After Five Centuries: The Philippines is Chess Country

From 54th FIDE World Congress Souvenir Program, Manila 1983
By Aida Sevilla Mendoza

Part 1

SINCE chess is said to have originated in India around 500-600 A.D., chess historians like Manuel F. Lara, secretary-general of the Philippine Chess Federation, believe that chess was introduced to the Philippines during the golden days of the Madjapahit Empire.

Students of Philippine History will recall that the Philippines were a part of three successive Hindu Malayan Empires: the Shri-Vishayan during the 10th to the 14th centuries, the Madjapahit from the 14th to the 15th centuries, and the Malaccan Empire in the 15th century. Hindu culture reached the Philippines through the Javanese, who colonized Sumatra, Borneo and Celebes and left traces of their civilization in Sulu, Lanao, Cotabato, Panay, Cebu and as far as north as Manila.

The Javanese culture must have included the game of chess, which the datus and the Mohammedan nobility enthusiastically took up. Lara writes in his A Short History of Chess in the Philippines. As a proof, Lara points out those historical records of the expansion of chess in Southeast Asia coincided with the formation of the Madjapahit Empire.

The introduction of chess to the inhabitants of Mindanao is associated with the arrival of three immigrant Muslim brothers from Burma around 1400 AD: Shareef Kabungsuan, who settled in Cotabato, Shareef Alace who chose Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental and Shareef Beginda, who made Sulu his new home. “They brought with them the game of chess as played then,” Lara claims. “The game as played by the early Hindus was quickly taken up by the Muslim Filipinos. Thus chess as played in ancient India has long been played in Mindanao, long before the Spaniards came”.

Modern chess came to the Philippines in 1571 with the founding of Manila by Miguel de Legazpi, who had arrived from Mexico in 1565 with the Augustinian friar, Miguel de Urdaneta. Because of this, Lara says, modern international chess as it is now played in most parts of the Philippines can be considered of Mexican origin, not only because Legazpi and Urdaneta came directly from Mexico, but also because during the next 150 years, Mexico was the Philippines main conduit with Spain…

(To be continued…)