A “kampilan” that was used to kill the fleet commander of the first Spanish expedition to Mindanao in 1596 has been presented to the leaders of Maguindanao province, by heirs of the family that kept the native sword.
The kampilan, which the heirs said was used to slay Capitan Esteban Rodriguez de Figueroa in the historic Battle of Tampakan in Maguindanao 421 years ago, was received by Mayor Zamzamin Ampatuan of Rajah Buayan and Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu.
Ampatuan mentioned the recovery of the kampilan to this writer, after his previous article traced national hero Dr. Jose Rizal’s writing in defense of Moro natives from a Spanish historian’s bigotry in colonial views.
Rizal annotated “Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas” (Events in the Philippine Islands), a history book written by Spanish chronicler Antonio Morga, who wrote that Figueroa’s killing in Maguindanao was a “treachery of the highest degree” on the part of the Moros under Rajah Silongan.
The national hero refuted this in his annotation of Morga’s book at the London Museum Library in 1892.
Curiously, Rizal, in his trial, was accused of three counts of subversion: 1) the writing and publication of “Noli Me Tangere” (Touch Me Not); 2) the annotation of De Morga’s History of the Philippines, and 2) the writing El Filibusterismo, among others, as noted in the book The Trial and Execution of Dr. Jose Rizal.
Still sharp but apparently old, the kampilan made of hard black metal (similar but thicker than an old-model wood saw) only has small spots of rust stains—despite having been unsharpened for a long time.
“If this kampilan was used in that war more than 400 years ago in defense of Rajah Buayan (now part of Maguindanao), the same sword will now become a symbol of unity in our common quest for peace,” Ampatuan said, as he, Governor Mangudadatu, other local leaders and key military officials held the sword’s blade wrapped with various colors of inaul royal malong.
Ampatuan acknowledged that Rajah Silongan was the ancestor of the Mangudadatus.
Also present were Maguindanao Assemblyman Khadafe Mangudadatu of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao; Mayor Freddie Mangudadatu of Mangudadatu town, and their cousin, Sultan Kudarat Rep. Suharto Mangudadatu.
The two families have famously severed ties following the Maguindanao Massacre on Nov. 23, 2009. But the Mangudadatus also spared other members of the rival clan, including Mayor Ampatuan, as those not involved in the gruesome killings.
Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez, commanding general of the Armed Forces’ Western Mindanao Command; Brig. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana of the Joint Task Force Sulu, and Brig. Gen. Ariel Dela Vega, commander of the 6th Infantry Division in Maguindanao, attended the recent public presentation of the kampilan in Tacurong City, Sultan Kudarat.
Ampatuan said he wrote the British Ambassador in Manila to seek his government’s assistance for an independent carbon-testing of the sword’s blade to determine its approximate age from hammering.
Its original handle and cover might have been replaced, but are obviously antiquated, too, the mayor noted.
He said the last recorded generational transfer of the kampilan was made to Datu Mustapha Maslamama of Taviran, alias, Datu Tapagay in the 1800s—before its current custodians got hold of the antique sword and brought it to him.
Silongan, an uncle of Philippine Muslim hero Sultan Muhammad Dipatuan Kudarat, had a brother named Datu Ubal—who the historian Morga said, in the presence of other natives, vowed to kill Figueroa upon his return to Mindanao from Brunei, where he was summoned to a military meeting by Governor-General Francisco de Sande.
Figueroa and many Spaniard members of his naval fleet and Christianized native militias were killed in the Battle of Tampakan in April 1596.
Spanish sources cited by Rizal revealed that the Tampakan conflict was triggered by a 1578 conspiracy between Sande and Figueroa on the abduction of a young Moro prince, a nephew of Sulu Sultan Batara Tenga, and son of Sultan Sarikula of Maguindanao, who was married to the sister of the Sulu sultan.
The abduction of the prince in 1578 formed part of the Spanish strategy in Figueroa’s missions to Brunei and Sulu, to force the Sultan to pay tribute to the Crown King of Spain; seek easy terms on pearl trading; free Christianized captives taken to Brunei; and to reduce Sulu naval presence in the Sulu Sea,” Morga wrote.
