International Studies in the Philippines

Mapping New Frontiers in Theory and Practice

Frances Antoinette Cruz, Nassef Manabilang Adiong, Frances Antoinette Cruz, Nassef Manabilang Adiong

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429509391
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Diplomacy & Treaties
• Index: Politics & International Relations

How can local experiences and the social transformation generated by modernity help to enrich our understanding of the international? What might a version of the much-discussed "non-Western International Relations (IR)" look like? What continuities and discontinuities from the Philippine experience in particular can be useful for understanding other post-colonial polities?

The Philippines makes a fascinating case study of a medium-sized, developing, post-colonial, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural state in Southeast Asia. Cruz, Adiong and their contributors map horizons of non-Western approaches in Philippine experiences of IR, rooted in the Global South, and in local customs and practice. Examining both theory and praxis, they explore issues as diverse as pre-colonial history, diplomacy, religion, agrarian reform and the Philippines' relationship with key regions in the Global South.

The book will appeal to researchers interested in Southeast Asian Studies and alternative perspectives on IR.

Part I
Mapping concepts

1
Butuan in the pre-colonial Southeast Asian international system

Reconstructing international history from text, memory, and artifacts

John Harvey D. Gamas

The problem in IR historiography

The historiography of mainstream international relations (IR) is framed along the lines of nation-state system development. Standard IR genealogy traces itself back to the Greek poleis, the Italian city-states, the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, the Concert of Europe, the 20th-century World Wars, and the Cold War. This orthodoxy has anachronistically privileged the state as the prime actor in the international political system and the West as the center of global turning points. As a consequence, Western history is deeply entrenched in IR theorizing (Buzan, 2016, p. 156). Non-Western ‘voices, experiences, knowledge-claims, and contributions’ are thus neglected or peripheralized in the discipline (Acharya, 2014, p. 647).

Southeast Asia is one of the world’s regions left on the sidelines of IR. To make IR more inclusive of non-Western regions and particularly of Southeast Asia, Alan Chong (2007, pp. 417–420) advised, among others, to utilize historians’ insights in developing an ‘indigenous model’ of international relations. Consequently, Chong (2012) attempted to engage in non-Western theorizing through an analysis of the Sejarah Melayu – the annals of the Sultanate of Malacca. Other places in Southeast Asia could also provide sources for non-Western IR theorizing. In the Philippines, a potential source could come from an exploration of the enigmatic pre-Hispanic polity of Butuan. However, one must be wary of the pervasive nationalist historiography in Southeast Asia that seeks to legitimize and naturalize nation-states.

Nationalist historiography being a by-product of Western experience situates ancient polities along a teleological trajectory of national development. The narratives and material vestige of old kingdoms have been the locus of nationalist myth-making (Reynolds, 1995, pp. 420–421). In the hope of establishing a long historical pedigree modeled upon the Western ontology of progress, modern nation-states in Southeast Asia have appropriated ancient political units as predecessor sovereign entities contextualized in a Westphalian anarchic system. The primordialism, essentialism, and exceptionalism of this narrative have disconnected ancient polities from their historical context. Furthermore, the pervading West-centrism in the academe has reified this narrative while eschewing other alternative paradigms and overemphasizing the validity of written texts as sources of history. The dominant nationalist paradigm of history in the region thus hampers the call for non-Western theorizing from Southeast Asia as an antidote to the Eurocentrism and state-centrism of IR. The pitfall of nationalist historiography is the re-nationalization of IR, even as they try to uncover non-Western voices (Hellmann & Valbjørn, 2017, p. 281).

To a certain extent, pre-colonial Butuan has been understood through the lens of nationalism. Greg Hontiveros (2004), in Butuan of a Thousand Years, regarded Butuan’s pre-colonial past as a source of “tremendous pride” (p. xiv). He argued that local history should stretch far back in time, even before the First Philippine Revolution, and focus on other locales in order ‘to understand, in a much more comprehensive manner, our history, and … ourselves as a people’ (Hontiveros, 2004, pp. xiv–xv). Similarly, despite the efforts of the editors and contributors of Philippines Ancestral Gold (Capistrano-Baker, 2011) to avoid nationalist primordialism and exceptionalism even as they dedicate a particular chapter on Butuan, the book title nevertheless hints at the nationalistic purpose of those who commissioned the book. In the foreword, Jaime Zobel de Ayala, the chair of the Ayala Foundation, appropriates ancient gold craft as the ‘apt metaphors for where we have been and what we can achieve as a people, and a nation’ (Capistrano-Baker, 2011, p. 12).

