I DID not say the above. It was Michael Pangilinan, a Kapampangan and independent scholar specializing in Kapampangan history, who gave a lecture with that title.
I went to the Angeles Library to listen to one part of his current lecture series. The topics were “The Forgotten Chinese” and “The Forgotten Kingdom.”
Mr. Pangilinan, who reads and writes Chinese by virtue of having lived in Guangzhou for a number of years researching Philippine-Chinese history, has the ability from speaking and writing Chinese to access primary sources in Chinese archives. His interest in Kapampangan history has produced a book on the Indigenous Kapampangan script which reads like Chinese script, from right to left vertically.
In “The Forgotten Chinese” lecture, he says that while we know that Chinese traders had been coming to this archipelago way before colonization, we hardly go farther to note that while they were actually forbidden to stay by their emperor, many of them did. In the case of Pampanga which was the preeminent ethnocentric group in Central Luzon, including what is now Bulacan, Tarlac and Nueva Ecija, and reached as far as Binondo, we are talking of a kingdom. Luzon comes from “Lusung,” which is the ancient Kapampangan name for Manila Bay, whose coastline reaches Pampanga from Tondo. Chinese archival sources talk of a King of Lusung, which implies that there was a recognized hierarchical system of nobility over the general population. This is the forgotten kingdom Pangilinan speaks of.
In precolonial times, trading with China and even Japan has been established to have gone at length before the arrival of the Spaniards. The Chinese element in Pampanga of what was then the extensive kingdom of Lusung was the result of intermarriage between the elite Kapampangans and the Chinese. Thus, most of the Kapampangans have Chinese antecedents. This was already noted by John Larkin in his book, “The Pampangans,” some decades ago. It explains much of Kapampangan culture from the names they carry, to their cuisine and parts of their vocabulary. Further, because in colonial times, there was a large population of Chinese in Manila plus the native elite of Tondo, both in separate ways and for separate reasons moved to Pampanga. The native elite because of the Spanish conquest of Manila and the Chinese fleeing from the regular massacres that the Spaniards perpetrated against them. Particularly, the infamous 1603 Chinese massacre in Manila and nearby towns which brought a large influx of Chinese from the Manila area. The native Manila elite that fled to Pampanga resulted in a sizable native elite in the area.
Pampanga or the Kingdom of Lusung was relatively prosperous. They harvested rice four times a year. They traded regularly and so were worldly, aware of other nations and their goods, more sophisticated compared to other ethnic groups. They were also traders and traveled as mentioned in foreign records. One particular item that they received through trade was gunpowder in Chinese jars from China. This was kept from the Spaniards, and the Kapampangan word for it is “medicine” as a disguise. But the Spaniards came to know that the Kapampangans were good warriors, and they conscripted them against other Filipino ethnic groups as well as against British forces in the British invasion of Manila in the 1760s. In fact, Kapampangan soldiers were based in the Moluccas during the Spanish regime there. When the Dutch ousted the Spaniards, they conscripted those same Kapampangans into the Dutch Army. Pangilinan showed a photo of them in the Dutch Army of the early 20th century.
Pangilininan’s thesis is that the Kingdom of Lusung was real, influential and long-lasting, and has its impact on present-day Kapampangans. And its lasting Chinese influence has molded the Kapampangans into a particularly progressive group that was far more advanced than others at the time. Maybe that background of worldliness and sophistication has made them seem “mayabang,” or as Pangilinan himself says “arrogant.” This is said and to be taken with a grain of history.