanao.

Celebrated varieties include the waling-waling (vanda sanderiana orchid) of Mindanao, whose blooms measure up to 12.5 cm. across and last six weeks, and those of the Cattleya genus. It is said that no other archipelago has as rich a variety of orchids and other plants as the Philippines. These flowering plants enhance the beauty of rural Philippines.

The national flower of the Philippines is the sampaguita (jasmine) – a small star-shaped white blossom with a pleasant, lingering fragrance, made into garlands worn by Filipino girls and given as a gesture of welcome to visitors. Mabuhay!

Sources:

Source: Philippine Handbook by Carl Parkes

Philippine Guide by Jill & Rebecfa Gale de Villa

The Philippines by John Cockcroft

Other Spanish Expeditions to the Philippines

After Ferdinand Magellan, other Spanish expeditions were dispatched to the Philippines over the next decades. In 1543, Ruy Lopez de Villalobos gave the name Las Islas Filipinas to the islands of Samar and Leyte. However, it was not until 1565 that the Spaniards, under Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, founded a colony on Cebu, and extended the name Filipinas to the whole group of islands after King Philip II of Spain.

Although the Portuguese navigator Magellan had discovered the Philippine archipelago in 1521, neither Portuguese or Spanish had settled there and so Don Luis de Velasco, the viceroy of New Spain (Mexico), sent Miguel Lopez de Legazpi to claim it in 1564.

Legazpi's Statue outside Fort San Pedro, Cebu

Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, Spanish explorer who established a Spanish dominion over the Philippines that lasted for more than three centuries, until the Spanish-American War of 1898 went to New Spain in 1545. He served for a time as clerk in the government of the viceroy. Legazpi left Acapulco in November 1564 with a fleet of five ships and 500 men including six Augustinian missionaries in addition to Fr. Andres de Urdaneta who served as navigator and spiritual adviser, and Guido de Lavezarez, a survivor of the Magellan’s expedition. They reached Cebu, one of the southern islands of the archipelago, in April 1565, founding the first Spanish settlement on the site of the modern city, Cebu naming it “Villa del Santissimo Nombre de Jesus" (Town of the Most Holy Name of Jesus) after an image of Santo Niño in one of the native houses.

He remained in Cebu until compelled to move out to Panay by Portuguese pirates. Searching for a suitable place to establish his capital and hearing of the rich resources in Luzon, he sent an expedition to the northern island of Luzon in 1570 under Martin de Goiti and Juan de Salcedo to explore its location and potentials. He did not accompany his men during their conquest of Manila because of health problems and advanced age.

Landing in Batangas , Goiti with a force of 120 Spaniards explored the Pansipit River which drains Taal Lake. They then proceeded north and on May 8, they arrived at Manila Bay. There, they were welcomed by the natives. Goiti's soldiers camped there for a few weeks while forming an alliance with the Muslin leader, Rajah Sulayman, a vassal under the Sultan of Brunei and the Muslim ruler of the Kingdom of Maynilad, a pre-historic state at the mouth of Pasig River facing what is now Manila Bay. Rajah Sulayman, along with his co-ruler Rajah Matanda and Lakan Dula, was one of three monarchs who figured most significantly in the Spanish conquest of the Port of Manila and the Pasig River delta. Spanish accounts describe him as the most aggressive of the three rulers - a characteristic chalked up to his youth relative to the other two rulers.

However, the Rajah's ally in northern shores of Manila Bay, historically known as the young Bambalito of Macabebe, Pampanga, asked Rajah Sulayman to revoke his alliance with the Spaniards. Rajah Sulayman refused because of the "word of honor" to the Spaniards. Rajah Sulayman had his conditions for Bambalito that if they were able to kill as least 50 Spaniards, he would revoke his alliance with Goiti, and Rajah Sulayman would help expel the conquerors. Bambalito rode back to Macabebe and formed a fleet of two thousand five hundred moros consisting of soldiers from the villages along Manila Bay particularly from Macabebe and Hagonoy, Bulacan. On May 30, 1570, Bambalito sailed to Tondo and encountered the Spaniards headed by Martin de Goiti at Bangkusay Channel on June 3, 1570. Bambalito and his fleet lost the battle, and after disputes and hostility had erupted between the two groups, the Spaniards occupied the Islamized states of Tondo and Maynilad.

  Rajah Sulayman by Flickr

After deposing Rajah Sulayman, Goiti occupied their settlements before returning to Panay. Legazpi then sailed to Luzon after hearing that the villages had been conquered and established the city of Manila on June 24, 1571.

In Manila, he formed a peace pact with the native councils as well as the local rulers, Rajah Sulayman and Lakan Dula. Lakan and Rajah are the same title of the native royalty. He also ordered the construction of the walled city of Intramuros.

