Peace, noble, large male organ? Jury’s out on Duterte’s plan to rename Philippines as Maharlika

Duterte seems bent on realising the dream of dictator Ferdinand Marcos and renaming the Philippines as ‘Maharlika’.

But people can’t decide whether the word means ‘peace’, ‘noble’, or ‘large male organ’

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Rodrigo Duterte: what’s in a name, anyway?

Published: 2:32pm, 10 Mar 2019Updated: 2:43pm, 11 Mar 2019

Although Filipinos have many concerns, it’s a safe bet that for most people “my country is named after a 16th-century Spanish prince” is among the least of them. But it’s an issue that seems to bother President Rodrigo Duterte. In a typical rambling rant on February 11, he suddenly blurted out that he favoured an old proposal to change the country’s name to “Republic of Maharlika”.

He said the country had really been stuck with the name “Philippines” by Spanish colonisers (he erroneously named Magellan, calling him a “fool” to boot) who were honouring Philip II.

Duterte was reigniting a debate that has at best been lacklustre and is seen by plenty of people as completely unnecessary. The country got its name in 1544, after a Spanish explorer decided to name the archipelago after the prince of Spain, Philip II (who would go on to become the king who sent the ill-fated Armada against England). The colony was originally called “Las Islas Felipinas”, which was corrupted to “Filipinas” and eventually translated into “Philippines” or “Pilipinas”.

“I don’t think [a change] is called for at this time, what can you achieve by changing the name? We’re already known as the Philippines,” said historian Ricardo Jose, director of the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Centre.

Namesake: Philip II of Spain. Photo: Alamy

The issue is also politically toxic: the name “Maharlika” is a dictator’s fantasy. The main proponent of the name change was the late, murderous dictator Ferdinand Marcos. On February 11, Duterte said: “Marcos was right, he wanted to change [the country’s name] to the Republic of Maharlika, because maharlika is a Malay word and it means more of a concept of serenity and peace.”

That isn’t how Marcos saw it. He was obsessed with the term, a pre-colonial word with Sanskrit roots that originally denoted “freeman” but he warped to mean “nobleman”.