A 17th century mountain of gold in Cavite, a Chinese massacre and a license to kill

IN 2020, in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Manila, there was a gigantic painting entitled “The Three Mandarins” which was part of the Hocus I. exhibition. The painting illustrates the practice of diplomatic immunity.

Way before the coming of the Spaniards, the Chinese had been making regular trips to Manila on board ships laden with myriad goods from the Middle Kingdom. They came to trade not to conquer. In 1603, 14 ships sailed into what is now Manila Bay and in one of them came the three mandarins.

A few days before their arrival, they dispatched a courier with a letter to Pedro de Acuña, the captain-general or governorgeneral, wherein they narrated a tale told by their compatriot, Tio Heng (or Oyten), to the Emperor about a mountain of gold somewhere in Cavite, a port of an island called Lucien (Luzon). No one owned that mountain of gold, so people living there collected the precious metal as if it were garbanzos (chickpeas). In the houses of poor men it was not surprising to find at least 3 gantas of gold; the rich had more than 100 gantas which they used to trade with the Chinese. The emperor had instructed the three mandarins to find out if the story of the mountain of gold was true. The very nature of their mission antagonized the Spaniards inside Intramuros.

Portentously, a few weeks before the mandarins arrived, Intramuros suffered a devastating fire which destroyed 150 houses. The fire spread uncontrollably because of the lack of manpower to put it out, due to the governor-general’s edict of prohibiting indios and Chinese from entering Intramuros.

The Chinese mandarins arrived with an impressive entourage of bailiffs, soldiers and retainers, carrying their seals of office. As if they were masters of the nascent Spanish colony, the mandarins started to administer justice to those of their own kind. They had a Chinaman flogged while another was tortured. However, when they seized a Christian Chinese, Antonio de Morga, the head of the Royal Audiencia, put his foot down. The governor-general prohibited the mandarins from arbitrarily administering justice in the fledgling colony, but at the same time issued a decree forbidding the hurling of insults at the mandarins and mandating punishment to those who would molest them. That was the first act on record that showed the grant of diplomatic immunity to representatives of a foreign sovereign by the Spanish colonial government in the Philippines.

As soon as the mandarins departed, the Spaniards clamped down on the Chinese population in the environs of Intramuros. Because of ill-treatment, the Chinese revolted. To quell the rebellion, the Spaniards enlisted indigenous troops and the Japanese from the nearby settlement of Dilao. Twenty-thousand Chinese were slaughtered, drastically reducing the Sangley population in Luzon to near extinction.

Today, diplomacy is governed by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Rela

tions, a treaty wherein the Philippines is a signatory. According to the Convention, the person of the diplomatic agent or the head of the mission shall be inviolable. He is immune to any form of arrest or detention.

Diplomatic agents are ambassadors and papal nuncios and other heads of missions of the same rank. The mysterious chargé d’affaire is actually the second in command and takes over the embassy in the event the ambassador dies, is incapacitated or is temporarily absent. In embassies of the United States, the chargé is called the DCM, or deputy chief of mission.

The official residence of the ambassador is the embassy while the nuncio’s is the nunciature. Over here, the nunciature is located on Taft Avenue in Pasay City. The Pope stays there whenever he visits this country. Both premises are inviolable.

The Vienna Convention grants to diplomatic agents, absolute immunity from the criminal, administrative and civil jurisdiction of the receiving state. In other words, if an ambassador murders somebody, he cannot be prosecuted unless his home government expressly waives his immunity. There are only three cases wherein the ambassador cannot claim immunity: a case relating to private immovable property situated in the territory of the receiving state; a case relating to succession in which the diplomatic agent is involved as executor, administrator, heir or legatee as a private person; a case relating to any professional or commercial activity exercised by the diplomatic agent in the receiving state.

In the Philippines, our courts are bound to accept the claim of immunity once it is proven that the diplomatic agent is entitled to such protection. Diplomatic immunity is a political question and courts should act with great caution in resolving questions of immunity to avoid overstepping their bounds and exercising functions which properly belong to the executive department. Immunity of diplomats is vital for the preservation of peace between states and sovereigns — even if it becomes a license to kill.