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Macario D. Tiu Davao: Reconstructing History
from Text and Memory
Davao City: Ateneo de Davao University Research and Publication Office. ISBN 971-0392-05-0. 388 pages.
The French scholar and one of the founders of the Annales school of historical studies, Fernand Braudel, will find this book extremely interesting. For Macario Tiu has reconstructed a story of
Davao province that is not merely a recitation of events but an evaluation of the land and of the
people (indigenes and settlers), and the stories and legends that their interaction spawned from one
time period to another. Mac paints a portrait of one of the largest sub-regions of Mindanao that is
the most extensive and encompassing by far. It is the product of careful critical analysis of printed
data
(primary and secondary) and of oral recollections by informants who lived in Davao at various points of its history.
What becomes clear as one leafs through the pages of this book is the centrality of Davao to the Philippines and maritime Southeast Asia. Mac notes that during the American colonial period,
Davao’s abaca industry was one of the most dynamic in the Philippines and helped lay out the foundations of the province’s current status as one of the most productive agricultural areas of the country. The lineages of the banana, pomelo, mango, and watermelon industries’ can be traced back
to the colonial economy that indigenous communities, various settlers, and local authorities developed out of Davao’s once vast forestlands. But we are not only talking of the commercial ties that linked Davao to these areas. There is also correspondence in everyday life between this locality and the broader regional and national expanse. For example, if one wants to understand why there are Indonesians in Davao up to now, and, more importantly, why their presence is “normal” and
mundane to many Dabawenos, some of the best explanations of this Indonesian diaspora can be
found in this book.
Davao was therefore not the distant, empty and dark frontier that Manila-centered national(ist) scholarship still projects it to be. On the contrary it was very much in the center of things, and Mac—who is himself a devotee of the nationalist perspective—is arguing that Filipino nationalist historiography will be immensely enriched if it only accords Davao and its people the same attention
as it does to Pugadlawin and Andres Bonifacio, Central and Southeastern Luzon and the Sakdalistas
and Huks, and Claro M. Recto, Lorenzo Tañada, Jovito Salonga and the nationalists in the Senate.
Within the growing realm of Mindanao studies, this book’s value lies in reminding everyone of the various connections Davao has had with other parts of the islands. Using the tarsila and other non-Western primary documents as his evidence, Mac diligently shows that Davao kept ties with the Muslim zones and with the communities in the hinterlands. These bonds were never severed even after the arrival of the Spaniards and later on the Americans. They merely shifted in an area of daily life that could escape the policing and surveillance of the colonial state, manifesting themselves once in a while
in intermittent reports of a thriving “smuggling trade” in many natural harbors lining up the region. They are also seen also in intermarriages among different “ethnic groups” and between Lumad and settler families – everyday life practices that we tend to ignore until these are pointed to us, just like what Mac did in his chapters on the peoples of Davao.
The final remarkable thing about this book is the importance Mac accords local sources, especially the myths and folklore. In recovering and resurrecting them, Mac is telling us not to rely solely on standard (read: Westernized) sources of information. The book shows that there is a goldmine of stories that can be tapped in the songs and tales that one hears from indigenous communities. These tales often complement modern sources, but also contradict the analyses and evaluations of studies that rely mainly on Western sources. My own interpretation of Davao’s political history, for example, revolves around the argument that there was, for most of the time, strong popular support to American colonialism simply because the province’s diverse population saw the Americans as effective foil to attempts by Filipinos in Manila
to extend their control on the rich province. I based my conclusions mainly on primary documents I unearthed at the U.S. Library of Congress archives as well as from the resource collections from various American universities. Mac takes an antipodal position: he consistently argues in his works that an anti-colonial resistance was always there, especially among the Lumad communities. What the people of Davao deployed, however, were an assortment of “weapons of the weak” aimed at undermining colonial rule. These were the only ones they could use since outright confrontation with the militarily superior Americans was impractical, if not imprudent.
Mac and I remain convinced of our respective positions, and till this day we refuse to concede to the other’s conclusions. This difference however is one of the strongest foundations of our intellectual comradeship and personal friendship. We agreed to disagree and hope that our contending explanations can animate readers to debate and inspire other scholars, especially the younger ones, to probe deeper into Davao’s nuanced history. Our disagreement does not obviate that fact that I always hold Mac Tiu’s scholarship in high regard. Mac has shown that limitations to access to information and sources caused by one’s distant location from Manila are no drawbacks to research and publication. This book shames similar works written by scholars in Manila who are privileged with having large libraries and research centers at their disposal. Mac is an inspiration to other provincial scholars who may feel overwhelmed by their relative marginality vis-à-vis their counterparts in the imperial capitals.
Mindanawons have something to be proud of in this work by Davao’s leading scholar and multi-awarded poet and short-story writer. For it is a major contribution to a Mindanao-wide effort of recovering our story as a people of an island that has, since its incorporation to the Philippine body politic, consistently shaped the directions and shifts of its national narrative. Patricio N. Abinales is currently based in the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Japan. He is the author of Making Mindanao: Cotabato and Davao in the Formation of the Philippine Nation-State
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