Within a year, with the help of his grandson, Juan de Salcedo, Legazpi had almost the whole country under Spanish rule, with the exception of the Sulu islands and parts of Mindanao and interior Luzon. Legazpi overcame native resistance with little difficulty, since there was no sizable organized political power among the Philippine Malays. Islam was weak in Luzon and the northern islands but the Muslins in the southern islands resisted Spanish rule right up to the 19^th century.

Legazpi and his chaplain, Padre Andres de Urdaneta, were able to lay the foundation for the conversion of the people to Christianity, the Spain’s most durable legacy.

The country was soon divided into religious zones of influence. The Augustinians received Batangas, Bulacan, Pampanga, Ilocos, Cebu and Panay. The Franciscans acquired Bicol and parts of Laguna and Tayabas. The Jesuits operated in Cavite, Marinduque, Samar, Leyte, Bohol, Negros, and some areas in Mindanao. The Dominicans took Bataan, Pangasinan and the Cagayan Valley. The Recollects occupied Romblon and points of northern Palawan, Luzon, and Mindanao. By the end of the 16^th century, much of the archipelago was under Spanish control.

Subsequently, Manila became the capital of the new Spanish colony and Spain’s major trading port in East Asia. Legazpi governed the Philippines for a year before dying suddenly of a heart attack on August 20, 1572. He was laid to rest in San Agustin Church in Intramuros.

  

References:

Philippine Guide by Jill and Rebecca Gale de Villa

Insight Guide Philippines by Discovery Channel

Encyclopedia Britannica

Wikipedia

Until next time. The Philippine story continues.

Rosalinda

Legaspi Built Intramuros, the Seat of Spanish Rule

Miguel Lopez de Legazpi founded the city of Manila in 1571, 50 years after the Spanish discovery of the Philippines. Manila, being better positioned than Cebu for trade with China, was made the original capital of the Philippines.

Intramuros - Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Here the colonizers built Intramuros, an impregnable European style thick stone-walled city which was the seat of Spanish rule located south of the Pasig River. Although Intramuros was laid out as a pentagon, its uneven sides more approximate a triangle. The twenty-foot-high walls stretched for nearly 4.5 km (3 miles). In some places, they reached twenty-five feet in height and had a thickness of up to forty feet at the bottom. Inside, following Legaspi’s blueprint for the capital, succeeding Spanish governors built churches, chapels, convents, palaces for the governor-general and the archbishop, schools, university (in as early as 1611), printing press, hospitals and soldiers’ barracks, and grand houses for the assorted elite all surrounded by baluartes (battlements) and puertas (gates).

Casa Manila

Now a ruin, Intramuros was once a well-planned city, with cobbled lanes, streets and plazas, and tiled roofed houses. Outside the city’s high walls flowed a moat, in the old European style of protection. Only Spaniards and Spanish mestizos (mixed race) were permitted to live within the confines of the walls. Drawbridges went up each night. Natives were moved elsewhere, while the Chinese, necessary for financial matters, trade, and menial jobs “not good enough for a Spaniard,” were moved outside the walls, but within canon range.

Street inside Intramuros - Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Though Intramuros is a far cry from the bustling Spanish city it once was, it has come a long way from the ravages of wartime. During WWII, effectively utilizing the Intramuros District together with the city’s strongly reinforced concrete buildings of prewar construction, the Japanese brought in heavy-caliber guns from damaged and sunken ships in the harbor. But during the Philippine liberation, the US employed every available artillery piece against the enemy inside the Intramuros walls from Feb. 17 to Feb. 23. The shelling finally breached the thick walls in several places in the northeast corner of the walled city.

Once a jumble of broken buildings, portions of the old city have been restored, including the Ayuntamiento (Municipal Hall), once the grandest structure here.

Fort Santiago, within the walled city, was built on the original site of Rajah Sulayman’s settlement and was used to control traffic along the Pasig River. The fort served as headquarters to several occupying armies. The Spaniards used it as headquarters of the Spanish ministry, which was ousted by British troops in 1762 and later housed Filipino Tayabas soldiers in 1843. Yet, Intramuros withstood attacks by the Dutch and the Portuguese, as well as Sulu pirates.

Entrance to Fort Santiago

Jail at Fort Santiago

Fort Santiago is kept in spotless condition today and is open to visitors. At one end is a museum housing the relics and personal effects of Jose Rizal, national hero of the Philippines. On another end is Jose Rizal’s cell where he was incarcerated for two months on charges of rebellion and sedition prior to his execution by the Spaniards in 1896 and where he wrote his last legacy of poetry , “Mi Ultimo Adios” to the Filipino people. It was smuggled out in the base of an oil lamp.

