Filipino-Portuguese relations

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Filipino-Portuguese relations
Location of Philippines and Portugal
PhilippinesPhilippines PortugalPortugal
Philippines Portugal

The Philippine-Portuguese relations describe the intergovernmental relationship between the Philippines and Portugal . The countries have had direct diplomatic relations since 1960.

The problem-free, but weakly developed relationships are determined by the slowly increasing bilateral trade and mutual immigrant communities. The period of Portuguese trade with the Spanish Philippines in the 16th and 17th centuries left some traces on the Philippines, including the widespread devotion to the Virgin Mary of Nossa Senhora de Fátima , but also the memory of Ferdinand Magellan (Portuguese: Fernão de Magalhães), who is considered the first European in the Philippines.

In 2015, 756 citizens of the Philippines were registered in Portugal, with 503 most of them in the Lisbon district . In 2014, there were 623 people registered in the Portuguese consulates in the Philippines.

A city partnership has existed between Cebu City and Sabrosa , Magellan's birthplace, since 2014, and another one is being initiated between Dumaguete City and Coimbra .

history

The Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan has been the first European in the Philippines since his arrival in 1521

After the conquest of the Sultanate of Malacca in 1511, the Portuguese expanded their trade routes across the Indian Ocean to the Pacific . Malacca became the focal point of the growing trade network.

Tomé Pires reported in his Suma Oriental 1515 from a community of people from the island of Luzon in Malacca . The contacts with this community were probably the reason for the Portuguese sailors to sail to Luzon for the first time.

The first documented visit by a Portuguese to what is now the Philippines, however, was Magellan's arrival on the island of Homonhon on March 16, 1521 . Magellan, who was in Spanish service, then visited Cebu and other islands in what is now the Philippines until he died on April 27, 1521 in a battle on Mactan .

In the following years Portuguese ships occasionally headed for various islands in the south of what is now the Philippines. However, they did not set up regular contacts or even their own bases, as they did not find any goods or trading places of interest there. The Spaniards, on the other hand, immediately settled in the Philippines in order to gain access to the Portuguese trade routes in the lucrative Asian business from here. The expedition of the Spanish navigator Ruy López de Villalobos in 1543 gave the Philippines its current name in honor of the Spanish King Philip II . However, the nautical difficulties of getting back from the Philippines to the Spanish bases in America prevented Spain's plans to rob the Portuguese of their dominance in trade with the Far East.

The first documented official contact between Portugal and today's Philippines is the landing of the Portuguese navigator Pêro Fidalgo on the island of Luzon in 1545 on his journey from Borneo to the Chinese coast.

Map of the Philippines from 1592

After the news of the successful settlement of the Portuguese in Macau in Europe in 1557 , Spain intensified its efforts in East Asia, which resulted in the establishment of a Spanish fortress by Miguel López de Legazpi in 1564 and the discovery of a reliable sea route from the Philippines back to America by Andrés de Urdaneta resulted.

Portuguese traders from Macau then drove more frequently to the Philippines, which Spain developed into an important possession with the capital Manila. Here the Portuguese exchanged mainly Chinese goods for American silver. This trade was particularly intensified during the period of Spanish rule over Portugal from 1580 to 1640.

This trade connection continued into the 19th century. Portuguese traders continued to regularly trade Chinese goods such as silk and porcelain for food and American silver. There is also evidence of shipments of Portuguese guns made in Macau to the Philippines. Despite this ongoing trade connection that spawned even smaller Macau Portuguese communities in the Philippines, no significant Portuguese traces are known to have been in the Philippines. In addition to porcelain and cannons from Macau and Namban art supplied by the Portuguese , the Portuguese books and printed matter, especially in the library holdings of the Thomas Aquinas University in Manila, are part of this heritage.

The Portuguese presence in the history of the Philippines, particularly the 16th and 17th centuries, has not yet been adequately researched. The numerous references to the Philippines in the writings of Portuguese authors such as João de Barros , Fernão Lopes de Castanheda , António Galvão , Manuel de Faria e Sousa and Sebastião Manrique are known, but not yet fully evaluated .

The Philippines gained independence from Spain in 1898, but later became a colony of the United States , from which they became independent in 1946.

