Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera: Prodigy of the Filipino Martial Arts?

By:Celestino C. Macachor

On April 6, 1635 an expeditionary force of 300 well armed Spaniards and 1,000 Cebuanos led by Captain Juan de Chaves cleared Zamboanga peninsula of hostile Moros to pave the way for the construction of Nuestra Senora del Pilar, one of the most important forts in the East. The mission came under direct order from the Bishop Fray Pedro of Santissima Nombre de Jesus (Cebu) and the interim Philippine Governor General Juan Cerezo de Salamanca I. With Colonial coffers drained due to intermittent Moro pirate raids in Cebu and the neighboring Visayan coastal towns, a fortress in Zamboanga would have to be built in order to give the Spanish forces command and control of the Straits of Basilan and deny unchallenged passage to marauding Moro pirates bound for the Visayas and Luzon.
Two years later a formidable force of veteran Spanish soldiers, battle hardened Jesuit priests and hundreds of Pampango and Visayan warriors took part in a mission to rout the notorious Moro chief Correlat from his stronghold in Lamitan. Their leader was the newly appointed Governor General Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, a knight of the Order of Alcantara. Corcuera was a perfect soldier whose military achievements was not to be equaled until 250 years later by another prodigious soldier Juan Arolas . The Archdiocese of Santissima Nombre De Jesus (Cebu) also handed over to Corcuera the task of completing the fortification of Zamboanga and the subsequent offensives against Moro strongholds in Sulu.
The administration of Governor General Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera between the years 1635-1644 was marked by several military successes against the Moros of Sulu and the rest of Mindanao. [1] His administration also played a pivotal role in the development and spawning of the Filipino Martial Arts known today as eskrima, arnis and estokada. The year 1635 is also a significant to the Zamboanguenos [2] as it is the same year that the Chavacano language was introduced to the peninsula by the 1,000 Creole Spanish speaking Cebuano artisans, laborers and warriors that were recruited by the archdiocese of Cebu to augment the Spanish regulars of Captain de Chaves.
Who was Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera and what was the key to his success that gained him the respect not only of his soldiers but his Moro enemies as well? Other than his place of birth in Vitoria in the Basque region of northern Spain only a modicum of personal information about Corcuera can be found history books. Like the Catalans and the Malaguenos, the Basques have for many generations asserted themselves as a people distinct from Castilian Spaniards. True to his ethnic roots, Corcuera was a skilled fighter, a suave motivator, and a charismatic leader whose ferocity in battle could only be matched by a suicidal Moro on the warpath. He possessed an innate talent for selecting the best warriors in his expeditions. Taking into account his Basque [3] ethnic background he must have had more confidence fighting alongside Indio (Christian natives) warriors than his Castillian Spanish soldiers.

Games and sports played by the Basques are male dominant. The gory charging of the bulls, the action packed jai-alai, tug-of-war to name a few, originate from of a society with a macho complex. Basque martial art is no different. The unarmed martial art indigenous in the Basque region that is akin to French savate is called zipota (shoes). The use of the Basque walking stick, a light five-foot shepherd's staff, is taught in an aligned discipline called makila (Basque for stick fighting). Several practitioners have competed very successfully in Savate-Boxe Francaise and la canne de combat (cane fighting). The makila, sometimes spelled makhila is a Basque walking stick, a symbol of honor and reflects a certain philosophy and way of life. Exquisite, practical, and an impressive defensive weapon as well as a decorative object, the makila embodies the very essence of the Basque culture.

Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera must have possessed an assortment of makila canes in his collection. A Basque warrior aristocrat like him without a makila cane would be like a Gurkha without his kukri. [4]

Did Corcuera practice this martial art and taught it to his Spanish soldiers and Indio conscripts? Did he fuse makila and eskrima with Guanche (indigenous people of Canary Islands) stick fighting that later became Palo Canario or Juego del Palo of Canary Islands where he became Governor General several years later? It is also interesting to note that the standard makila length of five feet is closely similar in length to the palo canario sticks. Is it because the present day practitioners of palo canario are no longer the indigenous Guanches [5] but Spanish Canarians? Conversely, did the Spanish Basque regulars (Corcuera must have several paisanos in his army) adjust the length of their makila sticks to the height and physique of their Filipino Indio comrades?

