Dasmariñas, Hideyoshi, and San Pedro Bautista

Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) is often encountered by Filipino students taking an Asian history course or, depending on the textbook or teacher, Hideyoshi may be mentioned in passing together with Dasmariñas in a Philippine history course. Dasmariñas is a name familiar to Filipinos who associate it with: a gated Makati village, a busy street in Manila’s Chinatown, or the largest city in Cavite. Those who know that he was a 16th-century Spanish governor-general are often confused because there were two governors-general named Dasmariñas: Gomez Perez Dasmariñas, who served in 1590-1593, and his son and successor Luis Perez Dasmariñas, who served in 1593-1596. The elder Dasmariñas led an ambitious expedition to take the Moluccas from the Portuguese, but he never reached his destination because he was killed by Chinese rowers who hijacked the ship and changed course to China. This may be trivial and useless information but knowing the difference between all these “Dasmariñas” references may well be all it takes for you to win P1 million or a car in a TV game show.

In 1592, during the term of the elder Dasmariñas, an embassy from Hideyoshi arrived in Manila. It was headed by a low-ranking Christian named Faranda, who carried presents and a letter threatening an invasion unless an embassy was sent from Manila carrying tribute. Knowing that the colony could not be defended against a determined Japanese invasion, Dasmariñas bought time by dispatching as ambassador the Dominican Fr. Juan Cobo.

Cobo, a Sinologist, carried a polite reply as well as impressive presents that included an elephant, which amused Hideyoshi. His mission succeeded, and Hideyoshi called off the planned invasion of Spanish Manila. Cobo would have been received with a “Te Deum” by a relieved Dasmariñas, but unfortunately the priest didn’t make it home. He was killed in Formosa, making him the first Spanish ambassador killed in service in Asia.

In May 1593 Dasmariñas sent a new embassy to Japan headed by the Franciscan Fr. Pedro Bautista, who is best remembered for establishing the Franciscan church in San Francisco del Monte and discovering the medicinal properties of the Laguna hot springs that he called “Las  Aguas  Santas  (Holy Waters).” This reminded me of a rundown Los Baños [The Baths] resort we used to frequent when I was a boy, called “Agua  Santa.” Pedro Bautista was martyred in Nagasaki in 1597 and canonized in 1862, but that is getting ahead of our story.

Pedro Bautista took as his interpreter Bro. Gonzalo Garcia, described in historical sources as a “mestizo-Portuguese-Indian” who spoke Japanese fluently and was assigned to minister to the Japanese ghetto in Dilao. Today, there is a statue to the Japanese nobleman Takayama Ukon that stands in Plaza Dilao in Paco, across the gutted Philippine National Railways station. Some people think that Plaza Dilao got its name from “dilao” (yellow), which is, according to Pinoys, the color of Chinese and Japanese skin. Dilao was probably a plant that gave out a yellow dye or color. The same goes for Paco, which some people thought was the nickname of San Francisco, when the “pako” is actually a fern that is best used for salads today.

Pedro Bautista presented Hideyoshi with an assortment of presents from Manila that included: a spirited Mexican horse, a Spanish  vestido, a big mirror, and a gilded  escritorio  or writing desk. In return, Hideyoshi invited the mission members to his court and took them around the palaces in Kyoto, Fushimi and Osaka. He then ceded a

parcel of land in Kyoto to the friars, who promptly built a small church and adjoining leprosarium on it. They were obviously there to stay and were reminded that Jesuits were the only religious order authorized by the pope to undertake missionary work in Japan. Unfazed, the Franciscans justified their actions by declaring that they did not arrive in Japan as missionaries, but as an embassy of the Spanish governor-general in Manila.

Hideyoshi was actually suspicious of the Spanish and Spanish friars, but he tolerated them to attract more European trade to Japan. He did call off the planned invasion of Manila, but he dreamed of taking the Spanish Philippines along with China and Korea if the opportunity presented itself.

Mistaking Hideyoshi’s outward friendliness for welcome, more friars than traders started arriving in Japan from Manila. In October 1596 the galleon San Felipe on its return from Manila to Acapulco was shipwrecked on the shores of Shikoku. It had 233 passengers that included four Augustinians, two Franciscans and one Dominican. The passengers were rescued but the precious galleon cargo was confiscated, resulting in the Spanish captain or pilot pulling out a world map showing the Spanish empire and boasting that the long arm of the Catholic king would soon catch up with Japan.

Of the many versions of this incident, the one that roused Hideyoshi from suspicion to violence was the assertion that Christianity was the prelude to colonization. Hideyoshi was told that in Spanish America and the Philippines, the Cross arrived before the Sword. As a consequence, on Dec. 8, 1596, the persecution of Christians began, culminating in the crucifixion on Feb. 5, 1597, of the 26 martyrs of Nagasaki that included San

Pedro Bautista. We have forgotten that before the Philippines had Lorenzo Ruiz and Pedro Calungsod, other saints walked in the Philippines.

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