Maharlikans

"The reception seems lukewarm."

Do not laugh because if indeed the name of our country will be changed, we will be calling ourselves Maharlikans instead of Filipinos.

President Duterte himself suggested the change and if he is really serious, which seems to be the case, he has a lot of allies in Congress who can file a bill for the purpose of changing the name of the country.

The principal reason seems to be to sever all vestiges of colonization associated with the name so that we can establish our own identity. Another reason that he gave which was reported in yesterday’s papers is that Muslim Filipinos do not like being called Filipinos and would rather be identified by the tribe or ethnic group to which they belong. In his eyes, we should not be called Filipinos to honor the Prince of Spain who eventually became the King. To the President as well as others, this simply is not right because the term Filipinos during the Spanish colonial period referred to Spaniards who were born in the country. Natives were called Indios, not Filipinos.

But that was then. Today is a different time but this is apparently not enough. Maharlika to them is a better word for describing who we are.

This is not the first time that such a suggestion has been made. The late President Ferdinand Marcos also suggested the word Maharlika. He named the planned North-South national highway Maharlika and also gave his phantom guerrilla unit the same name. The late President was clearly enamoured with the word Maharlika, attributing it to something noble. The move went as far as the late former Senator Eddie Ilarde filing a bill for the name change—but the move did not gain any traction.

In a speech in Mindanao on Feb. 11, President Duterte said that the word has something to do with the concept of serenity and peace.

It appears however, that both gentlemen may not be exactly right. The word Maharlika actually refers to the feudal warrior clans in ancient Tagalog society in Luzon. The translation in Spanish is “hidalgo” meaning freemen. Etymologically, the term Maharlika is derived from Sanskrit Mahardhikka which means “a man of wealth, knowledge or ability.” Whether this move will be supported this time, we still do not know. As far as I know, no survey has yet been conducted by Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia to gauge what the people may be thinking.

One thing sure though is that because the original suggestion from the late President Marcos, the Yellow army is not inclined to support such a move.

Setting politics aside, is there a case to be made with the name change? Is it so wrong for the country to be named in honor of a prince? The Americans are called that to honor Amerigo Vespucci who was an Italian navigator. They seem to be proud of it. Colombia is named after the man who discovered the new world, Christhoper Columbus. But there are indeed some countries that made a change for colonial reasons like Myanmar. Some countries in Africa also changed colonial given names. Tanzania for instance is a corruption of Tanganyika and Zanzibar.

There are therefore models to follow. For instance, will there be a plebiscite after a law is passed to change the name of our country? I believe that this is an absolute necessity. New Zealand, for instance, had a plebiscite just to change the design of their flag. I believe this proposal lost.

Other than Maharlika, how should we call the country? Combine the three major island groups and call the country Luzvimin? Calling ourselves Luzvimins does not sound right. Maybe Rizal, to honor our national hero? Rizalians does sound a little better than Luzvimins.

But as the current Miss Universe Catriona Gray quipped, “When it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” With that comment, the suggestion seem to have stopped after a couple of days until yesterday when the President made another pitch for the change. Nonetheless, there seems to be a lukewarm reception. Maybe like the first effort by the late President Marcos, Filipinos are not ready or do not want to make any changes and would rather leave things as they are.

* * *

Like many others, I was surprised to read about the President saying that we should allow illegal Chinese staying here to work in the country so that the 300,000 of our countrymen staying and working in China will not suffer retaliatory actions by the Chinese government.

I am sure the President was just thinking of those Filipinos working in China. But to his critics, it reinforces the notion of his preference of China and really is not joking when he said that the country can be a province of China.

It is good that the Palace clarified the President’s remarks after many of his political allies and labor organizations criticized the remarks—and rightly so. It would have been much better, though, if it was the President himself who made the clarification.

We assume that our countrymen who are working in China are there legally. If not, then the Chinese government has all the right to deport them. If those Chinese nationals are here illegally, they should be rounded up and also deported.

What the government should be doing is creating enough jobs so that our womenfolk do not have to go abroad to work as domestic helpers and be abused and maltreated by many of their employers. To keep allowing this is the greatest failure of any government, present or past. It is time it stopped.