The Colonial Department

The word Bukidnon means “people of the mountains”, but historian Ronald K. Edgerton also gives another name for them: the people of the middle ground. As he writes in his book of the same name, “Many Bukidnons mastered the art of borrowing from the new without losing touch with the old. [...] And over time they developed a capacity to envision themselves [...] as negotiators between worlds, skille...

In the offbeat manga Ferdie! , Ferdinand Magellan and Antonio Pigafetta are caught up in a storm right before they arrive in the Philippines…and find themselves transported five hundred years into the future into a place that’s beyond anything they could have imagined. So what is an explorer and colonizer to do in 2020s Philippines? Why, become a content creator, of course! In this Interview episo...

The island of Balangingi stands halfway between Borneo and Mindanao. Surrounding Balangingi were sharp reefs and surging cross-currents that would be lethal to any boatman… except for the Balangingi Samal, of course. Surrounding the main landmass were little islets that would wink in and out with the tides. On the coast were thick snarls of mangrove; in the parched interior were swaying groves of...

At seven o’clock on the dot, a high-pitched Japanese voice blared out from speakers and switched-on radios all across the archipelago. The program came on like clockwork, chirping in immediately after every station signed on for the day—a cheery signal of a brand-new day under Imperial rule.  In wartime Philippines, Rajio Taisō was everywhere—schools, private companies, government offices, militar...

You pass by them every day: plaques of metal set onto walls and plinths, heavy with text and history. You may have wondered—how do you maintain these historical markers? A group of students in the University of the Philippines Diliman wondered the same thing. So, for their required NSTP initiative, they formed Project Panandito, a student-led project that, during the sweltering summer months of 20...

Yes, Edison as in Thomas Edison, the light bulb guy. At the turn of his century, the tech wizard of Menlo Park produced thousands of movies as a showcase for his company’s vitascopes. Among those movies are five films about the Philippine-American War, produced in a flurry all throughout June of 1899.  It turns out that the boom of cinema dovetailed neatly with America’s growing imperial ambitions...

When you pulled up to the dock, they were there waiting for you, those holy men of God. But beyond inspecting ships that docked in the ports of Manila and Cavite for blasphemers and banned items, the Inquisition in the Philippines also investigated Protestants. Jews. Masons. Muslims. Non-Catholic Christian sects, like Armenian Christians or Jansenists. Its investigators monitored cases of heresy,...

What kind of city was waiting for Dutch scholar Gerret Pieter Rouffaer when he got to Manila? After more than a decade of occupation, the Americans had given the colonial capital some thorough nips and tucks. Aside from the glimmering roads and shady plazas, the Americans also laid down more tramways. Trams were already up and running during the latter part of the Spanish occupation, but in 1905,...

“There’s a message to it: It’s our responsibility to keep Filipino food popular!” At the launch for her book What Recipes Don’t Tell: Philippine Food History in Fifty Words, author and historian Felice Prudente Sta. Maria talked to a rapt audience at the Philippine Book Festival about a long career of writing about food. What new things can food tell us about our own history? How did we adapt tech...

Sourness, according to Doreen Fernandez, “is a favored Philippine flavor.” Just how sour is sour? “Sour enough to savor, to make the lips pucker and the eyes squint slightly, and yet not too sour—just at the point of perfection.” In the spectrum of sensation, sourness can be both sharp and sudden, an acetic shudder down the spine. Asim, the Tagalogs call it. From the earliest written records about...

Before we start Season 8, I have an important announcement about this little podcast. For more info, check out this Instagram post .

“What does it take for a culture that has caused a lot of pain and suffering to have any chance at redemption… or any sense of justice?” Tom Sykes’ riotous new book—a collision of a neon-powered 1980s Manila and a disaster-stricken barangay in the 1570s—attempts to answer the question… with many seedy side quests in between. How did he attempt to write his wild, genre-bending vision of the Philipp...

What a folk game can tell us about how a datu waged war. An interview with Micah Perez of the UP Diliman Department of History. The Colonial Dept. Interview is a bonus show where I talk to researchers and authors shining a light on our past. Know a historian or author I should talk to? Email me at thecolonialdept@gmail.com. Thumbnail image: Usernameko/Wikimedia Commons

Ever since its founding in the 1860s, the Manila Observatory had stood watch against the typhoons and hurricanes that threatened to strike the Philippines. But decades later, they were unprepared for a different kind of approaching storm: the Second World War! Cover photo from the Illustrated London News. Additional audio from British Pathe. Follow us on IG: @thecolonialdept Follow us on TikTok: @...

