Manny Garibay / "Bunga" /oil on canvas
colonialist christians
Apart from being the main conduit of New World products into Asia, Manila also played a historic role in the aborted spread of Christianity in East Asia in the 16th and 17th centuries. As the biggest Christian city in the region, it was envisioned by Spanish colonizers and missionaries as the jump off point for converting the masses of Chinese, Japanese and Southeast Asian peoples into Catholicism.
Many Asian rulers, seeing the example of the Philippines, saw Christianity as a tool for European colonization, and brutally suppressed the spread of the religion in their kingdoms. Many missionaries from Manila, including our (only) two declared saints, Lorenzo and Pedro, would face martyrdom in places like Japan and Micronesia. Manila would also become the safe zone for Christian exiles fleeing oppression in their native lands, such as the Japanese daimyo Takayama Ukon, whose samurai statue stands proudly under the Skyway in Plaza Dilao, and the Ternateans whose chabacano language is still spoken by their descendants in Cavite.
Some of these exiles would receive their education in our friar-founded universities, and use that Christian formation to return to their homelands in search for souls to save. Many of these Vietnamese and Japanese alumni would face martyrdom in their own lands — creating this strange outcome of Letran having produced more saints (8) than the Philippines itself. (The Vatican seems to prefer awarding sainthood to Asian martyrs and not to brown people that lived pious lives.)
But East Asians were actually correct in their assumption to linking Christianization with colonialism. The invasion of Saigon by the French in 1858 was done under the pretext of saving captured missionaries held by the Vietnamese Emperor Tu Duc. A platoon of Spanish and Filipino soldiers were sent to help the French in this religious version of Saving Private Ryan. The Filipino troops played a significant role in the battles versus the Vietnamese, as the French forces were too sick and demotivated to fight under tropical conditions. With the rescue mission accomplished, the Spanish-Filipino contingent went home, not knowing that they had just contributed to the Fall of Saigon, and the start of the French colony in Indochina.
NOTES ABOUT THE WORK
Apart from being the main conduit of New World products into Asia, Manila also played a historic role in the aborted spread of Christianity in East Asia in the 16th and 17th centuries. As the biggest Christian city in the region, it was envisioned by Spanish colonizers and missionaries as the jump off point for converting the masses of Chinese, Japanese and Southeast Asian peoples into Catholicism.
Many Asian rulers, seeing the example of the Philippines, saw Christianity as a tool for European colonization, and brutally suppressed the spread of the religion in their kingdoms. Many missionaries from Manila, including our (only) two declared saints, Lorenzo and Pedro, would face martyrdom in places like Japan and Micronesia. Manila would also become the safe zone for Christian exiles fleeing oppression in their native lands, such as the Japanese daimyo Takayama Ukon, whose samurai statue stands proudly under the Skyway in Plaza Dilao, and the Ternateans whose chabacano language is still spoken by their descendants in Cavite.
Some of these exiles would receive their education in our friar-founded universities, and use that Christian formation to return to their homelands in search for souls to save.
Many of these Vietnamese and Japanese alumni would face martyrdom in their own lands — creating this strange outcome of Letran having produced more saints (8) than the Philippines itself. (The Vatican seems to prefer awarding sainthood to Asian martyrs and not to brown people that lived pious lives.)
But East Asians were actually correct in their assumption to linking Christianization with colonialism. The invasion of Saigon by the French in 1858 was done under the pretext of saving captured missionaries held by the Vietnamese Emperor Tu Duc. A platoon of Spanish and Filipino soldiers were sent to help the French in this religious version of Saving Private Ryan. The Filipino troops played a significant role in the battles versus the Vietnamese, as the French forces were too sick and demotivated to fight under tropical conditions.
With the rescue mission accomplished, the Spanish-Filipino contingent went home, not knowing that they had just contributed to the Fall of Saigon, and the start of the French colony in Indochina.