Legend has it that Lao Tze owned the largest pearl in the world. It was as big as a human head. Until it was mysteriously lost.
A few decades ago, the supposed pearl was found in Palawan. It was the same shape and size as that of legend. It was found by a Muslim who called it The Pearl of Allah. The Muslim’s son got sick once, and the man who was able to save him was an American doctor. In gratitude, the Muslim gave the pearl to the American as a gift. In the 90′s, the American was able to sell the pearl to a Christian in San Francisco for five million dollars, where it was then named, the Pearl of Christ. The Pearl is a wonderful vision of receployment of energy. It is created by an oyster when it is irritated; thus, it is the expression that results from pain.
We are called the Pearl of the Orient. Like our Juan de la Cruz moniker connotes its English counterpart’s John of the Cross’s “Dark Nights of the Soul,” the pearl signifies the light that John states is sure to follow darkness. Oscar Wilde once said, “dreamers must make their way by moonlight, and their only burden is that they shall see the dawn before the rest of the world.”
Legend has it that Ferdinand Magellan came to the Moluccas Islands (Malaysia) before he went back to Portugal to try to convince the King that he had found another way to the Spice Islands. As his proof, he presented to the King of Portugal, and then later, the King of Spain, a native he picked up, an “Indian” he called Enrique. Enrique, the slave. You know the official story, to keep it short, Magellan landed in Samar or Butuan, people are still contesting the first landing, but my point of interest is when he landed in Cebu. According to Pigafetta, Magellan’s Spanish scribe, Enrique spoke to the natives in their own native dialect. How could he speak to the native Cebuanos if he came from the Moluccas Islands. Which has led some heady historians to claim that Enrique was not from Malaysia, but from the Philippine Islands. Palawan is the nearest island to Malaysia; the writer/historian Diokno Manlavi presented his own rationale that Enrique is a Palaweno. It is just possible that the first man to circumnavigate the globe is not the Spaniard as many a history book claims, but a Filipino.
Or does it even matter that Rizal claims that there were more than a handful of Spanish-speaking Filipinos when the Spanish first landed in Luzon?
I am at a loss as to explaining what was in these islands before the Spanish came and obliterated our culture. I have some images and have received some revelations as to particular people to watch out for, and how the ressurgence is going to come about. It is happening as we speak, this ressurgence of the maian resonance. In a sense, we are circumnavigating the globe again. Making full circle. When Magellan fought Lapu-Lapu, Enrique jumped in front of his master to catch the flying arrows … with his body. Enrique lived, Magellan didn’t, unconditional service won out. The Spaniards set Enrique free, and off they sailed to Mindanao, close to death. When they found the island abundant, they called Mindanao, The Land of Promise. They then sailed to Palawan. Hunger stricken once again, they resorted to kidnapping the King of Paragaua, a certain Tuan Mahamud, his brother and his brother-in-law. It was the first history of piracy in the islands.
But the King decided to give the Spaniard what they wanted in chickens, coconuts, pigs … and even doubled it, giving all these in good faith simply because there was abundance all around. It is the paradox of all time that the ones who brought us Christianity came to convert our people when we already exemplified the same teachings they came to enforce on us through word and not through deed.
If Enrique the slave is the first Filipino domestic helper, Magellan is the first white tourist.
Come the 20th century, it is the Muslims kidnapping the white folk in Palawan and not the other way around. Full Circle.
If we are the Pearl of the Orient, we are an expression of beauty resulting from pain. According to John of the Cross, we are the Unitive State that folows the Dark Nights of the Soul.
As to this, we will have to wait and see.