United States troops ran the fort after 1898, and it was an operational base for General Douglas MacArthur from 1936 to 1941. MacArthur resided in a penthouse atop the Manila Hotel, off the southwest corner of Intramuros from 1935 to 1941.

With its interrogation chambers, rat-infested holdalls and infamous dungeons that were below the high tide level, this was a place of terror and death throughout the centuries. It was the dreaded prison used by the Spaniards and later by the Japanese. Many atrocities have been committed here. Prisoners were left to drown as the tide rose and filled the lower dungeons. When the Japanese left, 600 bodies were found in the powder magazine chamber.

Rumors had persisted that the Japanese General Yamashita may have hidden his legendary – or as some say, mythical - gold here. In 1988, with President Aquino’s permission, American treasure hunters painstakingly searched and partially excavated Fort Santiago looking for clues, but nothing was uncovered.

Manila Cathedral

A few blocks from Fort Santiago, is the Manila Cathedral, an imposing Romanesque structure constructed of adobe. A plaque on its façade reveals a relentless history, beginning in 1571, of reconstruction after the repeated ravages of fire, typhoon, earthquake and war. Statues by Italian artists, of the saints to whom Manileños owe special devotion, grace the façade. Among them are St. Andrew the Apostle, on whose feast day in 1574 the Spanish repulsed Chinese invaders, and Santiago Matamoros (St. James the Greater), patron saint of Spain and the Philippines. The Dutch organ in the Cathedral, with its 4500 pipes, is one of the largest in Asia.

San Agustin Church Altar - Photo credit: Flickr

Ground of San Agustin Church

San Agustin Church, the church within the walled city of Intramuros, is the oldest stone church in the Philippines. First built of nipa palm and bamboo, in 1571, it was destroyed by the Chinese pirate Limahong during a raid in 1574. A second building, of wood, replaced it in 1583. Later in 1599, the present building was begun. This has adobe walls, with beautifully carved ceilings and columns, and imported European chandeliers. It was completed in 1601. The pulpit, a work of art, and the wooden seats in the choir loft are intricately hand-carved. In the vestry, with its long hall and high roof, the Spaniards officially handed over the Philippines to America. This building seems to be the only earthquake-proof structure in the islands. In the passageways at the side of the church hang old paintings, some still bearing the marks of bullets.

Inside the church stands the tomb of the founder of Manila, Legaspi. The remains of the other Spanish conquistadors, Martin de Goti and Juan de Salcedo were also interred here. The church was bombed, machine-gunned and shelled during WWII, but withstood the damage, though the convent beside the church was destroyed.

Sources:

The Philippines by John Cockcroft

Inside Guide Philippines by Discovery Channel

The Philippines Guide – Jill & Rebecca Gale de Villa

Traveler's Philippine Companion by Kristen Ellis

Plant and Animal Beginnings in the Philippines

Photo Credit – google.com

What is Wallace’s Line?

The Wallace Line runs up the Lombok Strait between Indonesian Islands Bali and Lombok. It continues north through the Makassar Strait that separates Borneo(Kalimantan) and Celebes (Sulawesi), turns east into the Pacific and then back north again to encompass the Philippines.

The so-called Wallace’s line refers to a biogeographic boundary that separates Asian animals from Australian ones. It defines most Philippine plants and animals. The boundary was named after the 19^th-century English naturalist, explorer and writer Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) who first noted the zoological and geographical differences between the Asian and Australian continents.

During his journeys through the Malay Archipelago, he noticed a sudden change in fauna after crossing a 35 km. (20 mi) strait between the Indonesian islands of Bali and Lombok. He noticed a region where the species present did not resemble one another despite the islands having similar climates and habitats. All species present on the islands east of the line owe their biological heritage to species originating in Australia and those to the west owe their heritage to species originating in Asia.

The Asian and Australian landmasses used to extend much farther than they do today. Around 13,000 years ago towards the end of the last Ice Age, rising sea levels from melted glaciers turned areas of both into a string of islands. However, the native species on these islands are dictated by the landmasses they were originally connected to.

When sea levels sank during the last Ice Age, a series of land bridges cut through the shallow waters between Philippines’ Palawan and Mindanao and Indonesia’s Sulawesi and Borneo. These land bridges made possible a temporary alliance of flora and fauna, which led to adaptations and mutations in isolation when the land links sank again.

Photo Credit – citiviu.com

 Sixty species of Bornean plants are found in the southern islands of Mindoro, Palawan and Mindanao. Flora identified with Sulawesi and Moluccas of Indonesia are widespread in the Philippines, mainly in the form of ferns, orchids and a great wood, the dipterocarp, which makes up the country’s primary tracts of forests, as it also does in Thailand, Indochina and Indonesia.