It would be a careless oversimplification to make a direct connection of makila with Filipino stick fighting. Certainly, Corcuera took fancy of an embryonic stick fighting practiced by the Filipino natives. It is then not too farfetched to assume that sometime during his training of the Visayan recruits, he or some of his loyal aids must have synthesized makila, Spanish Renaissance rapier fencing and a plebeian form of Filipino stick fighting. Without these foreign influences eskrima, arnis, estokada would not have evolved into one of the most efficient and devastating martial arts in the world today.

Aside from the Moros there were four other dominant warrior class in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period that already bore the brunt of Moro sorties - the Cebuanos, the Ilonggos, the Waray-warays and Pampangos (specifically the Macabebes). These warrior class dominate the Filipino Martial Arts today because of Corcuera's incisive recruitment of these four diverse ethnic groups to defeat the Moros of Mindanao. Contrary to the popular belief disseminated by most self-styled FMA historians, the Spanish authorities never banned the warrior class. In fact Spain's colonization of the archipelago might not have succeeded without the strategic deployment of the different warrior class. This divide and rule strategy was played out even until the last days of Spain's rule of the Philippines.
During the Spanish assault to retake Cebu City following the battle of Tres de Abril on April 3, 1898, the Spaniards fielded hundreds of Panay (Ilonggo) Scouts, a company of Macabebes and Moro mercenaries from Zamboanga to crush the Cebuano uprising. The Moros took the heaviest toll against the Cebuanos. Their bodies were mutilated and the gruesome corpses displayed near Pardo Church. No other ethnic group at that time could match the combat skills of the Cebuanos, only their former comrades-in-arms and enemies during the pacification of Mindanao. The leader of this short-lived uprising was the legendary Leon Kilat the former acolyte of Bacong, Negros Oriental who learned eskrima from a Spanish priest Fr. Angel Maestro [6].
Don Sebastian personally led the assault on Lamitan and fought side by side Visayan and Pampango volunteers and Jesuit priests Father Marcelo Mastrillo who led the troops under the standard of St. Francis Xavier; Father Melchor de Vera, who carried home to Spain the banners of the Moros captured; Father Juan de Barrios, Gregorio Belin and Miguel Solana.
The assault was one of the bloodiest in the entire Spanish pacification of Mindanao. Although the Spaniards had cumbersome and often unreliable arquebuses, most of the battle was hand-to-hand combat. The following year Corcuera duplicated his feat in another successful assault in Jolo, Sulu.
Bringing up the "kali as pre-Hispanic mother of FMA" issue would be dignifying a supposition that is nothing but a blatant fabrication. But for comic relief, let us dissect the latest assertions coming out from the kali fanatics:
1.Kali originated in Kalibo Panay and is derived from the Kali tribe of swordsmen during pre-Hispanic times. This is false; Kalibo is derived from the native name of pineapple.
2. Kali means kamot lihok, this is again false. Kamot lihok is Cebuano not Hiligaynon or Tausug. The Cebuanos always called it eskrima including the late Antonio Ilustrisimo and his ancestors.
3. The ten datus of Borneo brought kali to Panay. This story is a fraud and was proven by William Henry Scott as a mere fabrication by Jose E. Marco, the same person responsible for the Code of Kalantiaw hoax in 1914.
I traveled to Kalibo and Roxas recently and can't find anyone who has direct knowledge of kali. The only eskrima I found was the empty club of Lightning Scientific Arnis in Roxas City. The residents in the area including prominent blacksmiths have never heard of kali as a martial art. They are more familiar with the names arnis, estokada and eskrima. During a trip to Western Samar area early this year, I passed by the town of Gandara as the name of the place is closest to the fanciful island of "Gundari". According to Ben Largusa this is where the blind Princess Josefina once taught the late Floro Villabrille a more advanced form of sword fighting. There isn't a single Muslim in Gandara. If indeed a Muslim princess once ruled this town, a thriving Muslim community would have been very dominant. I would have been pestered by mga igso (Muslim brothers) knocking on the car hawking pirated DVDs! And I found no eskrimador either, only buckets full of tahong in the public market.
During the field excursions that Ned and I made to gather material for our forthcoming book Cebuano Eskrima: Beyond the Myth, we found living witnesses and direct descendants of legendary eskrimadors that once defended their coastal communities against Moro pirates. The latest we interviewed was an eskrimadora Facunda "Aling Cunda" Sabanal Berro the daughter of the horseback riding eskrimador Pablo "Amboy Kidlat" Sabanal and the granddaughter of the legendary Laurente "Laguno" Sabanal the founder and hero of the town of Moalboal, south of Cebu. Laguno Sabanal once killed a guardia civil in Bohol and escaped to Cebu to elude arrest and eventually settled in Moalboal. [7] The Boholanos [8] contributed a significant fighting force in the first expedition to Zamboanga by Captain de Chaves. Extracted from Zamboanga website is the following narrative:
"Foremost as a military mission, the Datu of Cebu may have strategically called upon his other Datu friends of the neighboring Visayan Islands to help contribute some of their best warriors and craftsmen towards a united front against their arch enemies, presenting a formidable Visayan force. Historically, the valiant warriors of Bohol Island, located about twenty-five (25) kilometers east of Cebu Island, and of Dapitan in Northern Mindanao Island, were known to be victorious against Moro Pirate attacks on their islands when others failed, and were likely to be part of the Visayan contingent.