This problem necessitates a new approach by which to understand history. If we are to make better use of Southeast Asian pre-colonial history in enriching IR historiography, there is a need for a framework that contextualizes local experience rather than a superimposition of an exogenous and universalized interpretation of historical development. I, therefore, propose O. W. Wolters’s mandala polity as an analytic framework to better understand pre-colonial regional poli-ties like that of Butuan. Moreover, there must be a willingness to utilize various sources for reconstructing history. The overreliance on primary textual sources, which has often been the case in IR, disadvantages pre-literate communities and those communities that are literate yet left only a few records or whose purpose of writing was not the mere recording of events. Indigenous evidence of writing discovered in Butuan come from two gold strips which was probably an amulet (Orlina, 2012). Other written accounts on Butuan were from an outsider’s point of view – relying on them would not provide a complete picture of Butuanon agency. Therefore, I also propound the use of non-textual sources in addition to historical sources.

In the following pages, I first discuss the essential elements of Wolters’s mandala polity. Second, with the use of textual and non-textual sources, I then use the mandala to reconstruct pre-colonial Butuan history. Finally, I highlight the methodological and theoretical lessons that international relations could take from the Butuan mandala polity and its historical reconstruction.

I Wolters’s mandala polity: personal hegemony and competition

Alan Chong (2007) first suggested utilizing the insights of O. W. Wolters, one of Southeast Asia’s most prominent historians. In describing the unique characteristics of pre-colonial Southeast Asian states, Wolters (1982, 1999) borrowed the Sanskrit term mandala, or ‘circle of kings’ from the Arthasastra. A mandala was a political unit where one king or overlord claimed ‘divine and “universal” authority’ and ‘personal hegemony over the other rulers in his mandala who in theory were his obedient allies and vassal’ (Wolters, 1999, p. 27). As such, the mandala was non-territorial but personal, being personally identified with its overlord. The overlord in typical ‘big-man’ fashion must demonstrate virtue usually through ritual investiture, possession of sacral objects, or monumental constructions. These visible manifestations of virtue sought to elicit awe at the virtue or prowess of the overlord and consequently attract alliances from chieftains or the loyalty of ordinary people (Wolters, 1999, pp. 18–19). In a sparsely populated Southeast Asia, humans were the most valuable resource. The land was abundant; hence, conquest was made to capture people rather than expand territory. The territorial delimitations of a mandala were at best amorphous, as it was situated in ‘a vaguely definable geographical area without fixed boundaries’ (Wolters, 1999, p. 28).

The mandala was multicentric – with various smaller or less powerful centers dominated by the overlord as the paramount chief. Nevertheless, this was a highly unstable and fluid political setup. Alliances and status of centers could shift expediently; thus, mandalas ‘would expand and contract in concertina like fashion’ (Wolters, 1999, p. 28). If the chance presented itself, tributary chiefs could abrogate their inferior status, compete with other centers, and establish themselves as mandalas. This competitive situation made it necessary for a mandala to have two skills in governance. The first of this was the gathering of updated information on events ‘happening on the fringes’ (Wolters, 1999, p. 28). The second skill was diplomacy. The mandala overlord had to deprive rivals of their claims but also bring them under his influence through accommodation and investiture. Though the overlord had the exclusive right to receive tribute from envoys and send officials to represent his higher status, he “was not an autocrat” but an accessible “mediator” who was able to unite different groups (Wolters, 1999, pp. 28–29). Despite the overlord’s prominence, he was, therefore, not an emperor or a dictator.

