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The Indolence of the Filipino by José Rizal
page 15 of 54 (27%)
and brother. (10)

In this same vessel they captured bronze lombards, and this is the
first mention of artillery of the Filipinos, for these lombards were
useful to the chief of Paragua against the savages of the interior.

They let him ransom himself within seven days, demanding 400 measures
(cavanes?) of rice, 20 pigs, 20 goats, and 450 chickens. This is the
first act of piracy recorded in Philippine history. The chief of
Paragua paid everything, and moreover voluntarily added coconuts,
bananas, and sugar-cane jars filled with palm-wine. When Caesar
was taken prisoner by the corsairs and required to pay twenty five
talents ransom, he replied; "I'll give you fifty, but later I'll
have you all crucified!" The chief of Paragua was more generous: he
forgot. His conduct, while it may reveal weakness, also demonstrates
that the islands were abundantly provisioned. This chief was named
Tuan Mahamud; his brother, Guantil, and his son, Tuan Mahamed. (Martin
Mendez, Purser of the ship Victoria: Archivos de Indias.)

A very extraordinary thing, and one that shows the facility with
which the natives learned Spanish, is that fifty years before the
arrival of the Spaniards in Luzon, in that very year 1521 when they
first came to the islands, there were already natives of Luzon who
understood Castilian. In the treaties of peace that the survivors
of Magellan's expedition made with the chief of Paragua, when the
servant-interpreter died they communicated with one another through
a Moro who had been captured in the island of the King of Luzon and
who understood some Spanish. (Martin Mendez, op, cit ) Where did
this extemporaneous interpreter learn Castilian? In the Moluccas? In
Malacca, with the Portuguese? Spaniards did not reach Luzon until 1571.
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