Probably a descendant of Bohol veterans in the Zamboanga campaign, Laguno was one of the first certified eskrimador that used his skills against Moro pirates. On the mangroved shallows at the back of Moalboal municipal hall lays a huge log believed to cover the remains of Laguno where he was buried with his "magic cane". On this hallowed spot on the shores of Moalboal, Laurente Sabanal successfully repulsed Moro pirates, it is still named Laguno to pay tribute to his the bravery and heroism.
The most unexpected revelation during our research for the Sabanal saga was shared to us by one of the living protégés of Amboy Kidlat -Teodoro "Totong" Nuevo. The octogenarian Manoy Totong intimated that Tatay Amboy a drifter who barely reached 2nd grade could speak conversational Spanish and memorized hundreds of verses of Latin orascion. Who could have taught Amboy Kidlat the Spanish language unless it was a second language at home spoken by his father Laguno? And who could have taught Laguno Sabanal the language of his colonizers at a time when barely 2 per cent of the Philippine population could speak Spanish? Lot Villabrille, the 61-year-old nephew of Floro Villabrille also recalled that some of his uncles spoke decent Spanish.
We can only theorize that Laguno with his mastery of eskrima and adequate competence in Spanish language must have been a privileged warrior recruited and trained by the Spanish authorities that he later rebelled against.
Some of the Visayan veterans were given attractive rewards by the Spanish authorities for volunteering in Mindanao. Soferino "Kapitan Perong Pak-an" Borinaga could have been one of those intrepid warriors granted with encomienda [9] for services rendered to the King of Spain. Kapitan Perong was an astute warrior and crafty leader who decisively repulsed Moro pirates in his new found home in Pilar Island, Camotes sometime in the mid nineteenth century.
The story of Borinaga and Sabanal are well documented in the history books and their adventures and heroism are still verifiable until this day. The only living master of the Borinaga style called Repicada Pegada Eskrima is no other than his own town mate and already an upcoming icon in the FMA - Yuli Romo. The Sabanal system now called Abanico de Vertical is still being practiced by Pat Goc-ong former two-time national weightlifting champion. The contributions of Borinaga and Sabanal to the Philippine combat arts were largely due the brilliant military legacy of Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, the genius behind the Filipino martial arts.
Corcuera was a compulsive maverick that never concealed his enmity against the powerful and influential Spanish clergy. This conflict finally came to an ignominious climax when Corcuera breached ecclesiastical immunity by arresting a Spanish soldier who sought refuge in a church in Manila. He eventually ordered the execution of the Spanish soldier suspected of killing a native girl despite appeals from the church for a lighter penalty. This fiasco with the Friars led to his imprisonment. Corcuera was also suspected of amassing wealth during his administration. But whatever his "crimes" were, it paled in comparison to the abuses of the Friars and atrocities of other high-ranking military administrators against the Indios. Corcuera's five-year imprisonment was unreasonably harsh for a man who was a decorated soldier with exemplary military victories against the Moros and a loyal subject who would willingly offer his life to the King of Spain. He was a hapless victim of a judicial system controlled by Castilian Spaniards that were obviously seething with ethnic envy on the brash warrior from the Basque country. He was released five years later through a Royal Order and awarded the paltry title of Governor General of the Canary Islands.