The hierarchy entailed by kingdoms, states, and empires does not come close to the reality of the mandala. In contrast to a European-style kingdom, a mandala does not automatically entail a ruling dynasty with regular and precise succession mechanisms. This characteristic was due to the equal importance of both paternal and maternal ancestry, as well as the status of charismatic or “big-man” leadership in Southeast Asia (Wolters, 1999, p. 18). Unlike a state, a mandala has no fixed boundaries and bureaucracy under a functionally differentiated regime. The titles granted to chieftains through investiture were merely honorary and meant to maintain the loyalty of a tributary chieftain (Wolter, 1999, p. 29). There was no functional differentiation between the overlord and his tributary chiefs. The latter continued to be the unquestioned lord of his immediate subjects and locale. A closer description of a mandala is that of an alliance network of minor and major tributary chiefs around a central node – the overlord. Figure 1.1 provides a conceptual map of the interconnections within a mandala polity.

Figure 1.1 A mandala network of alliances

The personal identification of the mandala with the overlord also makes it incomparable to that of the nation-state. Accordingly, it cannot be taken as a precursor to modern nation-states, given that a mandala cannot be neatly situated in the band-tribe-chiefdom-state continuum. A mandala did not constitute greater socio-political integration. Because of the competition, there was a constant oscillation between coalescence and disintegration. It manifests attributes of the state and tribe but is neither. It was hierarchic but also anarchic in the sense that tributaries remain independent despite recognizing the superior status of the overlord. This state of affairs then makes a mandala hierarchy not as cohesive and durable as that of an empire. As such, the mandala polity challenges mainstream IR’s standard binary of hierarchy and anarchy in describing a system.

II Reconstructing history from textual and non-textual sources

IR theorizing on history has always proceeded from written sources. But bringing non-Western experiences into the discipline would inevitably entail an openness to various data sources, especially since Southeast Asian mandalas did not leave much literature. By weaving both textual and non-textual sources, a clear history of Butuan and its role in the mandalic structure could emerge. Aside from filling the gaps, non-textual sources could also triangulate textual data, given that they come from an outsider’s vantage point. Though the history that we may reconstruct out of them might be incomplete and even speculative, it could still give us valuable insights for IR pre-theorizing.

The relevance of Butuan’s tribute missions to China from text, artifacts, and memory

The primary textual source on pre-Hispanic Butuan comes from the 1345 compilation of Song Dynasty imperial annals, the Song hui-yao ji-gao, or simply Songshi. William Henry Scott (1989) first brought to our attention a portion of Volume 197 of the Songshi, which detailed the series of tribute missions sent by the Butuan rajas to the celestial court in the first part of the 11th century. What happened next to Butuan in subsequent centuries is still shrouded in mystery. Relying solely on these written sources could produce this convenient interpretation: that the trade missions were manifestations of the apex of Butuan’s power while the subsequent years were a decline characterized by subservience to other more powerful entities. But bringing in archaeological findings would make this interpretation simplistic if not erroneous.

Laura Junker (2000, p. 99) pointed out a disjuncture between the abundance of historical reference on Butuan in the 11th century and copious archaeological proof for political expansion in the 12th to 13th centuries. Indeed, the Butuan trade missions recorded in the Songshi were sent during the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127), while the amount of archaeological evidence on settlement and foreign trade goods mostly came from the period of the Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279). Junker argued that Butuan succeeded in monopolizing the trade against its rivals, hence rendering it unnecessary to continue sending expensive tribute missions to China. Carrying a mission to China required a significant investment, and unless there were compelling reasons, a polity would not send one. In the light of Wolters’s mandala polity, Butuan’s participation in the Chinese tribute system was a function of the dynamics of mandala competition.

Furthermore, the mandala framework situates Butuan in the greater regional context at the turn of the second millennium CE (Figure 1.2). The Songshi records that Butuan (Pinyin: Puduan) did not have ‘much communication with China’ but that it ‘has had mutual relations with Champa’ and that ‘it was beneath Champa’ (Scott, 1989, p. 27). From here, we can glean that Butuan was a tributary of the Cham mandala. The conduct of trade with China was via this mandala overlord. The disturbance in Champa caused by the southward Vietnamese ex...