In the late 1500s, sultans, kings, and outlaws alike all wanted a little slice of Manila. And over two turbulent decades, everyone from faraway Spain to neighboring Brunei asserted their claims over the rajahs and datus that lived there. This is the turbulent origin story of the city that we know today. Follow us on IG: @thecolonialdept Follow us on TikTok: @thecolonialdept Email us: thecolonialde...

The nineteenth century—steamships, family names, world trade, foreign firms, liberal ideas. Great tides of change are roiling Manila. In the middle of the chaos, a new art trend captures the imagination of local elites. How are these letras y figuras holding a mirror to Philippine society? Cover Photo from the Ayala Corporation Collection. Follow us on IG: @thecolonialdept Follow us on TikTok: @th...

It was the Great War, the War to End All the Wars… and Philippine abaca merchants were raking in sky-high profits. The world’s most powerful navies relied on this plant—which is native to the Philippines—to keep their warships in battle-ready shape. But what the First World War giveth, the First World War also taketh away. Follow us on IG: @thecolonialdept Follow us on TikTok: @thecolonialdept Ema...

In the second part of our look at the lost sport of Philippine bullfighting, we go deep into its heyday in the 1800s, with social clubs, provincial arenas, and matadors with nicknames like “Fatiguitas.” Then, we look at how and why bullfighting faded away in our archipelago. Follow us on IG: @thecolonialdept Follow us on TikTok: @thecolonialdept Email us: thecolonialdept@gmail.com References: Viba...

In fiestas in a bygone age, the corrida de toros—the coursing of the bulls—would always be part of the festivities and celebrations in town plazas across the Philippines. Why did this tradition disappear from our shores? In this two-part episode, we examine the history of bullfighting in the Philippines. In Part One, join Antonio Luna as he watches his first bullfight… and then travel back in time...

For centuries, Spain ruled the Philippines from within the closed, claustrophobic walls of Intramuros—the walled city of Manila. But right outside these walls, Manila, too, grew and developed, following the contours of migration, enterprise, and yes, even conflict. Let’s track the evolution of the districts and arrabales outside the walls, or extramuros. Follow us on IG: @thecolonialdept Follow us...

Beyond the bullets, the tanks, the planes, the bombs, the Japanese also brought other weapons to bear against the Filipinos: Typewriters. Radio waves. Movie theaters. Here is one story from the frontlines of shisōsen, or "the thought war." Follow us on IG: @thecolonialdept Follow us on TikTok: @thecolonialdept Email us: thecolonialdept@gmail.com References: Campoamor II, Gonzalo (2017). “Re-Examin...

Governors and gangsters, spies and socialites—it seemed that all of Manila dined out at the two-floor restaurant that rose above the bustle of Plaza Goiti. Inside, waiters handed you menus with more than three hundred dishes on offer, and, for special guests, directed you to special themed dining rooms upstairs. But there was enough entertainment on the first floor. There was a jazz band playing l...

Smallpox was one of the deadliest diseases known to man—and not even the Philippines was immune to its virulent dangers! But how did the dreaded disease arrive on our shores? And what devastating effects did it have during the long centuries of our occupation? Follow us on IG: @thecolonialdept Follow us on TikTok: @thecolonialdept Email us: thecolonialdept@gmail.com The thumbnail image, which date...

Coffee. Tea. Cocoa. The three have a surprisingly rich, complex, and layered history in the Philippines. How did they arrive here, and what effect did they have in the archipelago’s colonial period? Follow us on IG: @thecolonialdept Follow us on TikTok: @thecolonialdept Email us: thecolonialdept@gmail.com Thanks to Beach Reads Book Club (based in The Beach House cafe in Kapitolyo) for hosting the...

As the United States moves to take over Mindanao, both the Americans and the Moros invoke the name of the Ottoman Empire—seat of the Caliph—to support their campaigns. But in 1914, an actual Ottoman emissary arrives in Zamboanga. How will the American occupiers react to his visit? Follow us on IG: @thecolonialdept Follow us on TikTok: @thecolonialdept Email us: thecolonialdept@gmail.com References...