Julkipli Wadi
AS British, and later Germans, sold firearms and ammunition to Sulu Sultans to encourage the Tausug to fight more other colonial powers, the Chinese traded drugs particularly opium flooding into the Sulu Archipelago. Locally known as “marat”, opium practically made many Tausug including some Sulu Sultans, their Datus and their “tindug” or warriors chronically “high.”
“Marat” came surreptitiously to Sulu together with the popular Chinese Tea. In later years, “marat” was smuggled from Malaysia and Singapore where Tausug-Chinese mixed it with local coffee and commercialized it making many Tausug “coffee addicts” too.
The over all effect of drugs that time made many Sulu aristocrats hallucinating and indolent in both peace and war time while introducing them to all kinds of Chinese gambling known locally as “panayam” some of it still popular today like “tikam,” “uwahuy,” “piyah-piyah,” “majung,” “kimbuh,” “ligut”, “talang,” and so on.
China’s strategy then aimed to practically make the Tausug with their mind deranged from “marat” such that when they became proficient but often lose in “panayam” they would easily approach local Chinese to lease (sandah) their cows, weapons, and especially their lands. As they were not able to redeem (lukat) their lands, many Tausug turned to banditry and became “mundu” marauding both their fellow locals, “Lannang” (Chinese) and Bisayah in other places.
As many Tausug lands, farms, and orchards where leased to local Chinese, many “Lannang Sinah” (mostly Chinese immigrants from Southern China) were able to own vast tract of lands in Jolo, Basilan, Siasi, and other parts of the Sulu Archipelago and elsewhere.
Observably, while Chinese gambling referred later by Tausug religious as “panayam hapus” was easily popularized in the whole Sulu Archipelago in the latter part of 18th century, there was seemingly a systematic attempt to withhold Tausug from learning Chinese skills in science and mathematics and other wholesome sports that promote strategic mindset, critical thinking, and physical development.
This is why the Tausug then hardly learned the use of abacus, the game of chess, and Chinese martial arts, although the Tausug developed their local version of martial arts known as “bunga lima” (literally known as fruit of the hands) as shown in their “kuntaw” and “silat.”
Henceforth, while Sulu Sultanate withstood Western colonialism for centuries, it succumbed in so short a period, to China’s two-pronged wars against the Tausug: the first was drugs; the second was gambling.
The parallelism of Sulu’s past and the present malaise of the Philippines is not difficult to connect as answer to the query why there is an overwhelming China’s over-the-top grip of the country these days – from Scarborough to shabu to made-in-china merchandise in Divisoria and Binondo to practically all malls and stalls in the country and elsewhere.
But to blame China for the malaise of Sulu society during colonial time or the malaise of Philippine society today is to miss a critical point. On the main, it was power struggle and internal wrangling among Tausug leaders that made the Sulu Sultanate a shell of its old self as waves of colonialism came and went leaving the “Bangsa Sug” or Tausug nation devastated and unable to rise since then.
Similarly, up until the time of the Reform Movement in mid 19th century, Jose Rizal lamented the absence of “national sentiment” among early Filipinos as they simply lived as individuals than as a nation with their leaders serving more themselves, their families, and their colonial masters than the Motherland.
Rizal’s reading of Philippine society then fits well in today’s continuing fragmentation of the “Filipino Self” – a reason why despite years of freedom and independence, the hard truth is, the Philippines’ “social cancer” continues to bleed and to mutate with major Filipino-Chinese families controlling the Philippine economy.
Whereas the most disadvantaged ones of local Pinoys continue to live in the margin easily branded as culprits, wantonly killed as criminals instead as victims, instead of being helped, healed, and rehabilitated if they happened to succumb to criminality with the State often playing the role of a slayer, denying them the chance to find their true “selves” and to positively contribute in the formation of new Filipino national community that Rizal originally envisioned.
Back on present China, for sure, she is expected to agree to bilateral talks offered by the Philippines for the first time. From China’s perspective, its acceptance of bilateral talks would not already be in the context of pre-PCA’s ruling.
Today, China’s objective in bilateral talks is two folds: (1) to lessen the Philippine and international pressure generated by PCA’s ruling; and; (2) to superimpose the PCA’s decision with possible bilateral agreements with the Philippines constituting possibly of mostly economic assistance and development package.
If simply guided with short-term interest, the Philippines would be vulnerable to China’s maneuvering given the economic difficulty the Philippines is facing these days; more so, that President Duterte had already an initial understanding with the Chinese Ambassador when he expressed willingness to forge stronger ties with China if the latter helps build, for instance, metro railways to interconnect major cities and provinces in Mindanao, among others.
Given China’s deeper interest in South China Sea, it is not far-fetched for China to possibly agree to many economic demands of the Philippines if, by doing so, China is guaranteed control of the whole South China Sea particularly the international sea lane and strategic resources and other maritime entitlements therein including primary role to explore oil and natural gas in the area.
What China would give as assistance to the Philippines is expectedly less than what China could gain in controlling South China Sea. Possibly, too, China’s assistance to the Philippines would simply be sourced or offset from the proceeds of resources in the South China Sea so long China is assured dominance in the region.
While the above scenario would obviously bring the Philippines closer to China’s orbit, it would alienate the country from her Western allies like the United States, European Union, Japan, and others. Therefore, it poses a question whether the Philippines is ready with such a paradigm shift of foreign policy the moment bilateral talks with China kick off.
What is certain, as global tension between China and Western powers intensifies in their contest for control of, and access to, the South China Sea, the dilemma of the Philippines deepens further. Beijing would dangle more forks on the road to entice Manila with its own version of “favorable wind” putting into real test Duterte’s grit in handling the Philippine sail.
(Julkipli Wadi is a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of the Philippines.)
