It's almost a month, so...
The Men of Binondo(c)
(And How to Deal with Them)
Part I
Binondo
Outside the walls of Intramuros, the district of Binondo is the economic center of Manila; merchants and traders, most of which are Chinese-Filipino
mestizos, lived and worked here alongside their families; some of them have partners (
socios) in neighboring provinces, with whom they distributed their products. Ever since, the people in power was hard to resist to ignore the influence of the district's traders and merchants, despite misunderstandings, especially when the Colonial Government was in power in the Philippine capital. As the head of government of the newly-independent nation, Count Luis Rodríguez Varela wanted to be assured that the so-called "
hombres de Binondo" would support the policies of
Junta Provisional de las Provincias Unidas de las Islas Filipinas in exchange of winning their loyalty and confidence.
Indeed, on the 30th of June, while the
Congreso Federal was starting its regular session and creating new legislation, the most important of which was writing a new constitution in the
Real Seminario Conciliar de San Carlos, the President of the
Junta Provisional met on his official residence (
Palacio del Gobernador) the leader of the Binondo community, Felipe Tanunjieng[1] to discuss the possibility that Manila (and the rest of the current Free Territory) would be open to foreign trade, thus encouraging investment and growth to the national economy, and in effect, would create competition for the Binondo community and their partners in neighboring provinces. In addition, Count Rodríguez Varela has assured Tanunjieng that the new taxation system currently proposed in the Federal Congress would benefit both the Binondo community and the incoming foreign investors.
After his visit to the President of
Junta Provisional in Intramuros
, Tanunjieng consulted fellow influential merchants and traders like Aurelio Rojas Tancaktiong[2] and José Antonio Pualongco[3] in his own residence in Binondo about the talk he had with the Count earlier, most especially the possibly of influx of foreign investors as Manila, as well as rest of the Philippines, would be opened to rest of the world. The response of the his fellow influential merchants was not surprising: They actually anticipated that the new government would introduce competition by opening the country to global trade, and suggested to Tanunjieng that the rest of Binondo would need a longer period before the definite position of the community.
So, the following day (1st July, 1823), Count Rodríguez Varela recieved a letter from the most influential merchants and traders of the Binondo community, explaining that while the economic policies of
Junta Provisional could benefit not just their fellow merchants and traders, but the economy of the Free Territory as a whole, they actually a "certain period of time" to allow every member of the Binondo community to express their support or opposition to the proposals presented by the
Junta Provisional
[1][2][3] Fictional names.