On the basis of the foregoing, these facts are worth analyzing in order to put the pieces together the significant role of Governor General Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera in the development of the Filipino martial arts:
1. FMA techniques mostly Spanish terms such as fraille (priests), crossada (cross), florete, abecedario, rompida, could have been coined by no other than the Jesuit warrior priests and Spanish soldiers. Andrew Abrian's style Moro-moro Orabes Heneral, and the Ilustrisimo technique called combate heneral, could be a reference to the revered Governor General Corcuera.
2. Cebuano conscripts speaking Creole Spanish the progenitor of modern day Zamboanga Chavacano introduced the language at exactly the same year Corcuera became Governor General. Eskrima and Chavacano probably evolved at the same time.
3. Corcuera's possible fusion of Basque makila, Spanish fencing, primitive Filipino stick fighting and Guanche Indian stick fighting that later became the eskrima, arnis and estokada and palo canario of Canary Islands.
4. The Sabanal and Borinaga epic - a testament of Christianized indios defending their turf with the eskrima skills taught to them by Spanish soldiers and Jesuit priests.
5. Spanish speaking eskrimadors like Amboy Kidlat, Villabrilles and Ilustrisimos of Kinatarcan Island.
6. Combat role of Jesuit priests in the Mindanao campaign, the teaching of orascion to the native Indio recruits which later became an integral ritual in the eskrimador's code.
7. Corcuera's military genius and his involvement in actual combat versus Moros, his Basque roots, the existence of a Basque stick fighting art called makila, his subsequent posting in the Canary Islands where a stick fighting arts closely similar to Basque makila and Filipino eskrima exists.
Unless one can find a direct lineage of an FMA style to the so-called mother art of "kali", the hypothesis of the Spanish influence on eskrima, arnis and estokada and Corcuera's pivotal contribution in its development is the only one that will stand the scrutiny of reliable historians (counting out the likes of Gregorio Zaide).
Aptly, Joel Osteen strongly argued in one of the FMA forums:
"… Why don't we imitate the BJJ people when they admit that it all started with Conde Koma? They didn't have to invent a Brazilian mother art of grappling to justify the Brazilian-ness of BJJ. I still believe that our FMA were built on a bedrock of native techniques but I have already departed from the Kali legend that the Spanish content is almost nil. To the contrary, a lot of it is perhaps Spanish/European, only adapted to our temperament and fighting…."
Not so long ago, questioning the kali origin is bad for business and very few like Joel Osteen took a stand to support this radically new theory. Recently however, more open-minded enthusiasts are coming out of the closet to support the search for the truth on the origins of the Filipino Martial Arts. More audacious comments like Osteen's are snowballing into an avalanche, and those who still cling to the kali fantasy will one day get buried in ignominy.

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