Clash of Spirits: The History of Power and Sugar Planter Hegemony on a Visayan Island

3. Elusive Peasant, Weak State: Sharecropping and the Changing Meaning of Debt

3 Elusive Peasant, Weak State: Sharecropping and the Changing Meaning of Debt Cosmology and Preconquest Production Relations As we saw in the previous chapter, the islanders of the preconquest world had configured a hierarchized social order according to the distribution of charisma and prowess and the economy of prestige as ordained by the spirits. An islander who could not claim otherworldly prowess to be reckoned as datu entered the penumbra of one whose claim to individual supremacy was validated empirically by deeds of valor. Either as warriors or dependents, thedatus’ followers were grouped in settlements, conventionally known as barangay in Tagalog (hapon or haop in Visayan), which were of highly variable character and size, some encompassing thirty, others about a hundred households. In a world splintered into dispersed bands and settlements locked in intermittent conflict, group membership was a requisite for individual survival. In that context, the datu managed the barangay as his protectorate. If the datu was not waging war on other settlements, he was entering or cementing alliances with other leaders, often by giving daughters in marriage. Such alliances were useful in confronting a common enemy or undertaking a common war effort, and in establishing a conducive environment for trade.1 While at one level ensuring the safety of followers and dependents , the management of external relations at another level was crucial to a datu’s personal competition with other men of renown and the maintenance of power within his own settlement. Within the micropolity he ruled, the datu’s spiritually sanctioned authority covered such aspects of life as we would today segregate into the legal, the military, the political, and the economic. Standing at the vortex of human society, the datu was the broker of goodwill from the spiritworld to his followers and dependents. As the repository of special qualities , skills, and knowledge, the datu, with the priestly consort of the babaylan, rendered invaluable services to the settlement, ranging from ensuring its defense and the individual members’ protection to settling disputes and adjudicating difficult criminal cases, hosting ceremonial rites, and being responsible for the overall welfare of kinsmen and dependents (Chirino 1969, 384, 430; de Loarca 1903, 141, 147–149, 151; de San Antonio 1906, 356 –358). The legalist Antonio de Morga (1904, 119) described datus as having the “duty . . . to rule and govern their subjects and followers, and to assist them in their interests and necessities .” Hardly ever completely recompensable, the datu’s services were like gifts to his followers, which amounted to the socially recognized debt (utang) the latter owed their headman. As conduit, hence receiver, of favor from the spirit-world, the datu was in turn the giver to his community, his ostensible services finding embodiment in tangible gifts. Even in the vestigial datuship of Bukidnon in the late 1960s, “informants appeared to regard the principal sign of datuship as the ability to give things away freely” (Biernatzki 1973, 43). In fact, the Bukidnondatus were “calledtatay, ‘father,’ by their willing followers ” (40)—not dissimilar from observations proffered by early Spanish chroniclers that old chiefs were “esteemed as a father,” and that if followers “wanted any small trifle, they begged the head chief of their barangay for it, and he gave it to them” (Chirino 1969, 430; Colin 1906, 96). Another European observer described datu–follower relations as one of “friendship” (de San Antonio 1906, 348). Certainly, the anthropological ideal type of Big People is one of generous gift giving to juniors and subordinates, for which the former were accorded great respect (Collier 1988, 92–105, 114–119; Sahlins 1963, 289–293). In return, the datu’s leadership was expected to be reciprocated by followers and dependents with loyalty and gratitude expressed in the form of obeisance, deference, labor services, and crop sharing. As Colin (1906, 96) noted, the datu “summoned” his followers, who were “obliged to go to him to work in his fields or to row in his boats.” Whenever a feast was to be held, members of the settlement “all came together,” bringing with them “a jar of wine, so much rice, and to assist in such feasts” (Anon. 1979, 353; Colin 1906, 96). Followers of datus “served in their wars and voyages, and in their tilling, sowing, fishing, and the building of their houses. To these duties the natives attended very promptly, when64 chapter 3 ever summoned by their chief” (de Morga 1904, 119). The...