마키키란 포Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors

DIRECTING INTENTION

In 1565, forty-four years after Ferdinand Magellan reached the island of Cebu, where he conducted the first mass conversion to Christianity in the archipelago now called thePhilippines, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi was able to recapture Cebu and declared the area a colony and property of Spain under the Treaty of Tordesillas. There were four failed expeditions between Magellan and Legazpi. By 1571, Legazpi implemented the encomienda system and assigned the initial five hundred plus encomenderos in many parts of the archipelago. This was the beginning of the feudal setup in the Philippines that still exists until today. In the encomienda system, friars, conquistadors, and settlers were assigned and given authority to govern and convert indigenous communities, enforce tributes/taxes, and impose force/serf labor, and with this setup in place, the construction of churches, forts, piers, roads, bridges and mansions went full blast, along with the development of plantations, factories and mining sites. The encomenderos and their families eventually became part of the principalia, the rich landowners and hacienderos, who owned plantations and big businesses.

During this period of interminable constructions, thousands upon thousands of natives,especially males, died because of forced labor. The first Catholic church in the Philippines made of stones, the San Agustin Church, was built for twenty-one years, from 1586 to 1607. Fifteen to twenty years was the average construction of churches in the late 16th century to the 17th century. Most of the churches then were built with blood and death of the natives.

These houses of God, created with deified grandeur, heavy stones, thick walls, and majestic high ceilings, are among the true proofs of the horrors of colonization. This is simply the discourse of the film, Makikiraan Po (Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors).