The first OFW
We come across the very first Filipino overseas foreign worker in the parchment pages of the 16th century Age of Exploration when Europeans discovered both the New World (North and South America) and the exotic Old World of the Indies and the Pacific.
Sometime in 1508, we first see our hero, a young Malay from the archipelago that would be named Felipinas, clad only in a short sarong of indeterminate color, standing under the scorching sun on a crude, wooden platform in the slave market of the Moluccas (Malaysia). His status as slave is proof that he left his homeland against his will, probably captured from a beach in Eastern Visayas which Muslim pirates raided for the human inventory of their slave trade.
But there is no bitterness or defiance in this young Malay’s level gaze. On his tanned beardless face, a half-smile plays which soon broadens to reveal a row of perfectly white teeth. It is that smile, characteristic of his race, that today, thanks to the new Philippine diaspora, lights up hospitals in America, the docks and shops in Europe and the Middle East and the corridors of the United Nations. That day in Moluccas, the smile catches the eye of a weather-beaten seaman and explorer who is standing in the shade of the clamorous slave market, shopping for a manservant. He is the Portugese aristocrat, Fernao Magalhaes (better known to us as Ferdinand Magellan). He approves of what he sees in the strapping Malay: the erect head of long, thick, very black hair; the wide shoulders; the smooth, unscarred torso with well-developed muscles; the sturdy legs.
The buyer steps forward and claims the Malay with a few gold coins. The transaction is completed by a friar in the entourage, who baptizes him with a Christian name, that of the day’s saint, “Enrique,” and he is brought home by his master to Portugal. They travel through the Indian Ocean, along the western coast of Africa to Lisbon. For the next 10 years Enrique is Magellan’s body servant, arquebus carrier, and valued assistant. He would have been with Magellan on the campaign fought against Moorish rebels in North Africa, when Magellan crushed his knee as his horse fell during battle, during the years Magellan maneuvered his way through the byzantine Renaissance court politics in Lisbon and Madrid, where Enrique learned Portugese, Spanish and even French.
By 1518-1519 Magellan had hatched a plan to lead an expedition to find a route to the fabled Spice Islands, but the Portugese King Manuel rebuffed him. There were two reasons. One was that Portugal was already engaged in the highly lucrative trade in the Indies, using Vasco da Gama’s route and direct contacts with India, China and Southeast Asia. It already enjoyed a bonanza of silks and spices that had previously been monopolized by Venice and Genoa. The second was that the king could not stand Magellan, who was arrogant and overbearing, repeatedly demanding money and honors for his accomplishments.
Through his connections with navigators and astronomers, Magellan succeeded in persuading the young Spanish king, who was also Emperor Charles V to finance his expedition. Magellan used visual aids worthy of our 21st century communication skills: first, a painted globe depicting the world, and next, the presentation of Enrique, native of the Spice Islands (a fib) and all-important interpreter of the newly-found islanders. An Armada of the Moluccas was officially sanctioned with Magellan as Captain General.
Overjoyed that he would be returning to his homeland, Enrique merited a berth in the Flagship, Trinidad. A fleet of five ships left San Lucar de Barrameda in Spain, in September 1519, with officers and a crew of 260 Spaniards, Portugese, French, Britons and North Africans. The expedition was beset by difficulties and disasters: inferior, inadequate supplies; three mutinies and conspiracies, furious storms, cannibals, giants, violent deaths. From Spain, it sailed south to Cape Verde, crossed the Atlantic and sailed around South America, along Brazil, came to a strait full of glaciers, and finally emerged into an endless ocean, the Pacific, the largest body of water in the world, an immensity “past imagination” which Magellan’s armada crossed under curiously perfect weather conditions. The admiral, his officers and crew were tormented instead by uncertainty, treason, despair, starvation (they ate rotten biscuits, shoes, and rats), scurvy, and the loss of two ships. They discovered Micronesia and finally landed at Guam where they were robbed of weapons and provisions.
At last, one morning, in March 1521, the ocean currents brought them to a large majestic island, Samar, but high cliffs impeded landing, and they sailed to a smaller island, Homonhon, which appeared to have a safe harbor. They found a rainforest and abundant water. Pleasant natives appeared in a boat and gave the mariners coconuts, rice wine and bananas. They moved on to the next island which had attracted them with campfires lighting up the sky. As the Trinidad approached the shore, Enrique was ordered to communicate with the brown men on the beach. They replied in the same language with shouts of recognition and familiarity. Magellan and the other Europeans in the three black galleons were flooded with relief and gratitude, for, until that moment, they had been painfully uncertain of where they were, or where Enrique had come from. They found magnificent shelter and excellent food (fish, abundant rice, roast pork with gravy) in breezy grass huts, a native king who was decorated with large chains of gold.
The rest has been told and retold in countless world histories which have recorded March 1521 as “the discovery of the Philippines” and Enrique as the first, true circumnavigator of the globe. He had sailed from the archipelago where he had been kidnapped to the Moluccas, from there to Europe and back again to the archipelago with Magellan.
Enrique was also our first documented OFW, and our first balikbayan. We are left to guess what it was he shouted to the men on the beach. Was it, “Hoy! Kayo diyan! Nakabalik na rin ako!”? He had one more thing to teach the white men. He was against doing battle with Lapu-lapu, who had resisted Christianity and Spanish sovereignty. Enrique refused to get off the boat at Mactan. After Magellan’s defeat and death, he declined to return with the surviving Europeans, who told him he was still a slave and the property of Magellan’s widow. He was back in his homeland and had decided to remain. And he was ready to kill, if need be, to continue to stay in his country with his own people.
We can be sure Enrique died happy among his own folk, although he never knew of the fame he had acquired in European and world history. It took 50 long years before another, European, Legazpi, would arrive in the Philippines, engage the Filipinos and set off another round of slavery and OFWs.
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Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil, a veteran journalist, recently published the first two volumes of her autobiographical trilogy, Myself, Elsewhere and Legends & Adventures. She is also chairman of the Manila Historical Heritage Commission.