The same species of mousedeer, weasel, mongoose, porcupine, skunk, anteater and otter are in the wilds of Palawan and nearby Calamian islands and in Borneo’s interior. Species of Palawan shrews, as well as a rare bat found in Mindanao, have kin in Sulawesi.

Fish in the waters of eastern Sumatra and western Borneo are like those in southwestern Philippines, as are the fish between Mindanao and Papua New Guinea. Many Malaysian and Bornean birds make their home in Palawan.

There is evidence of an even older land bridge that connected northern Philippines with Taiwan at a time when that island was itself connected to the Asian mainland. The remains of the stegodon, a pygmy elephant, have been dug up here as well as in Taiwan.

 References:

Discovermagazine.com

Insight Guide Philippines by Discovery Channel

Abc.net.au/science/

Google.com

Until next time. The Philippine story continues.

Rosalinda

The Spaniards Discovered the Philippines - Part 2

Magellan established friendly relations with the treacherous King of Cebu, Humabon, who professed Christianity in order to win the help of Magellan. The great navigator was induced to undertake an expedition to conquer the neighboring island of Mactan for the Catholic faith and the King of Cebu.

 
Lapu-lapu Statue. To the left is Magellan's shrine. Photo Credit-fabulousphilippines.com

At the muddy island called Mactan, their chieftain, Rajah Cilapulapu (Lapu-lapu) was not as friendly and accommodating. It’s unclear whether Magellan commanded Lapu-lapu to submit to Spanish sovereignty, or whether he became involved in a petty local dispute. Lapu-lapu was the first native leader to resist the attempt of the colonizing invaders to Christianize them. His people rebelled against the Rajah Humabon of Cebu and his foreign guests.

 

Battle of Mactan - Photo Credit: flickr.com

As Magellan waded ashore at Mactan with his 60 armor-clad Spanish men, he was met by Lapu-lapu and 1,000-2,000 defiant natives who defended their island. A fierce and confused battle ensued. During the skirmish, Magellan was killed on April 27, 1521 during the Battle of Mactan, driving the Spanish explorers away, only six weeks after saying his first mass on Philippine soil. Pigafetta, the expedition’s chronicler, wrote, “They killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide.”

The King of Cebu afterwards got into his power several of the explorer’s most prominent men. Later, realizing that the visitors weren’t invincible, and angry over the repeated violation of their women, the disenchanted Humabon, and his men killed another 27 Spaniards in a skirmish.

The survivors, greatly reduced in numbers, departed hastily. They burned one of the three remaining vessels off Bohol for lack of crew and the remaining crew and two vessels made for Tidore in the Moluccas or Spice Islands. They loaded up with spices. One set sailed for Panama but after becoming leaky had to be abandoned. The other sailed for Spain.

Victoria, the last remaining vessel, laden with spices, at last rounded the Cape of Good Hope and in melancholy triumph dropped anchor in the harbor of Seville, Sept. 9, 1522. She was the first ship to circumnavigate the globe but so too had the dead commander, for on a previous expedition he had gone eastward to 130 degrees, and when he fell he was in 124 degrees west longitude.

In the history of discovery no name ranks higher than that of Magellan. He had done what Columbus set out to do – he had sailed westward to the Spice Islands, giving practical proof that the earth is round, and that it is possible to reach the east by sailing west.

The expedition had lasted nearly three years. Of the original 264 members, only 18 were left. But the sale of the single cargo of spices more than covered the entire cost of the venture. The Victoria’s return vindicated Magellan’s theory and whetted Spain’s appetite for spices and colonies in the Orient.

Four more expeditions were dispatched between 1525 and 1542, two of which touched Mindanao without impact. Villalobos, the commander of the fourth party, named Samar and Leyte “Islas Filipinas” in honor of Charles’ son, who became King Felipe II in 1556. The name was subsequently extended to the whole archipelago.

Magellan opened the Pacific Ocean to the civilized world. Due to his dauntless spirit all through the voyage, he discovered the Strait of Magellan, and he was not only the first European navigator to sail across the Pacific Ocean, but the first person also to discover a route over which ships could sail a complete circle around the world.

John Fiske, the American historian, says: “The voyage thus ended was doubtless the greatest feat of navigation that has ever been performed, and nothing can be imagined that would surpass it except a journey to some other planet.”

Sources:

Inside Guide Philippines by Discovery Channel

Philippine Handbook by Carl Parkes

Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia

Until next time. The Philippine story continues.

Rosalinda