WHO are the Kapampangans?
It’s not just a rhetorical question. Some people really want to know, especially after two Kapampangans from Tarlac were rejected as nominees to the annual Most Outstanding Kapampangan Awards (MOKA) two years in a row.
The newly elected Sangguniang Panlalawigan, the body that set the contest rules, should now amend those rules and include Kapampangans born or living outside the province in the competition. They should do it not as a favor, but as a duty. Kapampangans in Tarlac have as much right to the award as Kapampangans in Pampanga. I have three arguments to support this.
First is the historical and geographical argument: Tarlac, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija and Aurora were indeed once part of Pampanga Province. When the Spaniards first came to Luzon they divided the island into three mega-provinces: Ilocos occupying the entire Northern Luzon, Manila occupying the entire Southern Luzon, and Pampanga occupying everything in-between.
The boundaries of this mega-Pampanga weren’t exact and fixed, expanding and contracting depending on how many haciendas were awarded to Spanish officials, how many encomiendas were assigned for tax collection, and how many new missions were created by Spanish missionaries.
At one point, Pampanga’s borders extended all the way to Palanan, Isabela in the north and to Infanta, Quezon in the south, with the Pacific Ocean on its east side and the China Sea on its west side.
Eventually, the Spaniards found it difficult to administer such as huge area, so they started cutting it up into commandancias (military outposts) which later evolved into the new provinces of Bulacan (1680), Nueva Ecija (1704), Bataan (1754), Aurora (1853), and Tarlac (1860).
(Thus, the recent inclusion of Aurora to a political aggrupation called Region III corresponds to the ancient configuration of Pampanga.)
Traces of the original Pampanga can still be found in the Kapampangan surnames of people living in these new provinces, and in the Kapampangan names of their towns and barrios.
Examples: Kapitangan in Hagonoy, Bangcal in Abucay, Kapalangan in Gapan, Batasan in San Miguel de Mayumu, Cutcut and Maliwalo in Tarlac City, Telapatio in San Ildefonso, Talaksan in San Rafael, Dalig in Balagtas, etc. Even the capitals of Bataan and Zambales came from Kapampangan words (Balanga and Iba).
Another vestige of the ancient mega-province is the Archdiocese of San Fernando. When it was separated from the Archdiocese of Manila in 1948, it mirrored Pampanga’s dominance in the region by being given jurisdiction over the suffragan dioceses of Zambales, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac and Bataan until they, too, separated from it in 1955, 1963, 1963, and 1975, respectively.
The second argument is linguistic: a lot of natives of Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Bataan and Bulacan still speak Kapampangan as first language.
Some towns outside Pampanga are, in fact, predominantly Kapampangan: Bamban, Capas, Concepcion, Tarlac, Victoria and La Paz in Tarlac; Abucay, Dinalupihan, Hermosa and Samal in Bataan; Calumpit, Baliwag, San Miguel, San Ildefonso and Hagonoy in Bulacan; Cabiao, San Isidro and Gapan in Nueva Ecija.
Although Tagalog is encroaching these towns like wildfire, and many residents already consider themselves Tagalog, they still use Kapampangan words to express themselves and still totally understand Kapampangan when they hear it.
It is these towns, plus the province of Pampanga, which are collectively known as the Kapampangan Region, whose boundaries are linguistic rather than geographic or political.
Actually, our province used to be called Kapampangan, too; it was only the Spaniards who renamed it Pampanga because they could not pronounce Kapampangan. In fact, some old folks today still write their address as Bacolor, Capampangan or Guagua, Capampangan, instead of Bacolor, Pampanga or Guagua, Pampanga.
In his Arte y Reglas de la Lengua Pampanga (1621), Fray Francisco Coronel wrote that our ancestors had the habit of extending words for emphasis, e.g., cabengian for bengi (night), cayaldauanan for aldo (day), cabunducan for bunduc (mountain), cailugan for ilug (river) and capampangán (stressed on last syllable) for pampang (riverbanks).
If you notice, we use the exact same word, Kapampangan, to refer to our people, our land, and our language. Those three collectively define us, identify us, and unite us.
The third and last argument is blood. If any of your ascendants (parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc.) have Kapampangan blood (doesn’t matter how many drops), then you’re a Kapampangan, because you carry with you the DNA of your ancestors.
Our common ancestors were the prehistoric Kapampangans who lived in the cradle of Kapampangan civilization, which is the area where the Pampanga River flows towards the sea (Lubao, Macabebe, Sasmuan, Guagua, Apalit, Candaba).
That’s where all Kapampangans came from. Some Kapampangans ended up in Tarlac, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija and Aurora because our ancestors eventually started exploring the rest of Central Luzon as frontiersmen in search of forests to turn into farmlands. One example is President Noynoy Aquino’s ancestors, who were originally from Macabebe before they migrated to Angeles and then to Concepcion, Tarlac.
Fray Diego Bergaño wrote in his 1732 Kapampangan dictionary that all Kapampangans are misangdaya (“of one blood”), which, as it turned out, is literally true, because all of us, whether we’re from Tarlac or Pampanga, can really trace our lineage directly to the first Kapampangans in the mouth of the Pampanga River. (We can even try DNA sequencing if we like, just as scientists did on modern-day Mongolians to establish a direct bloodline to Genghis Khan.)
To summarize: people born or residing outside Pampanga are still Kapampangan because (a) they live in an area that used to be part of the historical Pampanga, (b) they are within the linguistic boundaries of the Kapampangan Region, and (c) they are directly descended from the original Kapampangans.
Kapampangan is a cultural, not political, term. You can’t call yourself Kapampangan just because you vote in Pampanga or you pay your taxes in Pampanga. You are Kapampangan because that’s what you are and what your ancestors were, regardless of the historical circumstances that rearranged the borders of the province and separated you from it.
If our Sangguniang Panlalawigan will still not consider you Kapampangan, well, let me say this: it’s not up to any government officials to decide who is or isn’t a Kapampangan. They cannot make or unmake a Kapampangan by legislation, and an award does not add or subtract to what you already are.