In February 1960, the Philippines and Portugal established official diplomatic relations. As the first ambassador of Portugal, Manuel Nunes da Silva began work on March 24, 1960 in the Portuguese representation in Manila.

After the Carnation Revolution in 1974, Portugal, which had returned to democracy, gave its colonies independence and realigned its international relations. The Philippines under the pro-Western dictator Ferdinand Marcos were not among the countries with which more intensive relations subsequently developed. Relations improved after the fall of Marcos in 1986, but due to a lack of reference points, the countries did not come closer together.

In the wake of its fun measures after the euro crisis in 2010, Portugal closed its representation in Manila in 2012, since then the Portuguese ambassador to Indonesia has received a second accreditation to the Philippines . The embassy was closed for the first time between 1981 and 1996, when the Philippines was part of the administrative district of the Portuguese embassy in South Korea.

diplomacy

Portugal no longer has its own embassy in the Philippines since the beginning of 2007 ; the Portuguese representation in the Indonesian capital Jakarta is responsible . A renewed establishment of a Portuguese representation in Manila, which has been planned since 2014, has not yet been implemented (as of April 2017). There are Portuguese honorary consulates in the Philippine capital Manila and in Cebu City .

The Philippines has had an embassy in the Portuguese capital Lisbon since 2011 , at number 13 Rua Braamcamp not far from Praça Marquês de Pombal , in the former municipality of Coração de Jesus . There are no other consulates of the Philippines in Portugal.

Rubber tree in Manila: Natural rubber is one of the Philippines' most important export goods to Portugal

economy

The Portuguese Chamber of Commerce AICEP does not have a branch in the Philippines, the AICEP office in Indonesia is responsible.

In 2016, Portugal exported goods worth EUR 13.66 million to the Philippines ( 2015 : 8.77 million; 2014 : 7.61 million; 2013 : 6.15 million; 2012 : 6.52 million) ), of which 42.5% machines and devices, 15.8% chemical-pharmaceutical products, 6.9% cork and wood, 5.2% clothing and 5.1% vehicles and vehicle parts.

In the same period, the Philippines delivered goods worth EUR 24.69 million to Portugal ( 2015 : 20.91 million; 2014 : 13.32 million; 2013 : 12.47 million; 2012 : 14.45 million) ), of which 40.6% plastics and elastomers (including natural rubber and polyethylene ), 29.7% machines and devices, 8.8% food, 7.1% agricultural products and 3.9% textiles.

This placed the Philippines in 94th place as a buyer and 74th as a supplier for Portuguese foreign trade. In the Philippine foreign trade, Portugal ranked 54th among buyers and 65th among suppliers.

Web links

Commons : Filipino-Portuguese Relations  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Overview of diplomatic relations with the Philippines , Diplomatic Institute of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Portugal , accessed on May 4, 2019
  2. ↑ Official alien statistics by district , Portuguese Immigration and Border Agency SEF, accessed on May 5, 2017
  3. ↑ Website on Filipino-Portuguese migration (Table A.3) at the Portuguese scientific Observatório da Emigração , accessed on May 5, 2017
  4. ↑ CEBU CITY, SABROSA FORMALIZES SISTER-CITY AGREEMENT IN FERDINAND MAGELLAN'S BIRTHPLACE , article on the website of the Philippine Embassy in Portugal, accessed on May 5, 2017
  5. ↑ PH ENVOY TO PORTUGAL PUSHES TIES BETWEEN DUMAGUETE CITY, COIMBRA , article on the website of the Philippine Embassy in Portugal, accessed on May 5, 2017
  6. ↑ a b c d e Fernando Cristóvão (Ed.): Dicionário Temático da Lusofonia. Texto Editores, Lisbon / Luanda / Praia / Maputo 2006 ( ISBN 972-47-2935-4 ), p. 807
  7. ↑ List of the Portuguese ambassadors to the Philippines at the Diplomatic Institute in the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accessed on November 19, 2019
  8. ↑ List of Portuguese diplomatic missions abroad , website of the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accessed on May 5, 2017
  9. ↑ Contact page of the Philippine Embassy in Portugal , accessed on May 5, 2017
  10. ↑ a b c Bilateral economic relations between Portugal and the Philippines , Excel file retrieval from the Portuguese Chamber of Commerce AICEP , accessed on May 5, 2017