Bridging the Gap
By Henry Funtecha

Early Visayan international trade

The early Visayans, as it was with the other major Filipino groups, had trade relations with the Chinese and other neighboring Asians long before the coming of the Spaniards. Business was carried chiefly by barter. This, indeed, is a strong argument against the claim of the Spaniards that, at the time of their arrival, the Filipinos were backward, primitive and uncivilized and, therefore, had no commercial intercourse with other groups of people.

The existence of foreign trade in the Visayas was especially felt in Panay and Cebu where there were flourishing communitites. Some archeological findings tend to show that foreign traders, especially the Chinese, visited Iloilo and other leading communitites in Panay before the supposed arrival of the Bornean settlers in the middle part of the 13 th century. This is supported by a number of recovered trade items from many places in the island that are dated as early as the 10 th century. These items are mostly porcelain wares-bowls, palates and jars-of the Tang and Sung dynasties of China that were recovered from ancient burial places. They prove that the Visayans carried on flourishing trade with the Chinese long before the Spaniards rediscovered the Philippines. This also applies to other parts of the Visayas like Cebu, Bohol and Leyte.

The great bulk of the Chinese trade goods was in porcelain, stoneware, and unglazed earthenware. The second most popular was silk, although prior to the Spanish-initiated galleon trade, it was just limited to the thinner and cheaper varieties. The additional Chinese goods sold or bartered in the Visayas were white or black, and white blankets, sarsaparilla, glass beads, incense, tin and brassware.

Other important Chinese goods circulating in the Visayas were ironware, and the cast iron pans which were the major source for Visayan blacksmiths. But Chinese brass or copper gongs were considered inferior to the bronze ones from Borneo and Sangir. Hardware like small knives, spearhead, and fire steel blades came from Borneo, but the best kris and kampilan came from Sangir. There were also Japanese swords that reached the Visayas through Manila.

On the other hand, the Visayans traded with their foreign counterparts forest and marine products -- wax, civet, musk, ambergisis, cinnamon, dyewood, aromatic hardwood, and red ants for coloring Chinese ink. Cowry shells, widely used as currency, were also exported to Kampuchea, Siam and Sumatra. Abaca and cotton cloth, as well as cotton thread and cottonseed, had a steady market in China. Pearls, coral, and tortoise shells, deerskins, antlers, and caged civet cats, mostly secured by Visayan traders from Mindanao, were destined for Japan (Diaz, 1838).

It can be said therefore that prior to Spanish colonization, the Visayas was already part of what was actually a sophisticated international commerce. In little emporia like Iloilo and Cebu, Filipino and foreign vessels registered paid harbor fees, and loaded merchandise which did not wholly originate from them but from various parts of the world.

The system of weighing in the Visayan market place consisted of the use of a steelyard called chinanta or sinanta, roughly equivalent to 6.3 kilos, in case of heavy items. Gold, on the other hand, was weighed against little seeds in a pair of balances small enough to be carried on the person. Expensive items like slaves, boats, or good hunting dogs were priced in gold tahil (38.4 grams). Rice was itself a medium of exchange: pots were sold for the quantity they could hold, and a gantang was the value of a ganta of unhusked rice. Calculations were made with little wooden counters, every tenth one being of different size.